by Andrew Rowe
On the plus side, I didn’t actually end up vomiting. So there’s that, I guess.
We landed near a hillside, toward the end of a long-abandoned road. The road itself was still perfectly usable, if a bit overgrown. Every fifty feet or so there were waist-high obelisks on either side of it marked with runes.
No, sorry Corin. I didn’t write the runes down, and I don’t have the kind of perfect memory for rune shapes that you seem to. Either way, the obelisks seemed inert. Some of them had been visibly smashed, but others were simply lifeless.
The obelisks weren’t the reason we’d landed at that spot, though. The road terminated at a set of double doors — maybe fifteen feet tall — set into the hillside. They were composed of a silvery metal that I suspected was probably an alloy of valden, a magic resistant substance with a high melting point.
The doors, too, were etched with runes — but these were still active.
The sight of the doors left me with a disconcerting feeling of familiarity. Every time I’d seen giant metal doors like these in the past, they’d led into places filled with deadly traps and horrible monsters.
In fairness, I’d already known that the Shrine of Bravery would probably involve traps and monsters, but seeing the doors definitely added a sense of certainty to it.
Marble statues stood next to the door, each depicting a winged woman holding a torch. One was armored and held a spear in her other hand, and the other carried a flute.
I turned to Reika. “What’s with the statues?”
“They’re depictions of Selys, showing that this is a sacred place. One of them is Kerivas, the Visage of Law. The other is...uh, probably Ferras, the Visage of Creation? The flute thing is a little weird.”
“Got it.” I approached the doors.
Now, in the past, I’d gotten through doors like this one through the most direct means possible — reshaping a hole in the metal, or just reshaping the latches to take the door off, or that sort of thing.
But Reika was with me, and she seemed to be more on the “don’t destroy sacred artifacts” side of things, so I decided to exercise a little bit more caution than usual. I glanced at the runes, but I couldn’t recognize them. “Do you know what the runes are for?”
“Probably keeping out the unworthy.”
That wasn’t much of an answer. I’d been hoping for something a little more technical. “Okay. Is there a traditional way I’m supposed to go inside? Someone in charge of this place I’m supposed to talk to, like your equivalent here?”
Reika shook her head. “Nope. The three shrines with the amulets don’t have guardians like the sword shrine itself does. There might be people inside who give you challenges, but I have no idea how it works.”
The door had a crease in the center, but there were no handles on it. I tried just pushing, but it didn’t move. Fortunately, there weren’t any explosions of magical energy or anything, either.
Quiet, Dawn. The adults are working right now.
Then you know how to open the door, in that case?
There’s no handle, Dawn.
I stopped thinking at Dawn and turned back toward the doors. And the statues.
It can’t be that obvious...
I walked over to one of the statues. The torch that it was holding was a real torch, just unlit.
Burn.
I conjured a tiny bit of fire, lighting her torch. Then I lit the other one.
I heard a click, and then the doors swung wide open.
I was almost disappointed that it had worked.
Reika turned and blinked at me. “How’d you know how to do that?”
“You’d be surprised at how many gods, emperors, and kings like designing their trap filled areas with meaningless and arbitrary requirements. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s also a test where I have to shove a block a short distance onto an obvious button.”
Reika frowned. “But that doesn’t really prove anything about bravery.”
“You’re absolutely right. Sometimes it feels like the gods are just wasting our time.” I shook my head. “Anyway, the important part is that the doors are open. Are you coming inside?”
She looked nervous. “I’m not sure if I should. These tests are for people to earn the right to wield Dawnbringer, and I’m the guardian, not a prospective wielder.”
“Well, you can just come along with me, then. If there’s no rule against it, you can drag me outside if things get too dangerous for me to handle on my own.”
Reika had a similar objection. “Doesn’t that sort of defeat the point?”
I addressed them both. “I’m being pragmatic. I’m confident in my abilities, but I’m also still recovering from several injuries. Also, there could be requirements inside that aren’t designed for foreigners like me. Take, for example, if one of the rooms has a puzzle that requires familiarity with local history or your sacred scriptures. There’s no way I — or someone else from another continent — could have a fair chance of handling that.”
I turned my head downward so that Reika would know I was addressing Dawn. “I’m not scared in the slightest. Can you say honestly that there’s no chance of a puzzle that’s designed to require an attunement or knowledge of local culture and traditions?”
“Hm?”
