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Fingers brushing hair that had fallen over her eyes, Kira again stared at the great tapestry and noticed something she had overlooked before. Each of the insectile creatures that stood in battle formation, wore chain medallions around their necks. The same medallions that lay on one of the benches.
Her hand lifted to point at them, she said, “I think those medallions are somehow connected.”
Gregor, who was busy searching the stone floor, standing up from one knee, and slowly walking over towards the bench. Her next words, a breathless rush, “wait! How do you know that I am right?”
Shrugging his shoulders as though that didn’t matter, Gregor replied, “instinct.” He then half crouched down as though preparing to run, and as she felt her breath catch in her throat, she watched him reach out, and clasp one of the medallions.
Made of silver with an old crone stamped upon its surface, he latched it on around his neck and started towards one of the weapon racks that hung on the wall. And it was as though everything was happening so fast as Gregor grasped the handle of what looked to be a harpoon, and brought it down.
Still half wondering if it was safe, she waited, her heart beating rapidly when Gregor turned around and smiled. “Like I said, instinct.” And it was like she had been pulled free of the ocean as she released gasps of air. “You know you’re not supposed to take risks like that,” she snapped angrily, “What if I had been wrong?”
His eyes unable to hide his amusement, Gregor laughed back, “when you get to my age, you’ll realize that experience is everything, and I have never known you to be wrong. Naive perhaps, but never wrong.”
~*~
Traveling back together with as many weapons as they could carry, Gregor could feel Kira’s eyes on his back as they walked the Ungraven Road. The firetails nests that surrounded them, for some reason silent as they dragged bundles over their shoulders.
Quiet beside the sounds of their footsteps, he heard Kira murmur, “that armor you’re wearing. It looks like it was made for you.”
Releasing a mirthless chuckle as Gregor remembered the way it had formed around his body, he said nothing, and kept marching forward. It seemed that finally that they were nearing the end and yet as he strode side by side with her, he couldn’t help but wish that this moment would last forever. That this road would never run out, and they would simply keep on walking together. Why? He did not know. But it was a feeling that grew stronger and stronger, making him afraid that this truly was the end, and he would not see her again.
Looking back at her one last time, the way she held herself, the focused expression on her scarred face, Gregor felt a touch of sadness at that, but also joy. Because he knew deep down that she did not need him anymore. She was finally free.
With her silver eyes gazing at him in curiosity, she asked,“What is it?”
But as he shook his head from side to side he smiled, “nothing, I just want you to know that I will always be at your side.” And as they reached Leyora’s encampment with the echoing noise of battle still raging beyond the bridge, Kilgorn strode out to meet them. “Where have you been?! The gates are almost breached!”
It was truly nearing the end.
~*~
Hidden in a small side chamber that had to be the room of some acolyte, Daria peered out into the corridor seeing dozens of dekaram in slick black armor. Gauldryon’s trail, ending at a thick wall of stone where he had vanished.
Wounded and tired from their brief skirmishes with these black armored devils, it was mostly due to Glindol’s aptitude with spells and Pelwar’s healing potions that they were still alive as they regrouped for the next battle. But even now as she recalled their close run in with death, she knew that it would be the last. The warriors she had faced, somehow able to anticipate every one of her movements before she almost had her head blown off by a fireball. The way they had fought with both sword and magic was so strange to them as to be entirely foreign, and it showed in the injuries they had taken.
Rubbing her shoulder where she had been badly scorched, Pelwar had done an amazing job of closing the wound, but it still felt a little sore, aching with a dull throb.
“Looks like they’re moving off.” The booted feet in the hallway, stomped off in unison as they disappeared around the next bend.
Tileya, her cheeks stained with blood, wiping a rough hand across her forehead as she replied, “that doesn’t exactly help us much. Gauldryon is still missing, we can’t find Gregor, and this place is crawling with those things. I don’t think I have ever seen creatures move so fast.”
