The Torch that Ignites the Stars (Arcane Ascension Book 3)

by Andrew Rowe

[That is correct.]

  I grinned. “Perfect. How much would it cost for you to give her a mark on her body that kind of glows a bit, but doesn’t do anything else?”

  [Hm. That’s a bit devious. She would feel cheated when she leaves.]

  “And that would be a valuable lesson, wouldn’t it?”

  I heard something like laughter from the crystal. [A bit of a stretch, there.]

  “Her ability to tell people she has an extra mark from a crystal is still a tangible benefit, albeit a smaller one. She could learn to use it to her advantage.”

  [Perhaps. It is not a significant benefit compared to what she requests…but yes, it counts for something. One thousand mana to do as you ask.]

  I drained all my batteries back into the crystal, but it hadn’t even been a half hour, so there wasn’t nearly enough. I drank some mana water, too, and gave the crystal some more of my own mana, but that only got us back to five hundred available.

  It did, however, give me time to think.

  I still had a little bit of attunement primer. I had a fair bit of knowledge about how artificial attunements worked.

  …Did I know enough of fabricate one? This would probably be the lowest risk situation possible for me to try experimenting with making an artificial attunement on my own, at least for the immediate future.

  …Nope. Still way too risky. Not going to blow up my hands again.

  Instead, I took a different, slightly smaller risk, and drained all the mana out of my shield sigils and circlet into the crystal. Both of them primarily contained mana types the crystal could handle, so it worked out okay…it just meant that I was at a much, much higher risk of dying if I got into an actual fight.

  I’d have to be extremely cautious while I waited for them to recharge.

  The transfer still wasn’t perfectly efficient, but my shield sigil and circlet both had substantial mana supplies. Draining them got me more than enough.

  [You now have 1180 mana available.]

  “Go ahead and give her the glowy mark.”

  There was a bright flash of light in the fake crystal room, then a glowing symbol appeared on her forehead. She reached up absently, feeling at it, then removed a pocket mirror from her bag and examined it. “Th…thank you, great crystal.”

  More words may have been exchanged, but I didn’t hear them. After a couple more minutes, Elina turned, then exited the shrine.

  After a moment of quiet, I heard a voice.

  [Mana earned from defense: 100.]

  [Mana earned from the attacker learning a valuable lesson: 200.]

  [Mana earned from the attacker successfully gaining a reward: 300.]

  [Mana earned from amusing me: 500.]

  [Total mana available: 1280.]

  [You have one minute to prepare for the next stage.]

  …Wait, what?

  It seemed like stalling for time may have had some downsides after all.

  Chapter XX – Dungeon Defense

  I panicked, of course.

  That panic took the form of a loud exclamation and a dead sprint back to the crystal chamber. I very nearly fell in one of my own (still-existent) pits along the way.

  By the time I got to the crystal room, there wasn’t much time left. I hoped it would just be another friendly adventurer entering, willing to sit through my ludicrous interview and happily accept their fictitious reward.

  Obviously, my good friend the Transference Gateway Crystal had other plans. No adventurers appeared after the minute was up: instead, the entrance was graced by the coming of an eight-legged feline creature the size of a horse. It was black furred, so I might have called it a panther if it had, you know, fewer legs and less glowy eyes.

  [Warning: The shrine has been invaded by one of the Buried. Learning protocols suspended. Updated objective: Remove the threat by any means necessary.]

  I blinked. “The Buried…? Aren’t those some kind of ancient monsters?”

  I’d heard a tiny bit about the Buried from Keras, but I wasn’t anything like an expert on the subject, and more information could be critical.

  [That is an oversimplification, but yes. The Buried were created by the makers of the world as soldiers in a divine war that nearly obliterated the planet. In the aftermath of the war, the survivors were sealed beneath the surface of the world by the surviving gods, who feared them.]

  “Oh, good. Monsters that gods were afraid of. Fun.”

  [I sense that you are being facetious.]

