by Ian Rodgers
For a moment, nothing happened, and Dora held her breath, terrified she had been wrong. But a loud buzz filled the air as the various materials on the floor started to vibrate. Grey and brown magic squirmed and crackled along the length of them, until the light consumed the objects entirely, igniting the Magical Array and transmuting everything into raw mana.
Grub acted quickly, hands blurring as they weaved complex shapes through the mist-like energy of the Magical Array. Using his bare hands, he molded and crafted the mana into a knot of a million folds. The display of directly manipulating magic without any worry stunned the trio. They could only watch as the vagabond-Avatar hand-crafted a Divine Blessing and spell just for them.
Half a minute later, and what had once been hazy, indistinct greyish brown energy now looked as solid as metal. With a few words muttered in a language none recognized, Grub grabbed the Magical Array and pulled it apart like taffy.
Within seconds a swirling portal had been made right then and there on the floor. Grub whipped a bead of sweat from his brow and pointed at the vortex.
“This will lead you to the outskirts of Targua. For some reason, I cannot connect directly to Scarrot’s location. This is as close as I can make it.”
Dora frowned as he finished healing the wound on her palm. “What do you think is the cause?”
“I’m honestly not sure,” Grub said, rubbing his stubbly chin in thought. “It’s not Dark magic, nor is it Light or Dream. In fact, it almost feels like Divine magic. Kuronos is also confused, as he claims it feels familiar, but he cannot recall encountering anything like it at the same time.”
The brought frowns to everyone’s face. But Dora simply tightened the straps that kept her pack on her back while also picking up her crossbow.
“It doesn’t matter. I will get inside. And there’s nothing they can do about it!” the half-orc declared, looking more like a warrior woman than a Healer. Enrai and Ain both nodded in agreement, their spells and magic ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice.
“Thank you, Grub, for everything,” Dora said, turning to the brown-skinned half-elf and giving him a thankful nod. “Take care of the little guy for me.”
The Serpent of Aril hissed sadly in farewell before coiling around Grub’s arms.
“He’ll be safe with me,” the Avatar of Kuronos promised. Dora gave the pair one last fond look before stepping resolutely into the portal.
The greyish light washed around her body, and she felt a tingle and a tickle run through her body. The sensation faded as soon as it came, and in two steps she emerged from the vortex.
Her boots clumped softly against hard stone tiles. Dora looked about curiously. She found herself in a decrepit, crumbling ruin of a house. Barely anything was left standing besides three walls and a fragment of roof. Mounds of discolored dust and dirt showed where furniture had once stood on the cracked stone floor.
“This is the Lost City?” Dora muttered to herself. She wasn’t impressed. Still, it was just one house. Maybe the rest of the place was better.
Behind her, Ain appeared from the portal, followed by Enrai. Both of them analyzed their surroundings quickly.
“Looks dusty,” the Monk complained.
“I doubt there are maid services in an abandoned settlement,” Ain snarked back. There was a muffled whine and the vortex that had deposited them here slowly shrunk, before compacting into a tiny silverish grey ring.
Dora picked it up curiously and probed it with her magic.
“It’s the portal!” she exclaimed. “When we find Scarrot and the rest, I just have to pour mana into it and it’ll become an exit for everyone!”
She eagerly slipped it onto her right index finger so she wouldn’t lose it. There was also a blush of embarrassment on her face as she realized she had forgotten to ask Grub about a way home when they’d still been on Erafore. Ain and Enrai walked up to her and took up position on her left and right side, respectively.
“Let’s go. And try to stay silent, we don’t want to attract any attention,” Ain ordered, and the group slipped out of the ruined hovel. They found themselves on a worn and battered flagstone road.
To the left, the ruins and decayed relics of the city stretched outwards. In fact, the ravages of time seemed to become even worse the farther away they were from the center of the city, which terminated in a cliff which led to a deep drop into the swirling madness of the Aether.
