“Very nice,” Mazannanan said. “It has to stew for two weeks’ time, and then we will make the powder, and you will get your first set of answers.”
Mazannanan gave them his creepy smile before returning through his archway.
Chapter 12: Before the Academy
The last week of September, Earl made an effort to convince Dagdron to abandon the plans to carry out Mazannanan’s tasks. Dagdron readily assured him that, as soon as they found another source of information about the Arches of Avooblis, he would be more than content to never return to the arch chamber below the academy. Earl, although making a few stops in the magic-user library to search for any mention for the arches, Avooblis, or Mazannanan, knew the probability of finding anyone or anything with the knowledge was slim to none.
While Earl nervously counted down the days until the mandrake root would be ready, Dagdron, accepting that nothing else could speed up the process, busied himself lounging in his tree in the evenings and exacting revenge an all the second-year warriors at night. And, needless to say, the bootlace industry was booming in Bodaburg, and there was quite a collection of warrior paraphernalia underneath Earl’s bed. Earl’s stance on the paybacks was one of turning a blind eye, although Dagdron caught him peeking under the bed a couple of times.
Elloriana had recovered from her head trauma in a couple of days. She had been dazed, but only had a large scrape on the back of her head. In passing, she asked for more information about the mandrake root but, since she was back to buttering up Byron, she never came to press them at the quest tree at night. The only time she showed up was on Friday nights, demanding to have another attempt at tapping into the sphere’s powers. The result was always the same with Elloriana in an unconscious daze and Lita carrying her to their room.
At the end of the two weeks, Earl was a complete wreck. Dagdron, slightly apprehensive, hid his emotions completely, refusing to discuss their escapade until they were on their way to the wizard’s laboratory. Dagdron and Earl made it safely down the boys’ tower and across the entrance hall, the only sound the squishing of Earl’s boots and clinking of his sword. When they reached the arch wall and the orb was rolling along the indentation, footsteps approached from behind them.
“Ha!” a voice exclaimed. Dagdron quickly grabbed the orb before it finished rounding the top of the arch, and the two boys whipped around to see Elloriana and Lita standing there. “We knew you were up to something,” Elloriana said.
“Get out of here,” Dagdron said. “We didn’t say we weren’t up to anything. We didn’t want you involved.”
“We already are involved,” Elloriana countered.
“No, you’re not. We let you join the quest last year, but you’ve been even more snobby this year with your boyfriend Byron.”
“Stop saying that!” Elloriana said. “I’m not interested in Byron. I have to pretend to be like that so he doesn’t suspect anything.”
Earl was about to join the argument, but Lita folded her massive arms with a lady warrior’s scowl, so he didn’t say anything.
“We are a part of this quest,” Elloriana said. “You can’t just let me get injured and then not tell me everything.”
“You kept me out of the loop for a long time last year,” Lita said. “But I won’t allow it this time.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Dagdron said.
Elloriana scoffed. “Like you care about anyone else’s well-being.”
“Princess Elloriana, Dagdron’s telling the truth. You don’t want to go with us.”
The two girls were ready to argue but the look of sheer fear on Earl’s face made them pause.
“What is it?” Elloriana asked.
Dagdron and Earl glanced at each other. The rogue shrugged his shoulders, letting Earl know that it was his decision.
“We’ll show you if you want,” Earl said. “But I really wish you wouldn’t.”
Elloriana and Lita looked at one another and then stepped forward together. Earl, moaning quietly, lifted the tapestry back up, and Dagdron returned the orb to the arch formation.
“It’s evil in here,” Elloriana said as soon as they were going down the staircase in the shrine. Lita drew her sword, looking in every which direction.
Dagdron shook his head and hurried down the stairs ahead of the others as Earl tried to calm the girls down. The bottle of nightshade juice with the mandrake in it looked the same to Dagdron.
“Don’t get anywhere near the book,” Earl said when the other three reached the altar.
“You put the mandrake in nightshade juice?” Elloriana said. “What would possess you to do that?”
