The great observatory of the Avidia Institute was a sordid affair. Once pristine marble sparkling with the reflection of the starlight dripped from the heavens each night now lay dejected.
The building was in a central location of the Institute, a place of honour. Now it was derelict and near abandoned. Dark green vines climbed up the dusty walls, drawing up to the huge moveable dome on the roof. One section was open when Amos and Ink approached, leaving it exposed to the elements.
The rise of the Maurish Empire and the persecution of the Drai meant that the Institute's astronomy division was violently squandered. Now only the few brave or stupid souls who dared contradict the Emperor's will made use of the observatory.
Shanty's note led them here, and specified that they should be "Super duper careful not to be followed or anything, there's some real weirdos around at night. We should get a fence, or something..." It continued on for two more pages of inanity. Her actual instructions were very brief.
Amos checked over his shoulder, scanning the darkness around them. Ink was crouched behind a retaining wall, attempting to hide. His hulking form peeked over the top of the wall even though he was curled on himself as best as he could. Amos determined the grounds were empty. They were accompanied only by the whistling of the cold wind and the rustling of the trees. A branch cracked, likely from a rodent in the gardens.
He motioned to Ink, who nodded solemnly and began darting from one hiding to the next. Though the observatory was girded with parapets and a (once fanciful) external set of stairs leading to the telescope proper, they were angled for the ground floor.
The door was simple wood, and swung open with the gentlest touch. Beyond its barrier lay a world of archaic mysticism and arcane detritus. The place had been ransacked by supporters of Maur. Amos' eyes slid across smashed alchemical apparatus, scattered papers filled with cramped writing, and carefully drawn star charts on yellowed paper.
The sense of abandonment filled Amos' heart. This was what the people of this country thought of his kind. Better off destroyed.
"Woah," Ink said. His neck was craned back to look at the reaches of the tall ceiling. It was mirrored, granting an effect that may be even grander were it not crippled by the chaos below. "I can see the top of my head!"
Amos stifled a giggle. They had somewhere to be, and they were already late by the tell of the moon. "Come on," he motioned Ink to the centre of the room.
In the centre of the floor was a small recessed area where the pavers gave way to a mosaic of ocean blue and pearly white tiles. They were arranged in the pattern of a singular star. The recessed area was just big enough for a person to lay down head to toe in.
Amos knelt and touched the star. He unstoppered the flow of his mana and it ran from his fingertips into the grout, just as Shanty said it would. He watched the blue light creep along the lines between the tiles as he thought of his interaction with Luce earlier. How two words seemed to rip the life from her, take her joy away, and leave her slouched.
He stifled the rage; he had to, or the flowing mana would burst into flames as he channeled Aries power. Ink's hand rested on his shoulder. Amos looked up at him, and Ink flashed a gentle smile.
The mana stopped flowing and a heavy clunk sounded from beneath the floor. The pavement started to rumble, then the floor split in half. The tiles started to pull away by the mechanism he triggered, revealing an expanded mosaic. The movement reminded Amos of two horizontal garage doors.
Beneath the dusty floor hid a stunning mosaic that made Amos dizzy with its proportions and details. The same blue and white tiles were used throughout, but the entire night sky was detailed, every star and constellation, labelled in flowing script that Amos noted with no small joy that he could actually read. Each and every one was reflected in the mirror above. Amos and Ink stood on what was now identifiable as the North Star, with the entire world around them.
"This is how it should be. Not like that," Amos said, pointing at the ruined bookshelves and runic research.
"It's not fair," Ink said. "I don't know why the Emperor is so mean to the Drai."
"Politics," Amos said flatly. The Aries and Cancer constellations twinkled at him knowingly.
The observatory room began to rise, or rather, the floor began to drop. Slowly at first, then faster and faster and faster and faster. Soon it was almost a free fall. Amos and Ink stumbled and leaned on each other for stability. The dirt gave way to stone with natural crystalisation that sparkled as the boys dropped by at breakneck speed.
Little stars in the earth.
The starry stone tunnel suddenly surrendered to a caliginous sepulchre. The star chart mosaic settled into a receptacle in the floor with a similar clunk to the noise of its initiation. Amos looked up to see a pinprick of light far, far above. Unreachable.
"I think I'm gonna be sick," Ink said.
"Go, over there," Amos flapped his hands in a random direction, anywhere away from him was preferable. Ink rushed off to a wall and retched, the wet sound of vomit slapping stone echoed around and into the cold tunnel above. Amos patted Ink on the back and took stock of their surroundings.
As soon as he stepped off the mosaic elevator, it began to rise again. It wasn't attached to anything, it simply drifted up and down. Most likely powered by the mana he poured into it.
So only a Drai can enter here.
Twelve giant statues were set into alcoves in the walls of midnight stone. They each had stately features and wore a solemn expression, seated on thrones adorned with symbolic references Amos couldn't understand. Ink was just as confused, they were both lacking too much context in this world.
Amos thought he recognised some of the faces. The tug of recognition in his stomach led him to two particular statues. He gazed at them intently, before realising there were plaques underneath each, almost on the floor. There were names carved with an expert hand in deep grooves on a rough grey stone. Amos read them all in turn.
Timerus, Kanopy, Darek and Denna, Luna, Sol, Nyah, Yubriri, Yinn, Crillic, Vazanam, Cavurn, and Rorix.
One piece of iconography that Amos could mostly recognise were the planets carved into the stone behind each statue. There were some strange ones he had never seen before. In the same order, they were:
Mars, some alternate Earth, a strange depiction of two interlocked planets, the Moon, the Sun, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Pluto[1], Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
"These are the Gods!" he exclaimed. "There, Timerus is Aries, and Luna is Cancer."
"How can you tell?" Ink asked, crouching down to read out the name plaques and whispering the sounds to himself.
"I saw them, briefly," Amos said. "When I became Drai."
"Cool."
"That's it?"
Ink just shrugged. "I reckon Gods're just strong people. One of the things they called me when Iwas made was God's Body."
"Ink, 'God' isn't a synonym for strong..."
"Ever heard of a weak God?"
"Well, no, but-"
"So Gods are strong?"
Amos glared at him and gave up. There wasn't any point.
"Huh, I'm not usually right. I like this feeling." Ink grinned smugly, then the expression slowly fell. "Hear that?"
"What?"
"Listen."
Between the statues were also twelve hallways extending into the distance. They looked, even from the entrance, to be twisting and winding as they turned on themselves in a maze dug by a madman.
Perhaps it was more apt to call them tunnels, lit though they were by esoteric blue bulbs that glowed in a manner reminiscent of the mana that filled the grout of the mosaic above.
The technology here is unlike any I've seen before...
Regardless, from one of the tunnels drifted a voice. Then, several voices, increasing in volume. Anger creeping into the vowels.
"Oh right," Amos said, "we're late to meet the night crew."
[1] Yes, it is considered a planet for the purposes of the Drai.