The Chronicles of a Scalebound Sage

WM [77] Extraction Site 12

The lightning—or whatever it truly was—struck the earth only a few hundred feet in front of Bjorn and his group. It froze in place, an ethereal tree of light that stretched endlessly into the heavens, its branches a jagged network of blinding luminescence. The air around it rippled, warping like water disturbed by a stone. Reality itself was torn; the past, the present, the future all collided and warped as if the concepts themselves were but toys in a game.

Bjorn—Isin felt himself slipping, the collision of his current self and his past self tearing through his mind like a storm. Visions seared his consciousness. He was back, reliving the destruction of his home—the grand aetheric city he had painstakingly built over millennia crumbled around him. His citizens, his people, lay slaughtered in the streets, their screams swallowed by the chaos. He saw his mother, her life extinguished by his father's hand, and then Nuriel’s twisted, sadistic grin as she tore him apart and rebuilt him over and over for her own perverse amusement.

The cascade of memories and images spun faster, faces he didn’t recognize flashing by in rapid succession, too fleeting to process. Then, abruptly, the vision stilled. His breath caught as he thrust into a grand ceremony. People lined in a massive parade outside a palace of gleaming aether tech. He looked around at faces that held no place in his memory but brought tears to his eyes all the same.

He looked down and in front of him a young woman stood. She held his gaze, her eyes cybernetic, her face undeniably familiar. It was a face he couldn’t forget. It was Edita, it was the woman that killed him, though now she looked younger and more vibrant. He was handing her something and she looked down at the sword. The very blade that would one day kill him. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she bowed deeply, her lips moving to form words he couldn’t hear. Then the vision shattered, leaving only silence.

Bjorn shook his heads and saw that no time had passed in the present. He looked around frantically and saw that Aurelius had tackled Tanisha and forced her to look away from the bolt. Bjorn’s other head saw that Fuyumi was frozen in place, her eyes wide and unblinking as she stared at the scar in reality. He jumped her and forced her to look away as well. Surprisingly she was hot to the touch and her form felt less solid. She shook her head as reason returned and Bjorn let her up. 

He roared to get everyone's attention then started to run. The others followed as Bjorn found himself back in the body of Isin. The landscape shifted and he turned around to see that the faces of his closest companions, Martin and Eliska, were not far behind. The storm had grown worse as they traveled deeper into the Alpha Extraction Site. They were close now if the beeping of Martin’s locator was anything to go by. The corruption was so thick in the air that Isin would risk blindness if he attempted to look with his aetheric Site.

“Isin we are here!” Martin yelled as he closed a holographic image only he could see and started to dig. “It's down. Get the shovels quickly!”

Isin threw off his combat pack, yanking a shovel free from its straps. The group, a team of ten, attacked the ground with near-manic ferocity. They dug with a determination born of desperation, breaking through the corrupted soil inch by inch. Eliska struck something solid, her shovel clanging against an unyielding surface. 

“I hit something!” she called out, urgency thick in her voice.

The others crowded around, brushing away the loose earth to reveal a gleaming, blemishless metal surface.

“Don’t just stand there,” Eliska snapped, her voice cutting through their awe. “Keep digging! We need to find the control panel!”

Everyone redoubled their efforts, uncovering more and more of the buried door. It was Isin that found what they were looking for. He risked his sight and found the control panel. Once uncovered it lifted from the ground a single scanner panel for someone to place their hand. The moment his hands touched the control panel, it hummed to life, lifting from the ground to reveal a glowing scanner. Without hesitation, Isin pressed his hand against it, channeling aether into the device. The air around him vibrated with anticipation as ancient mechanisms stirred, the buried door beginning to awaken from its long slumber.

***

“Bjorn, Bjorn what are you doing!” Failsafe’s voice caused the past to collapse around him. “Why are we digging?”

Bjorn blinked, the duality of his consciousness snapping back into clarity. He looked around, realizing he was once again himself, his claws tearing through rock and soil with singular focus. Beneath the rubble, he caught the faintest glimmer of metal. Tanisha was again worried that he had lost his mind but he sent her a mental reassurance through the bond. Soon what he was doing became obvious once he had uncovered the panel and the delicate looking scanner rose from the ground. 

