But which should she choose?
* * *
Alissa’s own smile faded a touch as she returned to her post. Among the letters they’d received was one for herself, supposedly from her aging grandmother. The coded letter had told her that her own orders were unchanged, and that upset her. She liked the princess, and the last thing she wanted was to kill her.
But if the choices were to let Kelvanis get their hands on the princess or to kill her, Alissa would carry out her orders without a second thought. Anything would be worth keeping Phynis from suffering whatever fate the Adjudicators of Kelvanis would do to her.
And if she was forced to carry out her orders, she would do the only thing she felt she could afterward, and end her own life. If she killed her charge, what right did she have to continue living?
No one nearby would have been able to see even a hint of the sadness on Alissa’s face, as she put on a facade of boredom as she continued guarding Desa’s door.
* * *
“So what’re we going to do, Captain?” Evrial asked, looking slightly anxious as she glanced at Desa while they patrolled the woods around the rear exit from the dungeon. Desa felt worn out, but she’d waited to explain things until they were well away from the exit, not wanting to warn Sistina of what was happening.
“I don’t see that we have much of a choice here. I don’t know all of the reasoning that led Her Majesty to the decision, but we have to assume she’s making the best decision for the kingdom’s survival.” Desa spoke confidently, in spite of her own misgivings. “But we can’t be certain that if the princess knew ahead of time she wouldn’t outright refuse. And if she asked, I suspect that Sistina would let her stay, and prevent us from forcing her to leave. So we don’t have many options, and I don’t like any of them.”
“Of course. What do you need us to do?” Evrial asked, glancing around the woods cautiously.
“I want you to spread the word among the Royal Guard on patrols like this, and stockpile the supplies we’ll need for the trip out here.” Desa told her, closing her eyes for a moment as she took a deep breath, then continued. “One week from today, or slightly sooner if we have everything prepared, I’ll draw the princess outside for fresh air and we’ll take her home. I think that she’ll come quietly at that point, but we can’t be certain of that. I hope we don’t have to use force, but we don’t have many options that I can think of.”
“As you say, Captain.” Evrial’s unease seemed to ease somewhat as she nodded. “I think she’ll go along with it, like you said.”
“I hope so.” Desa’s voice was quiet, and she went silent for a moment before she sighed and shook her head. “I hate doing this, Evrial. Sistina hasn’t done anything untoward at all to Phynis, or any of us. She’s never given a single order or done anything else, and yet…”
“I know. But we gave our oaths, Captain. We’re not the ones with the big picture.” Evrial shrugged helplessly, looking down as she hesitated. Rather than speak further, the guard shrugged again, her face speaking volumes about her own unease.
“You’re right. But it doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.” Desa sighed, then straightened. “But we do what we must. Get everything ready, and we’ll do as Her Majesty desires.”
Chapter 40
“Okay, what in the hells is going on here?” Darak demanded angrily, pulling his axe bodily from the corpse of a giant ant nearly his own size. “We’ve cleared forty chambers. I’ve never heard of a dungeon that’s gotten this big before being found! And why does it seem like the enemies are just getting tougher?”
“I have no idea what’s going on, and it’s not your imagination. The enemies down here are definitely more difficult than up above.” Joseph replied, wiping his forehead and looking at one particular ant carapace distastefully. “But is it just me, or did this ant’s...shell glow with magical runes in the middle of the fight?”
“It isn’t just you. The carapace glowed, and then the stupid thing healed several wounds I’d inflicted.” Penelope interjected, glowering at the dead ant. “That wasn’t fun, considering the numbers of them we’ve run into down here. And the word is carapace, Joe.”
“Damn. That’s a nasty idea. What’re we going to do if those get more common?” Darak asked, frowning at the carapace in obvious worry. “I’ve heard of enchanted creatures like this before, and they’re usually really tough, but I haven’t ever heard of ants gaining magical abilities.”
