The Aurassian Enigma part 3

The Final Choice
The chamber fell silent, save for the slow rhythm of the reactor and the faint echo of water dripping somewhere unseen. Kaelen turned to me, voice hushed.

“It’s asking for release. A relic with a conscience… gods, how long has it been alone down here?”

I approached the Custodian. The air around it shimmered faintly — static, sadness, and power blending into one.

“You wish to rest,” I said.

The Custodian bowed its great head.

“I wish to fulfill the final directive. And that directive is peace.”

I reached toward the central plate of its chest, where a dimly glowing rune pulsed like a heart.

“Then rest.”

With a press of the hand, the rune dimmed — the glow fading, the sound quieting. The giant exhaled a low, metallic sigh that filled the chamber like a prayer.

“Directive… complete…”

Its body locked in a kneeling position; arms folded across its chest. The light in its eyes flickered once… and went dark.

Only silence remained.

I withdrew the glowing fragment from its core — the Aurassian Core Shard — warm, almost alive, like a heartbeat in stone.

The Scholar’s Lament
Kaelen stood beside the fallen colossus, notebook in hand, his usual excitement dulled to reverence.

“So ends the last of them,” he said softly. “Not slain by blade or spell, but by time itself.”

He began to write, each word careful, deliberate.

“The Aurassians did not fall to enemies or gods, but to the weight of their own design. They reached for eternity and were crushed by its gravity. We now walk upon their graves, building anew upon forgotten gears.”

He looked up, eyes reflecting the dim light of the reactor’s dying glow.

“Maybe that’s how all empires end — not with fire, but with silence.”

I said nothing. There was nothing left to say. The forge, the halls, the endless tunnels — all seemed to exhale, their purpose fulfilled at last.

As we climbed back toward the surface, the faint hum of the reactor faded behind us, until even that became memory.

Epilogue
When night fell over Valeria, Kaelen lit a single lantern atop the ridge and placed the Core Shard beside it. The light flickered — gold and pale blue — casting shadows that almost looked like figures at work, building something unseen.

“For all their flaws,” Kaelen murmured, “they still reached for wonder.”

I glanced eastward, where dawn was beginning to bleed over the mountains.

“Let’s make sure we don’t repeat their silence.”

And together, we walked on — two small sparks of light beneath a vast and remembering sky.

Chen Ma Bu’s Confession
Excerpt recovered from the Xin Long National Library. Written in the ancient Xin language. Multiple copies exist, though all are incomplete. Authenticated as the work of Chen Ma Bu, professor of linguistics at the Western Fu School of Arts and Letters.

My name is Chen Ma Bu, though that is not my birth name. I was born Chaxtor Ma’en — son of an Aurassian father and a Xin mother. My father vanished when I was ten. I came from Valeria, though “escaped from” may be a more honest description.

It has been more than three centuries since the legends claim the Aurassians defended Valeria with thousands of automatons. If those stories are true, then tell me — where are those automatons now?

In my youth, I served as an apprentice in an Aurassian laboratory. We were forbidden to possess writing implements without explicit permission; to take notes outside the lab was a criminal act. When we needed to record data, we wrote on stone walls with chalk — easily erased, easily forgotten.

I was bright, perhaps brighter than most, but my blood betrayed me. The others mocked me for being half Xin, as if mixed heritage could dull one’s grasp of rune geometry or circuit symmetry. My progress stalled. Apprentices younger and less capable surpassed me.

In Aurassian society, there were rules unwritten but absolute: Knowledge alone was never enough. To advance, one needed connections — and the approval of egos far larger than their intellects. Master Ga’er despised criticism. His followers flattered him endlessly, praising even his failures.

I still remember one boy — the son of a high official in the Tax Bureau. A dull mind, all pretense and arrogance, yet he was promoted above me. He paraded my work as his own, speaking as if the air itself owed him reverence. To anyone with sense, his façade was transparent — but in a society of sycophants, even ignorance could pass for genius.

Disillusioned, I left the laboratory. Soon after, the Enforcers came.

They said my training made me valuable, so I was assigned to manual labor: tilling the farms, hauling resources, repairing conduits. The work was grueling — and ironic. Had they simply restored the broken automatons lying in the depots, our burdens would have been halved. Instead, the state spent its wealth on the Enforcers themselves, funding oppression instead of innovation.

Then came the Great Project. The ever-bickering nobles and guild elites, usually at each other’s throats, united under the banner of “revivalism.” For once, they worked together — though no one outside their circles knew why.

My role was minor: constructing foundations, measuring corridors, assembling chambers. We were forbidden to draw plans or carry sketches. Every dimension had to be memorized — the height of a hall, the length of a tunnel, the width of an archway.

I often wondered: why such secrecy for mere architecture? These were just facilities — not the sacred designs of automatons.

In truth, the most guarded documents in Aurassia were never the machine schematics. Those could be found in a few trusted archives. No, the rarest records were budget reports and political decrees — where appointments appeared without explanation, and fortunes shifted overnight. Meanwhile, personal records — genealogy, ancestry, criminal reports — were meticulously copied, stored, and distributed among countless bureaus.

The Enforcers at the farthest frontier could identify a man by his bloodline within a day. Such precision, wasted on paranoia.

Then came the horror that erased any lingering loyalty I held.

I discovered the Great Project’s true nature: biological research using living humans. Some were death-row prisoners — others, I fear, were not.

One evening, chaos erupted. A group of test subjects broke containment, attacking anyone in reach — tearing, biting, screaming. Those bitten fell, convulsed, and rose again in the same frenzy. It was as if life itself had turned rabid.

The Enforcers were overwhelmed. In the confusion, I fled. Whether that catastrophe was the result of human arrogance, failed science, or deliberate sabotage — I never learned. I only know that the screams followed me long into the night.

