Not only Kuja, but James as well looked at her with a disappointed frown. The latter said, “You have the worst ideas of all time, you know that, Captain?”
“I have to agree with James this time,” Kuja added, “We’ll only rile the spirits.”
Her mages had huddled up together and held their weapons at the ready, facing outward in a circle and shivering in their boots. “Pure mana shouldn’t hurt them, but they will avoid it as the very foundation of a revenant is the element of which they’re comprised. I believe the beasts we seek will reject all elemental mana but dark, however, they should be eager to guzzle up pure mana to their aura’s content. It’s exceedingly rare for creatures of the corporeal realm to dislike aether.”
“No matter how smart you make it sound,” Jimbo said abruptly, “It still sounds like a pretty dumb plan. We’re sitting between goblins and a mysterious beast army right now. You know I’d be the first to agree to your stupid ideas, but I think there’s a saying about pissin’ on a hornet’s nest.”
“I don’t think the goblins will trouble us again today, and I don’t have it in me to run through another horde.” My poor legs would give out. “Until we can identify them and make preparations, it would be exceedingly stupid to venture far from the stairs.”
“I agree with My Lady Saint,” Her defender nodded joyously, “Let’s bring them to us.”
“Indeed!” “I stand with the Saint!” “By her will!” They all agreed apparently.
These guys are getting out of control.
“Dammit,” Jimbo cursed, “Now it sounds smart to me. I’m tired of runnin’ too.”
“On second thought…” With a nervous glance, Kuja agreed, “I’m too old to keep running. If it’s only gotten worse down here like the goblins, we’d never make it out.”
She still didn’t like the idea, but Cira smoothed it over. The rest of her mages could go either way and just didn’t really like the idea of being in the depths of Archaeum in general. It was dark and scary—mortally dangerous. There was nothing for them here, well, except helping their captain. That’s what kept them there at least.
“Let’s just get it over with.” Tawny abruptly cut into the conversation, “I don’t like you, but somehow I believe it when you say we’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much the Dreadheart experience.” One of her closest confidants chimed in.
“Wow. Harsh, James.” She glared at him, taking mild offense, “I thought we had become friends. I might just have to ship you off to Green Pit.”
“Please do!” He threw his hands up in frustration.
“Mages!” Cira shouted, startling her nearby pirate pals, “It will be a couple minutes, but get ready to channel mana on my word. Now, let’s see… Tawny.”
“Huh?!” She winced when Cira called her name, “What is it?”
“Let me borrow your hand.” Cira pulled her artificing needle from somewhere in her robes and handed it to the baffled girl. She gasped and instantly threw her other hand out to help hold it up.
“What is this?! Orichalcum?” She almost looked offended as she did double takes between it and Cira, “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“As I said, I need to borrow your hand.” Cira did as much and dragged her a few paces forward. The girl was too deep in shock to do anything about it.
“What are you doing?” She tried to pull away, but Cira’s grip was surprisingly solid.
“You are going to engrave a basic mana trap into the ground. This will serve as a beacon to lure the hidden beasts.” Her crew and even Kuja looked uncertain, but everyone was committed at this point. Tawny reluctantly knelt down and Cira drew glyphs into the bare stone using a proxy arm and aura. “Pay attention. You will need to know some of these glyphs when it comes time to grow a mana crystal.”
“A what…?” She had no idea what Cira was talking about, but she still watched the glyphs with interest, “How much mana is this going to take? Seems like a lot.”
“We’re almost done.” Cira had the primary circles drawn and placed the last runes within them before the whole thing lit up a pure white. It was large enough to sit inside, though she wouldn’t recommend it. “Here.”
Cira handed Tawny another elixir then passed out a round for all her mages before instructing them on what to do, “You can all see this circle, right? This is an enchantment that only allows mana in one way, and it only accepts it in pure form. All you have to do is start dumping your auras in. Any Questions?”
“Yeah, I have one.” The water mage Eros asked, “Why do these potions have Earth Vein emblems on them?”
“I stole them from a witch.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, “Does anyone have questions about the plan?”
When silence echoed back, she set them loose. Mana flowed from them like gentle streams and slowly began to fill the circle. Most could channel from a few feet away, but the medium Rictor was used to was rather physical. He had to place a hand on the ground next to the circle, as did one of the paladins who was more accustomed to enhancements. Another’s mana was lightly stained with holy, but the trace glimmer wouldn’t make it into the trap.
