And most importantly of all, every inch of its walls was worked against intrusion. Down here, even a Monarch couldn’t spy on him without his permission.
Lindon focused his authority on the room around him and commanded it to “Move.” The entrances blurred until he and Dross were standing in another of Ozmanthus’ workshops.
Like the other workshops and foundries Lindon had found marked with Ozriel’s scythe, this one had largely been stripped bare over the years. Either by a previous owner of the labyrinth, by its wild inhabitants, by time, or by Ozmanthus himself.
Racks carved into the stone stood empty of the weapons they once held, and clockwork machines—designed to be operated by constructs—sat silent. Arms of scripted bronze and steel stretched out from the walls, motionless.
Lindon didn’t summon Ozmanthus this time. It was too time-consuming to do every time, though Eithan’s ancient reflection was a valuable resource. Instead, he consulted the man’s memories.
As Lindon entered, he ran his perception through a dream tablet on the wall. It contained memories he’d viewed before: Ozmanthus creating a network of launcher constructs synced together to protect an entire city, commentating the process.
And then, later, coldly confronting a king that had used that network of launchers to assault a rival instead of to protect himself. The king protested that it had merely been a preemptive military action, and that he had been acting in defense of his people.
Ozmanthus suggested that if he enjoyed preemptive strikes so much, he should appreciate this one, and had erased the man from the neck up.
There was Soulsmithing knowledge Lindon could glean from the creation of those weapons, and he had been diligently doing so. Ozmanthus had also left behind a wealth of sacred arts experience, including a natural sense for madra manipulation unlike anything Lindon had ever seen. Between that and his insight, no wonder he had been called a genius.
But Lindon was having a harder and harder time seeing Ozmanthus and Eithan Arelius as the same person.
He knew they were. Eithan had said so himself, and had proven his identity in the most dramatic fashion possible. Even Ozmanthus’ echo had confirmed it.
It wasn’t that Lindon doubted, but that it was hard to see how time had turned Ozmanthus into Eithan. There was some lesson to be learned from that, even if Lindon wasn’t sure exactly what it was.
In the meantime, he would take every advantage he had.
“What do we have left, Dross?” Lindon asked, when Eithan’s memory had faded.
Dross drifted into existence, choosing to appear so that it looked like he had floated out of the shadows. [Our enemies have centuries if not millennia of experience we don’t, and they have spent that time building up resources. Any of them could crush us, either personally or with a command to their organizations. This is the fragility of advancing so quickly.]
“I understand, so if you could speed this up…”
[We hang under the cloud of doom, and yet we stand up in our futile struggle, never flagging under the weight that will surely crush us.]
Lindon gently grabbed Dross and turned him to look into his large purple eye. “It’s not futile, Dross.”
He could feel the spirit shifting uncomfortably and looking for an argument, but finally Dross’ arms drooped and he sighed. […no, it’s not. But wouldn’t it be more exciting if it were?]
Lindon let Dross drift sullenly into the air and answer his question at last. [There is no substitute for experience…so we’ll steal theirs.]
A grey-and-white copy of a younger Northstrider appeared in midair, projected by Dross. [I have recovered many of my memories from inside his oracle codex, and he left an echo of himself behind in the labyrinth after his exploration. I suspect we’re eighty percent to a combat solution.]
Another echo appeared next to him, this time of Reigan Shen with his chin tilted proudly up. [The trouble with Reigan Shen is that he can change his resources at any time, crafting cruel weapons to tear our souls to pieces…ahem, so we can never have a one-hundred-percent accurate model. But we are close, so close, enough that we can taste success with our outstretched tongues.]
Most Monarchs had never set foot into the labyrinth, but three had. Fortunately, they were the ones Lindon was most concerned about.
The third Monarch appeared, drawing back her bow with a smirk on her face. The young Malice looked like she could be Mercy’s sister.
[Akura Malice. Her powers have grown and evolved since she was the Sage of Eternal Night, and she did not use the full extent of her power while she was inside the labyrinth, suffering as she did from both the degradation of hunger madra and the suppression field. However…]