The Devourer obliged Noah. There was a very good chance that was because it just had absolutely nothing better to do with its time. If he was honest, he wasn’t entirely sure how the huge centipede was still sane.

Well, relatively sane.

It probably wasn’t worth worrying about right now. Maybe the researchers that had created the Devourer had been smart enough to realize it would be alive for a long time and that its tolerance for the passing of time would have to be pretty good.

Just… not good enough to avoid getting bored.

Unfortunately for the Devourer, it’s entertainment came to an end at the smaller passageway that led up to the room that had been frustrating Noah earlier that day. There was just absolutely no way its enormous bulk would ever have the faintest of chances of fitting into the thinner hall.

Noah left it behind, heading down the hall with only the smaller centipede for company.

I really do need to give the smaller one a name if I’m going to keep it around. I can’t just keep thinking of it as smaller centipede. But I’ve never exactly been the best at coming up with names for things. I don’t want Moxie to make fun of me when everyone reunites and I get to show her the Citadel.

Hm.

Noah glanced over his shoulder at the centipede. Its mandibles twitched, clearly uncomfortable with the unexpected attention. Then again, most things seemed to make it uncomfortable.

It was a little difficult to blame it for that. Just about everything it had seen in recent times had at least considered killing it a few times.

“Prayer,” Noah decided.

The centipede ground to a halt. Its eyes darted around in sudden fear.

“Death?”

Ah. So now it remembers other words.

“No,” Noah replied, gesturing for the monster to keep up with him. “That’s your name. You use the damn word enough that I reckon you’ve stolen any meaning it might have had. Might as well take the rest of it while you’re at it.”

Prayer clicked behind Noah. It wasn’t the best name. He didn’t need his mind to be fully intact to know that. But, at least, it was an understandable one. The centipede would make sure that anyone confused about its name would soon figure out just why it was called that.

“Prayer,” Prayer clicked.

Hum. This might get confusing.

Oh well.

What was done was done — and they had arrived at the wall once again. It was exactly where it had been the last time Noah had been here. Given the amount of magic that the Citadel was steeped with, that was only mostly expected.

Noah drew on Unraveling Disruption as he approached the wall, letting the rune’s power flow through him like creeping frost. An eager grin spread across his face as he drew to a halt. This damned wall had confounded him for long enough.

Gossamer magic gathered at his fingertips as Noah let the power slip out from him. It washed across the air like spreading patches of oil suspended in water, slithering against the perfectly smooth stone.

Noah felt his power brush against the wall that had resisted every single one of his other attempts to break through it. He felt the imbuements within the rock. His recent efforts had taken him leaps and bounds ahead from where he’d been… but he hadn’t even managed to scratch the imbuements in his previous attempts.

Nothing happened. Noah felt his power draining away. It was definitely drawing strength from his rune. But the wall remained where it had been. Solid. Smooth. Impassible. Like his efforts had all been for naught.

But there was a difference. His previous magic had simply bounced off harmlessly. It had shattered into nothingness. That wasn’t happening this time. The power he was drawing was entering the wall. It hadn’t yet managed to have an affect… but there was no prove that he was just wasting his efforts.

Noah’s eyes narrowed. He drew deeper on his reserves, drinking magic in like a parched man and shoving it all into the infuriatingly powerful imbuements that lurked within the stone.

And then a crack rang out.

A hairline fracture raced across the stone like a forking branch of lightning. Before Noah could even properly register what had happened, another crack rang out. And then another. The perfectly smooth stone crumbled all at once, chunks falling away and crashing to the ground all around him.

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Yes!

Noah’s laughter rolled through the hall as sputtering light flashed through the air, twisting up from the from within the remains of what had once been a wall. The remnants of the imbuements that had been there faded quickly, its power turned against itself and finally rendered useless.

As the wall continued to crumble, new light prickled against Noah’s eyes. Not from Imbuements, but from something beyond the now-ruined wall. Patches of a torchlit room poked out between the gaps in the debris.

“Finally,” Noah said, grabbing a large chunk and throwing it out of the way. He pushed a few more over until he’d created an opening large enough to squeeze through, then stepped into the room beyond.

And, sitting in a golden chair padded with faded red velvet, was a dead man.

Despite himself, Noah jumped.