Having heard this same complaint for the third time, Daria was tempted to scream, “then what do we propose we do?! Run away!” But as she turned to look at the dark smudges under her friends' eyes, she knew that they were all beginning to feel the wear of battle. So many times they had come close to the edge of death, but this time it felt like they were being ground up like meat. And to make matters worse, they looked to her to take the lead now. But she was no leader, blasted hell, she was having a hard enough time just trying to keep herself alive.
Her eyes again taking a look through the tiny gap in the doorway, she could see the glistening marble floors littered by more corpses, golden statues of the old woman, and stone columns that dwarfed up towards a ceiling hidden in darkness.
Trapped inside a bedroom with four barewalls, a fireplace, and a stone bed. She thought this place was more like a prison than it was a temple, and a part of her couldn’t help but want to charge out there and have it over with. Better to die fighting than cowering here, waiting for death to come.
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Shaking her head at such pessimistic thoughts, she said, “we should keep moving. One of the demons mentioned a battle going on below. Perhaps that is where we will find Gregor and Gauldryon.”
“You still think he is alive?” asked Tileya with an arched eyebrow, her bandaged arm held across her chest, while her shortsword remained in the other.
“He is a barbarian like me, drawn to blood, he will be there.”
“And if he’s not?”
“Then we search somewhere else,” Daria snapped, Tileya’s cool expression turning ice cold as Glindol patted the elf on the shoulder. “Please, we must not fight with each other. For now, we continue the search, and pray that we meet them first before we ever come close to this fighting.” The gnome’s furrowed eyebrows staring at her all the while in worry as Daria felt her cheeks flush red. But even as she opened her mouth to apologize, Tileya waved her uninjured arm up in the air, “let us be on our way then. You should probably lead this time, Daria, seeing as my left arm is useless.”
Her lips formed into a determined smile, Daria nodded her head and waved at her companions to follow her out into the hall. Pelwar’s light grumbles to his gods, Tileya’s pointed silence, and Glindol’s wary glance around him, sending a pang of annoyance up her spine. Being with her friends should have been easy, and yet every time she spoke, Daria felt herself drawing further and further away from them. The now silent hallway, echoing with the soft tapping of their footsteps as Daria kept them moving forward. Her ever-vigilant gaze, taking in each of the stone statues of the wizened old crone before they turned into another corridor, and then another. But this one however ended at a set of huge golden double doors and had the image of the old woman carved upon it.
Licking her lips which had become parched with thirst, she waited for Pelwar to join her, glanced at Tileya and Glindol to make sure they were ready before she thrust open the doors. The sudden burst of light that flared into her eyes, causing her to flinch back when she saw him.
His plate armor bursting with bright hot orange flames, Gauldryon stood there motionless in the center of an enormous throne room, his eyes closed shut, and confronting a huge gray-skinned ogre. With hundreds of mutilated corpses around the both of them, Daria found herself unable to breathe as she stared up at the huge stone columns that ran up towards an immense stone statue that hung over them on invisible strings.
Shaped very much in the likeness of a dragon, its wings were unfurled as if were the ceiling, and clutched to its breast was a large glowing orange orb.
Pulsing in time to her heartbeats, she heard the approach of footsteps on the golden tiles behind her and looked back to see Glindol with his arm raised upward.
Shielding his eyes from the intense flames that scolded at Gauldryon’s body, the aged gnome wove his fingers in the air, and slowly reached for him. The spell he had cast, created a blue aura around his stubby fingers before he snatched them away.
Her eyes still on the ogrekan that had a fiery purple mace in his hands, Daria asked, “What is it? What is wrong with him?”
And saw the gnome’s features wrinkle in confusion as he scratched his forehead. “I do not know. I can sense that he is here, but another part of him is elsewhere. I believe it is a time spell of some sort or perhaps a splitting of the inner dimensions. What it is, he is trapped within it.”
Stepping forward instinctively to pull Gauldryon free, Glindol raised a hand in warning. “Do not touch him. I believe the spell is contained for the moment by the shining light of that orb above, but there is no telling what would happen should you touch him. You might save him, or doom yourself to an existence frozen in time.”