  “Yep.” I exhaled a breath. “How does that have anything to do with the rest of this test?”

  [While teaching the living is of the utmost importance, actual Buried attacks have threatened the homes of the crystals on numerous occasions. Designing proper defenses for a Buried incursion is an integral part of proper crystal sanctuary design, regardless of the shrine’s primary purposes.]

  “Okay, great.” I groaned. “If teaching isn’t the goal here, replace the doors with walls.”

  While we talked, the panther-like Buried advanced, stopping briefly in front of the sign. I couldn’t tell if they were reading it or not.

  ...I suppose if they can talk, I could interview—

  The panther casually swept a claw through the air. A heartbeat later, the sign fell into six separate pieces.

  …Or not.

  I heard the crystal’s response to my request a moment later. [Unfortunately, a clear line to the entrance is a required part of the sanctuary’s design. Removing the doors, even temporarily, is prohibited.]

  “Why? That doesn’t make any…”

  The panther leapt forward, crashing through the door straight ahead of and landing in a pile of splintered wood. It had been locked, but that didn’t accomplish much.

  The panther now stood in my original entrance room, the one with a fire elemental and the torch lighting puzzle.

  I couldn’t keep complaining. Combat had begun.

  As I watched, the tiny fire elemental hurled a bolt of flame at the panther. The panther leapt to the side, avoiding the lick of flame, then swiped a claw in mid-air. There was a flash, then the fire-elemental fell backward, large gashes appearing across the flame’s surface. The elemental wasn’t killed outright in one strike, but from the way it listed toward the ground, it didn’t look like it could take much more punishment.

  “Telepathically tell the panther to stop fighting, and that I will be there to talk shortly.”

  [Done. Also, they are called a rashan.]

  The rashan paused for just a moment, turning their head upward. Then, with a growl, they leapt at the injured fire elemental.

  I cursed and broke into a run.

  Well, I tried.

  Mentally, I assessed my chances in a fight against the rashan. From the speed they were moving and the damage they could deal at a distance, I didn’t like my odds. I didn’t know much about the Buried, but Keras had told me that they were created to fight against ancient deities. A conjured copy for a test was unlikely to have the same level of power as a real Buried, but it would still be dangerous.

  The safe thing to do would have been to hole up and burn through more mana on reinforcing the chamber right in front of the crystal. But, in spite of my typical habits, I wasn’t going to play this one safe.

  If I didn’t do something soon, that little fire elemental was going to get mauled to pieces.

  Haste.

  I ran faster, bursting through the first room in moments. Fortunately, the crystal must have anticipated my intent without clear instructions, since the door unlocked right in front of me.

  I planned in the few moments while I ran.

  My shield sigil was still barely functional, having only recovered a fraction of its power. I sent a pulse of my own mana into it as I ran, but I doubted it would do much. In a fair fight, this thing was going to tear me to pieces.

  But I had no intention of fighting fair.

  I rushed through the next room, two fire elementals still spinning in the air to guard it
.

  Move the fire elemental out of the rashan room.

  [I cannot move entities while they are engaged in combat.]

  I cursed and ran faster. Wall them off, then.

  I heard a loud crunch followed by a feline roar.

  [The fire elemental has been surrounded by walls. You have 880 mana remaining.]

  Good. Get the fire elementals out of this room and put them right in front of the crystal chamber.

  The fire elementals near me vanished.

  I reached the door to the next room a few moments later, swinging the door open to find the rashan standing right in front of it. I saw the creature’s legs shift just slightly, preparing to leap.

  “…Down, kitty?”

  The rashan jumped.

  I did, too, but with cheating.

  Jump.

  My ring of jumping, so underutilized of late, blasted me out of the rashan’s path. I landed near the treasure box, which still sat in the center of the room. I drew my sword and held it in a defensive stance. “Stop. There’s no need for us to fight.”

  Detect Aura.

