Into the Dark Read online

  “Gods above, Clara. Whoever used those… I’ve never even heard stories about them.” I’d always assumed the tall doorways of the more important structures were an aesthetic choice, but what if they were needed for… whoever it was that used those handrails. After a moment I followed my statement up with a realisation I’d had quite early on in my adventure. “When we tell people about this, we’re going to either get locked up for insanity or never pay for drinks again.”

  Clara chuckled at that, “Let’s hope it’s the latter. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about-” Clara was suddenly interrupted abruptly by a large chime, and we suddenly found ourselves face to face with Jeff, sitting at a tall, previously unoccupied desk looking down at us. “How did he…” Clara began, but trailed off.

  “Hello primitives!” Jeff called down cheerfully.

  “Er, Jeff?” I queried, praying I hadn’t just offended another example of the ancient builder race by calling them the wrong name.

  “Yes! This Jeff greets!” he replied, much more cheerfully than when we had left him in the moving room. “Are you having appointment?” he asked.

  “No?” I replied after a moment of oh-so-familiar confusion, “Jeff, you sent us here, and I’ll be honest and say I have no idea why.”

  Jeff looked bemused for a moment, then clapped his small hands. “Do not worrying, Greeting Jeff will check calendar.” His eyes glazed over for a moment and the strange monotone he used before returned. “Calendar not found. Problem. Contact Architect.”

  “Oh!” Clara gasped as she realised something.

  “Care to share with the rest of the class?” I asked her, confusedly. Nothing I’d ever heard of could explain this, but it was extremely likely that the archives in Wusul would have information that had never become widely known. Truth be told, I was considering asking her if she could get me in, I could make a fortune with what secrets could be there. Clara turned to me.

  “The scholars found mention of the Architect, we just assumed it was whoever built the city, but whoever it was, they weren’t just responsible for the buildings, but also how they were used day to day. They controlled everything.” she turned to Jeff, who looked down expectantly at us. “Jeff, could you please tell us how to contact the Architect?”

  Clara’s shoulders slumped as Jeff replied in that despondent monotone.

  “This Jeff greets. For other questions, see Information Jeff.” Clara cursed. “Dammit, I was sure that would work.”

  I stepped forwards, seeing her plan. “Hey Jeff?” I called, “Can you tell us how to talk to Information Jeff?”

  Jeff perked up. “You wish consult Information Jeff?” I confirmed with a nod, but he continued to stare at me expectantly, clearly nodding wasn’t a thing for these people.

  “Er, yes?” I tried instead, and almost fell over as Jeff, or rather, another Jeff, as the one above me was still sat in his chair staring at me, appeared

  “Hello. This Information Jeff.” Although identical to the other… Jeffs… that we’d encountered so far, this one had a little black hat to match the rest of his uniform. “State query.”

  “How can we contact the Architect?” Clara asked, confidently.

  “Problem. Central archive down,” Information Jeff replied.

  “Where are the people who lived here?” Clara tried again.

  “Problem. Central archive down.,” Information Jeff replied.

  “What is this place called?” I asked.

  “This doctor,” Information Jeff stated confidently. We waited for a while for him to elaborate, but apparently Information Jeff isn’t fond of unrequested details. Clara stepped in again.

  “What is this structure called and what is its purpose?”

  “This Reliquarium. Purpose development, production and use of magical relics.” Jeff stated. Relics were obviously what we knew as devices, and that tallied with the statues we’d seen outside. A suspicion that had been building in my head for a while ate at me, so I went with it.

  “What are you, Jeff?” Clara looked at me strangely but I signalled for her to wait.

  “I am Information Jeff, provide answers to guests.” Jeff replied.

  “What I meant is, are you part of some sort of, device? A relic?” It was the only thing I could think of that made sense. Jeff was in too many places at once, responded too strangely.

  “Yes. Jeff relic,” he confirmed, “created by Architect to help guests. Greeting Jeff,” he gestured up and Greeting Jeff gave a little wave, “greets guests. Makes appointments. Elevating Jeff,” with a gesture towards the moving room, “elevates guests. Will that be all?”

