"Care to explain?" Emris asked, trying not to sound eager. Ivan shrugged. "What"s to explain? This is the tomb that was given to the Draconos people"s royal family to guard. To unlock the royal route, you need the nine family gemstones hidden on the first layer."
Emris Lead everyone back to the first layer and said, "Do you know how to find them?"
Ivan looked around for a moment before he started walking to certain spots, pa.s.sing through walls as if they weren"t there and returning each time with a small gemstone that he placed in Emris" hand. At one point, they pa.s.sed where Duran and the just slightly shy of middle-age man were mining. The man looked at Duran with a curious look on his face and Duran just shrugged before he returned to pick at the cavern wall. Long past the age where a little peculiarity could stir his blood, the man went back to picking as well.
In a little over ten minutes, the group was back at the "vestibule layer" and Ivan guided Emris where to put them. With the nine gemstones in place, at the thirty-ninth minute, they all stepped into the corridor at the other end and Emris stopped them. Emris was about to explain when he realized that things might not be how he knew them and so looked at Ivan.
The green haired man had been caught off guard when he realized everyone was waiting for him to explain. "Oh, without the gemstones to power it"s movement, the sliding hall would have stopped at the service tunnel that leads back to the third layer. Now we"ll be moved to a shaft that goes to the hall of remembrance instead. It"s where honored servants of the First Family were interred. In this case, it would be the seventh overlord"s Draconos servants. They"d be the ancestors of the Draconos royal family... I, uh, shouldn"t be telling you this but as long as you don"t share it with anyone, it"s fine. Besides, it"s not like it"s my family"s tomb."
Emris awkwardly chuckled. "I doubt it"s one of mine either. If it is, it would be too hard to trace back to. The Draconos royal family fell, what, a thousand years or more ago?"
As the "sliding hall" shuddered to a halt, the group shuffled into a large and opulent mausoleum. Once they began exploring, Orison received a message from Duran. It read "HELP!" As quickly as he could, Orison put together an invite transporter model and hoped for the best.
With nothing else he could do, Orison turned to Ivan. "If I invited someone the way I invited you out of your family, where would they appear in here?"
As Ivan racked his brain, Orison received another message from Duran.
The young mage said, "Duran said he"s in a room with a rusty stone in it."
Ivan nodded, "That would be the ninth layer, the alter room. Since this way"s been opened, he could come up to us."
Orison relayed that to Duran but the boy responded "too hurt".
They young mage told everyone, "I need to head on first. Duran"s in the alter room and he"s hurt."
Emris quickly responded, "Emily and I will go with you. The rest of you, loot what you can and meet us in twenty minutes. Anything important we should know about, Ivan?"
As they were heading off at a quick walk with Emris looking back at Ivan, the Nunos man said, "Not really. All the creatures should be sealed away. Even the portal"s locked down."
Orison grit his teeth and kept walking as Gan started chewing Ivan out. It hadn"t occurred to the Nunos man that where the mining stranger and Duran was, they had effectively sealed them in WITH the creatures. The young mage only hoped that Duran wasn"t "too hurt" to fix.
As soon as Duran came into view, before Orison"s alien fairies could even reach the boy, Emily fired off two quick spells that coated Duran in a white and then silvery light. Most of Duran"s wounds had been superficial but a gash that ran along his inner thigh had nearly caused the boy to bleed out. Emily"s purify and mid-heal spell had instantly taken Duran out of danger but aftercare took the next twenty minutes.
After finishing off a full canteen of water and chowing down some jerky, Emily hit him with a heal-over-time ability. For the next bit, Orison brought out his mending droid to fix Duran"s armor. By the time everyone had made it downstairs, a little drying blood on the ground was the only sign Duran had even been hurt.
Orison asked, "How were you on the field that day at all, Emily. You"re definitely not in the low range."
She replied, "I was out there with my husband when you activated that hidden instance. I wouldn"t have been able to go into the temple and a healer"s light of retribution is only so great anyway. I may have chosen to stay at the lower range for my husband and child"s sake but that doesn"t mean I want to hold Emris back from his own ambitions."
Emiris looked at her warmly and said, "I don"t deserve her. We both know it but she"s too nice to admit it."
Emily rolled her eyes and asked Duran how he was doing. True to style, a one word "fine" was his reply, followed by a "thank you" after a few seconds had gone by. Emris asked after the stranger they had come in with to find out that the man had escaped by using a hearth stone. That wasn"t to say that he had abandoned Duran but there was only so much help the older man could give with a pick axe. He had stayed behind as long as he could while they ran to try and catch up with the party only to get caught in the pressure plate room with a practical army of creatures coming at them.