He turned to Tanisha and wrote on the ground for her to place her hand on the device and push aether into it. Tanisha stepped forward and pressed her hand against the glowing surface. Her aether surged into the device, and the response was immediate. The ground rumbled as the surrounding soil and rock disintegrated into shimmering particles of light, revealing the full outline of a massive horizontal door.

The metal was pristine, untouched by age or decay, its surface reflecting the faint light of the storm above. A sharp hiss broke the tense silence, followed by a series of resonant clicks. Then, with a smooth, fluid motion, the metal panel slid aside, revealing a well-lit stairwell descending into the depths.

The group stared in disbelief and it was Fuyumi that spoke first.

“What is this place?” Fuyumi said as she gazed down. “How did Bjorn know about it?”

Aurelius looked down. “This place shouldn’t exist. Nothing should be able to survive shifts. Unless this place was built before the last one.”

“I don’t know but we need to make a decision quickly.” Tanisha said as she pointed back at something.

Bjorn risked a look around at the frozen lightning bolt and saw something he had not expected. A monster so massive it looked to be the mountain itself had manifested. It climbed along the rip in reality like a python coiled around its prey. The mana flowed into its gaping maw endlessly. The sight was terrifying in a way that Bjorn thought only possible for Trues. He forced himself to turn away before the visions took him again.

“That is a calamity class monster!” Fuyumi said breathlessly as her eyes widened. “Where did it come from?”

Bjorn was the first to make a decision and without another moment’s hesitation, he rushed through the open door and began descending the stairwell. His size proved a hindrance, the narrow steps ill-suited for his four-legged frame. In his haste, his footing faltered, and he tumbled headlong down the unknown flights, the sound of his fall echoing loudly in the confined space.

“Bjorn!” Tanisha called out, her voice filled with alarm.

Bjorn couldn’t stop falling as he continued to tumble faster and faster down the stairs. The metal steps are too smooth for his paws and too tough for his talons to dig into for purchase. Having four heads also made the resulting dizziness unbearable as floor and ceiling blurred. He reached the bottom in an ungainly heap of tangled necks and limbs. He groaned, sprawling across the cold metal floor. His pride suffered far more damage than his body.

Thankfully there wasn’t any pain because of his scales, constitution and healing factor. Well no pain except to his pride which was thoroughly bruised. Especially as he heard Failsafe roll with laughter. He was in control of the rightmost head which hissed and bobbed with ego destroying jubilation.

“Big bad hydra finds a secret base left by the Human Divines,” Failsafe chuckles. “Then, he proceeds to fall down twelve flights of stairs. I am pretty sure they thought you were pretty awesome saving us and all until that moment.”

“Shut-up.” Bjorn retaliated though his voice was marred by his injured pride. “The stairs aren’t made for hydras.”

“Aren’t you a True Hydra with the mind of a nephilim?” Failsafe chided. 

Bjorn was saved from further humiliation as Tanisha landed lightly beside him, her Arcane Shift placing her effortlessly at his side. She glanced down at him, her face a mix of concern and restrained humor.

“Are you okay?” she asked, crouching slightly to check him over.

Bjorn sent her a reassuring pulse through their bond, projecting an air of calm despite his embarrassment. Failsafe’s laughter erupted again the head he controlled hissing humorously, but Tanisha wisely kept her expression neutral, save for the faintest twitch of a smile. Rising, she gestured toward the corridor ahead.

“Come on, Big Man,” she said, rising to her feet. “Can you stand?”

Bjorn huffed internally but nodded, his many heads swiveling to take in their surroundings as he rose. The rest of the group closed in, offering quick glances to confirm his condition before turning their attention to the facility they now found themselves in.

The lobby was stark, utilitarian, and sterile—an environment utterly devoid of personality or warmth. It was all business, its design stripped of anything that could distract from its singular purpose. The walls, floors, and ceilings were composed of smooth, industrial materials in varying shades of blue, their monotony broken only by the occasional line or panel that hinted at hidden functionality.

Bjorn felt the unsettling weight of this place as it reminded him of the horrible life Isin had lived before finding this very location. He felt nostalgic although he didn’t have the exact memories of what this place was. Despite the absence of visible light sources, the space was illuminated evenly, as though the very air radiated a cold, shadowless glow. The effect was unsettling, casting the room into a perpetual state of artificial clarity, leaving no corners for shadows to gather.