First the glyphs brightened until a small pillar of light started to grow. As it continued, sweat poured down their faces and Cira could feel the mana piling up. It wasn’t as dense as a revenant, but it was pure and pierced the shadows effortlessly.
Rictor started breathing heavy, and downed his elixir, followed shortly by the fire mage. They didn’t have a whole lot of stamina it seemed. When the mana grew to just over Cira’s head, her mages were all exhausted. Well into the reserves the potion granted them, they kept going with determination in their eyes.
“Hey, I think that’s enough.” James said, “They still need to be able to run away, don’t they?”
Cira looked at the radiant white column and crossed her arms. There was no movement from ahead, but it allowed her to see a bit further. She saw nothing but caskets and grave markers while the crypt was deathly silent.
“That will have to do. Well done, everybody.” They cut off their mana with great relief and half of them slumped to the ground. “Now we wait.”
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There were no more revenants in sight and the group waited in silence. They took this chance to hydrate and catch their breath, but to Cira’s surprise, they didn’t have to wait long. Just a few minutes later it felt like a wave of mana was rapidly approaching them. Overbearing like the spirits that lurked here but vast like the tide.
“Get up.” Kuja cut their break short, “They’re coming.”
Cira waited to hear hooves beat against the ground or snarling maws in the darkness, but there was nothing. Just the pressure that flooded the tomb and the sound of her own heartbeat. Soon the abyss grew darker, and their lights started to dwindle. Even the pure mana the gathered was obscured in shadows as their enemy silently approached.
Now I’m really lost. They should have bodies unless they’re some kind of spirit. I feel many sets of hungry eyes on me, but not a trace of the beholders.
It was unnerving; with each passing second Cira felt the beasts’ presence close in on them like a noose around her neck. The torches were snuffed out and a short round of panic ran through the crew. Even Cira felt her blood run cold. Finally, the shadows started to coalesce around her mana trap and bulge out like roiling clouds. Tendrils grew and slowly took shape while everyone watched in horror.
Pointed appendages started to form out of the darkness. One, two… three… They kept coming and slowly reached for the untainted mana like it was a tasty sweet.
“Hell no!” Cira held out her onyx and let out a powerful blast—all she could muster until it was spent once again. “I’ve had enough of spiders!”
She wasn’t sure if it was wise to fight this creature with dark mana, but smiting large arachnids was a primal reflex. Her Dad always said to kill the ones larger than her hand, but Cira drew the line far before that at about the size of her pinky nail. Anything past that and the punishment grew exponentially, so for the shadow spider whose legs were each longer than her own, execution was the only viable option.
“Huh…?” The legs wisped away as if they never existed at all and swirled around into a barbed tail already in motion. Cira had to duck to spare her neck and a quick reaction from her paladins likely saved everyone else’s. “Bullshit!”
There was never a spider at all, and the tail had already turned into countless sharp claws that tore into the holy barrier like tissue paper. “Throw some magic at them, and start backing up!” Cira knew they had to leave, but still had no idea what they were facing.
“Gyahh!” Joe yowled and she heard swords whizz through the air. When she looked, One of Joe’s arms poured blood and whatever sliced him had already dispersed.
“They don’t give a shit about swords!” Jimbo shouted as his uselessly passed through a pair of talons. He rolled to side and Cira watched a long, reptilian snout form behind his back. It was large enough to swallow her whole and she was about to scream at him to run when a fireball whisked right through it.
Its form fell apart in an instant as the shadows broke down and tendrils of dark dissipated back from whence they came like precipitation. Cira was only able to steal a little bit out of spite, but it was a drop in the bucket bearing down on them.
Suddenly a thin beam trailed by her face, and she saw Kuja’s pointed expression saying to pay attention. Cira whipped around in time to see a blade like arm cleave into her. It came within inches of her neck by the time she brought her staff around and it clinked against the onyx before quickly recoiling.
Of course, it would work on them too. She could brawl it out and take them all on herself—or die trying. Meanwhile, her mages’ wounds were starting to build up. Cira saw the blood puddled on the ground and soaking through their clothes.
Water magic was once again useless, as was Rictor’s earth. The lightning mage was throwing bolts out left and right like booming thunder, but the shadows reformed just as fast. Even though the stairs were in sight just moments ago, they were now getting pushed in from all sides.
