Chapter 66: The Sphere
Heddy finally sensed the magical energy signature just ahead—perhaps only one last turn remained. After roughly gauging the proximity of their group and considering the terrain of the Dark Mountains here, Gawain concluded they had reached the very heart of the mountain itself.
The Gondor expedition from long ago must have hollowed out a section of the mountain to build this incredible, massive facility.
What on earth was here that warranted constructing such a monstrous installation for research or guarding?
Yet, whatever it was, they had ultimately abandoned the place.
Heddy replenished the magical energy of her illumination orb. The dimming light brightened once more, casting a broad glow around them. Gawain saw ahead a neat corridor paved with gray-white “stone slabs.” Along the walls on either side were embedded magic crystal lamps, now long dead, and several tightly shut doors. At the corridor’s end stood a large bronze door, engraved with eyes and triangular symbols.
The bronze door wasn’t fully closed; it was ajar, leaving a wide gap. Gawain activated his danger sense but detected no traps or poisonous gases lurking beyond the door.
Still, caution was necessary. Before pushing the door open, Heddy summoned a faintly glowing rune shaped like an eye. It drifted slowly through the gap, while her own eyes shimmered with a soft light.
“Inside is a large circular chamber,” Heddy reported, frowning. “There are many broken long tables and shelves… pipes line the walls, and in the center of the room is a recessed pit… inside the pit is a strange spherical object. From the ceiling’s center hang numerous iron chains and tools.”
Suddenly, Heddy gasped softly, and her magic faltered.
“What’s wrong?!” Gawain asked, alarmed.
Heddy rubbed her eyes, embarrassed. “I bumped into the wall.”
Gawain blinked. “Uh… anything dangerous or trap-like?”
“No,” Heddy shook her head. “It looks like a laboratory, just much larger than any I’ve seen. There are many devices I don’t understand. The magical energy definitely comes from that sphere in the center, but it’s a form of energy I’ve never encountered before.”
Relieved that there were no traps or rogue ancient magical constructs, Gawain relaxed slightly. As for the strange energy Heddy mentioned, that would have to be studied once they were inside.
Two burly soldiers stepped forward, joining Sir Byron to push the ancient, dust-covered bronze door. The rusted hinges creaked loudly, the sound harsh and grating in the still, enclosed space, echoing far down the corridor.
Heddy instinctively gripped her staff and glanced back into the darkness, as if expecting some indescribable ancient monster to be roused by the door’s opening and leap out from the shadows—but nothing happened.
The door swung open, and Gawain stepped inside. Soon he saw exactly what Heddy had described: a circular hall lined with broken long tables and shelves, magical conduits running along the walls, a sunken central floor, and resting in the pit, a large sphere that looked like stone.
Gawain approached the sphere. It measured roughly one and a half meters in diameter, its shape remarkably regular. Aside from some rough, uneven patches, it was almost a perfect sphere. Its material resembled stone, but under the illumination spell, it shimmered faintly with a metallic sheen.
It looked somewhat like a natural stone sphere, but far too perfectly round. If it was some kind of man-made magical device, it was unlike anything from the Gondor Empire’s known craftsmanship. The surface bore no runes or metal joints—nothing to suggest it was an ancient magical artifact.
“The magical energy definitely comes from inside it,” Heddy said, frowning. “But it’s so strange—I don’t even think it’s magic. It feels like… a completely different kind of energy wave. Ancestor, could this have been made by the ancient Gondor Empire?”
“No, it doesn’t seem so,” Gawain frowned, tapping the “stone” sphere. It felt just like real stone—hard and solid. “Judging by the scale of this place, this sphere isn’t so much something they made as something they were studying…”
“Could this entire facility have been built just to study this sphere?” Sir Byron asked incredulously. “The Gondor Empire went to all this trouble just to research a ball?”
Gawain thought for a moment. Even in the Starfire Era, when magic was abundant and free, the Gondorians wouldn’t be so obsessed: “No. When they evacuated, they orderly took almost everything they could carry. They wouldn’t have left behind the most important things. This sphere was probably one of the objects they studied, but likely just one among many—and not very important. They probably gave up on it after some time, and when the evacuation order came, they just left it here.”
“So after all this effort, this is what we found,” Sir Byron stroked his chin. “Sir, what do we do with it?”
Gawain was a bit troubled. How to transport such a sphere? He pushed it lightly, muttering, “Takes up space and must be heavy… no wonder the Gondorians just left it behind… huh?”
To his surprise, the sphere wobbled and shifted with just a gentle push.
