Chapter Two

On the trip back through the maze, Isa distanced himself from Kenaz as much as possible without losing sight of the rest of them.

Ansuz stamped out any shred of guilt he felt for Isa by reminding himself of Isa's attempt on his life, as well as his repeated wishes for their demise.

They exited the maze, dripping wet, and picked a direction to travel.

They walked at a conservative pace, both out of concern for Isa's recovery and to conserve their strength.

During their long trek, Ansuz spotted another structure, this time seeming to be smaller.

"I see another structure." He said, pointing at the structure that laid almost directly ahead of them. "It looks smaller than the last one."

"Neat." Kenaz said. "Let's get that one, too."

They turned in the direction of the structure and began walking towards the new structure.

As they drew nearer, the structure grew larger, making Ansuz slowly realize he had severely underestimated the size of the structure.

When they arrived at the monolithic structure, they were awed by sheer size of the moss and lichen-covered pillar that looked as if it could touch the ceiling.

"This one is much larger than the other one." Hagalaz said, leaning back to peer at the top of the structure hidden in the mist.

"But also more convenient." Ansuz said, pointing to the entrance that was almost hidden by the curve of the structure.

"This time we're going to keep a close eye on you~" Kenaz prodded Isa's wounded shoulder, causing him to jerk away painfully.

"Speaking of Isa, shouldn't he have the ability to use his mana?" Ansuz asked suddenly.

"When you exhaust all your mana, you can't use it for a certain amount of time." Isa responded reluctantly.

"Makes sense, I suppose." Hagalaz said thoughtfully. "I'd imagine it's like overworking your muscles."

They fell into silence as they walked into the hulking monolith.

Within the massive structure was a simple set of stone stairs that were worn smooth as if by countless feet had trodden upon it.

They cautiously made their way down the stairs, making Isa go first to avoid him pushing someone down the stairs.

At the base of the stars was an entryway into the pit of a pale white sandy arena, surrounded by pitch black stone bleachers that brilliantly contrasted the pallor of the sand.

They cautiously entered, scanning for enemies and treasures.

As soon as they made their way into the center of the arena, the doorway they entered through rapidly lowered and trapped them inside.

They put their backs to each other, each watching a direction.

"Ansuz?" Kenaz asked suddenly. "Now would be a good time to test out your artifact."

"What do you mean?" Ansuz asked, turning and glancing at her.

She pointed.

Ansuz followed her finger, realizing a gate was opening. Behind that glass and metal gate laid an infuriated lizard three times the size of Hagalaz.

It stood with fury etched into every bit of its body, its green scales rippling with every breath that it breathed. The spines upon its back and tail looked wickedly sharp, gleaming with the same dull sheen as its scales.

Ansuz channeled his power into his eyes, feeling the cool rush of power flowing through his veins.

His eyes turned pale blue as power began leaking from the corners of his eyes like droplets of water unconstrained by gravity.

In front of him, a ball of water slowly condensed from the mist-filled air, causing a large zone around them to suddenly be free of moisture.

'It's harder than I thought to craft spells.' Ansuz thought as he struggled to prevent the water from dropping onto the ground.

Once the ball of water was the size of Hagalaz, Ansuz stopped pouring power into it and held it there for when the lizard was freed.

"Why aren't you using something more destructive?" Hagalaz demanded. "It'll eat us alive!"

"I plan to drown it." Ansuz explained. "It can't do much while it's drowning in air, can it?"

Kenaz nodded in agreement.

The gate fully opened and the lizard rushed out, searching frenziedly for prey.

It spotted the group instantly and selected Ansuz as its target.

"Scatter!" Ansuz yelled, remaining in place, hoping desperately his plan would work.

The three listened to him, rapidly spreading out in cardinal directions.

Ansuz waited until the creature opened its gaping maw and flung the massive ball of water at the same time he dove to the side, narrowly escaping both the bite of the creature and the claw that came shortly after.

Regaining his feet, he turned and fled from the creature that was now clawing desperately at its throat and mouth.

Its massive claws tore at its scales, pulling them out of its skin and drawing blood as it continued to thrash about on the sandy floor.

Ansuz felt a pang of pity for the creature. Drowning was not a pretty way to go.

"I'm going to put it out of its misery." Ansuz said, the energy coming from his eyes changing from a deep blue to the light blue of the sky.

Ansuz concentrated and crafted a crude spear of ice that he sent through the roof of the lizard's wide open mouth, piercing into its skull, killing it.

"That was surprisingly stressful." Ansuz said, walking up to the corpse. "I wonder if I could use this in the shop."

He glanced at the wickedly sharp claws, deciding he'd keep at least one for a spear later.

