Reborn- Journeyman

by Luka Petrov

  I referenced the map once again. I thought we were headed in the right direction, but perhaps I read it wrong. I did not want to be wrong, and it tired me of Yves always being right. I examined the map in relation to where we stood among the features. The Masquerade Mountains were to our west, the Lake of Despair to our south. I headed us east to the Temple of Terror. I had only heard the Temple of Terror in legends, and its name was being nice, it was a horrible place to venture to.

  After checking the map, I realized we were heading in the wrong direction. We needed to adjust our trajectory to head further north than we were. Yves was right again. Damn it! I hate it when she was right. I relented, “Yves, looks like you caught that before we headed off course too long.” That hurt to swallow my pride like that, but there was no sense fighting among ourselves.

  We adjusted our course and kept hiking. Were it not for Yves and her knowledge of navigation, we would have been lost. She knew how to read the sun and even with the tree cover above could figure out which way we were going. Yves proved gifted in finding us clear paths through and keeping us out of danger.

  Yves was a quick study of nature. Perhaps her parents were druids or something similar that worshiped nature. She knew all about the insects. Things like predatory bugs, massive rodents, and deadly quicksand seemed to wait just beyond every clearing. In my experience, I have found that many challenges that are presented in front of a person are easy to face. This place, with its mysteries and hidden dangers… is something else entirely.

  It was easy to lose track of time in such a place. I thought it was still afternoon today as we had been hiking all morning, but when the sun went down, it caught me by surprise. It is a different world in here and I was wondering how the ancients spent so much time here. Few traverse this place and even the paths… where there still were paths… are long since overgrown from a state of disrepair. Every once in a while, we would find a small patch of cobblestone from roads of ancient times. I can't think of this forest as a place that was once a realm where people willingly traveled.

  The remoteness and lost feeling of the Enchanted Forest offered us one advantage. I had a feeling that the Demon Lord would ravage the forest with bounty hunters looking for me. The depths of the Enchanted Forest would allow us to hide for a long time, and we could lose even the most experienced bounty hunters in here. The two days that Lord Abraxas had given King Harold had long been expired and the Demon Lord would want me for his eternal servant.

  I remember the dream I had about King Harold and how he was turned into King Hylar, a servant for the Demon Lord and how the once lawfully good King Harold was now, a warrior for evil. Even if my dream was true, I am sure Lord Abraxas still wants me out of his way, and therefore would not rest until I was his servant.

  That would mean that the forest would have bounty hunters roaming all over, looking for me. With the treacherous journey ahead of us and the rough terrain we would have to go through, the benefit was that the bounty hunters on our heels have been slowed as well. It was hard to track and follow anyone in the place and the chaotic way we were zigzagging toward our destination couldn’t be easy for them. However, the threat was ever present. I could almost feel Aragorn the Wise’s presence and when the trees swayed in the wind… I became startled because I feared he was constantly about to step out to challenge us. I thought it was in my mind until Yves came into the clearing and told us to crouch down.

  “Shhhh! Quiet! There is a movement up ahead. I saw men duck behind rocks just over yonder,” Yves said, her voice calm and deliberate. “They are over the ridge to the north.”

  “Are you sure it’s them?” I asked, wanting desperately for her to be wrong.”

  “It is them all right,” Yves responded. “They are luckily on the other side of that ridge. They do not seem to know about the crossing near here so they will have to go around. We have the advantage of not being seen and can move accordingly.”

  “All right,” I replied with a nod. “Let’s keep moving.”

  The bounty hunters were above us to our left, but we could keep out of their sight by staying in the crevices of the mountain ridge. We feared every crack, every dancing shadow. We had eluded Aragorn before, but our luck could not hold out forever. We had to find the Temple of Terror. If we could get inside with the stone from the spider queen, we would be in the clear. As we got closer, we felt frustrated. According to the map we have, and the way we had been going we should be almost to the Temple of Terror just after nightfall.

  Hours had gone by, and we were now far away from the bounty hunters. It would be difficult for them to track us, even if Aragon the Wise was an expert tracker. We reached to where the Temple of Terror should be, however, as much as we looked, as much as we searched, we could not find it. We grew frustrated, certain we had made a mistake when we read the map, we continued walking around the spot of where we thought the Temple of Terror should be.

  As we hiked, it appeared we were walking in circles when we found a strange man leaning against a tree. “Oh shit! I’m sure that man is a mercenary,” I whispered to both Agnes and Yves.

  “I’m not so sure,” Yves contradicted my assertion. “He seems to be unarmed. At this point, we have nothing to lose by asking him for directions.”

  I was hesitant about approaching the man, and on further inspection, he appeared to be unarmed. Yves was right, once again. I saw no weapons strapped to his waist, but his attire was quite odd. He wore a cloak that had a patchwork of moss and other foliage from the forest. If he was not a mercenary dressed in camouflage to blend in with the environment, what was he?

  We gathered that we had no other choice but to ask the strange man for directions. We approached him slowly. “Greetings young ones.” The strange man said as he looked up. “It has been some time since I have met anyone here.”