Before Earl could explain, the girls were startled when the left arch began its lightning show. Earl stepped in front of them as Mazannanan appeared.
“You brought beauties with you this time,” the wizard said, smiling crookedly. “I’ll gander at them later. First our business.”
Earl, Elloriana, and Lita watched as the wizard instructed Dagdron to retrieve a stone mortar and pestle from the shelves. Then, he had Dagdron pull the mandrake from the jar and place it carefully on the altar, where he used his dagger to slice the leaves off and then cut the root into small pieces.
“Grind, grind,” Mazannanan said, twisting his right hand as if holding the pestle.
Dagdron used the pestle to crunch the root pieces in the mortar. The wizard, in a nastier voice, repeatedly told him to do it harder to assure a finer powder was produced. After a few minutes, Mazannanan’s patience wore thin with the rogue, and he commanded Earl to approach the altar.
“Use your muscles,” he said.
Earl moved to Dagdron’s side and took the pestle. On his first grind, he jostled the bowl so much that Mazannanan gasped with terror.
“I’ll do it,” Elloriana said.
The wizard gave her a skeptical eye as she approached. But, Elloriana, using her accustomed-to-magic hands, surprised the old man as she efficiently ground the mandrake root into an extremely fine powder.
“Perfect, perfect,” Mazannanan said. “Bring a flask, young rogue.”
Dagdron grabbed an empty flask from the shelves, bringing it to the altar so Elloriana could pour the mandrake root powder into it.
“Leave the mandrake root powder and nightshade juice on the altar. Return the mortar and pestle to the shelves.”
Dagdron and Earl complied, and then they returned to stand with Elloriana and Lita a couple of feet away from the altar.
“Permit me start at the beginning,” Mazannanan said, walking to the back of the altar so the middle archway was directly behind him. “I was the last of a group of wizards who dedicated their lives to the worship of Avooblis. How did we know of the great being called Avooblis? Behold his ancient tome that lies before you.” The wizard indicated to the altar. “Our group had a potent teacher who, through magical means, had uncovered the primordial book filled with knowledge of the powers and intricacies of Avooblis. He instructed us in magic, always hoping our combined power would guide us to Avooblis. Regrettably, in time, he bequeathed the tome to our group on his deathbed, having failed to fully discover the mysteries of Avooblis.
“We were feared and persecuted by others in the land, and, once our teacher passed on, we were content to leave the prejudiced harrassment behind and head northward, where our studies led us to a place we named Norasier. We quickly discovered that the harsh winters had left the northern land undisturbed from human contamination, which, in turn, had permitted magical plants, creatures, and other unique objects to grow, live, and form undeterred. So, notwithstanding the dreary, cold conditions, we built our dwellings and lived contentedly in our adoration of Avooblis, constructing the shrine you now stand in, and using our full efforts to summon him to our world.
“We learned and worked together happily but, to our regrets, our efforts were not sufficient and our sect began to pass on from this world. Those of us who remained toiled with more fervor, knowing that Avooblis would succor us if only w
e could summon him. At long last, I was the lone wizard, but I did not give up my quest. Even with these aged fingers,” Mazannanan said, lifting his hands in front of his chest, “I labored by studying, concocting potions, and creating magical objects, always desiring that I might be the one to call upon Avooblis.”
Mazannanan stopped talking.
“Keep going,” Dagdron said after a minute.
Mazannanan smiled his creepy smile and shook his head.
“All you gave us were a few filler details. We don’t care about your cult,” Dagdron said. Not only Earl, but Elloriana and Lita too, stiffened up as Dagdron aggravated the wizard. “You didn’t even say why you wanted to summon Avooblis.”
“Tales must start at the beginning,” Mazannanan said. “But why do you imagine my sect and I would search so desperately for Avooblis? His immense power would straighten my hunched back, my crooked fingers. He would restore my youth and extend my life.”
