Chapter 15

  His steps were longer now. Not wider, not truly faster—but longer, as if the ground surrendered beneath him differently, as though his own weight had shifted into a new register. When Raime climbed the cracked stone stairway from the temple’s basin chamber, the lever resting across his shoulder, he could feel that subtle difference in every motion. Not grace. Not efficiency. Just more.

  I’m stronger. That’s what it is.

  His footfalls echoed against the walls—thicker, duller sounds than before. Not from the temple, but from him. It was strange. The world didn’t feel lighter exactly, but he had gotten heavier in a way that didn’t slow him down. He could tell when the weight moved—he could feel it coiling, ready, like his body had finally caught up to the command his will had been giving it all along.

  While he was musing about his newfound prowess his stomach grumbled like an angry cat.

  Hunger flared—a deep, clawing ache that made his mouth dry and his body sway. He had felt it earlier. But he'd been too absorbed by the novelty of his bond with Thunk. Now it hit with full force, the kind of hunger that felt like it had missed not one meal, but several.

  With a thought he summoned his quest and saw that the counter for staying awake in the Rift reset again.

  I should really stay up to finish the quest, the rewards are incredible.

  After reaching the highest floor of the temple he glanced across the chamber toward the far side where the alien carcasses lay. A wave of stench hit him before he even made a step in that direction.

  The meat had gone bad.

  More than bad, the smell felt more like a physical hit. He recoiled, even the air around them tasted foul.

  “Nope, totally nope”

  The basin chamber was strange, true. The energies were thick, and he’d been deeply immersed in training. Then he fell asleep after creating the new thread but…

  How long was I really down there?

  That left only one thing.

  He moved to the pile of alien eggs he had left in the other room. The smooth shells gleamed faintly in the temple’s light. He picked one up and turned it over in his palm, inspecting it again for any cracks, molud, or signs of contamination. Still nothing. And none of them hatched.

  Probably they need something more from their parents, the same way that hens use body heat but maybe psychic energy instead.

  They had fed him before. Sustained him. And so far, they hadn't made him sick. No visions, no mutations. Just strange flavour and alien texture.

  He cracked two in the scavenged metal bowl and watched the yolkless fluid spread. Thin, bluish veins webbed through it, shimmering faintly in the light.

  Raime didn’t hesitate. He ate them quickly without ceremony, stomach roaring.

  It’s not food. It’s fuel.

  He drank from the vines he stored before and proceeded to the bathroom. He found one in every room, but never stopped to give it more than a cursory glance. Today though his biology demanded that he get acquainted with the place.

  The chamber lay tucked away behind a door. Raime pushed it aside with a thought and stepped in cautiously.

  The air was stale but dry, still carrying a faint tang of minerals and something more sterile beneath the dust — like the memory of antiseptic long since faded. The walls, once polished, had dulled with time, their greenish stone cracked in places. Still, they curved gently inward, shaping the room into a shallow oval that felt more intentional than decorative.

  At the center stood a basin carved from the same dark-colored rock as much of the temple — but whatever substance it had once held was gone. Dried residue clung to the interior like crystalline mould, faintly iridescent. Raime ran a finger over it and felt nothing but dust. The faint lines etched into its base, likely channels for psionic energy, were inert — cold as bone.

  To one side, what looked like a cleansing station sat in decay: a low plinth topped by a set of mechanical rings, now fused together by time and corrosion. Some of the thin bristles still protruded at odd angles, twisted and brittle. It might once have vibrated, rotated, or exuded some cleansing energy — now it was just a relic, half-buried under dust and grit.

  A narrow recess in the floor hinted at waste disposal, but it had long since clogged with dry organic matter, possibly from intruding flora. Faint, spidery filaments of fungus veined the walls near it, drinking from whatever trace moisture remained.

  Raime was actively muting his skill, he wasn’t really keen on experiencing the way these ancient aliens used the amenities here.

  Despite its alien design, it still mirrored something familiar: a place to wash, to cleanse, to relieve oneself. Even across species and eons, some needs stayed the same.

  This is not going to be fun.

  He closed the door and proceeded to find a bathroom in another room, If this was the state of things, he wasn’t going to relieve himself near where he slept, even if he was filthy already, thanks to days of grime and sweat, he could at least limit the damage.

  After he finished to do his nasty business, Raime went back to his room, resting one hand on the bed behind him as he looked at the ceiling, eyes tracing the strange, sweeping engravings there—spirals and constellations, cut through with curves like the whorls of fingerprints.

  Whatever you are, he thought toward the temple, you’re keeping me alive. Thank you.

