A massive stone door rose from the rock itself, slick with moisture and etched with ancient carvings. Strange symbols twisted across its surface, with strange meanings that Epsilon still didn't understand, even with the Nightmare Spells guidance.
A thin seam marked its edges, yet there was no hinge or handle, and instead, slightly elevated on a pedestal with similar engravings surrounding it, was a large lever, seemingly carved from the same stone.
"Its even bigger in person."
It was easy enough to notice all the way from the tavern, but up-close, it somehow felt several times bigger than the Ocean Dweller. Its sheer height was incomprehensible, and trying to make sense of it was nauseating.
'You'd never see anything like this in the waking world.'
Well it was the dream realm after all, there were a lot of things here that didn't make sense, nor were practical like the under ground bridge that led to absolutely nowhere.
But if it wasn't for the fear of having an awakened terror swimming right beneath him, then those sights were actually quite beautiful. Even in the Chimera Forest, he'd probably never see that much greenery in the waking world.
Anyhow, he was getting too far off topic. Shaking away his trail of thoughts, he asked the group,
"So how do we open this thing? Its too huge."
Ki Song looked at him, confused.
"With the very obvious lever perhaps?"
In hindsight, that was the obvious answer. Flustered, he quickly walked over to it while hiding his face away in embarrassment.
He griped the stone lever with both hands, muscles bulging as he threw his weight into it. The stone groaned and shudder, as he prayed for it to move so they could forget about this quickly. But to his dismay, it was stubbornly fixed.
Panting, he stopped for a second. He turned his head to Ki Song, and said,
"Its a bit tight."
Then activating his dormant ability, he felt a profound strength emerge in him as a soft white light glowed beneath his skin. Now with his doubled strength, he once again attempted the pull the lever.
His arms trembled, breath coming in ragged bursts; sweat stinging his eyes. He heaved one last time and yet it only scratches, sending a shower of dust and a single, useless clang through the chamber. His hands slipped, the effort drained from him, as he sank to the floor in defeat.
"Uh, its not budging."
Ki Song sighed. If he couldn't even do it, then what could she or anvil even hope to achieve? He was the most physically capable out of them all.
Speaking of Anvil, when she looked back to ask for his opinion on what to do, he wasn't even paying attention again. The weirdo was just staring at the floor.
'The floor?'
He was glaring oddly at the strange writing. It was almost as if he was... reading it?
"Hey, you understand this crap?"
Anvil looked up at her confused. Then with a gruntled tone, he asked,
"Yes, It's a Runic array. Do you not possess such knowledge as well?"
"Not.. too much.."
In truth, she knew nothing at all. She had heard about it in passing from her mother, but possessed no way to actually recognise, nevertheless decipher it.
'Like hell I'm going to admit that! Not to him of all people!'
Finally regaining his breath, Epsilon asked,
"What is a Runic array exactly?"
He didn't remember anything like this being taught in school, and Julius never mentioned anything about it either.
Anvil exhaled before fidgeting slightly. It seems he would have to give another lesson into the dream realm, although this one was a bit more advanced.
"The proper term would be Runic sorcery, which is simply sorcery. It can also be defined as a power that exists outside of the Nightmare spell and aspects, but generally, it is a written language charged with essence to achieve a desired result. In modern terms, it can be described as programming language used to speak to computers, but in this case, its telling the world how it should function. A Runic array is the result of runic sorcery which produces the unique effects."
He tried to make the explanation as simple as possible, while also drawing a parallel to something in the waking world. But despite his best attempt, Epsilons mind was already steaming, although Ki Song seemed to have grasped quickly enough.
To his best ability, Epsilon simplified it in a way he could understand.
"So you write some fancy text and magic stuff happens?"
"...Yes.."
The disappointment was obvious. Moving on, Epsilon then asked,
"So what does this array do exactly?"
"Of that, I am not quite sure. I'm still quite the novice, and I have yet to even create my first array, but the Runes around this lever and that door do seem to share some kind of relationship. If there is something that I can say though, its that I believe that lever is most likely a trick."
A trick??
"Even if you were able to push it, it would do nothing at all. To create and power runes you need to harness soul essence, and unless there's another power source that we cannot see, flicking that lever would do nothing at all to affect the runes."
"So you're saying that I've been wasting my time on it the whole time..."
"It would seem so."
Epsilon was a little bit stumped and disheartened. He embarrassed himself for nothing! But very quickly, he realized that there was still something he could do. Although they had no idea what the runes did if they were powered, there was nothing stopping them from finding out.
'Bob, wake up.'
"What now? Are we there yet?"
'We'll go there after this. Start channelling soul essence into what I'm touching first.'
He dropped to his knees and pressed both hands against the ground, fingers splaying wide over the cold stone. For a moment, there was only silence — then a warm pulse stirred beneath his skin, slow and steady, like a heartbeat answering his own. The sensation climbed from his heart to his forearms, eventually coursing out of his palms and into the runic symbols engraved in the stone.
The moment it finished, the caverns began to tremble. This time not as a result of the Chimera queen bashing away at it, but instead, because of the sheer weight of tremendous stone doors finally moving after eons.
"Eh??"
They moved, slowly opening as a loud scrapping sound echoed across the town, but very abruptly, it stopped.
"I'm out of essence."
Alas, the door was huge, and he was only a mere sleeper whose soul core wasn't even fully saturated. Fully opening it as he was right now was just but a pipe dream, but that wasn't a necessity as Anvil would soon explain.
"As long as its large enough for a person to fit through, you just need to recharge and try again later. One more attempt should do it."
With that, Epsilon fell to the ground once more in exhaustion. Although he recovered essence abnormally fast, fighting back against the immediate fatigue was an issue.
For now, there was nothing more he could. So he took the chance to continue on their conversation from before.
"How do you go about it? Controlling metal I mean. Do you just think of a form and the metal forces itself into that shape, but to a limit that you can handle?"
Anvil was little surprised, but he humoured him.
"Yes, but also no. I don't force metal to shape itself all at once, but rather I precisely control small parts of it at a time, and have those go to the place I desire. I do the same thing when I fight too. Rather than controlling the entire blade at once, I control solely its tip or guard, and in turn, the rest of the sword naturally follows it too."
"It's just easier for me to imagine, I would say."
'Imagine? It's easier for him to imagine?'
It was something small, and yet, it felt like he just made a tremendous discovery. His imagination was always key in how he used his dormant ability, but now with this new perspective, he realized how limited it was this whole time.
A strange smile curled on his face. There were several things he wanted to try, but for now, he needed to rest.
Anvil was a very self reserved person, but speaking to him now, he realized that although he mostly kept to himself, he could ramble on a lot without even noticing. Despite looking like he didn't have anything to say, he had his own thoughts.
'Is he just stupidly shy?'
He said playfully,
"You're less stiff then I thought."
For just a brief second, he thought he saw his neutral expression break for a moment. But very quickly, it rebuilt itself.
"Is that so."