At the center of the lobby stood an empty desk, sleek and unadorned, its surface gleaming like polished ice. The far end of the lobby was marked by doors that led to long, sterile hallways, each stretching endlessly into the unknown. Their perfectly aligned frames hinted at precision engineering, but the faint hum of energy coursing through the facility made it clear that this place was still alive with purpose, even if abandoned by its creators.

“Alpha Extraction Site 12,” Bjorn mused internally. “It has to be. This is where it started for Isin… or so I think.”

Failsafe hummed. “Well the fact you found this place means that you weren’t going crazy because of all the chaotic mana up there.”

“I told you I was getting visions of the past.” Bjorn responded.

“And you heard what Fuyumi and Aurelius said about this place,” Failsafe’s response was uncharacteristically subdued. “Look, I am happy you aren’t going insane. I am not sure how your mental instability would affect me. Would I also go insane? Would you destroy my spell form? So, I was worried of course.”

The door at the top of the stairs slid closed and a flashing light at the desk drew everyone’s attention. Aurelius and Fuyumi prepared weapons while Tanisha and Bjorn both had fire gathering in their mouths. The light continued to flash and words appeared  floating in the air. 

Alpha Extraction Site 12 - Personnel Message

Aether level critical…Backup generator online…
Please proceed to the aether processing core room.
Follow the orange line.

As soon as he finished reading he noticed that there was indeed an orange line on the floor going down one of the corridors. There were many other colors too which all went in different doorways and in different directions. 

“Well that’s freaky.” Failsafe said.

Bjorn looked at the message. “Why is it freaky?”

“Because I’m seeing it in my processing language, but in your memories, it’s in our original language,” Failsafe said. “I think it translates to whatever language the person can read.”

“Alpha Extraction Site?” Aurelius said in Muaian all but proving Failsafe’s point.

“Bjorn, what is this place?” Tanisha asked? “How did you know how to find it.”

Fuyumi stepped forward cautiously. “More importantly how is this place intact with no corrupted ambient mana at all? A place like this? Is it a ruin or do people live here? It looks so strange.”

Aurelius, his expression thoughtful, added, “I’ve heard stories about places like this from my family. More like teachings of the Divine of Men. Supposedly, ancient holy sites from the Divine’s era looked like this, pristine and functional despite their age.”

Tanisha looked to the others, her voice cutting through the air. “So, what do we do now?”

“I’m not sure,” Fuyumi admitted, glancing back at the entrance. “But whatever we decide, we need to consider that storm. It advanced way too fast to be natural. And that thing outside, wrapped around the warp... it’s a calamity-class monster. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Warp? Calamity-class?” Tanisha questioned, her brow furrowed.

Aurelius picked up the explanation. “That lightning-like anomaly outside? It’s a warp—a tear in reality where raw mana spills out. As for the calamity-class, it’s part of a standardized system used by most nations to classify monsters. Low, medium, high, extreme, and finally, calamity. A calamity-class monster is on a whole other level. Those require entire nations to mobilize their military forces just to have a chance of bringing them down. But I’ve never heard of one that could consume raw power directly from a warp.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Bjorn tried to write something on the ground with his talons, but the metal floor was too hard, resisting even his considerable strength. Frustrated, he turned his attention to Fuyumi, who had approached the desk at the center of the lobby. Her ice spear glinted faintly in the ambient light as she tentatively poked at the floating words still displayed above the desk.

Suddenly, the lights in one of the hallways flickered and dimmed before shutting off entirely. A vibration rippled through the air, an almost imperceptible hum of power that made the hairs on Tanisha’s arms stand on end.

The message on the screen shifted, the words dissolving and reforming into something new, though no sound accompanied the change. The entire group froze, their attention locked on the screen, as if it held the answers to every question that now hung heavy in the air.

Alpha Extraction Site 12 - Personnel Message

Aether level critical…Backup generator critical…
Life support systems critical…
Corruption breach imminent…
Please proceed to the aether processing core room.
Follow the orange line.

“Corruption breach? That doesn’t sound good.” Tanisha said.