Black String of Fate

Chapter 9: Apparently Not Ruins of Salazar

Woah, what is this place... Is this what a mage Archon is truly capable of? It's incredible..."

As soon as he stepped in, Xavier got teleported to a mystical place that defied the laws of physics. Floating obsidian platforms were scattered as far as the eye could see, the smoky clouds below the feet, and the world dyed in a beautiful eerie scarlet, as if time was frozen in eternal dusk.

'It's not an illusion, this is a real place, and those platforms are really just magically floating, evenly spaced, with no apparent support at all... Multiple times, I have crossed blades with an Archon in the path of magic, one of the three Archons of my generation, but she was never this skilled. The creation of this dimension...

this is something of otherworldly proportions, way beyond the scope of a measly Archon.'

Xavier had never doubted that this place was some other dimension as soon as he entered. If it was some hidden place from his home world, he would know. As for how, he would just have a feeling.

'Even though I am like this now, I was once a top-notch Archon. My intuitions are still as sharp as in my prime, and they tell me this is neither the human world nor the spirit world. Salazar, he really created an interdimensional teleporter to god knows what this realm is...

Just how did he get access to this dimension? Is there a secret hidden here? If there is, it's probably something pretty consequential, much more than a chalice...

Either way, there seems to be no way back, so I can only look forward.'

Xavier looked over in the distance towards the vast horizon of platforms and spotted a faint silhouette of a giant structure, shooting up to the sky with no end in sight.

'Hmm, a tower, huh? Pretty classic, I assume that is the next destination? But, how do I get over there?'

Xavier looked around and determined that the platforms were too far to jump over, so he went towards the edge of the platform he had spawned on and observed it carefully.

'The edges of this obsidian platform are inscribed with something. It's faint, but I assume that these scribblings will be my hint...'

Xavier traced the runes with his finger, and while he was carefully checking, his finger accidentally went over the edge and disappeared.

'The fuck-?!'

He reflexively pulled his finger back, and to his relief, it was completely unharmed. Xavier let out a sigh and once again brought his finger near to the edge. He hesitated for a moment, but nevertheless, he braced himself and put his finger over the edge.

The finger disappeared, but nothing different was felt by Xavier. It still felt connected.

'This... my finger feels no different...'

Xavier, now after gaining a bit more confidence, put his whole arm in, and as he expected, nothing happened.

'Just what is this... Woah, what?!'

After putting his hand in, Xavier looked around, and to his surprise, he found his hand floating in the air just a few platforms away. He then took out his hand and pushed it through the edge in the opposite direction. He saw that his hand was once again floating in the air on a different platform.

Things clicked for Xavier, and he realized that these runes were another kind of teleporter that would help him travel to other platforms.

'So that's how I'm supposed to reach the tower. Since my arm teleported to a random platform instead of the one just next to me, It'll be safe to assume that this is a maze I have to go through. I better note down all my moves, otherwise, I'll be circling this thing for all eternity.'

Xavier looked towards his burnt torch and used the soot left on it to mark his platform as '0', and make an arrow toward the direction he decided to go through.

'Whew, I hate these types of puzzles... Here goes nothing.'

Xavier took a step outside the edge, and he landed on the platform on which he originally had found his hand. Before anything else, Xavier marked the direction he came from with an arrow, and a sub-notation of '0'. He marked his current platform as '1', and stepped back to the '0' platform. On '0', he marked the arrow leading towards '1' with the sub-notation of '1'.

All of this was to ensure that he wouldn't get lost in this maze. He had a feeling that the trickiness of this entire thing would be way out of pay grade, but he had no choice, because,

'It's now either do or die, as I still haven't found a way back to that chamber where I came from...'

And so began Xavier's arduous journey of navigating this maze. The platforms were marked and numbered with soot one by one, and Xavier just roamed around blindly to try to get a feel for the maze.

For the first few hours, he just teleported to random platforms, numbered them, marked the direction he came from and will go to, and moved ahead, once again teleporting to some random platform with no sense of pattern. This continued for 5 whole hours when finally Xavier stepped back onto a platform he had already been to. He had finally circled back.

'Finally! This maze isn't endless after all!' Xavier was surprisingly elated, as, during his time of exploration, he had marked over a thousand platforms, with absolutely no repetitions occurring. While it would be good news in general cases, this maze gave Xavier no sense of direction. It was impossible to tell whether he was on the right path or not.

With this, he can finally begin narrowing down his search.

From that same platform, he teleported in a direction different from the original one and landed once again on a platform he had already marked.

'This is some good progress! Now, let's see...'

Like this, Xavier once again started circling the maze for hours and hours on end. Sometimes he discovered new platforms, sometimes he got stuck in some repeating cycle of platforms. He tried cracking the pattern of these teleportations, but the randomness made it impossible to even fathom a pattern.

Xavier's mental limits were also being tested. The platforms were all identical. If not for the markings, Xavier would've gone insane trying to distinguish one from the other. There were also some hope-shattering loops Xavier got stuck on occasionally, some of them being so hard to break out of, that it edged Xavier to the brink of insanity.

At some point, it even seemed that Xavier had stopped making any progress, and it all weighed heavily on his mind. There was no sensation of hunger, thirst, or pain present in this dimension, so Xavier only had his thoughts and the maze.

There was also no sensation of time passing over there. At some point, Xavier didn't even know whether he was stuck in this maze for months or years, it had even stalled the growth of his body over the years.

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'It'll end soon, I have marked a lot of platforms by now, there's a high chance I'll stumble upon a good path.'

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'ARGH! This stupid-ass maze, why am I coming back to these spots over and over again!'

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'There's just a few more platforms left to uncover, if I grind away a bit more... I should be able to reach the end. Hopefully...'

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'It's hopeless... These platforms never end, there is no end to this madness. I don't get tired, I don't get hungry, I can't even die if I want to. I'll lose myself if this goes on. It's circling upon circling upon circling, with these circles NEVER FUCKING ENDING! I'LL FUCKING DIE BY BECOMING A RETARD STUCK IN THIS GOD-FORSAKEN MAZE!

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...It's scary. Fuck this shit, I ain't dyin' here...'

But Xavier never gave up. Like Sisyphus rolling the boulder to the top, he also nudged away at the colossal task of completely mapping this maze and getting to the tower. His mind was numb from the repetitive task he was doing, he felt as if his soul was dimming down.

But a hunger, a drive that came from nothing but spite for the maze, managed to keep him going endlessly, and his efforts finally paid off.

'...Huh?'

Xavier just suddenly found himself at the base of the tower.