Earl, Elloriana, and Lita, still stunned, nodded their heads in understanding, but Dagdron, always skeptical of magic, refused to just accept it.
“Who is Avooblis?”
“Now, that you shall see and know,” Mazannanan said, grinning uncannily.
“You expect us to believe that?” Dagdron said. “You could be telling us anything.”
“You seek proof?” the wizard asked.
“Dagdron...” Earl said.
“Yes!” Dagdron nodded his head.
Mazannanan lifted his hands, and the book opened, the pages flipping as if by rushing wind. When the book fell flat on the altar, the wizard began mumbling. First, the stone arch to the right filled with lightning bolts, and they saw a black-haired woman wearing a ragged but bright yellow dress standing in the archway. Then, the archway behind the enchanter went through the same process. The four young adventurers froze in place as they saw a scene form in the archway.
Moving in sped up motion, they saw a group of enchanters wearing brown robes sitting in an ancient building as a tall wizard spoke to them, instructing them in magic. They saw the group of young wizards standing around a bed with the weak, tall enchanter dying on it. He struggled to pick up a mottled book, handing it to the nearest young wizard at his bedside. They watched the wizards trek northward, only stopping once they were standing under the shadow of the mountain that still stood behind the Adventurers’ Academy in present time. The wizards, using magic, built their stone houses in different areas on the mountain, and then combined together to construct a stone shrine in the exact location where the academy stood. The scenes passed swifter and swifter, showing years of study and magic of the wizards. Eventually, the number of wizards decreased one by one, until there was a lone aged man, standing outside of the shrine with a staff in his right hand, looking up at the mountain that towered over him.
Then, everything went black.
Dagdron had a whopping headache as he came to. He glanced around without sitting up, seeing Earl, Elloriana, and Lita crumpled on the floor. Dagdron crawled to Earl, shaking him until he woke up. The young warrior sat up groggily, rubbing his forehead. Dagdron let Earl wake the girls.
“Let’s get out of here,” Elloriana said. “What time is it?”
“Oh, no,” Earl said. “What if we’re late for classes?”
Dagdron couldn’t care less about missing class time—he would just have to dodge a handful of more daggers—but he knew if all four of them were found missing Headmaster Gwauldron would know they were up to something much bigger than just talking about the arches around the tree behind the academy. He quickly led the other three to the staircase. Halfway up, they heard the lightning bolts from the left archway and glanced back. Mazannanan took one step out and stopped.
“Desire more knowledge?” the ancient man said. “Bring me the spittle of a spumasaur.”
Without waiting for a response, the wizard disappeared into the stone arch.
Chapter 13: Spumasaur Spittle
“Has anyone figured out what a spumasaur is?” Dagdron said from up in his tree the second week of October.
“No, no, no,” Earl said from down below. “We still need time to recover.”
“In the real world not all quests allow for recovery time.” Dagdron glanced down to see the conflicted expression cross Earl’s face. “How do you not know what a spumasaur is? You know everything about every creature.”
Receiving no reply, Dagdron leaned back his hooded head and threw his dagger up in the branches, catching it by the blade when it came back down. Elloriana had come to the tree to study that night, and Earl and Lita were comparing the sword fighting stances the warrior’s teacher and lady warrior’s teacher had been teaching them.
The morning after they had slept knocked out, breakfast had already been underway when they got out of the Shrine of Avooblis, but no one seemed to have noticed that none of them had slept in their dormitories. Dagdron admitted to himself that the experience had been unsettling, but wasn’t so bad that he was ready to abandon the quest. Earl, Elloriana, and Lita were still terrified about the vision of the cult of Avooblis they had seen. They were not only refusing to investigate what a spumasaur was, but wouldn’t even talk to Dagdron about it.
Dagdron had taken the time to visit the trophy chamber and quest chamber of the academy but none of the plaques or parchments in either of the rooms made any mention of it.
“I’m going to talk to Grizzard tonight,” Dagdron said when they were walking inside for dinner.
“That’ll be fun,” Earl said. “Should we go right after dinner?”
