Da Capo (III)

They entered the dungeon at dawn. Korou, with his satchel, staff and Atla in heels, walked up the marble-carved stairs of the ruins of the pagan temple. It was decorated in stylos, ancient Eternan architecture, with the Naos acting as the entrance to the inverted chasm. Over the Pronaos—Vestibule stood a trifecta of Wuyakachui Shamans. They were clad in Vermillion chuba, chanting praises to the spirit of flame.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone,” Atla whispered.

“Neither was I.” Korou nodded, astonished.

Yesterday’s festival had shimmered into a wasted mob of high Avians, Felines, Canids and humans floating over the frosty lake. Elves were the only ones who preserved a semblance of normalcy. Something to do with their amplified toxic metabolism.

“Not all of us believe in getting high.” Kamei walked out of the Naos with his granddaughter, a grey-haired Feline in tow. She held onto his sleeves, her ears perched upwards as she gazed at the ground shyly.

Korou knew her. She was a fellow Pariksha aspirant and a future batchmate in Zaüber.

“Says the guy who can’t let go of his Chillam.” Korou gave him a jab.

“Can you live without air?”

“We are not going with your analogy again, Kamei,” Atla interjected, her impatience paramount. “We have a Dunegon to clear!”

"This dungeon is no fun." Atla flailed her sword around. The light from his staff bounced off its surface, illuminating the path in flickers. "Why couldn't we be born during the unified Ukiyan era?"

The Wuyakachui dungeon: Empu Piramiji, was a nine-floored labyrinth that flaunted the most petrifying beasts to ever walk Ydalba and by extension the Ukiyan Empire. Archaeologically, it was ten thousand years old. In accordance with Peruvius’s prolific De Architectura hypogaeorum, it was a catacomb of miasma, each floor sprawled in the malice of Eschaton, and its legion of lesser Demiurge. Nonetheless, the tome was archaic, a thousand years old. In the modern era, often dubbed the contemporary Mages era, it was a desolate cavern, devoid of any living organism, converted into a prison twice for Demiurges, and finally a training ground for Shamans.

"I am sure, there are better dungeons in the Teutonia province," Korou gave her a smile. "Let this one be a bit tranquil."

"Even those are mostly cleared." Atla rolled her eyes. “I tried the famous Schattenreich during the Harmozslmas term; it was a bummer.” She paused with arms crossed. “There was not even a single Basilisk, let alone Demiurges. All I could slay was a measly horde of Goblins, some slimes and a ton of mimics.”

"Isn't peace the best?"

"I agree, but how should I enjoy adventuring this way?"

Korou left the older girl to her devices.

By the time they had reached the sixth floor, three days had passed. With only a swarm of bats, a pack of slime and a few mimics acting as their enemy. Atla, who boasted restraint, stomped rock pillars, rusted chest and sometimes punched weak marble walls. Korou pursed his lips. His eyes casted upon the scroll, as he tried to locate an ancient prison. His master had explained, after the Imperial decree of the year 500, post the fifty-year war, most of the inhabitants were euthanised, but some, vile and powerful, the lesser kind were left alone.

He wasn’t a fan of redundant violence but cared about Atla.

“Let's take a detour,” Korou announced, stuffing the scroll back into his satchel.

“What for?” asked Atla in a hiss.

“Just thought it would be fun if we could add interludes to Atla’s heroic tales.”

Atla eyed him suspiciously, her brows furrowed as she replied hesitantly: “Sure…”

They spent the next four days scrounging every corner of the sixth and seventh floors. It was a labyrinth, unmapped, and worst of all, bereft of beasts, and by extension, Demiurges.

Atla swung her sword in a clean arc, her scarlet eyes glowering with precision. Her lips shut tight as the indigo blood from the hundredth Ichor bat splattered over her obsidian gown. Korou’s staff glowed as he chanted in quick succession. The stain flickered, its properties altered as water droplets, mana particles, and plasma separated. It then bubbled in a whisper before evaporating with a crease.

She shot him a glare.

Korou shrugged. “I can’t do the ironing part yet.”

“Leave it be then.”

“Sorry…?”

“Don’t apologise.” Her lips curled into a pout as she continued her one-sided annihilation of the slumbering bats.

Traversing the sandstone chamber, he took a sharp right. There, he got onto a ramp and walked downwards to the ninth floor. The deeper they ventured, the greater the enigma became. Each floor was a testament to a civilisation of the bygone. The upper floors were still a walk in the contemporary, but the sixth floor onwards was a study in Arcane; Inscrutable and devoid of empirical sources. A lost civilisation, built on a mound of assumptions.

The floor, built of sunbaked bricks engraved in cryptic symbols, Korou, had spent a lifetime deciphering in a bygone world. They resembled the elegance of Kanji, superimposed with the Roman alphabet and an arc connecting to Brahmi. An ugly medley, grotesque, a far cry from the aestheticism of human symmetry. Yet, he found it oddly nostalgic.

“What does it say?” Atla bumped her shoulder against his.

“You and I both know, the knowledge pertaining to the pre-Cataclysm Yaldaba is lost to the Miasmic tides.” Korou gave her a wistful smile.

“But grandma always believed that the human mind, trained with scholarly devices, can form the right assumptions.”

“Master did?” Korou cackled. “Well then…” He paused, his finger resting on his chin. “How about another chance?”

“Random.” Atla erupted into singular eddies of giggle. “But poetic.”

“That sums up our adventures pretty well.”

“I would have preferred heroic.”

“You will have to make do with random.”

Stepping into the final floor, Atla finally got her prayers answered. In a rotund chamber, with solar patterns: a crescent moon superimposed over a glowing sun, stood a slumbering Cthonix Chameleon. Its eyes have an abyssal vermillion hue, with purple spots stitched over its hideous scale. Its breath permeated a stench of death. It took a step back, the floor around it hissed, as a dark, murky liquid—miasma—bubbled to life. It hissed, eroding everything living.

