Chapter 15
Alsen peeled himself away from the wall and caught up. He could study this temple later. He could spend weeks here, and likely learn nothing useful. As beautiful as the carvings might have been, they were placed here for the common visitors.
The burnt-out section stretched deeper than he expected.
Room after room, each one scorched and gutted.
Benches had been reduced to charcoal outlines on the floor.
Metal fixtures had melted into shapeless lumps.
In one room, the remnants of a mosaic covered the floor, its tiles cracked and scattered but still showing fragments of the spiral pattern.
He crouched, tracing the mosaic’s edge with his fingertip. Three of the tiles still held color, a deep blue that shimmered faintly even under soot. He pocketed one for no reason other than immediate desire.
They moved through a wider hall, its ceiling vaulted and partially collapsed. Broken stone lay everywhere, mixed with debris that had once been furniture, shelves, something. The walls here had been carved with larger symbols, ones that even the fire couldn’t fully erase.
Luna stopped walking.
She stood in front of a section of wall where a carving remained mostly intact. A circular frame surrounding a series of overlapping shapes, abstract and geometric, as faces layered on top of each other without any single one dominating.
Alsen watched her. She stared at the carving for a long time. Her expression didn’t change, not exactly, but something behind her eyes shifted. A flicker of recognition that she didn’t bother to hide.
“There were temples like this where I grew up,” she said.
The group slowed. Nobody stopped walking entirely, but the pace eased, and heads turned.
“Smaller ones,” Luna continued, her voice carrying the same flat, conversational tone she used for everything. “Stone like this, but rougher. Less… decorated. Less burned, too.”
Alsen said nothing. She didn’t share often, so it would be foolish to interrupt her.
Theron ducked under a collapsed beam, turning to look at her. “You had temples in the mountains?”
“A few.” Luna kept walking, her eyes moving across the scorched walls.
“Most were in the lowlands, in the towns and on the paths between them. We passed through one on a march once. It was the middle of winter, and the temple was the only building still warm. No fires, no hearths, but the place held warmth. The priests let us sleep inside.”
She said it so casually and naturally that Alsen almost missed the word march. The others didn’t react.
Marena nodded with sympathy, Theron grunted in understanding, and Garrett kept navigating. They heard march and filed it under travel.
Alsen knew it meant a military campaign.
“It was always warm in the temples of the Thousand Faced God. The priests were boring though. It was funny in a way.” She snorted, amused by her own memories.
“Most gods leave scriptures or visions or at least some tales as guidance for their followers. But the God of Thousand Faces never left anything, only hundreds of tales of what may or may not have been himself or his champions or anyone else.”
“I’ve never heard of that god,” Garrett remarked.
“Me neither,” Marena pitched in. “I have read books of old gods and… actually, never mind, it was mentioned as an unproven god.” Her eyes lit up. “He’s always referred to as an unverified myth, his followers as the worst lunatics.”
“Same as where I come from,” Luna said. “But it always had a charm to it. A religion centered on a god of whom there are anywhere between zero and thousands of showings. I always liked that. It was the greatest thing I’ve seen from the divine.
A god that’s anywhere from non-existent to the absolute pinnacle of the divine pantheons. ” She snorted again.
No one else laughed though.
Something about Luna’s story sent a chill down his spine. A strange flash of what he could only describe as dread. She didn’t ask about the Thousand-Faced God at the Oak Library randomly. She asked because it was her god.
She reminisced about marching in the armies of the Thousand-Faced God and resting at his temple. All her stories of the good old times were from the war campaigns.
Moreover, her stories were from another world. Marena heard of that god. That meant it was worshiped in two different worlds.
That made that god a hundred times more real.
The others didn’t have context, but they probably felt his discomfort, so everyone walked in silence for the moment.
The burnt-out section gradually gave way to stone that the fire hadn’t reached.
The scorch marks ended at a line so precise it looked deliberate, as if the flames had been told to stop.
Past that line, the corridor continued in its original state.
The geometric carvings covered every surface, intricate and intact, the stone clean and pale.
The air changed too, losing the bitter char and replacing it with the cold, metallic taste Luna had described.
The difference was stark. On one side, destruction. The other, history. As if whoever ordered the burning hadn’t known, or hadn’t cared, about what lay deeper.
