On the seventh night, I forced entry into the vault my family owned.
The term "forced entry" might be more dramatic than necessary when describing what took place. The vault belonging to the Valdrake estate was located three floors underground from the main residence of the Duke, and to access this area, there was a concealed stairway behind one of the shelves in the Duke's home office. I had thought it seemed almost as if the game developers had been slacking off while creating the dungeon. I was wrong; the way the bookshelf opened was a high-quality piece of Void enchanted technology; and the steps that led down to the vault were cut through solid stone, reinforced with extensive protective sigils, which would make an earthquake think twice.
To enter the outer door to the vault, one needed to use Valdrake blood. My hand connected with the cold black steel, resulted in a blood prick and, as expected, a small amount of Void contaminated blood soaking into the steel surface. The door did recognize me. The security mechanisms unlocked and a door made from two tons of enchanted steel silently swung on a hinge; it must be the Valdrake family's way of making an ominous statement.
I stepped into the vault.
In the game, the Valdrake vault only contained a single room: the treasure room, where Cedric could find the family equipment that he would later use during the academy arc of the game. The treasure room contained only three items the player could interact with: a sword, a suit of armor, and a cultivation manual; any player would complete their exploration of the room in about two to three minutes.
The actual vault was a maze of rooms and corridors.Walking into the outer chamber felt like traversing into the biggest room I'd ever been in before. It had a gigantic vaulted ceiling and lights similar to the Void Sigil lanterns that lit my way — one at a time, in a pattern, creating a sort of illusion of darkness and light, like a lamp for the Valdrake family in a place where people would typically use candles. The walls were covered in racks containing a plethora of weapons: Swords, spears, halberds, daggers, all vibrated with Aether energy.
There were two large display cases with a variety of artifacts. I couldn't make sense of the many different types of stones that emitted a pulsating light, various vials of liquid that appeared to defy gravity, and the set of rings, amulets, and circlets arranged carefully on velvet, like a collection of Crown Jewels.
Unfortunately, the outer chamber was only anentrance to a very large structure. To the rear of the outer chamber were four distinct passages. Each passage was identified by a unique symbol carved into the inset of the entry arch for that passage. The entries of these passages included:
– A sword, for the Armory
– A book, for the Archive
– A circle bisected by a line, to signify the Void Sovereignty training Hall
The last passage symbol is unlike anything I had previously encountered. The last passage had a small hand, palm up, and with fingers slightly bent, as though a child were reaching for something or requesting assistance.
I stood transfixed, staring at this last symbol. To this point, my journey had shown me three rooms — and there are four.
I figured I could only follow the path laid out before me, and I had a good idea where I should start looking for the Archive.
In contrast to the other corridors, the Archive entry corridor was short — roughly 30 ft in length, made of black stone — and opened up into a round room with shelves that went all the way to the ceiling. The shelves contained Book genre items, but there were also traditional written books in addition to the Book genre items.The primary types of records I found were: scrolls, sealed documents, record ledgers and apparently crystalline memory stones which were infusions of Aether that store information as hard drive data is, accessible through channelling energy into the stones.
Unfortunately, I lacked the capability of channeling sufficient energies into my crystalline memory stones to allow me to retrieve the contents of the stones reliably. My current channeling capabilities, however, would only permit an 8.2% retention rate and further attempts to channel energy into them may lead to fracturing of the core.
Books and scrolls, however, required no tools except one's own eyes and the ability to be patient while attempting to read through the material.
I had both of these tools available to me.
The first of my readings was of the many cultivation manuals. The Valdrake family has had almost three centuries worth of research into their findings on Void Sovereignty, and all of the material contained herein is more substantial than that of the game that I am currently participating in. What was confirmed via the core text of the books that I had read, was a true indication of the different classifications of cultivation, the threshold points for bloodlines when awakening and all stages of cultivation techniques we know. The margin notes of these manuals hold the majority of value of the information.
