Magium: The Mage Tournament: Book 1

by Chris Michael Wilson

  She starts looking at each lever in turn, with her eyebrows furrowed.

  “Ooooooh! I can’t remember which one’s the right one!” the girl exclaims after ten seconds of continuous staring.

  There’s a mumbling sound coming from the amulet that Flower is wearing around her neck.

  “What is it, Arraka?” the girl asks, as she opens the amulet.

  “Hey, Flower!” the voice in the amulet says. “I remember which of the levers you need to pull in order to get to the upper level. It’s the second one from the right!”

  “You’re not lying to me again, are you?” Flower asks, looking at the amulet suspiciously.

  “Oh, no, no, it’s the truth! I swear on my mother!”

  “Well, okay, then…” the girl says, as she pulls the lever.

  Suddenly, the elevator starts moving, but somewhat unsurprisingly, the direction we are heading in is down instead of up.

  “You swore!” Flower says, furiously. “You swore on your mother!”

  “I don’t have a mother, you twit!” Arraka tells her, and she starts laughing hysterically.

  As we descend towards the lower levels of the ruins, there are several low continuous growls audible somewhere below us.

  “I’ve had just about enough of this,” the girl says, as her eyes turn blue again, and she starts fiddling with the levers until the elevator stops in its tracks and heads back up.

  “You just had to ruin all the fun like you always do, didn’t you, Illuna?” the voice from the amulet says, as the girl’s eyes turn green again.

  “Wait, who’s Illuna?” I ask the girl. “Is that the banshee’s real name?”

  “Never mind that,” Hadrik says. “What I want to know is who the spirit in that amulet is.”

  “Who, me?” Arraka says. “Why, I’m the spirit of joy and laughter! This evil girl is keeping me trapped in here and won’t let me do my job of spreading happiness all throughout the world! Will you not save me from this villain?”

  “Spirit of joy and laughter, eh?” Hadrik says, with his usual grin. “So I’m guessing that the sinister aura all around you must be because of the amulet the girl is keeping you in, then?”

  “Hmm?” Arraka asks. “Oh, no, I just forgot to change it!”

  The sinister aura around her now disappears completely, and it is replaced with one of joy and kindness.

  “See? Now I’m the spirit of joy and laughter!” Arraka says, having changed her voice to resemble that of a sweet little girl. “If you don’t believe me, you can just ask all of the people who’ve had the honor of meeting me! I always leave them with a smile on their face! Of course, it would be a little hard to get them to talk to you since they’re all dead. And now that I come to think of it, the expression I usually leave them with is somewhat less of a smile, and more of a look of sheer terror. But I’m pretty sure that I’ve carved a few smiles into the necks of at least some of them, so it should still count, right? Aha- Ahahahaha—”

  Flower interrupts Arraka’s speech by closing the amulet, and then she holds on to it for a few seconds, clenching her fist around it angrily.

  “So, uh…” I start to ask her, as the elevator finally reaches the corridor with the traps. “Is that another banshee, then?”

  “Yes…” Flower says. “A very evil and powerful one. She was trapped in this amulet twenty years ago by the lessathi, and we’ve been acting as her jailers ever since.”

  “Wait, did you just say twenty years ago?” I say. “How old are you, exactly?”

  “I’ll be turning thirty next month!” the girl says, smiling. “Hey, look, we’ve reached the main corridor! Follow me, the room with the buttons shouldn’t be much further!”

  “You know, uh… I’m not exactly sure how to tell you this, but… you don’t really look thirty years old,” I tell Flower as we start walking down the corridor.

  “Oh, my body stopped aging twenty years ago after my soul fused with Petal’s!” Flower says. “Petal keeps nagging me that I technically never made it to the age of ten, but I say to hell with that! If I want to have my birthdays, then nothing is going to— Oh my gods!”

  “What?” Kate asks her. “What happened?”

