“You’ve got this, Josie!” Nurox cheered.
“Okay, you can do this,” Josie said under her breath as she reached out for the cube. Her hand was trembling with fear. The cube began to glow a sheer white, the light emanating from its core.
The moment Josie clasped her hands around the cube, the altar dropped into the floor and the chain somehow detached from the cube and was now attached to her neck. The ceiling rumbled and small, rocky debris skittered down the walls. Everyone stood still watching Josie fumble with the cube.
“Uh, Josie? You might want to solve that puzzle a little faster,” Nurox urged.
Then, the ceiling began to slowly crawl closer towards the floor, the sharpened stone peaks edging ever-closer.
Sweat dripped from every one of Josie’s pores. She moved her fingers as furiously as she knew how. She slid the midsection of one side to another, then pushed the left column down. She moved two rows at once, then pushed the middle column up three turns. She continued making more moves on the cube until the light slowly disappeared behind the cube walls once she solved the puzzle.
The ceiling reversed course, the chain reattached itself to the cube, and a portion of the floor opened, revealing a staircase that descended into the third level of the dungeon.
As the party entered the room, Chezzy conjured another illumination spell as his first one fizzled out. They could see that this room was smaller than the others. There was a pillar in each of the room’s corners. They were smooth and their alabaster color contrasted against the obsidian rock walls surrounding them. A single rune was etched into each pillar, which corresponded to a set of runes marked on the floor.
Nurox scanned the room. “We have to match the pillars to their tiles, but how?”
Darkwind handed Helga to Chezzy. “Hold my sword.”
He approached the first pillar, squared his hips, put his shoulder against the pillar, and dug his heels into the floor. It was emblazoned with the rune called Ahrn, which was a circle with a vertical line through it, and a u-shape under it, cradling it like a pair of hands. It was designed to look like someone praising a weapon exuding the power of light. This rune was also the first letter of the dwarvish alphabet.
Darkwind grunted and pushed as hard as he could. The pillar began to move. The rest of the party cheered. They could see that the pillar was on a track, so now they had to figure out the puzzle.
“Don’t just stand there, help me,” Darkwind scoffed, out of breath.
Nurox ran up and began helping Darkwind push the pillar up to the next junction. They had to push left and across the room, then finally left again to its matching rune. When the pillar stopped in front of the rune, both runes lit up a fiery orange. “One down, three to go,” said Darkwind.
They worked together to move the other three pillars, and each one lit up. Once the last pillar was in place, the room rumbled and the orange flowed from each rune, down the pillars and into the floor, filling the crevasses between the stone. It looked like thin streams of lava flowing through the cracks in the floor.
“Stand back,” warned Josie. They all stood against the wall.
The orange illumination flowed to the center of the room, which formed a hole that seemed to pulse with an orange haze that seeped from below.
“Guess this is it,” Josie said to Darkwind.
“We’ll see,” he replied. Darkwind grabbed Helga in his hand and jumped down into the inner sanctum.
Nurox and Josie jumped in next, followed by Chezzy.
The party gathered themselves and looked around. The inner sanctum was unlike any other dwarven chamber, as the room opened up into a large atrium that was lit by the same orange glow from the previous room, which now filled every crack in the stone. At the far end of the room was the Earth Crest suspended above the slumbering rock golem. The mighty creature’s head was bowed down, its shoulders hunched forward, its arms at its side. It had no face to speak of, which creeped Nurox out. Its hands were like large stone hammers that could crush anything unlucky enough to be under it. Darkwind and the others observed the rock golem for a moment, trying to devise a plan of attack. The rock golem wasn’t moving, which was a good sign.
“So what do we do, Darkwind?” asked Nurox.
“How should I know? I’ve never fought a rock golem before,” he said.
“Forget it, boys. I’m on it,” Josie chimed in.
Meanwhile, Chezzy summoned a detect spell, which scanned the rock golem for any weaknesses. Even though a magical creature, the rock golem was susceptible to elemental magic attacks. “Turns out our new friend over there is allergic to lightning,” he smirked.
