CHapter 1166
New
Malcolm Tent
Monkey with a typewriter.
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The Curse Canyon was…weird. It was a canyon, like I expected, and it WAS full of junk, kind of like a landfill, but it was also kind of strange. For one thing, the air and space around the canyon's edges were strange and irregular. Sometimes I could see a heat haze like a mirage, or a cloud of sparkles, or the image of a creeping shadow shaped like a man.
As we walked inside, we passed through several patches of unusual effects that tried to grab hold. Heat, cold, light, dark, it felt like someone had set the air around us to randomize. The strangest part was that the varied effects were often contradictory and pressed against each other, but instead of exploding or fizzling out or whatever, they were just coexisting like it was no big thing.
"This is astonishing," Callie said with an awed expression. We had just walked into a sort of entry nook of the canyon, where the walls of cursed items had risen around the gates. We were on a path that snaked its way through, going ever deeper, and the piles of random junk followed the sides of the path, descending like some kind of sea of trash.
I nodded, glancing around with interest. I had Mornax active, and Callie had covered herself with Adherent fire to block out the effects, but it was still kind of overwhelming. I considered activating Dantalion's data collection ability, but I was pretty sure there was way too much going on here for me to process without using the staff to bump him to the next rank. "How exactly is this place stable?" I asked curiously as we walked. As we entered, one of the guards had followed us inside. I supposed he was there as a guide, but I figured if he was going to get a free traveling companion I could at least learn something.
To my surprise, Callie answered. "Supression," she said immediately. The guard shot her a surprised look, and she nodded back smugly before continuing her explanation. "You ever been somewhere really cold? And sometimes in the winter, the water in the pipes freeze if you don't keep it running, causing the pipes to burst?"
I nodded, and she continued, gesturing to the rest of the canyon. "Well, that only happens if there's a small amount of water. If the pipes are full, they can't freeze. When water freezes, it expands. It HAS to expand. Full pipes don't have the room for expansion, so the inward pressure forces the water to remain in a liquid state long past the normal freezing point."
"So this place is containing so many curses that they're holding themselves inert through sheer force?" I asked with interest.
She nodded. "Looks like. It IS fascinating, though it's also really dangerous."
"Why is that?" I asked as we hopped over a small patch of ominous looking swords that had 'coincidentally' rolled onto the path.
"Pipes don't freeze when they're full…at first," she said ominously. "Eventually, once it gets cold enough, the energy trying to force the water into a solid state overcomes the resistance of the pipe containing it. Then the water freezes, no matter what's in its way. Which in the case of this place means…well…boom."
The guard cleared his throat. "Begging your pardon, miss, but that's not QUITE accurate in this case. The canyon itself is a magical construct created by the dean of several departments. While that might normally be a concern, that would only be true if there was no release valve for the building pressure."
"Ah, so there are pressure releases?" she asked excitedly. "Where might those be?"
"Those would be the crucibles," he said with a shrug. "There are a few devices or places that are catalyzed by the condensed curse energy. Like the Cauldron, or the Compactor."
Interesting names. "What is the Cauldron?" I asked, naturally more attracted to the magical sounding device than the one that sounded like it was made to crush trash. "And how do you know all this? If you don't mind me asking. Are you not just a guard?"
"Guard duty here is more complicated than you might think," he said wryly. "Lots of calculations and rebalancing of energies. Natural formations arise here VERY easily, and the guards are tasked with traveling around and breaking them up before they gather too much momentum. Unless one of the students finds one and purchases experiment rights for it. But that's not too common.
"As for the Cauldron, it's…complicated," he grimaced. "Basically, the Cauldron is where we put potions and liquid creations that go in here. We just dump them all in a big reinforced bowl that does the same thing as this place on a smaller scale. Over the millennia, there have been some truly ridiculous concoctions added, and over the years the Cauldron's contents have become…strange."
I blinked at him. "Im sorry, you're saying people dump random potions, most of which are, by definition, improperly made, into a giant bowl and let it pressure cook under waves of curse energy for millennia? What possible use could they have for that? Like there's no way it's drinkable."
"It's not," he laughed. "But it IS unique. Students can apply to have a vial of Cauldron Concoction withdrawn for credit points. Because of the constantly shifting nature of the Cauldron, every vial is completely new, and its effects can change from one moment to the next. Not all of the potions are failures, either. After so long concocting, the Cauldron has become something of a pet project for the alchemy faculty. They offer extra credits for students who dump any leftover mixtures they have in there at the end of the semester."
