“Try letting go of that and see if that opens a doorway,” Nyx says while moving to sit across from the warrior. She flicks a tiny fireball out of the tunnel and watches it split into five pieces against another barrier. “What are you focusing on to get us out of here anyway? I’ve never really understood what you can track with your fount powers.”
“Honestly, I always thought I was connecting to auras like I’ve seen you do,” Delvin replies, his eyes closing to help clear his mind. A tug on the top of his head jolts him back to consciousness, but the half-elf has not moved any closer. “As far as I know, I don’t lock onto any specific type of energy. That isn’t saying much since I was never taught magic, so it could just be my ignorance masking the truth. Honestly, being a fount sounds so random and messy. Not that Mab explained it well in the first place. Still, one moment I’m enhancing my physical abilities and the other I’m healing people. Maybe I can emit magic from my sword or teleport around a battlefield. Then again, it feels more like I have . . . control over life.”
“Well, there is the strong belief that a living spirit is made from energy, but it’s a type that differs from our auras,” the channeler explains, crawling over to sit within reach of her companion. Touching his chest, she causes his energy to appear along his veins with a star-like core over his heart. “That’s interesting. If illuminated like this, my aura travels along the veins toward my heart. I see the opposite path happening within you. Almost like I absorb energy and you produce it. Perhaps being a fount gives you an incredibly strong life force, which combines with your aura to create this effect. Remember that living things were still alive long before Mylrix crashed into the physical plane and gave everyone an aura. So it isn’t a far-fetched idea that you’re working off a different type of energy. Maybe even both aura and spirit like a halfway point between casters and holy workers.”
“You’re making this up as you go along.”
“Yes, but I’m smart enough to make it sound believable.”
“Let me try something.”
Delvin closes his eyes again and pushes away all thoughts of failure, allowing his power to awaken. He tries to think of a living creature to track that will help them escape, but finds himself struggling for a target. Targeting the Akota, he is turned around by an echo that ends when he jolts himself awake. Ignoring the curious stare of his companion, Delvin plunges back into his trance and searches for Luke. His nose bleeds before he can get very far, so he hurries to pull his energy back. A strange tug on his hair draws his attention to the top of the maze and he catches the flickering image of a flower. It takes him a minute to remember the colorful plant that is growing out of the Akota’s shell. Focusing on the new target, the warrior opens his eyes and sees a rope ladder materialize on the other side of the pit.
“Can you see that?” Delvin asks as he stands and leans out of the tunnel. All he receives from Nyx is a blank stare that switches from him to the void in front of her. “I guess not. Well I focused on a flower that is at the top of the Akota. Now I see a rope ladder over there and it leads to the ceiling. Damn, there are a bunch of those abysses in the way. It’s going to be a tough climb, especially with you unable to see any of this.”
“You could always carry me on your back,” the channeler suggest while her eyes fruitlessly cycle through various sight spells. Seeing the awkward twitch on her friend’s face, Nyx sighs and joins him at the edge of the tunnel. “Or you can be a jerk. No matter what you’re feeling, I’m going to need your help in getting to the ladder.”
“I know, but the vertigo effect from the abysses will make the climb very dangerous. More so if you’re on my back,” the warrior says, grasping at a logical answer. Pushing his fear and guilt away, Delvin puts his weapons into his pouch and retrieves a coil of rope. “Tie this around your waist. I’ll do the same and we’ll put some distance between us. Let me pass through the holes first and wait for me to call you to come forward once I recover. With this connecting us, we should be able to stop each other from falling.”
Nyx ties the rope around her waist and makes sure the knot is secure with a strong tug. “First one to slip owes the other a meal. Dessert too if we collide and nearly fall to our death.”
“Is that how I’m going to finally get that big date?”
“Do you still want it?”
