Friedrich looked up at the hole he had dropped from. It was filtering light into the temple, lighting up the rough walls that were no different from a typical cliff face. The sand beneath his feet was concealing the stone tiles used to pave the way, but there was not so much as a torch bracket up ahead.

“How dark do you think it will get?” he asked Marina and Teleri.

“That doesn’t matter, does it?” said Marina, holding up her staff. “Not with my little friend, Shockwave, here to light up the path.”

Her staff began glowing and she twirled it around, summoning her lightning elemental into the temple. The magical creature appeared in an electrifying flash, fizzing and crackling as it hovered in place, gathering dust and sand to stabilise its form. Marina was right, light would not be a problem with the elemental here.

“Perfect,” said Friedrich, drawing his sword. “I don’t need to be a fox.”

Friedrich led the way down the tunnel, holding his shield tightly. He kept a careful eye on the way ahead while Teleri watched the ground for any pressure plates or tripwires that were just waiting to be triggered. If the Temple of Valskythe was as dangerous as Suljah had led them to believe, then there could be no chances taken.

As they proceeded deeper in, the floor began to slope downwards and the walls grew evermore jagged, requiring columns to keep them supported. Friedrich had an ominous feeling as the group entered a large chamber where a closed door lay at the far side. The chamber itself was empty save for the floor tiles, which were patterned with various symbols.

Friedrich held up a hand so that neither Marina nor Teleri would step onto the tiles. He examined the nearest symbol and could see that it was the outline of a spider with various joints and points around its body embedded with a light blue stone.

“What could this be?” Friedrich asked.

“It is a constellation,” said Teleri. “The spider is an arrangement of the stars in the sky that many diviners and astrologers use to read the waves of fate.”

“Does it work?”

“I could not say, but I have not spoken to many who read the stars.”

“And what does it mean in the context of this room?” asked Marina, swaying back and forth on her toes.

“I do not know, but if you look to the other tiles,” said Teleri, pointing to them one by one. “You can see a cow, a lion, a maiden, a serpent, and so on. There are many of these symbols.”

Friedrich told the girls to stand back and tapped a foot on the tile beside the spider. There was no reaction. He tapped his foot on another blank tile adjacent to the one he had just tapped. Still no reaction. He stepped onto it and nothing happened, giving him a sense of relief, yet he dared not touch the tiles bearing the constellations.

“We’ll be alright,” he said, gesturing for Marina and Teleri to join him.

He walked over to the far side of the room, placing his feet carefully on blank tiles, and examined the stone door. He ran his hand across it and could feel small bumps, but it was too dark to see what they were. When Teleri drew close, she strained her eyes to make out what it was that Friedrich was feeling.

“Symbols of various constellations on the door, but without the outlines,” she said, but cocked her head in confusion. “Surely, it would not be so simple as that?”

Friedrich didn’t know what to say and Marina threw her hands up before rolling her eyes. “We’re going to get ourselves killed down here,” she groaned. “If I were a better mage, I could force that door open with a spell.”

“Can you feel what the symbols are?” asked Friedrich.

Teleri ran her hand over each of the symbols, trying to decipher them. She muttered quietly to herself the entire time and Friedrich kept quiet so as not to disturb her while Marina kept an eye on the door into the room, fearing that something would sneak up on them.

After a couple of minutes, Teleri stood up and spoke. “I cannot be certain, but I believe the symbols we want are the serpent, the sun and the arrow.”

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“Should we take one each?” asked Friedrich.

“I would suggest touching them in order. Perhaps it is like the runes of the Northmen. The correct order will activate the magic needed to open the door.”

The three searched the room for the constellations they sought. Friedrich took the serpent, Marina the sun and Teleri the arrow. When they had all agreed that they were ready, Friedrich touched the serpent symbol with his hand. The blue gems within began glowing brightly and there did not appear to be any adverse effects. Next, Marina pressed upon the sun and it too lit up. Finally, Teleri touched her symbol, the arrow, and it lit up.

Upon all of the tiles glowing in unison, the door began rumbling and started to move upwards. The stone ground against the stone as it retracted, leaving an opening in the wall, where daylight flooded in from. This could not possibly have led them back outside, could it? There was nowhere else they could have gone along the way.

