Chapter 3
Alsen woke to the smell of smoke and burnt meat.
He blinked, his body aching in places he didn’t know could ache. To think he had the body of an adventurer who did this every day, and it still hurt this badly. The ground had been harder than expected, and sleeping without a pillow or a sleeping bag left his entire back stiff.
At least the burning tree kept him warm.
The tree trunk had mostly burned down by now. Luna sat by the last piece that produced a bright flame, roasting what looked like a rabbit pierced by a branch. The leftovers from the doe clearly weren’t to her taste.
To his surprise, she looked like she had slept well. No dark circles, no signs of tiredness, no hint of discomfort, only a pleased smile on her face. “Morning,” she said without looking up. “I’ve been trying not to burn it, but it doesn’t smell like a success.”
He sat up, rubbing his neck. “How long have you been awake?”
“About an hour. The doe had some ants on it, so I hunted a rabbit for breakfast.” She pulled the stick from the fire, examining the meat. “Yep. It’s burned. Want a half?”
The morning light filtered through the canopy, painting everything in soft gold and green. Birds sang somewhere in the distance, a sound so foreign to him that it took a moment to identify. He’d heard birds sing in movies, but never like this, never so layered and alive. “Sure.”
Luna tore the rabbit in half and handed him the half on the stick. “I hope it tastes edible.”
He bit into the very, very well-done rabbit. Not great, but better than the doe. It didn’t drip blood, and he could chew the meat, at least when ignoring the incinerated outer layer. “It’s pretty good. Thanks.”
She blushed slightly.
“Mind going to check the ruined temple?” he asked as he ate. “It looked interesting last night.” The faint swirl of magical power he’d sensed, in particular.
“Sure, that’ll be fun. And about last night,” Luna said, staring at the embers. “Sorry for being weird about sleeping arrangements.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I do.” She picked at her own meat. “I can’t do that now, but I promise I will. Eventually. Just not yet.”
Fair enough. Everyone had their secrets, and hers seemed to be particularly painful.
They finished eating in comfortable silence, then filled the waterskin they had and set out. Not the greatest supplies, but without a backpack, they had no way to even carry anything.
The temple ruins loomed through the trees, more visible in daylight. Moss-covered stones formed the remnants of walls, and what might have once been a doorway gaped open like a wound in the earth. Vines crawled over everything, nature slowly reclaiming whatever this place had been.
They walked straight to the doorway. “It really looks abandoned,” Alsen remarked, mostly to get a conversation started.
“I see no fresh tracks. Or any tracks, really. I doubt anyone had been here in a while.” Her voice dropped a bit lower. “Almost suspiciously so.”
“What do you mean?”
“The undergrowth isn’t disturbed. See how the ferns grow right up to the entrance?
Anything large would have trampled them.
” She crouched, examining something on the ground.
“Some old bones here. Small animal, probably a rabbit. Picked clean months ago without any bones being broken. But I’d expect more movement around here, like a bear making it his den or something. It’s almost too undisturbed.”
Alsen reached out with his senses, unleashing a scanning spell. Everything felt the same as yesterday, the power in the air unmistakable, stable, unlike the energies of other places. It had been a long time since the last ring of a temple bell echoed between these walls.
They approached the entrance and stopped. They exchanged glances.
“This is where the guy in the plate armor usually goes first,” Luna remarked.
“I see three of them right behind us,” Alsen replied. He raised a hand, pushing out power. Out of pure energy, he created a small, shining orb. “I provide light, and you go first.”
“How gentlemanly of you.” Luna drew her dagger and crept into the temple.
Alsen probably could defend himself with shields. But he hadn’t the faintest idea of how much his body could take. To exhaust himself with shields and then be unable to cast an attack spell when he needed to wouldn’t be the greatest strategy.
The light he summoned shone nicely, though, and he didn’t feel it drain him noticeably.
They walked through the entrance, Luna first. Up close, the doorway revealed stairs descending into darkness. The stone steps were worn smooth in the center, countless feet having walked this path over what must have been centuries.
The light shone even better here, illuminating the path as if it were the middle of the day. When he got a spellbook, he was definitely going to write this one down.
The descent stretched a lot longer than expected. Twenty steps, then thirty, then fifty. The air grew cooler and damper, carrying the smell of old stone and something else, something faintly metallic. They had almost surely walked beneath the mountain by now.
