Book 2, Chapter 16: The Sky Beneath the Sea

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[Alen]

            Alen felt cold. A frost creeping up from his feet like cold, grasping hands. It slinked and lurked and creeped and crawled. The feeling of liquid ice crept up his stomach, where a powerful heat stung past the numbness permeating his body. Pain. His eyes were closed—they trembled. The frost slinked higher, up his chest, freezing his lungs and robbing him of breath. It clasped around his neck as if to strangle it. The sounds of explosions and fighting in the background began to die down.

            He couldn’t breathe. He wanted to breathe. His eyelids felt too heavy to lift.

            The necromancer knew this feeling. It was a part of the mana he had in his body, but in a purer, more condensed form. He was dying. This was death.

            Blood was definitely pooling beneath him, but his thoughts were strangely blank. Peaceful, even. He never really thought he’d die. Life was something he just accepted; something he just assumed would be there. But life was a fickle mistress, and now, it was leaving him.

            Alen didn’t want to die, but he felt little resistance to it. Maybe death was like that. Maybe it was just a thought at the back of a person’s mind, waiting to be accepted as soon as it came. He couldn’t put up a struggle. Perhaps he was just too weak. Perhaps he even wanted it. Who knew, really? He couldn’t really think straight at the moment. It was numb. Too numb.

            It was really cold. He felt lonely in the darkness.

            Even as all feeling left his body, the emotions in his mind only became stronger. They merged and congregated, merging into a single mass of pure will. Maybe this was how souls were formed on death; trying to escape death as life drained away from the body. It was in his head, cowering and compressing in on itself. Watching the green motes leaving to be replaced by numb, empty darkness. Everything he was, was now in one place. Alen couldn’t think. The numbness spoke to him in a silence so loud he could almost hear its voice.

            “…en.”

            The ice encased his eyes, and he lost his vision. Now, Alen could see. Darkness in all directions, and differently colored balls of light floating in the black sky like innumerable majestic suns. The floor was smooth. Like glass.

            A mansion stood in front of him. It rose, as dark and desolate as the world itself, but for some reason, Alen felt at home. He walked forward and opened the door, stepping into the home. It was nicer on the inside. White walls and red tapestry, golden tables and silverware, royal furniture and a roaring fireplace. A skeleton, his bones the color of midnight and containing many precious gems stared at him. It gazed at him curiously.

            “…len.”

            He gave it a look. He knew this skeleton. Who was it, again? He couldn’t think clearly. All he knew was the cold that he felt everywhere—the feeling of death.

            “You’re quite lucky,” The skeleton said, finally.

            Alen tilted his head.

            “Ah, can’t speak, can you? I was surprised seeing you walk in here,” Selerius said. “I thought you’d learned how to enter your mental space way ahead of the expected time. But no, you’re dying now, aren’t you?”

            He stared.

            The skeleton laughed, rubbing its chin as the blue flames in its eye sockets flared in interest. “The God of Death will be disappointed if you die so early, you know. Well, not really, actually. I think he hardly cares at all. But I will be. You’ve been quite an enjoyable experience, after all. It’s not every day that I get to view the experiences and memories of a new arrival.”

            Alen didn’t know what the skeleton meant. He felt cold. It was somewhat comforting, like a pleasure he’d never enjoyed until it was amplified a thousand times. He felt light. Weightless. Like he could float up and… leave.

            “Oh I wouldn’t recommend that,” Selerius shook his head, the smile on his skeletal features seeming like it would never disappear. “You’re still alive, necromancer. Spare me another lifetime with another poor, old sod and wake up. It’s not every day that I get to watch another necromancer grow.”

            The necromancer blinked. Something was changing. The cold was receding. He frowned. He wasn’t supposed to be here. It was getting warmer. Voices were ringing in his ears—calling his name. He gave the skeleton a look, his emerald eyes containing a sudden clarity unlike before.

            “You’re really making yourself at home in my soul, huh?”

            “I have no home of my own, so pardon the intrusion,” Selerius crossed his arms, giving him an appraising glance. “I didn’t think you’d be back here so soon. Not until your next trial, at least. Now go on, then. Leave. You are being called.”

