From Moving Crates to Killing Gods-Chapter 83: Ruined Notebooks

The barrier shone with its green light around the Corruptor. I probably caught it by surprise... probably. It was hard to tell with things that had no facial expressions. For all I knew, this was its ’thrilled to be here’ face.

Then I gave the command.

Shrink.

The barrier compressed inward with everything it had.

At the same moment, the Corruptor forced the exit door open.

One limb slipped through the doorway and brushed the outside air for the first time in who knew how long. But it wouldn’t be free, it was already inside my barrier.

Then I heard a scream.

"AAAAA WHAT’S THAT!" Coco yelled at the top of his lungs.

Please let it just be the arm, I thought as I pushed through the corridor at a full sprint.

The barrier kept shrinking. I felt the resistance through the cube’s connection, the liquid pressing against the contraction with surprising force, looking for any leak it could exploit. But there was none. The cube didn’t negotiate.

The resistance spiked once, a little. Then it collapsed completely, liquid fell from inside the barrier and hit the ground.

It didn’t move anymore. No twitching, no reforming. Just goo, defeated goo.

The liquid had lost the strange viscosity it once carried. The faint, unsettling sense of life inside it was gone.

I stepped through the entrance.

The canyon pass outside was narrow enough that everyone had been standing practically on top of each other. Now they were scattered across it in varying stages of alarm.

Kira had her back against the canyon wall with both hands braced against the stone. Finn stood frozen in place with his arms half raised, wearing the expression of someone who had reacted on instinct and had no idea what he had been about to do. Phinyx still sat cross legged where he had been waiting, which somehow felt like the strangest reaction of all.

Coco had retreated and was still pointing at the splatter on the ground.

The liquid was spread across the stone in a rough circular shape. But it was flat and still now, just dark stains on grey rock.

They all looked at me.

"Well... now there’s nothing inside." I said as I looked over the scene.

Finn slowly lowered his arms.

"That was a crazy entrance, even for you." Finn said as his eyes moved from the door to the splatter and finally to me.

"It tried to run, so I improvised." I replied.

"Well, it did run. It was right next to Coco’s foot." Kira said as she pushed herself off the wall, her voice steady again.

Coco looked down at his foot as if reconsidering where it had been standing.

"As soon as I saw it, I ran." Coco said quietly. No shame, just facts.

"I’m sorry, Coco. My mistake almost got you hurt." I said. "I could’ve done it better."

"Just get me some juice sometime." Coco replied, the worry already fading from his face.

Then the notification appeared.

It hovered at the edge of my vision, calm and unhurried, as if it had been patiently waiting for me to stop running.

[You Slayed: Acolyte Rue - Level ???]

[Corruption Fades.]

I read it twice.

Acolyte...?

So it was different from the other Corruptors, this one wasn’t an aspirant... whatever that meant.

Maybe that’s why it had some level of intelligence?

The tilted head. The moment it chose to run instead of fight, it had calculated its odds and had a certain goal.

I closed the notification and looked at the stains on the ground.

Someone built a laboratory out here. For some reason there was an acolyte inside it. Someone died in the same room with it, sitting against the Ward table.

Three facts. No conclusions yet.

How did Damian find this place? Or was it just a location marked on the map?

"By the way, what ability did you use to kill the Corruptor?" Kira asked. "I didn’t know you could do something like that."

I thought about it, I hadn’t told them about the Hibrem cube and the barrier ability. I didn’t want them to think that I had a personal barrier and didn’t want to use it with them. I just didn’t want to waste such an important resource at random...

"Oh that?" I continued. "It’s a modification of Pulse, but I can’t really control it."

They seemed satisfied with that answer, or at least willing to accept it without digging further. No one looked particularly eager to analyze whatever had just happened inside the corridor anyway.

I clapped my hands once, breaking the moment before anyone could change their mind.

"Well guys, I guess it’s time to build the outpost." I said. "But as you guys do that I want to search this place, there might be something useful in here.

