After using his key to open the massive door behind the PIMP’s small construct, the party had continued down yet another long hall. With the small golem clink-clink-clinking behind them—its one-piece legs making it move at a crawl compared to their S-Rank bodies—it hadn’t been quick. At least, not until Hiral snagged it with one of his scarves.

  From there, they’d moved much faster. Unlike Tomorrow’s Vigil, they didn’t find a titan of a construct blocking their way, with this facility being much more on the research side of things than the production. Most interestingly, there were sections of stone walls or tablets with writing on them, like Tomorrow had found them, then taken them back here for study. Or, translation?

  Other rooms contained things that looked like scrolls, some with writing Hiral didn’t recognize, while others only held images. The Soul Fragment Rendition of Colos at this back seemed to perk up at the objects, though not because he could read them. It felt more like an interest in the art in them, but Colos didn’t try to get summoned. Apparently, he knew they had more important things to do at the moment.

  That still left the question in Hiral’s mind. Were these all from before Tomorrow’s time? A culture or people from before the Progenitors came to Genesis?

  With the historical order of events being as confusing as it was, he could hardly predict what was true or even possible. The thought of a civilization before the Progenitors was a very interesting one though. Could these be artifacts from a previous cycle before the Raze reset the world? And, if they were here, were there more out there somewhere?

  Gauto would absolutely love that. Once they took back their world, there was so much for them to explore. They just needed to close some gates, deal with some squids, then do something about all that rain. Then again, Hiral already had a few ideas on how to deal with those last two, if some of his assumptions turned out to be true.

  One thing at a time.

  “How do you think the PIMP got down here?” Yanily asked quietly from one side of him, Seena on the other. Romin and Wallop took the lead, while the others were spread out evenly in the hall. They hadn’t run into any threats, but there was just too much to look at to stay bunched up. “And how did it know we would be here?”

  “It didn’t,” Hiral said. “Know we’d be here, that is. That’s why it put one little golem at each Black Gate. We’d have to come to one of them, and this way, it was sure it would run into us.”

  “You had to use your key to get into the secret tunnel where it was,” Yanily pointed out. “Unless it had it owns key? Or, maybe a little, tiny door only it could fit through.”

  “It grew in that room,” Hiral said. “There was something like a crystal cocoon in one of the corners. That had to be how it got in there.”

  “It can do that?” Seena said.

  “Sure seems that way,” Hiral said. “Bet it wasn’t fast. Probably took it years, if not longer.”

  “Four-hundred-and-sixty-two years, seven months, one week, two days, twenty-one hours, three minutes, and fifty-five seconds, to be precise,” the construct said. “This unit has been waiting for more than five-thousand years for a successful Emperor candidate.”

  “I hope you had snacks,” Yanily said.

  “This unit does not require eating.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “Negative. It’s part of the design.”

  “No, I mean… ah, you know what? Never mind. Good design.”

  “Is Yanily being the mature one?” Seena asked Hiral out of the side of her mouth, clearly loud enough for him to hear.

  “One way to put it,” Hiral said, though that was the end of the banter, as a cold energy began clawing at the edge of his sensory domain. “We’re close,” he said at the same time Seeyela did.

  “You feel it too?” she said to Hiral.

  “Straight ahead,” Hiral said.

  “It’s stronger than the one in the dungeon,” Seeyela said. “Hungrier. We should be fine since we’re S-Rank, for a while. If we hang around too long, it’s going to take a bite out of us.”

  “Can we safely pass through it?” Yanily said.

  “I’ll make sure of it,” Seeyela said. “As long as it knows we’re trying to free it, I’m sure it’ll help us.”

  “Do what you can,” Hiral said, stopping in the hall where he was. His eyes went to the PIMP’s construct, the brass hallway, and finally the intangible paths Amin Thett had created. Much like the PIMP’s insistence it transcended space, the paths were the same way. They weren’t in the tunnel with him, and yet they were. The walls didn’t stop them, nor did the earth or sky. Even more than that, the paths weren’t static. They ebbed and flowed, almost like strands of silken gossamer caught on a light breeze. “I can work with that,” he said quietly.

  “What’s that, Hiral?” Seena said.

  “Sorry, just talking to myself. I’m going to get started here, I think, reinforcing Amin Thett’s paths. I’m thinking… a tunnel of sorts. Maybe a pipe is a better description, starting here, then concentrating the paths as they move down the hall. By the time they get to the Black Gate, they should be strong enough to make it through to the other side.

  “Actually,” he said. “I’ll use the tunnel itself as the pipe. A few runes of the walls will do exactly what I need, and I won’t have to worry as much about energy degradation near the Black Gate.”