            “I am, yeah.” He nodded. It really was time to leave.

            The lich gave him a look, then waved his hand dismissively. “Try not to start dying so easily next time. As annoying as she was, you are nowhere near as attractive as my last host. I have no desire to see your face every fortnight.”

            Alen grinned and turned around, walking out of the house. The voices were getting louder. He recognized them. Lynn, and who was she again..? Ah, yes. The lizard lady. Valah. His form in his mental world was slowly dissipating. Alen noted the black and white sun that had abruptly grown brighter above and turned back to give the skeleton a final smile.

            “I’m glad to see we agree.”

            Alen’s eyes fluttered open, and like a tidal wave, everything surged back to meet him. Boom! A deafening boom filled his ears as all the sounds in the world came rushing in at one, his eyes exploded into a shower of light and colors as he came back from his mental space, and finally, he saw two people looming over him.

            “He’s alive,” Valah said, walking away without another word. Her staff glowed brightly, a large shield covering the area around them. Barbs shattered against the surface, failing to even crack it. The look of concentration on her face however, could not be faked. She watched every member of her party, throwing out assistance where needed. Buffs and enhancements activated at the perfect times,  preserving her mana as much as possible. Alen glanced away from the lizardwoman and looked up at Lynn who’d offered her hand to him.

            He smiled and took it, standing up with a slight grunt. “I’m not dead.”

            “Nope, unfortunately,” She grinned, but Alen saw the worry that had just left her face. He appreciated it. “Valah swooped in as soon as you fell. Her healing power is outrageous. I can see why Alexandrius’s team considers her so important. She’d be irreplaceable in an army with how well she handles her magic.”

            Alen watched the battle raging on outside. Alexandrius slashed with his greatsword, and the Manticore dodged. It sent barbs at him, he deflected them with his weapon. Gravil rushed in, and his staff boomed against the monster’s hide as he hit. It let loose a colossal bang, but the monster merely staggered a bit before clawing at him, its claws raking a terrifying gash along his armor. The tail pierced in, ready to kill, when another lizardman stepped in front of the muscle wizard, parrying the strike with his shield.

            Nexus, wielding his mighty halberd, swung in a wide arc, his weapon glinting coldly in the still dark canyon. The monster dodged, before countering with a spray of acid from its stinger. Nexus took the full amount to the chest, and hissed as his armor began to corrode. Valah chanted an incantation, and the acid disappeared with the shining of bright light. Alen suddenly spotted a lizardman darting in and out of cover, two crossbows in his hands. The two weapons had some sort of clip, like a gun would. Every shot fired hit, inflicting small, but mounting wounds.

            Bang! The world shook as Alexandrius brought his weapon down, his aura only rising. It cleaved a gash through the creature’s scaly hide. It roared, and it literally bristled. Barbs exploded out from it in all directions, and the lizardmen were forced to retreat. Some hit the shield Valah had erected, and terrifying chinks appeared on the surface. She took a step back, the strain on her face evident.

            The dust on the distance began to clear, and the group watched two majestic wings unfurl from the creature’s back. Sand flew into the air, and a powerful gust struck each of their bodies. Something darted out of the sand. Alen looked up.

            The Manticore had taken flight.

            “I think it’d be wise for us to fuck off,” He said.

            When Lynn didn’t reply, he frowned and looked back to see her with her legs crossed, and her eyes closed in concentration. Her hands were clasped together, and from within shone a bright, cyan light. She slowly pulled them apart, and an arrow began to manifest.

            No. That wasn’t an arrow. It was a needle. It had a body, but it lacked an arrowhead or fletching of any sort. She opened her eyes and grinned at it.

            “We have to do something, or Alexandrius might slack on our pay.”

            Alen looked at it and felt the intense amount of mana compressed within it. It looked like a thin, weak little thing, but the necromancer knew this simple-looking needle would shatter a boulder with ease from the mana alone. “What is that?”

