Blood started pooling below Quint’s knees as the man couldn’t stay up. Mirgia assessed the situation as quickly as he could. The wound was deep but he could still live. Despite the feeling that something was off about Danil, this extreme betrayal shocked Mirgia to his core. He leapt at the priest, pulling his dagger out of its sheath as he did so. Danil took a step to the side and looked at the ground below him. “It’s not enough,” he growled, turning to Mirgia with the bloodied dagger still in his hand. “Two will do the trick.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Mirgia yelled. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Don’t you understand? The ritual needs blood to be completed. The wisdom and history hidden beyond this chamber are beyond the comprehension of modern people. This isn’t a temple from Venoria, it belonged to their enemies.”
Mirgia’s knowledge of history was too narrow to understand what that meant. “What’s that have to do with stabbing your allies?” Mirgia’s brain was working overtime, but the confusion of the moment prevented him from thinking straight and the priest’s comments only served to distract him.
Danil laughed. “Come on now, elf, we’ve only known each other for several hours, you’d think we’d be attached that quickly?” A wicked smile stayed on his face, hinting at something unnatural.
Mirgia’s face turned dark. “Fine, I’ll take care of your betrayal and then deal with your little friends.” He wasn’t one to turn angry quickly but on top of Quint being a trusted ally despite their short journey with each other, he’d also gotten quite fond of the young man, and the fact that Quint helped Danil climb up here only to be rewarded with a knife to the chest fueled an anger in Mirgia’s stomach that he hadn’t felt before. Danil’s dagger lunged at him and without hesitation Mirgia blocked it with his left arm, feeling the blade plunge into the flesh of his forearm. He grimaced but ignored it, instead bringing up his own knife and slashing Danil’s throat. A clean cut driven by years of cleanly culling hunted animals and the man staggered backwards. Mirgia pulled the dagger out of his arm and tossed it away. Danil looked at him and tried to speak, but his windpipe was too damaged. Blood poured out of the wound and instead of looking angry or scared, Danil just laughed. Mirgia could just barely hear the man’s last words.
“Two will do the trick.” Then he collapsed. Mirgia panted heavily and looked at his surroundings. Danil was dead, Quint was badly hurt and the insectoid creature was being held back by his companions at the bottom of the platform. Blood started spreading on top of the platform into a neat circle. Mirgia cursed. Carved into the platform was one of those magic circles they saw on Triban Island. Worried he’d be teleported away again, he grabbed Quint and jumped down the platforms as carefully as possible, leaving Quint on one of the higher ones to keep him safe from the creature as much as possible. He looked over the edge at the rest of the party. The priest called Masahi was near the back of the party, doing her best to support the others. He looked for Sereh. She was sitting next to Doroly, still healing her arm. “Sereh, I need you up here, Quint is badly wounded.”
She looked up at Mirgia and nodded. With a loud yell, Mirgia jumped off the platform and landed on top of the insectoid creature, driving his dagger into its shoulder. The creature screeched and threw Mirgia off to the side. The wound on his arm was throbbing quite badly and he felt unsteady on his feet from losing so much blood, but he did his best to push through it. He needed to deal with the creature quickly or Sereh wouldn’t be able to heal Quint. Luckily he wasn’t alone, as both Festar and Krashid showed off their years of experience as dungeon delvers. While Krashid put the pressure on the creature by repeatedly bashing it with the spiky shield he’d created, Festar darted around it, slashing and stabbing at any weak point he could find. This seemed to eventually wear down the creature to the point that was weak enough for Krashid to take his sword and drive it through the creature’s neck, killing it on the spot. As the creature collapsed, the room went awfully quiet. The only remaining sound was the dripping of blood from the top of the platform. Interrupting this quiet was a loud hum that turned into a whine as the top of the central platform lit up.
