Beneath Sleeping Gods
Amara, Yasiin and Dr. Nathan Ford crept along at a sedate pace. They’d been underground long enough that they’d had to pitch camp to rest before pressing onwards several times. This far down light no longer existed save for the dull yellow gold given off by Yasiin’s small spell wisp. It floated several feet above the palm of his hand like a luminous child’s ball.The farther in the group traversed, the less frequently they spoke. In part to avoid drawing the attention of the serpentine wildlings. Massive oversized snake like creatures that fed off of the ambient magic of Anazi, the dormant goddess of air.Amara could hear them now as their rasping breath filled the cave tunnels with a low groan of threat. Their mouths were enormous pits of fangs capable of biting through armor and flesh. Somewhere ahead, there was going to be an epic fight between these monsters and those who walked among them.
Amara wished she could have cast a divination spell to scry the passage ahead, but the magic use might have drawn the beasts to them. For now, they stuck to Nathan’s maps. She cast a quick glance behind her and saw Nathan behind her with his revolver drawn, and Yasiin with his spell rifle at the low ready, casually sweeping their six to prevent flanking ambushes. Amara channeled her Maetrayopts. The power now working far more smoothly and with no setbacks compared to when she’d first unlocked it. That felt like so long ago now. She’d grown a lot since that frantic battle on Hidros.
Spell: Eye of Maetraya or Maetrayopts
Type: Divination
Damage: None
Range: Self
Defense: NA
Reduction: Fire or Mind
Cost: Moderate AP
Description: The user can attempt to perceive all magical properties and possibilities. These possibilities can give them insights into what might occur in our own reality and reveal secrets that cannot be discovered any other way. God sight allows a perfect view of the short-term future, which renders games like Darstrix Aryte pointless to the user. This effect lasts for a short period.
Sustaining the spell costs 1 AP for each second. The spell is sustained. The caster can see several seconds into the future equal to their total successes. They cannot be ambushed or surprised, nor can their companions.
Once per round, the mage may immediately take an action, even if it interrupts someone else’s turn. For example, if an attack is made on a character, and the character is running Maetrayopts, she could take an immediate action to blink away before the attack.
Requirements: Fire Magic, Mind Magic
Enhancements: Proficiency in this spell extends the duration it can be used. Further proficiency in this spell reduces the AP cost to use the spell and reduces the AP cost to sustain the spell to 0.
She could sense the faint magic auras of several wildlings ahead. The magic saturation was reaching a point where she was having a hard time picking a path ahead, unfortunately. She held up a fist silently, and the group halted after Nathan bumped into her back accidentally. He whispered a silent apology. She gave Yasiin the hand sign for multiple targets ahead.
Without a word, Yasiin shifted around them. Spell rifle tugged up into the high ready now. The trio advanced, weapons ready, but magic still unchanneled. The only sound in the cave was the irregular dripping of moisture accumulating on a stalactite and falling to the floor. Yasiin slowly took a knee, rifle up. He drew in a slow breath and aimed. Amara and Nathan both knew that once they fired, all hells would break loose. And from that moment on, they were fair game to the serpentine monsters lurking ahead.
Amara opened her mouth as if she had something important to say, then let out a sharp whistle at the top of her lungs. In response, two massive snake-like creatures came barreling down the tunnel towards their position with inhuman speed. Yasiin’s finger squeezed the trigger, firing three quick rounds into the ceiling above their heads before the first creature struck his shoulder armor and clamped onto him. The armor’s shoulder plate whined under the pressure from the creature’s bite before Yasiin deployed an oft unused spell blade, severing its head free of its body. Nathan dove for cover and rolled to his side behind a stalagmite while Amara slung one shot wide and threw herself over Yasiin, deflecting a second monster’s strike on Nathan with a mind bolt.
The wildling shook its head, resisting the powerful sleep spell. A hazy pink cloud floated around its head for a moment before the creature distended its jaws and ate the remains of the spell completely. An instant later, its head exploded and Yasiin and Amara both turned back to look at Nathan, his revolver’s barrel still oozing smoke. He shrugged sheepishly, mouthing, “what?”
Amara leaned over to study his pistol. It looked completely unremarkable until she saw the faint glimmer of enchanted rounds in the pistol itself. The bullets were wrapped in rings of enchantments. The workmanship was careful and delicate. And based on the results, excessively effective. She made a mental note not to tempt the archeologist to shoot her. She had no intention of seeing what one of those rounds would do to her.
As stillness settled into the cave, Yasiin got slowly. His rifle panned left to right and back. Seeing no more targets, he tilted the barrel up and fell into the back of their little group. Amara helped Nathan up, who dusted himself. They exchanged nods showing they were ok. He opened his book and whispered a soft incantation that danced at the edge of Amara’s hearing. The hand-drawn map in it glowed softly in a pale gold light. He studied the map and then scanned the cave for a moment. Nathan bit his lip, his memory straining as if it could recall this chamber or not. So far, they’d maintained a pretty steady path down and ahead. Rarely did he interject to steer.