  My head swam with the implication. Devices powerful enough to create creatures capable of communicating and recalling information, serving purposes. We knew the builders used relics for a lot, but to create the semblance of life? The priests would throw a fit if nothing else. I pushed on.

  “How are you… here?” I gestured around us. “Do you just appear wherever you need to be?”

  Jeff pointed up at an intricate carving in the ceiling, punctuated by glowing stones. “Jeff projected by enneagrammatic glyphs. Any further enquiries on functionality of Jeff should be directed to Jeff department.” I frowned, deep in thought. I’d never heard of anything like what he was describing, but I’m not exactly a scholar. Could this be replicated somehow? I know a lot of nobles that would jump at the chance of having servants that required no pay, could be trusted completely and could be everywhere at once.

  As I hesitated Clara jumped in with the question I should’ve asked a long time ago.

  “Jeff, where are the most powerful devices- sorry, relics- stored?” Jeff looked at her for a moment.

  “Access to level four and above relics restricted to authorised personnel only. See Greeting Jeff at relic repository for further information and authorisation.” Now we were getting somewhere.

  “Where is the relic repository?” I asked. Information Jeff gestured to the moving room.

  “Ask Elevating Jeff, and he will take. Allocated time exceeded. Have good.” With that, Information Jeff disappeared, as abruptly as he came. Clara and I nodded to each other, finally we had a plan instead of just wandering and hoping for the best. We waved goodbye to Greeting Jeff, who disappeared with a merry ‘Have good!’ and made our way back into the moving room. This time we weren’t surprised when Elevating Jeff appeared, although it was still uncanny the way he did so silently. We asked for the repository, and without further ado, he whisked us away, downwards this time and somehow… sideways? I was pretty sure the pillar only extended up and down but at this point I was fairly willing to accept a lot. Upon arrival, the doors opened to reveal a considerably less well-kept portion of the structure, with parts of the walkway having fallen away and rubble piles here and there from parts of the building collapsing. We stepped carefully out of the moving room, staying clear of the holes in the walkway. Despite going downwards, we were still hundreds of meters off the ground, and I didn’t want to risk a fall. At the end of the walkway was a tall desk, not dissimilar to the one at the doctor, and sure enough as we approached a Jeff appeared. Something immediately seemed wrong with the way it did so, however, and he looked… fuzzy, as though we were seeing him through a heat shimmer.

  “Sto-p imm-e-dia-” his voice crackled and broke up into the piercing whistles and pops we’d heard from Elevating Jeff. I raised my hands and continued to walk slowly towards him.

  “Hi there, Jeff. We’re just here to see the repository and request, uh, level four authorisation?” without warning, the green lighting immediately shifted to red and a loud shrieking noise pierced our ears.

  “Gods above what is that noise?!” I could just about make out Clara swearing through the din. The defective Jeff was shouting something unintelligible at us between twitching and half disappearing, and as I tried to shout to him to make the noise stop, large pipes began to emerge from the walls. I had a bad feeling about this, which was immediately confirmed when the
pipes pointed our way and began to glow. I turned to Clara to suggest we leave when she noticed the pipes, let out another oath and tackled me behind some rubble. Before I could ask why she’d done so, the ground I had been standing on previously erupted into a small crater as a blast of… something blew it to pieces. I swore profusely and made my voice heard

  “What in the hells was that?” I asked as she climbed off of me and I recovered my breath.

  “Weapon,” she all but shouted back over the clamour, “defensive, nasty, one of the things I’m supposed to bring back.”

  “Great!” I replied, “any chance you know how to stop it shooting us first?” More shots slammed into the rubble we cowered behind, as if to punctuate my point.

  “Thinking!” she replied, and popped her head up just long enough to take a quick look around. “There’s two of them, built into the left and right of the walls. Can’t see anything controlling them. Think it’s Jeff?”

  “Probably, he seemed broken.” My mind raced, going back over what we knew. After a terrifying moment filled with more blasts impacting on our pile of rubble, I grabbed a loose rock about the size of my fist. “How’s your throwing arm?” I asked, because mine is frankly shit, and it was the only way out of this that I could see.

  “Good,” she thankfully replied, “Why?”

