Felix lingered in the Record Room, staring at the waves, roots, and the motes of light they clutched in their depths. A piece of him ached for what he was ignoring here. Perhaps if he thought more on his Core Manifestation, he could be inspired. Perhaps they could figure it out, given enough time. But time was something he did not have. Worse, all of these Core Manifestations were power unrealized.

A large piece of him ached to use Empyrean Embrace. Instinct, perhaps, instilled in him across months of life or death battles—but he was more than instinct. Felix didn’t like the idea of destroying the place. In a single breath, the usefulness of the Record Room would be lost. It had survived this long, even survived the Ruin somehow; how could he bear responsibility for its destruction? Depriving the world of its wisdom, all for a bite of power?

The Beast didn't agree.

A Simple Taste, Scion.

No.

What Use Does The World Have For This? If You Fail, It Will Be Worthless. Consume Their Power.

It'll mess up my focus if nothing else. The Memories I've seen were only kind of close, and I already feel more confused than ever about my Core Manifestation. Taking in this much, Felix splashed a careless hand through the wave. It'll muddy the waters.

We Did Not Mean For You.

That drew him up short. You want them. Why?

Power, Scion. You Grow, But We Stagnate Within You. We Cannot Reach Our Ends If We Do Not Feed. It Is Our Nature.

Primordial nature.

The Nature Of All That Lives. The Beast’s words were dark and smooth, but frustration coiled between syllables. Once We Were More. Nourishment Came From All. There Was Only Consumption And The Song. We Would But Inhale, And The World Would Quake.

Now We Must Beg For Scraps.

Scion. Empower Us.

"He's got a point," Pit said. "I get awful weak if I skip meals."

Felix closed his eyes. He could feel the motes all along the Record wall as if they crawled against his skin. It would only take a moment to take them for himself. He had Authority enough for that. But should he? The Beast wasn't wrong. If the world died, this all would be useless, and it was shaping up that Felix was one of the few people that could stand up against the gods. Not to mention the Ruin. Still, he wasn't sure he could trust the part of him that ached for power. So he settled on a compromise.

I’ll grant you half, Beast.

Teeth shone in the abyss. You Grow Wise.

Felix bared his own teeth. It was just as much of a smile as the Beast’s. Empyrean Embrace.

The motes within the Record Room swirled, pulled from the waves by ethereal jaws. Pieces of root and streamers of water carried off with them, surging together into Felix’s open maw. It was an ecstatic glory.

Shit.

Power flooded through him, scratching an itch he hadn’t known was there. Relief, warm and welcome, rolled across his core space in waves of light, catching upon the branches of his Divine Tree where it sent opalescent radiance rippling across the Essence foliage. Far below, the Beast reared up from the abyss, its formless bulk crashing into the base of his dual cores and sending tremors through his Divine Tree. Essence rocked, but only the motes fell, shaken loose through the branches like fallen blossoms.

To Me.

The motes funneled in twisting pathways past opalescent roots and the grinding turn of his dual cores and into the empty dark below. Teeth met them, and their lights went out.

Felix tore his attention away from his center and, with a gasp, realized his Skill still sounded. He cut it off, forced to marshal his significant Will to do so, and the Record Room sagged as the pressure vanished. He swallowed. Almost exactly half of the wave wall had collapsed, revealing patchy, dried up limbs that were once Roots of the Aberrant Soil. The pleasure departed as quick as it had arrived, replaced almost at once by bittersweet regret. The Record Room was damaged in a way that wouldn’t ever be fixed. History was lost, and ancient insight was swallowed up by his endless hunger.

Empyrean Embrace is level 139!

…

Empyrean Embrace is level 141!

The Beast rumbled—almost purred—in satisfaction. Thank You, Scion.

Felix's awareness of the Primordial vanished as it sank into the abyss once more. Make use of it, he demanded into the dark. Fast.

Pit poked at him, his beak bumping Felix's shoulder. "You good?"

"Fine." Felix hadn't realized he'd hunched himself, but he straightened to his full height. "Come on, we have to keep moving."

Exiting from the Record Room and through the Skill Library, they passed into the old hallway. It had once again shifted, the doors playing the same games as before. By slow, tedious steps, Felix and Pit found their way through old chambers that looked like private halls and a few that resembled residences, complete with four poster beds, couch-strewn chambers, and stained murals of gorgeous sunrises and foliage. They found workshops empty of projects or even tools, as if someone had scoured the shelves in a hurry. State rooms and parlors featuring vast fireplaces that looked woven from stone and roots. They took passage after passage, the angles of an eight-pointed star carved into the walls and ceiling, but dozens ended in nothing but dead ends.

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There was no pattern to the shifting of the doors, no puzzle for Felix to figure out or monster he could dismantle. When the last threshold deposited him once again into the Entrance Hall, Felix reached his limit. He snarled, spinning toward another silver door and slamming his claws into its surface. It bent, almost soft beneath his Strength, and the Crucible whined against his waist.

"Bring me to the Bell!" He ripped the door off the hinges, revealing a hallway of dim lights and nondescript paneling. Empyrean Embrace!

The door was consumed, but that wasn’t all. The edges of liminal space—the power of Domains woven into the fabric of Etrionn—fractured. Beyond the doorway, the dim hall had shattered, revealing a corridor that gleamed with radiance.

