BT II - Chapter 34

After the battle to secure the gate, actually entering the tower was anticlimactic. The fence posts still spat death,filling Micah’s nose with the smell of burnt ozone as he approached, but the gate itself simply swung open as he extended his hand to push it aside.

Micah walked through the fence onto a narrow cobblestone path.  On either side of him was a gravel moat, the rounded and polished pea-sized stones carefully raked into neat repetitive patterns.  He couldn’t make sense of the pattern behind them, or how they had managed to survive so many years without maintenance from a groundskeeper.

Each step echoed emptily.  Whatever magic created the dome of lightning, it cut off the outside world.  The minute Micah passed the gate, all sounds ceased immediately, leaving him to proceed in an eerie silence.

Micah continued toward the gate, gooseflesh springing into being on his arms and teh back of his neck.  He didn’t have to look up to know that the images in the windows were leering down at him, pressing against their glass confines as they tried to get a better angle to watch his approach.

One by one the rest of his group joined him on the path, walking slowly toward Dakkora’s tower.  Tension hung heavy in the air, sending Micah’s heart racing with each step.  When Telivern, the last individual in their group stepped onto the cobblestones, the gate swung shut behind it, latching itself with an unnerving clatter of metal.

Something rustled.  Micah whipped his head to the side, trying the source of the sudden noise.  In the distance, some of the pebbles began to move of their own accord, coalescing together and forming a shallow wave that moved purposefully across the surface of the rock garden.

He froze, spear held in one hand and pointing at the ripple in the stone moat.  Micah strained his eyes and ears, looking for some sort of threat or hint as to what was happening, but other than the hiss of moving stones, the cavern was entirely silent.

Nothing approached or attacked Micah.  Instead the gravel changed its shape more, forming the majestic curves and harsh angles of a rune.

Heart sinking in his chest, Micah turned to survey the moat with new eyes.  The carefully arranged and raked rocks took on new significance as he spotted patterns that had eluded his sight due to their massive size at first inspection.

Glyphs.  A gigantic ritual circle, capable of changing its own runes for purposes that Micah couldn’t even begin to understand.  It was almost like looking at the inscriptions on Anne’s soul, but there was an elegance to the rock garden that stood in stark contrast to the bestial surgery that the Pontiff had performed on his victims.

Above them, the aura of purple energy surrounding the tower undulated.  It began to pulse, slowly and rhythmically like a great beast breathing in and out.

Micah glanced at his brother, but Trevor just shrugged, his earlier levity forgotten.  He turned back to the tower and resumed walking down the cobblestone path, drawing closer and closer to the large metal doors that marked the entrance to the tower proper.

Once again, the moment Micah placed a hand on the door it opened with a shriek of metal on metal as the un-oiled hinges screamed in protest.  He stepped through the entryway into the tower’s atrium.  The moment his foot touched the floor, and the clear crystals lining the wall flared to life, illuminating the room

He was in a wide hallway, the floor a white and black checkerboard of perfectly polished marble.  Doors made of expensive and rare hardwood lined either wall, untouched by age or dust.  Above their ornate frames were plaques describing the rooms’ functions.

Trevor walked past Micah, looking contemplatively from door to door, his mouth moving quietly as he sounded out the calligraphy of the labels.

“Barracks, armory, kitchen- wait.”  Trevor turned to Micah, a frown on his face as he pointed to the fourth entryway on the right.  “Sacrifice housing and cages?  Gods above, this Dakkora lady really didn’t beat around the bush.”

“She didn’t need to,” Micah replied with a shrug.  “As best I could understand, with her understanding of ritual magic, she was more powerful than any one country.  Only after the Church of Luxos coordinated a response consisting of the most powerful blessed in a half dozen or so nations was she actually stopped.”

“And this is the person whose stash we’re trying to raid?”  Micah asked incredulously.  “Maybe we can pick someone to rob that sounds less like a mythical figure made up by bards to impress rubes, like I don’t know, the Starfire Emperor?”

“I doubt we’d have to rob the Emperor,” Micah said, beginning the long, careful walk down the tower’s central hallway.  “He’s the Chosen of Mursa.  Unless she is deceiving me about how important it is to defeat the third prince, I can almost guarantee that she’d direct him to help us if it would accomplish anything.”

They walked for another thirty or so seconds in silence.  The rest of the party fanned out along the hallway, inspecting the frescos on the walls, as well as the furnishings and doorways for any clues.  Every sign that Micah passed advertised mundane amenities: washrooms, servants’ quarters, failed experiment storage, torture chambers.  Nothing to catch his interest or otherwise provide any indication as to where Dakkora might have kept her treasures.

“I don’t think there’s anything here for us on this floor,” Leeka said grudgingly as she closed the door on what looked like a kitchen.  “Maybe it’s time for us to look for a staircase?”

“Agreed,” Drekt concurred with a stern nod.  “I must say that I am worried about the lack of traps.  Given the obstacles we’ve had to overcome to arrive where we are, I feel like things are too easy.  It’s like the other foot could drop at any moment.”