“I don’t think they’re going to be too common, Darak. Tell me, does the next tunnel go downward again?” Nirath asked, stepping forward and looking at the carapace more closely.
“Let me check.” He grumped, picking up his axe again and heading toward the exit. Looking down the corridor, his frown grew and he called back. “It does head down. What are you thinking, Nirath? Seriously, I mean. This dungeon is starting to worry me.”
“I think that this is the end of a floor.” Nirath replied, glancing up at him and then tapping the carapace. “And this carapace isn’t intended to be broken in battle, either. The enchantment pattern is still in the carapace, and can be powered by mana. This is intended as treasure.”
“What?” Penelope almost yelped, her eyes going wide. “No way. Who’d haul around a massive ant carapace for some healing? That’s disgusting!”
“Wait, wait...actually, that makes some sense.” Darak interjected, his eyes narrowing as he looked the carapace over speculatively. After a minute he nodded to himself slowly. “I’ve heard of some of the smiths back home turning the shells of big beasts into armor before. And that looks about the right size to be reshaped into the front half of a breastplate. If a good armorworker got their hands on it, it’d be about the right size.”
“I don’t care. That’s just absurd.” Penelope refuted, shaking her head firmly as she took a step backward. “It’s sickening to even think about.”
“No matter what you think, Penelope, it’s the truth. Also, if you look closely, this carapace is different from the others. It has metal in it, reinforcing the surface. It was likely the boss monster of this floor of the dungeon.” Nirath added, tapping the carapace gently again. “To me, it’s almost like the dungeon is specifically increasing the difficulty and rewards of each floor on purpose. And it also seems like it’s deliberately separating out the different difficulties over different floors as we travel downward.”
“That’s unsettling.” Joseph murmured, frowning as he considered, then looked up at the others seriously. “Most dungeons learn from adventurers, don’t get me wrong, but this looks planned. I have to wonder...is this a dungeon that possibly pre-dates the Godsrage?”
“That seems possible.” Penelope interjected, seemingly eager to change the subject from the ant.
“Not a chance.” Darak refuted, shaking his head and sitting on a rock nearby the slaughter ground, looking at the two dozen dead ants.
“Why not?” Joseph asked, seeming taken aback by Darak’s flat refutation of his idea. The others also looked confused, so Darak sighed and shook his head again.
“The reason is the caverns we’ve been through. You know as well as I do that earth elementals, like Shale, can tell a lot about rock. I’ve ranted on it on enough occasions. Something I haven’t bothered talking about it so far, about these tunnels? Damn new. Other than a few of the ones up near the surface, we’ve only been in one or two that are more than a decade or so old at all.” Darak explained, then frowned. “And this is weird, too. I’ll admit that Nirath’s opinion makes an odd sort of sense, but something about this place feels wrong. The mana density, the way the monsters are set up...we’re likely going to need an experienced team to clear this place. If the power level keeps increasing like this, if there’re more than ten floors, we won’t survive to the end of this dungeon.”
“...I suppose that’s fair.” Nirath admitted, a frown crossing the elf’s face as she shook her head. “The opposition has been survivable so far, but if the power level increases like what I�
��ve been noticing, we could run into truly deadly creatures before the bottom.”
“Well, at least the dungeon doesn’t seem to try to repopulate the caverns when we’re on the way out.” Penelope murmured.
“Hey! Don’t tempt fate, Pen!” Joseph shot back, his eyes widening. “Dungeons learn, remember?”
* * *
Yes, dungeons did learn. But Sistina wasn’t planning on taking advantage of that particular weakness of the adventuring group at the moment. She was actually still trying to think of a way to create easy exits for each group of adventurers on a given floor that wouldn’t allow intruders to simply bypass large portions of the dungeon she’d designed. Once she had something like that in place, maybe she’d start fully repopulating the dungeon behind adventurers.
The idea of a series of one-way doors that would let them out was tempting, though...maybe with excessively deadly traps for people who tried to use the exits in reverse? Past the first door, at least. She didn’t want to just outright kill those who didn’t realize they were heading down the wrong path.
