Chapter Sixty Nine - We get stuck in an array

"How far down do you think it goes?"

To this question, they could only peer down into the dark gloom before them and guess wildly. They'd traipsed down the crumbling stone staircase this long and yet there seemed to be no end in sight. In the end, Roman would conclude that they had journeyed through some sort of illusion array or warped space, not unlike that of the outer school herb fields.

Reversing nearly a whole day, the team had bravely traversed upwards into the infinite space above onto a smaller island, whose orbit happened to cross above that of their original place. On arriving, they found themselves amongst ruins only half covered by jungle overgrowth, the rest had survived only partially in tact, due to the uniqueness of material once used in the building of walls or dwellings. This material had also been used, though somewhat scattered likely due to the monotony of colour, as floor tiles. Roman had been particularly interested in the stone, thus while Leon gathered nearby herbs and the others hunted for their next meal, Roman began using his knife to carefully pry up the tiles.

Part of a herd of needle-spine pigs were caught and killed and the three small swines set to barbecue, their spines plucked and saved in the interdimensional bag. While not as valuable as the Peng-kun teeth, they were still of value to weapon and armour smiths, just that their abundance lowered the cost of them a fair bit.

Leon took a breath to settle the squeamishness that always rose in his heart when dealing with the messy insides of fresh kill, then cleaned and chopped up the liver, heart and kidneys, which he added to his pot with a bit of pork fat to fry and seal before adding water and the bones of a pig to help make a stock with his usual seasoning. Later, he would add a bit of the blue mushrooms as well as some wild vegetables that he discovered while gathering herbs and this stew would become their breakfast the following day.

There were other parts of the pigs that could be eaten, indeed in the village of his birth they would never turn their noses up at eating pig's head or intestines, but call it a leftover echo from his previous life as a fairly spoiled westerner, he couldn't bring himself to eat those parts anymore. As the others didn't know how to deal with those parts to make them edible, they were simply tossed off of the edge of the isle for fate to deal with.

They ate by firelight, the night having cast its shadow over the sky above and below. Roman had to be dragged from his looting of those small tiles, which he was now doing by the weakening glow of a mage globe. Caelus wasn't in the mood to recharge it using his abundant spiritual energy, it seemed, so Roman was forced to exercise patience and wait until first sunlight. Just that Roman proved himself a sleepy bunny and both suns had risen by the time he did.

The meaty stew was already filling the ruins with its rich aroma, causing many a mouth to water and the flavour of the tender roast pork became long forgotten. Roman washed his face and hands before recalling the matter of the tiles and wolfed down a lone cup of stew before rushing back over to where he had been plundering. It was then he noticed something odd.

The tiles had once been quite generous of thickness and cemented upon a floor of fine grit and sand to ensure that the ground was barren and would not have stubborn weeds manage to break through. Naturally, life and nature had worn the tiles a little thinner and none were completely flat. Not to mention the barren ground could only suffer the encroachment of green life in the end. There was one jade coloured tile that had cracked and within that tiny gap hid something which glinted brightly in the sun's rays. This had been mostly surrounded by tiles made of the material Roman had expressed interest in and one or two of those Roman had removed the previous night. As the glint caught his eye, Roman moved to observe this place in greater detail only to find that the underneath of the looted tiles was not dirt.

Roman worked around the surrounding tiles, finding the places where the tiles had been on dirt ground and where they had not and the latter formed a long rectangle, which Roman prised then upward with relative ease. Despite its strength and heavy appearance, the ground covering was actually light enough to not cause the scholar undue strain. Turned out, it was made with a hollow metal that was enchanted to remain rust impervious and a thin sheath of stone had been fixed upon it. This was not part of a tiled floor at all but a trap door! And that which it had been hiding was a long tunnel extending downwards, but not towards the edge of the isle, towards its heart. From the stale air and cobwebs thick with dust, it could be seen that this place was long untouched by mortal hands.

Everyone contained a portion of excitement, nervousness and anticipation, but likely none more than Pike. He'd participated in this challenge several times and traipsed across territories in the wake of predecessors many times. Just to find that hidden cave's treasures that hadn't been plundered for a long time if ever had moved him, even if he couldn't participate personally. But this tunnel leading to somewhere that likely no other student, likely no other explorer of the shattered isles had ever touched, was beyond expectation. Sure he and Bowyer and many others had joked about it, but reality proved that they'd had capable seniors, capable alumni. They could only forage deeper into forests, mine further into mountains, push to challenge even more ferocious beasts that had escaped for want of rarer things.

Caelus recharged all of their mage globes and after putting out the fire and cleaning up after breakfast, they began the long descent down into the tunnel. At first the steps were steep, there were cracks in places, other steps had begun to crumble becoming shallow, everyone needed to be vigilant. Then the steps became more shallow and the descent gentle and likely it was this time that they stepped into the time-space array lengthening their journey. After taking a rest, they pressed on for a while, only to be stopped once more by the eagle eyed Roman.

"This crack... it looks just like one we passed not so long ago."

Pike frowned, Caelus expressed some doubts, but it was decided that Velana and her tri-coloured fox double back with Troy. Troy placed down his mage globe in a certain location as well as one dagger. It cast a dark shadow in the shape of the weapon but much enlarged upon the stone walls. They waited for all of ten minutes and the shadow suddenly expanded, spilling out Troy, the beast-tamer and her beast.

"We only walked back a while and came to the steeper staircase," Troy informed them, causing others to mutter curses beneath their breath.

"Calm down," Pike advised them. "Clearly, if that is the case, then we are not trapped in the array, so we can take our time to figure out how to circumvent it, get past it. In fact, look at this in a more positive light; this array is clearly hiding or protecting something that the creator deemed valuable. More so, the array must have lasted a ridiculous amount of time already, perhaps since prior to the realm breaking. That reveals the strength of the caster, plus the amount of effort he or she must have used to ensure that the array remained." In this day and age, arrays relied on mage-crystals to ensure longevity, but that was not always the case. The original methods had long since been lost to time.

Brightening considerably, they all turned to their Scholar for guidance.