Rune Weaver

written by Aelius

Incoming
storms were a viable reason to postpone a research expedition in the Spirit
Wilds, where help was often a week away at best if something went awry.

Something
always went awry.

However,
this time the storm was the sole reason Maple's expedition was going out there
in the first place. The potential discoveries were worth the danger.

A
thick, leafy canopy shrouded the sky as a lone figure walked through the forest—humanoid,
deer-like, following a set of coordinates from a holographic readout on her
wrist cuff. Hooved feet trod the soft ground amidst thick foliage. Tall ears
swiveled and panned to catalog the sounds of wildlife, catching distant thunder
beyond the leaves above. Bright, hopeful eyes peered through dense greenery to detect
any hints of the expedition team she would be joining soon. According to her
coordinates on the flickering holographic display, base camp was close.

In
good time, too. Rain had gradually begun to fall.

A
slight flutter of drops breached the thick leaves overhead, enough for Maple to
feel against her ruddy-brown fur. The doe did not really mind rain. Even with
minimal clothing and a slender body, her fur provided enough comfort against nature's
elements. The intricate patterns painted on her also offered protection. Where scarce
garments left her fur exposed, the runes softly glowed, ensuring that even in
the wilds, Maple could confidently and safely explore.

The
path opened into a clearing to reveal taller, bare trees. Unusual as this was
the middle of summer. As the rain strengthened, Maple noticed stone formations further
on.

The
deer glanced around. There was no sign that anybody had been here recently. Her
ears panned about but only caught the sound of rain. No scents lingered beyond
the disappearing familiarity of the wilderness behind her. Even the grass
seemed to have stopped growing up ahead.

The
expedition crew was supposed to be here already.

She
looked down at her wrist cuff, but the hologram flickered before going out
completely. She tapped the panel, but nothing happened. She pulled a small
datapad from the holster on her bicep, but aside from a brief flashing, nothing
appeared on its screen.

Thunder
rumbled overhead.

Maple
stowed her datapad and continued onward, reaching out with her presence as she
approached the bare tree trunks. The runes pulsed in steady glows, unphased by
the downpour soaking her fur.

There
was a peculiar emptiness about this place. No greenery present, no sounds nor
signs of wildlife, only the steady patter of rain on the withered branches
overhead. It was as if life had disappeared behind her.

Lightning
flashed, startling her briefly, and thunder came soon after. Maple stepped up her
pace through the dense rain. “Maybe they set up camp near the stone formations
as a shield from the storm…" she muttered. A sudden gust nearly yanked her
drenched cloak off her neck, throwing her off balance.

She
finally reached the stone structures and paused to catch her breath under a
rocky overhang. With a hand on the solid stonework, a painted rune suddenly lit
up on the back of her hand. Maple watched as faint lines on the stone wall lit
up under her palm, spreading outward in rigid, angled patterns before fading
from view.

Maple's
ears flicked at the sight of the spectacle. She moved her hand along the
stonework as she walked. The rune on her hand continued to glow, but nothing
else appeared on the stone. She paused and tapped the stone with a finger. The
black hoof-like material on its tip elicited no response on the damp, rocky
surface. She pulled her data pad back out and tried to activate its scanner,
but the screen remained blank and inactive.

Maple
snorted in frustration. Of all the times for her equipment to stop working, it
had to be at the research site itself.

Or
was something interfering with it?

Luckily,
she had other natural talents. The deer lifted her nose and tried to catch any
familiar scents, hopefully those of her companions setting up camp, but once
again detected nothing.

She
rounded a corner. The next area was vacant, save for numerous stone columns. She
expected to see grasses and weeds growing in the cracks of the stonework at her
feet. But even in the heavy downpour she saw no evidence that any sort of life
had been here in quite some time, whether plant or animal.

More
than that, the pervasive emptiness and lack of scents or sounds amidst the rain
confirmed her suspicions.

She
was alone.

Maple
glanced up at the rocky overhang above, then peered out to see what appeared to
be crumbled walls further on, gradually shrouded by dense rain.

Lightning
briefly lit up the landscape, followed by rumbling thunder. The storm was upon
her already. Strange, however, that she saw no other light sources amidst the
ruins.

The
scouting reports mentioned unexplained glows in the presence of storms, which
was why she had been summoned to investigate this place.

