Deep Sea Embers

Agatha quickly pulled back her hand, her eyes fixed intently on her fingertips. Her face, normally calm and composed, was now tinged with a hint of unease.

Unfortunately, the closest nun in their traveling group had already caught sight of this unusual event. Her eyes grew large and incredulous as she blurted out, “Gatekeeper, what just happened with your hand…”

A wave of concern furrowed Agatha’s brow as she wrestled with this puzzling occurrence. In the midst of this confusion, a guardian, one of their group, cautiously stepped forward. In his hands, he held a battle staff, which he promptly struck against a seemingly ordinary stone wall.

The staff clanged against the wall, the metallic sound reverberating throughout the tunnel. Despite the force of the blow, the wall stood firm, unscathed and unmoved.

The guardian turned around, throwing a glance of affirmation towards Agatha before he summoned all his courage to reach out and touch the stone wall.

Nothing happened. The wall remained as solid and as rigid as it was before.

“It’s just a wall,” the guardian muttered with a frown, “But just a few moments ago…”

Without uttering a word, Agatha purposefully moved forward, her steps steady and sure. Once again, she extended her hand and laid it on the wall. This time, her hand effortlessly disappeared into the surface.

There was no resistance, no obstruction. It felt as though her hand was just grazing through a delicate illusion.

“It appears only you can pass through it,” the priest who was accompanying them stuttered in shock, watching this strange event unfold. “But… why? Why would such a wall be hidden deep within this mine of metal ores? There’s no record of anything like this ever happening before…”

While the priest voiced his bewilderment, Agatha remained silent, her attention unwavering from the hand that was seemingly phasing through the stone wall. She began to notice the subtle changes that took place only when her fingertips brushed against the rock.

For a moment, it seemed as if her finger and the wall were blending together, much like warm butter melting into toast. The color and texture… mirrored that of black mud. This was how she was able to “penetrate” a wall that appeared otherwise invincible.

After what felt like an eternity, she finally broke the silence, her voice quiet yet firm, “I can’t make sense of why this is happening, but it’s evident… the path forward must be tread by me alone.”

“Gatekeeper?” The accompanying priest immediately reacted, speaking out hastily. “You plan to go forward alone!? Hold on, this is extremely dangerous. There’s something deeply unusual about this wall, and it’s quite possible…”

“Our city-state is being consumed by the advancing mist, and the grotesque creatures that lurk within it show no mercy. The sinister force controlling them won’t wait for us to figure things out,” Agatha calmly countered, her voice steady and composed. “Governor Winston’s squad met their end here, but his body isn’t among the deceased. It appears these guards gave their lives in the mine, buying time… My guess is, they were buying time for Governor Winston to breach this wall.”

The priest was momentarily at a loss for words. After a brief pause, he protested instinctively, “But venturing into the unknown all by yourself is incredibly risky. We should at least report this to the cathedral…”

“Time is not on our side, we can’t afford to lose another second,” Agatha replied, gently shaking her head in denial. As she uttered these words, she once again felt a cold, eerie sensation enveloping her, chilling her to the bone. It was as if her life force was waning, the vibrant energy within her gradually fading away. Though this unsettling sensation was short-lived, it served to strengthen her determination. “I’m committed to unraveling the mysteries hidden within this mine. It might be our only hope in the shrinking window of time we have…”

She stopped abruptly, caught in the whirlpool of her thoughts. She made a conscious effort to regain her composure and steady herself, before fixing her intense gaze on her fellow companions.

“I will go through this wall. You all know well the power of a gatekeeper—there’s no need to worry about me. Each one of you has a role to play. Once I’ve crossed over, make your way back to the previous intersection. The first and second squads should proceed to the mining area as planned, assessing the condition of the metal ore mine. The third and fourth squads should return to the surface, relay the events here to the cathedral, and then…”

She paused, seemingly lost in her thoughts, then waved her hand dismissively, “That’s all. Whatever follows should be decided by Bishop Ivan.”

The guardians, priests, and nuns exchanged glances, their expressions reflecting their disbelief. They had never seen the gatekeeper in this light before. They were taken aback, yet under Agatha’s stern gaze, and with years of rigorous training and discipline under their belts, their instinct was to comply.

“We understand your instructions,” the lead priest nodded solemnly, tracing a triangular emblem on his chest, a symbol of Bartok. But he couldn’t resist asking, “When should we rendezvous to provide assistance?”