Orison didn"t know exactly how Wick had managed but at some point the tree inside Duran had become more adept at subst.i.tuting the functions of an Osomo crystal. Over time, Wick would probably learn how to hack the controlling device directly. Duran burst Orison"s bubble of optimism in that happening any time soon, however. Just doing what it had done had apparently made Wick tired and the tree was fairly restful to begin with.
While Ivan made a sheepish apology to Duran, Emris said, "Orison, don"t give him too hard a time. As soon as the plan had changed I should have insisted that they come with us instead of leaving them behind. A small change to the pattern of known events can change things drastically and this was anything but small... Well, I don"t know anything else from here. Usually this is where that transporter lights up and leads everyone out. The boss is locked up behind those double doors over there but we can see those huge bolts from here."
Ivan spoke up. "The way it normally works is, a person of the royal family is lead here on the day of their majority and sacrifices some of their blood to the alter. After that, they swear fealty to the First Family and they get a fealty gift of some kind. I suppose someone could give it a try and see what happens."
Since there was a proficient healer on standby, there wasn"t that great of a risk that anyone could note so Emris put a good sized gash in his palm and let it fall on the alter then swore the oath that Ivan coached him through. The Draconos disappeared in a curtain of light. With a look of grim determination on his face, Duran disappeared as well.
Everyone else was left to look at each other, unsure of what to say or do. Nearly an hour went by before Emris returned looking dazed. Moments later, Duran appeared looking like someone had thrown him in a rock tumbler and walked away for a day. Emily looked over her husband in detail before moving to help Orison heal up Duran who had transformed into a human shaped bruise.
Ivan said nervously, "We probably shouldn"t linger here. I remember that after I was done, we left quickly. When I asked why, Grandmother said that there would be a great cleansing that came to a tomb afterwards that none would survive if caught within."
Taking the hint, Gan came to help Orison carry Duran as Rithus hurried over to help Emily move Emris. All seven made haste to the glowing transporter circle as waves of animal roars began reverberating through the complex. As they were getting ready to step through, Duran croaked out a panic riddled refusal and turned his head with painful slowness towards Orison. The young mage nodded and built a beacon teleport model, pushing outward a little harder than he normally would so they wouldn"t just appear back in the sacrifice room.
Orison said to Emily, "Go your way or come with us. I can"t say for sure where we"ll end up exactly but I trust Duran not to raise a protest without good reason."
Torn in indecision, the choice was taken from her when the glowing circle vanished. Showing visible dread, Emily walked over to them with Rithus" help to drag along Emris, disappearing in another curtain of light. As soon as they appeared Emily let out a weak wail of despair before sinking to her knees. Wondering what the problem was, everyone"s eyes were fixed on her with a questioning expression.
Tears dripping down, she said, "You brought us to the Listless Corridors. Any magic or abilities used here will be absorbed into the walls and used to make more shadow creatures. Power range is meaningless here. Only the most desperate of The Children will come in the hopes of becoming Chosen. It"s a death trap."
Orison asked her to share what she knew of the place. Her father had used it to become a Chosen when he was pa.s.sed over and had returned with her when she had been pa.s.sed over as well. Deemed as a third generation Child herself, there was no hope of her having much of a fulfilling life after her father had retired. To give her that hope, he had retraced his steps only to find that the place had become far more difficult to survive than he had remembered. In the end he had died and she had barely managed to make it out alive.
For whatever reason, around seven years ago, the place had ceased functioning the way it once had and the entire "dungeon" had gone haywire, trying to kill any who entered rather than testing for worthiness. The common consensus was that, Children numbers were reaching a saturation point and Osomo had ceased to support places that would allow one of The Children from raising into the ranks of Chosen. The whole place was full of incorporeal grudges that attacked the soul directly. She had managed to survive because her father had turned into a kind of grudge himself and had brought her to the main hall, allowing her to go the the acceptance process while she barely held onto life.
In a bitter outpouring, she related that her current relationship had sprung from a moment of weakness when she had gotten too drunk to think straight and had slept with her teammate"s younger brother. When she found out that she was pregnant, she just kind of went with the flow but over the years she had come to love both her husband and child more than she could ever learn to love herself. Before Orison stopped her, she was about to drag her husband along with her to see if she could do what her father had done, bodily take on the shadows and hold enough of herself to bring her husband to the main hall before joining them.
Orison asked, "What do they do exactly?"
Emily, calming down into a numb despair, said, "They throw themselves at you, in you. Their deathly being evaporates as it comes in contact with your life force and they cancel each other out. Once your life force dims, they try to push themselves into your soul until you become like them. Before the main hall and at some of the corridor dead-ends, there are special ones that can sap your vitality. If you"re truly unfortunate, there are one or two reapers that can feast on your being, first confusing and then driving a person mad, making you easy prey."