"This vine will have to be taller, since it has to get over the canyon walls." Kira said while already straightening into a practical stance. "Finn, can you help me by making some silver supports for the vine?"

Finn glanced toward Kira with mild apprehension before nodding.

"I think I can do that... maybe." Finn said.

"Then Coco, you’re with me and Phinyx." I said while turning to him. "Let’s go explore this place, it seems like a lab."

"A lab." Coco repeated as he looked up from the stain he had been staring at. "Maybe there’s some artifacts useful for juice making."

"Uhmm... sure Coco." I said while wondering if all his motivations were tied to survival and juice making. The answer was yes, definitely yes. The two were probably connected in his mind anyway.

Phinyx unfolded himself from the ground with no particular hurry and brushed his knees.

"Time for some exploration vibes." Phinyx said with quiet enthusiasm.

We split without ceremony.

Kira was already pulling vine seeds from her pouch before I turned away, her eyes measuring the canyon walls above with the focused calm she got when a task had clear parameters. Finn moved to her side, one hand pressed against the silver wall.

I left them to it and walked back through the entrance.

The white stone lamps were still glowing. The corridor felt different now that the presence at the end of it was gone. It felt much safer.

Coco followed close behind, his eyes moving along the walls with the careful attention of someone cataloguing everything.

Phinyx came in last.

"Yes, this gives me lab vibes." He murmured approvingly.

The corridor opened into the same wide room I had passed through on the way in. In the rush I hadn’t looked at it properly. Now I did.

The tables were long and built from a silver I didn’t recognize, lighter in color than the outpost walls. Most of the glass instruments on top were shattered, their contents long since dried into dark residue along the table surfaces. But a few had survived intact, sealed containers that still held something inside.

Coco walked directly to the nearest shelf and began examining the containers with the focused attention of someone whose entire professional history involved liquids.

"These are sealed really well." He said, tilting one container carefully.

"Don’t open or drink any of them." I said.

"I wasn’t going to." He put it back gently. "Probably."

Phinyx had drifted toward the far wall where a section of shelving had partially collapsed, spilling its contents across the floor. He crouched over something and picked it up with two fingers.

"There’s notebooks here." He said. "A lot of them. Very notebooky vibes."

I crossed to him immediately.

They were in bad shape. Most had their pages fused together into solid blocks because of moisture. But Phinyx had found three that still had their covers intact, the pages stiff but separable.

The writing inside was dense and small, packed into every available space on each page. The language was one I recognized. Not quite readable, but familiar enough in structure that I could tell it was organized. Sections. Headings. Someone had been taking careful notes over a long time.

"We’re taking these." I said and tucked them under my arm.

The sealed door to the containment room was still open from the hole I had cut in it. I stepped through and looked at the space properly for the first time without a regenerating Corruptor taking up most of my attention. Much less stressful. Much more interesting.

The runic table at the center was the most complete piece of equipment in the entire building. Not a scratch on it. Whatever the person in the lab coat had been doing here, he had taken good care of it. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The ward cube rested in the depression at its center.

I leaned closer without touching it.

The shape was identical to the ward I had seen with the bloops, the same proportions. But this one was completely inert. Like something had been drained out of it and never replaced.

The skeleton beside the table had slumped against its base at an angle that suggested they had sat down and simply not gotten back up.

The lab coat was in the shape you’d expect from clothing that had survived for hundreds of years with an oily corruptor friend around, yet it somehow still held together.

In the front pocket was a pen.

And beside it, half hidden under the edge of the coat, was a small stack of notebooks.

I crouched and pulled one free, the cover cracked slightly in my hands as I opened it.

Most of the pages were ruined, fused together. But near the back a few sheets separated with a dry, fragile sound.

I scanned the first readable line and froze.

Coco noticed immediately. "What."

I didn’t answer, I just turned the notebook so that he could see the line.

My name is Eric, her name was Rue. And if you are reading this, I’m dead.