“There you are. Took you long enough- well, don’t we clean up nicely?”
My cheeks turned red as I looked down at myself. After magically appearing outside the thread shop, I found my clothes neatly folded within a bag atop the sandstone block I had been sitting on earlier. Getting changed had been a matter of finding an alley that looked deserted and switching clothes before anyone could see me half-naked.
“Have you guys been waiting long?” I questioned, changing the subject.
“Yeah, half the damn da- ow!” Zet flinched as his sister smacked him on the back of the head.
“Not that long,” Tez answered for her brother, who was grumbling about being thwacked upside the head.
“I appreciate the lie.” I smiled half-heartedly, feeling guilty about making them wait so long on me. “Things just took…. Longer than expected.”
“Anything involving Sinbad takes time.” Veronika nodded empathetically, making me wonder just how much she knew.
“Bit of a strange man, isn’t he?” Dayvin added.
“Yeah,” I murmured. “You’re telling me.”
“Changing the subject-” Veronika spoke up after clearing her throat, “-let’s move on. The Ring Gate won’t come to us after all.”
Watching her usher us on, I noticed something was different. Before, they’d been wearing light desert clothes. In contrast, there was a noticeable increase in tough leather worn with metal in-lines meant to protect their vitals.
“What’s with the outfit change?” I questioned Veronika, who looked at me curiously.
“Precaution. You already heard us talk about it yesterday. This operation has a chance of being more dangerous than what we usually handle. We’re used to acting as escorts against minor threats. We know this girl never made it to her mother while under the care of an Iron-rank adventurer and part of a traveling caravan. In that case, there is a chance we may end up directly involved with a hostile force, be it magical beasts or monsters of the human variety.”
“What do you think happened?” I questioned as we walked through the town, drawing the occasional look in our direction.
“I don’t know, truthfully,” Veronika answered with a quick shrug. “There could be several different options. I would have suspected foul play had it just been the girl and the adventurer. Some adventurers will take on commissions such as that, and if they discover valuables on their escort…. Well, take a guess.”
“Is that common?”
“With official adventurers? No.” Veronika shook her head. “But unofficial adventurers or parties lack regulation and backing by the adventurer’s guild, so you can never be certain with them. But, as the girl and her escort were with a caravan, you would think there would have been news reaching the mother in Kar’anza of foul play. Leaving us with several other possibilities. First-” She raised a finger for emphasis. “-they ended up caught in the territory of an aggressive magical beast or monster. Depending on what it was or how many there were, they may have been overrun and become something’s breakfast.”
Bit of a crude way to put it.
“One second,” I interrupted, a question popping into my mind. “You keep separating magical beasts and monsters like they are two different things.”
“That’s because they are,” Dayvin answered. “Magical beasts have mana interfused with their bodies. Monsters are just big ole nasties with a shit attitude, nothing more than glorified animals.”
“Oh.” I thought back to my master, an elevated magical beast, and how he had once explained that he had no need for a mana core as a magical beast.
Makes sense now.
“Anyway, as I was saying-” Veronika coughed loudly, I’d come to learn she hated her lectures being interrupted. “-aside from the non-human element, my second guess would be an ambush by raiders.”
“Raiders?” I questioned, eyebrows raised.
“You’ll see them out here from time to time. As I said the other day, because adventuring parties tend to congregate toward Dunehold, it largely leaves the outer rim of the desert erring on the lawless side. That’s not to say there are raiders and the like at every twist and turn, just there is basically no one out there in the first place. As a result, you get raiders who like to entrench themselves, picking off lightly guarded caravans from time to time, just often enough that they don’t draw the attention of the likes of important government officials or those with the funds to pay for a private response force, who may take offense to their… lifestyle.”
“Why?” I couldn’t comprehend why anyone would do something so horrible.
“Why what?”
“Why do they do it?”
“Why do humans do anything bad?” Veronika sighed, shaking her head in second-hand disappointment. “Desperation, morbid curiosity, outright evil, take your pick.”
“That’s…. depressing.” I glanced down in rumination. It wasn’t that I’d lived such a sheltered life that I was unaware of such realities, but having to confront it directly made it even more real. “So, what are we supposed to do?”