He was halfway to reaching for his runes when he realized that there was no need for them. The corpse wasn’t moving. It was rotted and decayed, parts of the skeleton visible beneath the stained, tattered robes that had probably once been white.

“Seriously?” he muttered.

The dead man, as they tended to do, didn’t respond.

He just sat there in the chair, arms upon the rests and fingers curled around the edges as if frozen in a position of pain for all eternity. Rising behind the skeleton were several large bookshelves, their rows completely empty and devoid of anything but dust.

They were joined by a huge desk of dark wood complete with a number of cabinets and a second chair. Across from the desk was the world’s largest vanity mirror. It rose from the ground up to the ceiling, trimmed with brilliant gold that had been worked into flowing patterns like ocean waves.

And that was it. The room had no door, no windows, nothing. It was just walls, a desk, some shelves, chairs, and a dead man.

“Shit,” Noah muttered, letting his arms lower.

Stones clattered behind him as Prayer pulled itself into the room alongside Noah, its eyes darting around in a frantic pattern.

For once, Prayer didn’t say anything.

Noah kept his runes close to bear as he edged closer to the corpse in the center of the room. He still wasn’t entirely sure that it wasn’t about to come to life and try to strangle him. That would have been a pretty cheap trick, but that didn’t mean it would be any less effective if he wasn’t ready for it.

“Prayer,” Prayer chittered.

Ah. There we go.

Noah watched the corpse through narrowed eyes as he edged around it and toward the desk. A large part of him just wanted to blast it to kingdom come — but there was always the chance that it had something important on it.

The rest of the room was certainly sparse enough. He didn’t want to accidentally destroy the last key in the Citadel before he got a chance to use it.

There’s also the chance that the body is somehow cursed to come alive and attack only after it has been poked. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know how this goes.

I’ve also seen enough of them to know a dude with a gun and half a brain could probably survive like 90% of them. I’m pretty sure a Rank 5 Rune is a bit stronger than a gun.

Noah made his way past the corpse. Despite all the superstitions, he didn’t think there was actually much chance the body was going to move. The air was thick with magic, but he wasn’t really picking any runes up within the corpse. It didn’t look like it was imbued either.

He arrived at the desk and gave it a quick glance. Despite its grandiose design, it seemed… plain. There were no immediately apparent runes upon it. Noah hooked a finger through a brass drawer handle and gave it a small tug.

The drawer slid open smoothly.

It was empty.

He glanced back at the body. There had been no move.

Noah turned back to the table and pulled another drawer open. It was as smooth — and devoid of anything but dust — at the first.

What the hell? Who locks themselves in a completely empty room?

Noah pulled another drawer out, then another. Every single one of them was —

A crash echoed behind him.

Noah spun, magic leaping to his fingers—

Prayer loomed over the corpse, having accidentally knocked it to the ground. The centipede leapt back, obsidian legs clattering against the ground in its haste to try and get out of Noah’s line of sight.

“Prayer, prayer.” The centipede raised several legs before it in a placating manner.

Noah lowered his hand with a sigh.

Goddamn it.

Every single drawer had been empty.

The room was devoid of anything at all. He almost wished that the corpse had come alive. At least it would have been slightly interesting. But this… there was just nothing at all.

Noah walked over to the crumpled body, really now more a pile of bones and scraps of other assorted bits — and crouched beside it to rifle through its pockets.

Nothing.

Not even a bracelet on its wrists or a necklace around a bony neck.

It, just like the rest of the room, didn’t have anything interesting at all.

“What the hell?” Noah muttered. “Where is everything?”

He rose back to his feet. This made no sense. Having a completely empty room was pointless. It was one thing to live frugally. Maybe the leaders of the researchers believed that worldly objects were for chumps.

But to have literally nothing… that was too odd.

Noah’s brow furrowed and he scratched at the back of his neck, glancing around the room in search of literally anything he might have missed.

There was the desk, the chairs, the corpse…

And the mirror.

Wait.

Noah stared at the huge, gold-trimmed piece of vanity, and his reflection stared back at him.

He glanced over his shoulder. The room was exactly how it had been a moment ago. Then he looked back at the mirror.

His reflection was in there. So was Prayer. So was the corpse, and so was the shelf right behind him.

Except, in the reflection, the shelf was stuffed to the brim with pristine books.

What the hell is going on?