Something had been bothering Kimi for several days. She knew that the strange teleportation trap that Mirgia, herself and some of the others present at the raid fell into could not have been planned. At least not to the point that they would know that she specifically went here. Yet the priests she was accompanying right now seemed like they almost expected her arrival. As a follower of Abreloka she knew how powerful the Arpentara truly were and it wouldn’t be the first miraculous thing she would encounter in her long life, but just chalking the whole thing up to Owlana’s interference in the fate of the world felt wrong to her. Still, despite being fishy, the head priest and his companions had been nothing but extremely polite to her so far, and with the confirmation that Mirgia was also inside the dungeon, she knew it would benefit her to go inside of it as well. Still, the feeling in the back of her mind didn’t go away when she stared at the looming dungeon. It also seemed like the humans here had absolutely no idea what the appearance of this building meant, but that wasn’t true for Kimi. Coming from the spirit realm, she was similar to Mana in the sense that this was the second world she found herself in. Although spirits traveling to the mortal realm was a relatively common thing and Mana’s forced transportation to their world was much more rare, it was still a similar experience. And the differences in their worlds made it so Kimi knew what this was. When a lot of magical energy flowed through the air – this usually happened after a great calamity or a clash between powerful mages – the magic could rend the boundary of space. When that happened, it could move things from one place to another in an instant. Not only that, but sometimes it would even move things from other realms to this realm. It has long been theorized that it could also move things from their world to other realms, but there has been no way to verify this theory. Kimi knew exactly what this was. This was a dungeon built in the spirit realm that somehow ended up here. How and why it was here, that was something she couldn’t answer, but knowing that it came from the spirit realm was enough cause for alarm. The traps and mysteries that laid within this dungeon would be much more twisted and confusing than the ones you would find in an excavated place. Mirgia was in danger. And as much as she hated to admit it, despite being a spirit familiar with these sorts of dungeons, she wasn’t exactly much better equipped to deal with much of what they had to offer. There were wild spirits back in her homeland who made it their mission to explore and excavate these strange magical dungeons, but many of them would inevitably fail to return. Those who did succeed in conquering dungeons would gain wealth and power beyond imagination. Some of them lurk in the shadows to this day, one bad decision away from upsetting the balance of both worlds. It was a delicate balance and she shuddered to think about what would happen if someone went rogue.
She shook the thoughts away and focused on the present. Head priest Danil was ordering his men and women around to get ready for their descent into the dungeon. He seemed to have a plan for what to do and from what Kimi could gather had been preparing for this inevitability for quite a while. It didn’t sit right with her. Still, when they called for her to join them in their descent, she didn’t hesitate. Her first step was to reunite with Mirgia, a plan for the future would come after that.
The first split in the road was one where there didn’t seem to be much explanation for where to go next. But Kimia knew immediately what route Mirgia and his companions would have taken. Not just them, anyone unprepared to deal with the chilling magic that hung stale in this space would go the left route.
Head priest Danil sighed in frustration. He’d translated the words on the little pedestal and relayed them to his companions, but they didn’t really tell them anything. “I’m not sure where to go from here, I have to admit.” He looked at Kimia. “Do you have any suggestions, wise spirit?”
“I have a suspicion, but I want to see if I’m right.” She looked at the group gathered here. “I would like all of you to stand a little bit separated from each other.” The priests looked among each other but hesitantly complied.
“Now, I want everyone to close their eyes.” This request went over less well. “Trust me on this, it will make sense shortly and it will only take a moment.”
Reluctantly, they followed her commands, although the head priest kept his eyes opened, trained on Kimi, who nodded acknowledgement. “Now, I want everyone who thinks we should take the path on the left to raise their left hand, and I want everyone who thinks we should take the right path to raise their right hand.” She paused for a moment. “Now open your eyes.”
Everyone now saw what the head priest and Kimi also saw. Every single hand that was raised was a left hand.
Danil smiled. “I was leaning towards the left hallway too, if I’m honest with you.”
