Why tell me now" I asked firmly, leaning forward.
"Because I have already felt my heart begin to shift. Whether or not I can hold control before the arrival of the Creatures of Dark is now uncertain. And so, I need you, and those who share the same heart as you, to help me. We will need to work together to maintain the output necessary to reach our freedom."
"But you said anyone less than Transcendent would...perish..." My words trailed off as I realized what was being asked.
"Yes, my boy" Theron looked at me grimly. "I ama asking if you are willing to sacrifice yourself to save these people."
The silence in the office stretched, thick with the weight of Theron's confession and his impossible request. I looked at my hands, then at the worn carpet beneath my feet, anywhere but at the Saint's weary, expectant gaze. My mind, usually a whirlwind of analysis and schemes, was stunned into a rare, blank stillness.
He was asking me to die. Not in the abstract, hypothetical death of a future battle, but in a very concrete, immediate way. To pour my life force into a divine artifact until I was erased, soul and all, to buy a few hundred people a chance to run from a horror I had seen consume everything in a vision.
And the truly terrifying part was that I saw no reason to refuse.
What was the alternative? Wait for the monsters? Die screaming, torn apart in the temple's courtyard, my death just one among hundreds? Or perhaps be "mercifully" ended by a despairing Theron if his control finally snapped? My grand plan of manipulation had been based on a fundamental misunderstanding. There was no army to rally, no glorious last stand to organize. There was only this: a desperate, silent, digging operation against time, powered by the sacrifice of souls.
A strange, cold calm settled over me. This was the Curator's game, wasn't it? This was the "interesting story." Not a tale of cunning and power, but one of brutal, necessary sacrifice. I should have expected it, really. Not all Nightmares require brute force and killing to clear, though killing is usually still a factor. A game where the clear condition hinges on sacrifice, whether your own or others, would probably be more exciting to watch than just a battle.
"How long?" I asked, my voice surprisingly steady. "How long have you been digging?"
Theron's shoulders slumped further, as if the question itself carried a physical weight. "Weeks. Since the first refugees arrived and I knew this would be the final haven. The mountain's roots are deep, Adam. Impossibly deep. And the rock… it is not natural stone. It is infused with the same ancient power that the Radiance embodies. It resists its own."
Weeks. A Transcendent being, channelling a sliver of divine power for weeks, and he was still digging. The sheer scale of it was mind-boggling. A normal Transcendent could level a city block, but to tunnel through miles of magically reinforced mountain? It was a task for a Sovereign, maybe even a Sacred. The Radiance's power must be… astronomical. A true sliver of deific might.
And he'd been doing it alone. The isolation of it, the immense, silent burden, suddenly made his hollow eyes and weary posture make perfect, horrifying sense. He hadn't been passive. He'd been exhausted, pouring every ounce of his being into a hole in the ground.
"You can't finish it alone," I stated, the truth of it settling in my gut like a stone. "Not before they get here."
"No," he admitted, the word a soft exhalation of defeat. "I cannot. The progress is measured in metres a day. The strain… it is…" He trailed off, unable to even describe it.
That was the final piece. There was no choice. Refusal meant everyone died for certain. Acceptance meant I died, but maybe, just maybe, enough others would live for my death to have meaning. It was a brutal, simple equation.
I looked up from the floor and met his gaze. The fear was still there, a cold knot in my stomach, but it was overshadowed by that eerie calm. This was the role I had been given. The Fool who had seen the end, now tasked with forging the escape.
"Alright," I said. "I'll help you. What do you need me to do?"