Ankh crossed the distance towards the magical barrier within a few steps and plucked one of the floating gemstones that had been orbiting his face out of order. A humming sound filled the room as the rest of the gemstones adjusted their positions to be equidistant as they continued their orbit. The bright green gemstone that was now between his fingers pulsed with light as he held it against the barrier. From the gemstone a small bit of green sprouted. It forced its way into the barrier itself, rapidly growing vines along the barrier’s inside and outside. After a couple of seconds, the magic finished and the barrier shattered. The vines withered and Ankh stepped towards the priest that was helming the ritual. The priest put up his holy symbol to defend himself. It was no longer the symbol of Owlana that the priest had worn on him when they entered this place, but it had been replaced by a strange looking coin that had the design of a coiled snake. The head of the snake flared and shot towards Ankh. Before it could hit him, the snake that was on Ankh’s book stirred and jumped out to intercept it, swallowing the attacking snake whole. The priest looked mortified at this but kept trickling blood into the ritual.
Despite asking the sorcerer for help, Mirgia was far from completely helpless and was already flanking the priest, readying an arrow. With the barrier gone, he could hit the person even with a sore shoulder although it would hurt. The only reason he hadn’t yet was because he couldn’t help but want to see the extent of what Ankh could do. Kimi was using her magic on Salandi and Krashid who were desperately heading towards the priest. Karal could do nothing but look on in horror.
The priest at the center of the ritual changed tactics. From a pouch next to his weapon he pulled another strange looking coin that resembled the first one he’d thrown at Ankh but had some different designs to it. It was only for a split second but Mirgia noticed some writing on the back of it. This was likely the magic circles they’d been encountering. He mumbled something and threw the coin down with a quick motion. Lines appeared on the ground that expanded rapidly, pushing Salandi, Kimi, Mirgia and Krashid away as if a wall was pushing them back. Yet somehow, Ankh looked completely unaffected by the magic. The walls crashed into him and visibly shattered into pieces before dissipating.
“You came well prepared, disciple of Shifeth, but nothing could have prepared you for me,” Ankh said. He grabbed the book at his hip, where his snake had now returned to, looking a little bit bulkier than before, and flipped to a seemingly random page. He then impaled his thumb on the tip of the snake. He put his thumb to the paper and with swift motions he drew several symbols before tearing out the page. “Now, unfortunately I have just promised to stop this ritual, so you will have to die here.” Ankh smiled before the paper in his hands turned to dust. He grabbed the dust and blew it forward. It floated gently towards the priest, then picked up speed and within no time it reached max velocity, blasting a hole through the man’s face. Where his face was damaged, his skin and flesh turned to dust until his entire body collapsed into a pile of grey dust, no sign of life left. The dust then touched down onto the ground, drying out the remains of the ritual. All that was left now was the unconscious body of Fezel as well as a small pouch filled with something. Ankh scooped up the pouch and put it onto his belt before turning to face the others. “She’s all yours.”
Although Kimi’s magic had many soothing properties, actually healing severe wounds wasn’t something she excelled at. Her magic was versatile, sure, but versatility came at the cost of expertise. Still, she managed to calm down the emotions rushing through the body of the slowly dying adventurer which let her body focus on recovery. Karal came rushing over, having snapped out of the initial shock of the wild scenario they found themselves in. He pulled out his holy symbol and started healing Fezel. Mirgia and Krashid had to work hard to keep Salandi from flying into a rage. She was furious about what the priests of Owlana had done to her and her partner and didn’t want to have Karal anywhere near Fezel. Krashid and Mirgia recognized that Fezel wouldn’t make it without divine healing and Karal had proven himself trustworthy. After a tense few moments, it seemed like Fezel was out of the worst of danger, but they would still have to bring her up to the surface to let her rest properly. Karal offered to heal Salandi as well, but she refused his help. Krashid also refused, but he explained it was just because none of his wounds were serious enough to waste energy on. While the small group made sure everyone was going to survive, Ankh and his two assistants scoped out the rest of the ritual chamber and eventually came back with two strange looking objects. “We will be taking these,” Ankh said to Mirgia and the others. It wasn’t a question and Mirgia didn’t feel like questioning the sorcerer after the display of power he had just shown them.
“What are they?” Kimi asked.
Ankh held out the first of the two objects, a large glass disk. “This is a very potent catalyst for magic. It was used by the rulers of Kanarth to imbue with a magic spell and then placed upon another magical artifact that projects the spell over a large distance, both transporting and enlarging the effect. Both halves of this artifact were considered lost to time, but with finding this half, I have faith we will be able to find the second half as well.” He then showed them both a dagger. “The lost dagger Kebala. This was used by the royal spymaster of Kanarth back when they were still in power. It has the ability to read someone’s blood. If you draw blood with this dagger, you can read the intentions and some of the memories of the person you draw blood from. Both of these are very valuable.”
“Did you know these things would be here?” Kimi asked, rightfully suspicious.
“I did not. I have been researching the fallen kingdom of Kanarth for many decades now, and I had some hopes of the things we would find here, but as the technology from this kingdom was completely lost to time, there was no way of knowing what would show up here. But I’ve read up on these items enough to know one when I find it. The emperor will be disappointed that there was no sight of the more valuable things we’ve been looking for the past few years, but this is still a nice haul.” He looked at Mirgia. “We’ll discuss our little agreement once we leave this dungeon but I would like to relieve some of your tension and let you know that I have no crazy or impossible requests for you. As much as I do not care for you and your aims, I have no intention to make an enemy out of you either. I hope you understand that.”
Mirgia nodded. “I appreciate your help. I understand that risking yourself for someone else is not something that should be asked for free.” His eyes narrowed. “However, I do not think I like you.”
Ankh chuckled. “That’s perfectly fine.” He motioned for them all to follow. “If you have nothing else to look for in this place, I suggest we get ourselves back to the surface so that Gariya and Besil can close up this dungeon to avoid anything dangerous spilling out of it. I’ve left them instructions to seal this place in a week from now regardless of if we make it out.”
“That’s a risky command to give,” Krashid commented.
Ankh shrugged. “If something bad enough happened in this place that even I wasn’t able to make it out in a week, then it would be better to seal this place off than risk it coming out into the world.”
At least that was something that everyone present could agree on.
Two slightly shorter chapters in a row and I do apologize for that, but I think it was good to split this part up into two chapters instead of forcing it into one. Normally I would take a break next week as it’s been five chapters, but since I took a hiatus a while ago, we’re not taking a break yet. Join me next week for chapter 21!
Opal Kaharis 