After a long journey through the mountains, I crossed the border into Xin lands — my mother’s homeland. There, I lived in obscurity for many years.

Now, in the autumn of my life, I have written the Aurassian Dictionary and Stories — a complete translation of both monastic and vernacular Aurassian tongues, rendered into Zarathian and common Xin.

It is, by every Aurassian law, an act of treason punishable by death. But truth must outlive fear.

I have made several copies of my work and entrusted them to my most faithful students. They know the danger. I told them this:

“When I am gone, publish it. Let the world remember — even if the Aurassians wish to be forgotten.”

Scholar’s Note:
The Aurassian Dictionary and Stories remains the single most valuable source for understanding Aurassian language and culture. Chen Ma Bu’s testimony bridges myth and reality — the only surviving voice of a civilization that buried its own truth beneath iron and secrecy.

Annotations and Commentary on the Chen Ma Bu Confession
Compiled by the Valerian Antiquarian Society, 982 AV. Primary Contributors: Professor Tien Huo (University of Xian Long), Archivist Elane Myr of Valeria, and Magister Corvan Darnel, Collegium Arcanum.

1. On the Identity of Chen Ma Bu / Chaxtor Ma’en
Annotation — Tien Huo: Records from the Western Fu School of Arts and Letters confirm the existence of a linguist named Chen Ma Bu active during the late 4th century of the Imperial Calendar. However, no corroborating evidence supports his Aurassian name, Chaxtor Ma’en. This may have been self-ascribed, perhaps to lend authority to his linguistic claims. That said, minor inscriptions in the ruins of Asha-Tor Lab 3 refer to a “Cha’en,” possibly the same individual or a family relation.

Counterpoint — Corvan Darnel: The name Ma’en is linguistically consistent with western Aurassian naming patterns, suggesting at least partial authenticity. If fabricated, Chen demonstrated remarkable understanding of Aurassian phonetic structure — lending credibility to his linguistic expertise.

2. On the Claim of Aurassian Secrecy and Knowledge Control
Annotation — Elane Myr: Chen’s account of restricted writing and oral apprenticeship aligns with surviving Aurassian practices. Excavations at the Vaults of Dureil revealed chalk markings on smoothed basalt walls — apparently used as temporary notes. Several show overlapping layers of rune equations and erased formulae, as if rewritten daily.

Addendum — Corvan Darnel: The Aurassian suppression of written records was likely intentional institutional design. By discouraging documentation, they ensured all vital knowledge remained dependent on living mentorship — creating intellectual hierarchies impossible to replace after collapse.

3. On the “Great Project” and the Biotechnological Incident
Annotation — Tien Huo: Chen’s testimony regarding “ferocious men” may describe an early bio-alchemical experiment gone wrong — possibly the same catastrophe that marks the end of the Aurassian timeline. Remnants of spliced tissue samples found in the Heshra Basin correspond with partial Aurassian runework intended to bind life essence to mechanical conduits.

Speculative Note — Elane Myr: The description matches later folklore of “The Iron Plague,” a contagion of madness said to originate from the western laboratories. If Chen’s confession is genuine, this event might represent the first recorded case of synthetic mana infection — where alchemy altered the very pattern of human vitality.

4. On Chen’s Political Commentary
Annotation — Corvan Darnel: Chen’s bitterness toward elitism may color his portrayal of Aurassian society. While nepotism certainly existed, the technological consistency across Aurassian ruins suggests a functionally organized technocracy, not total dysfunction. His account should therefore be read as both testimony and critique — part autobiography, part moral warning.

Addendum — Tien Huo: Nevertheless, multiple inscriptions recovered from Council Chambers of Arenn-Kel confirm unexplained successions and unexplained purges within guild leadership. His complaints about “appointments without explanation” may thus reflect legitimate political decay rather than personal resentment.

5. On the Nature of the “Enforcers”
Annotation — Elane Myr: Artifacts attributed to the Enforcers include bronze badges engraved with the Aurassian glyph for “Silence.” Their deployment to oversee agricultural labor supports Chen’s note about misplaced priorities — a surveillance state sustained by paranoia rather than efficiency. Their disappearance from records roughly coincides with the first sightings of autonomous sentinels gone rogue. Whether related remains uncertain.

6. On the Survival and Transmission of the “Aurassian Dictionary and Stories”
Annotation — Corvan Darnel: The Aurassian Dictionary and Stories forms the backbone of all modern Aurassian linguistics. While heavily fragmented, cross-referencing its idioms with inscriptions from the Vaults of Keshar reveals near-perfect alignment. That accuracy is impossible without direct access to native speakers or preserved archives, suggesting Chen’s claims of apprenticeship are genuine.

Addendum — Tien Huo: Interestingly, each discovered copy of the Dictionary includes small linguistic deviations — deliberate, according to Chen’s instructions. These “variations” served as authenticity markers, preventing forgeries and ensuring that no single confiscated copy could erase the whole text.

7. On Historical Impact and Suppression
Annotation — Elane Myr: Several regimes following the Aurassian collapse attempted to destroy or censor Chen’s work, labeling it “heresy of the fallen West.” The Xin Imperial Edict of the Seventh Cycle banned all mention of “biological transmutation” and “machine-soul binding.” Ironically, such censorship only elevated Chen’s writings to mythic status, ensuring their preservation through underground academic circles.

8. On the Legacy of Chen Ma Bu
Annotation — Tien Huo (closing remark): Chen Ma Bu — or Chaxtor Ma’en — was not merely a scholar. He was the bridge between two worlds: the human and the engineered, the secret and the spoken. Through him, the Aurassians speak once more, though faintly — their language revived, their errors remembered.