  I passed her the stone. “When I say go, I’m going to draw their fire, you run out and get that rock into the pattern above Jeff’s desk. With any luck you’ll break it, he’ll go away and they’ll stop shooting.”

  “And if that doesn’t work?”

  “We’ll probably die instantly as those things blow us in half.” I stated, matter-of-factly. “Now, are you ready?” Her face took on a grim set, but she nodded. “In 3, 2, 1, GO!” I yelled, and raced out of the rubble. I didn’t look back to see if Clara followed. The defective Jeff pointed down at me and the death tubes on the walls swivelled to track me. Praying I’d counted the interval between their shots correctly, I waited until the last moment before diving, sliding on my belly across the smooth stone for a short distance before quickly springing back up and cutting across, leading their focus away from where I prayed Clara was running. I repeated this again and again, running and diving and zig-zagging my way around the large alcove as blasts of energy rained down around me, close enough that I could feel the heat on my legs. Finally, my breath ran short and I caught my foot on a piece of rubble. My mental count of the rate of fire hit zero and I hit the ground hard. My life flashed before my eyes (boy was that a disappointing sight) and I braced for the final blast that would end it. It never came, and silence finally fell. Opening my eyes I looked over to where Clara stood, somehow atop Jeff’s high desk, like a statue to a long-forgotten goddess of war. A short distance above her, the rock I’d picked up sat somehow embedded deeply in the Jeff glyph. She hadn’t been kidding about having a good arm, I guess. We both regarded each other for a moment, breathing heavily. The death tubes on the walls sat motionless, locked solidly on my position, but thankfully not blowing me into bloody chunks.

  I got to my feet unsteadily, I really had to stop tripping on debris. Thankfully this time there didn’t seem to be any lasting damage beyond my skinned knees and palms. I walked somewhat tenderly over to the bottom of the platform Clara stood atop.

  “Nice,” I offered simply, gesturing to the rock.

  “Thanks,” she replied, steadying her breathing. “Throwing was too risky, and there was already a crack, so I decided to jump and jam it in instead.” That explained why the Jeff had been so erratic at least if something was broken.

  “Well, it worked. What’s a few more seconds of imminent death between friends?” I said, somewhat snottily, but not really meaning it. She was right, she’d have to have a heck of an arm to do the same amount of damage throwing the rock from the ground. Looking up, though, it was still an impressive feat. A rapid climb up smooth stone followed by a standing jump with enough force to smash a rock that deeply into the crack required some serious conditioning.

  “Give me a hand getting down?” she requested, and I obliged, giving her something other than smooth stone to grab onto as she made her way down from the pedestal. I was very aware of the effect said conditioning had on her lithe body in that moment, but quashed it quickly. This was not the time for things like that, and near-death experiences are far too effective an aphrodisiac. I quickly released her and she wordlessly slid away from me. We returned to the task at hand as she made her way to the wall-mounted weapons and tapped them with a finger. There was a dull ringing sound.

  “Huh, metal,” she noted in a slightly detached voice. I followed her over and peered into the alcove it sat within.

  “Yeah, the good stuff tends to be. Never worked out how they make the metal, it doesn’t melt with any sort of heat we can make, even using other devices.” I tried running my hand around the back of the weapon. “Doesn’t seem to be any sort of way to get it out though.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Clara stated gleefully, despite her words earlier.

  “Why not?” I asked, “You said this is one of the devices you were sent for?” She turned to me, a reckless grin on her face that I couldn’t help but find infectious.

  “This is what they guard the repository with, right?” she asked, but didn’t wait for my reply. “Imagine how good the devices inside are.” With that we set off through the doorway that sat behind the Jeff pillar, praying that no more of the deadly weapons awaited us inside.

  As we passed through, we found ourselves in a large room with a vaulted ceiling. Oblong in shape, it stretched away from us with doors on either side. The place was lit, but not brightly, just barely enough to see by. More dry fountains like those we saw below lined the center of the room, clearly once magnificent, but stone is more proof to age than water, it appeared, because they had not seen a drop in a long time.

  Above each doorway, signs denoted exactly which room was for, but unfortunately there was no way of deciphering what they actually said. With no other options, we decided to go room-to-room, so we split up to cover more ground. I took the right-hand rooms, Clara the left. By that point I’d lectured her enough on what to look for that I trusted she’d at least bring out anything particularly interesting for me to take a look at.

