The group arrived back to the capital while the sun was high in the sky.
"Look out, looks like the freak me have a kuinan with them now," a soldier jeered. The insult was quickly forgotten as the defenders sat in silence, covered in dirt and tired after another journey.
When they arrived home, they brought the woman to their cellar. The dark room had racks of old, dusty bottles. There were old, used weapons tucked away in the corners of the damp and cobweb filled room.
"This is going to be your home for a while," Aiden said as he and Desmond put her into a small jail cell that was in the middle of the dark space.
"I think we should bring her to the palace," Cynthia said. "She was clearly trying to get get us out to her. She said it herself and she seems to know a lot about the artifact. We need help to make sure she is kept from causing any more harm."
The woman silently stared at them with a smile. Cynthia looked at her comfortably.
"The prison cells of the palace cannot hold her," Graham said.
The old man had regained much of his vigor after he had rested on the trip back. To the others, it seemed like he was just about back to his regular self.
Desmond closed the door and locked it with a heavy key that he gave to Graham. On the floor of the cell, the symbol of the defenders of soul set in a brilliant, gold emblem. The bars glowed with an enchantment that was much like the arrows Desmond had blessed. Astrid silently reached out to touch the cell. There was a spark and she withdrew her hand with a wince.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Desmond said proudly. "My sister and I enchanted these bars ourselves. It would take an awful log of help for you to get out of here."
"The gear is all put away, sir," a rough voice from a goblin came from the cellar door.
"Thank you, Faruk," Graham said, his melodious voice bouncing of the stone floor of the space.
The goblin did not move when he locked eyes on Astrid. It was almost as if he was unable to look away. Astrid smiled at him with a knowing look a look that seemed to be an attempt to control the creature.
"Farnuk, I said that will be all," Graham commanded.
"Y-yes, sir," the old goblin stammered and slowly back away from the room.
"Now," Graham said as turned to Astrid. "Who are you and who is your master?"
"I already told you my name," the woman said as she took a seat on a small stool that was in the center of the cell. "As for my master, he is unknowable, but he is true power. He is coming and when he does, this world will be reshaped in his image."
The group looked at one another, each perplexed by the woman's confidence.
"What do you want with the artifact?" He pressed further, "You risked an awful lot to have a chance at grabbing it but you failed."
"My reasons are not of your concern," she said as she turned solely focus on Graham. "There is still time for you to join me. Leave these weak companions behind and abandon your petty missions. If you come with me, you will know true power. Now that you touched the artifact, you have but a taste of it. Join me and my master will be grateful. Join me and we will spare your friends."
Graham stared at her for some time. He seemed to study her as his companions became uneasy. By the way he looked at her, it was almost as if he was contemplating joining her.
"Graham," Desmond touched the old man's shoulder.
After a while silence, he said, "You ask me to join you and serve a master who you will not even name. I serve Sol, the Lord of Light. He is the master of morning and the hand of all that is darkness. I have served her faithfully for many years. If you knew anything about us, you would know that I would not give that up for now for some petty ambition for power. You played your cards poorly, Astrid. You have failed."
Graham looked around the room and smiled at the woman, "Maybe some time in this dark chamber alone will bring you to your senses."
"I am a kuinan," Astrid said with a smile. "I was born in darkness. My master is of the darkness. I welcome it's embrace."
"Yeah, well you can welcome it for the next few days all powerful servant of darkness," Aiden said with a smirk as the Defenders of Soul filed out of the basement.
***
After a short meal and time to clear their heads, the group convened in Graham's room. It was a place that one would expect an old mage to live. The walls were lined with broad bookshelves that stretched up to the ceiling. Every shelf was filled with old, dusty books. Most of which Graham said were older than him.
A warm fireplace crackled away as the five defenders sat in comfy, leather chairs around an old, wooden table. The floor and table were strewn with scrolls, all inscribed with various runes and languages. Some were ones that Desmond recognized and others that he had never seen before. On a piece of cloth in the center of the table, the pyramid artifact laid. To Desmond, he could feel the hum of its odd power.
“Do we have that out while we talk?” Cynthia asked as she stared at the foreign object uneasily.
Maeve had still not spoken much, but she was absolutely silent while the pyramid was exposed around her. Desmond looked at his sister and Graham uncomfortably.
“Are you both okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” Graham said dryly as he stared blankly into the object.
“That's it,” Aiden went and grabbed Graham’s satchel, covered it back up, and threw it in the corner. “Something strange is going on. I am sick of the secrets and whispering. Most of all, I am sick of the two of you and how you've been acting since you touched that artifact.”
The ranger pointed at Maeve and Graham who seemed to have been shaken out of their trance-like states.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
"What is going on?” Aiden questioned them. “We need to figure this out. This thing was unsettling after whatever happened with Maeve, but now this kuinan shows up and knows we have it. This is more than simply any other magical artifact. We need to know what we are up against and if we need to get help before this gets out of hand.”
Graham and Maeve were silent, so Desmond stood up to speak.
“After the blast in the forest and Graham had touched the artifact,” he started, “I was the first awake, and we were in this place that almost seemed like another plane of existence. It was strange, light and sound was muffled and it was hard to make much of anything out. There was a black figure that called me. He, at least I think it was a he, wanted the artifact. He pleaded for it and his voice was so alluring. I wanted to give it to him, but something held me back and I was able to cover the artifact up. After I had done that everyone else woke up. I wonder if I saw her patron or god she worships.”
“You could have been hallucinating,” Cynthia suggested with a shrug.
After Desmond spoke, it seemed to give Maeve some confidence.
She slowly stood up and began, “In those tunnels, when I went with Gerrit and his guards in that room we came upon an altar. It was a place that seemed to be used for some dark magic and at its center was the artifact.”
