The Vault of Kings

by Matt Taylor

  “Alright, let me hit him again!”

  Samara removed her hands as Uthren again rubbed his hands together, and placing them on Torrens chest shot another bolt of electricity through his body. Torren shot up and gasped for air. He clutched at his lungs as he gasped, and Samara hurriedly placed her hands back on his chest and continued mending.

  Uthren sighed with relief, “you really gave us a scare there, Torren.”

  Torrens chest cavity began to expand as the energy poured into him, their flattened form eventually retaining their normal state from before he had been slammed in the chest.

  Torren smiled as the pain slowly dissipated from his chest, “Yeah, I totally got you guys hu?” he coughed and winced in pain as the words came out.

  “Don’t speak. Let me finish healing you, Torren.” Samara exclaimed, tears still streaming from her eyes.

  Torren chuckled softly and let his head rest on the ground.

  Uthren returned to his feet and let the Magick glow fade into the night. “Samara, I need to go find Geode and Sylas, you stay here and tend to Torren, we’ll be right back.”

  Samara nodded and continued her work on Torren as Uthren ran off towards where he had last seen Goede.

  Uthren ran in the darkness towards two silhouettes in the night. Approaching them, he found Geode sitting with Sylas near several crippled bodies.

  “Are you both alright?”

  “Yes, we’re fine,” Geode responded. “Sylas here gave us a bit of a scare, but we’re both okay.”

  “What happened?”

  Geode paused for a moment, then putting his hand on Sylas’s shoulder continued. “Why don’t you tell him, Sylas?”

  Sylas looked down, obviously ashamed of the events that had just transpired.

  “I don’t know what happened, really… I was chasing after one of the archers that was shooting arrows at you two. I yelled at him, and he turned his attention towards me, so I ran towards him with my Light shield and my sword drawn. He kept on shooting arrows at me, which I blocked with my shield, but one of them got past me and hit me in the leg. It hurt so bad… I immediately lost control of my second mind, and it closed. The archer saw that I was defenseless, and he ran up to me and with his sword and stabbed it into my shoulder, demanding that I tell him where the Stone of Darkness was. I didn’t know what to do, I thought for sure that he was going to kill me. Then, I just kind of snapped. It all happened so fast... I tried to use Nature Magick like Geode did to use the vines from the trees nearby to grapple him, but I must have done something wrong. It felt good, though, it felt right… My leg and shoulder hurt so bad, I just wanted the pain to go away, and I wanted the man who had done it to me to die. I don’t really know how, but that’s exactly what happened.”

  Sylas looked down at his leg and placed a hand over his shoulder, no wounds were there to be seen, only tears in his clothing.

  “Several others then ran towards me, and I felt the power flowing through me again. I don’t know what happened after that, but the next thing I knew all of these bodies were around me, I had no pain, and Geode was shaking me.”

  Uthren looked at Geode for further explanation.

  “Somehow Uthren,” Geode started. “Sylas was able to open his second mind and channel not only Nature but also Darkness Magick in combination. Not only that, but he cast a very advanced, very… well, evil in nature, I would say, Darkness, Nature combination spell on all of these men. I believe it’s called Life Drain, If I remember correctly. He wasn’t the Sylas that we know in the moment that I found him. He had killed all of these men, draining their life force and using it to heal himself. I saw what was happening from a distance, but by the time I arrived, he had already fallen unconscious.

  Sylas began to tear up again as he spoke, “Uthren, what’s wrong with me? Why do things like this keep happening?”

  Uthren placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know Sylas, but I promise you we are going to figure it out. We had better leave this place, however, I don’t know if there are more people after us nearby or not, but I don’t want to take the chance to find out. Can you find your pack and continue tonight?”

  Wiping the tears from his eyes, Sylas nodded.

  “Great, Samara is healing Torren just to the South of us. Meet me over there when you are ready, and please hurry.”