That reaction was at least a step closer to reasonable, even if she still had to throw some barbs in toward the end. “We’ve got Dawn’s approval. Come on. I can do all the heavy lifting on the puzzles unless we run into something that I don’t have the right information for.”
“I guess if Dawn says it’s okay...” She still looked uncomfortable, but she fell into line behind me as I walked to the doors.
I set my backpack down outside, keeping only my belt pouch and my swords fastened onto my belt. I didn’t know how long we were going to be inside, but if there was a chance some of the challenges relied on dexterity, I didn’t want a backpack weighing me down the whole time.
My belt pouch had the barest essentials in it, such as a day worth of food and water, bandages, the purestone, and my mask. I didn’t expect the challenges inside to take long enough that I’d need more supplies than that.
I entered the shrine.
The doorway led into a carved tunnel. It wasn’t a cavern like where Reika had lived; it looked more like the entrance to a mine, complete with beams to reinforce the ceiling and walls. It was wide enough to walk two abreast, but Reika stayed behind me.
I started to remove Dawnbringer from my belt to keep her at the ready.
Getting ready to draw you, in case there’s a fight?
I groaned. That put me in an awkward situation, because I didn’t want to use the Sae’kes, either. There was always an itch at the back of my mind, a desire to use the sword that I’d carried all of my life. Something about wielding the Sae’kes felt right, like it was what I was built for.
I forced myself to resist that urge. Using the sword when I didn’t strictly need to was a risk. The more destructive power I built in my body, the more difficulty I would have with controlling it. Every time I used it was a chance to make another mistake I would r
egret for the rest of my life.
Losing control and killing an enemy was the most likely problem, but as much as I wanted to avoid that, it was far from the worst possible scenario.
I was much more worried about the possibility that I’d hurt one of my friends, like I had with Arkhen, or just an innocent bystander.
I also knew that completely ignoring the potential power of the sword was a losing prospect in the long run. If I died because I’d refused to use that power, innocents could suffer as a result of that failure, too. I’d keep looking for ways to control the power more effectively, like getting attunements or finding other sources of magical power, but in the meantime I needed to exercise a degree of caution.
Apparently Dawn was still reading my mind and had noticed my thoughts drifting. That was awkward.
Because it’s my responsibility.
I didn’t bother waiting for a more elaborate response, I just headed further down the corridor. Reika followed close behind me.
As we moved deeper, the cavern transformed. The ordinary stone gave way to translucent crystal, perfectly smooth and shining with inner light.
“Beautiful...” Reika murmured.
I agreed with her. And from a practical standpoint, the glow of the crystal was providing enough light to see by without any need for the torches from the entrance or another light source. I wouldn’t have to expend valuable body heat to light the cavern with my own fire, or risk Dawn’s ire by drawing her as a light source.
Oh, right. How do your senses work, anyway?
Do you perceive things like colors at all?
Hold on.
I paused for a moment, closing my eyes and picturing the hallway we were currently standing in.
I reopened my eyes.
I looked down.
Sure enough, the square tile of crystal I was standing on had depressed into the ground.
I heard a click, then a whoosh as a jet of flame blasted down the hallway toward Reika and me.
I stepped toward it, rather than away from it. If I’d dodged, the flames would have hit Reika.
Disperse.
The flames got within inches of me, then spread apart and dissipated at my command.
I ignored her, rushing down the hall. As I’d expected, there was a red rune inscribed on the wall that was glowing brighter and brighter with each moment.
I punched it. The crystal snapped around my fist, and there was an explosion of fire mana on impact. I was ready for it, and I pushed back at the fire. The flames were hot enough to melt the surrounding crystal. If I’d been caught off guard, that would have been a serious danger, even to me.
Granted, I probably never would have been caught off guard in the first place if Dawn hadn’t distracted me, but nevertheless, I offered her a mental “thank you” for the warning about the trap.
I grinned, turning back to Reika. “You okay?”
“Pfft, little thing like that wouldn’t have even stung me. Dragon, remember?”
I didn’t know if that was true in her human form, but in fairness, she’d shrugged off most of my attacks pretty easily. “Fair. I’ll be more cautious from this point on.”
The rune for the trap had been at the end of the current hallway, after which the passage veered to the left. We continued a little more slowly, but I didn’t run into any more traps immediately.
Instead, the tunnel opened up into a tremendous chamber. It was at least a few hundred feet across, and I could see several things of note from the entrance.
The most important was what appeared to be my destination. On the opposite side of the chamber and about fifty feet up, I could see another set of silver doors like the ones at the entrance. There was only a small crystalline section of ground to stand on in front of the doors, however, and no easy way to get there.
