Quote Originally Posted by grampagen View Post
The crystalline veinwork below them reached deeper into the ground. Ochazuke felt it where his senses brushed against the physical structure that fed into the source, but Held's Shingan, eyes keenly trained for the needs of etching summoner's runes , had a finer read on the details.

It was a strange impression. The metaphysical energies rendered with a rush of intensity, almost as if his eyes had adjusted for night thrust before being turned toward the open the sun, yet somehow in totality the vision was somehow without harshness, warm and inviting a lingering gaze.

A subtle thing like quicksilver pushing through the ground, connected to the vital presence inherent in the Leylines and the life-energy of those who tread near carrying the pulse of ki where Damask set foot upon rock and turf nearby like captured light. Tangled beneath the obelisk tree were hidden veins of these resonant crystals, the roots beneath the withered thing were intertwined with these luminous deposits. Once it had drawn its sustenance and light from these, reaching its heights in the darkness, but now thought it yet lived, it lingered to no avail.

Surrounding the tree were the remains of thirteen stone effigies, and where they were not otherwise crumbling under moss the pearl-white stone were exposed from where they had been gouged. The tallest at the centre had been cut diagonally downward from the shoulder, and no head - much less any face - remained. Something had befallen this place. The roots ran deep and clutched their foundations; smothered by the past malady, it would never bloom again, ancient branches were suspended in the airs of another age.

The vital source illuminate fed deeper into the strata, and reached into the structure fathoms below Charlie Base. They were not merely some resonant substance, but the mortar that held together a great city buried further underground.
Held was silent, his attention enchanted by the raw energy and power coursing through the grove, so immense and yet so gentle. It was obvious enough why this place was so special among the Vermilion Kingdom, the lifeblood of the earth streaming vigorously in this nexus like a still beating heart.

It took a moment for him to break the hypnotic gaze he found himself under, focusing on the task.

Slowly, a cool disease swept over the Nevadian as he further surveyed the ruins, clearly rent asunder by.....



"Hrrmh," Ochazuke pondered, the meditational field of sense-awareness picking up the shape of the chamber Held might have been able to see more directly, following the path of the nodules of energy. Pillar-columns twisted apart, bisected walls and shattered stairways that led nowhere. "Whatever had befallen this place had quite literally buried it."

Then at the edge of the Shingan's field of view, something stirred. First it was as if the image of the sequestered briefly out of focus from the distance and effort of peering through its substance. Then, as if blurred at the edges, it read like a silhouette. Something was stirring down there. Its true nature unreadable, but its countenance was gargantuan.

Suddenly, the heavy steel thud of a latch rang through the ancient stony hollow of the King's Grove, followed by footfalls. Somebody approached.

"Raider officers." Ochazuke mulled, "Jack, focus, keep us concealed."

There was more than one voice, and their conversation at this distance was indecipherable, where it echoed but was quite animated, with passionate disagreement.

The Golem's stream of consciousness lurched in a brief inner monologue that reached them where they stood within; fleeting, abstract, like the meaning without words.

Comrades, Echoed Damask's thoughts, an intonation that was as much an affirmation as it was a query to the group. Rendezvous?
"There's something down there..."

That?

".....I can't quite discern 'what' it is." Held replied, his concentration fully engaged as he strained the limits of his Shingan, "But there's certainly an 'it'."

I don't have a clue what the hell that is? Is it because of the dampening field and the range? Or...Is it something else?

He exhaled, frowning "Either way, it's very big.." He said, turning to his comrades from within Damask, taking care to lower his voice, lest he draw unnecessary attention, "And it's existence does not fill me with greater confidence on this mission."