The transition from the rolling hills to the craggy formations of the Echoic Wasteland was abrupt. It was like crossing an invisible threshold that fundamentally changed the rules of sound and perception. We found ourselves entering a vast system of canyons and skeletal rock spires, carved not by water or wind, but seemingly by the endless resonances that rippled through them.
And the echoes... they were overwhelming. Every footstep echoed, bouncing off the canyon walls, splitting, distorting, returning from multiple directions with varying delays and timbres. A simple boot stamp against a stone could generate a cascade of sound that lasted nearly a minute, filling the air with its aftershock. Speech was nearly impossible; our own voices became a garbled chorus that drowned us out. The Echoic Wasteland was not filled with artificial dissonance like the Labyrinth, but with natural dissonance , created by the interference of countless overlapping echoes.
The effect on my rhythmic senses was different from that of the Labyrinth. There, the dissonance tried to crush me or deceive me up close. Here, it was the sheer quantity and persistence of sound that exhausted me. Feeling the faint "thread" of the fragment through this sea of endless echoes was like hearing a solo violin in the middle of a thunderstorm and a full-volume concert, all at once.
Sciel put on his protective headphones, which seemed to have some sort of rhythmic noise cancellation, and adjusted his device. The screen flickered wildly, unable to filter out the massive ambient noise to get a clear reading of the fragment. "The device... is having trouble isolating the fragment signal," he shouted over the ambient sonic boom, his voice muffled by the headphones. "The Wasteland is creating too many echoes. It's... rhythmically indistinguishable at a distance."
Lune, despite her heightened senses, seemed to be struggling as well. She had her hands covering her ears, her face a mask of painful concentration. The chaotic symphony of echoes must have been torture for her.
"We have to be... silent," Maelle suggested, also raising her voice. "Or use sound... in a controlled way."
Maelle's idea resonated with me. If the Wasteland was a realm of echoes, perhaps the key wasn't total silence (probably impossible to achieve here), but learning to manipulate or interpret the echoes in a way that benefited us.
Sciel, having managed to partially adjust his device, beckoned. "We could try sending... a controlled rhythmic pulse. Something the device could recognize and track. The way it bounces... it could help us map the cavern or canyon ahead without having to walk blindly through it."
This was a risky plan. A rhythmic pulse strong enough to elicit a useful echo would also alert anything (or any echo with intent) for miles around. But it was better than aimless wandering.
We stopped at the mouth of a particularly narrow and resonant canyon. The walls rose abruptly, and the echo of a single footstep bounced off them for almost a minute. It was as if the canyon itself were a dissonant musical instrument.
"I'm going to send out... a test pulse," I said, concentrating. Not an aggressive pulse, but something more... exploratory. A controlled, rhythmic vibration that I hoped would travel down the canyon and return with information about its shape and size, without being too conspicuous.
I sent the pulse. It was a soft, resonant sound, with a distinctive rhythmic pattern that Sciel had set up his device to specifically track. The pulse traveled down the canyon. We waited.
The echoes began to return. Not just one, but multiple, each slightly different in pitch and delay, bouncing off the countless surfaces of the canyon. It was a rhythmic response, a sonic "shape" of the space in front of us.
Sciel stared at his device with feverish intensity. The lines appearing on his screen were a complex diagram, translating the rhythmic echoes into a tentative map of the canyon's structure. "It's... confusing," he murmured, even through the headset. "A lot of secondary ricochets. But... I can see patterns. Turns. Narrowings."
Lune, her eyes still closed but her breathing calmer, listened to the quality of the echoes. "There's a... quieter echo... coming from the back. It doesn't bounce as much. It could be... an open space... or something that absorbs sound."
My own rhythmic senses, though overloaded, attempted to interpret the "feel" of the returning echoes. Some felt hollow, empty. Others had a solid resonance, as if striking something substantial.
"Lune's dull echo..." I said, feeling the vibration in the air. "It feels... different. It has the same rhythmic quality as the pulse I sent, but without the bouncing 'facets.' It could be the right direction. Or... something waiting at the end of the canyon."
It was a gamble. Based on the combination of Sciel's tentative mapping, Lune's aural interpretation, and my own rhythmic sense of the "thud," we decided that the path that thud followed was the most likely to lead us deeper into the Echoic Wasteland and, hopefully, toward the fragment.
Our progress through the canyon was slow and deliberate. We walked carefully, trying to minimize the sound of our footsteps. Every now and then, I sent out another controlled rhythmic pulse, weaker this time, just to update Sciel's map and confirm that we were still on the path of the muffled echo.
The ambient echoes were a constant test of the nerves. Strange sounds seemed to come from everywhere. An echo of laughter that sounded frighteningly close, but which Sciel identified as a complex bounce from a stone that had fallen hundreds of meters away. The sound of something large moving, which turned out to be the echo of our own footsteps bouncing back in a particularly strange way. It was exhausting to stay focused and not react to every phantom sound.
Maelle used a small tool that emitted a pulse of infrared light to scan the walls and floor for traps or subtle changes that sound wouldn't reveal. Gustave maintained constant vigilance, his eyes scanning the heights and shadows of the canyons, ready for any threat that might use the echoes to set an ambush.
As we moved forward, the canyon began to widen, matching Lune's interpretation and Sciel's map of the "dull echo." The air felt a little less saturated with immediate reverberations, although distant echoes still resonated. And as we emerged from the narrow canyon, we found ourselves in a more open space, a kind of natural amphitheater surrounded by resonant rock spires.
And there, in the center of the amphitheater, something stood out. It wasn't the shard, not yet, but it was a structure. A cluster of rocky spires arranged in a circle, and in the middle of them, a formation that looked like an altar. And from the altar emanated a sound... peculiar. It wasn't chaotic dissonance, nor a normal ambient echo. It was a complex sound, a kind of low, repetitive chanting, full of multiple, overlapping tones. And that chanting... generated echoes of its own that seemed to manipulate the sound of the entire amphitheater.
"The fragment's signal... is strong here," Sciel announced, his voice clearer now that the immediate noise of the cannon had subsided. "I believe this is... the focal point of this area. The source of the most significant echoes."
I stared at the resonant altar. It was beautiful in its own strange way, but also intimidating. The chanting it emitted was mesmerizing, and I felt the echoes it generated not only bounce back, but also absorb or alter other sounds. It was as if the altar were a conductor for the cavern's symphony of echoes.
This was the next challenge. Not just navigating the echoes, but interacting with their source. The Echoic Wasteland had opened its doors with a test of sound-based perception and navigation. Now, it seemed we would have to confront the very symphony that ruled this land.
The fragment was close. I felt its faint, pure resonance beneath the altar's chant. But to reach it, we would have to understand and overcome the power of the echoes in their most concentrated form. The next stage in the Echoic Wasteland had begun.
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