“First-” Dayvin spoke up. “-we need to make it to Kar’anza and meet with her mother.”
“Why?” I questioned. “I thought the girl never made it there?”
“It might give us information that the letter didn’t explain or that she failed to mention.”
“Failed to mention. Like, just…. Forgot?”
“Something like that,” Dayvin grumbled before pointing forward. “Looks like we’ve got company incoming.”
“Who?” I squinted, looking to see if I could figure out who he was pointing at. It wasn’t until I did a second swivel with my eyes that I spotted it.
“That’s not what I’d call ‘company.’” I shuddered.
“Nope, it’s not.” Veronika chimed in merrily. “Guess we finally found out what happened to that super pack.”
Looking out just past the city bounds, I felt my face go slack in horror as descending upon the city was a sea of oversized ants, hundreds skittering toward the town.
“That’s a problem. That’s a problem!” I spun to look between both Veronika and Dayvin. “Isn’t it?”
“Oh, it is, but if something like that were enough to wipe out a city like this, it would have happened already.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just watch and see.”
I shielded my eyes from the sun, unable to blink without feeling like I was about to miss something important. With every second, the super pack came closer and closer to the city’s outskirts. I anxiously reached toward my sword, but Veronika gave a quick shake as she waved her hand down, prompting me to withdraw my hand from the interior of my new grey cloak.
Is it really okay?
Just as the oversized ants reached the wall, a wall which we were only a short jaunt from, the air above began to shimmer like oil in the sun.
“What the-?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Dayvin crack a quick grin before it vanished as quickly as it appeared.
The ants never saw it coming. One moment they were about to charge into the city; the next, they were eviscerated by the fluctuating barrier of shimmering multicolored lights.
“Oh. Oh, that is rancid.” As we neared the carnage, I began to wave my hand in front of my nose, ants still burning up when they touched the dome. “What is that?”
“Desiccation Dome.”
“Desi-what?”
“Desiccation Dome.” Tez rolled her eyes at me. “It’s a type of magic that causes whatever touches it to wither away. Every last bit of liquid evaporated.”
“How does that work?”
“I don’t know,” Tez answered with a shrug. “None of us here can use magic.”
“From what I’ve heard-” Veronika stepped up, answering where Tez couldn’t. “It’s a multilayered magic, a system of spells that powers or integrates with the next. Normally magic of this scale would be impossible, far too complex. A system of smaller spells can make up for that. Haven’t you ever wondered how a city like this, large enough to draw attention from monsters and magical beasts but too small to house a proper militia, manages to survive out here in the first place?”
“I guess I hadn’t.” I shrugged.
“Tsk.” Veronika looked annoyed as she snapped a finger. “And this is what I keep saying, it’s important to know more about the world you live in than just how best to swing a sword. Politics, geography, defensive theory, I could go on and on-”
“We’d prefer you don’t.” Zet grinned as Veronika shot him a withering look.
“Brats.” She grumbled after a moment, but not without the corners of her mouth crinkling upwards. “Before we head out,” She vaguely gestured forward, referring to leaving the city bounds. “Do we have everything we need for the trip?”
“Depends.” Tez scratched at her nose as she jostled her pack. “If we must take the full trip? I vote we eat Zet if we run out of food.”
“Hey.” Zet glowered at her in indignation, but his sister ignored him. “If the Ring Gate works, though? All good here.”
“Everyone else?” Veronika looked between the rest of us, but we all made similar comments.
It’s going to work. I’m sure of it.
Looking back at the small city one last time, we walked past the short stone wall, the glowing dome no longer visible as the last of the ants were fried.
At least, I hope so.
-----------------------------------
Stolen novel; please report.
In the three days it took us to reach the Ring Gate, I can proudly say that nothing overly exciting happened for once.
Sure, Zet managed to fall into the den of an oversized antlion at one point-
Might I mention I noticed a trend of giant insects calling the desert home that I wasn’t fond of.
-but the entire event had been harmless. Other than the surprise of the sand swallowing Zet, it was simply a matter of pulling him out, the inhabitant of the den missing for whatever reason.
Not that I minded.
Thus, three days of travel through the scorching sands passed without a hitch, far more comfortable than one would have expected for a trek through the desert.
