Mirgia woke up early that morning, not having slept particularly well. Quint’s face kept flashing through his dreams and the maniacal look that Danil had haunted him throughout the night. At some point during the night his dreams were interrupted by some calming music and after that he managed to sleep a bit better. By the time he woke up, the sun was already out and he had to hurry to get ready in time. With how badly the previous expedition into the dungeon went, he didn’t feel great about bringing other people with him, but both Kimi and Karal had insisted on joining him. He did manage to convince Doroly to stay behind, although she didn’t seem happy about it. He asked her to go back to Redsan and tell the villagers to be prepared in case things went really wrong. He thought about Birdie and Teddy and how kind they had been to him and all that chaos that had now appeared on their doorstep without them having a say in it. He shook off the dreading feeling and focused on the now. The man named Ankh – which he had guessed wasn’t his real name – seemed at the very least difficult to trust. They met in front of the dungeon, where Ankh and his two companions were already investigating the entrance. “I thought you had brought more people with you?” Karal asked.
Ankh smiled. “We’ve decided that three of us would accompany you inside, less people means that there are less things that could go wrong.”
Mirgia nodded. “I like that.”
“Shall we go?” Ankh looked at everyone gathered here. Six people in total. Kimi had taken on a different glamor from normal and was sitting on Mirgia’s shoulder as an owl. Karal still looked quite distraught about the events of the previous day. The two Sahilid that came along with Ankh were hard to read, not really showing any emotion. They were armed quite well. It didn’t escape Mirgia’s gaze that they had two expensive looking swords each and several daggers hidden among their clothes. Ankh didn’t have any visible weaponry but held onto a black leather book with red details on it. Along the spine of this book was a red serpent. Mirgia took the lead on the expedition, explaining their descent in detail to Ankh and his people. They took an extended break at the writing they first discovered, with Ankh going over it in detail, even explaining some of his own hypotheses to Mirgia. “I believe that these ruins belong to the ancient flying city of Kanarth, and that the people of Venoria dealt with them before putting a warning here. The people of Kanarth were a warlike people that studied magic with the sole point of creating a world where they were in control of everything. Their flying city was the epitome of their might and also their downfall as when the magical engines were destroyed during the great war, the city came crashing down into the depths of the Feral Wildlands. This brings me to believe that the people of Kanarth probably mostly died out during that war although with the might they had, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of them survived.”
They moved on, deeper into the dungeon and quickly found the room with the musical trap that seemed to still be deactivated. Mirgia recounted what had happened to them here and the two people that came with Ankh did some investigating around the room, confirming that Mirgia’s story lined up with what they saw there.
“Interesting,” Ankh said, scanning the surroundings. “It’s a trap laid by a spirit, most likely.” He looked at Kimi. “Any ideas you might wish to share with us, wise spirit?”
“You certainly know how to flatter,” Kimi replied.
Ankh smiled. “It gets you a long way.”
“Well, unfortunately I don’t really know anything that you don’t already know. This magic could certainly be spirit magic, as it is quite tricky and doesn’t seem to follow any clear laws of magic. But that’s also where the parallel ends for me. I don’t know of any spirits that wield this type of magic and as a spirit of music myself, I feel like I’d be aware of them.”
Ankh pondered this for a few moments. “And what if this is the work of Seraloka?”
Kimi laughed. “Seraloka died a long time ago, and he wasn’t known to work with anyone. Could he cast something of this power? Certainly. But would he? I doubt it.”
Ankh shrugged. “I suppose you’re right.”
Mirgia looked confused. “Who is Seraloka?” he asked.
“Abreloka’s offspring,” Kimi explained. “Seraloka was a powerful spirit of music that lived in the time of the Arpentara’s stay in the mortal realm. The flute I own was made by him or one of his direct students, he was that powerful.”
Ankh nodded in agreement. “Seraloka is a legendary spirit that did many great things in his time in our world.” He sighed. “I wish I could have met him.” He shrugged off the feeling. “Let’s move on.”
“Strange,” Karal said. “It’s different.”
