Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 69: Offer

I had spent three weeks or so in the Relictombs. With how time worked in the outside world, only a week or so had passed since the New Year's festival. It seemed I might have to go through a zone or two more to reach an exit portal.

I exhaled, then stepped through the pane of light.

I went rigid as I saw the next zone. An asphalt road stretched under my feet into the horizon, endless hills curving the landscape. Streetlights adorned a makeshift sidewalk, and two portals loomed at the end of a miscolored town.

I was in the same zone I'd entered with the Unblooded Party. The one with strange, twenty-first-century architecture and unnerving design.

Except now, the zone had changed. The houses lining the road weren't perfect by any means. There were still small discrepancies: maybe a window was too large, or the paint on the slats was too bright in contrast to the others. But it appeared as if a mishmash shape made of clay had finally solidified into what it wanted to be.

The zone had improved its depiction of American housing in the time since I'd been gone.

I felt goosebumps rise along my arms as I turned about warily. I felt like I was being watched; scrutinized by some unseen force. Just as before, it was as if the layers of my soul were being peeled away.

I dashed toward one of the houses, wrenching open the door. Instead of an empty white expanse inside, furnishings and decorations for a living room greeted me. A rug was along the floor. A flat-screen TV sat parallel to the window, with a leather couch opposite.

My frantic eyes darted over these things for a moment, then I rushed to explore the rest of the house. The kitchen was similar, with a microwave and oven. Modern appliances. From poking at them, I knew they didn't work. The cupboards were empty, and no pictures hung on the walls.

Hastily, I left that house, darting into the others.

They were all the same in their changes. They were like a doll's house: all outward appearance of reality, but once you looked a bit deeper the facade wore away. I wondered then, with an almost manic rush, who the doll was in this scenario.

That watching gaze never left me. I felt it from every angle all at once, and simultaneously, none at all. I didn't know whether my senses had improved dramatically from when I'd last been here, or if my watcher was more blatant in their spying.

But how many times did an ascender go through the same zone twice?

I racked my brain for information in the long binge of Relictombs knowledge I'd gone on before my preliminary ascent.

And I came up empty. No ascender had ever entered the same zone twice.

It couldn't be a coincidence.

My nerves began to settle slightly as I trudged toward the exit portal. I'd been able to leave without incident the last time, but what about now? Instincts had been engrained in me to fear this dungeon.

I turned around, inspecting the repeat zone with hesitant eyes. Nothing jumped out at me. The trees that dotted the far-off landscape didn't hold any monsters or beasts. And the watching gaze never changed.

I gulped, then stepped into the exit portal.

—

A while later, I was sitting in a simple waiting booth at the Relictombs Ascender's Association. I had dropped off the bulk of my accolades here, and the association's dedicated appraisal teams were looking over what I'd brought and cataloging how much they'd be willing to pay for them.

And so I waited. I quickly confirmed after exiting the tombs that only ten days had passed on the surface since I entered the Relictombs, and I was nervous to see what had happened to my friends in East Fiachra with the Doctrination looming over their shoulders.