“You’re willing to let me live after all of this?” Daren asks.
“Yes,” Illuna says. “If legends are anything to go by, then you are the kind of man that would rather die than break his word. If I can get you to swear it, then I will at least rest assured that you won’t try anything until we get out of the fort.”
“Then I’ll swear it,” Daren says. “I won’t lay a hand on you until we get out of the fort.”
The banshee frowns again.
“Fair enough,” she says, as her water spear disappears into thin air.
“The great healer in armor losing to a banshee?” Hadrik asks, with a grin, as Daren gets up from the floor and goes to grab his sword. “Aren’t banshees supposed to be your specialty?”
“I wasn’t fighting at my full strength,” Daren says. “I would have won if I had my shield.”
“Yes,” Illuna says, as she gestures with her right hand, and a stone dislodges itself from a nearby wall. “If you had your shield.”
Daren’s shield then comes floating out of the hole in the wall, and into Daren’s hand.
“You knew where my shield was all along?” Daren asks.
“Of course,” the banshee says. “It was stashed in the same place as all the other weapons. I hid it before unlocking your cell to make sure I had the upper hand, in case you decided to challenge me again, like you did last night.”
“You cheated!” Daren says.
“I did what I had to do to end this conflict as soon as possible,” Illuna says, frowning. “Time is of the essence here. Any minute we waste fighting each other is a minute that would be better spent making our way towards the chalice. Now, if we’re all done here, I suggest we get going.”
“Is that all?” Rose asks, with an uncharacteristically furious expression on her face, while a tear is forming in one of her eyes. “Is that all you’re going to say after what you did to us?”
“I already told you,” Illuna says, “I had to keep the truth from you in order to make sure that your reactions were genuine. It was all necessary for carrying out our plan.”
“Oh yeah?” Rose asks. “And what about all those mean things you said before we got teleported to our cell? What about when you said that I was too trusting for my own good and that I was a fool for not having listened to Daren? Was all of that necessary too?”
As Rose finished asking her question, I could see Illuna’s cold expression change for a brief moment. In that one moment, she almost seemed human.
“No…” Illuna says, after a short pause. “It was not. I only said all of that because I wanted to get back at you for not letting me rest the other night. I overreacted. I apologize.”
The fury in Rose’s eyes disappears upon hearing Illuna’s words. She looks a bit confused. I don’t think she was expecting such an honest apology.
“Well… As long as you won’t do it again…” Rose says.
Arraka starts laughing hysterically.
“Illuna apologizing?” she says. “Quick, find a place to hide! Barricade yourselves! The world as we know it may well be coming to an end!”
“I told you to be quiet,” Illuna says.
“Hey, if you want to shut me up, you can just close the amulet like you always do,” Arraka says. “Oh wait! If you do that, you’ll lose your precious map that we spent all of those hours in the library to put together. I guess you’ll just have to put up with me for a while longer, then. Aha- Ahahahahahaha!”
I hadn’t really paid much attention to the semi-transparent magical hologram floating in front of Illuna until Arraka mentioned it, but now I realize that it is in fact a miniature version of the ogre stronghold. Not only that, but there are also colored dots inside it that are continuously moving. I can only assume that the moving dots represent the ogre patrols from the stronghold, and that the six dots standing in place on the upper level of the left wall must represent our own group.
“That’s amazing!” Kate says. “This entire detailed hologram is being maintained by Arraka?”
“Yes,” Illuna says. “We’ve spent a few hours in the library, documenting the stronghold’s layout, in order to recreate it as accurately as possible. Arraka’s magical sense is powerful enough that she can easily detect all living creatures in our area, even if their auras are being masked by that pesky shaman spell that also grants invisibility, so she can just display them as dots on the map, for all of us to see. With this much information in our hands, the ogres could not surprise us, so we’ve encountered no resistance while we cleaned out this entire floor and hid the bodies.”
“Why do the dots have different colors?” I ask.
“The blue dots are the mages, the red dots are the warriors, the green dot is the shaman, and the purple dot is the captain,” Illuna says.
“She can tell the difference?” Kate asks.
“Yes,” Illuna says. “If your magical sense is good enough, you can make the distinction quite easily, based on their level of magical power or even their unique aura signatures. Right now, we need to make it all the way to the lowest level of the main building, where their treasury is being located.”
“Hold on,” Hadrik says. “Before we get going, I think there’s still one more issue that needs to be cleared up. The shaman called you ‘Illuna of the sacred woods massacre’ earlier, and he said that you killed hundreds of animals without mercy. What was that all about?”
“Oh, I can answer this question for her!” Arraka says.
“Arraka, I swear, if you don’t shut up…” Illuna says.
“Hmm?” Arraka says. “You’ll what?”
Illuna doesn’t say anything.
“That’s what I thought!” Arraka says. “So anyway, as I was saying, in order to better understand the events of the sacred woods massacre, I need to tell you a little story first. It is a story about three young banshees that I decided to take under my wing out of the kindness of my heart a few hundred years ago. Their names were Sidara, Unuri and Illuna.”
“Wait, you used to be Illuna’s guardian?” Hadrik asks.
