Now, with the fog gone, it was a cloudless night. The full moon shone brightly above. Gwynn glanced back at the stones. The sacrifice was complete. She had finally lured Ardwyn to the Nexus portal. The entire affair had taken months to plan. She had executed the whole thing carefully, step by step, from the very beginning.
The ancient books spoke of a World Bridger who would emerge from the portal. However, the challenge was that the Nexus portal was only a one way portal. While someone could enter the Nexus portal from the outside, no one could leave from this world.
The World Bridger was not some sort of a chosen one. Instead, it was anyone who managed to somehow cross through the portal. It also didn’t matter where they came from, just as long as they activated the portal from the outside.
Ardwyn wasn’t a chosen one. He wasn’t special to Gwynn in any way. He was merely a random unfortunate bystander caught in her trap. The ancient texts mentioned that anyone who stumbled upon the portal and passed through, could serve as a sacrifice. Under the light of a full moon, the sacrifice would transform the Nexus into a two-way passage. The first person to cross through the altered portal would then be granted immense powers.
That’s why she had lured Ardwyn by casting dark magic to make his house seem like it had disappeared on that fateful night, and then to summon the creature to pursue him, herding him like prey towards the portal. He had easily fallen into her plan, sealing his fate.
The key was that Gwynn had figured out how to summon spells on the other side of the Nexus portal. She couldn’t reach through the portal, or see what was on the other side. However, she could use her dark magic, like some kind of a fly trap to lure whoever was on the other side to come through the portal.
Then the rest of the plan was easy.
She had disguised herself as a herbalist at the market stand to pretend to help Ardwyn by gifting him the Ethereal Blossoms. She created the illusion of the herbalist stand, invisible to other merchants and townsfolk, and only revealed herself to Ardwyn. That way no one else would have asked any questions or get in her way.
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Being a witch of many years she had no patience for mortals or fools who knew nothing of the arcane arts and would just waste her precious time. They wouldn’t understand anyway.
Finally, her plan had worked. It was done.
She sighed with relief, and wiped the blood of Ardwyn’s heart off her blade. She turned to the hypnotized cyclops, who like an obedient dog stood there, having done his job and waited for her next order. She raised her hands, spoke out loud a spell, and cast the cyclops back to the realm where he had come from, his job completed. Now alone in the clearing, she could study the effect on the portal.
She stepped over Ardwyn’s corpse, his eyes frozen in death, staring off into the distance. There was no movement. She didn’t pay attention to him any longer, and walked over to the center of the Nexus portal.
She examined the stones.
Nothing happened.
How was she to know what was supposed to occur next? The ancient books didn’t go into any details. There was relatively little known about the Nexus portal, just a few fragments about a World Bridger who, after coming through, could be used to activate the portal. Had she performed the ritual correctly? Was there enough blood shed for her to gain ultimate power?
She looked back at the lifeless corpse of Ardwyn. He had bled out on the ground surrounding him. She walked over to the body, and then with a finger touched the blood, and lifted it up examining it. This was after all the blood of a World Bridger who had come through the portal. Why then was the portal not activating?
She squinted her eyes at the surrounding stones. They just stood there, in the darkness of the night, the runes not glowing, not doing anything magical or noteworthy. Just dead in the night, like Ardwyn’s corpse.
Frustrated, she swung her foot and with all her strength kicked Ardwyn’s body and let out a loud shout of anger. She had done so much for this moment, all the careful planning, and study, and now for what?
She paced around the stones, wondering what she could do next. Were there any steps left? She recalled the verses from the ancient books. She had nearly memorized them, poring over them during countless nights.
Maybe she missed something important. After all, she was the first one who had attempted to reactivate the Nexus portal after hundreds of years. All knowledge of the Nexus portal had been practically lost other than a few ancient tomes she had managed to find. How reliable could the information be anyway? It’s not like she had anyone to consult with about the Nexus portal. They were just some random stones to most people, an ancient artifact from an ancient world lost to time.
Or maybe she just needed to be more patient. With all this time of waiting and anticipating she hardly had any patience left. But with nothing else to do, she walked over to one of the stones, and sat down, waiting for something to happen.