Chapter 10: The Ballad of Three Stars
The legendary artifacts changed the dynamic within the Silent Sanctum. A quiet confidence settled over the trio, a sense of being truly equipped for the monumental task they had undertaken. Kaela practiced with the Warden's Edict daily, not just drills but meditations, learning to feel the moment to invoke its [Law of Denial]. Lyra's Chorister's Bloom allowed her to perceive the emotional and spiritual "health" of the sanctum itself, tuning its ambient harmony like a master musician. Elara, wearing the Logician's Gaze, spent hours staring at walls, at the hearth, at the air itself, murmuring equations and theories that rewrote the Academy's textbooks in her mind.
Shiya, however, felt a new pressure. The [Final Quest] progress had stalled at 1%. The truth of Elysium Prime was a vast tapestry, and he held only a single, dark thread. He needed to find others. The custodian's message had mentioned other legacies of the war.
He gathered his council at the hearth. "We need to look beyond Astraea. The key, the Fragment—they're one piece. There must be other vaults, other… prisons, or perhaps archives from the time of the Star-Drowner War."
Elara didn't look up from the data-stream only she could see. "Logical. A conflict of that scale would leave multiple scars. The 'Lament' here was a curse-seal. Other sites may have different protective measures. Historical records are unreliable, purged or mythologized by the Church. We require primary sources."
"Primary sources that might be guarded by things that make Templars look tame," Kaela added, her hand resting on her sword's pommel. "We can't just go exploring. We need a direction."
Lyra, who had been gently stroking a glowing flower in her lap, spoke softly. "The land… the deeper songs… they whisper of places that 'drink the sky' and 'dream of drowned light'. I never understood them before. They felt like nursery rhymes for the earth. But now, with the Bloom…" She looked up, her eyes distant. "I think they're directions. Spiritual landmarks corrupted into folklore."
It was a lead. Shiya focused on her. "Can you map them? Find the closest one?"
"I can try. It's like listening for a specific note in a symphony of continents. It will take time, and quiet."
"Then we give you quiet," Shiya declared. "Elara, assist her. Use the Gaze to correlate her spiritual impressions with any anomalous geological or mana survey data the Crown or the Academy might have—legally acquired or otherwise."
A flicker of a smile touched Elara's lips. "A delightful cross-disciplinary experiment."
The sanctum entered a period of focused research. Lyra would meditate for hours in the garden or at the edge of the vault ramp, her staff glowing, listening to the deep songs of the world. Elara built a complex astrolabe-like device from spare crystals, cross-referencing Lyra's nebulous impressions with stolen survey maps and her own scans of the leyline network.
Shiya used the time to strengthen the sanctum's external defenses. With Elara's guidance, he used the Forge of Echoes to create lesser artifacts—warding stones that could be placed around the entrance plaza, creating a layered defensive matrix that would slow, confuse, and weaken any large-scale assault.
A week into their efforts, Lyra emerged from a deep trance, pale but excited. "I have one. A strong one. It's a 'place that drinks the sky'. To the north, in the Sky-Shatter Mountains. The song there is… cold. Not evil, but lonely. And there's a counter-melody, a faint, persistent hum of containment, like ours but… older. Weaker."
[New Quest: 'Seek the Sky-Drinker's Prison'. Travel to the northern Sky-Shatter Mountains and locate the secondary Star-Drowner containment site.]
This was it. Their first expedition. But they couldn't all go. The sanctum couldn't be left undefended, especially with the Church and the Frostgraves watching.
"It must be you, Shiya," Kaela said, her voice firm. "The key responds to you. You are the only one who can safely interact with another vault. Lyra should go as well; her connection to the land's song will be essential for pinpointing the location and understanding its spiritual state."
"And I," Elara stated, adjusting her circlet. "My Gaze will be necessary to analyze any security protocols or data-echoes you encounter. The tactical and defensive knowledge gained could be critical."
That left the sanctum undefended. Kaela saw the conflict on Shiya's face. "I will hold this place," she said, her voice leaving no room for argument. "My Edict is a defensive tool by nature. With the knights and the new wards, I can deny any attempt to breach. You must go. The truth won't find itself."
It was the right, if difficult, choice. Kaela was the bedrock. The sanctum was her charge.
Preparations were swift. Using the Forge and Alchemy Atelier, they prepared for a harsh mountain environment: potions of frost resistance, climbing gear woven with levitation charms, and compact rations synthesized by the hearth. Elara prepared a portable version of her scanning apparatus.
