“Wow Ghary,” Lou said inside the small squarish room. “This place is quite something. Look at all of this energy flowing through every surface. I think I may even feel some of it.”
Kiran hopped down from the opening in the wall sensing the energy sort of enveloping him. It was faint but he could immediately sense its presence as he stood there beside everyone else.
The kind of energy flowing through the deeply carved lines were beams of green light flowing through practically every surface above, below, and to the sides.
As the five of them left the small room they had entered from to then enter into a giant tall hall, that same energy flowed through the hallway similarly. The walls were completely smooth and had a greenish tone due to all of the light coming off of the green energy flowing through them.
“Remain observant and cautious as we proceed,” Noreko stated as a reminder that they didn’t fully know what to expect from within this place.
Frederek smacked a balled-up fist into his other hand. “Don’t worry. If we run into any trouble, I’ll pummel them with these bare hands of mine.”
“You say that now,” a strange symbol appeared over Noreko’s eyes as he talked and cast some kind of spell between his normal speech, “but you never know what we may run into. I suggest being prepared to run away if necessary.”
“Running away isn’t my kind of thing.”
“Is dying then? Sometimes it’s necessary unless, of course, you’d rather be dead.” The sorcerer sighed walking up ahead. “We need not argue over this matter. Let us just try to find the central part of this place so that we can get out of here and make a full assessment of the situation.”
They headed down the tall hallway heading in a direction Kiran wasn’t so certain about. Frederek was the one with the compass so he figured he’d let him figure out the direction. The hallway itself was long enough, that he couldn’t fully tell how far it would go. It made him wonder if these chambers in between the depths, and the topside part of Liall went far beyond the city walls.
Kiran quickly noticed that the direction they headed towards was the direction that the green energy flowed on all the surfaces. He just hoped that whatever direction they chose, it would lead them to the right place.
The hallway went on for quite a while. Smaller rooms existed with practically nothing inside them. They were left bare making him wonder what the point of all of those rooms served.
For a while, everyone stayed silent. The only sounds he or anyone else could hear was the faint sound coming off of the flowing energy and the sounds produced from their feet.
He eyed Noreko still seeing the arcane symbols glowing over their eyes. “Say, what’s with your eyes?”
“The symbols represent the spell I have cast over myself. It is a sight-enhancement-based spell that will allow me to see possible traps or hidden mechanisms. In a place like this, we would be foolish to not utilize it.”
“Have you seen anything with those enhanced eyes of yours?” Frederek asked as he walked ahead of the other four of them.
“Nothing of import.”
While he figured the hallway might possibly go on forever, there was a bit of a change up ahead. They began to near an intersecting place where a route headed to their right and the hallway kept going on practically endlessly in the same direction they had been walking.
The energy flowed more towards the right hallway that appeared so rather than continue in the same direction, they turned right and walked down the path with the flowing energy.
They needed to be careful about remembering every turn they took. It would be easy to get lost considering how similar everything looked. Whoever had created these hallways and chambers put zero thought into differentiating them from one another.
More intersecting paths appeared to the point that they had three routes they could take. For now, at least they always took a path that had energy flowing in a particular direction that they desired. It was a possible indicator of which direction they needed to go. He wasn’t entirely sure whether it was worth following though. For all he knew it had nothing to do with leading them in the right direction. It appeared that Frederek and Noreko thought that it would lead them to the main chamber they so desired.
After spending half an hour or more through endless hallways, a closed wall appeared up ahead. Energy flowed in this direction making him think that they had little other choice than to find a way through it.
Noreko went up towards the wall blocking them from going any further in this direction. As his hands grazed the closed wall surface, a purple ripple ran along the wall similarly to the other wards he had run across in his new life so far.
“Can you break through it?” Frederek said.
Noreko pressed his palm against the ward causing more ripples to form. “This is certainly no ward we would want to break. This is not just a ward to strengthen this wall as far as I can tell. Rather than break it, I shall gain power over it.”
While Noreko dealt with the ward, Kiran looked in the opposite direction. He knew that once they were done in here, they’d have to travel through the rather boring halls all over again. I’ve already had enough of this place. It’s quite drab and boring surprisingly the more I see of it.
A strange sound erupted. He turned back around to spot the purple ward running along the wall blocking their path changing colors. It appeared more in a golden shade and the wall began to move upward slowly.
“Good job,” Frederek said walking by the sorcerer. “Let us continue!”
The hallway went on for quite a while longer until eventually, a much larger circular chamber appeared. Compared to any other place they had run across, this was the largest chamber yet and there was little doubt in his mind, that this was where they needed to be.
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Many other hallways leading to this chamber existed. Lines of green energy running through every hall ran towards the center of this massive chamber that had a moderately tall ceiling with columns holding it up throughout this main chamber. The surface of the ceiling was also quite different from the surfaces of the hallways he had been traveling through so far. Faint green geometrical lines and circles ran across all of its surfaces overlapping each other and interconnecting at certain points.
“We have made it to the main chamber. And believe it or not, we are directly below the central pillar,” Noreko said.
Kiran had seen the central pillar from afar on the surface. He hadn’t ever gone up to see it in person so he never really got to see how large it truly was by standing nearby it on the surface. By standing beneath it, he became aware of how truly giant the pillar was not just in height but also its radius if the size of this chamber was an indicator as to that specific quality it possessed.
This chamber and pillar held immense power from what he could tell. Truly unfathomable power existed here. That energy that he could feel surrounding himself outside of here didn’t feel so faint anymore. In fact, the closer they got to a strangely shaped altar at the direct center of this chamber, the more he felt this powerful presence envelop around him.