  “Who are you?” Agnes asked, stepping forward as if she would try to defend me.

  “I am but a merchant.” The old man replied. “I am not one to be feared. I know this forest inside and out. I sell snake oil and rare herbs to travelers in this region.”

  I paused, thinking a man who seemed so proficient at surviving in the forest might know something about its secrets. “Do you know where the Temple of Terror is?”

  “Ed!” Agnes snapped. “We don’t know if we can trust him.”

  “Well, we have to trust someone,” Yves added. “We need help if we are to find it before you know who finds us,” she whispered to Agnes with a glare in her eyes.

  I looked back at the old man. “Do you know where the Temple of Terror is?”

  “I have been in this forest for many years.” The old man replied. “There is little that goes on here or is hidden that I do not have knowledge of.”

  “Then tell us.” Agnes insisted.

  “As with many things in this world, information is not free.” The old man replied. “I will hand over the knowledge you seek for some coin.”

  “We have little to spare!” Agnes snapped. “We can’t waste it here.”

  “I ask only what you can spare.” The old man replied. “Whatever you offer I will take.”

  Yves and Agnes looked to me, appearing to want me to confirm that we should trust the strange man. I had no idea how to find the Temple of Terror, and according to this map, we should be right on it. So, it seemed like there was everything to be gained by trying and little to be lost other than some coin. “Give him a few silver… we can spare it,” I relented.

  Agnes nodded and handed the coins to the man. He did not count it; he did not say anything other than to raise a hand and point to a spot in a clearing beyond. For a second the three of us looked where he pointed and thought we might have been swindled, however, as we looked, we saw an opening, the entrance to the temple had overgrown shrubbery all around it. The path leading up to the entranceway would have been hard to spot by the naked eye unless I knew where to look. We would have searched for days and not found it.

  “Thank you!”
I said as I looked to the man, but he seemed to have already left.

  “This forest is full of surprises,” Agnes said as she looked around.

  “I think there is a few more before we are done here,” I admitted. “Let’s go and hope that Aragon has the same issues finding it we did.”

  We walked down the pathway, crawling and ducking over roots and foliage that filled the passageway to the temple. We approached the temple which loomed over the forest. It was dark and dismal in appearance. It was a four-sided pyramid; the base was large, and it ended in a point at the top. It was made out of bronze stones. Without further ado, Agnes and Yves, and I began to examine the door of the temple. I could tell there was some sort of mechanism but could not figure out how to activate it. “It seems that the door and the inner workings are still intact. Have you any idea how to get it open?”

  “It is a puzzle,” Yves replied. “You need to get just the right piece from elsewhere on the door and fit it in the slot.” There she goes again.

  “Can we just start trying them?” Agnes asked. “And see which one works by trial and error?”

  “That is not the best tactic,” Yves replied. “I have read about temples and towers like this. It seems doors like this have only three tries to open before the mechanism locks on the outside. And with no way of knowing how many people have tried it before we have to assume that it might be on two wrong guesses already.”

  “Then we have to figure out the riddle and get it right.” I agreed.

  Yves nodded, walking along and viewing the door. “There seems to be twenty different pieces that it could be. The door shows the Ancient Ones, they once had a kingdom in these parts…long, long ago. I am thinking that if we take the symbol of the Ancient Ones and put it in the slot, we should open the door. This is it over here, the plate with the arch and the sphere.”

  I took the piece up and placed it in the slot. There was a click then the disc was spit back out. The lock reset but did not lock completely. “That did sound a little too easy. At least we are lucky that it was not the third wrong answer. We have at least one more guess left.”

  “We need to make it count.” Yves offered “Do you have any different ideas? Because that was my best guess.”

  “Well, let us look at it another way,” I replied. “I remember reading a book on the Ancient Ones’ kingdom. They were a powerful clan that reigned many, many years ago. They were not really from this part, mostly trying to branch here from elsewhere. If they were to build something here it was unlikely, they did it with just their own numbers, they likely hired and worked with indigenous races.”

  “You mean the tree folk?” Agnes asked. “They were not active in this area at the same time and very much not constructing temples or hidden buildings.”

  “That is true,” I replied. “But there were nomadic tribes here and there is an abundance of old tunnels and structures still left and it could have been them that they worked with.”

  Agnes pulled off a small disc with the picture of a claw under a line that represented the surface. “Do you think it might be the nomadic tribes? This is a symbol of their deity?”

  “Well, usually the builders get to set the lock,” I replied. “And the Ancient Ones were much too obvious an answer to be the key. I would say you had your best guess; this is mine. If it does not work and we get another we can go from there.”

  “Agreed,” Agnes replied, putting the disc in the slot. In seconds the lock disengaged, and powerful counterweights slowly opened the door. Beyond was a long tunnel. Yves and I lit up light magic and continued on with Agnes covering from behind. Beyond was a long hall chamber that led to a small ceramic boat, sitting over what looked like a dry slide that led to a darkened tube.