            “Well, I don’t really know. I haven’t named it, but it’s the strongest arrow I’ve made to date. Kind of a given when I’ve compressed all my mana into it,” She said, pride on her pale face. It was easier said than done, after all. A single mistake and it would have shattered, injuring her in the process. She’d only been able to do it after months of practice, and now, she was going to use it. She highly doubted the Manticore could shrug off something like this.

            Roland ran into the shield, a nasty wound near his bicep. “We need to retreat into the temple. That thing’s too strong for us to have any real effect. I barely escaped that last barrage.”

            “No, hold on,” Lynn shook her head. “Valah, can you hold that barrier?”

            “So long as that beast stays at a distance, I am confident.”

            She nodded, then motioned to Alen and Roland. The latter drank a potion in an attempt to heal his wounds. When the two reached her side, she held the arrow out to Alen. “Pump everything into it.”

            “What?”

            “Your mana. Put a spell in it, make it stronger, whatever. Just make sure that Manticore has a bad day when it hits.”

            Alen took it and sat down, frowning at the intense cold that battered the nerves in his hands. He channeled his mana to protect himself. “How are you going to make sure it hits?”

            “We have Roland,” She said, motioning to the warrior, before impatiently pointing at the arrow in his hands. “Come on now, don’t make a lady wait. Put it in before the monster comes and eats us.”

            “I never thought I’d be in the receiving end of my own humor,” He muttered, sitting down and staring at the arrow. Behind him, Lynn and Roland were discussing something, and just outside of the barrier, the battle raged on. The Manticore was constantly trying to take shots at Valah and the ranged attackers, but their vanguard gave it little room to even breathe. It was flying, but Alexandrius could cover the distance with a leap. Gravil could fly, and Nexus’s halberd could get longer. Alen scoffed at the lizard’s attempt to compensate before placing his attention back at the needle-like arrow.

            He was strangely calm for someone who’d almost died. He frowned and funneled his mana into the ice. Why was he not bothered? From the moment he gained his bearings in Selerius’s mansion, he hadn’t felt a single shred of panic or fear. Why?

            Alen’s mana kept entering the ice, but he wasn’t focused on the task. His gaze was directed inside of himself. There was something new in there. It felt comfortable. Cool, and numb. An eternal nothingness—the finite endlessness of a dreamscape. What was it? He knew it was there, it stood alongside the rest of his mana types, in plain sight, but seemingly invisible. Alen kept searching, unaware that the arrow in his hands had changed color. What seemed like tendrils of fire surged into it, the flames burning black and white.

            The arrow turned black. Blacker. The flames didn’t melt the ice, no. The flames made it colder. His mana was draining at a terrifying rate, but Alen didn’t notice. He’d found it.

            The sun of black and white flame. It stood beside the rest of the mana types he’d cleared burning brighter than before. It flared with more ferocity than his other affinities, second only to the calm, fog-like appearance of Necrotic mana. It was cold and numb and eternal. It spun in a cycle of taking and conquering—a gluttonous mouth that never ceased to hunger.

            It was death,

            and Alen had unlocked his affinity to it.

            He suddenly remembered Selerius’s words:

            ‘You’re quite lucky.’

            He looked down at his hands and saw Lynn’s arrow, now a deep vantablack that seemed to suck in the light. It rested in his palm, and any cold feeling that it once radiated was gone. Alen felt lightheaded. He checked his status.

            His mana was at five percent.

            Alen stood up on shaky legs and walked over to the other two. It felt like a daze, the rumbling and explosions coming from outside Valah’s shield sounding like white noise. He reached his two friends and gently laid it in front of Lynn and Roland who were furiously flipping through the warrior’s runebook. He stared outside, the booms and explosions resonating with the reverberating thoughts in his head.

            “Lucky, huh,” He muttered, putting the pieces together. When he’d finished Thagathos’s trial, he’d received an increase to all his affinities with mana types associated with death and necromancy. While this may have happened, it seemed that the increase didn’t exactly unlock these affinities. They were still in his mental space, remaining as unusable as they’d been since the first day. To utilize these mana types, he had to do to them the same things he did to his ice, water, and fire affinities. Cleanse the mana, identify the properties, adjust and configure, before ultimately creating a mana program. The first three steps had been done automatically after he’d experienced talking to Selerius in his mental space just a few minutes ago, and right now, his mind was throbbing—reeling with the influx of new information.