Gawain blinked, embarrassed. “Not heavy at all?”
The sphere was astonishingly light!
He had expected it to weigh at least a ton, but it moved easily with a light shove. Testing further, he estimated it weighed only about a dozen kilograms—light enough for Heddy to push around effortlessly. This meant it definitely wasn’t stone.
Maybe it was hollow inside…
Suppressing the urge to smash it open on the spot, Gawain considered the lab’s scale and the traces around the sphere. It was likely classified as a “Class One Safe Anomaly”—harmless but with unusual properties. So he decided: “Let’s take this thing back and study it properly at camp… Wait, not inside the camp. For safety, place it on the newly cleared ground just outside the camp, with two soldiers guarding it. Tomorrow we’ll set up a tent over it.”
After all, the technological gap between the Gondor Empire and this era was huge. What was safe then might not be safe now, so better to be cautious.
They had been tense coming in, but now they were just pushing a ball around—this light, strange sphere. The soldiers’ nerves eased considerably, though Gawain felt a deep sense of dissonance. He thought about how his first foray into an otherworldly ruin had been deflated by this ball—like donning legendary armor, wielding the village’s finest sword, receiving the king’s blessing as a hero, assembling four wise sages as companions, and setting out to slay the demon king… only to find the demon king was a Patrick Star.
The Gondorians must have been bored out of their minds to waste time researching a ball.
With Heddy’s magical tracking and Gawain’s near-supernatural sense of direction, their return was much faster than their arrival. Even pushing the sphere wasn’t a burden—it was so light it barely slowed them down. When climbing slopes or stairs, Heddy simply summoned a plastic-energy hand to carry it.
They retraced their steps quickly, and soon the faint light of the exit appeared ahead.
Outside, the soldiers had been waiting anxiously for a long time. The sound of footsteps and commands from deep within the central gate finally eased their nerves—until they heard something rolling on the ground.
Two soldiers appeared, pushing the sphere—though one could have managed alone; the second was just for balance.
“Pack up and head back,” Gawain sighed deeply as they returned to the entrance hall, one hand resting on the sphere. “This is our find.”
The soldiers exchanged puzzled looks.
The next day, everyone near the camp’s edge saw the strange sphere.
It sat on a patch of open ground outside the camp, guarded by several fully armed soldiers. A circle of wooden stakes connected by ropes formed a barrier around it, about ten meters in radius.
It looked utterly ridiculous. People whispered that the guards must have lost a card game to be assigned this duty.
Rebecca woke to the news and hurried over to see the spectacle. Spotting her ancestor and Aunt Heddy at the scene, she squeezed through the crowd, curious about the sphere.
“Ancestor… is this the thing you brought out of the ruins last night?”
“We also brought back some metal samples and such—there’s still plenty of good stuff to dig up in the ruins,” Gawain nodded. “But this thing, we just can’t figure it out.”
Rebecca circled the sphere twice, then asked her ancestor, “Can I touch it?”
Gawain waved a hand. “Don’t throw fireballs at it, but otherwise, go ahead.”
Though the sphere was oddly light, it was very sturdy. Gawain had tested it—ordinary swords and knives barely left a mark without using extraordinary power. So a few knocks were fine.
But a big fireball? That was another story—especially with Rebecca’s stubborn streak. She might just hurl a basin-sized fireball at it…
Curious, Rebecca pressed her ear to the sphere’s surface and tapped it twice with her iron staff. Then she turned to Gawain, exclaiming, “It’s not hollow!”
“Yeah, solid inside, but unbelievably light,” Gawain shrugged. “Your aunt scraped off some fragments and found it’s a metal-rich composite. If the whole sphere is made of the same stuff, it could easily crush someone with its weight.”
“Maybe only the outer layer is a shell, and inside is some super-light material?” Rebecca’s interest deepened. “Should we cut it open and see?”
Gawain laughed. “That’s the plan eventually, but not yet. First, we’ll study it thoroughly without damaging it. If we get nowhere, then we’ll consider opening it. After all, the Gondorians used so many tools to study it but never broke the shell—there must be a reason.”
Rebecca looked a little disappointed. “Oh…”
Gawain smiled at her. “More than studying this sphere, I have something else I want you to do—if you have time.”
Rebecca’s eyes lit up. “Oh? I do! I don’t need to personally handle the Magic Network One for now; the craftsmen and apprentices are busy digging trenches and refining quartz sand. I’m free! What do you need me to do?”
“Burn some stones.”
(End of chapter)