“If we all die it’s Drekt’s fault!” Trevor called out cheerfully.  “That’s a jinx if I ever heard one.  An acidic cloud that takes the shape of our greatest childhood fears is going to start stalking us through the hallways picking off the weakest members of our party, one at a time.  I just want everyone here to know that the reason it’s going to melt the skin from our faces is that ol’ sourpuss over here couldn’t help himself.”

Trevor leaned over and jabbed his husband with an elbow, earning a glare from the bigger warrior.  While the two of them began to argue heatedly, Ravi pushed her head under Micah’s arm, shifting her head until his hand rested on the fur in between her ears.

“Scared,” her thoughts crawled into Micah’s mind.  “Don’t want acid monster to melt Ravi’s fur.  Don’t want acid monster to look like angry Telivern.  Make monster stop papa?”

“Trevor’s just joking, but-” Micah cut himself off, the omnipresent tingle of his Arcana skill lurking like a warning in the back of his perception.  “Well, he’s not entirely wrong to be concerned Ravi.  This is a dangerous place, probably the riskiest mission we’ve ever been on, and it doesn’t feel right for us to wander around the first floor without any sort of trouble.  There were guards at the gate, enchantments I’ve never seen before powering gods know what.”

“Hells,” he continued, “given the history of this place, maybe even the gods don’t know what’s happening here.  I think what I’m saying is that there should have been some resistance.  It’s almost scarier to not have to fight every step of the way.  I know that there is something awful out there, just waiting for us to let down our guard long enough for it to surprise us.”

“It will be okay,” Ravi purred.  “Papa protect.”

Micah chuckled, tousling the panther’s fur before looking the hallway over one last time.  He turned back to the rest of their group, clapping his hands once to draw everyone’s attention.

“Leeka is right,” Micah said, raising his voice so that he could be heard over Eris and Esther squabbling.  “There’s nothing on the first floor for us.  I found an archway that appears to lead to a spiral staircase near the end of the hall.  I believe it’s time for us to go up one floor so that we can continue our search.  Remember, only one floor at a time.  This is not the sort of place where we can afford to get separated.  We’re out of our depths here.  One mistake, and we might lose someone.”

The rest of their party nodded along in agreement.  Even Telivern and Trevor dropped their customary levity for a moment, Trevor murmuring his ascent while the deer snorted severely.

Micah led the way down the silent hallway, stopping in front of the stone archway near its end.  Some five paces away stood the base of the staircase.  Each step was hewn from a dark semi-reflective stone and two to three paces wide.  Large enough that two people could pass each other with some discomfort if necessary.

Trevor stepped past him, scratching his chin thoughtfully as he looked at the opening.  When nothing happened, he spun his spear around, thrusting its butt through the opening.

Again, nothing.

Under Micah’s watchful gaze, Trevor shifted his grip to hold the spear with both of his hands near its head.  He swept the back of his weapon in a steady arc through the passage before pressing down on some of the stones around the arch.

Shrugging, Trevor moved to enter the staircase only for Micah’s hand to shoot out and catch him by the bicep.  Trevor looked back at him with a frown as Micah went down to one knee, nose practically touching the stone archway as he inspected a line of scratches chipped into the roughly hewn rock.

Micah reached into his pouch, pulling out some jerky and breaking off a thumb-sized piece.  He weighed it thoughtfully in his hand for a second before tossing the bit of meat into the opening.

The moment it crossed the threshold, the jerky froze in the air, seized by some invisible force.  The tiny markings lining the doorway flared a brilliant gold, illuminating the stairwell as the shape of hundreds of minute, intricate runes seared themselves into Micah’s memory.

Purple light erupted from the floating chunk of meat as it withered before Micah’s eyes.  It shrank in on itself for almost fifteen seconds before nothing remained but a fine gray-white ash that floated gently toward the tower floor.

“Well,” Trevor remarked, voice cracking slightly.  “Shit.  I thought I did a pretty good job checking for traps.  What in the hells was that?”

“You checked for mechanical traps,” Micah replied.  With his left hand he summoned the Ancient Folio and flipped to a page detailing the runes he’d seen lining the archway.  “Unfortunately, that isn’t enough when dealing with a caster like Dakkora.  This is some of the most precise carving I’ve ever seen, but there’s no doubt it’s a ritual circle.  I’ll have to look over it a little more, but it looks like it checks anything made of flesh for certain signifiers and activates its defenses if it doesn’t find them.”

“So it checks for an identifier or a passkey,” Drekt said thoughtfully.

“Exactly,” Micah responded, nodding his head in agreement as he flipped forward a page in the Folio.  “I suspect Dakkora was able to inscribe something on her servants’ souls that would let them use the stairwell freely.  Anyone else would be trapped and have their life wrung from them in a matter of seconds.”

“How long until you get us a passkey?”  Leeka asked, her eyes fixed on the ash dusting the base of the archway.  “Also, uh.  Who tries it out first?  I vote for not me.”

