“It looks like this doesn’t connect to the tunnel,” Doroly remarked.
They were stumped by the sudden end to the tunnel. It made very little sense that such an elaborate magical trap was set up to block a dead end tunnel, so there had to be more to discover here.
“Anyone good at getting rid of rock walls?” Danil said jokingly.
“Surprisingly, I am,” Krashid replied. He was the taller of the two Sahilid explorers and had an air of nervousness to him. He stepped forward now. “I can harden and soften most natural materials with my magic. If you give me some time and space I can likely turn this rock wall into a pile of mud. Of course if the wall is too thick for my magic to fully cover, it won’t help, but if we’re right and it is just a blockade of sorts, then it should be fine. It’ll take a lot out of me though.” He looked at the others.
“Do you need anything from us?” Mirgia asked him.
He shook his head. “If you give me time and space I should be able to handle it.”
“Then we’ll have lunch,” Danil suggested.
Krashid went to work, but it didn’t take long before things took a turn. The moment he focused his magic on the wall, while the rest of the party was still looking on to see how the magic would take hold, the magic was immediately repelled. A shockwave went through the tunnel and everyone present felt the remnants of the force that sent Krashid tumbling backward. A shimmer of bright white light covered the rock before it slowly faded away.
Danil sighed. “It is blocked with holy magic to prevent anyone from meddling with it.” He smiled. “Like we’re trying to do now.” He looked at his companion. “Masahi, what would you do in this situation?”
The woman stepped forward and tied her long hair into a bun before putting both hands on the rock and closing her eyes. She muttered some words to herself and the bright white light that they saw earlier returned. She traced the wall, the light intensifying the places where her fingers touched it until it seemed like all of the light gathered in a single spot of blinding light, dimming everywhere else. Finally, she let the wall go and the light remained on her finger. Danil took out a strange oil lamp and held it out for Masahi. She put the light at the tip of the lamp and it vanished into the lamp.
“What is that?” Kimi asked.
Danil showed her the lamp. “It’s one of the many powerful artifacts under the protection of the order of Owlana. The Luminescent Lamp allows us to absorb any light based and holy magic and undo whatever spell it is attached to. You do still need a talented wielder of Owlana’s gifts to be able to do so, but as you have just seen, there is a good reason I keep Masahi near me whenever I can.” he looked at Krashid. “It should be fine to wield your magic now, the protection spell is gone.”
“What happens to the energy you put into this lamp?” Kimi asked.
Danil smiled. “It gets stored inside the lamp until we decide to use it to strengthen our own magic.”
“So it’s a way to remove protections and gain some power yourself?”
“That’s right, it’s a very useful tool.” He put it away. “It’s actually a good thing we managed to put some energy into it, surely it’ll become useful later on in this strange place.
While they waited for Krashid to finish his magic, Kimi, Doroly and Mirgia sat together, a little bit separated from the other members of their party when Danil approached them. “Mirgia, Doroly, can I ask you to share with me anything you might have already learned about this place before we joined forces?”
Mirgia looked at Doroly who shrugged. He considered his options. The priest had been very helpful so far, but something about the sudden appearance of a group of Owlana’s priests still made him wary. “What do you know about the ancient kingdom of Venoria?”
Danil scratched his chin and thought for a bit. “A fallen kingdom from many centuries ago, the remains of which are supposedly still somewhere in the center of the Feral Wildlands. They were once well known for refusing to accept the Arpentara as gods and instead pledging their loyalty to the creators, Nera and Na. This caused them quite a few wars and disagreements with other nations in their time, but it also gave them access to lost magic.” He paused for a second. “Although it is heavily disputed that their loyalty to the creators is what gave them access to this magic and instead it is more likely that they discovered the secrets to this magic some other way.”
“Well, Roal, the smallfolk we sent to travel with the other group, deciphered the writing on the pedestal in an earlier chamber, one you had to have passed by. This is what it said.
“At the discretion of the highest order of the Na’s temple in Venoria, we warn any who travel into this tomb to do so at grave risk to their own safety as for what lies hidden deep within is something of power great enough to turn away any who would seek to find it.”
Mirgia looked at the priest to see if there was any sign of recognition.
“That text – if you’ll allow me to share my thoughts – makes it seem that this wasn’t a part of Venoria, but this was some location that the people of Venoria visited and caused them a great deal of worry.”
Mirgia nodded. “That’s the impression we got from it as well. Which makes me more than a little bit worried about what we might end up finding down here.”
They all shared a look.
“Well, I’ll share this information with the rest of our group, if that is alright with you,” Danil said.
Mirgia nodded. “No point hiding any knowledge we have, right?”
Danil walked off, leaving the three to sit and talk amongst themselves.
“What do you think of this situation?” Kimi asked.
“I don’t like it,” Doroly said.
“What do you not like about it?”
“There’s something off about this place and the way these priests seem to be very prepared for what we’ve encountered so far. It’s almost like they knew what to expect and came ready for the things we might face here. That would imply they know more than they’re letting on.”
That was it. Mirgia thought to himself. That explained the bad feeling he had about the priest. He seemed overly prepared for the situation at hand, almost as if he knew more about the place than the rest of them. “That leaves me with two big questions,” Doroly continued.
“What does he know about this place that he’s not sharing, and will that knowledge end up endangering us.” She thought for a moment. “If he knows more than he’s letting on, but his only real intent is to use that knowledge to get whatever is hidden in this place, without it causing us any harm, that’s not a big problem. But if there is something more nefarious going on here, it might endanger the rest of the party as well.”
Mirgia nodded. “That is what I’m worried about. He seems too prepared, and from what you’ve told me,” he looked at Kimia, “he even knew you were going to appear in this region, almost as if there was an element of planning to it.”
“We’ll just have to keep our wits about us and be ready to fend for ourselves at a moment’s notice,” Doroly said. She looked at Kimi. “It is very nice to have a spirit on our side, it makes me feel much more comfortable.”
Kimi looked at her with curiosity. “Do you have prior experience with spirits, that makes you feel that way?”
Doroly nodded. “When I was traveling with a different group of mercenaries – this was quite a few years back – we encountered a spirit of water that traveled with our troupe for a couple of weeks. Thoraln, which was the spirit’s name, helped us get out of so many tricky situations that I honestly don’t think I could have made it out of some of those without his help. Just having someone whose affinity for magic and the world around them is so different from ours makes the amount of ways you can solve a situation expand tremendously. The way you managed to get rid of the magic in the previous room is something that one of us could never accomplish.” That last bit echoed in Mirgia’s head. Did the priest know he needed the help of Kimi’s magic to get through some of the traps in this place? He shook his head. At this point he was just thinking of reasons to distrust the priest, without any logic or reasoning. Why did he feel so strongly about a gut feeling about a person he just met? He took a deep breath and looked at all the people in his presence. Many of them looked worried and uncertain. This dungeon was already taking its toll on the party and they’d only just begun exploring it. With how much there was still to come, Mirgia was definitely going to need to stay focused and keep his withs about him.
The Hesitant Hero will be on break next week. It will return on May 1st
Opal Kaharis 