Mirgia agreed. They were standing in the room where Quint and priest Danil were killed. The different platforms were all at different heights before, but now that they returned to the room, they were all at the same height, only a slight bit above the ground. The blood that had been flowing off the central pillar had all but dried up by now and the room was deserted. The bodies of the insectoid creatures were still where they had left them.
Ankh lowered down to the ground and touched the sand that covered the floor. “This is peculiar.” He turned to Mirgia. “Can you tell me what this room looked like before and which things have changed? Please give me what seems like important details, but don’t waste time, I have a feeling something bad is about to happen and the faster we travel through this place, the more chance we stand at stopping it.”
“You’ve got to stop being so vague,” Kimi said, clearly getting irritated. “I get that you’re used to these things, but you keep hinting at something going wrong without telling us anything. How are we meant to do anything in that situation?”
Ankh raised his eyebrows. “I suppose old habits stick. Fine.” He stood up and addressed the three. “I believe this place to be a relic of the ancient city of Kanarth. It is supposed that the ancient city held many strange structures and during the disaster that crashed it, some of them were transported away, out of our realm. Why they are suddenly returning to our realm we do not know, but the emperor has decided that the technology that could be hidden in these dungeons is of high importance. Whenever we suspect that a strange dungeon is one of these shards of Kanarth – as we’ve come to call them – I travel there in person to check it out. The reason why I believe we need to hurry is that whatever magic is being cast in here, was clearly activated between the time that you left this room and we returned to it just now. That means something is happening and with what I know about the ancient magics found in the previous dungeon we encountered, it could be quite dangerous.” He looked agitated. “Is that enough?”
Kimi nodded. “Thank you for sharing that, let me show you what this room looked like when we left it.” She took out her flute and played a strange song that was both entrancing yet also kind of offputting. By the end of the song, there was a translucent vision of what the room looked like before, overlaying the current room.
“Impressive,” Ankh said. “Let us move on, I can see what this magic did. It was a complicated locking mechanism that unlocked something on a lower floor, which is presumably where the rest of your previous party is headed. We should make haste and follow them.”
“Boss, we might want to deal with that thing first,” one of the other Sahalid newcomers said. Neither had bothered to introduce themselves to Mirgia and the others and even when Mirgia had introduced himself to them, they’d only nodded but said nothing in return. He followed the motion the man made and saw that from a crumbling hole in the wall came another one of those insectoid creatures. Mirgia reached for his bow but felt his shoulder sting and hesitated. He could not fight well in his current state. He cursed and pulled out a dagger instead. Kimi flew up to a safe height and took out her flute. Another creature skittered out of the hole and then two more followed. Four of the insectoid creatures now came charging at them. Amidst the rising panic, Ankh held out his arms. “Be not afraid, I will dispose of these creatures.”
“Are you crazy?” Karal yelled, “we struggled taking out two with a much larger group, taking out four on your own is madness.”
Ankh smiled. “I mean to say this with as little arrogance as possible, but I am not to be compared to your average adventurer.” He turned to face the creatures. “Let me give you a little demonstration.” He pulled out his book and flipped through the pages until he found something he was looking for. He then pushed his thumb into a sharp edge on the black ring he wore on his left hand and then wiped the blood over the page. The page glowed crimson red and then something jumped out of the page. Standing between Ankh and the monsters was a fiery beast. It looked like a stag beetle but it was the size of a house and it immediately gave the charging insectoid monsters pause. The beetle raised its antennae and fire shot at each of the four creatures, setting them ablaze. Terrible screeching was heard across the room until the creatures collapsed into piles of ash, not being able to even come close to the party. Ankh then tore out the page and the fiery beetle vanished immediately. Before Ankh had fully turned around, Mirgia and Kimi were upon him. Mirgia’s dagger stopped near his neck and Kimi hung closely above them, her flute at the ready.
“What is the meaning of this?” Ankh asked.
“You’d better have an explanation ready or things are about to turn very ugly.” Mirgia said. “Did you send a creature like that to attack Milinia?”
Opal Kaharis 