Well, I was comfortable, at least. The clothes made by the enigmatic thread store owner made the desert heat no more uncomfortable than a day spent lounging in the sun. As for my compatriots, well… I could tell they preferred to get this trip done and over with. The lack of arguing told a story of their general discomfort.
It wasn’t until our third day of trekking through the coarse sands of the desert that we had been sliding down a rather tall dune when something changed, Veronika raising a hand as she signaled us to stop.
“Look.”
I followed the direction of her outstretched hand, cupping a hand over my eyes as I looked toward the horizon.
“What is that?”
“That’s what I was wondering,” Veronika muttered.
“You don’t know?” I looked at her in surprise.
“I don’t know everything.” I expected some sort of laugh or smile to cross her face, but she looked toward Dayvin, an unspoken conversation.
“When we get near, I want eyes up.” Veronika finally announced after seconds had ticked by. “Something strange is going on.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t tell what that is, but I can tell you what it isn’t.” Veronika looked around, keeping an eye out for any more abnormalities. “We should have been reaching the Ring Gate sometime today, and by all rights, we haven’t lost any time or our way.”
“Wait, so that’s not it?”
“No,” Veronika answered. “The Ring Gate looks exactly what it sounds like, an oversized ring. That looks like some sort of…. Building maybe? It’s hard to make out from as far as we are.”
“Shouldn’t we avoid it?” I put the question out there but was met with a universal look of disbelief.
“You do remember what our official title is, right?” Tez stared at me as if I’d hit my head too hard. “Adventurer. Ad-ven-tur-er.”
“I get it,” I grunted. “Adventurers, as in we adventure. Isn’t it a bit dangerous, though?”
“Perhaps, but-” Veronika glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “As long as we watch ourselves, we should manage, plus we have you with us.”
It was beginning to become apparent more and more that Veronika was perhaps overstating my abilities.
Or maybe I’m the one looking at it all wrong.
My entire experience with the broader world had started with the appearance of a Great Sage, then taken under the temporary tutelage of an elevated magical beast, culminating in a mad dash up a magic mountain while being pursued by nameless enforcers of the powers that be.
It was fair to say that perhaps my perspective was simply flawed. The events leading up to where I was had been so chaotic and eventful that I’d begun to expect sages, enforcers, or enigmatic magical beasts to pop out from between every nook and cranny.
And really, what are the chances of that?
“How long do you think until we reach it, then?” Shielding my eyes, I could barely make out the vague shape in the distance; otherwise, no more than a patch of discoloration near the horizon.
“Two, maybe three hours. Then, at the very least, we can hopefully get out of this gods forsaken sun.” Veronika huffed, marching forward as the group began to follow along once more.
The matter settled; there was nothing more to do as we drew closer to the mystery on the horizon.
----------------------------------
Zet whistled as we stood before the towering pillars, the five of us taking a moment to drink in the sight.
“Well, that’s something new,” Dayvin admitted as he searched the surroundings for signs of danger. “It’s like it all just…. Popped up overnight.”
“Well, you aren’t all that wrong,” Veronika answered as she stood up, sand spilling between her fingers. “In fact, it does appear to have sprung up overnight.”
“Huh?” Dayvin stared at her, surprised. “I wasn’t being serious-”
“I know you weren’t serious, Dayvin, but I was.” Veronika pointed down toward the sand. “Look.”
“What about it?”
“Look at the pattern, the movements of the sand ripples.”
I looked toward my feet, trying to understand what Veronika saw. Still, I lacked her experience as I gained no sudden insight.
“The sand isn’t uniform.” It was Tez who pointed it out, pointing in several different directions. “Normally, the sand should have a pattern created by the wind, but this, this looks like it was pushed back.”
“As if something large emerging from below displaced it.” Veronika was smiling as she looked back at the construct. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I said before frowning. “But, uh, what exactly ‘is’ it?”
“Looks to be from the reconstruction era, maybe even earlier.” Veronika was pacing, her steps leaving small indents in the soft sand. “There have been signs of similar era relics near some of the other Ring Gates, but I’ve never heard of an entire temple appearing around where one used to be, and literally overnight to boot.”
“Reconstruct- time out. What did any of that just mean?” I looked toward the twins, but they both had glazed-over eyes as she spoke.