  “What do you suppose this is?” Agnes asked. “Was there once a river here?”

  “It looks like there still could be,” I replied, gesturing to a stopper that seemed to be holding back water. “We are well below the water table so I think if we pull this it will flood the slide yet again.”

  “But is it truly wise to ride it?” Agnes asked. “What if there is no way out at the other end.”

  “There is no way to truly know,” I responded. “But a temple usually has many secret exits once inside. Besides, don’t you have this feeling inside you that is calling out to see what is at the other end of this?”

  “Very much so,” Agnes admitted.

  “Then let’s do it,” I replied as I undid the stopper. Water instantly began to pour down from a spout and flooded the tube. It held the boat in place by a simple mechanism that looked like it could disengage it in the boat. There was enough room for the three of us and we climbed aboard. After making sure we were all ready I hit the switch and instantly the boat began to move, soaring down the ramp into darkness. The lights from the light spells peered ahead but could only see one bend at a time. The slide veered left, right, over and over, moving many, many meters through the long-lost underside of the city. I could only imagine the tribal nomads carving out these tunnels and building the slide to connect the rear surface opening to something remarkable beyond. The idea of the modern world and the affairs of the surface seemed moot next to this amazing adventure and the secrets that lay ahead.

  At first, the slides were at a steep angel, making it so the water rushed quickly and would allow the boat to gather speed. However, as we went over the plateaus, the steepness became shallower as if we were starting to slow the boat down. We were getting to the end of their destination and it was about to get more interesting. The last slide deposited us at a reservoir at the end, the still water pool slowing the hull of the boat and slowly drifting it to lock in at the other side.

  “The level of complexity in what they have built is amazing!” Agnes commented. “I have never seen anything like this before.”

  “Me either.” I agreed. “This is truly a one of a kind of temple.”

  “What do you think is at the end?” Yves asked. “Treasure? Artifacts? A tomb? I am sure it will be a treasure beyond imagining.”

  “I am sure you are right,” I commented. “One would not build a place like this or anything less.”

  “But is it still here?” Agnes asked. “That is the question.”

  “I would almost guarantee it still is,” I said as I got out of the boat and started to look over the platform. “I’d bet on it in fact.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Agnes asked. “They might have taken it with them?”

  “When you take the treasure out of the treasure vault…” I replied. “You don’t re-lock it behind you.”

  “Good point.” Agnes agreed as she climbed out of the boat. “I can feel all the skin on the back of my neck tingle in anticipation of what is down here.”

  “Well, we cannot afford to rush too much,” I replied. “For there is much effort in the building of this yes… but there might also be traps.”

  “That is a good point.” Agnes agreed. “Tell me more of the Ancient ones?”

  “They were a grand empire.” Yves began, “One of the earliest we have any sort of records on. They were strong and their leadership cunning. They thrived and spread across the lands long before others had even begun or tried. At a time, they pretty much had this whole continent to themselves.”

  “What happened to them?” Agnes asked. “Why are they not still in power? I know of people from all sorts of places but not these legendary Ancient Ones.”

  “No one really knows,” Yves replied. “Part of me is hoping there might be some kind of answer here.”

  We entered a room at the end of the platform; it was massive with a central pillar and a high-domed roof. Right after we walked in the door shut behind us.

  “It’s a trap!” Agnes called out. “We need to get that door back open!”

  “Stay still!” Yves demanded. “Whatever this thing is doing… it is just starting.”

  The floor was all a series of massive painted discs, each one with a pattern unrecognizable b
ut seeming to depict Ancient Ones. Suddenly one right behind Agnes fell out, plunging to the ground below.

  “Look out!” Agnes shouted, scrambling from area to area, trying to get to the area that is not part of the disc.

  I looked down and recognized something familiar in the non-disc parts. “Don’t step off the discs! There is glue on them… you set a foot there, it will stick you!”

  Yves paused, having been seconds from putting a foot down. “But if we stay on the discs, we will fall. Being stuck or falling to our death… I will pick being stuck!”

  I looked up and watched another disc fall. “No! We are supposed to stay on the discs! Trust me!”

  Yves nodded, stopping her movement and standing on the disc. “If we all die, I will never forgive you.”

  I laughed and as the disc; I stood on fell. I waved as it dropped. The disc did not fall far, landing the level below in a slot padded in loose sand. I was shaken but not even knocked off of my feet. Seconds later the disc under Yves fell, and she joined me, Agnes short behind.

  “You were right!” Yves said in an excited tone. “Have you figured this place out?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted. “Though I do have a few ideas.”

  Before anyone could speak further knives came out of the central pillar, one shot out to one side than another.

  “I take it we are not supposed to stay on this level for very long,” Agnes added.

  “Very much not,” I replied. “Look for an exit to the next level.”

  Yves moved over and found that there were a series of exits, some lit up with glowing stones, some that were pitch dark. “Dark tunnels and lit ones… I think we should take lit.”

  “No!” I replied. “Take that dark one there and I’ll take one here. I am sensing a pattern.”