1 hour ago
As they walked, the narrow path suddenly fell away, opening into a gargantuan amphitheater carved from the very foundations of the plane. Here, the industry of the Crevice was revealed. It was a workshop of worlds vast enough to house cities, yet silent save for the hum of something like blazing starlight.
"Observe the laborers of your intent, Sire,” Gorinthian said, his voice dry with the resonance of stone grinding upon stone. He gestured with a long, fuzzy finger toward the floor below. "They do not tire. They do not wonder. They simply are, because you willed them to be."
Adrian looked down and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. Thousands of figures moved through the silver haze. These were the Archivists, Gorinthian explained, creatures that looked like spindly, multi-limbed skeletons made of faceless porcelain. Their many hands moved with terrifying precision, plucking threads of raw light from the air and winding them onto massive, obsidian bobbins. They were sorting the "Unfinished Thoughts”, though Adrian could not discern whose thoughts they sorted.
Patrolling the perimeter of the works were the Sentinels. They were towering monoliths of shifting shadow, armor-clad and similarly faceless, holding pikes of solid lightning frozen in time. They moved with a synchronized, heavy tread that shook the stone under Adrian’s feet as they moved. They were not protectors of people, but of borders. They stood guard at the places where the Dream grew thin, their very presence thickening the air until it was impenetrable.
"They are quite efficient in their utility, are they not?" Gorinthian continued. “They carry the burden of your vigilance while you slumber in the flesh. In your absence, they have labored to maintain the shroud of your kingdom.”
Adrian watched them, his jaw tight. He felt a kinship with them that was as unsettling as it was profound. He recognized the stubbornness in the Archivists’ movements. The same refusal to leave a task unfinished that had plagued him in every day life. He saw his own cold fury in the Sentinels’ stance. They were not his servants; they were his fragments. He was looking at a mirror of himself shattered into a thousand industrious pieces.
They moved past the workshops to a ledge that overlooked a single landmark. It stood in the center of a circular pit of absolute darkness: a pillar of white basalt, jagged and raw, as if it had been torn from the heart of a sun and frozen in mid-explosion. It rose hundreds of feet into the air, its surface etched with millions of tiny, glowing fissures.
"This is the Anchor," Gorinthian whispered, his tone shifting to one of reverence. "The center of the Labyrinth. Every secret you have ever kept, every truth you have hidden from the world, is etched into this stone. It is the leaden core of your Shroud."
Adrian felt a strange sense of need return, a physical hook in his chest pulling him toward the jagged stone. He walked to the edge of the pit, the white light of the pillar blindingly bright against the velvet black of the void below. He didn’t know why, but as he reached out, his hand trembled until he forced it into stillness. As his fingers brushed the cold, razor-sharp surface of the basalt, the world didn't just vanish, it pulled him into it.
A deluge of Purpose overtook him. He felt the presence of himself, but not just himself, a hundred selves, a thousand, maybe infinite selves standing exactly where he stood now. He felt the cold, calculating intent of something he must do. Something that must be obfuscated, dangerous to the point that existence itself would cease to exist if it wasn’t hidden deep enough. Buried so far from the exploratory probing of souls desperate to crawl into the unknown, that their desperation would be their very undoing.
There wasn’t just something in the dream that must be shrouded. It was the dream itself. Like the atmosphere of a planet where humans could not know anything beyond the light existed. Their ignorance must be maintained. And the desperate desire to thicken that atmosphere, like a lead shroud around the heart of humanity, crept into his bones.
He gasped, pulling his hand away as if burned. The weight of it was a physical blow; he felt the centuries of solitude, the staggering responsibility of keeping the world "blind" for its own safety.
“Yours is a heavy crown to wear, is it not my liege?" Gorinthian asked, standing still as a statue beside him. "To be the one who ensures the dark stays away by ensuring the light stays dim."
Adrian looked at his hands, expecting to see the boils of third degree burns, but instead, all he saw was the skin and flesh of an ancient, tired being. But above all, he felt the cold, inexorable will of himself twist back into his awareness.
"The work is not finished,” Adrian said, his voice sounding deeper, echoing with the authority of the pillar itself. He looked out over the Crevice, at the Archivists and the Sentinels, and for the first time, he felt like the Master of the Works.