He carefully created a large knife and began dismembering the corpse of the unfortunate creature, giving a foot to everyone except Isa. Hagalaz and Kenaz insisted he take the last foot for himself.

He crudely dug out the spine of the creature, pulling the spines along with it. This allowed him to store it for later use without using up separate item slots.

Ansuz was going to start peeling the skin off of the poor lizard when Hagalaz shouted to get his attention.

"Ansuz! Isa is attacking us!" Hagalaz screamed to him for help.

Both Kenaz and Hagalaz had split, forcing him to select one of them to pursue, and, of course, he chose Kenaz.

Isa was continually firing spears of ice, embedding them into the sandy ground, only for them to levitate again and return to Isa's side to be used again.

Kenaz was rapidly dodging the thick onslaught of spears, gradually slowing as she tired herself out.

Ansuz was suffused with rage as he saw Isa's gleeful face while he was chasing her.

His eyes turned red, filling with power as he began running, releasing flaming streaks of red behind him.

He envisioned his power forming into a massive ball of flame, feeling the heat of it wash over him as it formed just over his left shoulder.

If water needed to be guided for use, fire needed to be shaped. His rage left his control over his spell on the brink of collapse.

Isa's smile of glee was replaced by sudden terror when he saw the brilliant burning ball of flame that was being formed.

Ansuz launched the massive ball of flame as Isa began hastily preparing a barrier.

Kenaz, feeling the heat even from a distance, turned in time to see Isa's wall of ice shatter and the entire part of the arena become a sea of brilliant red flame.

Isa's screams were instantly extinguished by the flames that enveloped him, along with any trace of his existence.

She sat down hard on the sand, panting for breath, grateful to Ansuz for erasing the traitor.

Hagalaz rushed over to her and checking her for injuries and expressing his concern for her.

"Are you okay?" He asked, sighing with relief when he spotted nothing.

"I'm fine." She laughed, letting off some of the stress from the chase. "I'm lucky Hagalaz got your attention."

Kenaz spotted Ansuz dry heaving onto the sand, pale as a ghost.

"Are you okay?" Kenaz got up and made her way to Ansuz, comforting him despite her fatigue.

"I...I killed someone." Ansuz began dry heaving again.

"It was him or us." Kenaz said, putting an arm around his shoulders. "He betrayed us twice. Now, there won't be a third time."

Ansuz knew that what she said was reasonable, but that didn't make the nonexistent contents of his stomach settle.

"What were you even doing all the way over there?" Ansuz asked, gesturing to the opposite side of the arena, trying to distract himself from his first kill.

"I was curious to know if there was a way out." Kenaz replied, pointing to the closed gates. "I'm guessing that we need to defeat three other enemies, given that there are three other gates."

"But we came out of one of those gates, so I think we can scratch off one of those enemies." Ansuz said, glancing around the arena nauseously. "I wonder how long we have to wait for the next one."

As if on cue, a roar sounded from a different gate along with the sound of something heavy crashing into the gate.

Behind the drying sea of flame was a gate that had been bent out of shape, the massive bull behind it backing up to ready another charge.

Its bronze-coloured body rippled as it pawed the ground in preparation for another charge.

"Should I use electricity this time?" Ansuz asked, mostly to distract himself.

"Are you thinking it's metal?" Hagalaz asked curiously. "It does look metallic."

"I wasn't betting on it being metal, I was betting on the electricity causing it to fall and stop its charge." Ansuz explained, steadying himself and pouring power into his eyes once more.

His eyes turned pale yellow, crackling like lightning, filling the air with the smell of ozone.

The power of lightning felt considerably more complex than the feeling of the water and fire.

He didn't think he could fire it and have it reach his target; he needed to do something with it first.

The bull charged and hit the gate once more, denting it further and creating a space big enough for the bull to squeeze through.

As luck would have it, the metallic bull didn't try to fit through the gap and wound up to charge again.

Ansuz thought that he needed to decide that the bull was the target and immediately felt as if the ball had been 'loaded' and was ready to fire as if from a gun.

The bull charged once more, throwing the gate out into the arena, and charged with all its might towards the trio.

Ansuz released his lemon-colored ball and watched it instantly hit the bull, which promptly seized and tumbled into the ground.

Ansuz followed up the attack with a switch back to the fire element and proceeded to roast the bull's head while it was still twitching.

"So, it was metal." Kenaz noted, watching as the bull's head rapidly melted in the face of Ansuz's flame. "We could use this to make ourselves crude spears, if we managed to find other things that would make it keep its shape."

"Why not cut it directly from the bull?" Ansuz asked, stepping towards the corpse.