She
recalled that ten years ago, an expedition team had gone into this specific
region only to disappear within days. The next group that went in to
investigate the disappearance also never returned. The area had since been
deemed off-limits to further exploration until a few months ago, when many strange
glows had been reported lighting up the forest. However, the glows only
appeared during rainstorms. Recent scout teams claimed the glows had been
appearing closer and closer to areas deemed safe, though nobody had investigated
further for safety concerns.

And
now, years since the first disappearances, there was neither evidence of light nor
any sign that the expedition team she was to meet had ever reached the site.

Another
lightning flash, another rumble of thunder.

Maple
took a breath to center herself. She still had a mission here. She was a Rune
Weaver, a combination of cryptographer, historian, and artist all in one. Her
unique skills had been called upon by the research councils to hopefully figure
out what was so special about this place. Mysterious glowing was but one
element to investigate.

She
reached out and placed her hand back on the stone wall. She breathed out and
closed her eyes to focus. She did not need to open them to know the runes on
her body were glowing. She felt them as they outwardly channeled her presence,
her essence of self, into her surroundings.

This
skill was unique to her generation of wilderness researchers, allowing others
like her to feel, intimately, the world around them unlike any who had
come before. A skill vital to those exploring regions where their predecessors
had once disappeared without a trace.

Maple
opened her eyes, seeing faint lines lighting up in the rough textures of the
stone, appearing almost as if they were glowing from beneath the
otherwise-opaque surface. The lines seemed to make a pattern, though of what
Maple could not figure out just yet, before flickering out and disappearing
completely.

Undoubtedly,
this region had been touched by the long-forgotten knowledge of the Old World. Yet,
the purpose still remained to be seen.

The
doe smiled as she took her hand off the stone and looked back into the ruins.
The possibility of answers beckoned her further, and her insatiable curiosity
about the Old World begged that she continue.

Thunder
rumbled again, echoing throughout the ruins.

Maple
adjusted her cloak, tightened the belts holding collection vials around her
waist, and clutched the satchel at her hip. She quickly glanced down at her
body to confirm her runes still had not washed away in the rain, then carefully
strode out into the downpour.

Her
runes lit up once again as she extended her presence.

Faint
lines flickered in the wet stonework at her hooves but faded just as quickly
without offering any guidance.

Maple
continued onward as the sky darkened, a process interrupted by flashes of
lightning. Her keen eyes noted glimmers in the distance. With every flash of
lightning, something far off in the ruins reflected the light.

Was
it metallic? Amidst all this crumbling stonework?

She
then noticed faint light in the rain's haze near the glimmers. Glowing.

Maple
trotted onward, keeping close to the overhangs near the walls. As she walked,
her ears flicked and panned at what seemed like crumbling sounds all around
her, though as she looked around, the walls and columns appeared to be steady. However,
that still did not put her at ease. The ruins were still here after thousands
of years, but what of the last scout teams?

Thunder
rumbled overhead.

Maple
turned her attention to the stonework itself. So much of it was cracked and
featureless. Every so often she caught a flash of faded color, barely visible
even through her natural ability to see ultraviolet light.

She
stopped, head tilting as she focused on a much clearer patch. There was
evidence of markings in the stonework here.

A
pattern.

Maple
lifted a hand and brushed her fingers along the etchings. Though nothing lit
up, the designs seemed similar to the portions that lit up earlier. Were they a
continuation?

Maple
unholstered her datapad, but it remained unresponsive. Was something here
interfering with its electronics?

As
thunder rumbled again, an ear splayed out. Maple's sensitive hearing caught the
slightest drone of barely audible noise, disrupted by the storm's
reverberations in the air.

Lacking
any means of analyzing the noise or scanning the patterns, Maple stowed her
datapad and reached into her satchel, pulling out a weatherproof logbook and
stylus.

Out
of the rain under the overhang, she hastily sketched out the patterns etched
into stone, then tried to recall some of those she had seen earlier when the
ruins lit up.

Lightning
flashed above, and as thunder followed, she listened for the droning noise
again. This time, however, she noticed it being accompanied by slight
vibrations under her hooves. It wasn't just thunder shaking the ruins.
Something else was moving with every lightning strike.

Maple
kneeled and placed a hand on the wall, focusing her presence again.

As
her runes glowed, faint lines flickered outward from her hand across the stones
before disappearing again.