Without a word, Delvin leaps for the ladder and clambers high enough to give Nyx some space. He feels a jolt of electricity run up his spine, the burst making his shoulders quiver and his hands sweat. The warrior glances down to see his companion scowling, her hands tightly clutching their connection in case he falls. Lowering himself until he is across from the tunnel, Delvin stretches his arm for Nyx to grab onto and swing for the rope. He waits for the half-elf to catch the ladder and cautiously releases her, breathing a sigh of relief when she does not plummet down the vertical shaft. Staring at the distant ceiling, the warrior leads the way through disorienting portals and unexpected gusts of wind that threaten to tear the champion from their handholds.
*****
“Is it dead?” Nyx asks while gingerly tapping on the Akota’s shell. The creature’s heads and legs are buried again, the vertebrae having become tangled with the Tree of Creation’s large roots. “So strange that it looks like it’s been here for centuries. I still sense some magic in the shell, so maybe your guardian will be revived once you purify the plateau. What do you think, Delvin?”
Quietly sitting on a root, the warrior stares at the stone door that is embedded in the thick trunk. The way that the entrance is built makes him wonder if it was here before the tree since there are branches sticking out of the cracked frame. An eerie squirming sensation runs beneath his skin when he tries to use his powers to steal a peek at what is inside his temple. Feeling a strange vibration against his chest, Delvin takes out the Compass Key and turns it over in his hands. Once he aims it at the top of the giant oak, the relic spins out of his grip and sails to the highest point where it sits like a multi-colored star. The champions hear a rumbling from deep within the tree, the noise followed by a series of muffled roars.
“I’m never prepared for the Compass Key to do that,” Delvin whispers as he walks down the slope towards the entrance. Not knowing if they will have to fight a monster or face a puzzle lock, he keeps his hand on his sheathed bastard sword. “That brings up a small question that I should have asked earlier. How did things work with Aintaranurh since you were a living Compass Key?”
With a half-hearted smirk, Nyx moves ahead of her friend and scratches her chest. “It went as one would expect. I was yanked to the entrance and turned like a living key. Sari would have never let me live it down if she was there. The real problem was that the test required all of us to be there. We had to destroy the mechanism and risk getting trapped inside forever. If Timoran failed then the rest of us might have rotted in that temple.”
“Makes you wonder why Gabriel did what he did,” the warrior states, flinching in anticipation of thunder or some other sign from the deity. He relaxes when nothing happens, suspecting that the God of Destiny is too busy to be petty. “Seems to always be a way to get inside as long as you have one champion with you. Though, I’m not getting an immediate idea of what to do here.”
Nyx is heading for the doorway when Delvin tackles her from behind, the pair crashing against the entrance. The half-elf hears a loud boom before twisting around to see a large acorn embedded in the spot she once stood. She presses her back against the tree while scanning the branches for more of the heavy seeds. There are clusters all around the thick limbs with several that are poised to fall, the wind making them sway. Seeing Delvin squish himself into the protective doorway, Nyx joins him and does her best to get a good look at the stone slab. After a few seconds, she recognizes seven circles carved in a familiar pattern even without stepping back into the open.
Another acorn crashes to the ground and cracks open to unleash fist-sized slimes that scuttle around the roots. Colored red, blue, or
yellow, the oozing creatures do not pay any attention to the champions. Primitive and simple, the animals are more interested in finding food such as motes of dust and the occasional beetle. Only one of them remains by the broken acorn to greedily eat the hollowed seed, its sapphire body burbling in what the adventurers assume is glee. Every meal makes the slimes grow bigger, but they remain docile and oblivious to what is going on around them.
“We have slimes and a carving of the Compass Key on the door,” Delvin says, taking a step away from the tree. He scratches his head while Nyx stares at him and crosses her arms, the posture momentarily stunning the warrior. “Sorry, but you look good in the halter top and skirt combination. I didn’t mean to look for so long. Anyway, you know as well as I do that these things wouldn’t be here if they weren’t important. They aren’t attacking us . . . yet. The colors probably have something to do with this. Is one of the outer circles of the carving thicker than the others?”