I could tell Callie wasn't too interested in that, even if I kind of wanted to snag a vial, so I moved on to something a little more relevant. "Where do you keep the most harmful stuff?" I asked as I looked around. "Stuff that will kill you if you look at it."
He sighed. "The lethal curses are the Chamber. Dean Harper captured a fragment of a Void Child of Overgod level quite some time ago, and he's been conducting experiments on it for a number of centuries. It isn't particularly self aware," he said as I saw my reaction. "It's been lobotomized. He's just using it to test attribute combinations that have a pronounced effect on Void spawned creatures."
Dean Wallace Harper, the Dean of the Department of Atypical Physicality. Also known as the Monstrosity, he was the Overgod in charge of Bethy's department. I hadn't heard much about him, but I got the impression he was the kind of guy you wouldn't want made at you.
"Are we allowed to visit the Chamber?" I asked carefully. "Like to take stuff?"
Callie's vault was fairly unique in terms of utility, and its nature made it so that the more dangerous the item she inverted, the more beneficial the effect. I wasn't sure how something like direct damage would translate (maybe it would make a knife that healed you when you got stabbed), but in terms of utility, we wanted the worst stuff we could find here, and it sounded like the Chamber was where we would find it.
Understandably, the guard wasn't prepared for someone to ask to go to the most dangerous and useless place in the canyon, but I imagined that even if this wasn't a common request it wasn't TOO rare, because he adjusted to the question quickly enough.
"Anything involved in an active project would need to be exchanged," he hedged. "Credit points would work, but alternatively you could submit findings to the project you think might be relevant. If you find something unique, you'll be counted as having contributed to the result that comes from it, and you can redeem your contribution points directly."
I raised an eyebrow. "Contribution points?"
"All large scale research projects award contribution points," he clarified. "These are the currency that postgraduates and even teachers use to redeem benefits. They can be put towards increased research focus, additional manpower, materials, expert consultation from the deans, they can even be used to fund new and original research projects directly.
"Honestly," he admitted. "I don't think it would be possible for you to contribute to a research project the Dean has been operating for hundreds of years, but if students DO earn contribution points, they have the option to cash them out directly. It's kind of like selling them to the project staff because you can't use them. That's basically the only way I could see you getting permission to take anything useful from the Chamber."
I had been wondering why he would mention contribution points if students couldn't get them, but it made sense if there was no other way. Besides, when it came to damaging the Void, Callie and I knew a little something we might be able to contribute. I doubted there was anything we could come up with that an Overgod wouldn't be able to parse at a glance, but it was highly possible that Heretic Fire represented an attribute they might not have seen here before in that exact form, not to mention Adherent Fire or any of our other Void resistance tricks like Leviathan or Zagan.
One of the big benefits of my current path was exactly how muddled some of my demons had become. I was pretty sure I'd accidentally created more than a couple completely original attributes without meaning to. I'd have to study those to learn more about them, of course, because they were the embryonic form of what I would need to do when I constructed my Worldforce. But for now, because of exactly how much variety existed in Mythcrafting (literally anything you could imagine could be an ingredient), there was a decent chance we had something interesting to show them.
Despite my face being covered, I could tell from the guard's expression he knew roughly what I was thinking, and that he wasn't surprised at all. "Do you want me to escort you to the Chamber?" he asked tiredly.
"I think that would be helpful," I said immediately, my competitive drive ignited by this new challenge. Learning new ways to hurt the Void wouldn't be a bad thing either, given the ongoing war back home. Through the bond, Callie's fighting spirit burned as bright as mine, planning to submit both her original attribute and her father's special anti-Void flame for consideration (after a clarification on source, obviously, plagiarism was for scumbags) and see exactly how far our unique advantages could take us here in a place ruled by beings beyond our comprehension.
Apparently, the guard was used to cocky freshmen who thought they knew everything, because he just chuckled. "Yeah, you seem like the type. That was why I followed you in. Come on then."
We both grinned as he turned around a particularly towering heap of what appeared to be axe head, leaping over a ditch to land on what I swear was a refrigerator, and then began to hop from one large object to the next, heading off in a seemingly random direction. I grinned at Callie, incarnating Sammael, and unfurled my wings, igniting my Cosmic Phoenix bloodline as I swept forward focusing the spatial attribute on closing the distance with the guard.
I heard Callie's should of outrage and heard her own wings flap as she blurred after me, her Adherent fire warping the air as she sped to catch up. I didn't even need to look over my shoulder because of the bond, but I did anyway, just to see the look on her face.