“It never is,” Gorinthian replied.
"Observe the laborers of your intent, Sire,” Gorinthian said, his voice dry with the resonance of stone grinding upon stone. He gestured with a long, fuzzy finger toward the floor below. "They do not tire. They do not wonder. They simply are, because you willed them to be."
Adrian looked down and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. Thousands of figures moved through the silver haze. These were the Archivists, Gorinthian explained, creatures that looked like spindly, multi-limbed skeletons made of faceless porcelain. Their many hands moved with terrifying precision, plucking threads of raw light from the air and winding them onto massive, obsidian bobbins. They were sorting the "Unfinished Thoughts”, though Adrian could not discern whose thoughts they sorted.
Patrolling the perimeter of the works were the Sentinels. They were towering monoliths of shifting shadow, armor-clad and similarly faceless, holding pikes of solid lightning frozen in time. They moved with a synchronized, heavy tread that shook the stone under Adrian’s feet as they moved. They were not protectors of people, but of borders. They stood guard at the places where the Dream grew thin, their very presence thickening the air until it was impenetrable.
"They are quite efficient in their utility, are they not?" Gorinthian continued. “They carry the burden of your vigilance while you slumber in the flesh. In your absence, they have labored to maintain the shroud of your kingdom.”
Adrian watched them, his jaw tight. He felt a kinship with them that was as unsettling as it was profound. He recognized the stubbornness in the Archivists’ movements. The same refusal to leave a task unfinished that had plagued him in every day life. He saw his own cold fury in the Sentinels’ stance. They were not his servants; they were his fragments. He was looking at a mirror of himself shattered into a thousand industrious pieces.
They moved past the workshops to a ledge that overlooked a single landmark. It stood in the center of a circular pit of absolute darkness: a pillar of white basalt, jagged and raw, as if it had been torn from the heart of a sun and frozen in mid-explosion. It rose hundreds of feet into the air, its surface etched with millions of tiny, glowing fissures.
"This is the Anchor," Gorinthian whispered, his tone shifting to one of reverence. "The center of the Labyrinth. Every secret you have ever kept, every truth you have hidden from the world, is etched into this stone. It is the leaden core of your Shroud."
Adrian felt a strange sense of need return, a physical hook in his chest pulling him toward the jagged stone. He walked to the edge of the pit, the white light of the pillar blindingly bright against the velvet black of the void below. He didn’t know why, but as he reached out, his hand trembled until he forced it into stillness. As his fingers brushed the cold, razor-sharp surface of the basalt, the world didn't just vanish, it pulled him into it.
A deluge of Purpose overtook him. He felt the presence of himself, but not just himself, a hundred selves, a thousand, maybe infinite selves standing exactly where he stood now. He felt the cold, calculating intent of something he must do. Something that must be obfuscated, dangerous to the point that existence itself would cease to exist if it wasn’t hidden deep enough. Buried so far from the exploratory probing of souls desperate to crawl into the unknown, that their desperation would be their very undoing.
There wasn’t just something in the dream that must be shrouded. It was the dream itself. Like the atmosphere of a planet where humans could not know anything beyond the light existed. Their ignorance must be maintained. And the desperate desire to thicken that atmosphere, like a lead shroud around the heart of humanity, crept into his bones.
He gasped, pulling his hand away as if burned. The weight of it was a physical blow; he felt the centuries of solitude, the staggering responsibility of keeping the world "blind" for its own safety.
“Yours is a heavy crown to wear, is it not my liege?" Gorinthian asked, standing still as a statue beside him. "To be the one who ensures the dark stays away by ensuring the light stays dim."
Adrian looked at his hands, expecting to see the boils of third degree burns, but instead, all he saw was the skin and flesh of an ancient, tired being. But above all, he felt the cold, inexorable will of himself twist back into his awareness.
"The work is not finished,” Adrian said, his voice sounding deeper, echoing with the authority of the pillar itself. He looked out over the Crevice, at the Archivists and the Sentinels, and for the first time, he felt like the Master of the Works.
“It never is,” Gorinthian replied.