A
tiny smile crept onto Maple's face. The storm may somehow be influencing a
substructure of sorts…

Prior
scouting reports hypothesized that some Old World ruins had potentially been
built on top of structures believed to be even more ancient. Evidence was
sketchy at best, however, as the very few approved excavation attempts yielded
nothing beyond age-old circuitry lined into stone and little else.

As
Maple sketched out the patterns, she realized they, in fact, appeared to be
shaped like circuits. These matched theories that the Old World had fused its
mysterious technology with the environment. That did not explain why this
region seemed inactive outside of storms, however. Nor did they hint as to why
nothing alive seemed to have been here all this time.

Maple
paused to study the patterns on her logbook. She was one of the best
cryptographers in New Atlantis, but even she could not figure out what all of
this meant. The patterns she recalled from the outer edges of the ruins did not
match up with the ones she saw here, despite tiny similarities in the circuit
lines.

Her
tail flicked behind her as she attempted to puzzle out the differences, but she
could only sigh and stow the logbook. She needed more to go on.

Looking
out at the downpour, she pulled her cloak tight around her once again and
continued onward.

Glancing
all around, it appeared that the entire area was becoming more dilapidated the
further inward she went. Mounds of rubble sat where walls and columns had once
been. Despite the open crevices and cracks, there was still no sign of
vegetation that would otherwise have taken root in the thousands of years since
the place had been abandoned.

She
jolted as lightning flashed and thunder roared, feeling brief resonations throughout
the surrounding air. Then, at her feet, more patterns flickered to life before
fading a second later.

Maple
tried to commit it to memory as the rain pounded against her.

She
kneeled and placed a hand against the rocky ground, trying to focus as she
tugged her cloak over her head. Though the patterns appeared when lightning
flashed, they only appeared where she stood.

What
was the connection?

The
runes along her body lit up as her presence spread outward, but the patterns on
the stonework merely flickered once again.

Maple
huffed in frustration. Spirit magic, as the scouts called it, could apparently
only do so much when used in a place so old and worn down. She whipped out her
logbook and, using her body to shield it from the rain, scribbled out what
patterns she could remember before stowing it again and hurrying on.

Maple
shuddered at the thought that this place may be falling apart. She still heard
faint crumbling sounds everywhere, and felt the strange reverberations beneath
her after another rumble of thunder.

Circuit
lines briefly lit up again under her hooves, but they were disjointed. The
further she went, even the site's internal circuitry seemed to be coming apart.

Rounding
a half-broken corner, her suspicions seemed confirmed. Spanning out from pieces
of cracked stone, bare metal jutted into the open air. It was not rusted,
though even with rain trailing down it, she could make out a dull surface as if
it had been exposed to the air for a long while.

Maple
approached. She noticed faint patterns etched into the metal. At first glance,
they seemed to be the same type of circuitry she had encountered before, but her
keen eyes noticed something was off. The pattern was slightly different.

Maple
neared what remained of a wall and hunched over her logbook as she scribbled
out the lines. These were not circuits. They were too fragmented.

Her
ears flicked as her eyes widened.

It
was a language.

This
opened up new possibilities. What if the Old World's language was based upon
the circuits they infused into their environment? If so, the entirety of the
Spirit Wilds could be speaking full messages, stories, through every
living being in its Fused wilderness.

But
this was yet again another hypothesis. Maple needed more to go on.

Lightning
flashed.

Thunder
rumbled.

More
reverberations below as circuit-like patterns flickered into view on the nearby
stones. The designs on the metal remained dormant.

The
stonework was in shattered pieces all around the metal, which looked more like
a support strut than something decorative as she neared.

She
followed the strut to where it reached over a nearby crumbled wall. Making her
way around the wall, she felt the reverberations more intensely, resonating
through her hooves and up her body like a small quake. She even heard them now,
shifting from a grumble to a roar the further she went. With it came a strange
nausea, but it did not hinder her. She moved past the wall and then froze. Her
eyes widened, and her ears folded as she took in the sight in front of her.

The
floor before her had collapsed entirely away. Beyond it was nothing but open
air. Maple carefully approached the broken ledge and beheld a massive pit. It
was large enough to enclose a small village, and she could not even see across
to its other side in the rain's haze. The reverberations had now become a
shrill, agonizing shriek tearing at her skull.