The corridor opened into a small antechamber. And at its far end stood a metal gate.
Two wings of the gate, each taller than Theron, set into a frame of carved stone.
The metal had darkened with age but showed no rust, no corrosion, no sign of weakness.
Symbols covered the surface, different from the geometric wall carvings, these looked like they’d been added later, etched into the metal with cruder tools.
Flanking the gate, set into alcoves on either side, stood stone statues.
Four of them. Each about seven feet tall, roughly humanoid, their features abstract and angular.
Their poses suggested readiness, weight forward, arms positioned as if holding weapons that had long since crumbled away.
The stone was the same pale material as the walls, but denser, darker, with veins of something that caught his light and reflected it back.
Garrett stopped the group with a raised fist. “This is it,” he said. “This is where we hit the wall last time.”
Everyone gathered in the antechamber, studying the gate and its guardians.
“The statues come alive when you approach the gate,” Garrett said. “They aren’t all that fast, they don’t hit too hard, but they’re made of really tough stone. See the chipping on that statue’s leg?”
Alsen squinted. Yes, he spotted a chip on the stone. “Yes.”
“That was Theron’s best hit the last time we tried to get through. These are really annoying to fight without magic.” Garrett smacked Alsen on the shoulder. “Which is where you come in.”
Alsen got the point. He took a few steps forward. Four targets. He could annihilate one with the lance, maybe a second one too, and then run, and return tomorrow.
But that wasn’t enough for him. He had to do better than that.
He closed his eyes, and focused. The fundamental molding of power that enabled the lance of annihilation was the best technique he had. He practiced it for years as the foundation for all his major spells.
So, he was going to start from there. With the statues built into a wall, he couldn’t get them into a line. Sure, Luna could probably pull them and arrange them for a line shot, but that would be her doing the dangerous work.
No, he didn’t need anyone’s help with a few statues.
He pushed out his power. Not one center, but two. One for each pair of statues. He fueled the power through himself and into them. This time, he didn’t ration the power.
He molded both cores of the spells at once in his palms. He raised his hands and formed the image of the spell in his mind.
Twin Dawn of the Seventh Sun.
The orbs unleashed from his hands coiled around each other as they crossed the room, almost touching, but then accelerating into the targets. They hit the wall between the statues. The world in front of him exploded.
A shockwave hit him, throwing him back like a rag doll. He flew tens of yards back. Everyone did. Only Luna stood by the wall, pressed in so tightly the shockwave didn’t touch her.
Rocks and dust followed. He hit the hallway, light debris showering him. Garrett, Theron, Sonja, and Marena shared the fate, lying around him. The dust filled Alsen’s face. He coughed, his entire body screaming from the shockwave’s impact.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ENEMIES DEFEATED – SPIRAL GUARDIAN STATUES (4)]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 2400]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL: 9]
“Is everyone all right?” Garrett shouted, getting up to his feet.
Alsen rolled to the side, coughing. Hints of blood flew from his mouth as he did.
“Yeah,” Theron shouted, getting up. “That was a wild one. You alive, Marena?”
“I am.” Marena rose, dusting her robe. “It just surprised me a bit.”
Luna loomed over Alsen, studying him with a curious look. He caught a malicious glint in her eyes. Yes, he should have put up shields first. He coughed, almost suffocating with the dust.
“Help…” Sonja squeezed out of herself. “Kitten…”
Marena rushed to her. “What's wrong? Where are you hurt?”
Alsen could barely see them through the cloud of dust, just the shape of Marena crouching over Sonja. Damn it. If anything happened to her, it would be one hundred percent on him.
Luna walked to Sonja.
Sonja motioned weakly with her hand. Luna leaned closer. “Kitten…” Sonja said, pain leaking from her voice. “I need you to… heal me with a kiss.”
The teal light of Marena's staff died out mid-cast.
After a stunned second, Luna simply turned, and left to help Alsen.
Sonja hopped to her feet, dusting herself off, entirely unharmed. “Worth a try.”
Marena smacked her over the head with the staff.
Garrett reached Alsen first. “First of all, what the fuck was that? And second…” He stretched his hand to help him stand up. “Can you move?”
Alsen caught his hand, letting Garrett pull him up. He could. A bit of cold nested within him, but he could still cast a spell or two. His entire body ached, the dust refusing to clear from his mouth.