Alma 172 In Absence Of Life; In Abundance Of Death

It was not the first time he had come across a construct like them before, after all. 

The technology required to safely contain a soul without its physical tether — the body.

Ma.

Reed felt a chill down his spine and said, "Why are they here? Or rather who are they? The Quetzal Collective was never... completed, right? If that's the case, then who are these people...?" 

Truth be told, it was a question that both Reed and Lu'um already had the answer for. 

Lu'um put her hands on the crystal pillar in front of them and shut her eyes in concentration. Reed guessed that she was probing it, but he didn't think that it was necessary. The facts had been plainly laid out for all to see. Confirming them would do nothing to remedy the situation...

What had been done could not be reversed.

Astor turned toward Reed in confusion and said, "...Do you know what these things are, Reed? These crystal pillars weren't in the observational reports we received about the city. I've double-checked, but I can't find a single report mentioning them." 

His helmet's heads-up display winked as it continued to beam a flood of information about the city into Astor's eyes, though none of it matched what was before them. 

"You can stop looking. I doubt you'd find anything about them, even if you searched through your universal compendium for another century," said Reed in a low voice.

Once Reed explained the function and nature of what a memory crystal was, Astor quickly caught on the logical discrepancy between what he had learned from Lu'um's explanation of Itroch and what stood in front of them. The same dreadful realization struck him as he gazed outward toward the street riddled with the crystal pillars in abundance.

When Lu'um removed her hands from the crystal pillar, she turned toward Reed and Astor and silently nodded her head. 

Reed felt a headache coming on, already aware that they had finally stepped onto something important. He broke the silence and said, "Let's go and tell them the news, then. Ophelia can relay the news to the Spirit of Bountiful Charity and then rethink this entire situation from the ground up." 

The Itroch Syndrome cases had a definite connection to the city of Itroch itself, rather than a mysterious pathogen of some sort. What that relationship was would determine whether or not the infected Chosen in quarantine could be saved...

Ophelia paced back and forth in a continuous loop as she plummed Lu'um with a host of various questions regarding the nature of the memory crystals, their composition, and the history of Itroch itself. She tried her hardest to uncover any causal links that might lead them toward the nature of the Itroch Syndrome, but had come short in the end. 

Lu'um stroked her chin pensively as she thought about all she knew of post-Great Barrier War Mulia and the hidden infrastructure that had allowed it to be a self-sustaining miniature world of its own.

What lay beneath the very continent of Mulia was one of the few things that she had not been privy to for unexplained reasons not known even to her.

She was one of the few people who had been granted the privilege of knowing what He had been creating toward the end of the Final War, the penultimate millennia of conflict against the Infestation after they had snuffed a majority of the Prime Universe into darkness. 

It was during that dark, final millennium — when the entire cosmos had been leeched of all its light, — that He had created the Heavenly Barrier System as it now existed.

He had combined the most advanced Ancient Mulian technology available at the time and the taboo, eldritch knowledge extracted from the imprisoned Infested Pupa within Xibalba to create something entirely new...

Lu'um roughly knew what He had done, but couldn't be accounted to explain the specifics because she had not been around on Mu during the Heavenly Barrier's construction. She had been out in the Deep Black — Infested controlled space out of their homeworld — keeping the Infestation at bay with the few remaining Ancient Mulian fleets at their disposal...

Ophelia let out a resigned sigh and said, "I can feel it...! We're at the cusp of something huge right here, but we're missing a piece or two from putting it all together! Goddamnit!" 

Astor took a deep breath and said, "At least we know what happened to the victims, Ophelia. It's better than not knowing what happened to them at all. We know the effect now; all we need to do is gather some more information and then we'll be able to extrapolate a possible cause."

Reed gazed at Itroch's magnificent works for all they were worth and closed his eyes. He blocked out his senses and retreated into the depths of his mind where he could work without disturbance. 

He had long since come to the conclusion that the Eventide of Faith was a series of independent calamities designed to cull Mulia of all life as its end goal. Whether it was the workings of Fate, the Bastard, his own Karma, or some unknown force, he was positive that there was more to Eventide of Faith than what it was on the surface. 

Lacrima had given him a specific order to follow for an unknown reason as well. There was about that itched Reed's sixth sense in his sleep. It was the tantalizing gleam of something beyond what he currently understood.

The Centlani Deep Fissure was a power surge that had threatened to obliterate the entire continent in a single terrible explosion of unimaginable energy. Although it had been the most rudimentary of the threats they had faced, it also served as one of its key strengths. 

Physical destruction of the continent to kill everything that lived on it. 

The Silvermoon Grasslands Fissure had been a spatiotemporal anomaly that threatened Mulia's history itself by means of destroying the delicate balance of both space and time. 

Spatiotemporal destruction to erase the continent and everything that lived on it. 

And now, the Itroch Fissure. It was one concerned with... the nature of souls. Instead of targeting the continent itself, this fissure's chosen target was the people themselves. Why? What meaning was there in targeting the mortals of the continent and what was the connection between that and the sleeping titan beneath the land? 

Reed already had an inkling of an idea of what the Heaven Barrier System was and how it operated from the nature of the fissures. That, and the relationship between the condition of the titan and the condition of the land — no, the world itself. 

It goes without saying that they're tied to one another... Perhaps, they might even be one and the same. Either way, the health of the titan is integral to the survival of the continent.

It's keeping the Heavenly Barrier running with its own Anima.

It's supplying the continent with its own Anima.

It's solely responsible for maintaining the most important aspects fundamental to keeping this artificial dimension alive. Be it the continent's energy supply, the integrity of the continent's spacetime, and even the nature of the souls that inhabit it...

Reed opened his eyes and muttered, "Purging mortals, living beings. Not out of its own will since it's not even awake at the moment." 

Lu'um turned toward Reed and said, "Of course not. There is no way that this would ever be something induced by the one sleeping at the bottom." 

"Then we agree that all of this is because it's not awake; that it's not at the wheel at the moment." 

"Yes, obviously. And...?" 

Astor, Horatio, and Ophelia stared at one another in confusion as they listened in on Reed and Lu'ums cryptic conversation. They knew not of what lay in the bowels of the earth, nor of its the connection to the fissures, let alone the prophecy of the Eventide of Faith...

"I'm just reaffirming what we do know so you know where I'm coming from in terms of logic, okay? Of this we can both conclude; each fissure has been directly related to an imbalance or disruption in a fundamental aspect of what we consider the reality we live in.

A pillar that supports our world as we know it."

Lu'um nodded and said, "Yes, yes. I assumed that we had both come to the same conclusion long ago. What is so new about this? What is your point, dear?" 

Both of us? Reed suddenly felt rather delighted that Lu'um thought so highly of him, even though she had been dead wrong. It had only been now that he had put the pieces together...

"I will assume that we are both of the same mind; this fissure is directly related to the management of souls in some essential way necessary for the continuation of life on this continent.

The propagation of life as we comprehend it. Itroch, the God of Love concerned with the relationships with fertility, marriage, and duality. A city built upon the dream of harnessing souls.

Can't you see it? Why we, who are blessed with an Alma, are not affected but mortals are?"

Astor, Horatio, and Ophelia felt like they had heard something enormously important, but chose not to interrupt their conversation. There was too much that they were unaware of. 

Reed gazed at the crystal pillars and said, "It's recalling souls. There's no one at the wheel, so it's acting on its instincts, trying to protect the people on the surface." 

Chapter end