As he used his power over metal, his eyes glowed a steel grey, struggling to create an even staff.

His thoughts were turbulent, making it difficult for him to keep his magic under control.

After a long time, he was able to create a bumpy and misshapen staff that could have something affixed to either end, which would create a spear.

The rod, weighing a little over three pounds, felt comfortable in his hands.

"And now we have a weapon." Ansuz said, presenting the staff to Kenaz, who twirled it experimentally.

"Surprisingly lightweight." She commented.

Nodding, Ansuz threw himself at the task of creating more staffs that could be used both as ingredients for spears and weapons on their own.

He crafted five more staffs with the body of the bull before he reached the body cavity of the creature.

Inside it was a mass of a liquid silver metal that ignited upon contact with the air, melting what remained of the corpse into slag.

Sighing, Ansuz stepped away from the still-burning corpse and searched around for something else to do while they waited for the last enemy to 'spawn.'

"Why don't you join us for a meal?" Kenaz said, pulling a loaf of bread from her inventory, sitting down, and biting into it.

Hagalaz sat on her right, pulled out a loaf as well, before patting the ground next to him.

"I don't feel hungry." Ansuz said, sitting behind them, facing the only gate no monster had sprung from.

"Eat anyway." Kenaz urged in concern. "I know your first kill probably makes you feel sick, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't eat."

"I fear I'll just throw it back up." Ansuz responded.

"It's better than going without." Kenaz pointed out. "It'll at least fill your stomach."

Ansuz sighed, knowing she was probably right.

"I didn't want to kill him." He admitted, biting into the bread that now seemed tasteless.

"Would abandoning him not achieve the same effect?" Kenaz asked. "He was going to die either way."

"That way would not have been my fault. It would have been his fault." Ansuz sighed. "This way I directly killed a man."

"You would have directly killed a man otherwise." Kenaz pointed out. "But this way you steel yourself for the future, rather than avoid the issue. The outcome is the same, but the journey is different. After your first kill, it'll only get easier."

"I don't want to easily kill someone." Ansuz said, sighing again.

"That's good." Kenaz said, smiling. "No one should want to kill another. The only problem is that others will want to kill you."

"That is true." Ansuz finished his bread, washing it down with a swig of water.

"Looks like the final animal is here." Kenaz shouted, indicating the final gate that had begun to raise.

"What the hell is that?" Hagalaz demanded, staring at the abomination that waited patiently for the gate to open.

Its hulking form was forced to hunch due to its immense height, its claws reaching past its feet. Its cracked black skin shone like obsidian and was lit from within the cracks by an eerie red light. The mist that rose from its body obscured its head so all that could be seen was its red eyes that fixed themselves upon the three.

"If I knew, I'd tell you." Ansuz responded, deciding that he should try and use water to take down the towering beast.

He condensed the mist around him into two large orbs and waited until the beast entered.

After the gate had risen enough for the creature to bend down further and make its way through the opening, Ansuz sent one of the orbs at the creature.

Rather than dodge or block, the creature spread its arms as if it were offering a hug to an old friend.

The orb of water hit and instantly turned into steam that was absorbed by the mist around the creature, causing it to glow brighter.

Ansuz abruptly changed tactics, turning from water to earth, and hoped he could manipulate the sand well enough to weather the creature's body enough to cripple it.

His eyes turned a light brown, hazing over with particles that stood perfectly still, as if petrified by his gaze.

The sand around them abruptly began swirling, despite there being no wind, creating a sandstorm that rampaged towards the creature.

Ansuz created a miniature tornado with the beast at the center, rapidly wearing at the obsidian-like skin, causing it to rapidly smooth in the face of the onslaught of wet sand.

The creature roared angrily, trying to escape the mass of sand that was rapidly wearing at its tough skin.

It finally escaped the little tornado, but not without cost.

Its initially craggy and jagged skin had been worn smooth and thin, now polished to an astonishing degree.

The mist that had obscured its features before had thinned greatly, allowing Ansuz to see the humanoid face with an unsettlingly wide mouth and many small, but clearly sharp teeth.

The creature rapidly approached the trio, howling for blood and brandishing its wickedly sharp claws.

It did not charge like the other animals. Instead it approached swiftly, yet maintained complete control of its body, making it impossible to dodge if it got close.

Ansuz coalesced the sand around him once more to try and weather the creature's defense, but stopped halfway and decided to immobilize it first.

The sand crept up the creature's legs, halting its steps and forcing it to struggle in place.

Ansuz started removing the support for the sand beneath it, half-burying it in the ground, making it impossible for it to escape.