  “I remember those three corridors!” she says as she points in front of her. “One of them leads to the control room, while the other two lead to deadly traps. I know for certain that the correct corridor had some sort of an insect marked on one of its walls! We’re practically already there. Come on!”

  “An insect?…” Kate asks, as Flower rushes ahead of us to have a better look at the walls of the three corridors.

  “Nooooo!” the girl yells, as we reach the place where the path splits into three directions.

  Looking at the markings on the three walls, I start to understand the source of the girl’s frustration. She was not mistaken when she remembered that the correct corridor had an insect marked on it. What she failed to remember, however, was that the other two corridors had insects marked on them as well.

  “Wait a minute…” Kate says. “Didn’t that note from the leopard say something about three corridors with insects marked on them? I see a dragonfly, a beetle and a wasp. The leopard told us that the path with the beetle is the correct one.”

  “Leopard?…” Flower asks us. “You mean Leo, the leopard?”

  “Yes!” Kate answers her. “Do you know him?”

  “Yeah, I know him, but… I don’t understand why he’d help you. He really hates humans…”

  “You think it might be a trap, then?” Kate asks.

  “I don’t know…” the girl says. “Oooooh! If only I could remember which way is the right one!”

  “To me, it sounds like the leopard is trying to lure us into a trap,” I say. “At least that only leaves us with two other corridors to choose from. I say we just go with the wasp corridor, and if we trigger any traps, we get out of there as soon as possible and then go with the other one.”

  “I’ll be honest, here,” Daren says, “I don’t think we have enough information to arrive at any conclusion. So, if it’s going to be a guessing game either way, I’d rather go with Barry’s instincts, because then if he’s wrong, I can blame it all on him afterwards!”

  Once everyone’s agreed to have me carry the blame for our potential failure, we all start walking down the corridor marked with a wasp. Before we even take five steps inside the corridor, we hear a loud noise behind us, as our way back gets sealed shut by a newly erected stone wall.

  I suddenly get a vision of the floor crumbling beneath us, and the six of us falling into a pit filled with spikes.

  “Everyone, listen closely!” I start to say. “The floor in the middle of the corridor is going to crumble beneath us any second now. Get as close to the walls as possible, and don’t move until I say so! Do it!”

  “Huh?” Flower asks, while all the others follow my instructions, without question.

  Suddenly, the whole floor in the middle of the corridor collapses, and the girl starts falling into the pit below.

  “Flower!” Kate shouts, but the little girl uses her fire jets to propel herself back up, as if nothing had happened.

  “Wow, that was really cool, Barry!” Flower says, while she’s floating in the air with the aid of the two fire jets coming from her feet. “You can see the future?”

  “Sort of,” I tell her. “I have a stat called premonition in my stat booster, but it’s not very reliable.”

  “Ooooh!” Flower says, feigning comprehension.

  She then gasps loudly all of a sudden, covering her mouth with both her hands.

  “I just remembered which path was the correct one!” she says. “Leo was telling the truth. We really should have taken the path with the beetle on it.”

  “Well, it’s not like it’s the end of the world, or anything,” Hadrik says. “We all made it in one piece thanks to Barry’s thingamajig, so all we need to do is smash that wall blocking the exit and we can all go back to the right path.�
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  “No!” Flower shouts. “If you smash that wall, there are going to be dozens of poisoned arrows coming out of it!”

  “Hmm…” Hadrik says. “I’m pretty sure that the beetle corridor was the one in the middle. That means that if I smash this wall behind me, we can just enter the beetle corridor directly, without having to go back.”

  He pauses.

  “That is to say… If, uh… If everyone else is also okay with this,” Hadrik says.

  “There are no traps inside the wall between the two corridors as far as I know,” Flower says.

  “It’s okay, Hadrik,” Kate says. “Feel free to smash the wall to your heart’s content.”

  “Roger!” Hadrik says, with a grin, as he punches the wall with all of his might.