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            Death mana was powerful. Virulent. His Deathbolt spell was using a foul mimicry of it, a poor imitation he’d thought matched the original. A fraud that imitated death with necromancy.

            Ideas surged through his head, filling every corner of his mind. His mind throbbed from the mana deficiency, but he couldn’t help the grin creeping up his face. This was it. He’d get stronger with this. His undead would as well. In the same principle that water and ice complemented each other and only made Deathchill Grasp stronger, this new mana type would amplify parts of Necrotic mana itself. It opened up an entirely new world to him. Would he have to get into Life and the Restoration School of magic as well? Soul magic? The Conjuration School?

            He was on a crossroads; a branching path that that had a million arms extending into infinity. Alen stared at the Manticore, watched it blocking blows and tearing apart everything that neared it with its barbs, claws, tail, and teeth. He’d kill one on his own one day. He was going to get stronger. Strong enough not to worry. Strong enough to enjoy the dreams of fantasy that had suddenly come to life.

            An arm rested itself on his shoulder. He glanced to the side and saw Lynn grinning at him. “You ready?”

            Alen saw the arrow in her hands. It was brimming with power. The obsidian surface gleamed with a cold, deathly shine, while gray—almost white—runes covered the surface, flashing and arcing like static electricity. Roland stood off to the side, a look of pride on his face as he admired his work. The necromancer nodded at them.

            “We’re making a run for it as soon as it hits, right?”

            “Not unless it kills the monster outright.”

            “Keep dreaming, Lynn. It’s good for your mental health.”

            “Have you two even considered that it might cause the Manticore to target us?”

            Alen’s robes spit out a few pieces of teeth. They immediately deformed, forming three large Droughtworms. The creatures churned within the sand around them.

            “I did. Just now.” Alen said. “We’re escaping using these. Just let them swallow you, and they’ll burrow into the sand. They’ll spit us out right in front of the temple. From there, just run like hell.”

            “I don’t like this plan. I like Valah’s shield. Why can’t we stay, in Valah’s shield?”

            Roland noted the cracks round the barrier, and the various cheap shots the Manticore took to damage it. “It won’t last long. Valah’s energy is being directed to helping Alexandrius and his team. If anything, we’re wasting her mana by being here.”

            Lynn sighed and nocked a normal arrow against her bow. “Why do you always have to be right?”

            “Yeah Roland,” Alen mimicked. “Stop being right.”

            “The majority rule Roland, sorry,” She said, taking aim at the Manticore with the arrow. The wood crackled with the same runes. “Ready when you are.”

            The warrior nodded and opened his runebook, staring intently at the monster outside. Alen saw that the obsidian arrow was still strapped to the elf’s waist, while the arrow on her bow was a regular one covered in Roland’s runes. He frowned. “Wait, why aren’t you using the—“

            Lynn dashed out of the shield. Alen jumped in surprise, and he was about to rush after her when Roland grabbed his arm to stop him.

            “Get those summons of yours ready to pick her up.”

            “This wasn’t part of the plan!” Alen said, watching the elf loose one arrow after another from different angles. They didn’t fly, but instead rotated in place, waiting to be released. She leaped over rocks and sprinted up the walls, peppering the area with multiple arrows. Half of her quiver was quickly depleted.

            “It’s the best way to secure a hit. Focus on covering her,” Roland said. “Now quiet down. I’m trying to focus.”

            Alen grit his teeth and summoned his undead, prioritizing the ones with mobility over the rest. Wolves and spiders and flying insects formed all around him, and they rushed out of the shield, flying and running around the scene of the battle to take attention away from the white-haired elf. The Manticore hadn’t noticed her yet, but it would soon. Lynn loosed another arrow—a skeletal canine was blown apart by a stray attack. She twisted and shot another. A barb destroyed one of his beetles. It embedded itself into the wall just a few feet away from her.