  The rashan had no visible shroud, which was unsurprising. They weren’t a creature of Selys’ creation: The Buried were older. But the spell had other uses.

  The rashan lowered their head and growled, then replied in a guttural tone, “I disagree.”

  A casual swipe of their paw sent a near-invisible wave of force across the room, but I was ready for it. I’d seen how they had clawed through the sign and hit the elemental without touching them. I didn’t jump again: I didn’t need to. With Detect Aura and Haste active, I could see the gleam of phantasmal claws passing through the air and simply side-stepped the attack.

  I wasn’t surprised the rashan could understand me: there was probably some sort of translation spell running throughout the whole place, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to understand Roy, either. He predated the coming of Valia to this continent, and thus, he would have been speaking an unfamiliar language.

  I was a little more surprised the rashan could reply in a form I could understand, but not overly so. There wasn’t exactly a lot of time to chat. They were already preparing for another leap before I could get in a word.

  Need to buy time.

  When the rashan leapt, I swung Selys-Lyann upward in an arc, sending a glittering crescent of frost through the air.

  The rashan twisted in mid-air, avoiding the attack and smashing into the ground where I would have been standing if I hadn’t already been dancing backward, swinging again.

  The rashan leapt again. A flick of my wrist sent a burst of near-invisible transference mana to slam them right out of the air. When they landed, I sent another mental instruction.

  Walls around the rashan, now.

  [I cannot create walls around enemy entities.]

  I cursed as the rashan surged forward at blinding speed. I tried to move out of the way, but even with Haste active, this thing was fast. They slammed right into me, sending me crashing into the back wall of the chamber. My fractionally charged shield sigil prevented the rashan’s impact from doing me any harm, but I felt the shield shatter the moment I hit the wall. My vision swam and I found myself on the floor, blearily processing the rashan, already in mid-air as they jumped toward me.

  I rolled, barely managing to get out of the way before the rashan landed with a colossal thump.

  I wasn’t in a good position to swing, and I didn’t even know if the rashan would give me a chance to get back to my feet. I did have a faster way of responding, though. One that didn’t require any movement.

  Pit under it, now.

  The floor beneath the rashan dropped away in an instant. The rashan tumbled downward, claws scouring the walls to slow their descent. Apparently, gigantic monster cats weren’t quite as immune to the trauma of falling as small ones.

  The fall didn’t last long, but I was sending more commands with the speed of thought.

  An instant later, a few tons of furniture dropped on top of the pit, sealing the top shut.

  I heard a loud growl as the rashan leapt up the walls and slammed into one of the couches I’d commanded the crystal to drop in place, but the furniture barely budged.

  I groaned, pushing myself to my feet. Then I walked to the side of the pit, careful to stay far enough back to avoid being suddenly eviscerated if the rashan had some way to get out, like an incorporeal form or teleportation. “Ready to talk now?”

  I heard another growl, then a rip as claws ripped through one of the pieces of my furniture stack.

  [Your pit cost 25 mana. Your “pile of couches” cost 300 mana. You have 555 mana remaining.]

  “Tell you what, I’m going to go ahead and start flooding the pit with water. After that, I’ll freeze it solid. I’m pretty confident I can do that before you can dislodge all this. If you—”

  Another crash as the rashan hit the furniture pile, but it still didn’t budge. The rashan was tremendously strong, but they weren’t in a great position to try to shift the stuff.

  “You are bluffing.”

  I shrugged a shoulder, which was probably unnecessary, since presumably the rashan couldn’t see me. “Add and activate a flood trap near the pit.”

  I spoke out loud deliberately, intending to demonstrate my control over the terrain. The “flood trap” turned out to be a little different from what I pictured: a spout appeared on the ceiling above the trap, then began to rapidly spray water into the room. The spout was huge — a few feet in diameter, not just a tiny leak like I was expecting.

  The torrent of water was significant enough that I had to stand back to avoid getting splashed. The furniture was blocking the hole enough to prevent the rashan from escaping, but it wasn’t by any means water tight. The hole began rapidly flooding, like I’d claimed.