However, to the right, the road led to buildings and structures that were larger, better designed, and less touched by the cruel hand of time and demonkind. Until, at the very center of the city, lay a massive, untouched and undamaged palace surrounded by a shimmering blue, white, and gold dome of energy.
‘A barrier. And a powerful one,’ Dora noted, awed by the power she could feel even from this distance.
The trio went to the right and crept silently through the streets, keeping to the shadows as they moved. In the distance, loud braying and hollering originating from inhuman throats shook the air. It was a ceaseless cacophony, one that grew louder as they drew closer to the barrier.
“The atmosphere of this place is so strange,” Dora muttered, glancing towards the sky. Where a sun, moon, or stars should have been suspended, a rippling wave of rainbow colors stretched from horizon to horizon. It was like being trapped underneath a pool of brightly colored paint. Multicolored lights flashed through the bizarre heavens steadily like thunder and lightning, and at times images of distant, foreign places appeared up above.
Combined with the unearthly, eerie cries of demonic beings in the distance, the city truly gave off a feeling of being lost and isolated.
“We need to pick up the pace,” Enrai commented with a nervous look behind them. “I can feel eyes watching us.”
He then glanced towards Dora. “Any idea where your pops could be?”
“I think my family is all in there,” Dora said, pointing towards the palace shielded by the barrier. “Whenever I catch sight of it, I feel a strange sense of longing and desire, but also peace. There’s something about it that is calling to me.”
“Probably the best place to start looking,” Ain agreed. “I can’t say for sure, but I think the barrier is keeping the demons out.”
They nodded at that and proceeded towards the center of Targua. As they approached, Enrai ran a hand over a portion of crumbling wall.
“Look at this! It’s so cracked and weathered,” he mumbled. “But it’s somehow less damaged than the place we started out from.”
Dora and Ain looked around and examined the state of decay on the structures nearby. Enrai’s words were true. Several of the buildings they were among now were in far better condition than the homes near their starting point. In fact, the closer they got to the center and the mesmerizing barrier, the less damaged and corroded things were, while at farthest edge of the city almost nothing was left but powdered stone and dust.
“It is odd, now that you mention it,” Dora mused, looking at it. “The whole place looks like something was once shielding the entire city, but started to shrink over time, exposing more and more of it.”
She cast her eyes towards the blue, white, and gold dome. “Think that’s the cause?”
“I don’t know,” Ain said slowly in disbelief. “A barrier that could cover an entire city is feasible, but it wouldn’t shrink or become smaller if it ran out of energy or was damaged – it would shatter and collapse!”
“Maybe it’s a secret Val’Narashi barrier?” Enrai suggested. “They had some crazy magic back then.”
“While that’s possible, I doubt it. From what I’ve learned about Targua, this city was the center of art and culture for the old empire. They didn’t have weapons or insane defenses, they had paintings, sculptures, and literary works,” Dora revealed. She’d spent the time before she left Creidor with Reed learning all she could about the Lost City, and while most of it was rumor and myth at best, some facts still remained.
None of them spoke much after th
at. The cries of demons were becoming louder, and they feared attracting the wrong kind of attention. The street the trio was on wound its way ever closer to the center of the city and the dome that protected it. However, they could go no further.
“Son of a sword,” Enrai swore as the group huddled in fear behind a wall. Dora gulped softly and agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment.
The protective barrier was just a stone’s throw away, but the area surrounding it was clogged with tens of hundreds of demonic beings. They howled and screamed as they hurled themselves at the forcefield. It did nothing, though. No matter how hard the deformed abominations bit, clawed, spat acid or shot spikes at it, the dome didn’t even flicker.
The ground was covered in a thick layer of demons, leaving no way forward that wasn’t a deathtrap.
“We’ll have to take the roofs,” Ain said after scrutinizing the area. “A hop, skip, and a jump, and we could get over the crowds.”
“That won’t do us any good if we can’t get through the barrier!” Enrai argued. “Those demons aren’t putting so much as a scratch on it, how can we possibly bypass it?”