Friedrich walked through the opening with Marina and Teleri following him, but it certainly did not lead back outside. It led into a large cavern with hundreds of small holes in the roof that rained light upon the room. This cavern was much deeper down than where Friedrich had dropped into. The ceiling must have been twice as tall and he was very glad he hadn’t found these and tried dropping down this far. At the walls of the cavern were many mounds of sand that had piled up over time, no doubt having been blown through the holes in the ceiling over decades.

Inside the cavern were two large columns, reaching thirty feet into the air and ending in a sharp point. The columns were of a dusty sandstone and patterned in wavy lines that spiralled around the columns all the way to the top, except for the bottom, where there were faint images carved into them. Between the twenty-foot gap separating the pillars was a small platform, upon which all three of them could have stood with room to spare. Before the platform was a large stone tablet with an inscription.

Marina walked over to the columns, followed by Shockwave. She crouched low to look at the images lining the bottom while Friedrich and Teleri approached the tablet. Friedrich read it aloud as Marina let out a small gasp.

“Between the pillars, tall and strong,

Lays the sleeping giant, fierce and long,

Conjure the serpent, if you believe,

That you are worthy to receive,

The Orb of Valksythe, locked away,

Never destined to see the day.”

“At least this is less obscure than Elketh’s riddles,” said Teleri.

“Is it?” asked Friedrich. “How do we summon this serpent? Are we supposed to fight it? The wording is simpler, but it doesn’t make things very clear.”

“I can help,” said Marina brightly, standing up with a big smile on her face.

“Do tell,” said Friedrich, scratching his chin.

“The secret is the symbols from the previous room,” she said confidently. “They’re repeated here, but only the ones we used from before. I believe that if you shoot an arrow between the pillars, the serpent will be summoned.”

“And why are you so confident of that?” asked Teleri.

“Come and see,” said Marina, leading the two around the edge of the leftmost column.

Lying on the stone floor was a skeleton, beside whom lay a bow and a couple of worn arrows. Marina crouched beside him and pointed.

“See?” she asked.

“If I died here, I would be in the same position as this poor fellow,” said Teleri. “That does not give you theory any credence.”

“But this does,” says Marina, pivoting and looking at the column. Someone had etched something into the stone. “Shoot arrow between pillars during the daylight,” Marina read.

“It looks like this guy figured it out for us,” chuckled Friedrich. “And we were told this would be difficult.”

“Why would you say that?” gasped Marina.

“What?”

“Now something is going to go wrong.”

“Like what?”

Teleri slapped Friedrich on the back of the head. “This serpent could eat us. Is that wrong enough for you?”

“We’ll handle it, like we always do,” scoffed Friedrich.

“How many times do I need to warn you about this?” Teleri asked him. “One day, you will get us into a situation too treacherous for us to handle. Perhaps it will simply be an unlucky day for us, perhaps we will be ill-prepared. Whatever the case may be, you should not be so flippant about danger.”

Friedrich picked up the dead man’s bow and arrows. “Alright, I’ll shoot if you’re too scared,” he teased.

“You will put an eye out,” said Teleri, snatching the bow from him and throwing it away. “This low-quality bow might even snap before you get that far. I will take the shot.”

Marina prodded the skeleton with her staff and let out yet another gasp. “Um…” she said.

“What?” asked Friedrich and Teleri in unison.

“He’s been…snapped in half,” said Marina, grabbing the skeleton’s leg and pulling his lower half away.

“Better snapped than eaten,” said Friedrich.

“Is it, Friedrich?” Marina asked, shaking her head. “Is it really? The result is the same either way.”

“I’m trying to be optimistic!”

“Stop being optimistic and prepare yourself for whatever happens next,” said Teleri, walking towards the door.

She stood with her bow in hand and an arrow at the ready. She aimed carefully between the pillars, holding her breath to keep herself perfectly still. The only sound in the room was the crackling of the lightning elemental. Teleri released the bowstring and the arrow flew straight between the pillars, clunking against the far wall of the cavern. For a second, it seemed as though nothing happened, but then the podium between the pillars faded away, disappearing into nothingness.

“Should we go inside?” asked Friedrich, but his question was answered resoundingly by a cavern-shaking hiss escaping from the hole.