Chapter 6: Hall of Sarcophagi ◇
The realization dawned on Estelle as she carefully studied her surroundings. Her gaze fell to where she had awakened—a white bed with sheets and pillow still bearing the impression of her body. What she had initially mistaken for metal was actually translucent, tinted glass encasing the bed like a coffin. A jolt of recognition hit her: she knew this design intimately. She had created it herself, modeling it in 3D software as an asset for the Hall of Sarcophagus. But this wasn't the current version—this was an older variant, one designed to house the original Architects. The same variant she now found herself trapped within.
Looking up at the ceiling, she observed an array of mechanical arms extending from a circular centerpiece. Each arm brandished different tools—screwdrivers, jackscrews, tubes, and metal stakes—all bearing the same distinctive texture as the walls she had noticed earlier. These arms, she realized with growing unease, were the mechanism responsible for opening the coffin. Every detail around her confirmed her identity, yet offered no explanation for how she had ended up here.
She inhaled sharply, the cold air burning her lungs as she tried to quiet her racing thoughts. 'Is this a punishment? Or perhaps some twisted blessing?' The words felt inadequate, failing to capture the strangeness of her situation. None of the thoughts forming in her mind seemed to fit the reality before her.
'What do I do now?' She attempted to ground herself in this reality, but every scenario she imagined felt foreign and wrong. She was completely at a loss—nothing in her experience had prepared her for this. As she swallowed, her parched throat screamed in protest, a physical discomfort that reminded her bodily needs instantaneously.
'Water... right...' Estelle's mind slowly began to focus. 'Water, food, basic necessities... and then survey the area. Could I really be in the World of Astris? No... that's impossible. Completely impossible—it just doesn't make any sense.' She paused, her thoughts racing. 'But if not that, then what? No—I need to focus. Water first. Everything else can wait.'
Gathering her strength, she placed her hands on the ledge to pull herself up. To her surprise, her body responded readily—the weakness from before had largely subsided, though numbness lingered in her strained muscles. Peering over the edge, she found the floor wasn't as far down as she had feared, perhaps only two or three feet below. She descended carefully, her boots making soft thuds as they touched the floor. She was rather thankful that she was fully clothed, down to her black boots. The oddity of wearing such attire while sleeping in a sarcophagus wasn't lost on her. Had she written this detail into the world herself, or had the world filled in this particular gap on its own? Either way, practical as the clothing might be, it wasn't exactly suited for a long sleep in sarcophagus stasis.
With both feet on solid ground, she steadied herself and surveyed her surroundings. Though darkness obscured many details, and she stood too far to make out others she knew she had designed, she couldn't help but feel a surge of awe and pride. 'As expected of me... The Architects were meant to be alien, and this place certainly achieves that.'
Another painful swallow reminded her of the desert in her throat. A sudden throb in her temples drew a groan from her lips. 'Water... fuck.' The basic need was becoming impossible to ignore.
Estelle turned to her right, where she had seen the language of the Architects elegantly engraved in light blue across the protruding wall. Large characters of varying shapes spread across its surface, their design both foreign and purposeful. A smile tugged at her lips as she admired how they had turned out—unique and entirely unlike anything from her previous world.
The symbols were more than mere decoration; she could read them with unsettling familiarity. The text clearly stated: [A2: Trigon Sphere Hall]. The name stirred something in her memory—she was supposed to know this place—she had created it, after all. But it had been so long since she had last touched or visited it after its completion. She couldn't quite remember its purpose or what lay beyond the locked gate; the knowledge remained frustratingly out of reach. Her eyes searched the hall for another exit, finding only an endless rhythm of towering pillars and walls. With no other options apparent, she turned her attention back to the gate marked [A2: Trigon Sphere Hall].
As she rounded the sarcophagus where she had awakened, her boots tapped softly against the stone floor, each step echoing through the desolate quiet. The chamber wasn't entirely silent, though—distant gases hissed in unseen pipes, and strange lights flickered along the lengths of certain pillars, adding to the chamber's alien atmosphere. A thoughtful 'hm' vibrated against her closed lips as her attention fixed on those particular pillars.
The sight of the pillars brought back memories of the lore she had written—how they formed the sanctuary's core skeletal frame, how not even the native gods could destroy these resting places. A wry smile touched her lips. Though, she doubted the Architects ever needed such security—she knew their history intimately, having written it herself. The old gods had fallen into slumber after sealing the foreign deities that invaded the World of Astris. Their absolute destiny and fate had been penned by her own hand.
She took a deep breath, her steps slowing but never halting. If this was truly the world she had created, then she stood in a realm where godlike creatures existed alongside mortals, where monsters infested every corner—colonizing the crevices of different realms—and where human technology remained far behind what she had known in her previous world. The implications of her current predicament were almost too numerous to count, too vast to fully list all inside her mind.
While she couldn't be certain how the mortal world of Astris currently appeared, or if the world resembled anything close to her creation—seeing the details thus far from her awakening; selecting an Architect race had led her to awaken where the Architects rest. She could tentatively place the current time as year 854—the timeline she had set before starting the campaign, before entering this world.