Maple
swayed, trying to maintain balance as she dared to look far below. She saw the
site's ruins had become only dust and mud, as if corrosion had devoured everything
and left nothing behind. The pit's deep center glowed in violent, yellow-green
pulses as sludge churned in the rain, leaving caustic steam hovering just above
it.

The
very sight of the glow felt like it was burning her eyes, forcing her to look
away before she could figure out what exactly the oozy sludge at the bottom was
composed of.

She
glanced up to the support strut she had followed and noticed it connected to an
enormous, ring-like structure held aloft far above the pit.

The
pit's sickening, wavering glow reflected off the ring before the structure
disappeared into the rain-thick haze further on.

Maple
tilted her head, noticing the metalwork was a completely different design motif
than that prevalent throughout the rest of the ruins.

The
stones suddenly gave way under her and the deer plummeted, shrieking as she
fell.

The
world spun all around the hapless deer, striking Maple from all directions as
she collided with fragile ledges while tumbling and taking pieces with her. Everything
she fell onto caved on impact and sent her deeper into the cavity.

Finally,
she hit a soft incline and rolled until skidding to a halt, covered in mud as the
rain continued pounding her. Her runes remained lit, albeit partially covered
with grime.

Maple
felt sick. More than that, a reverberating drone had become an unbearable,
ethereal scream. No matter which way her ears panned, it was just as deafening.
It was as if the sound pierced into her mind, made all the more horrible as
sickening vertigo worsened with every passing moment.

The
deer coughed, trying to gain her bearings despite her excruciating nausea. Even
her vision suffered as intense light swelled nearby in the throbbing of her
head.

Clutching
the muddy slope and trying to push herself up, she braved a glance toward the
light as thunder crashed overhead.

Mere
meters down the slope, eerie yellowish-green glows surged in the downpour,
pulsating with light as they swelled randomly like an oozy sludge.

It
hurt to even look at the glowing sludge. Maple swayed uneasily but caught
herself from tumbling further in the sickening diffusion all around. She
slumped down on the slope and crawled upward, away from the pit as it tore at
her very essence. She noticed the runes painted on her body glowing so bright
they almost blinded her. Yet, she pressed on, dragging herself ever-so-slowly
in hopes of escaping the harsh effects of whatever was churning below.

This
had to be the source of the reported glows in the rain. Knowing how much it
hurt to be anywhere near it, Maple could only imagine what happened to the
other expeditions that never returned from this place.

More
stones crumbled and fell all around her as if the pit had been steadily
corroding the entire site outward from its core.

She
coughed again, gasping for breath as she crawled. She had to leave.

Her
skull vibrated in sharp pain as she went, teeth gritted. The pit's maddening resonations
clawed at her brain.

She
reached a cracked wall and leaned against it, panting. Circuit lines at its
surface flickered briefly under her touch. She could not bear to look down and
relegated herself to hugging the wall as she searched desperately for a way
upward.

Stone
pieces chipped away as the rain beat down on her. She reached a metal
strut-like beam past more crumbled walls, but it was too slick from rainwater
to scale. Maple could barely glance upward without the rain getting in her
eyes, but could make out enough of a ledge above to try climbing. Mustering
what strength she had left, she jabbed her hoof-tipped fingers into the brittle
stone, cracking enough to make a rudimentary handhold. There was no time to
test its stability. Her body ached and her head throbbed from the sickening
resonations below. She grunted and shoved upward, summoning the strength to jab
again with her other hand. The stone held though she heard cracking. She had to
hurry.

She
steadily made her way up, tearing off portions of stone as she went, but
mercifully only lost hold twice from the crumbling surface. Then, finally, she reached
the ledge and shoved herself onto it, crying out in pain.

Maple
rolled on the flattened surface and settled on her stomach, still gasping for
air as the downpour continued drenching her. Her cloak felt like lead, and her
muscles twitched, reeling from the shock of… whatever was down there.

She
pressed her hands to the ground and closed her eyes, focusing her presence once
again. But, just as before, she felt nothing in response. The entire area was
desolate and empty. No life of any kind reached back.

Resolving
to stand, she pushed up on wobbling arms, then slowly staggered upright and
limped further away.

Lightning
flashed.

Thunder
roared.

A
nearby stone ridge cracked and collapsed.