Pit poked his head in. “Whoa. Why didn't you get mad sooner?"

Felix steadied his breath. The rage inside of him wasn’t gone, but it felt more than a little silly. He stretched the back of his neck. "I didn't think that was going to work. I just wanted to break something."

"Well, you did," Pit laughed. "And look at what you found!"

Felix leaned into the hallway beside his Companion. It was an impressive sight, stretching perhaps two hundred yards long and fifty feet wide, all of it shining as if it were polished just that morning. At the far end, a silver door stood, and between them and it were a series of alcoves. Built every twenty feet or so, they were deep recesses fronted by hexagonal columns, the latter gilded with golden vines and topped by star-shaped capitals. Inside the alcoves were statues, ones that looked the worse for the Ages they’d been left alone. Cracks split their surfaces where it wasn’t pitted and chipped, as if someone had taken hammers to their forms.

That’s a damn shame. Much like the Triumvirate, these were made with exception skill. Did the godslaves really attack the art as well?

Carved by master artisans, the depictions were hauntingly realistic. Geist stood there, as did Therans, Sylphaen, Korvaa, as well as what Felix assumed was a Delven. None of them were carved from a single material like the Triumvirate. These were each made lifelike, different pieces of their bodies made of separate precious stones. Flesh, cloth, and metal were sculpted into near-perfect replicas, and even hair and fur seemed to retain a true-to-life luster. More than that, power curled around each of them, an intrinsic aura that emanated from every alcove.

The source of that power was obvious—Felix spotted sigaldry inscribed heavily behind the nearest statues, into the back of the alcove itself. The silver and gold inscriptions extended upward from the floor all the way to the statues’ heads, the complicated arrays set with a number of Belais crystals, each one as big as his fist.

"What do you think they do?" Pit asked, his voice echoing slightly in the vast hallway.

"Not a clue," Felix replied, his gaze still fixed on the statues.

He hesitated before entering the hallway, wondering what the statues and their arrays might do. His Magus of the Grand Design couldn’t tell him, not without a closer look. Well, we came this far.

Felix entered, taking the lead as Pit trailed behind on the immaculately tiled floors, polished to a mirror finish. It was almost like walking on shallow water across the chamber, each step punctuated by the firm click of Felix's boots. He was on guard for enemies or traps, and the statues were clearly the latter. But unlike every other ruin he'd been in, these traps did not go off.

Felix walked slowly, investigating the statues and their arrays with his Perception flared to its maximum. The Crucible dragged at him, but this, at least, was not in its purview. The Magus of the Grand Design hummed in the background of his Mind, flitting through the pieces of sigaldry, ferreting out what every bit accomplished. By the time he'd reached halfway through the room, he had it.

Magus of the Grand Design is level 134!

"You have that look. Did you figure it out?" Pit asked.

"I've pieced together the arrays. The gist, at least. They're not just statues; they’re constructs," Felix reached out, putting his hand gently on the foot of an armored elf. "Designed to defend this hall. More importantly, these sigils, here, here, and here," Felix said, pointing behind the statues, "designate what they're defending."

"Where's that?"

Felix glanced down toward the far end of the corridor, where a tall, silver door stood waiting. "It's to keep people away from there."

They kept walking, step by step. Still cautious, Felix continued peering at the sigaldry to try and level his Magus of Grand Design. He felt it gathering behind his eyes, a pressure growing in the Skill that he recognized as advancement. But it wasn't enough to push him up another level.

When they reached the far door, however, he spotted a series of circular arrays marked against the walls and threshold. A large glyph was inscribed in the floor, one that combined the sigils for ‘validate’ with ‘blood’ and ‘stone.’ His Skill, his Magus of Grand Design, flared as understanding swept through Felix.

Magus of the Grand Design is level 135!

He stopped and his Companion bumped into his back. "Be very still, Pit."

“Why—?”

All at once, the constructs turned, their heads shifting on inanimate necks as their eyes lit up with purple-red Mana as bright as stars.

Threat Detected.

Primordial(s) Present.

Felix hurriedly thrust his Authority toward the glyph, and it surged with Mana.

Authority Acknowledged.

Proceed, Inheritor.

An invisible mechanism within the silver door before him disengaged, clacking and clattering with muted booms.

"It seems the array also opens the door," Felix said through a dry mouth.

Pit eyed the statues. Their heads had turned back. "That’s creepy."

“Imagine if they’d attacked.”

“I could handle that.” Pit shuddered, his feathers and fur sticking up. “The watching is worse.”

Felix took in the carvings across the silver door. While the others in the Entrance Hall had been marked with the usual stars and vines, these were different. Still, it featured a familiar design: a tall tree, immense in fact, with its branches spread out over mountains and forests. A Spirit Tree.

He put his hand to the door. It was cold to the touch, almost arctic, and condensation wetted his palm. Felix brought up his map. Letters formed across the section they stood within. Words that had not been there before. Felix pushed at the silver door and it ground open on ancient, ill-kept hinges. He’d only managed to widen the gap by about three feet when something rustled inside.

Inheritor Detected.

Trial Begun.

Quicker than lightning, gray roots wrapped around him and hauled him through.