“Do you know any lightning magic?” Darkwind asked.
Chezzy answered by snapping his fingers and a small electrical discharge shot from his fingertips at Darkwind, which left his hair singed and standing on end. Nurox cackled in amusement at his comrade.
“Let’s do this,” Darkwind ordered. They each readied their weapons and walked across the room towards the rock golem.
Darkwind looked around, assessing the room and trying to find anything remotely useful for their upcoming battle. There was nothing as usual, the dwarves were not exactly known as an ornate people. At least there’s a lot of room to fight.
Chezzy raised his Staff of Valor, which held an orb that carried much of Chezzy’s magic knowledge in its tip. Nurox had his sword and shield in hand, and Josie approached with her book as she sought to find the entry on the rock golem. They stopped for a moment so Josie could find something in the book on how to defeat it.
Josie flipped through the book, her eyes darting across the pages. Then, buried deep within an obscure passage, laid the answer.
“You guys, I found it!” she exclaimed. The others gathered around her. “There is one way to defeat the golem—a champion must come forth to prove themselves worthy of the Earth Crest, and if one is deemed worthy by the crest, then the golem will not harm the champion,” she read aloud.
“So what’s the plan?” asked Darkwind.
Josie closed her book. “I’ll grab the crest while the rest of you run interference on the golem.”
The others looked at each other and agreed.
Chezzy, Nurox, and Darkwind approached the sleeping rock golem, who was sitting in front of the crest’s altar. Its massive legs were together, its arms forward at an angle, its giant stone fists resting on the floor. It reminded Darkwind of a stone gorilla. The orange glow of the crest created a menacing silhouette.
They crept closer, flanking the creature on three sides. They stopped in their tracks as Darkwind halted at the faint sound of stone grinding against stone.
Suddenly, the rock golem awoke and moved its limbs, unfurling from its who-knows-how-long of a slumber. Then the golem stood. It towered over the party at over twenty feet tall. It had no features on its face, save a gaping maw that could easily devour any would-be champions.
“Here it comes!” shouted Nurox as he raised his sword and shield. The golem turned towards Nurox, twisted its torso and reared back its arm, and swung its hammer-like fist into Nurox’s shield. The impact sent him reeling through the air. He shook it off and returned into the fray.
Chezzy kept his distance from the golem as he channeled his lightning attack. He had mastered lightning magic only recently, and he was going for incapacitation with this attack. Chezzy’s eyes rolled back, the whites of his eyes staring blankly. Small sparks began to fly around him, as if he were the conduit inside a storm cloud.
The golem lumbered towards Chezzy, who couldn’t move while he conjured his spell. Darkwind tried distracting the rock golem to buy Chezzy a little more time.
“Hey, pebble-dick! Over here.” Darkwind challenged.
It worked. The rock golem turned away from Chezzy and began chasing Darkwind. Now that the golem no longer guarded the crest, it was Josie’s chance. She made a run for the altar. The Earth Crest floated above her.
&n
bsp; “Let’s see if I’m worthy of you,” she murmured as she climbed onto the altar and clasped the Earth Crest in her hands.
“Josie!” cried Darkwind, the rock golem right on his heels. The golem swung its arm in an attempt to swat Darkwind, but missed when the skilled warrior dove out of the way and rolled to safety. The golem’s arm crashed into the wall and became wedged in the rock.
“Ha-ha!” Darkwind laughed, goading the rock golem. “Josie, what’s happening?”
“Nothing’s happ—,” she began before an orange aura engulfed her body. Her eyes glowed orange. It looked as if she was under a spell from the crest.
The golem broke free by tearing its arm off. It started towards Josie.
Chezzy slammed his mage’s staff into the floor and a bolt of lightning shot down upon the golem, who was frozen for a moment, disoriented from the extreme electric shock. Had it been any other creature, that spell would’ve incapacitated or killed it, but the rock golem was an elemental guardian and could withstand powerful spells like the one Chezzy cast.
