Chapter 114: Four Platforms
The passage past the treasury opened into a valley that shouldn’t have existed inside a ruin, and the group stopped walking for a moment just to look at it.
Soft golden light fell from nowhere in particular, and stalks of exotic plant life rose from the valley floor in dense, glowing clusters, each one taller than a person and pulsing with elemental power instead of ordinary growth.
One cluster burned a slow, contained orange, heat radiating off its leaves without ever setting the surrounding grass alight.
Another stood wreathed in frost that never melted, ice crystals forming and reforming along its stalk in an endless, patient cycle. A third crackled faintly with static, tiny threads of lightning arcing between its leaves whenever the wind stirred them.
[Ember-Reed. Divine-rank flora.]
[Frostvein Lily. Divine-rank flora.]
[Static-Thorn. Divine-rank flora.]
"Alchemists would kill for a garden like this," Elowen said, crouching beside the Frostvein Lily with open reverence. "Actual kill. I’ve heard stories of guild wars starting over less."
They harvested what they could carry, careful hands and careful cuts, and Aidan found himself lingering longest by a stalk that shimmered faintly violet, its leaves seeming to fold slightly out of true reality whenever he looked at it directly.
[Voidbloom Stalk. Divine-rank flora.]
’Interesting.’ He added it to the collection.
"There are also some good potatoes and berries, and all that stuff here." Beatrix relayed to Aidan with a shout.
"Great. Jiran’s going to have a field day cooking this quality of stuff."
"I can also cook by the way." Isolde chuckled. "But I’ll be frank. It won’t taste as good as Jiran’s."
...
Past the valley’s far edge, three doors hung suspended in open air, unattached to any wall or frame, simply floating a few feet off the ground like someone had hung them there and forgotten to build the rest of the house.
One burned a deep, calm blue. One glowed warm yellow. The third stood black as pressed void, and a stark white skull had been carved into its surface, unmistakable in its meaning.
"Well, that one’s clearly the friendliest option," Solenne said dryly, staring at the skull.
"We’re going in the black one," Aidan said, already walking toward it.
Nobody argued. Nobody expected to win the argument if they tried.
...
The black door swallowed them whole and spat them back out onto a circular stone platform floating in open sky, clouds drifting lazily through the empty space beneath it.
A small golden light tower stood dark and quiet at the platform’s center, and three more platforms floated at each cardinal point around them, distant but clearly visible across the gulf of cloud.
An exit node glowed faint and steady beside each platform, a small mercy in whatever this place turned out to be.
One of the three distant platforms already had its tower lit, gold light pulsing steady, and figures stood gathered around it.
Aidan recognized the storm-grey eyes and poured-silver hair immediately, even at this distance.
"Vyra," he said, grinning, and raised a hand in an easy wave.
She’d broken through to Divine-rank too, evidently, her presence carrying the same weight his own newly settled Core did now.
Her group stood arrayed behind her, four Final-stage Divine-rank powerhouses anchoring the formation, two late-stage and two mid-stage rounding out the middle, and two Epic-rank Hunters trailing at the edges.
Vyra returned the wave with a small, measured nod, exactly as unbothered as always.
"Seems like some kind of event," Aidan said, turning back to his own group. "One that only starts once all four platforms light up. We’ll be waiting a while."
He wasn’t wrong for long.
A third door opened on the platform to their left, and an unfamiliar group stepped through onto it, gold light kindling to life behind them the moment their boots touched stone.
They came from somewhere else entirely, another small world with its own entrance into this same Tomb, and their composition told its own story.
Five Final-stage Divine-rank powerhouses anchored the group, imposing and varied. Humans stood among them, but so did a broad-shouldered dwarf in ceremonial plate and a lean, sharp-eyed beastfolk woman with a wolf’s ears and tail.
Two late-stage Divine-rank flanked them, one mid-stage held the rear, and two Legendary-rankers rounded out the formation.
Aidan’s inspection swept over them the way it swept over everyone, cataloguing rank and presence out of old habit.
Every status resolved clean and readable. Every one, except one.
A single Final-stage Divine-rank figure stood near the group’s front, yellow hair catching light that shouldn’t have reached this high, peachy skin, ears tapering to elegant points.
Her aura pressed against Aidan’s senses and simply refused to be read at all.
Across the gap, he felt Vyra’s attention snap to the same figure in the same instant.
’Another one.’ Aidan’s grin sharpened. ’Ouja is gone, but there’s still three Transcendent Players in this Origin Tomb.’
The elf gave no outward sign of noticing either of them noticing her, expression serene and unreadable, though something in the set of her shoulders suggested she’d clocked both inspections perfectly well.
’Well, well.’ Her curious eyes only looked at the duo. ’This will be interesting.’
[Aidan: Why is her eyes crossed apart like a fish?]
[Vyra: No idea.]
[Finn: SHE IS MY RELATIVE!]
...
The fourth door opened before anyone had finished processing the third.
A familiar broad, blond-haired figure stepped through onto the final platform, gold light kindling behind him, and Aidan laughed out loud across the gap between them.
"Bram!"
The dwarf spotted him immediately and raised a hand in a rueful salute, his own group filing in behind him, the same faces from the garden’s split harvest, still intact and evidently no worse for the encounter.
"Small Tomb," Bram called across the distance, voice carrying easily through the thin air. "Or a very large coincidence."
All four platforms burned gold now, towers lit and steady, and the clouds filling the space between them began to stir.
Something rose out of the drifting white, slow and deliberate, a pedestal climbing up through the mist until it crested into full view at the exact center of all four platforms. A monolith stood atop it, cut into four flat faces, each one angled to look directly at one of the four gathered groups.
The same words burned into every face at once, gold letters kindling to life across the stone.
[Welcome to the Trial of Horaxian.]