The pathway we’d been following ended abruptly at the entrance to the chamber, terminating at what I’d describe as a “yawning death chasm”.
After briefly considering asking Reika to fly me across, then dismissing that because I knew Dawn and Reika would both consider it cheating, I assessed my other options.
There were three routes that I’d be hesitant to call paths to move forward.
Straight ahead, there were huge platforms suspended in mid-air over what looked to be an impenetrable field of darkness below. The platforms were hexagonal and made of the same type of crystal as the walls. They looked to be about four feet wide and varying distances apart from each other.
A few of the platforms were moving from side-to-side in the air. They’d go about ten feet to one side, pause, and then start moving back. The timing seemed predictable, at least.
Toward the end, some of the platforms were floating up and down, at seemingly predictable intervals. The very last platform floated up to almost close enough to reach the door.
The obvious way forward on that route would have been to jump from platform to platform. I, however, had serious reservations about jumping onto a hovering platform without any concept of the strength of the magic keeping it afloat. Moreover, I couldn’t discount the possibility that some or all of the platforms were illusory, and that jumping onto one might lead me to fall into that seemingly indefinite void with no hope of escape.
Even if the platforms were exactly what they appeared (and stable), I wasn’t confident my jumping accuracy and timing would be perfect.
So, jumping straight away was not a good option.
The other potential paths were similarly terrible.
To my right, there was a trail that followed the cavern wall. Calling it a trail was probably generous — it was maybe a foot wide, so ledge might have been more appropriate. The ledge itself was crystal, but the cavern walls to my right had transitioned back into ordinary stone.
That ledge seemed to wind all the way around the walls, then upward, until it seemed to end up somewhere above the doorway. From there, presumably I could hop downward to the door if I was feeling adventurous.
The third path was both the clearest and the least appealing option. There was a crystalline ladder right in front of me, where the main trail terminated. It went straight down into the aforementioned impermeable darkness.
I had no desire to climb into infinite darkness. That was one of my least favorite things to do. I did, however, feel some comfort in the fact that the ladder might give me a return route if I ended up falling from one of the other paths.
I didn’t intend to fall, of course. I planned to thoroughly test each route until I found a viable way forward.
That plan, of course, fell apart right around the same time the tunnel behind us started to.
I felt the shift in the stone before I heard it, and I heard it before I spun around to see what was happening. The crystal was cracking, and it looked like the whole hallway was moments from collapsing.
I briefly evaluated reinforcing the crystal, but I didn’t have
enough power or control to do that for an entire hallway. That meant I needed to move — and fast.
My decision was more based on instinct than careful evaluation. In retrospect, I may have picked the worst possible choice.
I turned back toward the giant chamber, took a deep breath, and leapt forward.
I landed on the first floating platform, taking a couple steps after landing and barely stopping myself from falling off the edge.
Then Reika landed behind me and did the same thing, crashing right into my back.
For a horrifying instant, I teetered at the edge. Reika grabbed my shirt and pulled me backward before I actually fell, saving me from the fall but throwing me even further off balance.
I barely managed to steady myself before I fell backward, rather than forward. After a few more moments, we managed to steady ourselves, and I looked back.
The hallway had finished collapsing behind us almost immediately after we moved. Now, the only path was forward.
I briefly contemplated trying to leap to the narrow path, but jumping to something that precarious seemed very likely to make me fall. If I’d just stepped onto it, I would have had better odds of remaining stable there, but I also hadn’t known if the hallway collapse would destroy the path.
Jumping to the ladder was still an option, but since it went down into eternal darkness, I wouldn’t have called it a good option.
I wanted to talk to Reika and figure out a more coherent plan, but the platform beneath us was starting to wobble, and that was something I found deeply concerning. Maybe it wasn’t able to handle the weight of both of us, or maybe it just was only designed to stay afloat for a little bit after someone landed on it. I couldn’t be sure of the cause, but I was pretty sure I only had a few moments before it dropped.
And so, I turned toward the next platform, setting my jaw and getting ready to jump.
“I’m jumping. You may want wings.” That was all I had time to communicate before stepping back and taking the next leap.
The first attack started when I was in mid-air. A beam of multi-colored light flashed forward from somewhere on the opposite side of the chamber. I was airborne with a set trajectory, so my options were limited. I managed to twist to the side, but the beam still clipped me, burning a hole in my shirt and — more importantly — knocking me slightly off course.
