35 Labyrinthian II

{Real creative title, I know}

Savos and Yuri approached the gate at the end of the hallway and Yuri flicked the lever. The gate in front of them lifted open, while behind them a horrible screeching noise echoed for a moment before stopping with a dull thud. They didn't need to turn back to see Yuri's block had succeeded.

With a grin, Master and Student stepped forward into what seemed like a very long and enclosed list field, or a rectangular arena used for jousting. Absent of the rack used to divide potential riders, yet present with the stands for an also absent audience. Six gated pens opened themselves at the same time as the gate behind them closed shut. Yuri didn't have time to keep that one open...

Savos shot him a knowing glance, and Yuri shrugged.

The furthest pens revealed 2 skeletal dragons with a pen to themselves each and dozens upon dozens of skeletal warriors in varying levels of armor and equipment.

*RooooAAAAAAAR*

"Hold off the skeletons as long as you can," Yuri used his thumb to flick the sword sheathed at his left side and caught it in flight with his right hand. Applying mana into his index finger spread Light across its edge. "I'll take care of the dragons."

Savos readied himself while Yuri TP'd right in front of the right-hand dragon and readied for battle. It snapped at him while Yuri ducked to the left and swung his sword up and sliced the vertebrae holding its head aloft. He felt it clip, but he didn't get all the way through.

With his ESP and mana sense, he felt the other dragon behind him reel in for a shout. He TP'd on top of its back right before a Frost Breath exited it and covered its colleague's frame in ice. Yuri raised his hand and brought down a dozen Light spears into the spine and joints of the dragon he was standing on. All but dead, it tried to buck off the impromptu rider with its useless wings and Yuri simply clipped them whenever they came within range of his brightened edge.

The right-hand dragon was about to shout and Yuri knew it. A moment later with a hollow-sounding roar, a ring of fire catapulted toward Yuri's position atop Left-hand. Yuri raised his unarmed hand like a conductor and the crippled dragon beneath him floated up in front of the blast, tanking it in the chest and dying for good.

Yuri wanted to use his inventory, but the Traveler's grimoire wouldn't fit a full skeleton and he already had one anyway. Yuri let down his mount with a crash and bones that were no longer held together flew in all directions. Yuri strutted away from his landing site with ease and toward his last foe. Checking Savos turned out to be pointless. Entire groups of skeletons were being downed with a knock of his staff and he would teleport to avoid being cornered to resume.

'Reminds me of training zombies in the olden days'

Another roar distracted him. Force came from the mouth of the beast and nearly crashed into Yuri who merely teleported to the left in his wide-open space. Yuri ran forward at animalistic speeds to his own surprise, his dynamic vision barely keeping up. In less than a second he had crossed 40 feet and was right beside it. Yuri used the butt of his blade to strike the cheekbone of the dragon and push its face out of the way with a bone-cracking clap. With the neck exposed again, he brought his sword up vertically and down once more with gusto, severing the 6-inch diameter spine and the head from its shoulders.

Yuri looked behind him and found remains to be all that his master left between the hundred feet that separated them. "Not bad, old man!" He shouted across.

"Not bad yourself, kid. You must have an incredible master," Savos smiled brightly.

Yuri merely clicked his tongue. He walked into that. "Let's goooooo," He yelled with an echo.

Yuri went to the end of the field and activated the umpteenth gate he had seen today to get them to the next room. The room behind it wasn't exactly a room, more like a platform. In his vision, he saw a pedestal with a bowl in it and a plaque on its side. A wooden ceiling is held up by a single wooden pillar to the left and right, also holding two torches. Behind, or more aptly below, the platform was absolute darkness.

"What the hell is this, master?" He asked after Savos caught up.

"Fill the bowl with fire and you'll find out. It's what killed most of us."

But before he got the chance, a guttural and cracking voice echoed across the whole dark chasm and blue light penetrated it in what looked like wisps of air.

"Have you retuuuuurned Aren, my oooold frieeeend" It lengthened its vowels and snapped off the ending consonants like it hated them.