  Uthren turned and ran off towards Torren and Samara while Geode stayed behind with Sylas for just a moment longer.

  “You’re sure you are okay, Sylas?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Sylas said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Thanks for helping me Geode, I’m sorry for all of the trouble that I’ve caused. This is all my fault, everything. If we would have never gone down into the Ancient Crypt, I would have never found the amulet, nor the stone, and we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  Geode grabbed Sylas and pulled him into a loving embrace. “It’s because of you we have some troubles, yes, but it will also be because of you that we can stop Maelos if we are successful. There is opposition in all things, and in order for good to conquer evil, sacrifices must be made. Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Geode released Sylas from the embrace and stood up, extending a hand to Sylas.

  Sylas gripped his mentor’s hand and pulled himself to his feet.

  “Thank you.”

  After Samara and Uthren finished healing Torren, they all found their packs and continued to travel throughout the night. Every crack of a stick beneath someone’s boot or the chirp of an animal in the night sent everyone’s hearts into overdrive. Luckily the rest of the night came and went without incident, and they found a secluded place to finish the night off with an hour or two of sleep. The next morning they awoke and immediately continued their journey, taking another alternate path to try and throw Maelos off their trail towards Gelendor. During their morning travels, Uthren inquired as to what happened to each of them during the attack the night before.

  Torren recounted his events with the man that “all of the sudden got super buff,” and Samara filled in the minor details. She then recounted her battle with him and asked Uthren what exactly he did to get so strong.

  “One of the more useful spells in Fire Magick is to use it to enrage your body. Geode did the same thing when he pulled the arrow from his arm last night. When you use that spell, your body no longer feels pain, and you increase your strength several times over. You also become extremely aggressive and cocky, so it needs to be used with caution, or else you will find yourself doing stupid things just to show dominance and power like that man did when catching Torrens sword in his hand.”

  “Yeah that was crazy! I knew I was in trouble when he did that. Good thing Samara came to save the day!” Torren said, giving Samara a playful, yet grateful smile.

  “The other thing I wanted to ask you about Uthren,” Samara continued, “was the interaction between my Light Magick and the Fire Magick that the man was throwing at me. When they collided, it seemed to produce lightning, do you know why that would have happened?”

  “It’s because when you use combination Magick, Fire and Light make lightning effects. I used the same technique last night to jolt Torrens heart back into action. Although neither of you were intentionally combining both elements, because the two Magick energies struck each other, they were able to produce the same effect. When fighting against another mage, a lot of times the winner of the battle will be the one that knows what the effects are when the elements that are being used are combined, just like in your situation. It was very resourceful of you to recognize that something was going on with the lightning and to send a beam of Light into the man’s sword, causing him to be electrocuted. Very well done indeed. Which brings me to my next point… You children are continuing to surprise me every day. Samara, It’s extremely rare that someone of your experience is able to discover new spells on the fly, and even more so to be able to allow your second mind to be the main driver of your actions. I would say it’s even prodigious of someone with as li
ttle of experience that you have. I believe that you have found your natural attunement and that you can one day become a mighty Light mage.”

  His voice growing a bit more gruff, he continued, “I would caution you, however, in allowing your second mind that much control in the future. While it can be extremely powerful to always give in to its suggestions, if you are not careful, then it can cause you to do things that you may regret before you can stop yourself. Think about the time where Sylas lashed out at me during our training by accident. When you allow your second mind to rule and control your actions, accidents are much more likely to happen. Nevertheless, I think you did amazing last night, and commend you for your actions.”

  Samara blushed at the praise she had received and felt proud of her accomplishments. “Thank you Uthren, I will take your counsel to heart, and only resort to instinctive casting in emergencies.”

  Uthren nodded in approval and then continued, “As for you, Sylas, I’ve been thinking greatly about what happened last night, and have come to several conclusions. Whether or not they are completely accurate is still a guess to me, but it’s the best that I can come up with. Anyway, as I believe that Samara is naturally attuned to Light Magick, I think that you have also found your natural attunement. I think that you are naturally gifted with Darkness.”