“Get me up top so I can take a look,” Dora instructed. “I’ll examine the barrier with my magic, see what it’s all about.”
“The demons will notice that,” Enrai warned. “They’ll sense you using magic and come swarming!”
“That’s why I have you two!” Dora chuckled, punching the pair on the arm.
Ain and Enrai laughed as well, before getting serious. Without another word, the Monk reached out and grabbed Dora, before lifting her onto his shoulders. She cried out in surprise, while Ain snickered as he drew his saber.
“Hold on tight!” Enrai said with a smirk. He then pushed Wind magic into his feet and leapt several dozen feet into the air, landing softly on the roof of a mostly intact dress boutique across the road from them. Some of the gowns and robes within were still untouched, looking lovely on their hangers and out of place in a city of demons.
Ain followed a second later, and the trio dashed across the roofs towards the barrier. The blue, white, and gold dome was several blocks away, giving Dora a short time frame to cast Detect Magic and a host of other analysis spells at the defensive magic enveloping the palace.
This display of magical talent did not go unnoticed by the seething hoard below. Demons on the outer edge of the group trying to assault the barrier spun around and looked up, quickly spotting the elf, human, and half-orc bounding across the roofs.
“Here they come!” Ain said. Lightning crackled along the edge of his saber, and he swung it viciously. “Lightning Ray!”
A beam of electricity thick as his arm shot from the tip of his blade and swept across a dozen demons who’d began to scamper up the walls. They were blasted back, their hides charred and steaming. Their screams alerted more demons, who started to turn away from the indestructible barrier towards the brand new fleshy and breakable targets.
“Sure are a lot of them,” Enrai muttered worriedly, kicking a demon in the face with a flame-covered foot. It’s tentacled head splattered everywhere, but that only slowed it down.
“Damn it, these things are hard to kill!” the Monk growled as another demon that should have been killed by his attack continued to flail at him with arms covered in teeth.
“We’re in the Aether right now! Demons are pure magic, they can feed on the energy of their surroundings with ease!” Ain reminded Enrai. “Kick them, stab them, it doesn’t matter since they can just devour the Ambient Mana and regenerate!”
To punctuate his statement, he split a demon that looked like a horse had mated with a dolphin, then had decided to grow spider legs. Being cut in twain didn’t matter to it, though. The wound boiled and bubbled for a moment before two new demons were born from what had once been a single being sliced in half.
Ain grimaced and glanced up at Dora, who was still on Enrai’s shoulders. “How much longer till you’ve analyzed the damned dome?!”
“Give me a break, that thing is unbelievably complicated!” Dora shot back.
“Well, try to hurry, we’re going to run out of mana at this rate!” the Spellsword complained, blasting another group of demons with a massive lightning bolt. Enrai grunted in agreement before opening his mouth and spewing a torrent of fire all over a hideous slug-wombat-orangutan thing.
“Almost… just a little more… What in the Hells?! Ingenious!” Dora exclaimed, her glowing silver eyes widening in shock as she finally was able to decipher the barrier’s formation.
“Ain, Enrai! Jump through the dome!” Dora cried out.
“But won’ it…”
“No! It won’t stop us! Trust me!” the Healer called out. The two shared a look, then nodded resolutely. They darted towards the barrier, causing demons to howl and cry in anger. Their prey was getting away!
“Almost there! Just keep running!” Dora urged them on.
“Ow! I could run faster if you stopped pulling on my hair!” Enrai griped. “I swear, this must be why the senior Monks always told us to shave our heads!”
“Less moaning, more fleeing for our lives!” Ain shouted, before wrapping his body in a golden field of electricity. His speed increased substantially, and the next thing any of the demons knew, the Spellsword was darting through the air like a genuine lightning bolt, the energy around his body shocking nearby demons as he ran past them.
“Good job!” Enrai said, before shoving even more mana into his feet. His soles erupted in piercing orange flames that propelled him forward. All the demonic creatures behind him were bathed in the fiery backwash.