There were many handwritten notes made in the margins of the cultivation manuals that indicate many generations of Valdrake ancestors contributed to these manuals by way of personal observations made by them, as well as warnings about techniques they had developed through experimentation. I remember one particular warning that had drawn my attention and was accompanied by an elaborate sketch of a stick figure being struck by lightning with the quote "DO NOT attempt Voids during a thunderstorm - the pain was tremendous, I lost all feeling in my left arm for three weeks."
I really appreciated this warning!
The text which was of most interest to me was the most ancient of the texts that I read. The binding of this book was breaking, the pages were yellowing, and the ink on all pages was rust brown which indicated to me that this ancient book had been written using something other than a common writing utensil.A hand-written word in archaic style was prominently displayed in the upper case, as a title on the cover page of a book which reads:
"On the Meridian Path: Cultivation Without The Core".
I felt my hands stop moving for a moment and, carefully, opened the pages.
The pages were old and thin; I wouldn't be surprised if they crumbled in my hands. They were written in an older dialect of Valdrian, which would require my full concentration to decipher what it meant. However, the content was precisely what the Hidden Quest had pointed me towards.
This was not some deprecated game mechanic or something that had been abandoned. Someone had created the Void Meridian Reversal technique hundreds of years ago and had done so as a choice, rather than creating a system to bypass the problems of a broken core. Based on the style of handwriting and the provenance of the vault, I could tell that the person who wrote this document was a Valdrake ancestor; therefore, this technique was meant to give the holders of the Valdrake bloodline a means of harnessing their Void affinity without depending on their cores when the hold of their core was weak.
The text contains the full description of the technique as opposed to what the game simplified down to one skill in the coding of the game. For example, the proper sequence of meridian channeling, how to breathe to synchronize your Void Aether flows with your heart beats, how to use your imagination to guide energy through specific channels without involving your core. It also explains to you what the upper limits are for your meridians - the number of circulations of Void Aether that they can handle before permanent damage occurs.
I carefully read that last section...
According to this document, the maximum number of circulations your meridians are capable of handling safely before they become permanently damaged is 30 circulations per day. If you exceed that number, your meridians will become eroded by the Void Aether, resulting in damage to the nerves in that area, and loss of sensation, and eventually develop irreversible scars.
I had been doing 30 circulations during each of my sessions...
I looked down at my hands.The purple-black lines of broken blood vessels got darker and extended over the last week from my knuckles, towards my wrists. I have had constant pain now. It isn't debilitating, like sharp pain, but it does persist and becomes more noticeable to me when I use my fork or I turn over a page.
I was over-training. Not dangerously over-trained; I was not yet into the permanent damage zone, but it was close.
I changed the schedule I was on for my mental training. I would train 20 repetitions per session, rather than 30. Slower, but easier to sustain. And because I would be using the techniques as outlined in this book, 20 repetitions would yield a better quality of technique than 30 repetitions.
The book went in my coat. I would study the book privately in my room so that nobody else would know what I am learning.
I spent the second hour looking for Sera.
I looked through every record ledger in the archive, through every correspondence file, through every genealogy scroll. I checked every family tree, birth record, death record, property transfer, servant assignment, and medical chronological log. I searched the archive systematically, shelf by shelf, the way I had when I had been clearing dungeon rooms; I was methodical and thorough, leaving no stone unturned.
I only found Sera's name in one place.
I found one entry in the household expenditure ledger from four years ago, and it was halfway down the page, buried in between the line for "kitchen supplies (quarterly)" and "stable upkeep (monthly)" for that month.
"Sera V.A.—Memorial Arrangements—8 Gold Imperials."
That was it. Eight Gold Imperials.A memorial for the daughter of a duke, sister to the Valdrake heir, who passed at the age of ten. Only note in the ledger was one line listed between groceries and horse feed.
I couldn't see through the ink from staring at that one line.
Eight gold Imperials would not be enough for flowers at a noble funeral. If you paid eight gold Imperials, you did it to get the job done quickly and quietly without drawing attention. You would pay eight gold Imperials to have a death processed and written in your ledger and forgotten; because whoever arranged Sera's memorial didn't want to pay for a ceremony, but wanted a disappearance.
