Warsinger James Baldwin (read this if TXT) 📖

we'll manage that. Hang on… let me put Rin on a video feed.”

At the end of the storage area was another blood-activated door, not nearly as big as the one that had led into the Holy Garage. The room beyond, however, was a sight to behold. Small solar lights hung from the high vaulted ceilings of the [Shrine Schematic Archives]. It, and all of the intricate carvings along the pillars, had been bored straight out of solid rock. Twelve smooth stone obelisks surrounded a metal-topped altar. Behind them was a large stone ring mounted on a pedestal connected to a series of pipes that fed into the floor, and behind that, a nearly life-sized statue of Khors in dragon form. In this instance, he reminded me of an Indian god: half-human, half-dragon, surrounded by a fan of arms that each bore some kind of tool. He held a pair of carved stone gems in his two lowest hands, one larger, one smaller.

“It’s beautiful!” Karalti paced in, eyes wide with awe as she looked up and around. “Carvings! Art! So pretty!”

“What are these big old bastards?” Suri drifted to the nearest obelisk, running her fingers over a round depression. “Hey, Hector… this looks like it would fit your Shield of Whatever-it-was. That necklace you picked up.”

She was right. When I held up the medallion, they were almost a perfect match. Almost. The stone had the same basic pattern, but the script was different.

“Hmm.” I tried it anyway, just to see if it fit. It went in, but nothing happened, so I moved to the next pillar along, and the next, and the next. None of them were quite right. “Blah. Mehkhet said the Shields are an information storage device. They must have all kinds of shit stored in these obelisks, if we could just get to them.”

“Hector! Over here!” Karalti’s head popped up from behind the altar. “There’s another Shield slot!”

The surface of the altar was made of smooth white-blue metal that hummed softly as my fingers touched it. I heard Rin gasp over the voicechat.

“Omigosh! That's lambidium!” she exclaimed.

“Lambidium is that fancy-pants metal Ebisa had opinions about.” Crouched down beside Karalti as she pointed excitedly at a round depression with a pattern of small grooves inside. I held up the medallion for comparison. Perfect match.

“Yeah! Lambidium is one of the three Tier One metals,” she replied. “Which are aurum, lambidium and lazula, or bluesteel. That veneer alone is worth about ten thousand gold!”

“Is it heresy if I find a way to pinch it...?” Suri mused aloud. “Nah. Better not risk it.”

Suri and Karalti watched as I fit the medallion to the slot, tense with anticipation. When nothing happened, Suri frowned, stood, and looked down at the altar.

“Blood for the blood god?” she asked Karalti.

The dragon nodded. “Always worth a go!”

“Wait a second!” Rin piped up. “Lambidium is as valuable as it is because of its mana conduction properties. It’s got millions of tubules, so it’s really brittle and has to be smelted… umm… never mind. It conducts mana, so the altar itself is probably some kind of magical device. I don’t think you need blood. Check and see if there's somewhere to add mana into it.”

“Any suggestions where we'd find a mana insertion device?” I squatted back on my heels.

“Mana flows upwards unless pressurized, so most fueling points are near the base of an artifact to minimize leakage. It also might not be on the altar itself. Look around on the floor, see if you can spot some kind of-”

“Found it.” I zeroed in on a small port set into the tiles, a small metal ring with tongued grooves.

“-Valve,” Rin finished weakly.

“Hmm.” I fiddled with it until I worked out how to open it. “I've got SOME mana, but not a lot.”

“I can help,” Karalti said. “I don’t mind donating some blood. But you might also have to take some from Suri to get it to work. If the doors are keyed to the blood of certain people – Sachara, the Arch-Smith, maybe people who worked here – then this thing might have the same kind of security.”

“Right.” I had never combined human blood and mana before, buuuut... “Let's try them separately, and if that doesn't work, we'll combine them with a reagent. I have a feeling if we mix straight-up human blood and mana, we'll end up with some Stranged-ass blood monster.”

Suri sighed, and held out her arm. “Go on, then. Me first.”

I took out my transfusion kit, and got to work. Suri was just as stoic about having her blood drawn than Karalti was. We experimented with a dropper: first Karalti's bright blue blood, and then Suri's crimson. By themselves, they did nothing - but when the two briefly mingled, I saw a flash of blue-green light flicker through the black surface of the altar. The blue liquid destroyed the red with a hiss, charring it black and causing it to contort and grow little branches until it looked like a tiny dead tree.

“You know anything about combining blood and mana, Rin?” I asked.

“Other than that it causes awful cancer and turns you into a mutant? Uhhhh, let me see if I can research it.”

“Actually, you know what?” I went into my Inventory and scrolled through my inventory, remembering something Masha had said. “I've got [Stingcrab Blood]. You can use that to sublimate organic substances in mana. It shouldn't adulterate it that much.”

Suri, Rin, and Karalti watched as I added the [Stingcrab Blood] to Suri's, and only then did I take a transfusion from Karalti - about ten points’ worth. They both watched on as I agitated the flask, then added the glowing blue liquid to the others. The seal between the flask and the transfusion tube hissed as the mana made contact... but the three liquids blended without blowing the flask out of my hand, settling into a pale lilac potion with an eerie crimson glow.

“Here goes.” I gave it one last swirl, uncorked the restless purple