  “Darkness? But I can’t be, I don’t even know the symbol of Darkness… unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  Sylas paused for a moment, and then recounted the part of his vision where he saw himself in the mirror, and his reflection made a strange symbol and then used what looked like Darkness Magick.

  Uthren pondered this information and then told Sylas to recount the rest of his vision. Sylas told him about the graveyard that he found himself in and the large tomb with the skull symbol above the door. He also recounted how there were thousands of animated skeletons that stood behind them, their eyes glowing with a dark, purple light. He then talked about the mirror and how his reflection made a symbol, which he now guessed was the symbol of Darkness, and how it tried to throw dark energy at him. He then recounted how he was transported into the mountains and saw a statue of what looked to be a great warrior, and inside of his maul, he saw something glowing brightly. Right after that, he talked about seeing Maelos and the pain that he felt as he looked into his cold, dark eyes.

  Uthren grew silent for some time while trying to digest the information that Sylas had just given them.

  “Sylas, can you show me the symbol that your reflection made, do you remember it?” Geode finally spoke up.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I remember what it looked like.”

  Sylas then stopped walking, and the rest of the group followed suit. He brought his hands together, making two circles with his pointer finger and thumb, and touched them together. He then extended the three other fingers on both of his hands and touched them together, arching over the circles. He then proceeded to twist his hands forward, making the symbol appear upside down.

  “I’m pretty sure this is what it was.”

  Uthren sighed, “Yes, that’s the symbol of Darkness. Which confirms my suspicions. I believe that your natural attunement is that of Darkness, and along with having the special connection to Maelos through the strange Magick that affected you when you first touched the stone, it’s making that connection even stronger. I would advise that before you learn any Darkness Magick that you continue your training with Light and Nature with Geode and myself. However, after that, I do believe it would be appropriate for Geode to teach you some Darkness techniques, as that will be what you will excel the most in.”

  Sylas didn’t know what to think, he didn’t want Darkness to be his attunement. What if he turned out to be bad, like Maelos? What if the Darkness Magick started to corrupt him, and he turned against his friends?

  Sensing the conflict within him, Geode put his arm around Sylas. “Not all Darkness mages are evil, Sylas. As Uthren has explained before, Darkness is not inherently evil, it’s just easier to lean that way with it more than the other elements. Fire is somewhat similar, actually. When I use Fire Magick, I have to be sure to keep my thoughts and desires under control so that I don’t do anything that I will regret, but it has become easier over the years to do so. I think you could become a great Darkness mage.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Of course. Like Uthren said, though, I believe you should continue learning about Light and Nature until you get the basics down and learn how to control yourself while your second mind is open. Once you have got the basics down, I would be happy to teach you what I know about Darkness, and we will work through it together. I’ve actually been meaning to practice Darkness for some time now anyway, there are a lot of useful things that you can do with it that I’m missing out on.”

  Geode’s words comforted him greatly. It didn’t seem so bad to learn how to use Darkness if Geode was able to teach him how to do it the right way. “Alright, that sounds like a plan to me!”

  “As for the other parts of your vision.” Uthren continued. “It makes me wonder what Maelos is really up to. The fact that you saw all of those skeletons, and the way you described them makes me worry. The good news is that not all of what you saw was bad. I believe we might know where the Stone of Light is now, and we can go after it after we’ve done what we need to do in Gelendor. I know what statue you saw, it’s in the Light capital of Sindmyr. If the stone really is inside of that statue, then our quest to find all of the stones just got one step easier.”

  Uthren started walking again and motioned for everyone to follow, “If we pick up our pace, and there are no more incidents, I believe we can make it to Gelendor within a couple more days. Once there, we’ll be able to rest and then continue our journey. Make haste, and may the Light guide us.

  chapter 9

  Sky

  Several days had passed since their encounter with the Fire mages. The days of travel were long and hard as Uthren and Geode pushed them to their endurance limit to make it to Gelendor as fast as possible.