Orison looked at Gan and Rithus who were mirroring his smile. "Suicidal shades, a few guardian spirits and a couple of elder spirits who don"t even use spells!? We hit the jackpot!"
Emily looked at them like they"d gone mad but a small spark of hope lit in her dull eyes. "I don"t know what you think you have that can deal with the shadows but be wary of traps. There are pressure plates and magic sigils that can kill you as well."
Orison turned towards her as his eyes began to glow a soft Caribbean blue. "Thanks for the heads-up... Rithus, can your bones help with this?"
Rithus smiled wider, "It"s not that hungry but it could eat."
The young mage pulled out a lone silver dagger and three silver arrows. "Hey Gan, you"re on trap duty and if you see an elder spirit, give it another eye hole."
Just to see if he could get away with it, Orison constructed the t.i.tania model in his s.p.a.ce before bringing it out. Right as the fairy manifested, the model evaporated and the essence invested was pulled into the walls. Orison just shrugged as a shade pounced at him.
The young mage got a few swings of the silver dagger in before the shade touched him. Due to having his aura being pulled in tightly against his skin after having logged some practice in the morning, the shade was slowed down enough to only cause a barely registering amount of weakening before a couple more swipes finished it off. Vested of resisting will, Orison"s s.p.a.ce sucked it up and formed a crystal that swung in the second ring that currently only it occupied.
Orison thought, "Don"t worry, precious. You won"t be alone for long."
Gan snorted. "If you"re going to keep me on potatoe sack carrying duty, hand me that letter opener. Use this."
The scout pulled out a silver sword shaped from his conduit. As soon as it was in Orison"s hand, the young mage felt some nostalgia for his bound axe. Under his eyes, the sword took on an ethereal quality and started glowing a spiritual blue as it changed into a familiar short handled axe shape. Playing with it a bit, Orison found out his telekinesis was just strong enough to move it within twenty feet of him.
Dispatching a few shades summoned by the leeched power off his experiment, Orison decided to only use it like that if he had to throw the axe so he could get it back. After the first half dozen had been dispatched with ease by Orison"s axe and casual swiped of Rithus" hand that looked like it shredded them, Emily went from disbelief to plain relief. The occasional warning from Orison or Gan had even turned the nearly invisible traps into a casual stroll.
About halfway, that situation started to change. The shades no longer came individually but two to three at a time and it became difficult for Orison and Rithus to insure that none slipped past. The increased effort also distracted Orison enough that that Gan had almost stepped into one of the sigil traps.
Their pace began to slow and Emily was getting tired enough from her half of Emris" weight that Ivan took it over completely, relying on those around him entirely to keep him safe. Things were beginning to get dire as the shades started running in packs of four but Duran had recovered enough to hobble on his own by that point, leaving Gan free to "beat eggs" with the dagger when a shade managed to slip past Orison or Rithus. It was during one of the "egg beating" sessions that Orison twitched backwards a little too far and Gan had to pull himself wide to keep from hacking Orison"s arm.
The chain reaction that followed caused Emily, who had taken an elbow in the shoulder, to stagger into a pressure plate they were edging around. The resulting darts that shot from the wall mercifully all missed everyone except for one that lodged in Gan"s calf muscle. As soon as that round of shades had been dispatched, Gan plucked the dart from his calf and complained that a numb feeling was coming from the spot.
Orison turned and used his ability version of cure poison. He knew it would make another shade but he"d at least keep Gan in the fight which was well worth it in his mind. The problem was, a shade didn"t come, a "reaper" came. The only one who was fully ready was Rithus and the man didn"t hesitate to throw himself at it despite Orison warning everyone that the elders were the only ones that they could not afford to have touch them.
Orison knew why Rithus did it. If the Elder had gotten past Rithus and into the middle of their formation, the spirit could have pretty much touched four people at once. As it was, Rithus managed to push the elder spirit back but a thin and angry line of red drew from Rithus back to the elder. Weaving in a daze, Rithus blindly swiped another furrow into the Elder"s form before Gan speed fired two silver arrows through the ghost"s head and Orison finished it off with an axe throw.
As Gan and Orison dashed forward to collect their respective weaponry, the young mage realized that the scout had lost some of his mobility. He realized things had taken a bad turn and standing still wasn"t an option so Duran had to half support the dazed Rithus as they turned into another corridor where yet another elder waited with two shades and two guardian spirits.
In a shaky breath, Orison said, "F*** ghosts."