Chapter 1227 — The Book's Pages Have Yellowed
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
In the vast matrix hall, the hum of ancient machinery resonated between the silver-white metal pillars, the sounds layering upon one another until they sometimes resembled the chime of a wind-bell with some strange melody—Ophelia vaguely remembered that long, long ago, in the days before this underground facility had been sealed, someone had visited her and described these sounds she made while thinking as a "wind-bell."
But that was all very long ago—so long ago that even the tireless machines had consigned the relevant records to the deepest layer of the database. Now no living soul would ever knock upon these ancient, dust-sealed doors again; in the vast subterranean facility, only soulless iron automatons and cold magical mechanisms kept company with her, this sleepless ancient ghost.
The resonance between the square pillars gradually subsided into a low murmur, and the holographic projections that had clearly displayed the wasteland outside winked out one by one. The Ophelia Matrix ended her brief rest state and transferred the active terminal outside the walls—the one called "Virodai"—to a backup thread. Then the metal pillars in the hall began rapidly adjusting their heights and orientations; each matrix node completed its self-check and came online, taking over the information links of the various laboratories and factory facilities within the base.
As these matrix nodes shifted, a metal platform at the center of the hall rose to the floor with a faint hiss of pressurized air. The covering apparatus atop the platform slid silently to either side, revealing the delicate vessel resting there: an ellipsoid preservation chamber wrought of crystal, countless pipes and cables connecting to the metal structure of its base—though more than half the runes on that base were now dark. And within the ellipsoid chamber, a slender, somewhat petite figure floated quietly in a thin pale-gold solution.
It was a young woman, her light-grey hair streaked with a metallic sheen cascading like a waterfall behind her. She wore classical garments that belonged to no age of this world, the exquisite ornamentation of the dress and the woman's own uncommon beauty alike proclaiming the special status of this "Sleeper"—yet for all her beauty remained, the woman floating in the pale-gold solution showed no trace of life. She was like an exquisite doll, floating within a coffin that had been sealed for hundreds of years.
The Matrix regarded the figure floating in the vessel and routinely completed today's monitoring record:
"Year XX, Month X, Day XX. Ophelia Norton, day 266,455 of brain death. Matrix operating continuously; conditions within the base normal; no higher-level directive received; continuing to execute initial system tasks..."
……
In a valley surrounded by corrupted wasteland, a thorn-grid woven from gigantic plant structures had grown lush and thick into a sturdy, dense wooden dome. This dome shut out the restless, fetid winds of the wasteland, and also blocked the dry sand carried on those winds and the ash-flecks borne from who knew where. And within the dome, the valley's environment had become entirely stable.
Luminous plants set into the dome and the surrounding rock walls provided ample illumination for the whole settlement; vines delving deep into the rock strata and underground supplied the valley with filtered, clean water; the substances the plants needed to grow came from the corrupted soil teeming with magical residue. Great numbers of dormant "treants" clung to the rugged rocks and slopes, and in the clearings between the treants, along both sides of the paths, one could see vast numbers of twisted yet flourishing plants.