62. The Eastern Junction

After three days of travel, in the distance, Nox was aware of a fuzzy dark smudge on the horizon. The next day, she was flying over the ruins very similar in shape as the Temple of Erini in Cerelon or the pub in Akavel. She swept across the area several times, checking for signs of life before landing just in front of the building before bamfing back to Tiltspire.
 
Finally, the quest for the Sions could be completed at last.
 
The next morning, the group gathered to teleport across to the final junction. Fureva-Yung, Jaden, and Nox stood together in their matching black armour as Marius walked up with a hand out to get his daily mutation from Jaden.
“Come on, you guys. You know you want to,” Jaden teased Nox and Fureva-Yung with her free hand. Nox took the offer and gained acid resistance as Marius marvelled at his resistance to bladed weapons. Jaden slapped herself and disappeared to all who searched via scent. Fureva-Yung looked on doubtfully.
“It doesn’t seem right,” She said, her voice muffled by the trunk.
“Says the woman talking out her trunk,” Snickered Nox before taking Fureva-Yung’s hand and bamfing them into the desert.
 
The sun was much harsher this far south as the group appeared in front of the building. The landscape around the dome was dry and barren, only broken by rocks and the occasional hardy bush. As was her habit, Fureva-Yung grabbed a fresh twig off a bush and started munching before becoming aware of the metallic-oily taste. The bushes were used to predation and had worked out how to move heavy metals into their leaves as a deterrent. She looked down at the remains and saw the dark, iridescent exterior of the leaves give way to a mouldy white interior that turned her stomach. She made a face that was lost under her newly attached elephant nose.
“Did you hear rumbling?” Jaden asked as Nox headed for the left of the two doors into the dome.
“The sky is too clear for thunder,” Marius said, looking everywhere but the distracted Fureva-Yung.
 
 
The door opened into a large chamber reminiscent of the Erini Temple of Celeron. At the far end, the room narrowed to a corridor and opened up again into a triangular room. Opposite another door, three stone pillars encircled with purple crystals stood silent sentinels.
“Whew! They carry a lot of energy,” Nox exclaimed after scanning the pillars.
“I’d really like a sample of that crystal,” Jaden replied, her hands twitching.
Fureva-Yung, hearing ‘a lot of energy’, had only one thought.
Touching one.
 
Instantly, her mind was sent to a desert of purple sands. Rock formations dominated the landscape, which was even more sparse than the desert outside the dome. A wind blew across the sands, swirling thick purple dust into the air. Above her, three moons lit the night sky. She was no place she’d ever been or heard of. On Fureva-Yung’s success, Jaden did the same and gained the same image.
 
Marius looked around the room for clues. Besides a little sand that had drifted in through the door, there was nothing in the triangular room. Even the crystal-studded columns were intact; none of their surfaces were chipped or rubbed by time. Fureva-Yung did find small tracks,made by spiked feet of an insectoid creature, leading from outside to the closed door across the room.
 
Should we break a crystal off a column? Marius said to the room, and his investigations and intuition returned with a reply, No, the columns would be angry.
Jaden by this time had found her chisel in Bellyache and handed it to Fureva-Yung to chip a piece off the column.
“Don’t break the crystals!”
“Bugger!” Jaden swore.
Fureva-Yung was just about to swing back her crowbar onto the back of the chisel.
“Don’t…” Marius got out just as Fureva-Yung was encased in a force bubble much like the one they’d encountered in the shuttle. Fureva-Yung, like Nox, started floating away.
“Hey, Pillar people? We know you can sense us. We know not to hurt you. Please let Fureva-Yung go.”
As if in response, the bubble burst, and Fureva-Yung plopped down on her well-padded and rubberised rear.
“Apologies,” Jaden continued, “We now know you are sentient. Would you tell us about yourself?”
 
Suddenly, Jaden was assailed with images of the three pillars in an icy tundra, a tropical rainforest, at the bottom of an ocean. Jaden noted it wasn’t the same place changed over time, but different locations. These pillars were interstellar travellers.
 
New sentient life? Now it was Nox’s turn to be dangerously curious. Reaching out with her mind, she made a connection with the incredible energy inside the columns. Bracing herself against the flow, she made herself a fixed point in time and space and the energy and information it carried flowed around her. For the briefest moment, she understood the universe's inner workings, the significance of an alien art form and the miracle that was life. And then Nox disappeared.
“Not again!” Marius sighed.
 
