Written by: Tauphit
Reviewed by: GavInkReads
Chapter 2 — "The Bones Beneath the Light"
The Aetherion Academy was built like a cathedral to intellect.
Every wall hummed faintly with power, its corridors lined with pale blue conduits that pulsed like veins. The air was cool, sharp, metallic — the scent of preserved air that had never known dust or decay.
Sprinkles of the Smoke, now Professor Ren Ashvale, walked among the halls with the deliberate calm of one who had seen far worse places of learning — where classrooms were catacombs and lectures written in blood.
Students greeted him with polite nods, their eyes filled with data readouts rather than curiosity. They carried crystal tablets that floated beside them, projecting ghostly script. In this place, even thought had been refined into something weightless.
He paused near a transparent wall that overlooked the lower city — a labyrinth of steel and glass spiraling downward into the mists. From this height, the people below looked like insects crawling through veins of light.
> They have traded wonder for control, he thought. And called it enlightenment.
---
Dr. Elira Sorn found him in the translation wing later that morning, surrounded by holographic projections of runes etched into stone fragments.
Each symbol pulsed faintly with a light that did not belong to this age — organic, slow, alive.
"These are from the excavation," she said, handing him a data tablet. "We believe they predate all known magical systems. You can read them, can't you?"
Sprinkles turned his gaze toward the fragments, eyes narrowing slightly. The runes were carved in the Lethan tongue, an ancient necromantic lexicon only ever spoken by those who bent life and death.
He touched the glass, tracing the lines with his fingertip. The characters shimmered, and for a brief moment, the lights in the lab dimmed.
"This isn't a language," he murmured. "It's a binding."
Elira frowned. "A binding?"
He nodded slowly. "A containment seal — designed to trap consciousness. Whoever carved this wanted to imprison something that couldn't die."
Her lips parted, uncertain whether to believe him. "That's… impossible. The mana residue alone—"
"—is screaming," he interrupted softly.
The silence that followed was heavy, the hum of machinery faltering as though listening.
Sprinkles let his hand fall, and the light returned to normal.
Elira exhaled, unsettled but intrigued. "You speak as if you've seen this before."
He met her eyes — calm, unblinking. "Perhaps I have."
---
Later that evening, as the artificial sky dimmed to its scheduled dusk, Sprinkles walked alone through the archive wing. The lamps along the corridor flickered as he passed, their light bending subtly away from him.
A faint noise caught his attention — someone humming, softly, beyond the next hall.
He followed it, his footsteps silent.
There, in a forgotten alcove, stood a young woman cloaked in faded violet robes — out of place in this world of steel and glass. Her hands moved over a crystal sphere etched with true runes — not digital projections, but carved, ancient glyphs that glowed with unrefined mana.
She froze when she sensed him, her eyes snapping up — deep silver, the color of old moonlight.
"You shouldn't be here," he said quietly.
"Neither should you," she replied. Her voice carried an accent long lost to time — the cadence of a dying magical dialect. "They say the Academy is a place of learning, but it's a graveyard. You can smell the dead in their machines."
Sprinkles' lips curved faintly. "A rare observation. Most can't smell what they're made of."
She studied him carefully. "You speak like one of the Old Scholars… but your eyes—" she hesitated, "—they're too familiar."
He stepped closer, the air thickening faintly with that same faint gray shimmer that followed him everywhere. "And your runes," he said, nodding to the sphere. "Those belong to the old orders. The kind this world hunted to extinction."
She held her ground. "My name is Veyla Coren. I'm not with them. I'm one of the few who still remember what mana felt like before they bottled it."
"Veyla," he repeated softly. "An old name."
She lifted her chin. "And yours?"
He paused. For a moment, something ancient flickered behind his calm expression.
"Ren," he said simply. "Just Ren."
Her eyes lingered on him, uncertain but intrigued. "Then tell me, Ren — when the dead whisper in the light, do you listen?"
He smiled, and the shadows behind him stirred.
"Always."
---
That night, long after the Academy's lights dimmed, Sprinkles stood in the laboratory alone. The fragments of the ancient seal glowed faintly on the table, and above them hovered projections of Synthlight energy patterns — the so-called miracle power of the modern world.
He layered the two images together.
They matched perfectly.
The pulse of Synthlight and the rhythm of the necromantic seals were identical — one stolen from the other. Humanity hadn't created a new power. They had refined his.
The machines fed on ghosts.
He leaned back, eyes reflecting the pale shimmer. "So this is what you've become," he whispered. "A civilization built upon devoured souls."
And somewhere far below, deep within the Aetherion's heart, the great energy core flickered once — faintly gray, faintly alive.