  “The longer and harder the days, the more relaxing your short stay at Gelendor will be.” Uthren continued to remind them.

  It didn’t please Sylas that Uthren always referred to their stay at Gelendor as being ‘short’. During their rest periods, Sylas had successfully opened his second mind using Nature as his element of choice with no vision attacks hindering his progress. Geode had also taught him several basic Nature spells such as healings, which were slightly less effective but not so different than the way Light could heal, basic rock-throwing, vine-whipping, and accelerated plant growth. Sylas really enjoyed using Nature Magick and wished that he was naturally attuned to it instead of Darkness.

  Samara and Torren both increased in their skills as well. Torren learned several new fighting stances from Geode and would even wake up early each morning to practice these stances.

  Samara was continuing to show a natural gift for Light Magick, and Uthren continued to praise her for her accomplishments. She even successfully learned her first advanced Light spell, which consisted of bending the natural light around objects in such a way as to make them appear invisible. She found it quite hilarious after learning this spell to sit in front of Torrens tent in the morning and then appear in front of him out of thin air, about making him jump out of his socks. What she enjoyed even more though was when she would not sit in front of his tent in the morning and watch as Torren cautiously approached his tent door, flailing his arms about looking for an invisible prankster to appear, only to have nothing happen.

  “I’m just keeping him on his toes.” she would always state in defense. “If he’s going to be our master swordsman and protector of evil, then he needs to be conditioned to surprises.”

  Sylas was extremely excited for tonight’s training. They had all been discussing plans for what they were going to do to ensure that they enter Gelendor safely, and part of these plans called for a Magick technique that involved talking t
o a squirrel or bird or some other small animal to go into the city first and do a scouting mission for them.

  Sylas begged Geode to let him be the one to try talking to the animal to which he agreed.

  “It’s not an advanced technique per se, but the communication process can get quite complicated at times. If your squirrel gets confused or lost, then I’ll have to take over.” Sylas remembered him saying, “It’s not easy explaining a complicated plan to a simple-minded creature.”

  Gelendor is just another day’s journey after tonight. Sylas thought. Then, hopefully, with the aid of the people there, we’ll be able to shake our pursuers off our trail.

  His train of thought was broken by Samara asking, “Uthren, If Maelos knows we came from Shilvrst and he knows in the main direction we’ve been going, then how do we know we’re even going to be able to make it into Gelendor? Won’t he just have the place surrounded by guards or something?”

  Uthren shook his head and responded, “although he would have you think otherwise, Maelos hasn’t been successful just yet in taking over all of the cities of Evendreil. His influence can be seen everywhere, yes, but he didn’t have the numbers nor the power to put a foothold as strong as he has in Shilvrst everywhere. Shilvrst was one of his easier targets unfortunately, it being a smaller town. But places like Gelendor can not be so easily overtaken. He would need to have a much bigger army to do that. While there very well may be some of his warriors camped outside of the city walls, and unless something has happened between the time that Geode was last there and now, Maelos’s men won’t be found inside the city walls.”

  “But we were taught that all of Evendreil was conquered… that he had control of everything.” Torren said, walking closely behind Sylas so that he could hear the conversation better. “Is that not true?” Samara asked.

  “Maelos would have you think that it’s true, and in some ways, it is a little bit true. All of the land between the major cities is controlled by him, and all trade routes and roadways that lead between the cities are governed by him. Also, most cities, like Shilvrst, for instance, are under his rule. But there are still several cities that were able to fend him off and are not under his grasp, although he would have any under his power think otherwise. He enforces it to be taught that he’s the supreme ruler wherever he has the power to do so, but the reality is that it has not yet happened. I’m sure this is his main goal, however, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he is probably as we speak, making preparations for this to become a reality someday.”