 
Nox now found herself in a vast cave surrounded by pillars, much like the three in the dome. At the heart of the cave stood a pillar, bigger and more encrusted than the others. She floated towards this column with a thought as she became aware of other thoughts directed at her.
From?
Why?
Who?
In reply, Nox remembered back to the map room in the Spire. She scrolled back to see the whole universe, then zoomed in to the planet she now knew as her own. She replayed ship battles with the black malignant entity that Fureva-Yung had described and the united struggle to force it into a satellite prison. She showed the same malignant black entity and their fights against it in the Spire and their future fight in a building much like the one they found themselves in. Finally, she showed herself, as her mind’s eye saw her, a flowing energy being of light with wings.
I am Nox.
 
Nox's disappearances were becoming a habit, but Jaden felt her heart drop each time. She knew the girl was powerful and could handle herself, but it still terrified her each time.
“Ah, the curious young one that was just here. Are they safe?” She asked the pillars and was instantly flooded with a sense of reassurance and a request for patience. Having to be satisfied with the reply, she sat and busied herself with something from Bellyache. She found one of her paralysis detonations and tried figuring out how a stun baton may extend its duration.
 
“We are opposed to the malignant shard this place was designed to tackle. We need our friend back,” Marius added. He received as a reply of intense curiosity at what he had said and the feeling that the pillars did not recognise the concept of the malignant shard.
“Maybe you could share knowledge of the shard?” Jaden suggested to a concerned Fureva-Yung, “You have the most experience of all of us.”
Fureva-Yung thought for a moment, then turned to the pillars. “We will speak on this subject when Nox is back with us.”
 
The group resigned themselves to waiting. Jaden continued to tinker. Marius worked out strategies on how to find the missing Sion as soon as Nox was back. Fureva-Yung poked the pillars of stone. Circling the trio she touched random spots with her finger, gaining new images of far-flung places. Along with the images, the pillars started projecting a sense of confusion, then resignation as they realised what she was doing. When Fureva-Yung started touching two spots simultaneously, there was a sense of disbelief-annoyance-impatience that came across as a mental eye-roll.
“Yes, I agree,” Marius said with a sigh, he too was growing impatient, “How long will Nox be?”
Wonderful stories, was the sensed reply. It seemed Nox was making an impression.
 
For Nox, time meant nothing. In an instant, she had shared her story, and in the eons after, she expanded on points the pillar people found curious or confusing. Mind to mind without the hindrance of words, Nox revelled in the simplicity and ease of communication. Eventually, the queries petered out, and she became aware of the being’s gratitude. Though she did not move, she felt the sensation of falling backwards away from the cave of pillar people until she blinked and was standing on her own feet once more in the sand-strewn room. Like a spider, Fureva-Yung was spread out over the three columns, her hands and bare feet making contact.
Is this one your? Came a thought and a sense of confusion and frustration. Nox smiled and projected back and image of the war with the malignant entity, focusing in on one of the many ships at the heart of the battle. Zooming into the bridge, she shows the Captain, Fureva-Yung, the same entity that was now trying to short-circuit herself or the pillars.
Yes, she is mine. She is my Captain.
 
“Good, now we might get somewhere,” Mairus said as if Nox’s disappearance had hindered communication somehow.
“We are searching for a missing person. Have you seen one like this?” he asked the pillars, projecting a partial image he’d seen on a video feed many months ago.
The reply was negative. They had not seen him before.
“How did you get here?” Fureva-Yung asked.
Arrived, was all the answer she received and probably all they understood.
By way of thanks, Fureva-Yung tried giving a crystal scritches. She received a sharp zap in return.
No like.
 
“What’s that in your hand?” Jaden asked Nox, checking her from head to toe and seeing nothing out of the ordinary besides a small crystal in Nox’s right hand.
“Huh?” Nox examined her new acquisition, a rare and beautiful gift from the Pillar people that could make a person specialise in any skill they requested for a limited time. Nox informed Jaden what it was and handed it to her. “Here, you wanted pieces of the crystal. Maybe this was their way of giving it to you.”
“I don’t think so,” Jaden took the crystal for a moment, examined it and returned it to Nox, “I think this gift was for you.” Between them, Marius itched for the crystal cypher, knowing he currently had no place to embed it. Resignedly, he said nothing and allowed Nox to put it in her bag.
 
Back together again, the group felt comfortable moving on. The tiny footprints of the insectoid or small robot led through the doors. There had to be a way through. Nox scanned the door and discovered that though it once had been an electronic lock, it was now held closed by simple mechanical means. Jaden had it open in a moment, and the door slid open.
 
A large central chamber with a number of consoles and columns stood in the room. One floor to ceiling column was ringed by a second machine, though neither touched. Scanning this device Nox realised it had only recently been turned on and was building heat as well as other radiation. In her scan she also noticed a nasty cockroach shaped robot hanging from the ceiling.
Fureva-Yung wasted no time and grabbed the mechanical deviant. It was a footlong, rusty brown, seemingly made from scrap parts. Its legs were spindly wire, so there was hardly any contact with the ground. From inside it somewhere, Nox could feel the cold intellect of the Malignant Shard.
“Ohh! The shards inside!” she cried as Fureva-Yung noticed the robot's tone change. It was winding up to something. She threw the robot, smashing it against the roof as it exploded. Shards of robot scattered everywhere.
 
