Chapter 3.20
Julia stared at the obelisk in consternation. This was problematic.
She'd seen the structure the previous night, even before encountering the Nashiin. She'd scanned the forest the instant it was in sight, and it stood out harshly against the otherwise-normal forest. She was peripherally aware that it was blanketed by an illusion, but her Sight simply passed straight through it, so she hadn't accounted for her group being fooled by it.
Fortunately, Lumenfall's All-Seeing Eye could pierce—actually, what level of illusions could it pierce? Surely it wasn't every illusion, right? Something to test later.
Regardless, Lumenfall was able to dispel it without issue. The problem now was that she had to figure out how to dispatch the Nashiin likely lurking within. The tunnel dug through the structure became more opaque to her eyes as it burrowed into the earth, which she suspected was due to magical interference rather than the ground itself.
There was something down there blocking her Sight.
The Nashiin by themselves would be dangerous—particularly in close-quarters—but this extra element of uncertainty made her uneasy. She'd much prefer to go down alone, but that would defeat the purpose of why she was even here.
Granted, discovering Nashiin lurking near Vazreth was more in line with her actual goals than the adventurer job, but she felt it foolish to shed the cover being an adventurer would provide on the off-chance that this singular clue blew the whole mystery wide open.
That said, she also didn't want anyone to die—and with the Nashiin, there were no guarantees.
What should she do?
Julia turned toward Suresh.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to remain out here, Suresh. It's going to be close-quarters in there. I can't guarantee your students' safety."
"Agreed. Thank you for considering them," he said while nodding.
"Will you look after them?" Julia asked Lumenfall internally.
"Who will look after you?" she asked, looking at Julia in consideration.
"You will, obviously. I'll call you if I need help," Julia said, chuckling.
"Very well, though I don't envy that girl's fate should she summon the gall to pet me again," Lumenfall responded, zipping off in a flash of light into the canopy above.
"Alright, the rest of you, follow me," Julia called, starting up the stairs to the obelisk and suppressing another laugh at Lumenfall's complaint.
She was wary of traps, but she also knew dungeons didn't usually have any at their entrances—not that the Nashiin couldn't have set any, but she thought it unlikely. They seemed to have bet everything on the illusion.
When they reached the entrance, she turned toward the adventurers.
"Right—Twin Dragons, you remain here. Watch the entrance. We don't know much about this situation, so we can't rule any possibilities out. This may not be the only base the Nashiin have in the area, so be wary. Don't let any in or out of this room.
"My companion will be watching the kids, and they also have Suresh with them, so don't worry about anything save for this entrance," she ordered.
The Irons nodded and spread out to take defensible positions.
"Blades, you're with me. We're going in. Anyone need prep time? Visibility seems limited, so I would suggest torches unless you have methods to see in the dark," Julia said.
"Torches'd give us away, lose us the element of surprise," Terrance said.
"Possibly," Julia agreed. "Dispelling the illusion probably already did that, though. Even if it didn't, there's not much we're going to be able to do for stealth.
"The passage is narrow, and I've not seen any branching paths so far. We're going to run into undead, and even if we manage to keep the first couple encounters silent, they'll discover us quickly."
The Steels nodded, Terrance lighting up a magic lantern that he hung from his belt.
Julia was the first into the darkness of the obelisk. The interior was a square room just a few strides in width. It was completely barren at first glance, and even a trained eye would have difficulty noticing the passage's entrance—fortunately, Julia had spied it before even entering.
She walked to the center of the room and lifted one of the large paving stones that made up the floor. Her Gravity Magic slowly lifted it from its position, depositing it across the room silently. It was like pulling the cork off a bottle with something rotting inside. The stench of death and decay instantly filled the air so strongly that Julia stifled her sense of smell entirely.
The adventurers, being humans, had no such ability, and they coughed and hacked. That said, they were all Steel, so the miasma didn't deter them from following Julia as she descended the steep stairs. A wet breeze blew past her face, and condensation dripped down the stone walls.
The air grew increasingly heavy and musty. Julia was suddenly glad she'd left the stone off the entrance—undead didn't need to breathe, so there might not be much ventilation down here.
As they descended, the walls shifted suddenly from stone to dirt—they must be beneath the structure. Whoever had dug the tunnel didn't bother with frills or decoration. Undead didn't need or care about them. It might have been the undead themselves that did the digging, even.
The air was thick and humid, the tunnel narrow and oppressive. Fighting in this space would be nigh impossible for the adventurers—Julia was glad she'd taken the lead.
The ground in the tunnel led further into the earth, gradually taking them deeper into its bowels. Julia began to get an itch in the back of her mind. A thought that was constantly on the tip of her tongue, just about to name itself before slipping away.
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She began to hear—no, feel—a presence. It was familiar, like a warm summer breeze, or the drone of insects outside her window, but it was…tainted.
"How fuckin' long is this damn tunnel?" Terrance whispered much louder than he probably intended.
Roused from her sudden fixation, Julia realized several minutes had elapsed. Somehow, her thoughts about the presence—which felt like seconds—had lasted entire minutes. Minutes passing in enemy territory where she wasn't paying attention to even her own two feet were not good.
"The end is near—up there. There's a faint light," she said, nodding ahead of her.
There was a pale, white light ahead. It was difficult to tell if the light was extremely dim or the distance to it was great, but an end in sight was good for focus.
The group crept forward, guards raised, but even as the light drew close, no threats materialized. Julia didn't lower her guard, though. She had a suspicion things weren't what they appeared.
