Fear. The concept was so silly to her yet it was present within all living things. An elusive device it often tread and lurked within the shadows of the conscious mind. Simply because one cannot recognize it does not make one devoid of it. All things must fear. A plant may not recognize fear or feel fear but deep down in its cells it knows fear, its thorns know and welcome fear with an open embrace because the concept of fear will keep it alive.
"I fear no one." Bold was her claim but behind those pale silver circlets she stood firm by the words and rose up to follow him wherever he may be leading her. They were large words but they were not hollow. There was only one thing in the life she'd lived so far that caused her heart to skip a beat, her palms to sweat over and her breaths to accelerate within her lungs. Kruger was not capable of instilling such a fear, so she believed.
She was certain she knew the man before her but as his words passed through her ears and her eyes fixated upon his form as he moved, she was in certain doubt now. A bodysnatcher may have fallen from the skies and taken advantage of Kruger prior to this meeting, or maybe he had been hiding this urgent face all along. As she followed she quickly discarded both of those thoughts and remained silent until she was warranted to speak. He was Kruger, he was the anvil that had survived the charcoals of the passing days and he was the foundation on which steel was forged, heated to a molten core and thus cooled. He was an anchor but for some reason he was different. Perhaps he hadn't changed at all and she was looking through a window which had been blinded but that couldn't explain the growing knot in her stomach.
The night isn't over yet. He nearly said the words aloud to Hope, but there was little time for debates of this nature. Instead he looked to the speaker, nodded one time and moved West down the street and away from the fountain. He was also moving away from the shop, which was more Easterly direction. The skies were dark, one moon had set, and the other had yet to rise. The sky came alive in ways they just couldn't with a moon in it. "It isn't too far?" He spoke like she was already aware of things.
Their path took them to an area where more properties were abandoned than occupied. Before them stood the old community center, just as abandoned as the other places they'd passed. The windows were gone, doors boarded up, and even those boards were pulled aside to allow access to the decrepit old structure. That wasn't his goal though, that became obvious the closer they got. Kruger veered off into the shadows and then disappeared into a hole. The ground beneath his feet slanted downwards and curved continuously inward on itself. They went deep, though once around the first bend the walls began to glow in a soft pink light. Where the walls met the floor a crystal vein was visible running the entire length of the spiral corridor. It glowed in response to him, he was sure she would come to that same conclusion once this night's work was finished
Kruger stopped at a closed door, there was a biometric padlock on the wall next to it. He placed his hand on it, a click echoed through the corridor. "Place your hand on this, and say the word Epida. Before you ask, it's Greek, it means?" He looked at the young woman and gave her a clever little smile. "...Hope."
The breach in the door sent a warm blast towards them, it carried with it the sulfur smell that Kruger could never fully rid himself of. "Very few know of the existence of this place. Brian knows it's here, as does Ahnika, but neither of them have seen what I have done to it. I don't believe either would find entry as easy as it once was." Kruger spouted off names like he thought Hope would know who he meant, or maybe the end of that statement was simply him voicing his thoughts again. He stepped through, and his carriage changed significantly. The absolute confidence he showed was that of a master of his environment. His shoulders rose, back went even straighter. His steps went from a saunter to something more possessive.
Within the light was the same pink that was present in the corridor, but here it seemed to permeate every wall and ceiling in a network of conduits that was reminiscent of circuitry inside a motherboard. The walls extended left and right in hundreds of meters, and the ceiling rose ever upwards. At the center of the space rose a wide, round pedestal a staircase wound its way around the pedestal to the very top ninety meters above the floor. Atop the pedestal, a platform rested. Details were difficult to make out in the odd light, but one thing was obvious, there was a complete forge up there.
Above that the high ceiling became an even higher dome that was easily another ninety meters up. Within the dome a giant fresco was painted of the night sky. If Hope were looking carefully, she would notice that it was a match for the sky they had just traveled under.
The walls were decorated with more paintings featuring the four elements, though there were other things as well, a great clock tower in an ancient city stood on one panel. On three others were the symbols for Chaos, a wheel with eight arrows moving beyond it from the center. the symbol for Order one thick arrow rising ever upward, and Balance, a giant set of scales. In one frame was a double tetrahedron inside of a sphere. There was one panel that had a word written in Kanji. beneath it in common was "Spirit". From the moment they entered, they were being watched, Kruger had grown used to the abyssal eyes of the clone within.
The thing watched him constantly when he worked. Now she looked at Hope, but said nothing. "Hope, this is RCP 98. She will always be here. Welcome to the place I keep my mind."
They began to tread through the clearly less maintained quarter of the city, one she had never been to. No mystery to her, there were countless things she still did not understand about the ageless city and its inhabitants, but as they drew to the slope that began to lead them down further into an abyss; she could feel some uncertainty welling within her stomach.
Once the radiance began to emit she felt some of the worry within her gut alleviate, however she was still careful to step behind him with a small degree of caution of being in the wings. As their lit path came to a climax at the locked corridor she paused in stride watching him place his hand upon the apparent locking mechanism and listened to his words. She heard the hiss and at the rush of air in accompany with his words she had a faint smile to it all. "Cycle of life huh?" She couldn't help but feel that might have been a little coincidence but she was beginning to realize the depth and planning that Kruger had long since invested into this.
