Chapter 189: 187

The location from Reine's note was only about a day's travel away from the city. I wasn't sure what the facility would be like, but I didn't plan to take everyone with me, rather I decided that only Steria, Renae, and Kaliel would come. Mostly because I doubted that there would be enough room for Arya or Ashara to properly utilize their strengths so the more melee focused Steria and Kaliel would be more useful, while Renae had a skill that was dedicated to finding traps. Neither Ellie or Marian were combat ready, Ellie because her stubbornness was inching her closer to the edge of death while Marian simply had yet to have enough time to become similarly skilled.
The journey itself was uneventful, the plainlands of the Eldur Duchy weren't exactly somewhere that had many places to hide criminals or ferocious monsters. The area Reine had described was quite simple to find, and were it not for the instructions she left behind I doubted that anyone would ever find this seeress' lair. As far as I could tell there wasn't any kind of illusions or magic at work, and unless one was actively searching for secret doors beneath the grass there wasn't much of a chance that it would be stumbled upon either.
While it was possible the horses we rode might get stolen, it was best that we let them wander since even Reine had not known the size of the lair, having only seen a few of the rooms while awake. With a quick glance to make sure no one was nearby the four us descended into the hatch, darkness enveloping us as we closed the hatch behind us. It only took a few moments before the lights came on, something Reine had described as thin magical lamps. Her description was apt, however, I could only freeze in shock as the hallway before lit up. I had expected something carved from stone, or held up with wood, yet what was before was like nothing I had ever seen on this world before, but rather a sight that shared many similarities to the laboratories from Velen's world. The 'magical lamps' were clearly fluorescent lights, while the floors were made of tile, and while I didn't know exactly what they were made from, the walls and ceiling were clearly not of the medieval material I'd seen everywhere else built with.
Kaliel and Steria had reactions similar to mine, while Renae was the only one to simply look at the alien architecture with curiosity. Kaliel had the memories of Gabriel so it made sense that she had seen other worlds with similar buildings, and Steria was a fragment of a Goddess, so she had likely seen all manner of things. The three of us shared a glance while I advised Renae to stay behind me and to warn me of any traps that may be present.
The facility itself was that large, and seemed more like a shelter than any kind of lab or lair, that was until we entered the final room. Unlike the rest of the facility, this room was massive, and was filled with all manner of technology, some of which I recognized. There were several liquid filled tanks that could easily fit a person lined up, several of which had figures inside. However, there were several that were broken, and as we investigated more, it seemed there had been some kind of struggle, instruments of sort had been scattered and broken, notes flung about and trampled or torn to pieces.
Taking a look at the intact notes, this facility had been in operation long before I had been born, and long before Gabriel's Avatar had either. Most of it was scientific technobabble that required knowledge far beyond what I had to understand, though what I could gleam was that whoever had been working here wasn't the original maker, they called it a remnant of the Progenitors, beings that were godlike in their control and dominion of the world. This facility had been for cloning, though it seemed the seeress had repurposed it to try and make the ultimate lifeform.

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Most of her efforts had been concentrated on the body, however she soon came to realize that the existence of the soul prevented her from her goal. She noted that something had changed between the Progenitor's time and ours, something that had fundamentally changed how the world had worked, and was likely the cause of their downfall. However, that was all speculation, she wasn't a historian, and even if she was, knowledge of the Progenitors wasn't widespread.
I continued to skim through the documents until I saw mention of Reine, the first Pseudo-Soul Homunculus. According to the documents, the seeress had been troubled by the free-will present in souls that made them impossible to properly have complete control of, and the Pseudo-Soul was her answer after so long. It was also around this time that she became aware of Gabriel and Kalista, Avatars of beings that existed outside of the known world, and away from the influence of the Mortal Gods. There wasn't a statement on how she'd become aware of this information, but the majority of the documents were damaged, so it had likely been lost. She sent the Reine to serve the Eldur's, before eventually even going herself to give readings to Alcrem.
She'd also used Reine to apparently steal a portion of Kalista's Avatar, resulting in the 'imperfect' failure that Gabriel had called her. She also knew when I was born, and had advised Alcrem about me, though unlike Gabriel and Kalista, it seemed her knowledge wasn't complete and she had to give three different locations. I actually felt a bit bad for them, being manipulated completely unbeknownst to them by someone who only desired to further her own goals.
The notes detailed much of my life, as apparently neither Gabriel or Kalista had truly caught the interest of the seeress, though she did manipulate both Gabriel and Alcrem, and through them, me, to increase the strength of both my soul and body, however, the notes cut off soon after, leaving me both frustrated with more questions. That said, the documents did have plenty of information about souls, so perhaps with the help of Ellie I could do something about my inability to interface with Status Plates.
Carefully tucking the notes away, I met up with the others who were inspecting the tanks that held figures, most of which were incomplete or clearly failures, however, among them, I recognized two of the completed figures, one of them being Reine, the other however, was someone that I should never have seen again.

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