  Uh…huh. Okay.

  I went through a moment of panic. I had, in fact, been bluffing. The trap was much more effective than I expected.

  Fortunately, the rashan was panicking even more than I was. I heard them slam into the walls faster. Moments passed, then came another growl, and finally, “You cannot hold me here, human. I will escape. I will always escape.”

  It occurred to me a little late that imprisoning something in a pit that had presumably been imprisoned underground for millennia was a little bit more, uh, thematic than I had intended. Still, I wasn’t dealing with anger at my audacity. That formidable monster inside the pit was afraid. And while I wasn’t big on exploiting negative emotions, they had been very definitely planning to kill me, so I had fewer reservations than I usually did.

  Now that the Buried was in a vulnerable position, there was a significant chance I could have simply found a way to turn that trap deadlier. Selys-Lyann might have frozen the water in a way that would prove fatal, or perhaps I could have simply layered further monsters and traps in ways that could finish the fight without any further intervention on my behalf. I’d been permitted to simply “remove” the monster here, after all.

  But I’d decided I wasn’t going to handle this scenario like a traditional dungeon-crafting being, and I certainly wasn’t going to give up after the first small dent in that plan.

  “You want to escape, and I want to help you do that. We can make a deal.”

  I heard another slam from below. “I do not deal with the enemies of Aetor.”

  I had precisely zero idea who Aetor was, but I could still play along. “Even if that deal would work to Aetor’s benefit?” There was a pause, so I added, “And it’s not like you’re any use to Aetor dead.”

  “I will not die here!” Another loud slam. The furniture pile actually moved that time, enough that I was startled.

  So, mentally, I dropped another sofa on the pile. There was a loud crash as it manifested place, then an alarming groan from the bottom of the pile. Not from the monster, but from the bottom-most sofa, which was seriously damaged. “Uh…You’re going to want to stop being stubborn, because that stuff is about to collapse on
top of you, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to dig you out if that happens.”

  Another pause, then… “Speak quickly, human.”

  “Simple. I presume you’re here to seek the crystal?”

  A growl. “Of course. The power of the crystal will assist me in my revenge.”

  “I’ll help you. I’ll get you out of the pit and escort you to the crystal without any further complications. All I need is…” A plausible plan, one the Buried might agree to. “Your assistance against a mutual enemy.”

  “A mutual enemy?” There was a derisive snort. “Your entire species is my enemy. So, unless you speak of one of your petty kings…”

  “No.” A plan clicked into place in my mind. “The Sun Eater.” I said, definitively. “I want you and your people to join us against the Sun Eater.”

  “…The Sun Eater? You speak nonsense. The Sun Eater is long defeated.”

  I heard a hiss as the water continued to climb higher. “Not as defeated as we hoped. As much as you might hate humanity, I’m sure you can agree that the destruction of the planet would be bad for us both. We live here, after all. Now, I’d like to let you out before you drown down there. Will you agree to a truce?”

  “If you speak true, then…” A loud growl. “Fine, fine! Just get me out of here!”

  A grin slid across my face.

  Shut off the flood trap.

  The trap stopped immediately. I felt a surge of relief. I wasn’t sure if that would work: I hadn’t asked earlier if I could deactivate the traps.

  Now, the harder part: I couldn’t move several tons of furniture by myself, either. Not easily, anyway.

  Can you move the furniture?

  [No. The furniture is presently being used and cannot be moved.]

  I groaned. Okay, fine. Create two lesser wood golems and have them lug the furniture out of the way.

  Two human-sized wooden statues appeared next to me, then immediately got to work, starting from the top of the pile.

  [You spent 50 mana on the additional couch, then 100 on the golems. You have 405 mana remaining.]

  The golems weren’t as strong as I hoped, but gradually, they managed to move the colossal pile of furniture enough that the rashan was able to burst through the bottom couch and emerge from the pit.