  We then make our way through the hole in the wall, and we enter the beetle corridor, just as planned. After a few minutes of walking through the corridor, we finally start to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

  “This is it!” Flower says, excited, as she points towards the exit. “I remember this part! Once we’re past that door, nothing will stand between us and the control room! I told you we’d make it there safely! Come on, follow me!”

  Flower rushes out of the tunnel, but her momentum fades immediately after she enters the control room, and she stops right in front of the corridor’s exit. As I reach the end of the corridor myself, it takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the really bright light in this room.

  “Congratulations!” I hear a familiar voice say to us, while my vision is still a little blurry. “You’ve made it to the control room. Now you can all die in peace, knowing that you’ve achieved your goal.”

  I suddenly realize where all the light was coming from. The spirit fox is standing right before us, and her insanely strong magical aura is shining so brightly that it’s hard to even look at her. Leo, the leopard is also at her side, but the bull appears to be missing this time around. The room is filled with levers and buttons of all shapes and sizes, just like Flower said, and there are strange writings on all of the walls.

  “Once I learned that you escaped from the dungeon,” the fox says, “I knew that there was only one place where you could be heading, so instead of chasing you down, I decided to simply wait for you here.”

  Suddenly, a golden cage pops out of nowhere and surrounds every one of us except Flower.

  “It seems that my benevolence was wasted on the likes of you,” the fox says. “I am going to execute you here and now and be done with this once and for all.”

  The magical power coming from her is like nothing I’ve ever witnessed before. I haven’t even felt so much pressure when I was in the presence of Azarius. The hopelessness I’m feeling right now can only be compared with the feeling I got when we first met Eiden. Are we all just going to die like this, without even getting a chance to offer the slightest amount of resistance?

  “Eleya, wait!” the girl says, as she puts herself between us and the spirit fox. “You can’t hurt them! They’re not bad people!”

  “Do not stand in my way, Flower,” the fox says. “These people broke our sacred rules, and they must be punished.”

  “Yeah, but can’t you like, give them a slap on the wrist or something?” Flower says.

  “I am not going to have you question our methods or our punishments, little girl,” Eleya says. “You may have helped us in the past, but if you insist on defending these criminals, I will not hesitate to execute you along with them.”

  “Ooooooh! You are always so stubborn!” the girl says, as her eyes turn a bright red, and her magical aura starts to radiate strongly from her body. “Fine! If you want a fight, I’ll give you your fight! Get ready, Petal!”

  “Please, stop!” the leopard shouts, in the Common language, and Flower’s eyes start to slowly go back to their normal green color.

  “What is the meaning of this, Leo?” the fox asks him. “I only gave you permission to use the Common language in case of an extreme emergency!”

  “I am sorry if I am speaking out of turn, oh great golden fox,” the leopard says, “but I consider this to be an emergency of the utmost import.”

  “Explain yourself,” Eleya says.

  “I would like to invoke the sixth golden rule, and take personal custody of these prisoners,” Leo says.

  “To what end?” the fox says.

  “I believe that they would be of a much better use to us alive, rather than dead,” Leo says. “We cannot afford to send any more of our troops to the ogre stronghold. At this rate, the sacred chalice will be lost forever. But these warriors have proven their combat prowess when they defeated our hydra pet from the subterranean level. We could send them to retrieve the chalice, in exchange for their freedom.”

  “I see…” the fox says. “So this is why you insisted on accompanying me to the control room when we learned that the prisoners had escaped. You surprise me, Leo. Of all the animals in our kingdom, you are by far the one who hates humans the most. I never thought I’d see the day when you would suggest using any of them to further our cause.”

  She pauses for a bit to ponder on his words.

  “Very well, then,” the fox says. “In full accordance with the sixth golden rule, I hereby grant you full custody of these five prisoners.”

  Eleya then turns to us.

  “You were lucky to have been spared in such a way, humans,” she says. “I suggest you make the most of this opportunity.”