Two days later, at dawn, Shiya, Lyra, and Elara stood at the sanctum's entrance. Kaela faced them, her armor gleaming in the pale light. "Find what you seek. And come back. That's an order from your Martial Advisor." Her eyes held Shiya's for a long moment, fierce with unspoken emotion.
"We will," he promised.
The journey north was a study in contrasts. Shiya could have traversed the distance in minutes using his full speed, but with Lyra and Elara, they traveled by a combination of hired carriage and, once the foothills began, magical steeds conjured by Elara—constructs of ice and light that moved with tireless grace.
The Sky-Shatter Mountains lived up to their name. Peaks like broken teeth clawed at the sky, and deep valleys were choked with perpetual mist. The air grew thin and biting. Lyra guided them, her eyes closed part of the time, following the "cold, lonely song."
After three days of arduous travel, she stopped them on a narrow ledge overlooking a vast, circular valley shrouded in cloud. "Here. The song is loudest here. But… it's wrong. The containment hum is fraying. There's a crack in the melody."
Elara activated her Gaze, the gem on her forehead blazing. "Confirmed. Massive, structured mana sink below us. Spatial folding anomalies. And… life signs. Not human. Drawn to the leaking energy."
"Something's broken," Shiya said, his senses reaching out. He could feel it too—a slow, cold seepage of entropic energy, different from the perfect silence of his Fragment, but related. "And something's feeding on it."
They descended into the valley, the mist parting reluctantly before Shiya's will. At the valley's heart, they found the prison.
It was not a building, but a wound in the mountain itself—a perfectly circular shaft, hundreds of meters across, plunging into absolute darkness. The edges were smooth, glassy, as if the stone had been melted and frozen instantaneously. A low, discordant hum vibrated in their bones. This was the "Sky-Drinker."
And around the rim, like maggots on a corpse, were creatures. They were hunched, bipedal, with skin like grey stone and eyes that were pits of the same cold, entropic energy that seeped from the shaft. They were gnawing on the glassy rim, their touch causing faint cracks to spiderweb out.
[Analysis]
Entity: Entropy Ghasts
Level: 70-90
Threat: Moderate-High (Reality-Corrosive Touch, Drains Mana/Life)
Note: Minor entities spontaneously generated by prolonged exposure to uncontained Star-Drowner resonance. Driven to consume order and deepen the breach.
"The prison is failing," Elara said, her voice clinical despite the danger. "The containment field has degraded by approximately 17%. These creatures are a symptom, not the cause. The cause is within."
"Then we go in," Shiya said. "Lyra, can you soothe the fraying melody? Strengthen it from out here?"
Lyra gripped her staff, her face determined. "I can try. I'll sing a binding song, try to patch the cracks in the containment's spirit. It will draw them to me."
"It's too dangerous," Shiya objected.
"It's my role," she said, meeting his gaze. "You have to go down and fix the source. I'll hold the line here. Elara, can you give me covering fire?"
Elara nodded, already summoning intricate ice-lances in the air around her. "Adequate test conditions for anti-entropic spell formulations."
Shiya saw the resolve in their faces. They were not damsels. They were his council, each with a part to play. He nodded. "Don't take unnecessary risks."
With that, he stepped off the rim and dropped into the darkness of the Sky-Drinker.
The fall was long. He landed lightly in another vault, similar in principle to his own but utterly different in execution. Where his vault was a chamber of silent containment, this was a cage of agony.
In the center hung another Fragment, smaller, more jagged, like a shard of broken obsidian. But it wasn't still. It vibrated, and with each vibration, razor-sharp waves of null-energy lashed out, scouring the walls of the cylindrical chamber. The walls were covered in runes, but many were shattered, glowing faintly as they desperately tried to repair themselves against the Fragment's constant, painful struggle. This prison wasn't a perfect stasis; it was a torture chamber, designed to actively break the Fragment's will, and it was itself breaking under the strain.
The custodian here had chosen a different path: not peaceful containment, but violent suppression. And it was failing.
[Secondary Containment Vault – 'The Screaming Pillar' – Status: Critical Failure Imminent.]
Shiya approached, the Seal-Breaker key glowing in protest against the chaotic energy. The Fragment seemed to sense him, its vibrations intensifying, focusing on him. A wave of null-energy hit him, a sensation not of damage, but of un-becoming. His [Mana Supremacy] and infinite stats shrugged it off, but he understood the horror. Anything less would have been erased from existence.