“I believe so,” Nyx replies as she runs her finger around the groove. Putting her other hand on the central circle, she is surprised to feel a layer of dirt beneath her palm. Clearing the coating reveals a circle of ivory paint that has been enchanted to never fade. “I think I understand the puzzle. This part is white like the pearl and the thick one is uncolored like the diamond. Gabriel must have been running out of ideas at this point because we’re looking at a rather basic painting lock. Halflings used to put these on their vaults long because people thought the concept was so childish that nobody would actually use them. So it always caught people by surprise, which might have been Gabriel’s intention here. Look for more paint, so we can fill the rest of the Compass Key in.”
“I believe that part of the puzzle is oozing around us.”
“That sounds too easy.”
“Isn’t there usually a riddle?”
Not wanting to go with the most obvious solution, Nyx feels around the door while Delvin searches among the roots. The pair spread out and try their best to avoid touching the slimes, more of them emerging from the first of the fallen acorns. With only a handful of rodent bones and a brittle pair of gloves as their reward, the champions return to the door and calmly examine the area. They notice a large, crimson slime belching and oozing toward the Akota, the creature wearing the top of an acorn. It drops the scaly covering, but turns back to slough underneath the makeshift hat before returning to its original path. Tiptoeing around the smaller slimes, Delvin hurries to snatch the lid and shake the determined creature off. With the blob bristling near his feet, the warrior peers inside the acorn cap to read a short message. Unsatisfied with his discovery, he drops the top back onto the slime and trudges back to Nyx.
“It says that we should watch our fingers,” Delvin states with a helpless shrug. Drawing a piece of chalk from his pouch, he remembers the order of the orbs and makes an identifying mark above each of the carved circles. “The ruby, sapphire, and amber will be easy. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do for the emerald and obsidian. No idea how to use these things as paint either unless we smash them first. Sounds too sadistic for a champion test.”
“Well if we’re supposed to watch our fingers then we probably have to grab them and bring them here,” Nyx says while stalking a red slime. She catches the oozing creature, which heats her skin while trying to seep out of her hands. “They’re elemental and it’s a good thing I went first. This thing is a fire creature and it’d probably burn your hands. Starting to sweat here, so I might not want to test my luck.”
The channeler rushes to the door and smears the sizzling creature over the circle marked for the ruby. She is mildly disturbed at how the slime transforms into lifeless paint and fills in the entire section of the carving. Nyx is shaking the residue from her hand when a crackle of lightning erupts from behind her. The half-elf drops to the ground as Delvin is slammed against the door and lands on top of her. Sitting in the warrior’s upturned shield, a yellow slime squirms and unleashes jolts of electricity without aiming. The bursts beat against the tree and ground, the bolts unable to hit the champions who are beneath the enchanted disc. Nyx pushes herself onto all fours and grunts when she gets into a crouch, her heavy friend sitting on her shoulders. She lifts the warrior high enough for him to slap the shield over the correct circle, the blasts of lightning ending with a strange squish.
“Figure out the green yet?” Delvin asks as he gets off the channeler and helps her stand. He wipes the inside of his shield clean, the yellow layer flaking off at his touch. “They turn into actual paint, so I think we should combine a blue and yellow. Not sure I can wrangle two of them since I’m aching from the electric shocks. What about using wind magic to move them without touching them?”
“Sure, but that sounds too easy and those solutions never go well. Then again, I said that before and was proven wrong,” Nyx replies, choosing two of the slimes to levitate and squish together. The creature turns green and spits acid at the half-elf’s boot, which dissolves enough of the material to expose her toes. “A barrier will protect me from this thing. Get a blue one while I finish here.”
With wave of her arms, Nyx hurls the slime into the circle marked for the emerald and watches it splatter into paint. She is about to help Delvin, who is sneaking up on his target and extending his shield, when he signals for her to stay back. The creature leaps at the warrior’s face and starts to wriggle into his nose, its cold body giving him an immediate headache. Ice is forming around his nostrils while he spins and repeatedly tries to sneeze the beast out. A sudden warmth runs through his body to stun the slime and he feels Nyx hugging him, her magical heat helping him focus on walking to the door. Delvin shudders as he presses his face to the stone surface and smears the blue ooze around the connected circle. Some of the paint drips into his mouth and he gags in disgust while finishing his part of the puzzle.