Being back in the sky again, flying through this place without a care in the world, was a wonderful experience. For a few minutes, we didn't worry about curses or Domains or Overgods. Just playing around. And racing to keep up with our guide. A race that I won, obviously.
As we walked inside, we passed through several patches of unusual effects that tried to grab hold. Heat, cold, light, dark, it felt like someone had set the air around us to randomize. The strangest part was that the varied effects were often contradictory and pressed against each other, but instead of exploding or fizzling out or whatever, they were just coexisting like it was no big thing.
"This is astonishing," Callie said with an awed expression. We had just walked into a sort of entry nook of the canyon, where the walls of cursed items had risen around the gates. We were on a path that snaked its way through, going ever deeper, and the piles of random junk followed the sides of the path, descending like some kind of sea of trash.
I nodded, glancing around with interest. I had Mornax active, and Callie had covered herself with Adherent fire to block out the effects, but it was still kind of overwhelming. I considered activating Dantalion's data collection ability, but I was pretty sure there was way too much going on here for me to process without using the staff to bump him to the next rank. "How exactly is this place stable?" I asked curiously as we walked. As we entered, one of the guards had followed us inside. I supposed he was there as a guide, but I figured if he was going to get a free traveling companion I could at least learn something.
To my surprise, Callie answered. "Supression," she said immediately. The guard shot her a surprised look, and she nodded back smugly before continuing her explanation. "You ever been somewhere really cold? And sometimes in the winter, the water in the pipes freeze if you don't keep it running, causing the pipes to burst?"
I nodded, and she continued, gesturing to the rest of the canyon. "Well, that only happens if there's a small amount of water. If the pipes are full, they can't freeze. When water freezes, it expands. It HAS to expand. Full pipes don't have the room for expansion, so the inward pressure forces the water to remain in a liquid state long past the normal freezing point."
"So this place is containing so many curses that they're holding themselves inert through sheer force?" I asked with interest.
She nodded. "Looks like. It IS fascinating, though it's also really dangerous."
"Why is that?" I asked as we hopped over a small patch of ominous looking swords that had 'coincidentally' rolled onto the path.
"Pipes don't freeze when they're full…at first," she said ominously. "Eventually, once it gets cold enough, the energy trying to force the water into a solid state overcomes the resistance of the pipe containing it. Then the water freezes, no matter what's in its way. Which in the case of this place means…well…boom."
The guard cleared his throat. "Begging your pardon, miss, but that's not QUITE accurate in this case. The canyon itself is a magical construct created by the dean of several departments. While that might normally be a concern, that would only be true if there was no release valve for the building pressure."
"Ah, so there are pressure releases?" she asked excitedly. "Where might those be?"
"Those would be the crucibles," he said with a shrug. "There are a few devices or places that are catalyzed by the condensed curse energy. Like the Cauldron, or the Compactor."
Interesting names. "What is the Cauldron?" I asked, naturally more attracted to the magical sounding device than the one that sounded like it was made to crush trash. "And how do you know all this? If you don't mind me asking. Are you not just a guard?"
"Guard duty here is more complicated than you might think," he said wryly. "Lots of calculations and rebalancing of energies. Natural formations arise here VERY easily, and the guards are tasked with traveling around and breaking them up before they gather too much momentum. Unless one of the students finds one and purchases experiment rights for it. But that's not too common.
"As for the Cauldron, it's…complicated," he grimaced. "Basically, the Cauldron is where we put potions and liquid creations that go in here. We just dump them all in a big reinforced bowl that does the same thing as this place on a smaller scale. Over the millennia, there have been some truly ridiculous concoctions added, and over the years the Cauldron's contents have become…strange."
I blinked at him. "Im sorry, you're saying people dump random potions, most of which are, by definition, improperly made, into a giant bowl and let it pressure cook under waves of curse energy for millennia? What possible use could they have for that? Like there's no way it's drinkable."
"It's not," he laughed. "But it IS unique. Students can apply to have a vial of Cauldron Concoction withdrawn for credit points. Because of the constantly shifting nature of the Cauldron, every vial is completely new, and its effects can change from one moment to the next. Not all of the potions are failures, either. After so long concocting, the Cauldron has become something of a pet project for the alchemy faculty. They offer extra credits for students who dump any leftover mixtures they have in there at the end of the semester."
I could tell Callie wasn't too interested in that, even if I kind of wanted to snag a vial, so I moved on to something a little more relevant. "Where do you keep the most harmful stuff?" I asked as I looked around. "Stuff that will kill you if you look at it."