  “Is that what you would’ve done if you were a normal Builder?” Yanily said, while everybody else had stopped to listen as well.

  “If I was a normal Builder, as you put it,” Hiral said. “I’d need to be using crystal for the runes. Sure, I could do the runes on the walls like I’m about it, but I think crystal is a better conductor.”

  “Correct,” the PIMP construct said.

  “Which is why you’re made of crystal, right?” Hiral said directly to the small golem. “You expected your Emperor Candidate to inscribe the runes directly on your body, then use you as an anchor to take the path through the Black Gate.”

  “Again, correct,” the PIMP construct stated. “That option remains available should you require it.”

  “Should be fine without it,” Hiral said. “Besides, not sure your body could withstand the Edicts, which I’m planning to use. Wouldn’t want to accidentally explode you.”

  “Valid reasoning. Getting exploded would be counter-intuitive to the success of the plan.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Hiral said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get started right here.”

  “How much further is the Black Gate?” Seena said.

  “Thousand feet,” Seeyela said. “Long hall, then the room where it is.”

  “Let’s go introduce ourselves, then,” Seena said, getting on her tiptoes to give Hiral a kiss on the cheek. “See you soon.”

  “Shouldn’t take too long,” Hiral said.

  “Good. I’ll make sure Nivian and Ilrolik are ready to go through when we are. Left, Right, why don’t you two stay with Hiral? He shouldn’t be able to get up to too much mischief in a plain hall, but just in case.”

  “As long as you’re not expecting us to keep him out of trouble…” Right said.

  “More like get him out of it after he gets into it,” Seena said with a laugh, gave Hiral a second kiss on the cheek, then headed off down the hall with a wave. Behind her, the small golem waddled after her, the crystal legs making their usual clink, clink, clink on the brass floor.

  “Bullies, all of you,” Hiral muttered, but his attention was already turning to the task at hand. Since he’d started playing with the runic equations—mainly back in the Possessed city of Trevallen—it had only gotten more interesting each time he’d done another. Each time he learned something new. Little tricks, new ways to combine the runes, even more of the subordinate runes to concepts he’d connected with.

  He didn’t get he same runic inspirations as he used to when he discovered a ‘new rune’, which meant he didn’t get them inscribed on his body, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use them. That was probably the biggest wow-moment of it all. He’d used the Rune of Momentum back in Trevallen when he’d built the flying circle for the kids, and it had only been in passing he’d mentioned it was covered by his Rune of Energy.

  Some of his other runes were like that too, where he could sort of go up and down the hierarchy of them when he was using the equations. The only one he’d tried and failed to get to work was the upper-level Rune of Time. There was something going on with it—likely to do with the unique nature of Genesis—that was making it not quite work. Like it was out of sync with what it should do. As with so many things, it was something he’d have to figure out later, when he had more time to—carefully—test.

  Breaking time is the last thing I want to do accidentally.

  Chuckling to himself—and earning a worried look from Right and Left—Hiral activated Hundred Handed+, the eight spectral arms sprouting from his back, and got to work. Even before they were fully materialized, Energy glowed on their fingertips, and Hiral reached with them to the walls, ceiling, and floor.

  Despite how strong Tomorrow’s brass had a reputation for being, there was no way it could stand up to Hiral’s S-Rank power. Just a touch from the spectral hands carved lines into the brass, the Energy burning a prefect line with every stroke. Eight at a time, he carved the runic equations as he began to follow in the footsteps of the others.

  A thousand feet? That should be just enough to do what he had in mind. Here, at the beginning, it was all about drawing fragments of Amin Thett’s pathways together. Pulling the entire pathways down and funneling them through the tunnel could have unintended consequences, but splitting off a small sliver—then strengthening it—seemed to work. He couldn’t sense any degradation to the natural flow of energy, and after watching his work for thirty seconds, it was actually the opposite. He’d strengthened the work Amin Thett had done all those thousands of years ago.

  That left with him with the longer-term question of whether that was a result he wanted. Genesis was all about balance, and altering that too much would likely cause some kind of backlash. Somewhere. His work here was barely a fraction of a fraction of a percent in improvement, so it was unlikely to do much…

  Then again… no, it was better to limit things to just this much strengthening of the system, for now. Beyond this point, he’d change tactics to purely reinforcing the work he’d already done. After he got back from the other side of the Black Gates, and the squids were dealt with, he could explore whether this was a good change or not.

  “Everything okay?” Left asked.

  “Just being careful what I alter,” Hiral explained, his steps continuing as his spectral arms carved more runes into the walls.

  “Touch of Genesis is a powerful—and risky—ability,” Left said.

  “It is,” Hiral said. “There is so much I could do with it. For good… or for bad. It’s kind of scary.”