“…No assistance is needed—but rest assured, I will return. No matter what happens, ‘I’ will certainly come back.”

The priest stepped back, the slight emphasis on her last “I” going unnoticed.

Agatha drew a deep breath and approached the enigmatic wall.

Just as she was about to touch it, she whispered in a barely audible voice, as if speaking to some unseen entity, or perhaps to herself.

“To be honest… I’ve grown rather fond of this world…”

Without any sign of hesitation, she stepped forward, her form merging effortlessly with the “stone wall”, much like a spirit melding into a mirage.

A transient ripple emerged on the stone’s surface as Agatha passed through, yet it vanished so swiftly that it escaped anyone’s notice.

Agatha was immediately engulfed by a disorienting sensation of darkness, cold, isolation, and a scrambled sense of direction, followed by a sudden numbing of all her senses. This sensory blackout was replaced by a slow, alien process of reawakening. This was the experience she endured as she crossed the threshold of the wall.

After what felt like an eternity, she finally “opened her eyes” amidst a sea of overwhelming darkness, only to be met with a stark, featureless landscape.

The scene before her was one of unending chaos—amorphous, barely discernible clumps of darkness, sluggishly writhing against an even darker backdrop. They resembled a nauseating, viscous fluid or grotesquely crawling, indefinable creatures.

“Why is it so dark? Didn’t I bring a lantern?”

Such a question sparked in Agatha’s mind, and almost as if on cue, a tiny, twinkling spark of light appeared before her eyes.

The soft illumination gently lit up the surroundings, revealing an abyss of inky fog with countless shadowy forms squirming and undulating around her in eerie silence.

Agatha watched this eerie spectacle in serene contemplation before shifting her gaze downwards.

She saw her own body—first her torso, then her limbs, followed by the battle staff that had been her constant companion over countless years.

“Ah… you’ve made it here too…” Agatha murmured softly, slowly raising the staff in her hand, her gaze lingering on the familiar symbols etched on its surface and her own name, meticulously carved by her own hand when she was first inaugurated as a guardian.

“Do you also exist as a shadow, like me?” she whispered to the staff.

The staff, naturally, offered no response to her query. However, in the smothering darkness, the silence was shattered by a sudden noise.

“Bang!”

The sound was the deep echo of a gunshot.

Agatha’s brows knitted instantly, but before she could pivot her gaze to identify the source of the sound, a voice—laden with a hint of anxiety—beat her to it: “Who’s there?!”

In the boundless dark void, Agatha turned her head, and almost instantly, a glimmer of light flickered in the direction of the voice.

A solitary patch of firm ground emerged in the warm glow of an old-fashioned brass lantern. Upon this isolated piece of land, the silhouette of a tree stump could be discerned, beside which sat a middle-aged man clad in a dark blue coat, as still as a statue carved from stone.

As Agatha’s gaze fell upon him, the “sculpture” abruptly sprung to life. He jerked his head upwards, his eyes locking with Agatha’s—an interplay of surprise and apprehension crossing his weathered face, “Who’s there?!”

Agatha detected a faint hint of discordance ripple through her mind, but she swiftly brushed it aside. She advanced towards the illuminated patch of ground, and beneath the lantern’s soft glow, she was able to discern the man’s features clearly.

Just as she had anticipated, it was Mr. Winston, the esteemed governor of Frost.

“It seems you’ve been occupying this space for quite some time, Governor,” Agatha commented in her typically composed tone, “Now it appears that we are the only ones left here.”

“Gatekeeper… Miss Agatha?” Winston slowly raised his head, his movements reminiscent of a damaged automaton on the brink of dysfunction, his speech listless. However, as seconds ticked by, his expressions and words gradually regained their natural rhythm, “You’re here too… but how did you find your way here?”

“I walked through a wall, a hidden wall deep within the metal ore mine,” Agatha elaborated in her usual calm demeanor, aware that there was no longer any need for oblique language or roundabout phrasing, “The guard squad that escorted you was wiped out in the mine. Governor, do their memories still echo within you?”

“The guard squad… Ah, yes, the guard squad that was with me,” Winston furrowed his brows as if he was just beginning to remember, then his voice adopted a melancholic note, “They were all extraordinary men. They gave everything to allow me to activate the Queen’s final key, and I…”

A subtle shift occurred in Agatha’s facial expression: “The Queen’s final key?”