            The necromancer frantically controlled his minions, weaving them into the fray to distract the monster. They served as annoyances to both parties, evident through the glares Nexus sent him after an undead accidentally blocked his path to land a strike. Alen paid him no heed. Droughtworms were swimming through the sand all around the large basin, constantly aiming and repositioning to catch the elf.

            The Manticore saw her running around and its eyes flashed with intelligence. It knew something was going on. Alen paled. His undead had the opposite effect. It was only drawing attention to them. He slapped his forehead. Not all monsters were stupid! Fuck! He commanded his undead, and a Droughtworm swallowed him up.

            Darkness. Rumbling. He was speeding out from under the sand. His summons transmitted a very rough understanding of what was happening outside.

            The Manticore stabbed at a lizardwoman with its tail. The appendage tore through the woman’s armor, stinging her through the waist. She screamed. It took this opportunity, biting the blade of Alexandrius’s greatsword and swiping at him. The crimson-scaled lizardman spun, using the sword as an axel to jump over the strike. He twisted the blade out of the monster’s grip, and held it in front of him to block the volley of barbs that he knew was coming.

            They didn’t come.

            Sharp spines tore through the air, shooting towards Lynn. She was in the middle of a jump, with no method to dodge quickly. She paled and reached towards something around her neck, but before she could reach it, the sand below her burst like a geyser.

            A Droughtworm erupted out from the sand, its mouth wide open. Something shot out of it. Lynn saw the emerald eyes flashing and felt an arm close around her leg. Her vision immediately toppled as she was sent off balance and dragged upwards by the necromancer’s momentum. Booms rang out from behind her, the barbs tearing through stone like sharp teeth through bread. Spears of keratin ejected out of Alen’s boots, slamming against the wall to send them forward. Lynn slipped her legs out from his arms and wrapped them around his head. She took the obsidian arrow and took aim. A shock went through her body as Alen let out a surprised sound, a spear exploding out from his boots and hitting the wall, sending them staggering through the air.

            “Stop flailing around!” She screamed at him, hurriedly adjusting her aim.

            He shouted something back angrily, but it was muffled. The air screaming around them did little to help. The Manticore flapped its now injured wings and sent a gust of air into the sand, obscuring it from sight. An omnidirectional explosion of barbs and spines exploded out from the sand, hitting everything in around it. Some flew towards them.

            Alen managed to pull the back of her knee away from his face. “I can’t fucking see!” He shouted at her. His pupils suddenly constricted at the projectiles shooting towards them, and his remaining mana surged towards his feet.

            Lynn adjusted her position and loosed an arrow infused with wind mana in a panic. It exploded, barely taking the barbs off their course. The spines hit the walls far back, passing just to their right. One tore a gash through Lynn’s shoulder. Alen screamed, his vision blocked once again as their position threw them off balance and sent them hurtling and spinning through the air.

            “Catch us!” Lynn shouted, and he grit his teeth, sending a hooked spike out from his sleeve towards the direction where he last saw the canyon wall. His head throbbed from exhaustion. It found purchase. It shrieked against the stone, grinding their fall down to a screeching descent. His arm hurt. He couldn’t fucking see. The rough layout his summons gave him was disturbed by their constant, erratic motions, but now that they’d slowed down he was able to send a few commands to his undead. 

            A Droughtworm erupted out from the sand and swallowed them both. Darkness. Rumbling. They were below the sand once again. The inside of the worm was too tight for two people to fit comfortably. Lynn squirmed, and her legs blocked his breathing in the tight space. He pushed, pulling himself deeper into his summon. He sucked in a breath as he was set free. A foot planted against his face.

            “Fuck!” He roared, sending his minions out to fetch Roland. The Droughtworm swam through the sand like a fish through water, and they burst through the surface. It spat them out, and Alen felt the stone stairs of the temple beat against his back as they rolled down.