He couldn't use persuasion here. This Fragment was insane with pain and rage. He had to reinforce the prison. But the runes were alien, their logic one of brutal force.
[Logician's Gaze – Data-Link Established.] Elara's voice spoke in his mind through the linked artifacts. "I am analyzing the runic matrix. It is a pain-feedback loop. The Fragment's own energy is used to power the lashing effect. A flaw in runic sequence Gamma-7 is causing the degradation. You must correct it."
A schematic superimposed on his vision, highlighting a cracked, smoldering rune on the far wall. To reach it, he'd have to cross the chamber through the lashing waves.
Shiya moved. He didn't dodge; he walked. The waves hit him, each one a symphony of erasure that dissolved against his immutable existence. He reached the rune. He had no tools, but he had his finger. He poured a thread of his own mana, not to overpower, but to redefine, using the Seal-Breaker's authority as a template of order.
He traced the correct lines over the broken rune. The stone sizzled, then solidified, glowing with a fierce, clean light.
The effect was immediate. The lashing waves weakened, their frequency dropping. The Fragment's vibrations became less violent, more a tired shudder.
"Matrix stability increased to 42%. Continue. There are seventeen more critical failures."
For the next hour, Shiya was a technician in a hellish power plant, moving through the storm of null-energy, repairing broken runes under Elara's remote guidance. With each repair, the chamber grew quieter, the Fragment's struggle subsiding into a quiescent, exhausted thrum.
Finally, the last rune was fixed. The screaming silence ceased. The Fragment hung still, contained once more, not in peaceful stasis, but in a deep, enforced slumber. The prison was whole, but its method was brutal. A necessary evil from a more desperate time.
[Quest: 'Seek the Sky-Drinker's Prison' – Completed.]
[Reward: 5% Progress on Final Quest. New Understanding: 'Methods of Containment – Suppression Model'.]
[Artifact Synergy: Seal-Breaker key has absorbed data on suppression runes. Authority increased slightly.]
Exhausted not physically, but psychically from the relentless assault on his being, Shiya flew back up the shaft.
He emerged to a scene of battle. Dozens of Entropy Ghast lay shattered around the rim, frozen by Elara's precise lances or unraveled by Lyra's harmonic songs. Lyra was on her knees, leaning on her staff, singing a continuous, weary but powerful note that formed a shimmering dome of green-gold light over the rim, sealing the cracks the ghasts had made. Elara stood protectively in front of her, her circlet blazing, deflecting stray blasts of entropic energy with shields of crystalline logic.
They were holding. They were winning.
Seeing Shiya emerge, Lyra's song ended on a triumphant crescendo. The dome solidified, becoming one with the glassy rim, stronger than before. The last few ghasts wailed and dissolved.
Silence returned to the valley, now a true silence, not of leaking entropy, but of restored peace.
Elara helped Lyra to her feet. Both women were pale, mana-depleted, but their eyes shone with triumph.
"It's sealed," Shiya said. "It will hold for another few centuries, at least."
Lyra smiled, a tired but radiant thing. "The song is whole again. It's not happy, but it's… at rest. Thank you."
Elara simply nodded, already downloading the data from the repaired runes via her Gaze. "Fascinating. A brute-force approach. Inefficient but effective under duress. The data on pain-to-energy conversion is… gruesomely elegant."
As they made camp to recover before the journey back, Shiya looked at his two companions. They had faced a leaking existential threat and not only survived but triumphed. Lyra's gentle spirit had hardened into resilient will. Elara's cold intellect had been tempered by protective action.
They were more than a harem. More than a council. They were a fellowship.
And as they sat under the cold mountain stars, the Seal-Breaker key pulsed warmly against his chest. It was a map, and it was now subtly brighter, pointing not just to the silent sanctum beneath Astraea, but faintly, toward other points on the continent. Other prisons. Other legacies.
The truth of Elysium Prime was a network of buried nightmares. And Shiya de Leyyes, with his Knight holding the home front, his Healer mending the world's wounds, and his Scholar deciphering its darkest secrets, had just taken his first real step into the shadows of history. The Ballad of Three Stars—Knight, Healer, Scholar—had found its first verse in the mountains. And the world, sleeping atop its forgotten tombs, was beginning to stir.