"And don't forget his charming sidekick, Wonderboy!" Yuri shouted back powerfully and raised his fist.

"Don't talk back, Yuri. He enjoys it." Savos spoke normally. He then conjured flames and threw it into the bowl himself, the flames quickly ignited the whole bowl and danced across the surface before revealing a small hole in its center.

The bowl must've been lined with some kind of oil because the flames traveled through the hole and spread with a hiss, continually revealing the outer edge and the top walls of a maze row by row. In less than 30 seconds, the whole half-mile maze had been outlined along with the staircase on the other side that led to... another gate. Torches seemed to be present on some of the inner walls, but details were hard to garner in there.

"So what, we're supposed to play by his rules? Why can't we float?"

"We tried that last time. There is some mechanism on the ceiling that will push us down while Morokei himself will drain out mana again with that breath you just saw. Best we travel on foot. No issue anyway for men of our caliber."

'Breath? Oh yeah... huh... that barely tickled. Welp, this is his revenge journey and I don't want to spoil all the fun.'

Apparitions of Savos old friends appeared once more, one man down. They spoke of regret, of not being able to turn back. He witnessed ghost Savos trying to be the voice of encouragement, but it wasn't working. Yuri wasn't gonna let this old memory of his come back for long.

"Alright, then follow me," Said Yuri, who went down the staircase to his right and went to the only entrance to the maze.

Savos followed closely behind with his staff and Yuri found, to his surprise, that his ESP was suppressed in here to 30 feet. He could see around his immediate corners and that was pretty much it. Yuri kept the Tenth Eye active as a supplement and used it to find the correct path. It fucking worked.

"Hahaha, stop flying and ESP but not clairvoyance? My win"

"Clairvoyance?" Savos tried it himself and found the same thing. "We were fools"

It was then they encountered their first issue. A group of armored Draugr came through the front of their first turn and charged. The first issue turned into a nonissue almost immediately. Light and hail tore through the unarmored, lightning broke through the armored. Yuri didn't even unsheathe his blade.

Twist and turn were made seemingly randomly for the better part of a couple of hours, meeting each blockage with extreme magical prejudice. The occasional Scooby-Doo trapdoor would open to one side of a wall and reveal a skeletal troll that barreled into the intruders while windmilling. Yuri drew his blade and severed both of its arms, then its head followed.

The most challenging part that happened was when they came to a wide-open 100x100 foot space covered in stone obelisks, with a Wispmother blocking the exit. Ethereal balls of blue energy flew with a wailing noise toward the duo in volleys and they took up skeet shooting in self-defense. They had quite the durability. Yuri switched to his Flame edge and sliced the ones who approached in half with relative ease, but they were never-ending.

"We need to get forward to the mother!" Savos advised.

They charged through the obelisks jutting from the ground, each dealing with their own wisps that came at them on the way. What caught even Yuri off guard was that there were Ice runes scattered through the field and made invisible. He got away from it before it hit him, but Savos wasn't so lucky. A freezing cloud pelted the side of him when he walked into it, luckily he was largely unscathed due to his robe. Wisps took the opportunity of pause to surround Savos in high number and nip at him.

Yuri realized this and decided this was no longer a fun challenge for him. Fire arrows manifested and targeted the wisps in groups of five or less, repeatedly. Like apples, they were punctured and then exploded in large numbers in the air. Yuri couldn't feel the whole area so he had to look to do so, but they were quickly decimated. Savos gave Yuri a nod, then they walked forward to make the final attack. When they were within ten feet, the Wispmother created nearly a dozen shades to distract them and make more wisps, but Yuri made a wall of fire and flung it forward, plowing through them all and popping them in a display of green light.

Savos took the chance where the mother was exposed and fired his own volley of lightning to disable and kill the magical creature. In seconds it stuttered and burned out.

The maze actually grew less challenging after that. Deathlords they faced in the process were dealt with quickly by Light magic or Savos who learned from his mistakes and used Telekinesis to interrupt a shout before showering it in lightning or a few fireballs if he was distant enough.