Opening her eyes, she looked at Phynis and smiled at the sight of the young woman. The princess was reading a book and seemed happy enough. So instead of continuing to examine the odd group of adventurers, Sistina picked up a book of her own. The book discussed a dozen different dungeons that had once existed in Everium, and went over them in a good amount of detail. From what she could tell, none of them had survived the Godsrage, but...suddenly she paused, setting the book aside carefully. Standing up as her curiosity got the better of her, she started toward the door into the main library.
* * *
“Hmm?” Phynis blinked in surprise as Sistina suddenly stood up, her thoughts jarred away from the book in front of her.
While she might be able to read the old forms of elven, it was sometimes more difficult than others. Some of the ways that they used words had changed significantly, making her have to re-read sentences multiple times to ensure that she’d translated them correctly. Even then, some of the sentences made no sense and Sistina had been forced to laboriously translate for Phynis.
Learning that the Constella family lands had been an earldom on the northern edge of the kingdom had been fascinating, as had some of the other details on her family lineage. Not much of it was truly important at this point, but it was interesting. They certainly hadn’t been royalty at the time of the Godsrage.
Sistina normally either sat in the same room as her while Phynis read, or read her own books, usually a tome on dungeons. The fact that a dungeon was reading about dungeons amused Phynis to no end, but the dryad getting up without prompting was unusual. Which was why Phynis asked after a momentary pause. “Sistina? Is something wrong?”
Sistina took a moment to stop and think before speaking. “Farlon. Inquiring.”
“What are you asking him about?” Phynis asked, honestly startled. While Farlon and Sistina were no longer ignoring one another, they weren’t exactly close.
“Godsrage. Was sleeping.” Sistina explained, and her expression turned slightly sheepish as she shrugged and continued. “Curious.”
“I see. That’s...I suppose that makes a lot of sense.” Phynis replied, considering for a moment before slipping her bookmark into place and closing her book. While she should likely be surprised that Sistina didn’t know about the Godsrage, it actually made sense. With Sistina’s missing memories, why should she remember the Godsrage, anyway? “Why don’t we go find him and we can ask, then?”
The dryad nodded and waited for Phynis to get up, instead following the princess into the main stacks again. It wasn’t too surprising to find Farlon at a table, poring over books while a pot of tea slowly cooled in front of him. His assistants were likely off in the stacks somewhere, but Phynis cleared her throat politely to get the scholar’s attention.
“Hmm? Yes, Your Highness?” Farlon jumped ever so slightly, blinking at her for a moment before straightening in his chair. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes, actually. But first, are you busy?” Phynis asked, glancing at Sistina. “Sistina had a very broad question, and I don’t want you to lose your place in your research.”
“Oh? That’s unusual indeed. Go right ahead and interrupt. I’m actually trying to translate a particularly annoying bit of text and could use the break.” Farlon told Phynis with a smile, then raised an eyebrow at Sistina. “In fact, I’m surprised that Sistina has a question. She doesn’t normally seem to be one to ask things. Oh, have a seat!”
“Thank you.” Phynis smiled at him, taking a seat as Sistina did as well. She took a moment before speaking. “Sistina was going to ask about the Godsrage. She said she was sleeping during it, so I’m guessing she doesn’t know what happened.”
“She...wait, you don’t know anything about the Godsrage? At all?” Farlon asked, his voice turning somewhat incredulous as he looked at Sistina, who shrugged.
“Sleeping in tomb. Woke underground.” The dryad explained, if one could call it an explanation. “Inferred information. Deific apocalypse?”
“Yes, I suppose one might call the Godsrage an apocalypse. Damn, I’d never thought…” Farlon shook his head wonderingly, then softly chuckled. “I’ve had to teach some students some of the details about it before, but everyone I’ve known had at least heard of the Godsrage. Well, I suppose there’s a first for everything.”
