Back to the Start
Aavern let out a frustrated squeak as he found himself back in front of Ezarik's castle.
"What am I even supposed to be doing here?" Aavern shouted. His voice echoed into the sky, and a deathly silence fell. There was no response.
Aavern grumpily kicked a rock, but his foot passed straight through it. He let out an angry groan.
"Okay, calm down," Aavern said to himself, taking a few deep breaths. "I found something in Ezarik's castle, right? Maybe there's more things in the castle that I need to find before I can get out?"
Aavern carefully made his way back to the castle, casting a longing look at Cyil, Riselus, and Qassot as he went. No matter how he helped them, they ended up doing the same thing as before when everything restarted. Now, he couldn't even jump into things to talk to them. The grace period the Overseer had given him was over. He begrudgingly left them behind as he reentered Ezarik's castle, exploring the place as thoroughly as possible. He wandered through the library he went through before, the armory, rooms full of various scrolls and regents, Ezarik's massive study, where the wizard stood in all his glory, researching something and experimenting with magic. He floated through a single bedroom with sparse decorations, and several empty rooms that had been boarded off. There were even entire floors, spires, and sections of the castle which had been left empty and alone, collecting dust as the lone wizard continued his research.
Aavern made his way back to the top of the staircase and entered another room, looking around in confusion.
"I've explore the whole place for a while, and haven't found anything," Aavern muttered to himself, "but what's with all the empty parts of the castle? It's like the place used to house a whole family or organization or something."
Aavern looked around the room he was in.
"Hey, wait. I haven't been here before."
A barren room with a single bed.
Aavern found it strange that there was a room with a bed when there was already a bedroom for the lone Ezarik. The castle wasn't like Azor's, either, where he had guest rooms set up, or additional sections which Dringochs took care of.
Aavern poked around the bed, sighing as he passed through the objects again.
"There must be something here. There wouldn't be a second bedroom in such a weird place if Ezarik wasn't hiding something here."
Aavern poked around until he found himself under the bed, looking at a trapdoor.
"That's… actually very obvious."
Aavern passed through the trapdoor and found himself going down a winding spiral staircase, completely unlit except for the dim, ethereal light Aavern seemed to emit.
Aavern emerged from the bottom of the stairs into what seemed to be a dungeon. Rows of cells with black brick and dark metal bars, and a red glow that covered the walls, glowing brighter than any other part of the castle. Whether it was just the room being dark or these cells being particularly reinforced, Aavern didn't know.
Far down at the end of the dungeon, Aavern saw a hole. A shattered part of the castle. He walked over and looked out. The hole opened up into the cliff behind Ezarik's castle, and the red shimmer seemed to be glowing brightly, gradually reconstructing the broken wall.
Aavern glanced into the cell nearest to the hole. He took in a sharp breath.
A cell that had been torn apart violently, still buried in rubble, by some force beyond anything Aavern had seen before.
Actually… Aavern had seen a force like that before.
Aavern's mind worked, pulling up an old memory. Just after they had gotten the water gem for Qassot, blue fire had erupted from the river and formed a portal. A message from Kovo, interrupted by… someone. But Aavern didn't focus on that.
In his mind's eye, Aavern saw the shadow, a creature that Azor warned them against. An experiment of Ezarik's that violently broke out of a cell just like the one Aavern saw before him.
No, the shadow had broken out of this cell.
There was a tearing sound.
-
The three creatures set out to Azor's castle. They barely made it halfway across the barren plains when something strange happened.
There was a grinding noise and the south lit up with a streak of blinding light, tearing through the clouds. Colors everywhere were burned into high contrast. Shadows disappeared in the all-consuming light, and an overwhelming roar filled the air. Above it all, a clear, resonating voice sounded in triumph over the world.
He is victorious.
When Cyil was finally able to open our eyes, the group was in the desert, but something was off. It was growing hotter. Wind began to blow. A sandstorm made up of massive rocks instead of sand sprung up. The ground started breaking apart.
"What's going on?" Cyil shouted.
"I don't know!" Qassot yelled. A massive rock slammed into the ground next to her. "We need to find shelter!"
"There's a stairway!" Riselus bellowed. Ahead, the fiery rock that marked the fire gem had been shifted to the side thanks to the upheaval, revealing a pathway down into the ground. Without hesitating, Cyil led the others inside, where they sheltered until the rumbling stopped. When the storm of rocks settled back down, the entrance was blocked.
"What do we do now?" Qassot asked.
"The only way out is the other side of the fire gauntlet," Cyil said.
"Oh, come on! Not this again!"
"We'll be relying on your magic sense again!"
Qassot crinkled her snout. "Can't Riselus just use his gem to move the rocks away?"
"I might collapse the cavern," Riselus said, "I don't have very good control."
"It seemed to work well when we fought Ezarik," Cyil commented.
"I was improvising," Riselus grunted. Cyil understood. He had basically moved by instinct through the entire fight.