The complexity of her situation extended far beyond her immediate circumstances. Every World had its history—a genesis—a reason, a root from which it grew—even if shrouded in myths and mysteries that defied explanation. Beyond what she had crafted lay histories she had never written, never known, duplicated variants, or had simply forgotten. Some stories had never been properly documented or made official, and who knew what powerful magic might exist beyond her knowledge? The future loomed before her, riddled with uncertainties. She knew the future, many futures—but she was no deity who could level the land with a thought. She was merely the scribe who wrote the world, an imperfect world full of holes. A groan escaped her lips as anxiety clouded her thoughts.
Lost in contemplation, Estelle found herself standing before a massive gate. Its twin frames emerged from the wall, towering at least five meters high, crowned with the familiar signage she had noticed earlier. The frame bore intricate etchings, echoing those on the wall, though these remained static against the pulsing green light behind them. The gate itself stood apart—strikingly minimalist compared to the others she remembered designing.
A simple rhombus pattern protruded from the wall's surface, devoid of any glow or additional markings. Something tugged at her memory—perhaps a fragment of lore she couldn't quite grasp, or a strange sense of déjà vu. Her eyes searched the doorframe, finding neither buttons nor handles to interact with.
'Could there be… some kind of password?' Estelle mused, taking a tentative step forward.
As she drew near, the massive gate suddenly fractured—its surface splintering like glass. Estelle jolted backward, her mind blank with alarm as she watched the transformation unfold. Along the spreading fissures, an ethereal blue light sparkled in complete silence. She tilted her head, confusion giving way to a slow recognition.
'Ah... Could this be...?' Her thoughts faded just as they crystallized. She took two deliberate steps forward, watching as more cracks spiderwebbed across the surface. A dry laugh escaped her as understanding dawned. 'Oh, yeah. That's how this works.'
Estelle stepped forward with newfound confidence. The surface dematerialized before her eyes, breaking apart like shards of stained glass caught in sunlight. Each piece glowed along its shattered edges as it retreated to the sides of the wall. Within moments, a short corridor appeared, leading to another gate ahead. The process was mesmerizing—silent yet spectacular. She found herself wondering if she had designed these particular details herself. Though the sight felt fresh and somehow foreign to her eyes, there was an underlying certainty about how it all worked.
Even after passing through the gates, Estelle couldn't tear her eyes from the floating fragments of the deconstructed entrance. She turned on her heel, indulging in the beauty of her creation while giving the sanctuary behind her a final glance. Her sarcophagus remained at the center of the room, the mechanical arms protruding from the ceiling—meant to lock the lid and assimilate the coffin into the ground—now lying dormant. Her heart skipped a beat as the heavy air forced itself into her lungs. She had seen this exact sight before, but through a different lens—on a screen, carefully composing the perfect shot of the opened lid from this very spot, tweaking the environmental details until they were just right, perfecting every detail.
The pulsing green light from the pillars cast an ethereal glow across the hall, while the coffin lay half-open at its center—bathed in mysterious rays streaming from the mechanical arms above. That was the shot—that was a scene she had captured and edited before sharing with her community of Worldbuilders. Those memories from her past now felt like faded photographs, growing hazier with each passing moment.
She swallowed, her mouth painfully dry. 'Later,' she reminded herself with an exhale. 'We can always find time to explore this... Not now, Estelle.'
However—
Curious, Estelle took a step back, watching as the floating fragments twitched in response. Another step, and they trembled in unison. With a third step backward, the fragments shifted, each piece drifting to its designated place as they reassembled into a massive gate. The ethereal blue light bleeding into the corridor slowly faded until it vanished completely, sealing off the Hall of Sarcophagi.
The room fell into a profound silence, broken only by her heartbeat thundering in her ears. Then, a sudden flicker overhead caught her attention. A light blue glow traced an intricate pattern—materializing into a signage like the previous chamber: [Admin-Sarcophagus hall-A001].
'Admin sarcophagus hall? Not the Hall of Sarcophagi?' As questions formed in Estelle's mind, a flash of memory immediately provided answers. 'Ah... Right. I had duplicated the Sarcophagi hall multiple times before, placing them in this realm to match the population of the Architects. And, in the past, I couldn't bring myself to delete the old Architect designs—they were the initial concept designs for the Architects' theme. Their designs were too fully fleshed out, too valuable to simply discard. So we stored them here—in one of the many resting halls.' Her brow furrowed as another memory surfaced. 'Wasn't I supposed to create another species this week? One that would integrate the old Architect design?'
Estelle's thoughts began to cloud, trailing one after another as she mindlessly turned on her heel. She faced the opposite gate and continued forward. The space between the two gates was surprisingly compact, and the walls—though bearing the same thematic elements as the previous chamber—didn't appear as grand as she remembered. This convinced her that it wasn't the corridor she initially assumed, but something else entirely. Perhaps a sterilizer, or one of those security checkpoints, or even a decompression chamber like those she had seen in sci-fi concepts and artwork.
However, as she approached the second gate, she noticed it didn't react to her presence, even when she stopped just two steps near it. She lifted her head. 'Huh? Is this one different?'
Her eyes scanned the gate, and caught a familiar feature protruding from the frame—a sleek protrusion that appeared to be an extension of the structure itself. Estelle approached with measured steps, and as she drew closer, the feature became more distinct. Being in the Architects' realm, she should have expected this—a terminal pad.