He pointed out their next round, indicating to the faintly glowing map how far they had to hike. He frowned at the drawing of a bunch of snakes in a pit. The Wildling focal point. Why was it always snakes?
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He lifted a shaky finger to point ahead with a less than confident expression. Amara followed his hand and saw the pit of wildlings gathered. They were basking in the glow of the air goddess sleeping beneath the surface. Her skin crawled, and she empathized with Nathan and his dislike of the super sized snakes.
Amara frowned, looking down into the pit, and then looked up. The ceiling was lined with rocky spikes, as moisture and minerals dripped from the ceiling and accumulated at the base of the cave. That could work to their advantage. The beginnings of a plan fermented in her mind. She reached back, tapping Yasiin on the shoulder plate, and deployed her helmet to speak, and flipped to the internal coms.
“Hey. The path ahead is blocked. I need you to shoot those spikes loose above.”
“Stalactites.”
“Is that what they’re called?”
His own helmet bobbed a nod. “Yeah. You can tell the difference between the top and bottom spikes by the letters in the word. Stalactites. C is for ceiling. Stalagmites. G is for ground. At least, that’s what I learned at the academy.”
“You trained on Eryn?”
“Yeah. I was a weaver before a spell soldier.”
Amara studied Yasiin with renewed interest, giving him an approving smirk behind her helmet. “Anyway, I need those stalactites knocked down into that pit of wildlings we’d rather not wade into. Can you make that happen?”
Yasiin glanced up through his scope and studied the rock spikes reaching down at them from the ceiling. None of them were thicker than half a meter. He could blast through that much rock with a sufficiently placed singularity spell. He gave Amara a confident nod. “Yeah. I think I can handle that. It might take a second to charge the shot.”
Amara understood the subtext and nodded, tapping Nathan to draw his pistol and be ready. The sudden buildup of magic so close to their nest would drive the wildlings crazy. The writhing mass turned and focused on them with hungry zeal. Amara wove several signs together and then a blanket of fire into the pit, create a blanket of flame trapping the wildlings. Nathan fired two more shots that detonated beneath the wall of flame, drawing shrieking wails from the trapped serpents. Amara blinked when she saw the wildlings actually devouring large holes into her barrier of fire. The creatures were actually eating the magic fire. She watched as some of the serpents took on a reddish orange hue after ingesting the magic.
“Anytime now Yasiin!”
In silent response, Yasiin’s finger depressed his trigger. The rifle gave a muffled report. Amara watched a highly compressed orb of void magic dart up into the ceiling. She watched as gravity compressed exponentially, ripping cracks into the stalactites. Then the spell sputtered and died, allowing real gravity to resume its timeless exertion of power.
A shower of spears of limestone rained down. The intensity of the debris crashing down caused the group to lean back from the opening. When it stopped, they could trace a path across the now filled in pit. As they threaded across, Amara leaned close to Yasiin.
“Remind me never to get on your bad side.” Amara said with a grin.
“You wouldn’t live long enough to regret it.” Yasiin said coolly.
“Too true.”
Nathan glanced back as smaller bits of debris tumbled down amidst some dust now. He looked at his pistol and sighed, stuffing it back into the holster. To say Yasiin’s little show was emasculating would have been putting it lightly. He cracked open his book and studied the map. They had to be getting close.
Amara staggered, and the other two caught her.
“You ok?” Yasiin asked.
“Yeah, I just lost my bearing. My divination spell got washed out after we dealt with the wildlings.”
“Washed out? Like snowbound, but in magic?” Nathan ventured.
“Actually, that’s pretty accurate. If I had to guess, I’d say we’re working our way around and u see Anazi now.”
“Anazi as in the fabled goddess of air, Anazi?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah. Dead or alive, she’s putting off a mind blowing amount of magic. When you’re using a spell that allows you to see that raw magic, when it’s so saturated, I guess you could say it’s washing out the spell. Nicely put Doctor.”
Nathan smiled, tipping his hat in thanks.
The path ahead took on a more shaped appearance. Like a cut path from the base of the cave floor. Smooth stone soon gave way to pavement. The wildlings grew less frequent the further down they proceeded. Nathan sketched their progress in his book, charting additions to the map he’d created. He placed his enchanted quill back into a case and tucked it into his leather jacket.
They did not know how much longer they kept marching. Eventually, they found a large stone door. It was carved in a circle and rimmed by runes. Some kind of lock or security rune set up.
“Is this it?”
“Looks that way.” Amara traced her fingers over the runes of the stone door. The tingle of powerful magic told her despite their age, the runes were still quite effective. Tampering with them would not go well. She studied the door for several moments, examining the magic of the runes and the complexity of the spell work. There were patterns she was already seeing. The way it laid out the runes and glyphs. She was positive that once they opened this door, they’d have some answers.
“If only this came with a user’s manual.” She muttered.