            Lynn leapt to her feet just as Roland was spat out of the sand by another Droughtworm beside them. “Now!” She shouted, immediately loosing the black, needle-like arrow. The runes on the surface crackled, and the arrows she had floating in the air simultaneously exploded into motion. The orange-haired warrior got to his feet and hurriedly raised his arms towards the arrows. They began to tilt in the air, converging towards the Manticore.

            Some were destroyed by the wild flashes of energy from the fight. Others snapped against the defenses of Alexandrius’s party. The rest continued to fly

            The Manticore twisted and avoided the black arrow that was flying faster than the rest. Roland’s eyes flashed, and the runes on a normal arrow sailing through the air flashed with a bright light. It disappeared, and in its place, the black arrow appeared. The two had swapped places! It sunk into the monster’s chest, and Alen immediately wrapped his arms around both of his companions from behind, powerful spears of keratin erupting from the soles of his boots to send them hurtling into the inside of the temple.

            A massive boom and an enraged roar of pain rang out from outside, causing the bones in their bodies to vibrate from the sheer force of the explosions that seemed to displace the air itself. A gust of wind surged into the temple, sending Alen’s robes into a frantic billow. They hit the ground and rolled. Alen grunted as Roland’s elbow accidentally plunged into his side. Pain. He was rolling. Bang! He hit the temple’s walls and came to an abrupt stop.

            His vision blurred. It was dark. His mana was exhausted. The only light was coming from outside, outside where the battle had flared up with a new, terrifying level of ferocity. A hand closed around his arm and dragged him up. He groaned. Something was flowing down his face. Blood. He’d sustained a cut from the multiple falls.

            A person with a waterfall of white hair flowing down her back dragged him forward. He got to his feet, fighting through the exhaustion to run through the temple, farther and farther away from the door. Two people were with him. Lynn and Roland. They were safe. He tried to let loose a sigh of relief, but the breaths left his body faster than the rate of which he could suck it in. A gray light lit up the path in front of them, radiating out from Roland’s sword like ribbons of moonlight. The shadows in the walls danced in weird, distorted forms, waving and raving like lunatics. Alen took a while to figure out that the figures weren’t screaming. It was the ringing in his ears. Unbearably loud, unpleasant and painful.

            He grit his teeth and stumbled forward. He wouldn’t fall. The shadows in the wall seemed to watch, like a crowd passing them by. Alen fought the pain in his head. Something caught his foot. He tripped and fell.

            An armored hand pushed him forward, getting him back on his feet. There was a room coming up. They ran into it. It lit up.

            It was dome-like in shape. Statues stood in a circle, surrounding an altar in the center. On the altar laid a single orb, pitch black and containing a swirling energy that sparkled with millions of lights, looking as if the sky itself existed solely within the basketball-sized orb. Runes  flared to life in the ground all around them, bathing the room in a bright, blue light. Alen vision continued to blur, but he was able to spot a single greatsword that leaned against the wall.

            It was red—like magma. Even from here, a heat radiated out from it. Roland moved past him quickly, banging his fists against the stone doors that had closed to lock them in the room.

            “Locked,” He muttered. “Damn it! Lynn, is there any other exit?”

            “I can’t see any!”

            Alen watched them, his mind muddled with a thousand thoughts that screamed incomprehensible gibberish. They were in a bad spot. The engravings on the ground were getting brighter by the second. He knew this, yet he couldn’t think of a way to get them out.

            Roland’s blade screeched against the door. It left nary a scratch. The light was getting brighter. His runes flared. They sent powerful shockwaves into the door. Nothing. The light only brightened. It was reaching a crescendo. Roland’s hand reached towards the red blade resting against the wall. The light flashed. He didn’t reach it. The world exploded into a void of endless blue light. It began to fade.

            It died down, and then, they were gone.

            Alexandrius stood in front of the Manticore’s corpse. It had a gaping hole through its chest. He looked at it, remembering the image of the black arrow suddenly teleporting into existence and tearing through scales and flesh like paper. It had punctured the beast’s lung and rotted the surrounding area to dust. The shockwaves that followed only served to stun it further. The arrow had given them the chance to surge in and kill it. In that, there was little to no doubt.