It roared once more, struggling to escape in vain.

Ansuz ignored its death throes and began weathering at the thing's ugly head, rapidly destroying its final bit of armor and eventually killing it.

"Do we get to be rewarded now?" Hagalaz asked excitedly.

"I would guess so." Kenaz said as the three gates repaired themselves and glowed from the inside.

The leftmost gate glowed a warm orange, the middle gate glowed a serene blue, and the rightmost gate glowed a harsh white.

"I think we pick from a gate." Ansuz said, looking to Hagalaz. "What gate do you want to pick?"

"Oh. Uh." Hagalaz pondered, struggling to make a decision. "I'll go with the white one."

"Let's go then." Ansuz said, leading the way. "Let's hope for something to eat besides bread."

"Want to try metal?" Kenaz asked, pointing to the still-molten remnants of the metal bull. "It's nutritious."

"I'll pass." Ansuz replied, continuing to walk. "If you want to try, be my guest."

She laughed, following him through the arched stone passageway that was lit by a harsh white light.

As they walked, the hallway began to dim, the light gradually becoming an omnipresent glow that didn't hinder their sight.

The hallway abruptly ended in a wooden door that couldn't possibly have let the lizard through, in Ansuz's opinion.

The door was some dark wood, reinforced with metal, and semicircular.

Although the shape was strange, it opened just like a door should, revealing an ethereally glowing, spherical room lit by a single light source that hovered in the exact center of the room.

The light source of the room was a sigil of four vertical, interlaced circles, white as snow.

"Inspect." Ansuz said, gazing at the beautiful artifact.

{Artifact: Circles of Starlight}

{Type: Weapon(Durability: None)}

{Alignment: Starlight}

{Rarity: Legendary}

{Description: A weapon that will bind to its user and will be destroyed upon their death. The Circles of Starlight, when fired, packs the wrath of the stars into an arrow, resulting in an explosion on impact. The power of starlight is so close to untamable, only those with the ability to act as a guide can use this weapon.}

{Restrictions: Must possess rune [Kenaz], must not have another alignment, must not have any other artifact equipped, must be bound to user using an item of rarity [rare] or higher.}

{Penalties for use: Cannot equip any defensive artifacts, cannot use any other ranged artifacts, cannot gain alignments to any other element.}

"I guess this one is meant for me." Kenaz chuckled after reading the description. "Although I don't like the penalties, it's still appears to be tailored to me."

"Even if I wanted to use it, I couldn't." Hagalaz bitterly hung his head.

"Cheer up." Ansuz laughed. "If both of us got artifacts that seemed to be tailored specifically for us, who's to say that we won't get one that is tailored specifically for you?"

"That is true." Hagalaz admitted. "But I don't want to keep hiding on the sidelines."

"You'll have to bear with it until we find another artifact." Ansuz shrugged. "I'm sure you'll get your turn."

"I guess I'm sacrificing my [Shimmering Rainbow Crystal] to bind this to me." Kenaz said, reaching out to the sigil with one hand, holding the crystal in the other.

"Wait!" Hagalaz shouted suddenly. "Let us touch it so we can get achievement awards!"

Kenaz paused, allowing Hagalaz to reach out and touch the sigil.

After he touched it, he checked his inventory, found the [Shimmering Rainbow Crystal] in it and celebrated.

Ansuz did the same, but found nothing new delivered to his inventory.

"I guess the increments for the achievement get larger." Ansuz shrugged, allowing Kenaz to proceed.

She stretched out her right hand, which had the crystal in it, watching in fascination as both the sigil and the crystal turned into dust upon contact, forming the sigil's circle pattern on her hand.

Kenaz pushed her power into her hand and an intricately carved crystal longbow appeared in her left hand, while a faintly glowing white arrow appeared in her left.

The longbow was nearly clear. The swirling carvings on it warped the light from her arrow, creating dazzling rainbows on the walls of the room as Kenaz inspected the bow.

"What a beautiful bow." Hagalaz said jealously.

"The only problem being that in this dark world, the light will give me away." Kenaz shrugged, putting both the arrow and bow away.

"Same would go for Ansuz when he uses magic." Hagalaz nodded, leading the way out of the room.

"Hold up." Ansuz stopped the two of them. "Do I glow when I use magic?"

"Your eyes do." Hagalaz chuckled. "To be honest, it's badass, but it could also give away your position."

"That's inconvenient." Ansuz noted. "That means that we need to be careful about when to use magic and what magic we use. I didn't use magic outside for fear of the light it produced being noticed by whatever ungodly things reside within that plane, but now that I know that light is an issue as well, none of us should use any magic outside at all, unless the situation calls for it."