“Now for the . . . where are all the slimes?” Nyx asks, the hairs on her arms prickling in nervous fear. A snarl rolls from behind the pair and they turn to see a large, black dog composed of the remaining slimes. “That’s more like it. Go chop its head off.”
“You could burn the thing.”
“We need some of it for the obsidian circle.”
“Then don’t incinerate it.”
The slime pounces at the champions who dive out of the way and watch the beast skid to a stop before it can touch the door. Watching both of its enemies run in opposite directions, the creature creates a copy of itself and gives chase. Nyx flings gusts of wind and tiny bursts of flame over her shoulder to keep her pursuer at bay, but the panting beast steadily closes in on her. A leaping chomp for the back of her head misses when the half-elf drops to the ground and rolls into a large hole beneath one of the tree roots. The slime oozes after her, its head remaining in the form of a snarling dog that snaps at the scrambling champion. It catches Nyx by her skirt and starts to drag her, but a blast of force sends it soaring out of the hole.
With a yelp the other creature dives away from its incoming partner, which gives Delvin a chance to charge and slice the slime’s head off. The falling part is absorbed into the beast’s chest while a new, angrier one sprouts from the stump. A solid whack with the shield sends the monster stumbling to the side, but it quickly recovers its senses. Flanked by both slimes, Delvin swings his sword in a failed attempt to drive them back and gain a little more space. He backhands the one creeping on him from behind and moves to stab the other. Leaning around the blade, the slime lunges for his leg when it is dragged a few feet away. The creature turns to see Nyx pulling on its tail, so it turns and aims a bite for her neck. Ebony teeth graze her flesh as Delvin tackles the slime and the two roll toward the door.
“Keep the other one back!” he shouts as he enhances his muscles. A white energy seeps from his pores and takes the form of chainmail, which absorbs the remains of his severely damaged armor. “Or kill it because we only need one.”
Lifting the slime on his shield, Delvin charges at the door and aims for the last c
ircle to be filled in. Sharp claws tear at his glowing armor, a few strikes hitting him across the face to leave cuts that heal instantly. A wave of heat hits his back as Nyx incinerates the other creature, giving him only the one to worry about. Before the warrior’s legs give out from the strain, he leaps and smashes the slime against the wooden door. It explodes with enough force to knock him to the ground, the strewn paint steadily ebbing into the circle.
With a rumble, the giant oak shakes and the entrance creaks open to release a coiling mist that pulls at Delvin’s chest. It is not a gentle tug and the force removes his armor, which shatters against the ground. Nyx hurries to help him escape, but more of the wispy tendrils slither out of the darkness to catch her by the face. The pair are dragged into the Tree of Creation while the Akota lifts its heads out of the dirt.
“You are still corrupted,” the guardian states as the doors close and lock. “Perhaps the next one will have better luck.”
17
“Another white void?” Nyx asks, her voice quivering with fury. She unleashes a ring of fire that spreads across the blank expanse, the flames disappearing into the distance. “There aren’t even walls or doors here. Nothing invisible or . . . what in the world happened?”
“I think we took the wrong exit in the maze,” Delvin answers, refusing to get to his feet. He still hears the words of the Akota echoing in his head, every repetition driving him further into a depression. “I’m still corrupted. Whatever Zohara did to me isn’t going away. Hopefully Luke can save the others and get us out. If not then this is where our destiny ends. Gabriel will have to create some new champions.”
“Don’t you dare give up,” the half-elf says while rubbing her amethyst necklace. She can feel that the magic of the enchanted jewelry is dormant, so contacting her parents for advice is no longer a final option. “This is nothing more than another puzzle. The Barghest did stuff to me too, so it could be that I failed the maze. You led us out while I did nothing, which means I never purified myself. For example, part of her curse may still be hidden in my aura or she tagged me with something before she was frozen. There could even be scars around my heart that this place is sensing as corruption.”
Charms of the Feykin Page 33