“The reconstruction era was what we call the early historical period marking the rise of the current iteration of Haerasong. There have been four eras, technically five if you count the current. First was the Lost Era, which has most of its history lost to time if you couldn’t guess. What remains of that era has seemingly been destroyed, the erasure of their history likely an act of vengeance against them from their successors.”
I’m guessing that the Lost Era was when the Sages were around.
“After that, we have the reconstruction era, the formation of Haerasong into three regional powers. While the powers have fluctuated and varied over the years, the basic power structure has remained unchanged ever since.”
“Right, got it.” I nodded. “And so this temple thing is from around then?”
“Or even earlier, you can tell by the architecture.” Veronika pointed toward one of the nearby columns that formed a pathway toward the temple’s interior entrance. “Relics of the early reconstruction era are often marked by ring-like carvings, though the importance of those rings has never been deciphered.”
Bet I could tell you right now.
As tempting as it was, I kept my mouth shut. A fifteen-year-old guy whose story was that he came from a small village spouting off lost historical knowledge would likely do little good for my cover story.
“Anyway, these ruins have risen from beneath the sands for whatever reason.” Veronika was babbling, excitement in her voice. “If the Ring Gate is inside, it might be active.”
“Meaning we get a short trip,” I said.
“Meaning a short trip and a chance to learn some lost history. For an adventuring party of our rank and status, it’s not exactly a common occurrence for us to get the chance to delve into lost ruins that haven’t already been studied or pillaged.”
Veronika placed her hands on her hip, staring at the imposing entry into the temple-looking building. “Alright, it’s decided. We will head in and see what we can uncover.”
The twins sighed as if they expected it before Dayvin gave me a reassuring nod.
“She gets like this.” He watched as Veronika quickly approached the temple entrance, gesturing us forward. “Finds an opportunity to discover something, and she shifts gears entirely. It can be a bit of whiplash, but it makes Veronika, Veronika. And besides, she has never led us astray.”
I nodded, at least thankful for the vouching word by her longest-running traveling partner.
“Now, c’mon, before she leaves us behind.” Dayvin thumped me again as we caught up to Veronika, who led us inside.
“Whoa.”
The inside was…. Well, not what I had expected. It was like an inverted pyramid, the entrance descending a long set of stairs toward a single flat marble slab. Most striking was that at the very bottom, a giant ring was positioned directly next to three steps atop the slab at the bottom of the inverted pyramid.
“Um, I take it that’s the ring gate?”
“You’d be correct,” Veronika said excitedly.
“So, I’m just going to go out and ask the question that I’m hoping others are thinking.” I stared at the Ring Gate, feeling myself resisting a sort of gravity drawing me toward it. “If the Ring Gate used to be outside in the desert, how did it end up inside a temple which apparently rose overnight?”
“That is one of the questions we are looking to answer,” Veronika answered.
She sounds too excited about this.
We slowly descended the ancient-looking steps toward the looming ring gate. With each step, gravity pulled me forward, growing stronger until it took everything I had to resist the pull of the Gate.
“You guys feel that?” I could feel my legs beginning to shake from the effort of resisting.
“Feel what?”
“Like you’re being pulled toward the gate.”
“No. You feel like you’re being pulled?” Dayvin was eyeing me cautiously as if gauging whether I was about to explode.
“Yes, or sort of? It’s hard to explain, I can feel it, but I don’t think it’s really happening.”
“Interesting.” Veronika watched me as if excited that I was feeling something abnormal. “Any other effects?”
“Not really?” I poked my arm just in case, but nothing special happened.
“Well, if that’s the case- does anyone hear that?” Veronika froze, something alarming her.
“What is that?” After being unable to determine the source of the mysterious noise, I looked for the answer from the others.
“Something like….is that water?” Zet said, speaking up.
I leaned in, trying my best to listen to the sound. After several moments of relative silence, I heard a small river coursing past.
Except, I’d grown up next to a river.
And that wasn’t a river.
“I don’t think so,” I answered Zet’s question as the others looked at me. “It sounds too coarse.”
“Sand,” Tez said after a moment.
“Yeah, it sounds sort of like rustling sand.” I snapped my fingers, her words spot on to the thought I hadn’t been able to speak life to.