Kimi nodded. “That makes sense, there’s magic in this dungeon that is trying to bring us somewhere. It’s got a frightening amount of layers to it, so that anyone who realizes they are stuck in its trap will only think to remove themselves from the deepest layer without realizing they were already stuck in the bigger web. It’s honestly awe-inspiring and I would not be able to recreate it in a thousand years. What I can do, however, is counteract it.”
“Please, by all means. Does that mean we should then take the right pathway instead?”
Kimi shook her head. “The right pathway might be the correct route, the left pathway might be the correct route, that I could not tell you. But if we follow the magic and counteract it, we can at least see what happened to those who went into this place before us, and save them.”
“A noble prospect, but are you certain you can counter the magic?”
Kimi nodded. “I am.” She wasn’t. But she was confident enough that she liked her odds. And she would feel much better about this dive into danger if she could meet up with Mirgia.
“Then we go left. Having more fighters that will hopefully help us in this dive will be a boon.” He smiled.
With Kimi in the lead – her flute in hand – the party descended the left pathway until they encountered two people.
“You need to get out of here right now,” the smallfolk woman said. “It’s dangerous further in.”
“Easy child, things will be alright now that we’re here.” Danil put his hand on the woman’s shoulder and looked her in the eyes until she calmed down a bit. “My name is head priest Danil, and we are here to help. We are followers of Owlana who are looking for an artifact in this dungeon. Now tell us who you are and what is going on so we can help each other out.”
The woman took several deep breaths before she spoke, the large adventurer behind her staying quiet throughout. “I’m Doroly and this is Jom. We went in with a small group after a strange insectoid creature attacked the camp. When we came upon a room with strange magic that seemed to be powered by music we tried to counteract it by destroying the instruments they were holding. When that succeeded, we traveled through the room, only for the music to suddenly start again. The rest of our party is now stuck in a strange dance of sorts they can’t seem to get out of. The room was already filled with other people who were caught in the trap, some still alive, some fully decomposed. Jom and I were the only ones to make it out of the trap but due to Jom’s hurt ankle it’s been a slow walk back.”
The man behind her nodded. Kimi could now see that he was standing a bit awkwardly, leaning on one leg instead of both of them.
“Well fear not, child,” Danil said, “as luck would have it, we have brought a powerful spirit of music alongside us.”
Kimi smiled. “I am confident that I can deal with this trap, although it will be a tricky endeavor.”
Standing on the precipice of the room that was doused in old magic, Kimi’thania let the light of her instrument dance along her arms as soft notes came out of it. Her visage turned into a ball of light as she transformed into her most primal form, the way she truly looked when none of her glamor magic was applied. Only in this form could she access her most powerful magic and she would rather not do this in front of strangers, but with how intricately woven the spell she needed to counter was, she had no choice. She needed to find where exactly it was located in the room so that she could break the source of it, but with how thick the magic was, it was hard to locate the source. The light faded and Kimi was now in her primal form. A body humanoid in some ways, but alien in others. Her face was as tall as the rest of her body combined with eyes the size of kitchen plates. Where normally a pupil and iris were, was just a constantly moving and twisting series of musical notes. Her hands wove skillfully through the air as she accessed magic that belonged to her and her family for generations, plucking notes from nothingness as the song she needed to solve this problem came to her.
It was an old song, one she’d heard her grandma sing only once. It was meant specifically to counter magic that was not visible to the eye but only touchable by music. The notes she so expertly sent into the sky would roam the room around her making for a kaleidoscope of colors. The priests, Doroly and Jom could do nothing but stare at the entire endeavor in awe. So drawn in were they to Kimi’s performance that the magic that would have otherwise compelled them to dance until death could not grasp them. Kimi saw Mirgia among the dancers and wavered for a moment, scared for his safety, before she steeled her resolve and sent a barrage of energy into the room, smashing everyone living and dead into the walls as gusts of wind started disrupting the musical notes in the room. Suddenly the movement of magic allowed her to trace it back to the source. A magical circle set into the ceiling at the far end of the room was causing everything. She took a dagger from Doroly’s belt and placed it suspended in the air in front of herself, with the point aimed at the magic circle. With a high pitched noise it shot through the air and straight into the center of the magic circle, deafening the room.
Opal Kaharis 