“True enough. I would’ve tried to explain myself, but I suspect I’d mess it up.” Phynis added, smiling at Sistina as she settled back in her chair.
“I doubt that, Your Highness. The Godsrage isn’t a terribly complex concept to explain. The source of it is the subject of much speculation, though. Unfortunately, little is actually known about what the core conflicts that set it off were. What we actually know is that the deities of light and darkness went to war with one another. At first the indications were fairly minor, but surviving texts of the time and legends indicate that the deities also urged their followers to go to war with their rival faiths.” Farlon told them, standing up and taking a step back so he could pace back and forth. He moved slowly at first, but his step and voice grew more brisk as he built up momentum. “I won’t go into the specific evidence, but it appeared that the conflict was relatively small at first. But things slowly built into a greater war as churches and faiths of all types joined the conflict on different sides. Even some deities of light or darkness seemed to go to war with their fellow deities on the same side, and the war began to consume the world, devastating huge regions. All of that was tame compared to what followed, however.”
“Near the end of the wars, as the different nations armies were all but spent, the war between the deities themselves spilled over into our world. The gods physically manifested and commanded their legions of angels and demons against their rivals. Their powers were directed at one another, and the consequences of the struggle were catastrophic.” Farlon’s voice grew grim as he sighed, shaking his head and slowing to a near stop. “We are in the outskirts of the Godsrage Mountains, the place where the worst conflict of that war occurred, where Demasa, the patron of Everium and most of her Court of Light perished in battle against Kylrius and his own followers. Kylrius died as well, but the devastation twisted the land and nearly wiped out every species within thousands of miles. The survivors of the conflict were tainted by the essence of the slain gods, and mutated into the dawn elves of the south, and the dusk elves of the north. Yet this was only a single battlefield, and changes came over vast numbers of other species within our new borders..”
“All across the world, deities fought. It’s said that a full quarter of the deific host perished in the war. But they actually had the easy part of it.” Farlon’s eyes flickered with derision as he shook his head. “Mortals were too fragile, and the powers unleashed were too great. It is said that ninety-nine mortals out of one hundred were killed in the wars. The landscape was rent asunder, cities razed to ash and dust, and most of the knowledge of what came
before was lost. Not everything, as this library shows, but what survived was hidden. Entire species were wiped out, and different magical beasts of war still live and breed in the dark places of the world.”
“After?” Sistina asked, looking slightly confused. “The ending?”
“Ah, yes. We are just as uncertain of why the war stopped as we are of why it began, but we know a little.” Farlon admitted, sitting down again. “The gods ceased their war and came to an agreement. They retreated from our world, and while they will respond to those with the magic to make contracts with them, or whom can cast spells to summon their servants, the deities cannot take a proactive hand in our world anymore. The war was too devastating, so they took a step back.”
“Interesting.” Sistina murmured, sitting back and her eyes darkening. “Sad.”
“That it is.” Phynis agreed, shaking her head.
“Did it answer your question, though? I could give more details, though I don’t have the texts that would explain it in-depth for you.” Farlon asked, seeming curious as to what Sistina was thinking.
“Answered question.” Sistina told him softly, shaking her head. “Unfortunate. Many thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Farlon spoke in return smiling. “It’s good to see you’re interested in what happened while you ‘slept’.”
“Well, in that case...now what? I’m done reading, I think.” Phynis asked, getting up and taking a step behind Sistina as she rose, then draping her arms around the dryad.
Sistina smiled and leaned back into Phynis, sending a faint sensation of happiness and satisfaction through the elf before she spoke. “Your choice. Satisfied.”
“I’d suggest you get a private room before you distract me more.” Farlon grumbled. “I’m old, not dead.”
Phynis broke down into giggles at that, grinning broadly. “We’ll leave you alone, then. Let’s go back up to your tree, Sistina.”
Ancient Ruins (Ancient Dreams Book 1) Page 30