In record time, the duo climbed the stairs and reached the other gate before pulling it.

They were met with the apparitions of Savos old party once more, two more men short. Before they could share their horror with the listeners, the old codger spoke with his blue breath and dispersed their forms.

"It seeeems you haaaave improooved, Aren. I look forward to settling oooold scoooress."

'It doesn't seem like he knows I'm here, probably my title again. Hopefully Savy doesn't notice'

"The old fool doesn't know what's coming to him. It won't be me that ends him today, but I'll be glad to watch"

What lied before them wasn't a path so much as a stream. Water spouted out the side of the wall and went down with the descending path made of loose stones before it collided with the door and made its way through the cracks. Whatever was on the other side likely wasn't structurally sound.

Yuri and Savos got their boots wet and opened the door before halting. A grand and cavernous ravine that wasn't so much long as it was deep was revealed. Before them, a cobbled bridge was covered with an inch of water and let it drip off the sides because it lacked any railing. At the end of the bridge was another iron door with two torches to its sides.

Looking down, one would see this same scene repeat until they were convinced this was the matrix. It must've been miles till the bottom, but they couldn't see that far in the darkness.

"Each bridge leads to a Nord tower ruin filled with undead and booby traps before going to the next bridge, and continuing this way for what might be days. It's a test of patience, but we can't fly here either."

"No. No. There's no way I'm walking all the way down this shit, it's deeper than Tai Lung's prison here. I'll find a way to fly"

"Who?" But Savos didn't get an answer. Yuri activated Tenth Eye and found what he was looking for, Formations that hampered the length of a telekinesis spell and pressed down if someone tried to float were hidden and spread in intervals across the cavern's walls and ceiling.

Yuri charged mana constructs in his hand and fired at them aggressively, doing complete damage to the rune and even to the wall underneath it. After 14 different targets were blasted, Yuri tested floating himself and found success.

Morokei was not pleased.

"You think you can outplay meeeeee, Areeeeen. Try flying in thiiiiiis" Morokei referred to the breath that was sucking in Magicka, or attempting to.

"Good job, Yuri. But how will we fly no- aaaahh!" Savos couldn't finish before Yuri lifted him and floated down with Savos in tow. The pair jumped from bridge to bridge for what seemed like hours, Savos keeping quiet and letting Yuri handle it while being a good passenger. He must've found a way to seal off his mana.

In truth, Yuri was constantly feeding himself with the Eye every time he got low.

After a long time, Yuri found the bottom lit with torches on either side of a wide court fit for a king, and dropped like a dead weight before landing.

He set Savos down and the two investigated their surroundings. Stone pillars with jagged sculpture work lined the whole throne room, climbing over a hundred feet up into the cavern's natural ceiling. Behind the pillars in the darkness, bookshelves and tables filled with scattered tools and jars of dead things could be seen with ESP. An enchanting table and alchemy set could be found every 30 feet, chests and specialized equipment could be found everywhere else. At the end of the makeshift throne room, a set of circular stairs led to a circular platform hollowed out into the wall above the rectangular hall. Morokei sat on a throne that probably wasn't there before this place. Above Morokei were four stone platforms holding an undead thrall each and firing some kind of beam at him. Morokei himself had a shield around him, a mask on his face with a small slit for eyes he didn't have, and a staff with a very familiar-looking orb at its tip.

'This looks like it once belonged to Shalidor, Morokei must've reworked the place. Morokei was here much earlier, though. Was he a servant of Shalidor or merely hiding until he died off?'

"Those undead mages above him are enthralled to protect him, we must kill them before we can touch Morokei. I never got the chance last time."

"AAaaaaaah yeeees, the puppets who come here for glooooryyyy and end up as my tooools. Caaaaaare to jooooiin theeeem? I see you have brooought another challengerrrr here to diiieeee, Aren. No maaage is my maaatch, or have yooouuu forgotteeeeen"

'So he finally noticed me'