"The only way out is the other side," Cyil said, flicking a tongue of flame to float near them like a lamp. "Let's get going."
The group walked down the steeply sloping path, nervously glancing around whenever the ground rumbled and the walls shook. Dust and gravel fell from the ceiling with every tremor, and a dull creaking rumble echoed through the primitive halls. The glowing red rock that used to illuminate the caverns was gone, with only a few gentle flickers, the last remains of the dying magic which lit the place.
The group walked, weaving around huge chunks of falling debris, watching as the path curved up and down, unlike the smooth, sloping path they traveled on before. With each heave of the earth, the path warped even more, to the point where they could no longer tell if they were going up or down. The path gradually opened up, widening up to the point where the warped path felt more like a rolling series of hills than a partially destroyed tunnel. The flickering orange light from Cyil's flame cast long, eerie shadows, plunging the formerly well-lit tunnels into darkness.
"Isn't this the path to the gem's cave?" Cyil asked.
Qassot inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't want to have to go through those puzzle rooms ever again.
The trio carefully picked their way through the rubble and warped surfaces and made their way through the half-shattered stone gates.
The room that once held the fire gem was dark.
"Why is it cold?" Qassot asked.
Cyil stared surprisingly up at the walls.
"The orb isn't here." Riselus called, staring at the empty pedestal on the floor.
Cyil looked curiously at it.
"Who could've done this?"
"I don't know. The guardian's gone too," Qassot said.
Riselus frowned. "The water gem guardian was missing as well."
"We need to check on the other two places," Cyil suggested, "Azor said that there would be a disaster if the gems and orbs were out of place at the same time."
Qassot walked over to where the exit tunnel used to be. It was thoroughly blocked with rock and rubble, and after clearing it away, she saw that the tunnels had twisted to the point where not even Cyil could fit through the tunnel.
"Riselus, can't you just break us out?" Cyil asked.
"That'll cause a cave-in-," Riselus grunted.
"Don't care," Cyil interrupted. "Let's just leave this place. I don't like how dark it is."
Riselus sighed.
"Fine."
Riselus's gem glowed. Rocks began to fall from the ceiling, prying themselves free of a particular spot in the cave where Riselus was forcing a passageway to open. As rocks continued to fall, the roof of the room began to cave in. Cyil yelped in surprise as rocks tumbled down around him. Qassot drew her sword and tried to parry the rocks falling down on her, but every rock that she sliced broke into smaller sections which flew everyone like shrapnel, breaking her scales and scattering blood everywhere. It wasn't long before a large section of the ceiling came bearing down on her. She grunted with effort, swinging her gauntlet-covered claw up into the ceiling. The shock of the impact instantly shattered the massive boulder, but the chunks of rock that flew everywhere as a result were too numerous to block. Before Qassot could regain her balance, a particularly large rock shard slammed into her forehead. The world spun and she blacked out.
-
A tremor passed through the cave. Qassot woke up with a splitting headache, lying uncomfortably on the floor.
"How about you try to break out?" Cyil was saying, "We've already cleared out all of the rubble."
"I'm not risking another cave-in," Riselus responded.
Qassot found herself crouched and leaning against the wall, head down. She snapped up and immediately regretted it as pain rushed through her head, forcing her to sit back down.
"Oh hey, Qassot's awake," Cyil said from nearby.
Riselus glanced over briefly to see Qassot clutching her throbbing head, then looked back at the wall.
"Those rocks really did a number on you," Cyil said, wandering over through the rubble.
Qassot's claw met something warm and wet, and a metallic smell filled the small enclosure. She pulled her claw away and saw a dark red liquid staining it.
"That's a lot of blood," Cyil said, giving Qassot a leaf.
Qassot waved off the gesture. She wasn't sure what leaves did to help heal the small fuzzy species that Cyil and Aavern were, but it sure didn't work for her.
Riselus looked at a rather large lump of rock stuck in the wall and ran his claw over it. It shifted ever so slightly.
Qassot gently touched her head, flinching when her claw scraped across a jagged rock that was embedded deep within her skull.
"Now would be a great time to learn that healing stuff the fire gem guardian was talking about," Cyil said. "I'm all bruised and such."
Riselus pulled violently on the lump, yanking a large rock out of the wall. It revealed what seemed to be a caved-in passage.
Qassot grabbed the rock and yanked it out of her head, flinching at the sudden pain and the rush of blood that burst out from the wound.
"Hey!" Cyil said, darting away from the blood dripping down Qassot's scales. "Watch where you're spraying that!"
Qassot gave Cyil a glare.
Riselus used his earth gem, focusing as hard as possible to only move the rocks in the new passage. More rubble fell from the ceiling as the rocks loosened. He quickly stopped before causing another cave-in, opting to move the rocks around with his brute strength. A passage in the wall appeared.
"Found the exit," Riselus said, not looking back.
Cyil ran out of the cavern, staying away from Qassot.