Antithesis of life. His master had explained. That is what Miasma was. And those birthed by it, enemy of the natural order. Termed by ancient humans as Demiurges.

Atla, without a warning, jumped into action. Her sword roared through the damp cavern. Instinctively, Korou positioned himself behind her. He had read in Lamphi Bestiary about the Cthonix Chameleon. Believer of sloth, slow, yet deadly. They camouflaged based on their surrounding, and once you can't see them and drop your guard, a spray of miasma pours all over you.

By the time you realise what has happened, you are either corrupted, dead or both.

Atlanta slashed its tail, which was the last to disappear. Korou, using his analytical spell, tried to find spatial distortion. The being had disappeared, but the mana displacement in the chamber would still occur. After all, its physical makeup hadn't left the framework of reality; it was only the visual.

A flicker overhead the curvaceous ceiling, gave away the position. He raised his staff, a nonverbal activation. Cyan trail scattered around him and released itself in a stream of wind. It zoomed past Atla, who stood there unflinchingly calm. Following a parabolic arc, it tore past the archaic dome. The sandstone structure fell with a roar, bringing down the lesser Demiurge, no longer camouflaged, in a downward spiral. Its grotesque limbs writhed desperately, trying to cling to collapsing debris. A final attempt to cling to life. Ironic, Korou thought, for the antithesis of living to possess a shred of survival instinct.

Atla smirked beside him and jumped up. Propelling her body smoothly, her arms moved in a perfect arc, slicing the beast into perfect halves. Its carcasses fell with a thud, as the miasma hissed and ate whatever remained. All that was left after its devourment was an obsidian-scarlet orb. It was a repulsive sight that urged Korou, even today, to eject bile.

Atla carefully picked up the orb, tossed it up, swung the sword again, and slit it in two. Korou shook his head. Atla shot back a peace sign with a grin.

Afterwards, they encountered over twenty more lesser Demiurges, each trickier than the last. But regarding raw strength, they didn't hold a candle in front of the Atla-Korou duo. The final descent towards the central chamber was laden with frescoes. Each depicting art from their specific era. His master had told him that these panels were initially kept on each floor. Each was exotic to the era in which they were incepted. However, after the Imperial guard cleared the Empu Piramij during the Unified Ukiyan Era. The then emperor assembled them all and placed them on the final floor. Its sequencing was in accordance with historical periodisation.

It started with grandiose palaces and shimmering gold armour and sword, then a depiction of war with beasts, then towards the rise of Mages, and then the Shamans, even the Shaman King Ardharutya, was present in his might. The fall and rise of civilisations, the appearance of miasma, the end of the world and the emergence of the end.

Korou stopped at the final three. His staff, casting a shadow on the depiction of cataclysm. Mobs of people, trembling in fear, as the sky erupted in a rain of blood. Demiurges, Greater and lesser, descended and corrupted everyone. Kingdoms were brought to ruins, cities were decimated, and finally, an era drew its curtain.

His fingers traced the beautiful tragedy.

“This is why we need to eradicate them.” Atla declared. Her profile illuminated in a cyan glow. He could see the scarlet eye swirl with conviction.

“Violence leads to more violence.” He moved past it. “A cycle ending, need to bring forth linearity.”

“That’s why I have you.” She giggled and followed his lead.

“For being your cheerleader?” Korou made a dramatic tease.

“No, to be the voice of reason.”

They halted in front of the final doorway. Its frame is massive enough to fit six Narwhals. On its algal surface, there was a depiction of the origin of all. A tale lost by the archives, with traces of its existence procurable only in recesses analogous to these. In the centre of the linear crevice was an eye. Its interior was painted in dark matter, as miasma-hued tendrils were sculpted, protruding from it. Underneath was a fort, sun-kissed, perched over a mountain. Seven warriors stood atop it. Their weapons were raised. A final cry of a tragic war.

"Eschaton..." Korou whispered.

"Breaker of the cycle," Atla added.

They were here in the genesis of it all. But what resided on the other side was not the end, but merely a remnant of who it used to be. An imitation? Or just a remembrance.

With a final gaze, they pushed open the door. Despite not being a page out of heroics, the trial he undertook to reach here was still a tough one. For one to move forward, one must look within oneself for the answer to stopping in the first place.

He who didn't belong to this world, now was a part of it. A cog in this framework of machinery called Yaldaba.

The cold from the chamber crawled up his skin; it made his bones clatter. It was painful. But was it due to the incapability of his desolate heart? Or the physical manifestation of the end in itself. This time, he was sure of the latter.

A lot had occurred for him to stand here. A lifetime had passed, a prayer of another, a journey of forgiveness.

Korou steadied himself, his staff slightly raised, pointing towards the suspended murky eyeball. As energy accumulated, his vision dimmed. Echoes of ages ago trickled through. A name, a face, regret of a lifetime, misguided love. His breath was ragged as Atla shot towards the slumbering Escathon(End).

Her sword thumped over its surface, generating sparks. Its flash blinded Korou for a moment. And he heard a name he had almost forgotten.

"This annulment of the project was never about your capabilities as a scholar. It was everything about your stance as a person. And to that extent, Anutapura Sisodiya, you disappointed me."

And then he shot the Demiurge. The chamber quaked. And a veil of snowy mist covered him. Silhouette of his past, chestnut brown hair, sparkling magenta eyes, an infectious smile and a whisper to help. He was back to where it all began. The Hokkaido Shinyobun, the cavern, an unsaid apology and a final hope.

Whenever a story is about to reach its conclusion, we'll never forget its beginning, just like the past.