  Once the tension in his gut faded, Raime stood again and made his way back toward the basin room where he'd practiced before, that place helped him improve his abilities faster, it was not a chance that he got that bout of inspiration that helped him develop his new thread.

  When he reached the heart of the temple again he resumed his practice.

  First, he extended his sense, just the way he'd done before. Eyes closed, breath steady. Reaching, feeling, sinking into the invisible traces around him.

  The echoes came. Shapes. Vague silhouettes of heat and intent. The brush of pressure against stone. The whisper of wind not heard, but remembered.

  And beneath it all, a slow pulse—the outline of the lever itself, throbbing faintly with the bond they had formed. His Thread, Bound Channel, still humming with residual feedback. It didn’t speak, but it answered. When his thoughts reached, it leaned in. When he moved, it moved with him.

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  He turned in place, eyes still shut, and swept the lever through the air. Fast. Smooth.

  Faster than before.

  And when he pushed—not just with muscle, but with intent, with will—the swing gained weight. Not from the lever itself, but from inside him, like some deep core was firing pressure outward through each motion.

  He struck toward empty air and felt the air displaced and his momentum halted abruptly in the shaft of the weapon, and a realization came to his mind.

  The inertia is not going to ruin my stance anymore, when I use only my body strength I have to be careful to not overbalance and to flow with the swings or I get dragged. But when I use my mind in conjunction I can simply arrest the forward momentum and just swing back again without pause… with a weapon so heavy it’s an incredible feat, a deadly one.

  Still, it wasn’t a trick of the mind alone. His strength helped not only for swinging his weapon but to move his body too, and his motions didn’t feel only lighter, but the resistance felt irrelevant. What once strained him now yielded.

  One point, he thought. One point in Strength—and it’s like I just caught up to someone who trained for years.

  It was unfair. Terrifying. And exhilarating.

  What if I had put everything on strength when I could? I would have surpassed the human limit for the attribute probably… the strongest man in the world… hah! Nice. still, it’s better this way, now I can make the lever fly with my mind! Probably I couldn’t reach this capability if I went the warrior route, still improving the capabilities of my body is so addictive…

  He paused, breathing heavier now, and focused again—not on strength, but on the perimeter of the room. The shadows. The echoes.

  This time, the psychic perception came faster. Less distorted. He could feel the stone around him, sense the carved reliefs. A thin line of cracked floor he'd stepped over earlier. The world unveiled itself in texture and depth without his eyes.

  I’m learning faster, too.

  Resolve—that’s what had shifted alongside strength. Not just mental endurance. There was a weight behind his thoughts now. A steadiness. The fog that had once made clarity so fragile was thinner. The urge to rest, to yield, to give up or stop—it was distant now. Still present, but smaller.

  Raime lowered the lever and sat down cross-legged, letting his focus deepen.

  He breathed in. Counted. Felt the outline of himself in space. Felt the lever resting beside him—no longer separate, not entirely. It was as if the Thread between them had grown roots, winding invisibly into the thing that he was. Not just an extension of body. An extension of self.

  That was what attunement meant. Not wielding a tool. But becoming it.

  He sat like that for what might have been hours. Time meant nothing again. But he didn’t push himself toward sleep yet. Not quite.

  He rose again, practiced. More swings. A few short bursts of psychic perception. He tried both together but for now that was an impossibility. Then silence again.

  Fatigue returned, slower but sure. His body, empowered as it was, still needed rest. His mind, for all its clarity, felt stretched thin by the training and the new experiences.

  He walked quietly to the monk’s chamber—the room he’d claimed the night before. The stone was cold but welcoming. The thin padding of scavenged cloth and dust felt like a luxury.

  He set the lever beside him, head angled toward the door.

  As he lay back and let the darkness take him, the last thing he felt was the quiet hum of the Thread between them—tethered, steady, alive.

  I’m not alone anymore, he thought, not with words but with something deeper. Not entirely.

  And then the Rift dreamed for him. Or perhaps, waited.

  Raime stirred to waking like a leaf drifting up from the depths of a still pond. No rush, no jolt. Just the quiet sense of enough — of sleep having done what it was meant to do. No aches remained, no lingering fog in his thoughts. A breath flowed into him like it had been waiting.

  Still alive. Still here.

  He opened his eyes slowly, letting the dim calm of the monk’s chamber, his chamber settle around him. Faint psionic residue still hummed in the walls, like threads of silence spun taut. He’d grown used to it, the pulse of invisible tides brushing against the edge of thought. But now it felt… different. Dimmer, less focused. The basin’s rhythm must have faded, he guessed.

