To the bottom! The Deepcombers are professional dungeon crawlers in a print-crazed medieval society where reckless teenagers reign supreme above ground and blood thirsty creatures dwell below. Lonastasius is a 17 year old mutant slave who breaks his...
Alocer's hateful flag showed the 'ma' in the 'gor' in a box which meant it was infused or controlled. The Varget word for that is 'mor' or 'duma' when plural. But what about 'Caracketa Crol?" Those were the words Horne had spoken to intone the construct on the Wolfspire. Where did the priest learn that? Did he just make it up years ago in his temple? The prophet Alocer must have remade the Crol's flag and added the mighty symbol to their heraldry. He wrote his book to give credence to his lies and persecute the world's mutants. Did he know the power of this basic shape? Of course, he did. Now all Tokal was tormented by his best student, Grand High Minister Surilus Horne. That bent priest used this mark to control the minds of other lifeforms, including animals. Anything he could see he could control, but not the Calbians though, Valari was adamant about that. Probably because they have groundsmilk in their bodies and are not so easily swayed by a foreigner with smilkstone.
The young lad stuck his fingers up his nose and took another breath. He swam forward and saw how the room contained countless algae-covered desks and chairs. People once worked here and sat at those tables and faced these walls, but he couldn't imagine what tasks they'd performed. Now somgors traipsed about below and seemed right at home. The water-people pointed out new attractions. Their helmeted leader raised a cover on a bench and Lon could see a dozen little blocks glowed with coloured lights; most of these were pale orange but one was bright green and another pulsed red. As he watched, the tall somgor with the turtle shell helmet on his head pressed the green button and behold there were suddenly more lights in the ceiling. Whole sections of the roof lit up.
More signs on the wall came alive too and Lon saw how these were cemented right into the rock; the young lad couldn't shake the feeling that this sunken space wasn't made by somgors. This First Age facility was fashioned by Kluth himself, or his children. Was it a theater? Or a temple? A shrine? Or a giant gristmill of time?
One plate showed the Secondsun as clear as day and Lon spotted the foundation sign. The lad knew the line over the circle marked the sun-that-never-rises and here were 'bors' or rods that must channel the groundsmilk away from the misty orb. Saeya had said they were all conduits and the Secondsun is real. He knew that was true; this place felt like it was directly connected to the milky white sphere under the island. The smilk flowed-up through this undersea realm and it coursed through him here in this place. Could the beings who'd once sat in those chairs somehow control the sphere? Maybe they'd somehow managed the flow? Was it somgors who'd worked here? Or was it the Gods themselves?
The next graphic was more complex. The sun-that-never-rises was shown again but here were more squiggly lines and shapes. Was this Varget? The signs were so foreign, and too complex for him to ever replicate from memory. He knew he couldn't intone those symbols for he had no idea of the words to speak nor any understanding of their function but still there were secrets to be learned. These billboards reminded him of blueprints for boats. Why else would people sit in chairs at desks and stare at these shapes unless it was to control them?
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