Chapter 19 #2
None of this made sense.
But he could read the text. He closed the book, tossed it into his backpack, and got up so fast he almost hit Theron. “Sorry,” Alsen muttered and crossed the room.
He read the spines of the books. Two bookshelves later, he found what he sought. He pulled a book off the shelf. Its title read: The Myth of Alshaiel, the goddess of the spiral.
He put it into his backpack and headed to the chest. The others looted all the gold, all the magical items, and nearly everything else. Alsen picked up whatever gems remained, which weren’t many.
Theron walked to his side. “Here.” He handed him a pouch. “You’ll need some gold.”
“Thanks.” Alsen pocketed the pouch. Looking over the others, he didn’t see any item that interested him, anyway.
He looked up at the ceiling, glancing over the carvings. He understood them now. These were a map, a network of temples with this temple as a center, the dome displaying effectively the map of the region. The temples were built into a spiral, so at a rough glance, it looked like a spiral depiction.
He saw the first temple on the spiral, too, marked as the Temple of the Prophecy. This one was named the Temple of Animation.
Animated constructs were the guardians because it was this temple’s specialization. All the temples had a purpose. He found the temple marked as Temple of the Goddess’s Chosen. That looked like the main temple of the region. He needed to find that one.
But knowing two temple location wasn’t enough to locate the main one. He needed one more to even attempt to triangulate the main temple’s position.
Moreover, he realized the temples being built into effectively an arcane symbol had to serve a purpose. He pulled out the first book, flipping through. He sought a text related to the spiral.
He found one. The spiral meant protection, a ward against all that threatened the divine.
The temples being built into its shape could either be a stylistic choice or functional.
He would find the answer to that in the other book, though.
The others already seemed to be mostly done, so he left the research for later.
They gathered what remained. The extra pieces of gold and gems they found scattered around the room went into bags distributed across the group. They bagged the remaining enchanted items to sell them at Vellhorn.
When they took everything that looked valuable, they headed back to pick up Sonja.
On the way, Alsen observed the carvings on the walls and ceilings. He could fully focus on them now.
The climb back through the dungeon took longer than the descent.
Without the urgency of exploration or combat, the temple revealed itself as a gauntlet of inconveniences.
The rope bridge, which Alsen had to fly across again, this time barely generated enough wind to clear the gap.
The collapsed ceiling they’d squeezed through.
The trap corridors, which Luna navigated first, barefoot and unbothered, disarming the resets with mechanical efficiency.
They found Sonja where they’d left her. Theron and Garrett put her into her own sleeping bag. Theron strapped it to his back, and they headed for the abyss.
Alsen hadn’t recovered enough energy to fly, yet. Luna climbed over the abyss on the slackened rope, with backpack and all, making it look easy. She held the rope on the other end for the others to pass.
They passed through the rest and walked out.
The dungeon released them into sunlight that felt like an assault.
After so much time spent underground, the brightness stung, the air tasted too clean, and the valley sounds, birds, wind, and the stream, seemed absurdly loud.
Alsen squinted, shielding his eyes. The carved arch framed the sky behind them, the spiral symbol barely visible under the vines.
Luna stood in the grass, still barefoot as she didn’t have spare shoes, and tilted her face toward the sun. She didn’t smile. She just stood there, feeling the warmth, for exactly three breaths. Then she turned and walked north.
They buried Sonja at the edge of the valley, under a pine that overlooked the stream. Theron dug the grave. Garrett found a stone large enough to mark it. Marena shaped a wreath from wildflowers growing near the water.
Luna stood apart, holding the spear, watching.
They lowered Sonja into the ground. Garrett spoke first. He didn’t say much. Something about her being braver than she knew, about how she never backed down when it mattered. It sounded honest.
Theron said nothing. He placed his hand on the stone for a long moment, then stepped back.
Marena couldn’t speak. She tried, her mouth opening and closing twice, tears streaming down her face. She placed the wreath on the grave and retreated.
Luna stepped forward. She looked at the grave for a long time. The silence stretched. Finally, she took off the collar Sonja had put on her and placed it on the grave. Then she turned and walked away. She still carried the spear.
Nobody said anything about the spear.
Garrett was the last one to leave. He stood by the grave until the others were already heading toward the valley’s exit, his lips moving slightly, saying something too quiet for anyone to hear. Then he followed.
They took the southern route back to Vellhorn. The long, safe, boring way.
The journey took five days. Nobody suggested the shorter path through the hills, and nobody brought up efficiency or time. They’d had enough action in the dungeon. The road offered nothing more dangerous than mud and the occasional merchant caravan heading in the opposite direction.
Alsen spent all resting time studying the books. He read most of them by night four. The temples and shrines were indeed arranged into a spiral for a reason. They formed something called the Ward, which the books described as the ultimate protection against the emptiness of the Void.
Dragons destroyed the temples, clearly destroying the Ward. Seeing void-animated creatures around the temples strongly suggested that the ward actually did something. Thirty years, and void energies had already crept into the world.
Alshaiel, the goddess of magical arts, had established the Spiral religion as both a faith and a functional system. The temples were nodes for the ward. The rituals were its maintenance cycles. The priests were mages, one could even call them magical engineers.
The ward they maintained covered vast areas, keeping void energies from seeping into the material world. And based on the illustrations, the void wasn’t some abstract concept. It was a constant pressure, an ever-present force that pushed against the boundaries of reality.
The religion had been the wall. The dragons had torn it down.
The ironic part was that if they hadn’t done that, the ward would have kept Alsen out. He came in from the Void. Were that ward still in place, he would have splattered against it like a fly against a windshield.
That surely had been one of the purposes of the ward, to keep magical travelers out of the world. A sensible reason, admittedly.
What he found too little information about was the six-star formation. The books noted it as the herald of the end of the world. No further details.
That didn’t tell him much.
From the map at the last sanctum, he now had a pretty good idea where the other temples were. Though after seeing the defenses of this one, he needed reinforcements, or at least rest before further temple expeditions.
What he also needed was to figure out what the Pellicle was.
Both books referenced it. It had a name, so it was something, but he hadn’t the faintest idea what. He had to revisit the Oak Library. But first, they had to return to Vellhorn.
Vellhorn appeared on the sixth day, its walls and rooftops materializing from the morning mist like a painting being slowly filled in. The sight of it brought a mix of relief and sadness that Alsen hadn’t expected. The city meant safety, rest, hot food, warm water. It also meant the end.
They entered through the southern entrance.
The guard recognized Garrett and waved them through without checking papers or bags.
Small-town courtesy, or perhaps just the recognition that a group returning from the wilds with fewer members than they’d left with had already paid whatever toll the world demanded.
The city’s noise washed over them. Market stalls, shouting merchants, the clatter of carts, the baseline hum of civilization. After days of silence on the road, broken only by camp conversation and birdsong, it was overwhelming. Alsen caught himself wincing at a blacksmith’s hammer.