“No. I mean, look. Sand.”
Pointing toward the entrance we had entered from, our heads turned in unison to witness what she meant.
Sand. Pouring in slowly, at least for now, the sand rushed in, but with each passing second, more and more began to spill down the steps until a river of sand was coursing forward.
“Uhh, that’s not supposed to be happening, right?” Panic began to fill me as I stared at my compatriots.
“What do you think?” Dayvin grumbled. “Alright, change of plans. To the Gate, we aren’t going to manage to get back up those stairs like this.”
Rushing the Gate, we clambered onto the marble dais, hoping to see a sign of activity from the empty Gate frame.
Nothing.
“Alright, Rook, you’re up.”
“I am?”
“You’re the one who said the Gate would work, so show us why you were so confident.” Veronika looked between me and the rushing sand as she spoke before giving me a fake smile. “No pressure.”
Yeah, as if that has ever made anyone feel any better.
I made my way toward the Gate, hoping it would react to my presence and begin doing whatever it did.
Except nothing happened.
Not a great start.
I peered at the Gate, and much like it had been described, it was covered in two sets of carved bands, five on one side of the archway and five on the other.
How would a Sage make this work?
“Hey, Veronika may have said no pressure, but now might be the time for some pressure.” Zet was nervously looking between me and the entry.
“Why?”
I made the mistake of looking back over my shoulder, only for the pit of my stomach to drop.
Oh, oh, this is so not good.
The sand was coursing in even faster, as if it were pressurized. We were at the very bottom of the interior of the inverted temple pyramid. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that if we stayed for much longer, it would be our tomb; the sand already spilling around our ankles.
Okay, Rook. No pressure, except, yes, stress because we’re all going to die.
That would be one way to go out. The ‘reincarnated’ Sage, dead to a bunch of sand.
I’d rather not.
I felt along the arching Gate’s smooth stone, but I couldn’t find a switch or a button that would magically activate it. The Gate was nothing more than a fancy-looking circular stone in its current state.
Think Rook. If the Gates were that simple to activate, they would have figured them out long ago.
What did the Sages have that those of the modern era didn’t?
Sage rings, obviously.
Which was a potential issue as I had yet to create my foundation ring.
There must be another way. Something I can do or have that might-
“Oh. Oh, duh.”
“What is it?” Veronika questioned, a hint of panic in her voice, but I ignored her.
While I may not have a completed Sage ring, I did have something created from the power of a Sage.
Myself.
I really hope this works.
Closing my eyes, I let my sense of the world wash away as I focused on the mana within my surroundings. Earthen, thermal, the usual.
There!
There was distinct mana within the Gate, the Gate connected to some unimaginably old mana source below, like a river of magical energy.
Is this what they call a leyline?
I’d heard it mentioned here and there from my mother, natural repositories for mana that would travel deep beneath the earth, which could be tapped into.
And apparently, the Sages who had likely built this Gate had done precisely that.
Alright, well, if that’s the case….
“Rook, hurry!”
I didn’t bother opening my eyes; distracting myself would only worsen the situation. I reached within myself, to my own pathetic embers of mana smoldering within. Because of my body, I would never unlock the full potential of those embers, never see them develop into something great of their own.
But they didn’t need to be.
Imagining it within my mind, I took one of those embers, gently blowing on it until it fluttered out from me and into the Gate, where it sank in without a sign.
Please, please work.
“Rook!”
I finally opened an eye, just in time for a wave of sand to crash into me.
“The Gate!”
All around us, sand was crashing forward in one endless wave. We’d be buried within seconds, but the empty stone frame of the Gate was no longer empty. A black vortex swirled within the circular stone arches, red lighting firing sporadically from within the darkness.
Hey, that looks like-
But my mind never got to finish the thought. One moment I was staring at the Gate; the next, I was being tossed in as Dayvin scooped us all up as if we weighed nothing more than children and leaped into the darkness.
If this is what I think it is-
I was suddenly falling, my arms flailing reflexively as I plummeted through a vortex so dark it would have shaken me to my core had I not experienced the same situation only days before.
Knowing what to expect, I sighed tiredly, crossing my arms.
This will take a while, so I may as well make myself comfortable.