"Well, I was already planning on refraining from using magic anyway." Kenaz shrugged.

"I just wish I had the choice to use magic!" Hagalaz lamented as they resumed their walk back to the arena. "Both of you can use magic now, and what can I do?"

"You can run pretty well." Kenaz giggled.

Hagalaz turned pink.

"That was because neither of us could fight Isa." He protested.

"I meant in general." She laughed. "You're as fast as I am."

"I feel like there's a 'but' coming." Hagalaz muttered.

"But," Kenaz continued.

"There it is." He sighed.

"You can't keep up with me in regards to stamina." She finished, laughing as she poked him in the back.

"Hey, Kenaz." Ansuz paused in his steps, causing the other two to follow suit.

"What's wrong?" She asked, cocking her head to the side.

"We should check your status before we leave." He replied. "The light might attract unwanted guests."

"Fair point." She conceded, pulling up her status window.

{Rune: Kenaz}

{Race: Elfin}

{Mana: 2500/2500}

{Health: 750/750}

{Stamina: 800/800}

{Physical Status: Healthy}

{Mental Status: Tired}

"Your mana is higher than Ansuz's!" Hagalaz laughed, patting her on the back.

"Mana cannot be directly converted to combat power" Kenaz noted.

"Fair enough." Hagalaz shrugged.

Ansuz saw her mental status and realized they should stop for the night, despite not having found any food from the area.

"How about we go and carve up the rest of that lizard and have ourselves some meat?" Ansuz asked, remembering the half-dismembered corpse that still laid in the arena.

"That sounds interesting." Hagalaz chuckled, walking ahead of them. "I look forward to eating meat. Let us hurry so we can enjoy it faster!"

"I'm hungry too!" Kenaz laughed, breaking into a run. "Race you!"

"Oh you're on!" Hagalaz chased after her, his speed belying his large frame.

Ansuz laughed to himself, chasing after their retreating figures.

By the time he caught up, the two were merrily peeling back the lizard's scales, exposing the juicy red flesh beneath it.

Ansuz used his ability to manipulate flame and cut off small slivers of meat, cooking them to juicy perfection in the process.

"If this had spice it'd be even better!" Hagalaz exclaimed with a mouth full of tender yet chewy lizard meat.

Kenaz quickly followed suit, expressing her pleasure with the sounds of her rapid eating.

Ansuz joined them after he prepared a sufficiently large portion of the meat for their meal and to fill their inventories.

As he prepared the meat, he watched Kenaz and Hagalaz jovially stuffing their faces with satisfaction.

'It feels good to have companions like them.' He thought, walking over with an inventory slot full of the meat.

"Anyone want more?" He asked them, pulling a few strips from his inventory.

"YES!" The two replied in unison, accepting the strips of meat with their already greasy hands.

They took their time eating, savoring the change in food supply, though they knew they'd grow tired of it after eating it for consecutive meals.

After they finished their meal, Ansuz set himself up as sentry for his allocated two hours and forty minutes of the eight hours they decided they would rest.

When he checked the system shop, all he found were items that were both unsuitable for him and not at all powerful, so he didn't even consider any of its products.

He sat down near to the others and circulated his mana, enjoying the refreshing feeling.

Nearly twenty minutes into his watch, he spotted movement coming from the gate they entered through.

Stealthily moving to wake his companions, he gently shook them awake and placed a finger over their lips to silence them before they could say anything.

He led them to retreat into the gate Hagalaz had selected for artifact hunting, allowing them free observation of the human group that found their way in.

They observed the group of four that entered cautiously as they took in the scene of devastation.

The headless half-buried corpse of the obsidian-like monster caused them quite a shock as it was closest to the entrance, but the carved corpse of the lizard caused them another large shock.

They gasped in amazement when they saw the remnants of the bull that had pooled on the ground, as well as the glass-like field where Isa once stood.

Two of them cautiously looked around, carefully investigating the area before they turned their attention to the only open gate, while the other two sat and reclined against the walls of the arena.

"Do we attack?" Ansuz wondered quietly aloud.

"I think we should let them find us first." Kenaz suggested. "They'll show their true colours when they believe themselves more powerful than us."

"We'll do that then." Ansuz nodded, leaning back and putting on a mask of fear.

"That's impressive." Kenaz nodded in approval as she put on her own mask of timidity.

"How the hell do you do that?" Hagalaz asked, incredulous.

"Imagine the feeling you had when you were running from Isa." Kenaz suggested. "Then imagine you're putting it on your face."

Hagalaz managed to assemble a barely passable face of fear that could probably fool the four who had made their way into the monument.