Sounding like the whirring of gears in a way Mirgia had never heard before, the piercing sound penetrated his head and immediately caused him pain. He looked around after a moment and saw that everyone else was equally affected. Sereh was clutching her head while sitting over Quint’s unmoving body while the rest of the party had fallen to the ground. Mirgia forced himself to push through the pain and look at the central platform. He was too far away now to get to it, and with his arm hurt he couldn’t make the climb anyway. The lit up platform spun around rapidly, shaking off all of the blood it hadn’t absorbed before stopping and after a moment of seemingly hanging there, it violently pushed down into the floor, until the platform was about a meter below the sandy ground. As sand started flowing towards it to cover it up, it seemed to have done whatever it set out to do. Silence filled the room again and Mirgia’s wits slowly came back to him.
As if to add chaos upon chaos, before Mirgia even figured out what to do about the remaining priestess, the secondary party entered the room through the door next to the one Mirgia and party had come in through. It would be more accurate to say they came spilling out of it, as something seemed to be chasing them. Mirgia cursed. It was another one of those insectoid creatures. This confirmed his fear that there was indeed more than one of these creatures. But now wasn’t the time to think about that, as the second group looked to be in disarray. Wounded spread out to the side while those still unhurt turned to face the charging creature. Mirgia saw Salandi take the lead of the group that he now noticed had also gotten smaller. He wondered if the worst had come to pass for their group as well. Having the creature surrounded in an open space, they didn’t take long to dispose of it but not before one of the priests was slashed through his torso and fell to the ground, unmoving. Mirgia winced at the sight. “Quick, get a healer over there,” he yelled.
Masahi darted over to her fellow priest and started attending to him while Mirgia made his way up the platforms to where Quint was. This was a painful endeavor and by the time he got to the two adventurers he had lost quite a bit of blood.
“Is he?” He didn’t finish his sentence as Sereh’s face told him everything. Quint was no longer moving.
“I’m sorry,” Sereh said through tears.
Mirgia put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault, if it is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I was the closest to them but I got distracted.” He knew it was his fault. He had a bad feeling about the priest all day long but refused to acknowledge it.
She looked at Mirgia’s shoulder. “Let me try and heal that,” she said. As she started working on his arm, Mirgia was still in awe of her healing magic. Most healers were priests, but Sereh was using natural magic in combination with herbalism to achieve similar effects. It wasn’t as potent as a trained priest, but it was far more difficult to pull off and thus very impressive.
“What happened up here?” She asked.
“Danil went crazy and attacked both of us. He’s dead on the central platform. He was trying to fill the magic circle with blood or something.” Mirgia looked over the edge of the platform. Danil was gone. “Shit,” he cursed. Did he run away in the chaos? Mirgia thought to himself. It was possible, but he stabbed him pretty deep, so just walking away was unlikely. Besides, he couldn’t have gotten far enough yet and there was no trail of blood. One thing at a time.
“Why would he do that?” Sereh asked.
“I have no clue, but it’s going to haunt me for years to come, that’s for sure.” He moved his arm after she finished. “It’s still very hurt, I’ve only sped up the natural healing process of the wound. Effectively that means it has stopped bleeding and some of the surface tissue has connected again. The majority of the damage is still there and will take time to heal, but any immediate danger has been averted.”
“Thank you.” Mirgia smiled, although it came with difficulty. “Let’s go meet up with the rest down there and figure out what to do.”
Once down to the ground, Mirgia immediately pulled Salandi aside. The woman was panting from the exertion but looked otherwise unhurt. “What’s wrong?” She asked him.
“The leader of those priests turned crazy and killed Quint, we need to be very careful about what we’re doing next. I’m hurt right now, can you take the lead of the remaining group for the time being?”
She nodded. “I will sort things out until I get everyone’s story straight, that includes yours.”
Mirgia nodded. “Of course, thank you.” He fell down onto the ground and stared off into the distance while Salandi started rounding people up, being careful not to give away too much. After gathering everyone, she asked Mirgia to tell the entire group what happened between him and Danil as well as Quint’s fate.
Opal Kaharis 