Maple
agonizingly sped her pace, trying to determine what purpose this place could ever
serve. She searched for another way to the higher ground she had entered from.

Distant
lightning reflected off nearby metalwork.

She
instinctively glanced over and noticed it was part of the same structure she
had seen above. It appeared to be a series of solid support beams, all engraved
in undeciphered runes. Her gaze followed the beams and their support struts all
the way past the ledges and beyond. Finally, she saw where they had been
arranged above the pit she nearly fell in—a massive ring-like structure
encircling the pit high above.

Maple
pulled her cloak up and checked her logbook, sketching out more of the symbols
on the metal ring held above the pit. The symbols were similar, but still
different, from those found throughout the ruins and repeated frequently.

There
was no doubt in her mind now. Whatever this structure was, it was constructed
after the ruins were already considered a ruin. The question of why
still remained.

Lightning
flashed above, and as thunder blasted in its wake, Maple noticed a break in the
structure far off in the haze. She braved a cautious walk to the ledge and saw
it was a literal break—part of the ring had snapped and parted. Below it, a
gash in the stonework had seemingly been dissolved by the pit's corrosion,
having torn a portion of the metal supports away until the ring apparently
broke in the process. The ring's gap did not seem far, but as Maple stepped
back, she pieced together another hypothesis.

All
around the pit, stone and dirt had become nothing but dust, with no life existing
anywhere nearby. The ruins were more barren than any other place she had
visited. As rain appeared to be aggravating whatever was down there, it seemed
that the pit itself was devouring everything around it and spreading as the
decay worsened. It was as if the very concept of desolation had been localized,
and nothing had been spared from deterioration.

She
remembered the historical records cobbled together by New Atlantis' loremasters,
though most of what they had to go by were theories provided by scout reports
in the Wilds. Still, a common belief was that the Old World that came before
had destroyed itself by unknown means. Those same means unwittingly gave birth
to the New World as it existed now, albeit with remnants of the past era still lingering
in the expansive, dangerous Spirit Wilds. Maple could think of no other
explanation than the assumption the pit was one of those remnants, awakened and
rampantly devouring everything it touched. So then, what caused it to awaken
after thousands of years?

Maple
focused on the broken ring structure.

The
shift in technological design between it and the stone ruins, the repeating
runes… The ring must have been some sort of containment device, but when the
decay reached the site's foundation, it compromised the ring's integrity. Then,
when the supports anchored to the ruins gave way, the ring snapped and the
circuit powering it broke with it.

Lightning
flashed again, causing the circuit glyphs in the stones to flicker under her
hooves once more.

Whatever
powered the site's glyphs also must have powered the device until the decay
spread too far across its foundation.

A
crash came from below, followed by more crumbling noises nearby.

Maple's
eyes widened as she backed away. The pit had been devouring the entire site for
years, and with the storm aggravating the pit's effects, the process was
apparently speeding up. It wouldn't be long before the ruins were a distant
memory, and if another piece of the support structure was compromised…

She
gasped at the realization that New Atlantis, despite its scientific prowess,
had no way of repairing this kind of technology, let alone figuring out how to
replicate it, especially if the decay destroyed it first. If it was indeed a
containment device, there had to be a way to at least perform a temporary
repair until it could be studied. If it was lost, then there was no way her
people could stop the corrosion's spread.

The
ring's rune designs implied they could interact with those spread throughout
the site. There should theoretically be a way to restart the containment device
if she could somehow reconnect the ring's breakpoint.

More
crashes echoed, then muffled as if pieces had collapsed into the pit's muddy,
corrosive slope.

Maple
turned and ran through the ruins, clutching her satchel. She still had raw
materials to paint runes with. All she needed was something to paint them on
and then bridge the ring's gap. Her mind raced, trying to remember as many
details of the ring's rune symbols as possible in hopes of crafting a makeshift
connector piece. The question of how to complete its circuit would have to be
answered after finding an object to use first.

Her
hooves skidded on slick stones as she rounded a corner, struggling to find
traction, but she maintained balance and continued past broken stone columns
and remnants of decorated walls, all while the storm raged above.

She
ran through an empty plaza, eyes darting about until lightning highlighted
something jagged nearby.

Maple
approached and blinked in amazement. It was a tree! Growing from a spot where
stones had broken away long ago, the tree had no leaves and was horrendously
gnarled, but it could serve her needs. She came up and placed a hand on the
trunk, then frowned. The bark felt like stone.

