Jazmel awoke in a gravel part of the ground.
He sat up and saw that his friends were around and waking from their own entries into the labyrinth. Jazmel sat up and remembered his mother, his memory of her too.
Jazmel looked at them all, but he didn’t have enough time to go over it.
“Everyone get up and get ready.” He said, shocking his friends and making them jump out of their sleep.
DING!
YOU HAVE COME UNTO THE DEAD MOUNTAIN!
…
THIS MOUNTAIN HAS LOST ITS NAME!
YOU MUST DEFEAT THE THREE CREATURES ON EACH FLOOR OF THE MOUNTAIN!
THEN YOU MAY PASS THROUGH THE GATE OF THE MOUNTAIN.
He looked around and found them at the foot of the mountain. The mountain was hauntingly beautiful. There was lack of life all around. But the mountain stood like a white tipped spear tooth. It was tall and ancient; he could see from the way it spread out at the ground level. That it was old, he wondered where the roots of the mountain began and where the crust of earth ended.
He scouted around the area but couldn’t find anything. Nothing grew around the mountain. A low mist descended from the mountain, bringing rain droplets from above. Jazmel zipped his coat up and Paldane blew smoke around his head, and it clashed with the cold mist and cold rain droplets showered him.
DING!
FIND THE DOOR TO THE MOUNTAIN!
…
The system notification urged them forward.
They skirted the mountain but found nothing. Jazmel hadn't even seen an inkling of finding a door. But Jazmel hadn't found anything. Even Bannerman was trying to find a scent or something, he was moving around, studying the area, and trying his best to figure out the lay of the land.
Jazmel wasn’t sitting on his laurels though. He searched; his keen Mana attuned eyes were peering all around him.
“Do you see anything?” he asked Paldane, the dragon poked its head out and looked around.
The air smells funny, dense, and cramped. He said, Jazmel couldn’t make sense of it at all. But he didn’t bother him, he let Paldane go back into his collar and snuggle up beside him.
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He kept moving around and looking around. Until he stumbled, balance was something he rarely faltered with. Especially since he had tempered his body, but once he realised he was falling. He literally jumped out of the small groove in the ground and landed nimbly.
When he studied where his foot had gone through, he saw that it was a step. Overgrown with moss and when he began to wipe it away and brush it off. The groove became a step. He cleared off the next few and soon a path could be seen. He followed it and came upon an indent in the wall. He almost followed the path towards the right, but the indent looked like a doorway to him; low but a door all the same. He pushed and pulled at the corners but couldn’t find entry.
He placed his bare palm on the door and let Mana seep from his hand. The doorway beamed, it ignited and filled with Mana, not his own; luckily. No his Mana had just been to awaken the dormant Mana within the doorway, and the stone became a door made out of stone and it renewed itself.
DING!
YOU HAVE FOUND THE DOORWAY OF TIMIEN!
TIMIEN HAS A RIDDLE!
IF YOU CAN ANSWER CORRECTLY, THE DOORWAY WILL OFFER ACCESS!
IF YOU FAIL, YOU WULL PAY WITH BLOOD!
…
That was foreboding, he thought to himself, but he took a moment to gather his thoughts.
DING!
TIMIEN’S RIDDLE!
FOUND WITH A FIDDLE
THE CROW KNEW A DIDDLE
BUT NEVER FLEW THROUGH THE MIDDLE!
LIKE A WHITE SWORD IN A BLACKENED NIGHT
IN THE HANDS OF A WINDED KNIGHT
SOMETIMES IN THE DAY
SOMETIMES IN THE NIGHT
I BURN BRIGHTEST ON 21 NIGHTS!
WHAT AM I?
Jazmel watched the screen, scanned it, and scrolled over it for moments. But he couldn’t figure it out. Nothing made sense of the riddle, but he was still transfixed. Something made him think of the moon, but the sword threw him off. He was unsure, but he took a leap of faith.
“Is it a crescent blade?” he asked, and the system thrummed with anticipation.
DING!
WRONG!!
…
THE ANSWER IS THE CRESCENT MOON!
DING YOU WERE WRONG!
NOW YOU MUST SURVIVE, SURVIVE THE ATTACK AND THE DOOR WILL OPEN!
He sighed, but he didn’t have a moment to spare. He heard a roar, a monstrous bellow from back the way from which he had come. He sprinted back up the path towards his friends.
He burst from the corner and saw Bannerman and Katie clashing with a pack of creatures. He hadn’t seen their type before, but he wasn’t worried, he was surrounded by his friends.
The first thing he saw was Katie using her chains to yank a creature out of the sky. It was a giant bat, half man, and half bat, with a face of a bat; but the body of a man. The wings joined from its hands and ended at its waist. It was a grotesque monstrous thing, Bannerman and Katie were making short work of it. Katie was keeping it from flying away and Bannerman was bleeding it as much as he could.
Just as Jazmel turned he witnessed Sadé burning a few of the group of bats with her blue flame. Patton was cutting through those that fell from the sky, his blade Mana sharp and keen. Jazmel didn’t even need to help them.
The roar sounded again and this time, he realised it had come from the main bat. The one Bannerman had just killed, tearing out its throat. His clawed hands bloody with its life ichor.
“Everyone ok?” Jazmel asked and his friends gave him all clear.
“I found the doorway, let’s go before others show up.” He beckoned; Patton killed the last one with a backward swipe of his blade.
“Lead the way.” He flashed a smile and Jazmel turned on his heel, heading back up the path.