Fortuna Verto

73-Fortified Return

Lyun and Mheridz continued to press forward along the winding halls of the citadel, confronting obstacle after obstacle as they travelled. Lyun was getting very frustrated, as she had grown used to this place being on her side, so she wasn't taking such a betrayal very well.

"This is getting really annoying, I'm certain there has been a new wall every 50 Uyn, if not less." "You're lucky that your first trip was so welcoming, you should have seen how rough this place was for those of us not welcome back then." "Did it have this many barriers?" "Well, no, the place was running pretty idle, but the layout of this place honestly has a mind of its own. It got so bad, I was stuck running in circles back then for at least sixty moments. In that light, this is nothing." "But.. how do you know we aren't running in circles?" "The instruments I'm using don't provide a clean passage, they leave lightning streaks along the floor near where they are used. We haven't run into such, so we're fine." Lyun knew Mheridz was the prepared one here, but something still seemed wrong. They continued onward as Lyun spotted a blossom on the floor ahead, a subtly inviting sight. As she got close, the blossom blew into the air.. and then disintegrated into dust. However, the spot where the blossom had been was a suspicious lightning streak, visibly fading away as she watched as the very ground pulsed with hydro-electric integrity. Apparently, with everything saturated with lightning elemental, residual lightning wasn't apparent for long.

"Yeah, we're going in circles." "That was one of the fabled blossoms!" "Uh, what?" "A legend of the citadel. It seems this place was once a great fortress, and has been under the care of some form of guardian as aspects of the heroic wills of their time. Very little is actually known about the truth behind the myths, but it is said that such influence takes very specific forms. The two most known are the blossom and the crescent moon." "Oh, so the stuff Axln and I followed a lot during our first visit.. but actually hadn't shown up since." "This place is almost simply embodied myths, mother kept calling it the closest our side has to real magic. Supposedly though, it embodies the magic of the other world more than our own myths, like it was that rendered real." "That would require something capable of not only rendering an idea, but also that someone here had to have access to ideas from the other world. That's impossible." "Well, such is what makes this place appear so haunted. Quite decidedly, there has been quite a strong concentration of essence composition here too, which the most informed modern researchers believe to have been caused by transporting the world seed. However, some of that lends wonder to an existing essence concentration before that time might have instead made it ideal for transport, a theory which identifies that the presence of essences could have persisted long before that." Lyun still didn't like Mheridz's line of thought, the woman was clearly intimidated by such strange myths. The place was creepy, but certainly it wasn't that creepy.

「This place does exhibit quite a bit of true chaos, which could itself go a distance to explain the beliefs of such myths. The mold of chaos present here seems to be inviting for those who exhibit traits in defiance of natural order, while being resistant to those who have no foreign principle. It's a chaos that is more chaotic to order, but more ordered to chaos. While there is no way to be certain, any other factor that would be defiant to the way this world work might share in such a blessing too, but such a concept would be beyond known chaos.」In other words, her mild affinity of the other world, added maybe with a touch of temporal, gives her a special invitation to the strange that seems to exist here, as if such off-world measures were a goal of the design. Mheridz however held a bit of chaos, but claims she hadn't gotten the same positive treatment. Well,such chaos wasn't exactly temporal chaos, and the girl might have a mother with an affinity for the other world, but she herself was completely belonging to this one. Such a line of thought was looking bad, because it made it seem as if the halls would be more inviting if she left Mheridz behind, leaving herself to the halls' blessing while Mheridz struggled with its contempt.