“No, I used to be her mentor,” Arraka says. “I was the one being that she looked up to the most. I remember the three of them once saying that they wanted to be like me when they grew up! That was before they knew who I really was, of course. I spent years of my life teaching them everything I knew. I taught them how to defend themselves from banshee hunters and white mages. I taught them how to tell when their bodies were starting to reject them, so that they could begin looking for new hosts in good time. In other words, I taught them how to survive.”
“That was awfully nice of you…” Kate says, with a frigid tone in her voice.
“I know, right?” Arraka says. “It was all a sham, of course! To tell you the truth, I was starting to get a little bored with the small amount of suffering I could bring to the world while trapped in weak animal bodies. So this time I decided to try something a little different! I spent years of my life, making myself into this sort of motherly figure for the three young banshees, all in order to make it more painful for them when I inevitably betrayed them. But as time passed, my original perspective began to change. As I got to know the three banshees better, I started to grow fond of Illuna. She was my star pupil after all, and she reminded me a bit of myself when I was her age. So instead of simply having her killed along with the others, I decided to instead shape her in my own image.”
“Arraka, that’s enough!” Illuna says.
“But of course, in order to shape her into my own image, I needed to utterly destroy her first!” Arraka continues, ignoring Illuna. “So I started to teach her even more than I taught the others. I made sure that she knew all kinds of obscure techniques and that she could control her water element to perfection. Then, when the time came, I led them all into one of the sacred woods. It was easy to get them to follow me. They all trusted me with their lives, and they didn’t know that I was taking them into forbidden territory. Poor Unuri and Sidara were no match f
or the valiant guardians of the forest, and Illuna was not strong enough to fight all of the animals by herself while also protecting her friends.”
“Arraka, I’m warning you!” Illuna says, in a louder voice than before.
“Oh, and Illuna was simply adorable!” Arraka says. “Did I tell you? Back then she absolutely refused to kill other living creatures unless she had no other choice. She would be depressed for days after changing hosts, because she’d been forced to end someone’s life without their consent! Needless to say, even in a dire situation such as this, Illuna still refused to kill the animals, and simply incapacitated them. I know this, because I was watching the whole thing from above, while laughing continuously. They didn’t understand what I was doing at first. They kept calling for me, begging me to save them like I always did. They saw all of the events unfold before their eyes, but their minds simply couldn’t comprehend them. It was only when Unuri and Sidara got impaled that the cold hard reality finally hit Illuna in the face.”
As Arraka speaks, I can feel Illuna’s aura starting to fluctuate violently. This is the first time I’ve ever seen her exhibit such strong emotions about something. Usually, the flow of her aura is almost indiscernible from that of the air around her.
“She kept shouting at the animals to let her pass,” Arraka says. “She kept telling them to get out of her way, but they wouldn’t listen. So, in a fit of rage, Illuna exterminated every single one of those guardians, leaving no survivors, and then she hurried over to her friends’ side, grabbing their lifeless bodies and shaking them desperately, as if she were expecting them to suddenly come back to life. ‘Please!’ she said. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said. ‘I don’t— I don’t want to be alone—’ Aha- Ahahahahahaha—”
Illuna closes the amulet and grips it firmly in her fist. I can see her hand shaking as she holds onto the amulet, and I think I could almost hear a small crack coming from it, at one point. Just as Arraka warned her, the hologram of the fort disappeared almost as soon as she closed the locket.
“Bring it back,” Illuna says, curtly, as she opens the amulet again.
“Hmm?” Arraka says. “Bring what back? Oh, you mean the hologram? The hologram’s gone. Didn’t you see it go poof? I’ll need hours to recreate it again. You should have listened to me when you had the chance, but nooooo, you just had to be your old stubborn self again and—”
“I said bring it back!” Illuna shouts at her, as her voice echoes throughout the corridor.
A brief pause follows Illuna’s words, during which nobody speaks a word.
“Alright, fine!” Arraka says after a while, and she conjures back the miniature ogre fort, with all of its details still intact. “I swear, you have absolutely no sense of humor. I don’t know how that girl puts up with you!”
Illuna ignores Arraka, and she turns to Hadrik.
“I trust that Arraka’s explanation about the sacred woods massacre will suffice?” she asks him, with a dark look on her face. “Or would you perhaps like to hear more details?”
“Uh, no…” Hadrik says. “I think I’m good, thanks…”
Illuna then turns around and starts leading us to the lower levels, as we all follow her, in silence. Thanks to Arraka’s map, we were able to successfully avoid most of the guards as we made our way towards the treasure room. The ones that we couldn’t avoid were quickly and silently dispatched by Illuna. Her way of doing things was completely opposite to Flower’s. She was cold and calculated, and she would use the girl’s athletic prowess to her advantage when going in for the kill. Every time she had to take out an ogre guard, she’d climb one of the walls, position herself above him and then hang from the ceiling to deliver the finishing blow.
It took us less than half an hour to reach the treasure room, situated at the lowest level of the stronghold’s main building. There were only two guards at the entrance, who were easily dealt with. However, even if we made sure to hide all of the bodies on our way here, it’s likely only a matter of time before an ogre patrol realizes something is wrong and raises the alarm. We’re going to need to move fast and get out of here before that happens.