If they were to indeed power the pillar themselves, he truly hoped that they knew what they were doing. At least for today, they weren’t intending on gaining access to the pillar itself. They were merely here to ensure access to the pillar for the future and to make sure they had the right tools to ensure their own control when the time came.
As they walked further towards the center of the wide chamber, he could see a faint green aura rising towards the flat ceiling above the altar.
They all stopped several meters away from the altar. Noreko put a hand to their chin observing it.
Frederek crossed their big bulky arms. “Is this what you expected to find?”
“Yes. Yorais’s documents she uncovered specified this exact altar. And if we are to in fact be able to power the pillar ourselves, we will need to use this altar to achieve that. As you can see, there is a heavy lid there keeping what ought to be multiple crystals encased within. However, while none of you likely can see it, my enhanced vision has revealed that there is a multi-tiered ward surrounding the outside of the altar.”
“Will you be able to break or gain power over them?”
“Yes, but I will need to research these particular wards to give me better odds against them. These wards are much more advanced than the one I broke earlier gaining us entry into this chamber. We need not worry about breaking them now and I suspect that if I were to tamper with it, we may certainly alert her majesty of our presence.”
If their plans against the queen succeeded, that functionality would not matter. For now however, they had to avoid alerting her, otherwise their plans would become much harder. If the queen knew they had uncovered this place, she could easily send an army down here ensuring they never gain control.
“I believe,” Noreko said, “that we have done all that we can for now. We ought to leave the exact way we came and hide the fact that we were ever here.”
On their way out, Noreko caused the wall that he had opened earlier to close and put up the same ward that he had broken allowing for the golden ward to return to looking purple. He didn’t think that anyone would stumble upon them being here, but they couldn’t take any chances. It was better to have everything appear as it was before they had merely wandered in.
When they reached the mined-out opening, Noreko put up an illusory wall to hide the opening from anyone who might wander through—although that was unlikely from what they knew. They had also gone ahead and picked up any debris to make it less obvious that it had been broken into by pulling it all into the mined-out shaft.
Kiran felt some relief knowing that they had managed to find the chamber that lay directly beneath the central pillar. The energy flowing towards a particular direction on every surface thankfully made finding that chamber a bit easy. Had it not been for that, finding it would’ve been a real problem. Such a scenario would possibly require dozens of groups to be formed and wander through these many halls with the hopes of eventually finding it. Thankfully, they didn’t have to resort to that tactic.
After a long trek back through the mined-out cave, they eventually returned to Frederek’s estate in the underground city. Noreko began to shake Frederek’s hand which was quite a bit larger than the sorcerer’s own.
“Give my regards to Lou and Ghary. They and whoever else worked towards successfully mining out a safe passage to those chambers have done the coalition a great service.”
“They’ll appreciate it,” Frederek said with a stern nod, “especially with it coming from you.”
“Oh, who am I to deserve such respect? I am just another sorcerer.”
“Don’t downplay yourself. You’re one of the most powerful sorcerers in Liall, aren’t you?”
“Am I?” Noreko said with a slight click of his tongue. “Some would say that’s the case. But who am I to suggest as such? I’ll let others make that decision themselves.” He looked over to Kiran briefly gesturing towards the gate. “Shall we head to the surface together?”
Kiran nodded his head.
“Farewell Frederek. Once the queen has been dealt away with, we will return to that place and resume our task of gaining a link to the central pillar. In the meantime, I will work towards becoming more familiar with those particular wards which are admittedly a bit more strong than I am used to dealing with. However, it shouldn’t require but a little bit of research to ensure I can properly break them.”
“I look forward to it.”
Rather than going to the surface alone, Noreko and Kiran decided to leave together. He apparently knew a better route to the lift than the route he had taken a day ago when coming down here to meet with them.
“Did you feel that energy when we were down there?” Kiran asked. Kiran remembered how energy swelled into his body whilst in those chambers, especially in the main one with the altar. That feeling sort of reminded him of how his past self had felt when he grasped onto an arcane root his uncle had possession of.
“I did,” Noreko replied. “It felt quite swell. For us who are particularly attuned towards dabbling in the arcane arts, it is quite the intoxicating experience truthfully speaking.”
“Why is that exactly?
They began to walk over a bridge finding this town almost entirely unoccupied. “Places or objects that have tons of magical energy flowing into them often have an effect of causing those within their presence to absorb that same energy. We have to be careful to not be overexposed to such things since our bodies cannot handle too much unnatural absorption. It is quite rare however to encounter such a phenomenon. I must admit however that the effect is quite nice although admittedly addictive.” That sounds rather dangerous then, especially with the way he said that. Perhaps that’s why my uncle appeared so certain that they should destroy the arcane roots.
His sight of the underground city disappeared as they eventually reached the lift which returned them to the surface. Up above, a completely pitch-black sky welcomed them to the above-ground area lit by aura-infused street lights.
The darkness on the surface didn’t feel all that different in some ways compared to the underground. If the moon or stars still existed up in the sky at night, he supposed it wouldn’t feel quite so similar but their absence certainly made it appear somewhat similar to him at least. Although the wind and fresher air in general made enough of a difference that he much preferred it up here. And at least he could always look forward to the sun show itself every day.
In time he would return to the underground, but for now, he could enjoy the surface in the meantime preparing himself to finally confront the queen in the coming days which weren’t all that far from now.