The party traveled onward in an awkward silence, with Eli leading the pack and Iris trailing behind it. She wanted desperately to blip into the canopy and stay out of sight while following from above, but her muscles ached and her breathing was still sometimes labored. Instead, she practiced navigation with Victoria. They were traveling towards Iris's quest to investigate ruins, so Victoria invited her to take the lead on navigation and only made adjustments when they veered off course. Mercifully, Victoria announced adjustments to the group, so Iris could remain silent. Navigation in the forest mostly involved staring up at the canopy until she could make out the direction of the sun, and identifying unique trees, rocks or other landmarks to maintain their direction. Other than that, she spent a lot of time staring at the map as if it would help.

Several hours into their journey, as evening encroached, dark grey clouds moved in and further dimmed what little light still broke through the layered canopy. Soon rain was falling onto treetops and trickling down through the canopy. While much of the rain got caught in the leaves, gusts of wind overhead cut through the canopy and sent water splashing down in sudden bursts.

"This is unusual," Eli observed, "it's the dry season."

"There's magic in the air," Victoria said ominously, peering upwards with her auravision.

"What does that even mean?" Autumn asked.

"The wind and clouds have an aura," Victoria said, "more so than usual. Other than that, I don't know."

"We should find shelter," Eli said.

Iris blipped to the front of the group, speaking for the first time in hours, "we're almost to the ruins, I say we tough it out and take shelter there."

Eli gave her a flat look, then nodded.

Victoria began periodically scanning ahead of them with her disembodied auravision. Though it bathed everything besides auras in grey, the forest was alive with auras all around. As she adjusted her vision to full sensitivity, not unlike dilating her eyes to absorb more light, the trunks glowed a dull green, the leaves with shades of bright pink and yellow, and even the dirt shifted with a rainbow hue from the ecosystem of bugs, bacteria and fungi which thrived just below the surface.

The rain thickened and occasional showers of droplets turned into countless small, steady streams which poured from the canopy above and carved out puddles in the ground. The adventurers simply stepped around most of these streams, but the gusts of wind now brought thick showers of rain that soon soaked through their clothes as their boots splashed through mud. Finally, Victoria spotted something. A large section of forest that was grey and lifeless, save for vines that grew over it and a few critters sheltering beneath stones from the rain.

"We're almost there," Victoria said, speaking loudly through the chorus of streaming and splashing water, "veer slightly left."

Soon they came upon a clearing between the trunks, not large enough to create a gap in the canopy above. The clearing was bordered by redwood roots that bulged over the edges of an ancient brickwork platform that filled the clearing like a patio. Remnants of pillars and walls obstructed most of the platform, except for a central path which ran from the edge of the platform, curved around either side of the decrepit remains of a fountain, and met the steps of the only building that still stood in the clearing. The large brick walls of the structure were overgrown with moss, and thick vines wrapped around pillars that upheld a stone roof that extended out above two large stone doors, one of which was slightly ajar.

Victoria scanned the area one more time with her auravision, "it looks clear. Some wildlife, but nothing big."

Iris and Autumn, who had been gawking at the structure, exchanged excited looks before dashing onto the platform. Autumn scrambled over brick piles and decaying stonework, while Iris blipped through the ruins ahead of her.

Eli stared at the structure with an unhappy look.

Victoria stepped up beside him and spoke quietly, "what is it?"

"Nothing," he said, "I don't like it, but we can't sleep in the rain."

Iris was the first to reach the doors, the overhanging roof offering precious relief from the growing downpour. She kept her distance and leaned to the side to peer through the crack of the slightly open door, but saw only darkness. She resisted the urge to go in alone, instead impatiently waiting for others to arrive. When Autumn and Titus had climbed the stairs and reached the entrance, Eli and Victoria were still lagging behind, while Glimmer hopped across the rubble behind them. Titus made eye contact with Autumn, then subtly nodded his head towards the doors. Autumn grinned, and ran over to push the open door the rest of the way. Stone grinded on stone as the door slowly swung open, echoing around the brick-walled chamber inside.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Titus conjured five small spears of light and dispersed them to float towards the four corners of the room, with the fifth hanging over the center. The pale, flickering lights illuminated walls ornately carved with depictions of war and destruction. Bolts of lightning struck castle towers, cities burned while citizens fled, and crowns sat lopsided on skulls. In each of the battles, a Great Beast was taken by the enemy, abducted in a flash of lightning that cracked the ground like a quake. The back wall of the temple depicted an array of scenes, each containing dragons. Some had tall mountains, others deep caverns, and one a craggy desert. In each scene, the dragons fell before the enemies that appeared in hordes from sudden lightning storms.

