The spiders silk extraction was a clean affair, with everyone pitching in using hunting knifes to slice the lower part of the spiders abdomen in order to reach in and grab the silk pouch. It was once I had collected all spider silk pouches from around myself that I had to try and stand up, although I had blood on my knees once I stood up and fell into the green fluids and chunky bits that were floating around that I got truly messy. Smelling the fluids as they were in my noise was a horrible experience, however I eventually was able to stand on my feet without the feeling of them falling of or my muscles spasming, which hurt a lot and forced me to the ground as well.
The party had done most of the work while I was trying not to swallow spider intestines that smelled like rotting meat. I have eaten raw meat in the past as a lizard, however this was something else and I will not be advocating to take some of the corpses to the hobgoblin village on our way out.
Walking down the corridors was not the same as in the past, whatever traps were lurking round the corners and old rooms with beds or shelves could not compare to the spiders, with the tension feeling as though it was pushing down on top of me and making my legs hard to control, that could also have been the fact that they were partially eaten according to Sofia. It is was a bit of a maze at first with all the corridors and rooms having high ceilings with few dead ends as most corridors would curve back to the main complex.
Eventually Colbert was able to find a room with writing above it that was different from the rest, stepping down the simple flight of stairs was odd when compared to the grandiose nature of the previous floor. The room was smaller than the rest with a shorter ceiling, this was also followed by normal steps rather steps made for giants, however this did not diminish from the fact that it was pitch dark at the bottom of the stairs as the party descended.
Once at the end of the stairs we were left in a large and open room, no pillar or pottery placed in the rooms corners with most of the ceiling enchantments becoming a flowing line that travelled to the door directly in front of the steps. Walking forward with torches to light our path felt like walking under an aurora in the North Pole. Intricate carvings glowed soft colours with runes away from the flowing centre glowing a dimmer white to symbolise the night sky, the hole party felt awe and I did truly try to partake in similar feelings as in my previous life I had never seen the night sky while living in a city. However the night sky evoked other feelings within me, greed, I wanted it all for myself. Watching the party, and especially Colbert with his slaves look upon the wonders of the ancient Draconic empire while blabbering again about the significance of craftmanship and artwork did little to raise pride, and if anything it created anger inside of myself.
Heat burned within my chest as I looked to where the aurora lead and saw a double door that reached the eternally dark ceiling, if I had to assume then the ceiling here was higher than anywhere else at 13 metres (43 foot), and it felt like it all belonged to me. Pupils dilating into even more narrow slits I felt that what lay behind those double doors was mine and not for any lesser being’s entertainment.
‘How dare Colbert try to gaze upon the wonders inside this temple, how dare these lesser creatures that have enslaved me as their pet try to enter my holy grounds. My secrets shall be kept, when they are at the door I shall strike, and by killing them I would also prove my worthiness to the old gods of seeing the secrets for the most devout!’
“I AM WORTHY!”
‘Who dares say that, only I am worthy, nobody else. I will kill all who dare to claim such heresy!’
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Marie felt the rooms calming presence reassure her that everything was fine. Since the party arrived at this room after a long and narrow staircase the room had appeared out of nowhere in the dark fog and the rooms beauty had warranted the dangerous expedition a weeks way into Deep Wood.
Marie: “This reminds me of the day when the village was visited by a true dragon. That night the stars had parted before a deluge of colour as a magical pathway opened in the sky and a beast the length of our village arrived.”
Colbert: “How fascinating, I have met with the forest dragons in these woods and they were scary but a far cry from the legends of old. Pardon me, do continue with your story.”
Sofia and Allelu walked closer to Marie in the middle of the formation while Zutal continued forward in the expanded room.
Marie: “The dragon was more serpentine in appearance and had two sets of wings, blue feathers on the wings and upper torso, the creature exuded magic out of every crack between its scales. The magical pathway was just a call sign that the dragon used to alert the village elders of its arrival, for you see they used to serve under the beast in the past as scouts for their military campaigns.”
Colbert: “Yes history is fascinating, but keep the focus on the dragon or the magical pathways.”
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Marie frowned slightly as she looked forward and saw Zutal staring up at the pathway while walking towards the door, however from this angle she could not see his face.
Marie: “Fine I guess, the magical pathway had little magic in it but the magic that was in it was of the storm variety. The true dragon could control the weather, ‘make the sun shine or cloud the sky to make hurricanes,’ or so I was told by the elders in an attempt to play off the dragons ego when it visited.”
Colbert: “Would it be possible to visit these wood elven elders?”
Allelu: “Colbert! Mind you own manners, did father teach you nothing in interruption skills.”
Marie looks down at the ground with a blank expression.
Colbert: “Sorry, I just get excited to my academical studies relating to old history and the best way to learn is from the source.”
Marie: “It is fine Allelu, but unfortunately you can not meet them, the village was destroyed a century ago, by the Desert Cohorts.”