The stairs opened into a chamber.
Alsen’s light pushed back the darkness, revealing a room perhaps thirty feet across. Carvings covered the walls, intricate patterns that drew the eye and refused to let go. In the center of the room, a stone pedestal stood empty, whatever it once held long since removed.
“Careful,” Luna whispered. “Pressure plates ahead.”
He looked down. Sections of the stone floor had a slightly different shade of color, a subtle enough difference to miss if one weren’t looking.
Luna picked up a loose stone from the stairs and tossed it onto a completely different section.
A blade shot from the wall, slicing through the air where a person’s midsection would have been. It retracted a moment later, vanishing back into the stone with a soft click.
“That’s a long blade,” Luna remarked. “Whoever built this was really motivated. Or he had too much gold to spend. Or both.”
Especially for it to be functioning so long after the temple was abandoned.
Luna lay down. “Crawl behind me.” She crawled ahead. Whenever her elbow touched a pressure plate, which was in all types of sections, blades swung through the air.
Overjoyed by the idea of crawling through ancient mold and dust, Alsen lay down and crawled after her.
She turned a bit to the side and led them along the wall, and then towards the exit door.
The blades swished above him, sending a chill down his spine.
There didn’t seem to be any vertical slits on the wall, so crawling under the blades was probably safe. It didn’t feel like it, though.
There had to be a pattern on the tiles that would allow them to pass through while avoiding the blades. They most likely hid the clue in the carvings on the walls. He looked over them as he crawled.
The carvings displayed geometric patterns, interconnected lines, shapes that seemed almost mathematical in their precision. No images of gods or heroes, no depictions of worship or sacrifice. Just patterns.
Strange, especially for a temple.
He couldn’t make much sense of them, clearly lacking the necessary context.
He did see the pattern that most likely represented the key to passing through this room. He already made it halfway through, so he left the solution to the path back.
The ground didn’t have too much dust, though he didn’t enjoy crawling through it, anyway.
The doorway on the far side led to another chamber, yet Luna stopped in front of it. She reached forward and pressed the floor. Darts flew from one side of the door frame, hitting the other. With a smirk, Luna pressed the plate again and kept going until the trap ran out of darts.
Whoever built this was really motivated.
She crawled forward. “Something’s in there,” she breathed. “I can smell it.”
Alsen extended one of his many scans into the room. Admittedly, he had gotten a touch lost in all his scanning spells, so he had long forgotten their names. The magical radar returned a ping of a life force, one weaker than a human. “One creature, which is probably pretty weak.”
Luna drew her dagger. “That means there might be treasure.” She flashed him a grin over her shoulder. “I’d appreciate it if you tried not to blow me up together with it.”
Was that about the first lance of annihilation? He didn’t remember if she was close to the blast or not. As he tried to recall the precise memories, she slipped through the doorway, rising into a full stand.
He stood up too, entering with her. They walked into a massive temple hall. One side had entirely collapsed, but ancient columns still held the high ceiling. Only dust remained after what were once the rows of benches.
The carvings on the columns caught his attention, but not nearly so as the twisted shape that rose from behind the altar.
It looked like a grotesque caricature of a woman, her neck long and bent forward, her hair forming long, tentacle-like tendrils, her arms gnarled with claws, her eyes burnt out, her face a pale mask of horror with inhuman teeth in the oversized mouth.
A gown still covered her, looking like dark mold taken shape.
The monster screeched, flying from behind the altar, straight at Luna.
She jumped forward diagonally. The monster lashed with the tendrils. Luna dodged one, slashed away another, and dodged two more. Her dagger sparked when it collided with the tentacles, as if they were made of stone.
Alsen pulled on his power. The creature moved fast, so a lance could miss. He molded the power, unleashing a net of burning light. The net hit the monster. The smell of burning mold filled the air. The creature smoked, but it didn’t slow as the net wrapped around it.
Instead, it unleashed a barrage of stabs with its hair tentacles, floating above the ground, trying to corner Luna.
Luna dodged everything, but all she could do was defend, slipping among the strikes, parrying the few she couldn’t evade. “It’s made of stone,” she shouted. “Hit it with something stronger.”