“You and I can handle it, if you’re ready,” Lindon said. “Eithan can come with us. Mercy, can you back us up?”
Mercy frowned at her bow. “I think Suu is getting tired, but I can use the binding once or twice more. That’s a couple more Archlord hits. But it’s not like one Herald, it’s more like…”
“A bunch of Heralds smeared over some toast,” Yerin provided.
That reminded Lindon of the Eight-Man Empire, and he turned to ask Eithan if he knew what that might mean about their enemy.
When he saw Eithan still standing there, an unreadable expression on his face, Lindon realized Eithan hadn’t said a word since they’d entered the room.
It inspired Lindon himself to look around.
There wasn’t much to sense in the room; certainly nothing to draw his spiritual perception. There were a few small dream tablets here and there, but by and large the chamber resembled a once-crowded workshop or storeroom that had been cleared out in a hurry.
Dust covered the floor, along with bits of grit and undefinable scraps of metal. There were scuffs and indentations in the stone where something heavy had been moved, but with the power of these floors, Lindon would be shocked if any amount of weight would have made a dent on their own. Here and there bolts remained in the walls where something had been suspended, but whatever it was had been removed long before.
High up on the far wall, he saw the thing that must have grabbed Eithan’s attention immediately. A giant symbol: a scythe hanging like a crescent moon over the Arelius family crest.
This room had once belonged to the Arelius family Patriarch.
Ozriel.
Lindon was suddenly much more interested in the dream tablets.
Here and there, glittering tablets like cut gemstones were embedded in the wall next to where something must have rested.
Lindon held his hand over one nearby, which hung next to a pale square of wall that looked like it had once held a painting. He slipped his perception into it.
The intricately carved ivory box is ringed in script so dense he can barely make it out with his eyes, and it carries a powerful will to bind. The bones used to make it are irreplaceable, and come from—
Lindon felt a sudden, blinding headache and was kicked out of the memory. He blinked and held onto his head.
This was what it had felt like when he tried to view a memory too advanced for him. But that was a shock. What concepts couldn’t he handle? He thought he could comprehend most Monarch dream tablets now, but evidently not if it trespassed on certain subjects.
“Careful,” Eithan said quietly. He still hadn’t moved.
[It is only that moment of the tablet that exceeds your authority,] Dross mentioned. [It should be safe to experience if you pick up a moment after you left off.]
Generally speaking, it was hard to view dream tablets with so much precision, which was one reason why they were often attached to projection constructs or control scripts. But with Dross to help, Lindon adjusted his entry point and dove back into the tablet.
In a windy forest, his hands open the ivory box. The scripts activate, and he’s proud of their efficiency. They are a work of art in the way they synergize with the significance of the bones and of the box itself.
The device is now designed for one purpose, and it fulfills that purpose before him now. A powerful suction fills the air, drawing spirits closer. Remnants stumble out of the trees. They have been drawn by the hunger aspects in the madra, though the hunger doesn’t touch him at all.
One spirit—a water Remnant with minor sword aspects—is the first to fly into the air. It’s only about Highgold in density, and it resembles a six-foot praying mantis. At first.
In seconds, it folds like paper as it is packed into the box. It sounds disgusting, like meat and bone being crushed and folded, but this device doesn’t need to be pleasant to use.
Most importantly, the dead matter and binding are perfectly preserved. And the box still has plenty of capacity left.
Lindon broke away from the memory. His head still hurt a little from even that momentary thought about the bone, but his thoughts spun as Dross helped him sort out the memories.
As with most dream tablets, there were plenty of thoughts behind the memory itself, lending the scene context. Lindon could tell how much better this device was at catching and compressing Remnants, and how it could wait for centuries with no loss. There had been an idea at the back of the creator’s mind: this would be the perfect way to seal a Monarch-level Remnant. It could even have applications for those attempting to advance to Herald.
He expected this to become a much sought-after treasure, and Lindon completely agreed. It wasn’t as glamorous as a weapon, but he thought Reigan Shen would pay the worth of several cities for a Soulsmithing tool of this level.
Maybe he was the one who had looted this room.
He moved to another dream tablet as Yerin was pulled away from it. She had a troubled look on her face. “This is your ancestor, Eithan?”
Eithan ran a hand over his head as though wishing for longer hair. “The first of my House, yes.”
“I’d pick you over him six times out of five.”
Eithan blinked. “That may have been the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“Don’t let it swell your head,” she muttered.
“This inspires me to compose a poem!”
“Can I pay you to stop?”
“There once was a man from Iceflower…”
Lindon reached out for the dream tablet and let the memory overcome him before he had to listen to Eithan’s poem.
The enemy is desperate. He’s already bloody and beaten, low on madra, as he has been tormented and kept on the edge of defeat for days now. He raises his axe and swings with a roar, squeezing the last of his madra and soulfire into an echo Forger technique. Phantom axes swing along with them.
Ozmanthus looks down on him in disdain. There is barely any willpower remaining in this technique.
He reaches out with his madra—pure destruction, as befits the Hollow King—and reaches into the Forger technique. With his soulfire art, he weaves destruction aura as well, drawn from all around him.
It takes him a moment of concentration to synchronize his control of madra and aura together, but he dismantles the technique. Before the Forged axe-blades reach him, they dissolve into essence.
He is displeased. With his skill in Soulsmithing, he should be able to separate madra much more quickly than this.
The prisoner tosses his axe to the ground and drops onto his heels.
“Kill me,” the man says through a raspy throat.
Ozmanthus gives him a razor-edged smile. “You tried to kill me. You put my children in danger. Why should I show you mercy?”
“Your death would have been clean.”
“What a comfort that is to me.”
Ozmanthus began a Forger technique of his own, and shimmering black stars hung in the air over his prisoner’s head. The Hollow King’s Crown.
“Cycle,” he ordered. “Restore your madra. Give me practice, and then I will give you mercy.”
The memory skipped ahead after that, and he demonstrated his dismantling technique twice more—once on the prisoner’s Striker technique, and then again on the man’s Remnant.
Lindon committed it to memory, and Dross assured him that with some alterations, they should be able to develop a version of it themselves. Lindon suspected he might actually be better at it than Ozmanthus Arelius had been, at least at the point that dream tablet was recorded. He had three compatible madra types that could be used to take apart the techniques of others, and pure madra was better at taking apart spiritual energy than destruction madra was.