Colbert: “Surely not by those dehydrated worms. It would have sparked outrage in the Sentient Assemblages courts back in Plains Capital.”
Allelu: “The courts have bigger issues with the Claret Confederacy to deal with than Desert Cohort lords raiding countries they share a border with. A bounty put up on a couple disposable bandit groups, sent all the way from Plains Capital to flex power is all that can be done.”
Marie: “Even now the Claret Confederacy sends large numbers of infiltrators into our nation and we can not even find from where they are sending them, I hate being powerless. My vengeance will never be fulfilled unless I wish to die, but you see I am nought but a coward.”
Allelu: “Don’t say that party leader. If it weren’t for you then we would not be together right now, and who know if some of us might not even be alive right…”
Zutal: “I AM WORTHY!”
The lizard turns with a manic look in his green eyes, the slits turned into black lines rather than their previous oval shape. With a burst of speed there is a grey blur as a wild melee specialist turns his claws on the party.
Allelu however wastes no time in ramming the pommel of her sword against Zutals right bicep, and with a loud shriek and a backflip away Zutal is on all fours with his tail curled around and ready to whip.
Colbert stands back and allows the hired party to deal with their clearly confused team member.
Sofia: “I command you to stop idiot!”
The command has no impact as Allelu steps forward to deal with Zutal who upon closer inspection appears deranged. His face is turned into a snarl and eyes are scanning the entire ground in front of him with rapid eye movements, over and over again he scans everyone to understand them and any movements that they make.
Sofia sees that her words do nothing and steps behind Allelu to pat her shoulder, the knight steps forward.
With a cracking noise a tail flies though the air and smashes into Allelu, making her take a step back from the chest hit that knocks air from her lungs.
Zutal: “The secrets belong to me! You shall not see them! ME! Me!”
While the lizard shouts and repeats his insane ramblings in different tones and speeds of speech Maire breaks off an arrow head and nocks it in her bow. Once the ramblings end she fires it at Zutals head, with a resounding thud the head of the target reels back as he stands on his legs while a hand goes to the head.
Allelu taking advantage steps forward and while holding her sword by the blade sweeps at Zutals feet, knocking him on his ass. Sofia is quickly behind Zutal and wraps herself behind him with arms in a chokehold. To prevent Sofia from being clawed Allelu grabs both of Zutals hands and struggles against him while he is on his back with legs flailing and hitting Allelus armour to little effect other than scratches.
Marie steps next to Allelu and assists in holding both of Zutals hands while Sofia chokes him out, once fully out Colbert approaches with both of his Slaves.
Colbert: “Well that was out of character for him, I am not one to read the mood in the room however I assume he doesn’t always try to kill you.”
Allelu: “Shut up and do your job, you know damn well that a familiar disobeying a contract is unheard of.”
Colbert: “Well it is only hypothetical, supposedly strong enough monsters do not have to obey contracts but I assume that a foreign spell was impacting his reasoning since I doubt that Zutal is secretly at a true dragon power level.”
After some scans with magical scrolls probing Zutals mind and a few bit of touching resulting in the party having mixed feelings, worry for the danger seeking Colbert examining an oddity and fear for a member of the party, the verdict comes not too long after the inspection began.
Colbert: “I work quickly but this should have probably been more obvious from the start. Magical enchantments on the ceiling are not just there to light the way to rooms or be activation triggers for the temple. I found it strange that we encountered little in the way of accidentally activating traps on the way here. No, spider swarm does not count.”
Sofia: “Enough observations, what is wrong with my familiar.”
Marie: “Patients Sofia, you are only prolonging this since we will need an in depth explanation of this issue any way.”
Colbert: “I know not for certain, however I have a lot of speculations. For one I believe that the enchantments in this room weaken control magics, whatever is behind this door should not be accessible by mind controlling one of the temple priests and this might be a way to prevent that. As for my second reasoning I believe that your familiar might be of a draconic bloodline, unless elves have access to this temples inner sanctum’s, it would suggest that we were considered as the guides guest’s and therefore did not trigger any trap’s so far.”
Sofia: “Well that is not that far of a stretch, but why did he get so violent at us?”
Colbert: “It would seem that while he is civil the familiar contract still forces him to repress his inner most desires, and building those up over time created issues and with the temples desires pressing on him he lashed out against his captors. This is not too crazy as part of the amazing enchantment work in these sort of ancient construction projects is said to be semi sentient, an Artificial Intelligence or AI for short.”
Marie: “Okay but is there to stop this?”
Colbert: “Unfortunately we can not just mess with the enchantments without accidentally activating all the traps here, or worse a self destruction feature. However if we wake him up slowly and Sofia consciously tries to reduce her own control over Zutal he might just wake up with his desires rather than the additional will of the temple. Only a hypothesis, so we should tie him up before hand.”