Upon entering the ogres’ treasury, I could see that it was filled with mountains upon mountains of gold, as well as dozens of coffers which had all manner of jewels and fineries inside of them. If only I had my enchanted backpack with me now, I would have filled it to the brim with treasure. Still, there’s plenty of room in my pockets for me to stash a few of these small expensive gems. The diamonds in particular should fetch me a hefty sum in any respectable market. After all, when will I ever get another chance like this?
“Seriously, Barry?” Daren says, as he sees me filling my pockets with diamonds and rubies. “We came here to get the chalice, not to rob the ogres blind!”
“This whole room is full of treasure,” I tell him. “A few missing gems here and there aren’t going to make much of a difference.”
After I’m done with the gems, I join the others, who are now standing in front of a marble pedestal, on top of which lies the chalice we’ve come here to retrieve.
“Don’t make any loud noises!” Illuna tells us, in a low voice. “The ogre captain and his troops are standing right beyond that wall from behind the chalice.”
“Which one’s the ogre captain?” Hadrik asks, as he stares at the fort hologram.
“The purple dot,” Illuna says. “The red dots scattered around him are his troops.”
“How come the room they are in isn’t marked on the map?” Kate asks.
“It’s because it didn’t appear in any of the building plans that we studied in the library,” Illuna says. “It’s probably a hidden room that they use for their top secret meetings.”
“The way they placed the chalice on top of a pedestal like that just screams ‘trap’ to me,” Daren says. “Was there any documentation regarding the traps they’re using to defend this room?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Illuna says. “And I’m not sensing any magic around it, either. If there are any traps, they’re going to be similar in nature to those from the ruins.”
“Can we even be sure that we’ve got the right chalice?” Hadrik says. “I mean, it looks like it, but they could have easily made a fake one and placed it in plain sight to throw us off course.”
“There’s an easy way to test its authenticity,” Illuna says, and she uses her water magic to fill the chalice with water.
After a few seconds, the water inside it starts to radiate magic, and then it begins to shine brightly as if there was a small sun floating right above it.
“That settles it,” Illuna says. “This is the chalice we are looking for.”
She then grabs it off the pedestal and empties it of water, as we all look around us, to see if any traps get activated.
“Huh,” Hadrik says. “I guess we overestimated the ogres a bit when we assumed they were smart enough to actually come up with a—”
The dwarf doesn’t get to finish his sentence, as the floor below us quickly starts to rotate, along with us and the wall behind the pedestal. Two seconds later, we find ourselves standing in a room full of ogres, with the captain of the stronghold grinning at us maliciously.
“I suspected banshee from start,” the captain says, in his broken Common. “I told great shaman he make mistake for trusting banshee, but shaman no listen! I knew you come here sooner or later with your friends to steal treasure, so I wait for you in secret ambush room! These are my finest warrior and they all thirst for blood! No banshee or human leave this place alive tonight!”
Arraka starts laughing.
“Is that a fact, fatso?” she says.
Daren wastes no time and he rushes towards the captain, but the ogre is ready for him, and he hits him with his club as soon as he gets within range. Daren instinctively places his shield between himself and the ogre’s weapon, but the force behind the hit is so great that it sends him flying into a nearby wall.
Hadrik is the next one who dashe
s towards the captain, and the ogre hits him with his club as well. The dwarf stops the weapon by putting his hands above his head, and the floor below them is beginning to crumble from the impact of the club’s strike.
While the two of them duel, Illuna starts to apply some pressure to the other ogres by using her water whips, while doing cartwheels all over the place in order to avoid getting hit by their clubs.
“Not bad for puny dwarf!” the captain says. “But let me ask something. Does dwarf know what lies beneath stronghold floor?”
“Yeah, it’s called a hill,” Hadrik says. “They’re kinda like mountains, only smaller. I can draw you a picture to make it easier to understand, if you want.”
“That is only partly correct, dwarf,” the captain says, with a wicked grin. “It’s true that there is hill below us. But inside this hill, there is abandoned mines, which was used by the goblins before us. The wood in scaffolding leading down must be rotting by now. The two of us are stand right above cave wall, but I can’t say the same about your friends. There is three hundred foot drop until the floor of mines. Can your friends be flying, dwarf?”
The captain then roars loudly, and all of his troops fall back towards the middle of the room. Illuna takes advantage of this, and she uses her water whip to behead them all in a single motion.
“Over here!” she says, as she waves to us from the middle of the ogre corpses. “This must be one of the safe areas. Quick!”
The ogre captain grins widely upon hearing Illuna’s words. He kicks Hadrik out of his way and readies his club to smash the floor from underneath us. As Kate, Rose and I hurry to reach Illuna’s position, the ogre captain smashes his club into the ground and the floor begins to shatter.
I suddenly get a vision of the three of us reaching Illuna, and the floor crumbling below us, while the ground near the entrance of the room remains intact.
“Turn back!” I shout at Kate and Rose. “I just got a premonition! This area is not safe! Turn back now!”
Magium: The Mage Tournament: Book 1 Page 24