As
thunder rumbled and another crash echoed behind her, she figured it would have
to do. She grabbed a branch and tugged, but there was no give. It had been
petrified solid.

Maple
clutched the branch and swiftly kicked. Her tough hooves jabbed through the
branch and it snapped away, but a sharp resonation struck her ears as the same
sickening yellow-green fluid spilled out from the resulting hole in the trunk.

Maple
gasped and backed away, dropping the petrified branch and clutching her ears
against her head.

The
sludge spilled out from the trunk like a fountain. It had penetrated the
groundwater.

The
disturbing emptiness all around the site now had context. Whatever Old World
substance left behind in that pit was infecting the region, explaining how the glows
that prompted the expedition had been spreading closer to safe areas. If it was
not contained soon, there was no telling how quickly it could spread.

Maple
glanced back to where she had run from. There was no time to keep looking. She
then noticed lit reflections of her runes in a nearby puddle. Her heart sank as
a solution appeared in her mind.

She
was the solution.

She
could replicate runes, and her presence already had a unique way of interacting
with the world. If the ring drew its power from the deep circuitry of the
ruins, then it could also theoretically draw power from her.

But
just how much would it take from her?

Another
crash echoed across the ruins, then quickly muffled.

“No
time…" Maple muttered to herself.

She
hurried back through the decaying ruins, stopping under the first overhang she
found. Shielded from the rain, she unfastened her drenched cloak and cast her
garments away, then kneeled at her satchel and pulled out a trio of vials. She
opened them and poured the contents into her palm, mixing them together and
creating a unique golden glow from them in the process. She checked her field
notes to confirm the rune designs copied from the ring, then stood and took a
breath.

She
pressed a hoof-tipped finger into the glowing solution and carefully painted
new, untested runes onto her unclad body.

The
process was unnerving. No one in their right mind would ever apply runes
without knowing how they reacted to one's presence, let alone how they would affect
the area of the body they would be painted on. Maple was knowledgeable enough
to understand how to arrange rune designs on the right focus points on her body
and activate them with her presence to replicate their intended effect. In
theory, at least. For these glyphs, however, she only had educated guesswork to
go by, and there was still no guarantee that this would reactivate the assumed
containment field in the ring. Also was the real possibility that reactivation
would do precisely what she hoped it would… and drain her completely.

As
more reverberations pulsed underfoot, Maple tried to steady her hands with
long, drawn-out breaths. Something had to be done to stop the spread, even if
it meant risking her life. She dreaded the idea that she, too, would never
return from an expedition to this horrid place. Still, at the very least, she
found a modicum of comfort knowing it would be after an effort to save her
home.

The
process complete, Maple glanced over to a nearby puddle to check her work in
her reflection. Everything seemed right. Foci were marked in the right places
on her body, and the runes appeared to be drawn correctly.

The
deer closed her eyes and focused her presence once more as thunder rumbled
above.

The
new runes lit up, covering her body in mesmerizing golden patterns based on
those she had studied moments earlier. She let out a breath and nodded, resolving
herself to whatever might happen, and stepped back into the downpour.

The
runes continued to glow as the deer made her way through the rain, now clothed
in nothing but her own soaked fur. Tiny wisps of energy curled upward from the
designs as the rain cascaded down her body, but the runes did not wash away.

Lightning
flashed, and thunder roared again. Below Maple's hooves, circuit lines flickered
brighter than before but faded moments later as she walked.

Cracks
spread on the stonework. Maple's ears panned forward as crumbling noises
continued closer to the pit.

She
sped her pace. The ruins were coming down faster than expected.

Down
a barren corridor and past decaying columns, the pit's familiar and still
nauseating reverberations intensified. With rain pounding against her, Maple
vaguely recalled the closest point where she could climb a support beam to
reach the ring's break.

As
thunder rolled above, Maple ran past a mound of rubble and saw the ring's
support structure ahead.

A
crack split the stones ahead of her and she leaped over the break, but as the
other side shook, she botched her landing and her hooves slipped on the wet
surface. She cried out as she tumbled. She rolled to a halt with her ankle in
excruciating pain. She winced and tried to stand, but then fell back to the
ground clutching her foot, unable to put weight on it.