When she stepped into the light, she immediately felt it. That feeling that was constantly just about to announce itself did so: Etherium. She felt its presence, and she knew immediately that this was the other end of the portal—the one she'd destabilized in the marsh.
However, something wasn't adding up—where was all the Etherium? She could feel it. It called to her—sang to her. The taint she had felt was a foreign will directing it—the same she felt when the portal opened during battle. It was corrupting the Etherium, distorting it from its purpose: pure creation.
Julia shook herself out of the Etherium's trance, looking around the room. It was large and ovular, perhaps three or four spans in length, and half a climb high. Actually, she wondered how close the ceiling of this rather large room was to the surface above—couldn't be too far.
The room was devoid of any decorations, and even functional facilities were missing. The walls were made of packed dirt and looked exactly the same as the floor and ceiling. The only unique thing in the entire room was in the exact center.
A large circle of symbols that Julia didn't recognize were carved into channels in the dirt. She thought of the grooves in the ground as channels due to having a glowing substance of some kind in them, like small rivers carrying a magical material for whatever ritual the circle was catalyzing.
Sitting cross-legged in front of the glowing circle—the origin of the light leaking down the corridor—was a skeleton draped in fine, velvet robes. Its skeletal hands were held toward the circle, open palms facing it, and there seemed to be some kind of energy exchange happening between it and the skeleton, though Julia was unsure of the specifics.
Peculiarly, the skull atop the skeleton's spine wasn't attached. It floated there as if suspended by a ghostly string. As it turned her direction, the alabaster bone was engulfed in purple flame. Its entire body bursting in a purple conflagration. Flames shot out the sleeves of its robe, swirling about its arms and legs as it stood.
The adventurers behind Julia took defensive stances, despite the fear evident in their eyes—they were professionals.
"Ah, Julia, yes? Gohlmer's vanquisher. I've heard much of your prowess. To do Gohlmer in—that old coot—you must be quite—" it started, with a tone like the victim of a slit throat.
Julia's right hand was out in front of her, gripping the air, as though squeezing it. The flames surrounding the skeleton compressed, as if her hand was physically gripping them.
"There's something wrong here…" she said calmly.
Blue lightning arced around her and a swirl of crimson plasma burst into life, flowing around her body like water. The room began to shake, the ground warping in a radius of a couple strides from where she stood. Her body was nearly hidden behind the arcing lightning and swirling plasma, but constantly visible were her glowing eyes, which never left the skeleton before her.
"You're not afraid," she observed quietly.
She closed her hand, and the skeleton screamed.
Its bones twisted, grinding and cracking against each other under the invisible gravitational force. The skull looked to the sky, seemingly in agony, despite lacking the features to express such a feeling. The undead shouldn't even feel pain.
A fist-sized purple crystal burst from its chest, ribs and bone shrapnel flying out of its torn robe. The entire body collapsed to the ground in a heap of bone and velvet, the purple flames winked out like a snuffed candle.
The crystal landed squarely in Julia's outstretched hand.
"You should be," she said before crushing the crystal into fragments that fell from her hand like purple snow.
Julia dusted her hand off on her tassets and approached the ritual circle, pointedly not looking at the expressions of the adventurers behind her. Bending down to inspect it, she carefully placed a finger against the channel, making contact with the magical fluid.
Instantly, her mind was transported elsewhere, though not physically. She still felt her body bent down in the underground, but her consciousness was perceiving a different space. It was mostly white, with little to see—at first glance.
On closer inspection, there were…memories? Information? There was something here, she could see it—feel it, even. Everywhere she looked was blank and white, but it was like light: it only appeared white because it was a composition of myriad parts.
Before she had time to examine more thoroughly, she caught sight of a pair of eyes across from her—sort of. "Across" wasn't wholly accurate, as distance and direction were difficult to discern, but they appeared regardless of her sense of direction: two spheres of glowing, malignant purple. This was the purple shade she'd seen on all the Nashiin thus far, concentrated into two miniature suns.
This was their leader—the origin of the taint she could feel within the Etherium—and it had seen her.
A darkness began to swell around the eyes, cloaking them in a cloud of black flame. A figure manifested, appearing to be hooded and cloaked, the opening of the hood showing nothing but the burning, purple eyes. They gazed at Julia with what she would describe as mild interest.
Back in the underground, she could feel the ritual circle changing—this figure had done something to it. It was a small change, but it began a cascading series of other changes, like a dam suddenly overflowing. A failsafe—it must be. One minor change cascading into a process that fundamentally altered the nature of the circle and the magic within it spoke of premeditation.
Julia couldn't linger here.
"See you soon," she said, giving the most sinister smile she could manage—though she wasn't even sure if she had a body in this space.
The figure reacted with…amusement.
That was irritating.
Regardless, Julia disengaged from the circle and immediately noticed a great deal of movement above.
Shit.
She turned on the adventurers.
"We've got incoming—this must not have been the only spot the undead were hiding. There's a swarm converging on our location right now. This is not a good place to engage them, and the Irons and kids are still out there. We need to get back to them," she explained in a rush.
She started to rise as the adventurers turned for the exit, but the circle caught her attention again. It was reaching a critical point, and Julia felt imminent danger.
A pillar of white light shot into the air, searing through the ceiling above as if it weren't there. Julia recognized it immediately. She'd done something similar with Etherium a couple times now. It was detonating—releasing its stored energy. This was bad.
Using her Paradox Step, Julia ran to the Steels, tearing open space and pushing them all through. The portals closed just as the white pillar of light spread to engulf the entire cavern.