It was then they noticed the area near the column was growing hotter.
“Nox, let your friends outside know that this has been sabotaged. I’m going to see what I can do to disable it,” Jaden said, starting to tinker with the device as the air grew hotter still. Both Fureva-Yung and Marius provided cover from the radiation as Jaden found an access port and worked on shutting the column down. The air grew noticeably cooler as the tinkering took effect. Now Jaden turned her attentions not to deactivation, but understanding. What was it? What was its purpose?
 
“This is new, no more than a few weeks old, “She finally decided, standing from her studies of the defunct machine.
“A boobie trap? I bet that nasty little robot set it off,” Nox was indignant. The shard had beat them to the Eastern junction. What else was waiting ahead?
“Do you think it…tastes like the shard from Celeron or from the Spire?”Asked Fureva-Yung and Nox smiled at the odd turn of phrase. It was exactly how Nox felt about it too. Each shard had a different character that to her mind equated to a taste or sensation like it. Unfortunately, there was so little shard in the robots that she couldn’t say.
 
Marius,in the meantime, was making himself useful. He found clear human footprints as well as the marks of the small robot as well as…
“Automaton…” he said, pointing out the track marks in the drifts of sand. All tracks lead to a door on the right side of the room, “This way.”
 
This door was also locked with a mechanical lock which Jaden quickly overcame. The door opened up onto a small space holding a set of stairs leading down. Fureva-Yung led the way, followed by Marius, Jaden and Nox flying behind. At the bottom of the stairs, Fureva-Yung and Marius’ attention was caught by a beeping. Suddenly a small cylinder bounced into the eye-line. Marius leapt back, out of range. Fureva-Yung punched the cylinder, and it detonated. With a crash and a clatter, she was thrown back onto the stairs in a heap. Nox fluttered in above her.
“So we’re not going quietly, huh?”
 
Ahead a thick bulkhead held a solid-looking door. Nox scanned the wall and found she could barely penetrate it, the material was too dense.
“Ah, we don’t want to be separated by this stuff,” She said to the others, I don’t think the telepathic network will makes it through…I don’t think I can bamf out of there either.”
“Ah, but you’ll be able to bamf around in there, right?” Marius said, always thinking on the bright side, “All you have to do is bring us back to this door.” He looked thoughtfully at Fureva-Yung, “Say, do you think your tattoo will work on that door?”
“My magic arm?” Fureva-Yung looked to the tattoo and touched it at the door. It opened to her command. The footprints and trackmarks continued on.
“Ur…those footprints. Do you think the other Sion is working with the shard to open the doors?” Marius said quietly. There was no sign of forced entry. Fureva-Yung did not answer but stepped inside. She looked around and noted Ferrian technology everywhere. She smelled the air through her long nose and smelt the Numenera. She swung her crowbar to shoulder height. She wasn’t going to be surprised a second time.
 
Nox tried bamfing and even with the door still open found herself facing the solid wall. No,there would be no quick escape if things went wrong in here.
 
Jaden’s attention was taken by a floor-to-ceiling cylinder on one side of the room. Nox scanned it and found it to be an empty tube—a transport tube, much like the elevator in the Spire, this one going down. Two doors, both with footprints and tracks leading through them, were also in the room. Fureva-Yung picked up the left door.
 
Here, with a staircase leading up, were three metre-tall green egg-shaped pods.
“They don’t belong,” Fureva-Yung said as Jaden stepped up and poked the nearest. A long green tentacle snaked out and grabbed her, dragging it towards the pod that now displayed rows of sharp teeth. Where the tentacle touched, Jaden felt a cold, numb sensation. Marius blasted the pod in the mouth with his heat ray. It sliced through, and the pod began to shrivel, the tendril around Jaden relaxed and dropped away. Two more tendrils lashed out, one on Jaden and the other on Marius. This time, Jaden slipped away as Marius spun in place, dodging the tentacle before blasting a second pod to a shrivelled lump. Fureva-Yung used her shattering shout, and Nox lashed out with her own tentacle, her Mono whip. The whip missed its target and swung back on Nox, hitting her in the arm and leg. Marius blasted the third, which was already vibrating from the shout. It exploded into a goopy mess over all three of them. The goop was cold and numbing, an effect Nox noted for future medical use. Fureva-Yung ate some and found it made her tongue go numb.
 
Inside was all that was left of a person. Some armour, sixteen shins and two cyphers.