—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
The forest ended all at once.
Where roots and moss had once claimed the ruins, only black meltstone remained — smooth as glass. The ground bore ripples like frozen water, waves caught mid-collapse.
The air changed. The warmth from below was faint but real, rising from the stone like breath from a furnace long gone cold.
The temple dominated the clearing, its silhouette jagged and vast. No vines, no overgrowth dared touch it. The structure had not crumbled so much as warped. Every line of its design curved toward the centre, as if gravity itself bent differently here.
At its heart stood the gate.
Arion slowed. A forecourt stood before him, ringed by toppled pillars and half-melted lintels. Ahead, the main entrance reared from the earth—an arch of black stone clawed by old heat, its face veined with dull metallic seams.
What he'd taken for two battered doors were not doors at all.
They were one—a single slab once fitted to the mouth of the temple, now split clean down the centre and driven into the threshold like a blade. The halves had flowed on impact, rippling into the floor and step faces as if stone had turned to wax and cooled mid-scream.
He crouched near the seam where glass met earth. Smooth. No granular texture.
His eyes narrowed.
"Vitrification," he murmured. "Peak temperature beyond structural memory. Something cut this, then pushed it in while it was still liquid."
Hhhhsss.
The air itself pulled inward. Wind curled past his ankles and slipped through the sundered gate, vanishing into the dark like water down a drain.
He glanced upward. The arch extended ten metres high, the walls on either side bearing similar distortion — not blast marks, but controlled reshaping.
"Either a weapon… or a tool with no restraint."
Faint etchings clung to what remained of the outer wall — concentric spirals, chevrons, and filigree grooves laced with metallic veins.
Energy conduits.
He followed one line with a thumb. It still shimmered faintly, the metal warm to touch.
Residual power. Dormant, not dead.
He thumbed open the journal again. The last clear note ended before the entrance.
There's no record beyond the threshold….
He exhaled through his nose. "So we go in blind."
Then he extended his right hand and channelled a coil of Vitalis along his arm. The flow felt stable again, no interference from the temple's field — clean, reactive, predictable.
"Redox Spark," he said softly, snapping his fingers.
The first arc snapped into being above his finger — a tiny pulse of red-gold plasma that crackled once before stabilising.
Normally the spell produced a short ignition burst — a spark and gone. But he needed light, not firepower.
Fzzz.
He adjusted flow rate and oxygen bias, narrowing the spiral of energy until the flame softened to a steady bead. Its core glowed white, edges fading to amber. The air around it shimmered faintly.
He smiled, quiet and tired. "Lantern mode. Hello, you."
Hummm.
He raised his finger, and the spark floated free, hovering above his hand like a tiny sun. Its glow touched the temple wall, refracting through the glassy surface in branching lines of gold.
Every groove caught the light, channeling it into intricate veins that spidered outward in all directions — the architecture itself reacting like a living diagram.
"Now that's… unexpected."
He stepped closer. The lines pulsed faintly in rhythm with the spark's flux, as though the structure recognised Luminary resonance.
He reduced feed. The glow dimmed, and the veins dulled with it.
Increased feed, they brightened again.
"Conductive harmony. Responsive structure."
His lips curved. "You're still alive under all that glass."
He moved the lantern forward. The stone underfoot shifted from rough slate to a translucent sheen. Each step sent faint reflections racing across the walls — not colour, but motion.
Within the glassy surface's, he could see warped patterns trapped in mid-flow. Frozen bubbles, tendrils, something that almost resembled ribs.
He tilted the light. The shapes caught firelight, becoming faintly red.
Bones? No. Petrified organic channels, maybe once alive.
"Vitrified tissue," he whispered. "Something got caught in the melt."
The wind deepened. A soft current of air brushed past his robe, drawn into the throat of the structure. The sound inside the temple changed pitch, a hollow resonance that stirred somewhere deep below.
He let the spark drift higher until it hovered just above his shoulder, the light settling into a soft, steady pulse.
"Alright, friend," he murmured to the spark. "Let's see what the madman left us."
He took one last look at the glassy reliefs, their surfaces glowing like veins under skin, then stepped inside. Air pressure shifted — a brief pulse, as if the temple inhaled.