Dora screamed pitifully as she was almost thrown off of Enrai’s back as he boosted towards the dome.
“Ahhhh! Not this fast! Not this fast!” she cried.
“Sorry, did you say ‘faster?’” the Monk smirked.
“No!”
“Alrighty, then! Faster it is!”
Enrai picked up speed, the flames on his feet turning blue as they sent him flying across the rooftops even faster. Dora didn’t even have a chance to scream as the wind tore at her face. She clenched her eyes shut from the air pressure and tensed up.
A second later, everything went still and silent. The howling wind around her head died down, and the screams of demons cut off abruptly. Blinking, Dora opened her eyes and saw that she and Enrai were no longer outside the dome. Instead, they had effortlessly passed through it.
“I was right!” Dora cheered. The Monk carefully helped her down off of his shoulders as she celebrated.
“I don’t understand, how were we able to pass through the barrier when the demons cannot?” Ain asked, walking up to his friends. He had slipped through a mere second ahead of Enrai, and was busy looking around in both suspicion and confusion.
Behind the trio, the demons continued to scream and roar, but their vocalizations were muted. They beat against the dome, but the energy refused to let them pass. One demon with the head of a goat with fly eyes began to throw stones and chunks of rubble at the group. Those passed through effortlessly as well.
Ain flinched and brought his saber up to guard, while Enrai got into a defensive stance. Dora, however, did not looked worried. And when one of the stones struck her, it bounced off of her mint green skin without causing so much as a blemish.
“I don’t know how this barrier was made, but it’s incredible,” Dora said. “This is a Light magic barrier filled with Order and the concept of Unchanging. Anything under this dome cannot be harmed, or even changed! Time ceased to exist the moment we stepped in here. I could try and cut myself, but the blade wouldn’t even make a scratch!”
“That’s why the demons can’t get through!” Ain explained in awe. “Demons are creatures of the Abyss born from the concept of Chaos! The opposite of Order! Their very existence cannot exist within the barrier, hence why they cannot enter it!”
“It’s also why the city has different levels of decay!” Enrai realized. “As the dome shrunk over time, the par
ts of Targua it protected left the timeless barrier and were forced to age!”
“Exactly!” Dora said. “I don’t know how, but someone created a barrier to protect the entire city from any sort of change. And it explains why Grub’s magic couldn’t reach Scarrot. A portal cannot connect to a place that doesn’t even have the concept of outside interference.”
“Will we still be able to use his magic to return, though?” Enrai asked worriedly. Dora frowned and peered at the grey ring on her right hand.
“No, it won’t,” she said, depressed. “We’ll have to leave the barrier to open a portal back to Erafore.”
“Well, then let’s stop wasting time and go find your family,” Ain said firmly. “We can’t let them wait any longer.”
“Yes!” Dora said excitedly. She then looked up at the palace that stood before them. It was the last piece of Targua that had yet to be touched by time and the demons’ claws. The dome of Timeless Order continued to protect it, but Dora was certain that, in time, even it would shrink into nothingness. It was only a matter of time. Ironic, for a barrier that operated on the principle of stopping time.
The palace itself was an astonishing structure. Calling it anything but a city-within-a-city would be an insult! The grounds were vast, and the grass was still as green and as lush as the day the dome enclosed it and saved it from annihilation. In some shady spots, droplets of morning dew could still be seen sparkling on the emerald stalks. Huge bushes heavy with exotic blossoms dominated the path that led towards the gargantuan building. The path was made from golden bricks carved with delicate runes. Even without the barrier, the flagstones were capable of withstanding a dozen elephants without being worn down or cracked.
The structure that sprawled before them was made of marble. Mosaics made from precious stones and metals decorated the exterior walls. They depicted ancient, long forgotten scenes from Val’Narash’s past. Unnamed heroes and fallen gods stared down at them from their pedestals near the entrance. Each statue was an impossibly beautiful work of art made from rare materials.