“Josie, hurry up,” Darkwind said. She didn’t respond. He looked up at her holding the crest in her hands, her eyes gleaming orange like fire. She was entranced by the Earth Crest, and would not be released from it until the crest took action.
The rock golem got to its feet and headed for the altar.
“Alright, I done messing around with this guy,” said Darkwind. He showed Helga to the rock golem. “Take a good look, you geological gonad. This is my sword, Helga, and she can cut through bone and stone just the same. You ready to return to the earth?”
The golem bellowed as it lunged at Darkwind, and the warrior thrust Helga into the guardian’s mouth. The rock golem backed away howling in pain.
“Chezzy, hit it with lightning now!” Darkwind cried out.
Chezzy summoned another bolt, which struck down, using Helga as a conductor. The lightning surged through the golem’s rocky carcass, causing it to explode. The rock golem was a pile of stone and dust. At that moment, the light from the Earth Crest faded and Josie was released from the trance. She was still holding the crest in her hands. They defeated this ancient guardian, proving that they were worthy of the power of the Earth Crest.
Darkwind could see Helga’s hilt exposed in the rubble. He sauntered over to retrieve her. “What happened to you back there, Josie?” he asked.
“I don’t know. One second I was in the room, and the next I was in a field of orange flowers. There was a mountain in the distance. It was Mount Gelear, the volcano. It was erupting, engulfing entire cities. There were so many people killed. So many children. The volcano showed no mercy. I don’t know if the Earth Crest was showing me something from the past or the future,” she explained.
“Whoa, that’s pretty trippy. Morbid, but trippy,” Darkwind said.
“Let’s get out of here,” sighed a weary Nurox.
Josie put the Earth Crest in her satchel, and the party ascended to the entrance of the surface where Max greeted them.
XX
“So you seek the Water Crest? Come and see if you can take it from me,” the wizard Maurolot murmured as he gazed into his crystal ball, which showed him Darkwind and the others headed towards his tower with the other three crests.
Maurolot was more than 800 years old, and he took the Tower of Pearl from his predecessor, Nalak the Undying. He was known throughout Half-World as a cunning and malevolent conjurer that was a recluse most of his long life. He bore witness to the Battle at Aranoch five hundred years ago. He was the magic counsel for the kingdom of Hubred far to the south (it was rumored that he was banished for laying with the queen, which would’ve cost him his head, but having served the royal family for two generations, he was spared and exiled.) There were even recent rumors that Maurolot had awakened and tamed the great kraken of Lake Baijer, although the claims had never been confirmed.
The old wizard stood before his alchemy table mixing various potions that ranged in color; some of the flasks bubbled over while others poured tufts of white vapor. He was engaged in his work, and he furiously made meticulous notes in a set of spellbooks. Maurolot stroked his long, white beard and scratched his head as he pondered the results of his experiments. He pushed up the long, black sleeves of his robe and poured a pinkish solution from one flask into another that was filled with a turquoise liquid, turning it a light lavender. Maurolot’s lips pursed into a grin of satisfaction. He held the flask up to his lips and drank down the concoction.
The serum worked its way through his body. Maurolot felt an immense strength well up inside of him. He began to exude a lavender glow as the energy coursed through his veins. “Yes. With all the powers I command, you will not take the Water Crest from this domain. I’ll be waiting for you, fools!” he declared.
***
The road from Cassia to Lake Baijer was a long one. Darkwind and the others had been traveling for days now, and they were all getting weary.
“I’m tired of walking,” sighed Josie. “We really need to find some mounts or something. It’s at least a fortnight to Lake Baijer.”
“On foot it is,” Nurox said.
“Regardless,” said Darkwind. “I agree that we should find a better mode of transport, because these boots are killing me.”
“I have an idea,” Josie said, consulting one of her maps. “We’re here, and it looks like the town of Dargas is up ahead. They’re supposed to have airships that’ll take us wherever we need to go.”
“I’m down to take an airship,” said Chezzy.
“Me, too,” Nurox agreed.