The Redox Spark flared as his boot crossed the threshold.
Light bent, sound thinned, and for a heartbeat he thought the world behind him vanished.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
The grand hallway swallowed him whole. High ceilings arched above like a throat of glass and stone, ribs of fused crystal and dark metal running the length of it. Each line felt deliberate — channels meant to guide Luminary itself through the temple's body.
Redox Spark hovered over his shoulder, a lazy ember-blue flame humming with quiet intelligence. Arion tore a strip from his dried fish snake and chewed as he walked, the taste salty, smoked, reassuringly mundane. He flicked a piece toward the flame.
"There you go, buddy. Ration it now, we don't have—"
The Spark flared mid-sentence, swallowing the morsel whole. Its flicker burst for a heartbeat — a flame's burp.
Its colour deepened, pulsing brighter, trails of light threading through the nearest walls.
"—Never mind." A small chuckle escaped him.
He passed beneath a collapsed arch, the air cooler here, dust moving in slow sheets across the floor. The smell carried a faint metallic edge, as though the building itself still held its past state.
He traced the glowing veins — warm to the touch, thrumming gently, proof the channels still lived.
This is no simple temple.
The thought lingered. Whatever purpose this place once served, it had long since bled out. Only its bones remained.
He kept walking, studying every crack and groove, every door choked by fallen debris. The Spark's light bounced across shards of translucent glassstone, throwing moving lattices over the ceiling. The deeper he went, the more the silence pressed.
Eventually he stepped into a wider chamber and stopped.
A kitchen.
Old, but unmistakably domestic — long counters, half-collapsed shelves, and a wide basin of dark metal now filled with ice dust. For a moment, the familiarity hit harder than the strangeness. The concept of a normal room in this world felt alien.
Clink.
He muttered under his breath. "Too normal. That's what's wrong with it."
He wandered through the remnants — stoves cracked open like fossils, something that might once have been a refrigerator, its door hanging by a single hinge.
Time had done what war couldn't.
On the main table, a mockery of a meal still waited. Plates, half-bowls, utensils scattered mid-motion, as if dinner had been interrupted centuries ago. The food lay preserved in thin frost, outlines still visible beneath the glaze. Arion reached down and brushed a piece of bread-like matter.
Crkk.
It collapsed instantly, turning to powder.
He exhaled softly. "Some people really did have it too good."
The Spark flickered above the table, shedding a faint amber wash across the ruined feast. The light made the plates shimmer, revealing veins of something crystalline threaded through the ceramics — residue of Essence perhaps, or remnants of preservation gone wrong.
He crouched, picking up a fork half-buried in dust. The metal crumbled between his fingers. Everything here felt fragile, like one wrong breath could erase the last trace of whoever lived here.
A drip echoed from somewhere deeper in the ruin — rhythmic, patient.
Arion set the fork down, brushed his hands clean. "Well… hospitality's dead."
He glanced once more at the table, then turned for the corridor. The Spark bobbed ahead, trailing faint sparks that clung briefly to the walls before fading, marking their path like breadcrumbs of light.
The deeper chambers waited — darker, quieter, and still pulsing faintly with energy.
He followed.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
Field Entry:
Redox Spark [Lantern Mode] – Sustained Luminosity
──────────────────────────────
Redox modified for endurance — no discharge, no burn.
Vitalis coils tight, compressing plasma pressure instead of expanding it.
The flame stabilises, breathing in sync with me — white-amber light, low heat.
On Earth, this would be a plasma torch under containment.
Here, the Luminary acts as the field stabiliser, keeping energy below ignition threshold.
Science:
Vitalis pressure differential creates a micro-plasma equilibrium.
Reduced oxygen feed = minimal combustion.
Continuous illumination sustained through Vitalis resonance feedback — like holding lightning in a jar.
In Layman Terms:
I taught a lightning bolt how to glow instead of explode.
Keep pressure high, feed low, and it'll hum quiet — like a tired star refusing to die.
Makes a good lantern, better company.
Maxim:
Light is not born — it's negotiated.