            “Those three are interesting, aren’t they?” A voice said. He looked and saw Tirilius walking towards them. He’d disappeared during the fight, but Alexandrius knew that he was watching. The sly elf always was.

            “They’ve retreated into the temple. Let’s retrieve them before they set off any traps.”

            The elf nodded and followed him in. The rest of his party waited outside, recovering from their wounds. Valah tended to the injured, giving the corpse of the Manticore a meaningful glance.

            “Have you figured out the riddle to get that old lizard’s inheritance yet?”

            Alexandrius hesitated, before he relaxed and let loose a sigh. “…Yes.”

            “Really? It made no sense to me, and I like to think I knew him the best. The bastard had no children, and there is no God of Sands, as he put it.”

            “He meant the Crawling Canyon. Or rather, the being that this place is mounted upon. Ortena. The matriarch of insects, carrier of the Crawling Canyon; the queen of the Sandsea. The rest all point to the Drakeslayer’s presence.”

            “Ah,” Tirilius let out an impressed sound. “I remember now. That person used to call that sword ‘his baby’, or his ‘precious child’. Quite disgusting, really.”

            “My entire clan agrees,” Alexandrius grunted.

            The two walked for a bit more, the hallway extending farther than they originally thought. Tirilius perked up when a thought struck him.

            “About those sets of numbers…”

            “Deciphered. He used to play that game a lot with me as a kid. Add the numbers together, and they’d represent a letter of that number on the alphabet. It was easiest to figure out,” The lizardman said, a trace of fondness in his words as he recalled his childhood.

            “Oh? It almost makes me think he planned all this, but then I recall that Vex was never really much for looking into the future. Or planning. Or thinking much at all,” The elf shook his head. “So? What do they mean?”

            “I… do not know,” Alexandrius shook his head. “It came up as ‘The Sky Beneath the Sea’. He’s never mentioned anything like it before. Hadrid and I were—“

            “What!?” Tirilius’s eyes widened, and like a gust of wind, he was gone—bolting down the passage to enter the room up ahead. Alexandrius frowned and dashed in after him. The hallway opened up to reveal a dome-shaped room. Alexandrius noted the dark crystal at the center, and the engravings on the floor below, but his eyes shone as soon as he saw the crimson blade leaning against the wall to the far right. It radiated heat that distorted the air around it, the material it was constructed from looking like scales torn fresh off a dragon.

            He walked over to it and picked it up, marveling at the power that seemed to surge into his arm. “The Drakeslayer,” He said, his grin a wide crescent.

            Tirilius did not share his expression.

            “Damn the gods!” The elf fumed, kicking the altar. “Damn you Vexxaron! Damn your mother!” He shouted, letting his frustrations loose for a good minute. He slouched his shoulders, the energy leaving his body as he leaned against the stone altar, his despondent gaze on the lifeless orb before him.

            Alexandrius raised an eyebrow at the elf. The long-ear hadn’t lost his cool since the moment they’d met. What was this room? He marveled at the Drakeslayer, throwing his blade to the side and placing the new greatsword in its place.

            “What are you cursing about for? We’ve accomplished our reasons for headed here, right?”

            “You’re mistaken,” The elf said. “You accomplished your goals. Mine were taken right in front of me by three children. They won’t even get to enjoy it! They’ll die as soon as they reach it! It’s a godsdamned waste!”

            The crimson-scaled lizardman looked around. “Speaking of which,” He said. “They seem to have disappeared. Where have they gone, Tirilius?”

            “They are no longer here, boy.”

            “Dead?”

            “Not yet, but I’d wager soon,” He sighed, looking at the now depleted orb on the altar. “The sky beneath the sea. I can’t believe that old lizard found it.”

            “And that is?”

            “The sky beneath the Sandsea, child,” He said. “They’ve stumbled into it—stumbled into the grandest of dreams an explorer could hold. I’m betting your uncle did too.”

            Tirilius gazed straight at Alexandrius.

            “Those children have reached the Underearth.”

            End of Book 2.