“Yeah, maybe he’ll know what a spumasaur is.”
“Dagdron, we’re not going to do that.”
“I said I wouldn’t do anything behind your back. That’s why I’m letting you know. You don’t have to come.”
“Wasn’t that the most horrifying experience you’ve ever had?” Earl asked, dropping his voice to whisper as they got in the line to get their food. Chef Barig had made pork chops.
“No, that was when I found out I had to come to this academy.”
“The wizard can work dark magic even when he’s a ghost or whatever he is.”
“He didn’t hurt us. It’s not his fault our brains couldn’t handle the magic.”
“You’re defending magic all of sudden?” Earl said as they sat down at the center table for boy adventurers. “You know I want to help you find out why your dad was involved with the Arches of Avooblis, but Mazannanan was part of an evil cult.”
“He didn’t ask us to join. He wants spumasaur spit.” Dagdron cut a few pieces off his pork chop and ate them with his dagger, and then stood up, taking his plate with him.
“Where—” Earl hesitated for a few seconds before picking up his own food and following Dagdron out of the academy and down the trail to Bodaburg.
Dagdron tossed his pork chop bone aside at the city gate, but Earl grabbed his plate before he could chuck it as well. Earl continued to gnaw the rest of his pork chop from the bone as they made their way to Grizzard’s alleyway. The old rogue was eating some meat of his own at the back of the alley, though his was raw-looking. He quickly offered to share. Both boys declined and Earl set the plate aside, no longer interested in finishing his remaining tidbits.
While Grizzard finished his meal, Dagdron passed the time sharpening his dagger against the slime-covered wall. Earl, nervous and restless, hummed while he tapped his fingers against his sword.
“A spumasaur?” Grizzard said, cackling loudly. “Of course old Grizzard knows what a spumasaur is.”
“You do?” Earl said.
“Of course, rich sonny,” Grizzard said. “Most people are scared of them, but old Grizzard always had fun tracking them.”
“Are they easy to spot?” Dagdron asked.
“Surely, sonny.” Grizzard’s face broke out with his almost toothless grin. “You can’t miss them because they’re so huge.”
“Huge?” Earl said.
Grizzard cackled gleefully. “Big en
ough for a man to ride.”
“Where can we find one?” Dagdron asked. Earl’s eyes were wide with fear.
“Ancient folk fancied them as guardians. Nowadays, ruins would be your best bet. Those creatures are loyal ones. Never move far from where they guarded. Always keep watch over the treasures of the past. There was one up in these parts, but that was ages ago. Maybe you can still find him.”
Grizzard rarely talked so much, but he appeared to be excited, as if remembering his adventuring days, Dagdron and Earl thought.
“My rassling days are over,” Grizzard continued. “But it’s about time I moved my old bones a little. I’ll help you track it and you young ones can do the dirty work.”
Dagdron didn’t say anything, but glanced toward his friend from under his hood. Grizzard’s talk about his past adventuring days had invoked Earl’s own adventurous spirit again, and he looked raring to search for a spumasaur right then.
As Dagdron and Earl were leaving the alleyway, they heard Grizzard call after them.
“Bring a hefty container,” he yelled. “Spumasaur spittle will burn through just about anything, including your skin.” Grizzard’s cackle echoed off the alley walls behind the boys.
Earl decided it was best to leave the girls out of the loop on the spumasaur spittle front. Dagdron didn’t care either way, but it was annoying how worried Earl was about what backlash would be given when Lita found out.
“If this spumasaur is as big as Grizzard says it is, then Lita is going to be so upset at me when she finds out we fought it,” Earl said as he and Dagdron left the academy early in the morning on the weekend.
The rogue and warrior found Grizzard behind the academy. He was lying on the ground, bundled up in his cloak.
“Morning, sonny and rich sonny,” he said. “Slept up here last night. It’s harder to get the old bones moving in the mornings, so I made the climb last night.”
The Shrine of Avooblis Page 11