She looked over to the satchel as she continued, “I felt the same voice calling that Desmond mentioned. I commanded me to take the artifact to bring it to something or someone. I went closer to it and closer to it and when I held it in my hands, everything went red.”
She bowed her head and let out a tear. Desmond walked her to put his hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off.
“Since then, that time where everything faded for me has come back in pieces. I know in my heart I killed the other people that were with me as well as any living creature that was in that room. The figure came to me same as it came to Desmond," she said as she looked over to her brother, “You resisted his voice, but I did as he commanded and killed those people. I could not control myself. That power was something I had never craved before, but with the pyramid in my hand, that was all I could think of. He told me that if I did his bidding he would shower me with gifts. In the end, it was all too much and everything faded to black. Then, Graham and Desmond woke me up and I saw what I had done."
Maeve let the tears fall for her face as she slumped back into her chair. It was clear the weight of what she did in that room was too much for her to bear any longer.
Then Graham sat up and spoke, “I felt the presence of the artifact when we came up on that group in the woods. I wasn't sure what it exactly was, but it pulled me closer to it. In all my years, I have never felt something like that before. Since we came back, I have been pouring over notes, and my older records for something, anything to give me a clue. Now, with Astrid, I think I finally have the last piece of the puzzle to know whose power is coming from this artifact. That same person is her master.”
“Who is it?” Maeve asked anxiously.
“I believe it is Dyurkan,” Graham said.
Desmond and Maeve’s faced went grey as they bowed their heads.
Aiden looked around, “Sorry, for those who know nothing or do not care about deities, can you explain who this is?
Maeve took a sip of her tea and spoke, “He is a god that was banished from the Narcluplex, the realm of the gods, for trying to overthrow the defiant divine order. Not much is know of him after this ordeal, but it is said that he forever scours the world to find wayward souls that he can bend to his will.”
“So we are saying this Astrid is one of these wayward souls?” Cynthia asked. “Do we have an evidence that helped you come to this conclusion?”
“About two months ago I received a letter,” Graham said, as he pulled out a letter from a stack of papers. “It was from a friend that is from the organization called the White Hand. This is an order of mages that I used to be a part of, until I founded the defenders of soul. My friend there told me about a cult of goblins that was sacrificing people they captured for the god Dyurkan. Their order sent a group of mages there to scout out the area, but they lost contact with them and they never returned. The White Hand sent additional mages to the area only to find everything abandoned. The reason she wrote to me was that she asked us to keep our eyes and ears open for any goblin captives. She also gave me a list of there lost mages names. Of these names, there was one a kuinan called Astrid.”
“Why didn’t you confront her with this in the forest?” Aiden asked. “It may have saved us a good deal of pain and time.”
Graham shook his head, “I believe that it was best to keep to ourselves for the time being,”
“So, we have a member of the White Hand here,” Maeve said in astonishment.
“And it seems like they are no longer a member of that order,” Aiden added. “It seems like she has dipped into the evil she was tasked with destroying.”
Graham stroked his bread in silent thought as the group considered these new facts.
Finally, he spoke, “It seems to be that way, she is a lost soul. I wonder if she is too far gone. In the morning, we will go to the White Hand. Their headquarters is located south of us, in Javailty. There, I will speak with my friend and we will get to the bottom of this.”
“Maybe, it is possible they can also help us unravel the riddle of this artifact,” Maeve added.
“Hopefully they can take it off our hands and we can get things back to normal around here,” Aiden said.
Just then, Graham’s head raised and he saw the goblin, Farnuk, standing in the doorway.
“What is it?” the old man asked.
The goblin seemed to be in a strange trance. After a moment, he broke out of it and raised a tray of drinks.
“Evening, I was wondering if you all would like to have some tea for your discussions,” the green creature said in a low voice.
Graham paused as he stared at the goblin with a curious look.
“Thank you,” he said slowly, “You can set them down at the table.”
The goblin step forward and paused once more as he stared at the satchel in the corner of the room. The object inside seemed to get a hold of the creature’s mind as he slowly stepped forward. Farnuk put the tea down on the table, but continued on and reached forward to the corner of the room.
“No,” Graham shouted as he stood up.
The goblin was shook out of his trance. He seemed ashamed as he bent over and covered his head.
“S-sorry,” he stammered and whimpered. “I don't know what came over me.”
He quickly scurried out of the room and left each of the five companions confused. The stared at the satchel that continued to hum with the same, strange power.
“This artifact is not safe here,” Cynthia shook her head. “I don't know if it is safe anywhere. The damned thing seems to draw any manner of person or creature towards it.”
Graham paused for a while. He sighed as he said, “It is decided, all five of us will go with the artifact and Astrid to the fortress of the White Hand. There she may face judgment and we may learn more about what this artifact is and what we should do with it. That simple mission to save those people from the spiders has become more complicated than we could ever imagine.”
Cynthia passed out the tea and Maeve refilled her cup. Each of them sipped on the soothing tea as the day wore on to night. They thought about the day ahead of them.
Desmond looked over to Maeve and Graham. Something was most definitely different about the both of them ever since they touched the artifact. He always looked to the both of them to be the strong, steady people of their group. If the artifact could sway them, there was no telling what havoc it could reach if left to the wrong hand.
He took another, long sip of his tea as he began to fell feel very heavy. His limbs were heavy. His eyes were heavy. His body slumped forward as he took another sip of the tea. In a strange daze, he looked at his companions who were also slumping over.
Aiden tried to stand up, but staggered as he said, “Damned goblin. I think he drugged us with some potion.”
“Nonsense,” Cynthia said. “It is just our stress catching up with us. We just need to sleep.”
The woman stood up, but fell over and knocked over stacked of paper. In a matter of moments, each of them were out cold and everything faded to black.