“Let’s head for Dargas then,” Darkwind said.
***
The town of Dargas was small, but spread out. All the homes were built from stone and wood, the latter of which was supplied by the surrounding cherry grub trees, and were only single-story structures. A variety of shops were clustered on one side of the town. There were no towers of any kind, and several landing areas formed a T-shaped strip with twelve landing areas. A handful of airships sat parked on the strip, awaiting passengers for departing flights. People milled about the strip, residents running their daily errands, or others coming and going, traveling to and from the other parts of Half-World.
The party found their way through town to the airship terminal. They purchased tickets to the south, where they would disembark in the town of Gast. They stepped out onto the airstrip and stood before the mammoth airships. They were a hundred feet long, forty feet high, and could carry as many as twenty-five passengers and eight crew. Constructed from the finest wood on the central continent, these airships exuded only the highest quality in terms of craftsmanship and engineering. The ships’ engines were steam-powered, which kept a water mage on each of the ships’ rosters, as they could conjure water to fill the boilers. The steam turned the triple propeller blades, which were needed to provide enough lift.
Josie stared in awe at the grandeur of these ships. She’d never been on an airship before, and although she’d seen many seafaring vessels, they all lacked magnificence compared to these. She looked at her ticket. They would be riding the Atlas Ephonym, which was docked at Landing Area 5. They were scheduled to depart soon.
“I need to eat,” said Nurox.
“I second that,” Darkwind said.
“There’s a market nearby,” Chezzy offered.
“We don’t have time,” said Josie.
“Well, what do you propose we do, starve?” Darkwind said, exasperated.
“Chezzy, can’t you conjure up some chicken or something?” Josie asked.
“I can try, but I’ve never done it before,” he replied.
Chezzy waved his hands, recounted a few words that sounded like gibberish to the others, and then reached into his robes and pulled out a chicken. “Hey, I did it!”
“I can’t eat a live chicken, Chezzy,” Darkwind said.
Chezzy looked annoyed. “Okay, I’ll give it another go.”
&
nbsp; He performed the same spell, but altered a few words, and…voila! He pulled out a savory roast chicken! Chezzy tossed the chicken to Darkwind. It was still warm, just as if it had been roasted over a fire.
Darkwind devoured the tender, white breast meat, letting the juices dripping into his beard. “Oh yeah, Chezzy. You should be a chef, sir.”
Chezzy conjured a chicken for each of them, which they gorged on as they walked to their airship. Darkwind finished his and tossed the bones to some nearby dogs that were sniffing around.
As they approached the airship, it towered over them. The Atlas Ephonym looked larger than the other ones they’d passed on the landing strip. It had gold around both the bow and stern, with ornate designs etched on the golden surface. The crew were busy prepping for the flight. They raced along the deck as the passengers boarded.
Darkwind and the others arrived at the gang-plank and checked in with the ticket officer. Excited at the prospect of riding an airship for the first time, Josie was as giddy as a thief who ripped off the King of Agmar and got away with it. She proudly presented her ticket. It was stamped for entry and she was gestured up the gangplank. The others followed behind her.
Aboard the ship, there were several others passengers. Players used the airships in-game to get around the world quickly. Airships tickets weren’t cheap and prices varied depending on the departure date and the destination. Their tickets were from Dargas to Gast (a trip that would’ve taken them weeks on foot, not to mention they would need to rent a boat and crew to haul them across the Slim Sea, which separates the central and southern continents) and cost four hundred gold each. That’s pricey in a game where gold is rarer than one might expect. Luckily for the party, they each had a decent cache of gold on hand.
A voice came over a speaker in the passenger cabin. “Good day, passengers. This is your captain speaking. Please take your seats. We will be lifting off momentarily.”
The passenger cabin had large, round porthole windows so that passengers could observe Half-World from the sky. The airship lurched forward a bit as it lifted off the ground. The passengers rocked in their seats as the vessel continued to gain altitude.
Exalted Realms Online- Harbinger of Chaos Page 17