“I’m also voting for not me,” Trevor quipped.  “I almost got vaporized once.  Someone else gets to flirt with death next time.”

“There won’t be a passkey,” Micah said with a grunt.  “I’d have to completely reverse engineer everything from the door’s runes.  It would take days before I knew what I was doing, and even then I suspect I’d have to perform soul surgery on each and every one of us, including myself.  Worse, I don’t even know if it will work.  All I can really learn is what the arch is checking for.  There’s no promise that a later doorway won’t look for another portion of the key and zap all of us later.”

“Then what do we do?”  Drekt inquired.  “Surely we are not planning on turning around and going home with our heads slung low in defeat?”

“It’s hard to design a ritual circle like this,” Micah replied without looking up from the Folio.  “I’m honest enough to admit that even with all of my skill, this is beyond my skill level.  On the other hand, it’s much easier to break or corrupt someone else’s work.  I should be able to reverse the circle so that it only attacks objects that have the key, letting all other living beings through.  Right now it only looks like I need to change over four to five runes.  It’s just a matter of making sure that I change the right runes.”

Trevor coughed, shifting slightly.  His voice was a bit scratchy as he responded to Micah.

“Once again, I would like to know how we are going to test this out.  I would prefer to not be the first person through the doorway only to find out that you accidentally fixed the wrong glyphs.”

“I would suggest letting me focus on my work then,” Micah said sardonically, licking a finger and flipping another page in the Folio.  “As much as I like chattering, I feel like it's a bit counter-productive right now.”

Micah let a smile blossom on his face as Trevor made a strangled sound behind him.  Then, he dismissed the moment of levity, focusing on the markings in the Ancient Folio.

A half hour later, he stood up, wincing as his knees cracked.  Micah reached up brushing his sweat-damp hair from his face.  He looked down at the runes, using his different angle to inspect them one last time before sheathing his narrow ritual knife.

He turned and winked at Trevor before stepping into the stairwell.  His hair prickled on end for a moment as the ritual magic scanned his body.  Then, Micah was through, standing in the stairwell untouched and unharmed.

“Gods above Micah,” Trevor grumbled, following him through the archway.  “Don’t pull that kind of stunt.  I thought you were gonna fucking melt yourself in front of my eyes or something.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Micah said with a chuckle as he began to walk up the stairs.  “I was pretty sure about the runes, and it didn’t seem fair to me to ask someone else to risk themselves by going first.”

Trevor’s response died in his throat as the two of them rounded the corner.  The second story of the tower appeared to be a garden of some sort.  Micah could make out a handful of rare and medicinal plants deeper into the floor.  If he cared to venture into the thicket, Micah likely could earn several points worth of attunement from harvesting Dakkora’s collection.

That wasn’t the most notable factor.  In the years since Dakkora’s death, the plants and vines had overgrown their beds, taking over most of the floor.  The foliage was so thick that he could only see ten to fifteen paces into the room.

More importantly, a dozen or so vines, each as big around as Micah’s arm and covered in large, fang-like thorns lay unmoving just inside the stairwells archway.  Each of the vines was shriveled and gray, withered and devoid of all vital energy.

Micah edged forward, spear at the ready, and tapped one of the vines with his toe.  It crumbled apart, leaving behind nothing but dust and chunks of dry plant matter.

“That was a blood-cord wasn’t it?” Trevor asked, eyes still on the unmoving plant.

“Biggest one I’ve ever seen,” Micah replied grimly, dropping to one knee and picking up one of the remaining chunks of plant matter.  “It’s desiccated.  Like someone left it out in the sun and heat of a desert for a year except you can tell by the dust cleared away from the vines in the garden room.  It moved recently, sometime in the last month or so at the latest.”

“Do you think the door got it?”  Trevor nodded at the archway next to Micah.  “Something turned it into dust, just like your food down on the first floor.”

“No.”  Micah sighed, setting the sliver of vine down as he stood up.  “The doors only attack animals or objects derived from animals.  Plus, half of the ritual circle is devoted to creating an impenetrable field that prevents people from moving once they’re caught in it.  The vines never would have made it past the threshold.”

“Fuck,” Trevor spat the word out.

“The Pontiff came this way,” Micah replied, glancing once at the tangled mass of greenery.  “The plants must have grown out of control after Dakkora died, and they attacked him through the doorway.  Whatever attack he used managed to kill the entire vine down to the root, but it doesn’t look like he set a single foot inside the greenhouse.”

“That was a big one too,” Trevor remarked, kicking one of the dead vines aside.  “There wasn’t much struggle so he must have killed it in one fucking attack.  How many hit points do you think that thing had Micah?  One thousand?  Maybe two?”

“At least four thousand,” Micah responded, turning back to the stairwell and beginning his ascent once again.  “You know how hard blood-cords are to kill.  Now come on, there’s nothing for us on this floor.  We have to keep moving.”