Chapter 41 — The Vault
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 3
Gao Yang glanced at the half-elf, whose face was all nerves. "You're a woman who'd dig up another family's ancestral grave without blinking, and you're afraid of some ancient facility that's been abandoned for over a thousand years?"
"That's different! Digging up a grave—even if the corpse in the coffin jumps up, it's still just a person! But if something comes crawling out of an ancient facility like this, there's no telling what it might be! I've heard some ancient facilities still have chimeric beasts and mana colossi sealed inside, made by mad mages..."
A vein throbbed at Gao Cen's temple. "So when I jump up out of my grave I'm just a 'person'—sorry to disappoint you. And what's this about the Dark Mountains rumors before, and now ancient-facility ghost stories? Where do you get all this incorrect knowledge in your head?"
Amber thought for a moment, then suddenly put on a mysterious air. "I'll tell you something, actually I really am one of the Night Goddess's chosen. Sometimes when I pray too hard the Goddess gives me revelations—she's the one who taught me all this..."
Rebecca casually rolled a mini fireball no bigger than her thumb and tossed it at Amber. Caught off guard, Amber took it square in the face and came away smeared with black soot, immediately shrieking: "Mother! Are you insane?! Suddenly throwing a fireball—that's dangerous, you know!"
Rebecca shrugged. "...Guess she's not one of the chosen."
Gao Yang could no longer be bothered with these two who could never get along.
For the ancient gate had already appeared before them.
The corridor ended, and a massive door cast from purple-black metal stood before them. It was in the classic Gondor "Years of Starlight" style—heavy, steady, and on its surface abstract reliefs depicted soldiers and city walls.
Amber scrubbed the soot from her face with all her might and stared at the door before her, eyes shining. "This thing... don't tell me it's a single slab of purple steel?!"
"That's right, a single slab. But every fleck you scrape off it, I'll have Rebecca convert into a fireball and paste you in the face with," Gao Yang said, rapping Amber on the head with the pommel of the Pioneer's Sword. "So put away your bold ideas. Waiting patiently for me to pay your wages—that's the path to a long life."
Amber turned her head away and muttered under her breath: "...Old skinflint..."
Gao Yang heard her muttering but ignored it. Instead he took half a step back and drew from his breast the all-important "key."
An inheritance from seven hundred years ago: the platinum disc.
Rebecca was a little worried. "After all these years, can this thing really still work?"
Gao Yang looked at her and gave a faint smile. "This is Gondor Empire technology. As long as the facility's main structure hasn't collapsed, its main gate will never fail."
As if to prove his words no idle boast, the moment he finished speaking the intricate patterns on the platinum disc lit up one after another, and the reliefs on the heavy metal door followed suit, threads of radiance beginning to flow across them.
When the light had filled the entire door, a grinding, grating sound of machinery came from the door and from deep within the rock walls to either side. Everyone felt the ground beneath their feet tremble faintly, and with that trembling the great door slowly began to open.
Gao Yang, Rebecca, and the others had long since prepared. The instant the door opened they covered their mouths and noses and withdrew to either side, and Gao Yang also activated one of the knight's basic skills, "Breath Ward"—a faint, half-visible barrier shielding every person present. This ability worked much like the mage's basic spell "Breeze Shield": though it offered only very, very limited protection, it could effectively maintain a clean-air environment. When delving into places like ancient ruins, this skill let the caster avoid harm from poisonous gases.