“We have to go!” James cried out and almost took a hoof to the face. Skipper pulled him out of the way at the last moment and they huddled closer to the paladins.
“I know we do! Tawny and Gil, focus your flames on a barrier with the paladins. Full retreat!” She swatted away what shadows she could with her staff and started running. The two fire mages formed a shield of swirling flames that blanketed the holy barrier, and everyone steadily retreated. Claws tore and slashed through the barrier, causing the occasional crack, but the fire was able to soften the blow and reform wherever the beasts struck. With the two shields combined, the darkness mostly dispersed before it seeped in.
It wasn’t perfect, but it afforded them a brief reprieve. After a few paces they could see the stairwell again and the swordsmen were first followed by Rictor and the water mages. Lightning bolts consistently passed through the barrier from her stalwart mage next to the doorway and Cira noticed something.
While the electricity seemed to pass through them, it differently struck their form before arcing out and into the darkness beyond. It wasn’t something to think of in the moment, but having a little offense on their side was comforting in lieu of the three ineffective mages and useless swordsmen.
“Keep it up!” One paladin was at the end of his rope. His legs buckled and Cira worried his knees might fail, but the barrier only got brighter as he squeezed more mana out.
“You’re almost there!” James yelled from behind, trying to light a torch using the barrier, “Come on!”
They pushed both Kuja and Cira through the doorway first and the barrier closed in around the wall when a massive beak stabbed into it three times in quick succession before fading away. A crack formed and like the sound of broken glass, the golden light shattered.
“Gah!!” The limping paladin stumbled back and Cira pulled him into the stairway before a lunging talon grabbed him.
The relentless shadows furled through the veil of flames and creeped in through the cracks. It also forced their combined conjuration to dwindle, and it was clear her fire mages were about to pass out. The formless beasts kept clawing their way in, reaching for the last two with increasing strength.
Just as Tawny was about to be impaled on something’s horn, Jimbo yanked her by the collar and pulled her up the steps. Everyone sprinted up while the two mages desperately threw fire down the way until their spells quickly started to flicker out.
“Stop casting!” Cira shouted, “Go any further and you’ll expend your aura.”
“But they’re—” Tawny started.
“They’re not following us. Look.” Everyone was exhausted and trying to run for their life, but they slowed at Cira’s words. “We don’t have to rush, but I do think we should keep moving until we’re back to Breeze Haven. We’ll take a break now to heal, though.”
She handed her paladins another round of elixirs, leaving just two in her pouch. They got to healing and she watched everyone’s wounds reverse, leaving only blood. There was a great deal of it. The water mages took a lot of cuts to the arms and one’s wrist looked crushed. That last wound remained and would take a few hours for someone like her paladins to heal. So long as all the pieces were there, it could be done simply enough.
Rictor and the lightning mage both had weird stab wounds on their legs and the a couple of the others were helping them walk until the healing light enveloped them. Worst of all were Tawny and Gil’s wounds. The latter was much less agile, and found himself at the end of half the beasts down there from the look of it. If those two weren’t here, she reckoned, everyone’s wounds would have been much more severe.
They didn’t shy from the Lamplight, but Cira was curious to see how they’d react to a light attack. They really didn’t seem to like fire though. Today the flames were weak and few, but that could be something to explore. Lightning would work for offense but was harder to scale up. On the other hand, the beasts’ reaction to it may have been the clue she needed to identify them.
“Well, that was a wash.” James chided with a facetious tone, “Are you glad we took a look?”
“I am, actually. It was very insightful.” Cira responded, trying to hang onto her train of thought.
“Oh? Did you figure them out?” Kuja was on the edge of her seat.
“Well, there’s just one thing bothering me.” She turned it over in her head but it didn’t make any sense, “Why was Rictor so useless against them?”
“I-I’m sorry, My Lady! I’ll do better next time—” He was about to fall on the floor groveling when Cira cut him off.
“No, not like that.” She was still patching her ideas together, “They have physical form. I confirmed as much. So, Rictor should have been able to hurt them. It’s as if they can become shadows at will.”
“You’re not trying to go back down there are you…” James’ weary voice came from below as he slumped against the stairs.
“No, no. We’re going back to Breeze Haven for the night, and tomorrow will be a rest day.” Indeed, there would be a period of rest tomorrow.
“Oh, thank the gods!” Skipper practically melted into the steps along with half the mages and Jimbo pulled out a flask.
“I’ll drink to that.”