  “Uh…” I say. “Could you tell us more about this sacred chalice that we are meant to retrieve?”

  “The sacred chalice is an artifact that can give water unique healing properties,” Eleya says. “We used this water to cure certain diseases that are specific to animals and are incurable through the use of spells. These diseases have claimed many lives of my subjects since the ogres stole our chalice and hid it in their stronghold.”

  “Will we get our collars temporarily deactivated once we get to the ogre stronghold?” Kate asks. “I’ve seen collars like these before, and I know for a fact that they could be activated and deactivated at will, without having to remove them.”

  “I am afraid that the collars we use are a more primitive version of the ones you know of,” the fox says. “Their effects will not go away unless we remove them completely, and I am not going to have them removed until you retrieve the golden chalice. I will give you a time limit of five days to complete your quest. This should give you more than enough time to get the task done. If you are not back within five days, I will assume that you’ve abandoned your quest, and I will use these collars to have you killed by electrocution.”

  “Five days?!” Hadrik asks. “What if we get lost on our way there?”

  “You won’t,” the fox says. “Because I’m sending a guide with you to show you the way.”

  She then turns to Flower.

  “Flower,” the fox says, “since you were so eager to protect these humans with your life, I am assigning this task to you.”

  “Uh…” Flower says. “I don’t really think they’d still want me as their guide after all that happened in these ruins… Couldn’t you maybe send Leo, or—”

  “No, I am sending you,” Eleya says. “Consider this your punishment for confronting me earlier. Of course, I am not forcing you to go. If you do not want to take on this task, I will simply execute them right now and spare you the trouble.”

  “No!” Flower shouts. “No, don’t do that! Okay, I get it… I’ll… go with them to the ogre stronghold.”

  “Very well, then,” the fox says, as she turns to leave. “Leo, I leave you in charge of giving them their mission briefing. I have some other business to attend to.”

  “So, uh…” Flower says to us, as the fox leaves the room. “I guess we’ll be travelling together for a while longer…”

  She then starts laughing nervously and unnaturally again.

  Oh, boy…

  Even without using my premonition stat, there’s on
e thing that I’m definitely sure of. This is going to be one hell of a trip.

  Chapter 9

  After finishing our briefing and finding our way out of the ruins, we wave goodbye to Leo the leopard, we grab our backpacks and we start heading towards our new objective. Flower is leading the way again, but this time she looks a lot less confident than before, and there’s definitely some uneasiness in her voice as she speaks to us.

  “Okay,” she says, “so we’ll need to follow this path for the next few hours, until we reach the first crossroads. After that, there isn’t really a path to follow anymore, so you’re going to have to stick close to me if you don’t want to get lost. If you want to take food breaks, just tell me and we’ll—”

  “Flower,” Kate interrupts her. “Why did you agree to come with us to the ogre stronghold? Isn’t it a little dangerous even for you to be heading straight into monster territory like this?”

  “Well, yeah,” Flower says, “but if I didn’t agree to come with you, Eleya would have killed you…”

  “So what?” Kate asks. “If the fox killed us, then our blood wouldn’t have been on your hands. Why would you go so far out of your way to help a group of complete strangers? Why not just let her kill us and go on about your business?”

  “I don’t know… I just… couldn’t…” Flower says.

  Kate looks at her for a few seconds, and then she smiles faintly.

  “I see…” she says. “Flower, I believe we may have started off on the wrong foot this morning. Allow me to rectify that.”

  She then holds out her hand to her, and says:

  “My name is Kate. Pleased to meet you!”

  Flower looks somewhat taken aback by Kate’s sudden shift in attitude towards her, and she shakes her hand, hesitantly.

  “And my name is Rose!” Rose says, as she offers her hand as well. “I’m glad to have you with us, Flower!”

  “I’m Hadrik,” says Hadrik. “But you can just call me ‘dwarf’. Either name will do!”