Hearing the crash of battle closeby, Daria retreated back towards the doorway, and glanced out, seeing hundreds of white-robed acolytes fleeing to and fro when another battalion of black armored warriors rolled forward. Luckily for her however, they were distracted by the sounds of fighting, and quickly moved off. Wondering what in the hell was going on, she ducked her head back inside and waved at her companions. “Come, we should block the doorway.”
But as her eyes searched the empty throne room for anything she could use, all she could find were the burnt corpses of those that Gauldryon had slain.
Grunting in disgust as she hauled two of them up onto her shoulders, she quickly hurried towards the door and began stacking them up. Pelwar’s rough face, unusually pale, shook his head in distaste before he too came to help her.
Piled up high enough to block off most of the doorway, Daria took a step back, when Glindol wove another spell. The doorway fused shut as its hinges and door handles were melted to a golden sludge.
“How long do you expect that ta hold, lass?” asked Pelwar with a dour expression as he shook his head at the bodies of acolytes and warriors alike meshed together to become a wall of death. But as the battle raged on louder and louder outside, all Daria could think of was Gregor. He was arrogant, cocky, sure of himself, but he had always known what to do. How did he always know what to do? How is it even now, he could still frustrate and infuriate her.
Breathing heavily as she stared at the door, all she knew was that she couldn’t fail them all again, and she walked over toward the still form of Gauldryon. The warrior knight's arms poised over his head as if to strike when she reached out a hand. Glindol’s warning cry as he leaped forward to stop her, Tileya’s shocked expression, and Pelwar’s stern face, gone in an instant as she touched his shoulder.
~*~
Blinking her eyes rapidly as she found herself in a dark empty cavern. She found herself trapped in a cage made of bones, and looked around to the left and right of her. With Gauldryon on one side and the ogrekan on other, trapped in cages as well, she felt her throat become dry as the knight turned to look at her with sorrowful blue eyes. “I am so sorry, Daria. I had not meant for you to be dragged here as well.”
But before it could dawn on her what was happening, the big ogre spoke, “A friend of yours?”
His head nodded in brief reply, Gauldryon smiled, “Daria, I would like you to meet Drakas, a good and noble warrior that seeks to free his people from slavery.”
Still not able to fully digest what was going on, Daria stared at both of them, when a third voice spoke, deeper, and more menacing. “Aaah, an unexpected guest, I had hoped that the Halfborn would have been here by now, but no matter, I can wait.” Materializing out of the shadows in a satin black cloak of midnight, a monstrosity made of appendages and limbs surfaced out of the inky blackness, his body parts writhing around him like many tentacles, while the screaming faces of demons bubbled beneath the surface of his skin. With wide baleful red eyes, a head that seemed more like a shapeless skull, and stooped shoulders, he looked her up and down, before he spoke again, “I must apologize for my current appearance, drinking in souls requires a great deal of my strength, and I can no longer keep up appearances. But not to worry, it won’t be for much longer.”
Trembling in shock as she stared at this…what in the abyss was it? Her terrified gaze was unable to take her eyes off the thing, when the creature spoke again, and waved an arm behind him. The darkness which had seemed so oppressive before, drawn back like a curtain to reveal the sleeping form of a titan, bound by ethereal chains, and enclosed in a dome that shone with light. Its eyes closed and its face covered by scraggly brown hair, the only sign this monster was even alive was its deep shallow breaths that caused the cavern to rumble. “Alas, we but await the last of the champions to arrive, and then finally we can begin. Sarsonel, Sezarath, Galtier, they all think themselves clever, that I would be deceived by their games to weaken me. But I am no fool, I knew that you would all come for me, it is your nature. It is the way you were chosen, and why you are now all here. You had no other choice, no other purpose. You are simply unwitting tools, and like tools I used you. But I forget myself, I have not introduced myself, I am Lord Tazrael, and you my dear fools, shall be the final knot that will restore my people to their rightful place among the lands of our ancestors.”