The relative safety of the service duct was quickly forgotten.
Alden and Scott emerged again into the main corridor, the acrid smell of burnt metal and mechanical fluid from the defeated Arachnophobias still hanging heavily in the air.
The creatures' carcasses lay where they had left them.
"Right," Scott breathed, his flashlight beam nervously sweeping the surroundings as if expecting more critters to leap from the shadows.
"Back to square one, almost. I hope your senses don't lead us straight into the wolf's den."
Alden ignored the sarcasm.
His left arm, though bandaged, throbbed painfully with every sharp movement. He focused more consciously on his senses.
The intersection stretched before them, a crossroads of three other dark and uninviting passages, in addition to the one they had come from and the one leading to the energy barrier they had crossed.
The impressions were confusing at first, a tangle of energy flows and structural echoes. But slowly, by focusing, he began to discern nuances.
Two of the passages seemed dead, the energy within stagnant, almost fetid. The third, however, the one branching slightly to the right and seeming to slope gently upwards, vibrated with a different, more… active energy.
It was faint, but it was the most promising lead.
"That way," Alden said, pointing to the right-hand passage.
"I perceive something. Some kind of main conduit, or a larger chamber upstream. And it seems to be going up. If we're looking for an observation point, that's our best option."
Scott grunted but followed without further protest.
Alden's audacity – or recklessness – in the face of the energy barrier had, it seemed, earned him limited credit.
"Up, huh? I just hope we don't end up stuck in a ventilation shaft with a colony of mutant bats. I have a holy terror of flying critters shitting on me."
The new corridor was different from the previous ones.
The walls were less metallic, more carved from dark, granular rock, interspersed with veins of an unknown ore that glowed faintly in places, emitting a ghostly greenish or bluish light.
The air was cooler here, but also heavier with the smell of damp earth and minerals. The sound of their footsteps resonated differently, absorbed by the rock.
"Looks like we're heading into an even older section of the complex," Scott commented, observing the walls with interest.
"These glowing veins… I've never seen anything like them. Some kind of natural matronic ore?" "Possible," Alden replied, also intrigued. His senses reacted to these veins, perceiving weak but constant energy flows coursing through them.
"My terminal doesn't recognize these signatures."
They progressed in silence for several minutes, the slope becoming steeper.
The corridor began to wind, narrowing in places to the point where they had to walk sideways. Alden felt the pressure building in his ears as they gained altitude. Suddenly, the corridor opened onto a narrow rocky platform, overlooking an immense cavern.
They stopped short, transfixed by the sight.
The cavern was so vast that the light from Scott's flashlight struggled to reach the opposite walls. Countless stalactites, some as thick as tree trunks, descended from an invisible ceiling lost in the darkness above.
But what immediately struck Alden were the structures. In the center of the cavern, several enormous pillars of black crystal, of prodigious purity and size, rose from the ground, some reaching dizzying heights.
They pulsed with a faint, dark internal light, casting moving, distorted shadows on the cavern walls. Between these pillars, a complex network of bridges made of solidified light, or translucent crystalline material, formed suspended walkways across the void.
And far, far below, Alden thought he could distinguish a more intense glow, some kind of subterranean lake or energy concentration.
"By all the manas…" Scott breathed, visibly impressed despite himself. "What is this place? It looks like the heart of an abomination."
Alden didn't answer, absorbed by the spectacle. Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of energy information. The black crystal pillars radiated. The bridges of light vibrated with pure, intense matronic energy.
"The beacon…" Alden thought. "Could it be here? Such an energy node would be a logical place to install it."
He consulted his terminal, but as expected, the interference was massive. The beacon's signal remained undetectable.
"System, analysis of this cavern. Structure, nature of the crystals, the bridges of light. Potential threats?"
[Analysis in progress… Natural geode cavern, modified by advanced matronic technology of ********* origin.
The pillars are composed of a highly conductive polyphasic carbon crystal, capable of storing and channeling massive amounts of matronic energy.
The bridges are solidified light constructs, stabilized by force fields. Ambient energy level: extremely high. Potential threats: structural instability of the bridges, random energy discharges from the pillars, possible presence of guardian entities linked to this place of power. Mana shadow signature in the lower levels of the cavern, near the light source at the bottom. Extreme caution recommended.]
Again. Alden felt a shiver run down his spine.
This Labyrinth was decidedly a nest of problems.
"There's something big and nasty way down there," Scott said, as if he had read Alden's thoughts, or perhaps his experience allowed him to sense the danger.
"I don't know what it is, but I have no desire to go say hello."
"We might not have to go down," Alden said, his gaze scanning the heights, the interconnections of the light bridges.
He was looking for a pattern, a logic, a path that could lead them to the beacon without forcing them to directly confront the horror slumbering in the depths.