I continued to examine the ledger. I did not find any unusual expenses surrounding the time of Sera's death. No doctor bills, healer's consultations or apothecary bills. A child passes suddenly from "Aether Core Collapse". A medical occurrence that would require emergency healers, medical consultations with specialists and rare medicines. Yet, there is not one single record to indicate the family had incurred a financial expense because there was no illness, no collapse and no medical emergency that the family sought help for.
Whatever happened to Sera Valdrake happened suddenly, and there was nothing accidental about it.
I had no proof, only an absence of proof in locations that should have had proof. This is proof of a different kind. The type that makes crime novel investigators sit up and begin asking hard questions.
The type that made my stomach turn to ice.
I carefully replaced the ledger exactly where I found it.The third branch of the Vault was a training room for Void Sovereigns, a circular chamber with sigils that I recognised from the Skill Tree Interface of the game. Generations of Valdrakes have trained their bloodline abilities in this chamber, with the floor being scarred with burned marks, fractured lines, and what appears to be a section of stone in one corner that has been erased from the material world — no broken, no destroyed, but simply missing in the stone. The smooth, rounded void in the stone was impressive and even scary. The fact that someone in my lineage had enough power to delete a piece of floor is a concept I do not understand.
I will come back to train here later. Not tonight.
Tonight, I'm going to the fourth branch of the Vault.
The branch that has the symbol for a child's hand on it. The branch that was not included in the game.
As I walked toward the fourth branch of the Vault, I noticed that it was longer than the two previous branches. The other branches ranged between thirty and fifty feet in length, however, the fourth branch appeared to be at least one hundred feet long. The Void sigil lanterns were spaced further apart than the previous two branches, which allowed for alternating pools of dark-light and pure darkness. As I walked, I felt a temperature change; it wasn't cold, but the quality of the air seemed to be different as though I had gone deeper into an area not entirely connected to the rest of the estate.
The Void Aether in this area is different than what I had experienced before. It is much denser and firmly saturated.The sensation was one of weight against my skin, different from the negative Void surrounding the estate. While it was not negative, it was such that being underwater affects your senses. My blood kin was instinctively reacting; my dormant sovereignty over the Void was stirring in my chest, as though it were something awakening.
The corridor led to a door.
Not a vault door, not a door made of solid metal. It was simple and old fashioned, made of dark wood with iron bands, without a lock or blood-seal, just a handle. Above the handle was a carving of a small hand pointing up with fingers curled.
I opened the door.
Inside the room was small, about ten feet by ten feet. The ceiling was low enough for me to reach without raising my arms very much. The walls were unadorned stone, blank — no sigils, no lanterns, no adornments.
This was a child's room.
There was a child's bed — a small size. There was a child's desk and chair, both of which had been made smaller than the average adult size. There was a shelf containing approximately a dozen children's books, each with cracked spines and a battered look to them — stories designed to be read to girls at bedtime, as I recalled from my knowledge of Aethermere, provided by Cedric's thoughts without my asking.
On the wall above the child's desk, there was hanging paper containing a drawing done by hand.
As I stepped closer to examine this drawing, I could tell the paper had been around for quite a while, at least four years, but the image on the paper was still relatively clear. The drawing was of two figures, both drawn in the not-so-tidy but diligent style typical of a child trying to represent a real object, but without the proper ability to do so.
The first figure was of a tall man with black armor and violet eyes: arms at his sides and a serious look on his face. This was Cedric.
The second figure was standing next to the first figure; she was holding onto the first figure's hand. The second figure was wearing a green dress and had black hair, and her face was smiling so much that the child artist represented her smile as a single curved line across the two ends of her face.
This second figure was Sera.
At the bottom of the drawing were misspelled words written in a wobbly sort of handwriting: "Me and Big Brother. He pretects me from evrything."
The word "pretects" had been misspelled by a ten-year-old, written quickly, and the misspelling indicates the importance of the message to her and her emotional involvement in writing the message.