Multitudes of thoughts began racing through her ears as they entered into the chamber which housed many mysteries. Above was a starlit sky, to each side one might feel as though they'd ventured into the heart of the Twilight Isle with the elements casted upon the belly of the sunken beast. The place I keep my mind. She could not fully reconcile with the notion that there were other people who had their own lock boxes, other people who too stored the fabric and machinimations of their minds within a secured universe of their own. Her's was in the form of a pit under the Tower of Fire and now she stood within Kruger's own. It was an honor really, allowed to see those secrets that the brain strangulated so well.
"It's magnificent." Words paled to complete the observations and fully articulate the shock that was through her at the serene display; a fluid blend of machinery and mysticism dawned upon her as she tilted her attention from RCP 98 with a wave to the massive forge that stood upon its pedestal. If there could ever be such a thing to harness the magnitude of what she felt here now, it might as well be defined as a world carver.
Kruger didn't thank her for the observation. It wasn't that he wasn't grateful she thought so, too few had been here for the words to mean nothing. He was pressed for time, or at least he felt that way. Instead he led Hope deeper into the gallery that held the pedestal at its center. "Are you familiar with the constellations, Hope?"
Kruger bypassed the clone, but he locked eyes with that abyssal stare. His expression softened a bit as he did so, a hint of fear gleamed in his eyes and was quickly replaced by determination. He nodded as though in response to an unvoiced question. "It's time, you know what?s required, what I plan."
"You know the risks. The original warned you, this unit has warned you. Subject Kruger proves stubborn." The clone scoffed as Kruger gave it a reckless grin. He put his hand on the railing as he'd done so many times before and began his ascent to the forge.
He didn't look back to see if Hope followed, certain her curiosity had committed her to see exactly what could be done. The platform was spacious even with the tools of his trade atop it. It's base was nearly even with the bottom of the dome, which rose above them mimicking the night sky. It was as though they had left the world behind and risen into the celestial heights. "Are you familiar with the Dark Horse Constellation?" His voice echoed through the dome, spinning about it and rising to the peak. He pointed to a formation of stars that seemed to grow larger. It gave him the sensation of moving though they had never left the pedestal.
"The red star that forms its eye isn't a star at all." The focal point grew once more, what was revealed was an immense singularity surrounded by a brilliant red quasar. "Nothing is what it seems when seen from a distance." It was warm in the forge, but still Kruger shivered.
The view was brief. When Kruger turned away from the spectacle to look at Hope, the fresco had returned to what it had been. Had it ever really changed" "Everything you see here is designed to enhance the blacksmith's song. I no longer see it as simple work, it is a symphony composed by the maker."
He turned to the anvil, an elaborately carved wooden base was shaped like a woman, kneeling and bent backwards, her face frozen in ecstasy. Where her heart would have been rose the anvil, another intricate sculpture of a smith bent on one knee. He reached for the woman with one hand, his hammer cast aside. His other arm rested on his knee to form the horn of the anvil. On the smith's back a flat plate that looked ready to hold the weight of the world. On that surface a long handled light war hammer rested. Its haft twisting upwards towards the head. Carved into the haft was an exact representation of the singularity that had appeared so briefly. Closer inspection would reveal that every carved line was really a mathematical formula in numbers almost too small to read.
The head of the hammer had been split, and hollowed out like Kruger meant for something to occupy the space. The metal was an alloy foreign to Rhy"Din, and he wasn't telling where it had come from. The shape was something Hope would recognize, a heart exactly like the one they'd created for Sandalio. This heart was pierced by a large spike, its point wicked and hardened.
The split revealed crystalline layers permeating the head of the hammer like veins of ore through a mountainside. Unlike the conduits which ran through the forge, the layers in the hammer did not glow, almost like they were waiting for a power source. "I won't insult you by teaching you what you already know. I went ahead and forged the vessel. I'll need your particular talents to work the fires hotter than I can do alone."
A menagerie of terror and wonder both mixed in the kaleidoscope of intrigue within the overwhelming construct that they resided in. Hope at first looked to the clone with a nod but as Kruger asked the questions of constellations, she began to lose sense of reality in the ever-expanding view overhead. Were they looking deep into space or was this simply introspective" There were a thousand questions that most couldn't be answered, and even if they could they would have soared right over her head. Hope had looked to the smiths tools, should a word so simple ever suffice, and the constellations had simply returned as they had been.
Particular talents. She knew precisely what that meant and it was a task that she had fit perfectly into like magma in its cast. At the hollowed part of the hammer she saw the empty space within her lungs with each hot, raspy exhale. She'd been prepared, she'd been ready to help see this voyage through with Kruger at the helm. She swallowed some hot, dry breaths and cracked her neck. The red Key of Fire at her neck was held in the right hand and she took a few more steps forward. Annwyn himself wouldn't have felt more trepidation but as Hope approached her silver hair began to waver like tides of grass in the summer breeze. Her silver pupils turned a blood crimson. Her voice was unwavering and her eyes, stoic. ?I'll give you fires that could melt Hell."