The floor of the room was empty of furniture, small piles of debris from a crumbling ceiling were scattered about. The floor stepped down in concentric circles, on the lowest level in the center of the room was a large circular stone set in the floor.

"Whoa," Autumn said, errantly.

"I recognize this," Iris said, her voice quiet and wistful as her eyes drifted across the walls, "these match the carvings from the ziggurat."

Titus inspected the mural more closely, "this one," he pointed at the central scene, where a red dragon stood his ground against an army of enemies, "that dragon was in the carvings."

"Yeah," Iris said quietly, "he appeared after every battle, always too late."

Iris stepped closer to the wall, inspecting a carving that depicted the corpse of a slain dragon, "I didn't know it was possible to kill a dragon."

Eli and Victoria entered the temple. They both paused to look around in awe, and in Eli's case, concern. Victoria approached the stone in the center, it bulged from the ground and was somewhat flat on the top, almost forming a table. The top was carved with ruts that formed concentric circles, at various points along the ruts were divots. The divots seemed to be randomly placed, save the largest one in the very center of the stone. She lightly touched the top of the stone with an outstretched hand, and two of the divots filled with a pale blue light. The light spread out down the ruts to the sides, fading before reaching any other divots.

"No one touch anything," Eli said, quickly stepping up to the stone beside Victoria, "what are we dealing with?"

"It's a ritual circle," she said with awe.

The others approached and encircled the stone. Victoria carefully withdrew her hand, then slowly activated her auravision. She stared at the stone for a long moment, then slowly moved her gaze along the floor and towards the ground outside.

"This is only part of it," she said, fearfully, then glanced back to the center of the stone, "we're at the center. There's magic running beneath us."

"What are these lights?" He asked.

"I-I don't know," she released her auravision and shook her head as if shaking away unwanted thoughts.

"There's something here," Iris said, crouching beside the stone. There were three stone orbs on the side of the stone, each set inside a spherical hole so it could be rolled in place.

Titus knelt down beside her, "I took a class on ritual structures, these are control dials. We don't build them like this anymore, but this is how the ancients did it."

"What do they do?" Autumn asked, curiously looking over his shoulder while conveniently hiding behind him.

"I can't read the markings," he said, "if best practices go back that far, the one on the left should be a kill switch for the ritual. The other two are probably for fine tuning frequencies.”

"Is it on?" Eli asked.

"I'm guessing so," he looked closer at the orbs. While the others were coated in a thick layer of dust, the left-most orb had marks in the dust that would line up with clutching fingertips, "in fact, it might have been turned on recently."

Eli gazed out the doors to the sheets of rain pouring through the canopy, "No one. Touch. Anything. We leave at first light, rain or not. Iris, take notes, don't forget you're here for a quest."

Iris jumped when he said her name, then nodded at his advice. She took her journal from her bag and began scribbling information. She roughly sketched the ruts on the stone, marking twinkling stars for the illuminated divots, then moved on to the walls, where she wrote a brief description of each scene.

While Iris worked, the others changed into dry clothes and made their beds. Eli took first watch, posting up beside Glimmer under the overhang outside. As Eli's lights began to flicker out, Autumn lit three torches and placed them in old iron sconces on the walls. Eventually Iris tore herself away from her journal and finally changed into dry clothes, she jammed the wet clothes she had been wearing into her bag, but laid her robe out beneath a torch to continue drying. She made her bed in front of the back wall and sat sketching the red dragon, perched atop a mountain and breathing fire down on the enemies that encroached around it, until her eyes grew heavy. Eventually, she slumped over and crawled into her bedroll, quickly drifting into sleep.

She saw a battlefield expanding around her, soldiers and adventurers dying in droves against wizards that landed amongst the army's ranks in bolts of lightning. In the distance, a tree taller than a castle tower stomped across the battlefield on trunk-like legs, just beneath its canopy there was a face in the bark, full of sorrow. Lightning struck all around and deposited wizards in a circle surrounding it. The wizards outstretched their hands and lightning arced between them, then into the sky, caging the tree.

Her attention shifted to a woman standing in the battlefield with her back to Iris, she wore silver robes and her long black hair billowed in the wind. Far beyond the woman, the lightning cage pulsed, then exploded. When the dust settled, the tree and its assailants were gone. Lightning struck across the battlefield, plucking the attackers from the battle and pulling them into the beyond.

Iris awoke with a gasp and heavy breathing. She shot up and frantically looked around, but the others were asleep. She lowered herself back to the bedroll as her breath began to slow, and found herself wishing desperately that the woman had turned around.