He sighed. "The lethal curses are the Chamber. Dean Harper captured a fragment of a Void Child of Overgod level quite some time ago, and he's been conducting experiments on it for a number of centuries. It isn't particularly self aware," he said as I saw my reaction. "It's been lobotomized. He's just using it to test attribute combinations that have a pronounced effect on Void spawned creatures."
Dean Wallace Harper, the Dean of the Department of Atypical Physicality. Also known as the Monstrosity, he was the Overgod in charge of Bethy's department. I hadn't heard much about him, but I got the impression he was the kind of guy you wouldn't want made at you.
"Are we allowed to visit the Chamber?" I asked carefully. "Like to take stuff?"
Callie's vault was fairly unique in terms of utility, and its nature made it so that the more dangerous the item she inverted, the more beneficial the effect. I wasn't sure how something like direct damage would translate (maybe it would make a knife that healed you when you got stabbed), but in terms of utility, we wanted the worst stuff we could find here, and it sounded like the Chamber was where we would find it.
Understandably, the guard wasn't prepared for someone to ask to go to the most dangerous and useless place in the canyon, but I imagined that even if this wasn't a common request it wasn't TOO rare, because he adjusted to the question quickly enough.
"Anything involved in an active project would need to be exchanged," he hedged. "Credit points would work, but alternatively you could submit findings to the project you think might be relevant. If you find something unique, you'll be counted as having contributed to the result that comes from it, and you can redeem your contribution points directly."
I raised an eyebrow. "Contribution points?"
"All large scale research projects award contribution points," he clarified. "These are the currency that postgraduates and even teachers use to redeem benefits. They can be put towards increased research focus, additional manpower, materials, expert consultation from the deans, they can even be used to fund new and original research projects directly.
"Honestly," he admitted. "I don't think it would be possible for you to contribute to a research project the Dean has been operating for hundreds of years, but if students DO earn contribution points, they have the option to cash them out directly. It's kind of like selling them to the project staff because you can't use them. That's basically the only way I could see you getting permission to take anything useful from the Chamber."
I had been wondering why he would mention contribution points if students couldn't get them, but it made sense if there was no other way. Besides, when it came to damaging the Void, Callie and I knew a little something we might be able to contribute. I doubted there was anything we could come up with that an Overgod wouldn't be able to parse at a glance, but it was highly possible that Heretic Fire represented an attribute they might not have seen here before in that exact form, not to mention Adherent Fire or any of our other Void resistance tricks like Leviathan or Zagan.
One of the big benefits of my current path was exactly how muddled some of my demons had become. I was pretty sure I'd accidentally created more than a couple completely original attributes without meaning to. I'd have to study those to learn more about them, of course, because they were the embryonic form of what I would need to do when I constructed my Worldforce. But for now, because of exactly how much variety existed in Mythcrafting (literally anything you could imagine could be an ingredient), there was a decent chance we had something interesting to show them.
Despite my face being covered, I could tell from the guard's expression he knew roughly what I was thinking, and that he wasn't surprised at all. "Do you want me to escort you to the Chamber?" he asked tiredly.
"I think that would be helpful," I said immediately, my competitive drive ignited by this new challenge. Learning new ways to hurt the Void wouldn't be a bad thing either, given the ongoing war back home. Through the bond, Callie's fighting spirit burned as bright as mine, planning to submit both her original attribute and her father's special anti-Void flame for consideration (after a clarification on source, obviously, plagiarism was for scumbags) and see exactly how far our unique advantages could take us here in a place ruled by beings beyond our comprehension.
Apparently, the guard was used to cocky freshmen who thought they knew everything, because he just chuckled. "Yeah, you seem like the type. That was why I followed you in. Come on then."
We both grinned as he turned around a particularly towering heap of what appeared to be axe head, leaping over a ditch to land on what I swear was a refrigerator, and then began to hop from one large object to the next, heading off in a seemingly random direction. I grinned at Callie, incarnating Sammael, and unfurled my wings, igniting my Cosmic Phoenix bloodline as I swept forward focusing the spatial attribute on closing the distance with the guard.
I heard Callie's should of outrage and heard her own wings flap as she blurred after me, her Adherent fire warping the air as she sped to catch up. I didn't even need to look over my shoulder because of the bond, but I did anyway, just to see the look on her face.
Being back in the sky again, flying through this place without a care in the world, was a wonderful experience. For a few minutes, we didn't worry about curses or Domains or Overgods. Just playing around. And racing to keep up with our guide. A race that I won, obviously.