The
site rumbled again, and reverberations intensified.

Through
rain-soaked tears, she saw the broken ring past a ledge ahead. She shoved
forward on her hands and elbows, crawling as fast as she could. Finally, she reached
the cracked ridge and carefully stood, putting all her weight on her uninjured
leg. The pit's sickening vertigo returned. Then, teeth gritted, she leaped off.
The ledge collapsed in the process, but she had enough distance to reach an
angled support beam.

She
landed hard on the slippery metal and wrapped her arms around the beam, keeping
herself from falling off.

As
the storm raged above and the pit's resonations screamed below, she slowly
climbed the beam.

The
familiar horrendous noise throbbed in her head as her stomach churned, but she
carried on. She finally reached the ring, climbed on, and got to her knees. The
break was less than a meter away.

She
carefully crawled along to the edge, then stood, wobbling on her uninjured leg.
Finally, she reached out across the break and let herself fall forward to place
both hands on the other side of the broken ring, connecting it with just her
own body.

“If
anyone could see what I'm about to do…" she muttered, then closed her eyes and
focused her presence. It was oddly different, opening herself up not to an
environment abundant with life, but instead now forcibly projecting her deepest
sense of self into a soulless device that, in every perception of reality,
should never even be able to connect to another being. Yet it was still meant
to activate from the same energy.

Lightning
flashed above.

The
device's runes flickered briefly.

Maple
felt the reverberations again, but they were resonating through the device this
time, intensifying until finally…

Maple
shrieked as her runes blazed. They felt like fire! The pain shot through her
entire body, forcing her to arch her back as the device lit up the same way.
Bright light flared across the entire structure, encircling the pit.

Maple
kept screaming, unable to stop even after her voice gave out. The power coursed
through her in excruciating waves until lightning burst overhead and
interrupted the force. Maple was thrown backward and landed on her back, still
on the ring as its symbols continued glowing.

She
coughed as the rain continued to drench her body. She was too numb to feel it.
All she could think of was getting away from the pit. Whether or not it was
contained, its effects still reached her high above. She carefully rolled to
her side, trying her best not to fall off despite her vertigo.

Her
entire body ached. She could barely focus her eyes, and the resonations in her
head worsened.

Even
so, the ring stayed lit.

Maple
panted for air as she moved to her stomach and paused to catch her breath,
difficult as it was to breathe above the corrosive haze.

She
weakly pushed up to move but collapsed back onto her stomach, wheezing. She let
out a sickly whimper as she tried again, but could not muster the strength. Vertigo
worsening, she did not dare move. Everything was getting dark.

Maple
lay there motionless, save for her gasps. The last thing she could comprehend
before blacking out was that the broken ring was still lit.

“She's
moving! She's waking up!"

Bright
light shined in Maple's eyes. She winced, consciousness gradually returning.

The
light dimmed and shapes came into view as she groggily blinked awake. She heard
rainfall and distant thunder, but no reverberations nor crumbling of rocks.

“What
happened?" she asked weakly.

A
familiar, feminine voice responded, “We were hoping you'd tell us!"

Maple
turned to the voice, seeing a lop-eared female rabbit wearing an immensely relieved
smile. A makeshift canvas tarp wavered above them. Maple's ears flicked,
realizing that the expedition team had finally arrived. “Orchid…" said the
deer. “You made it, after all."

The
rabbit gently embraced her. “We were routed by the storm," Orchid replied. “We
noticed a huge glow and came running, and that's when we caught your scent and followed
right to you. You'd passed out on… something huge."

Maple
tried to lean up but grimaced in pain.

“Hey-hey,
don't try and move yet," said Orchid, cradling the deer's head. “You look like
you've been through something intense."

Maple
held up a wobbly arm, noticing the runes still painted on her fur, but unlit.
She smiled. “Yes… I did. That structure you found me on… is it still glowing?"

“Yep,"
said Orchid. “It seemed to have a series of repeating runes and… Wait, did you
have something to do with that?"

“And
the pit…" Maple continued, “None of you went closer to it, did you?"

Orchid's
eyes widened. “We could barely get within a few meters of it. Zephyr almost
couldn't reach you to pull you to safety. We still haven't figured out what's
down there."

Maple
closed her eyes and chuckled. “Good… Keep your distance from it because after I
recover, I've got a lot to tell you all…"