  “Worried you’re going to end up like the Fallen?” Right said.

  “If they had this kind of power,” Hiral admitted. “I don’t think they could’ve lost the war. I don’t think it would have even got to war.”

  “Good thing you aren’t like them, then, isn’t it?”

  “Aren’t I, though?” Hiral said. “I say I’m doing all this to protect the people I care about. They started out the same way.”

  “They didn’t have us to keep them on the right path,” Left said simply. “Nor did they have themselves as an example of what not to do. As long as you keep asking the question of whether or not you’re becoming like them, you won’t.”

  “Basically, what he’s saying,” Right chimed in, “is I’ll punch you if you start acting like Vorinal.”

  “Neither of us wants that,” Hiral said with only a bit of a forced laugh. It was good to always have the two of them looking out for him. “Thanks, guys.”

  “Always,” Right said. “Now, how about you finish your graffiti, and we see what’s on the other side of the Black Gate?”

  “It’s not… fine,” Hiral sighed. “I know how I’m going to do this, so it should be relatively quick.”

  “Not if you keep talking about it instead of doing it,” Left said.

  “I rescind my gratitude,” Hiral said, but his Hundred Handed was already working, cutting the runes’ lines in the hallway. After finishing about a hundred feet of it—around ten percent—Hiral jogged back to where he’d started it all. There, he called on the Edict of Attraction, to give just a little more oomph to the gathering part of the funnel. The equations he’d placed after that would keep the drawn pathways in one piece until he finished things.

  That done, he zipped back over to where he’d left off, hands once again moving as he walked slowly down the hall.

  “You know,” Right said, trailing behind Hiral with Left. “Is it just me, or do these runic equation things looks like… music? Sheet music, I mean.”

  “I see the resemblance,” Left said. “It’s not exactly the same, but the likeness is uncanny when you point it out.”

  “Not surprising, really,” Hiral said without slowing. “The Primal Chords are connected to the runes. I’m still working on figuring out how that connection actually works, but it could be the runes are the notes in the melody of the Chords. In a way, it would almost make sense. The Primal Chords seem to represent something more broad than the runes.”

  “Which do you think came first?” Right said. “It has to be the runes, doesn’t it? Can’t have music without notes.”

  “But what is one note on its own besides a discordant sound?” Left countered. “Nature is full of natural music, and it’s not until you slow them down or pull them apart, you notice the individual notes.”

  “That’s kind of a weak argument,” Right said.

  “It’s not perfect,” Left admitted.

  “You could both be correct,” Hiral said, spectral arms now a blur around him as he became more confident in his equations with every step. “We already figured out—guessed?—the Primal Chords don’t just lead us, but we also lead them.”

  “Dancers to the music,” Left said, clearly remembering the conversation.

  “And not everybody has access to runes,” Hiral continued. “I see them—hear them—in the Chords, but the others don’t. It might even just be how I’m interpreting them. Really though, does one need to come first? Couldn’t they have come together? Couldn’t they each be integral to each other?”

  “When did you become a romantic?” Right asked.

  “When I decided to get a dog with Seena?” Hiral laughed. “Seriously, though, all I know is they’re connected. Not sure why or how…” he trailed off. “Maybe something in this facility could tell us? Tomorrow looks like she was researching some old civilization…” he trailed off a second time.

  “Uh oh,” Left said. “He’s got that look.”

  “I think I need you two to do something while I finish this hall,” Hiral said.

  “Seena won’t like us letting you out of our sight,” Right said. “Better have a good reason.”

  “The Black Gate,” Hiral said. “If things don’t go well, and we’re forced to retreat, with the Raze coming after us, this place will get caught up in the battle. You saw what happened up above in the fight with the Prince. There won’t be anything left.”

  “Gauto would kill you,” Left said.

  “He absolutely would,” Hiral said. “So, could you two go and see about gathering up some of what’s in his place? Throw it in Shared Storage if you think it will be safe for it.”

  “I’ll gather the artifacts,” Right said. “Left, you’re better with Tomorrow’s systems. Maybe see if you can find the results of some of her research?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Hiral said. “Are you feeling okay, Right? It’s usually Left who does the thinking.”

  “Now who’s the bully?” Right said.

  “I am feeling my contribution to the group threatened by this new development,” Left deadpanned.

  “Can never tell if you’re serious,” Hiral said quietly, and Right nodded along with him. “Anyway, given the pace I’m getting this hallway done, you have thirty minutes or so. Make the most of it.”

  “As long as you promise not to get into trouble while we’re gone,” Right said.

  “It’s a hallway, what can happen?” Hiral said.

  “I believe Yanily would call that a flag,” Left said.

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