  How much time had passed?

  He sat up, unhurried, and reached for his weapon. The lever who rested beside his makeshift bed flew to his hand like a loyal companion. No longer just metal and shape — now it hummed faintly at the edge of perception, a quiet readiness that mirrored his own.

  Neat.

  Raime stood, stretched, and rolled his shoulders. Muscles shifted under his skin with a strength that still felt slightly foreign. His body moved differently now — not like it belonged to someone else, but like someone had taken his long forgotten workout plan and finally finished the work. The dull edge of fatigue never quite found him, not the way it used to.

  After putting on his boots, he stepped lightly out of the alcove, careful not to disturb the piles of worn cloth or scattered impressions in the dust. His footsteps made little sound, only the whisper of contact.

  The temple greeted him like it always had — silent, strange, and watching. But today, a tension tugged at him from somewhere further off. Not in the stone. Outside.

  He made his way to the entrance.

  The thin slab of stone that had become his door stood where he left it. Light filtered through its edges — not harsh, but brighter than what filled the temple’s interior. Raime rested a hand on the cool surface, hesitated.

  The eruption. He hadn’t forgotten. That wash of psionic force that had poured out days ago. He had felt it in his bones, in his skull, a pressure so wide it had no direction. Even inside the sanctum, the surge had reached him. The temple hadn’t shattered… but the world outside might have.

  Time to find out.

  He emerged slowly, prying aside the thin stone slab that served as the temple’s door with care and quiet effort. It scraped across the floor like a long-held breath finally exhaled.

  Raime narrowed his eyes against the strange lavender light that always bathed this place — not quite dark, not quite bright, the sky a textured smear of bruised violets and pulsing greys. He felt again the pressure of the suns light build in his mind.

  I would have gladly done without it.

  He had expected stillness, the lingering hush that had marked his first days here.

  But the silence was gone.

  After the eruption the Rift had awakened.

  He felt it first — not through his ears, but in the pressure behind them, the low thrum at the base of his skull. A taut vibration, subtle yet insistent, humming just beyond the range of sound. His newly attuned senses caught it like a spider catching the tremble of a far-off thread.

  Where before there had been an eerie calm — like the world itself held its breath — now the very air quivered with presence. Life. Awareness. The explosion of psionic energy from the mountain’s depths had rippled outward, and Raime could feel its echoes woven into the landscape. The Rift had drunk deep of it. And now it stirred.

  His eyes moved to the horizon, where the forest of strange, metallic trees loomed — a shifting canopy of tarnished silver and dull iron The leaves, if they could be called that, were jagged lattices of dark alloy, chattering softly as the wind passed through them. Only now, the chattering wasn’t idle. It had rhythm. Purpose. A cadence that hadn’t been there before.

  He squinted, focusing not with sight, but with the new thread that lay coiled in his mind. The world brightened in strange ways — not with light, but with sensation. Pulses. Whispers. Living nodes of attention flickered among the trees, tiny knots of psionic heat that flared as he brushed against them with the edge of his awareness.

  They’re reaching out, observing. He realized, his breath hitching. Not all of them, but enough. The forest knows I’m here.

  Shapes moved within the trees — some delicate, insectile, and fast; others slow and heavy, dragging warped shadows behind them. Life had always been here, hidden beneath the Rift’s weight. But now it moved openly, drawn by the surge that had flooded this place. The psionic eruption hadn’t just shifted the energy — it had pulled everything closer to the surface, like roots drawn up through soil by a sudden flood.

  Raime took a step forward and froze.

  There — high on a ridge, half-shrouded in the curling fog — something big unfurled itself with deliberate slowness. It rose, tall as a house, a bulbous body, its limbs elongated and plated in segments that caught the light like oil on metal. It didn’t move toward him. But it observed him.

  And then it sank back into the trees, fading like a thought half-abandoned.

  Raime’s grip tightened on the lever at his side, the weapon now fully bound to him — an extension of his strength, of his will. He wasn’t the same man who had stumbled out of the Rift’s mouth days ago, now he had a fighting chance.

  Still, a ripple of unease passed through him. Not fear, exactly. Something colder. Sharper.

  The Rift isn’t sleeping anymore, he thought.

  He turned back toward the temple entrance and lowered the slab gently into place. For now, the structure offered some degree of sanctuary. But he could no longer pretend this world would remain passive. The eruption had stirred more than echoes and forgotten. It had pulled the attention of things beyond and perhaps within the forest.

  And Raime, now more than ever, could feel them looking at him.