  Chapter 6

  The theory was extremely simple. The more metal a device had, the more it was worth. If it had multiple functions, it was probably worth more (which was at least partially why I still had a couple of those light orbs from earlier pocketed). Anything appealing to the nobility paid a healthy premium, for obvious reasons.

  Anything helpful to commoners was great but generally not of interest to me, so those I was happy to let Clara hang onto for her scholar friends back in Wusul. Anything with a military application was the sticking point. Being a military gal, Clara staked a claim to those early on, but that’s where the big money always lay. Find a knife that can glow like the sun and you’d be set for life, even if it didn’t do anything else. I agreed begrudgingly to let her have first pick of the military artifacts in exchange for dibs on the noble fluff or anything particularly valuable for non-military purposes, but had every intention of lining my pockets should the opportunity present itself, which was the other reason I was keen to separate for a short while now we were in. I had no illusions that Clara would likely do the same, all while feeling justified in her bad faith simply because she had a rank and I didn’t. That’s just the way of the world.

  With our shaky agreement fresh in our minds, I hit the first room on the right. Not a bad start, but nothing I’d normally bother taking with me on a first trip, this large storage room was full of the common devices I’d seen before. Light makers I pocketed an extra one of, call me paranoid if you will, but also rack upon rack of time keepers, fire starters, stone cutters, wood cutters (don’t ask me why they need different devices), you name it they had it. This room alone would be a haul almost unheard of, and would have justified my trip to a ruin a tho
usandfold, but call me greedy, I wanted to be able to have more to show than this. I had no way of moving it all anyway, and would need proof if I wanted anyone to believe me. This boded well, however, and I moved on down the line. The next room held much the same, this time with more desk-space and devices related to writing, ink makers and the like. I liked to fantasise that this was some kind of administrative area, where the people responsible for the common devices did their work, assigning them out to various districts and local centres. I had no way of telling this, obviously, but it’s nice to have a story in your head while wandering around ancient ruins.

  As if to remind me that this was in fact a ruin despite its otherwise unnaturally immaculate interior, the next few rooms were a bust, rubble filling much of the interior. From muffled cursing I could hear reverberating across the hallway, I assumed Clara was finding much of the same. I chuckled to myself, that woman had a mouth on her. Focusing back on the task at hand, I made my way further along, picking a door at random to try and avoid the bulk of the collapse.

  The next door I picked was immediately promising. Upon entering, I found myself surrounded by glass, not the same perfectly clear glass as we’d seen in the shop windows, but this time instead frosted so that the other side was murky and unclear. My hand-held light maker was the only light in this area, so it gave what little I could see around me a strange ethereal shimmer as the green radiance refracted off the panes. With my free hand I tentatively touched at the glass around me and found it firm, but why would there be a solid room with glass walls? My probing eventually bore fruit as I found one part of the glass that shifted and turned as I touched it. I pushed harder and with a woosh of stale air, the pane in front of me split cleanly down the middle and receded to either side.

  I raised my light ahead of me and slowly moved into the room. Unlike anything I’d seen in the city so far; as far as I could see within the room by my light, it seemed to be lined with some kind of thin, translucent material. It crinkled and rustled under my feet, so I reached down to touch its smooth and silky surface. It felt cold, and somehow artificial, not woven or tanned, simply… created. With a shrug I pulled out my knife, crouched down and cut a square, which I tucked into a pocket; you never know what someone might find valuable, and it folded up tightly enough that it took up no real space. Under the strange material I found not the usual grey stone I was expecting, but instead a pitch black rock, dark as obsidian and somehow seeming to absorb the light. Indeed, the light maker in my hand immediately began to dim and I pulled back quickly. With shorter proximity to the stone, the effect was less dramatic but still there. I pulled the square out of my pocket, holding the light maker away and carefully laid it back in place over the stone. With most of the stone covered apart from the ragged edges left by my blade, the drain diminished dramatically once more. I resolved to leave the material in place and considered just leaving the room alone for a moment, but my curiosity was piqued and I was ready to be the proverbial cat.