Return to The Tomb

At midday on the sixth day of Highbright, the adventuring party known as Yurasha just finished a hearty lunch at The Sea’s Embrace. The meal consisted of a beef and noodle stew, bread, and drinks. Dorak was drinking Saltspray while Isha drank a black tea and Hal and Asyr drank coffee. As the meal was cleared from the table and the drinks were being finished, Hal brought out a small paper which had a simple map quickly drawn upon it. He also brought out four small wooden figurines.

“I’ve drawn a simple version of the first room of The Tomb. These figures are the four of us. I’m the blue one, Isha is green, Asyr’s red, and Dorak’s yellow.”

“I wanted to be the red one!” complained Dorak, furiously. However, he was thankfully ignored by Hal.

“The room is a circle and it’s about a hundred feet across. The orb we need to fuel spells into is at the center. The pillars with the symbols are ten feet in any direction from the orb. As soon as the last spell is put into the orb, the door across the room opens and the Ice Hawk appears above the orb.”

The rest of the party took in the information that Hal relayed from their first experience in The Tomb. Even Dorak could see the obvious easy solution to getting to the next floor.

“I learned two things today at the guild hall. First, most parties haven’t made it to the second floor, but those who have mostly did so at the cost of one of their members.”

The rest of the table wasn’t surprised by this, but was clearly uncomfortable about leaving one of their group behind.

“However, the other thing I learned was that the party who got the furthest into The Tomb did so by defeating the monster on each floor and only ran out of time on the third floor, rather than being killed in there.”

Dorak spoke up again, saying, “So we can kill the things. If we can kill ‘em, then we should.”

Isha interjected, adding, “We shouldn’t put any unnecessary risk on this party. If we can leave the first floor without fighting, that means we have more time for the other floors.”

Asyr joined in saying, “Isha’s right. If that other party ran out of time, we need to save time wherever we can.”

“You two are right. We need to save time, but the only other party to reach the third floor did that by sacrificing a member on the previous floors. When they reached the third floor, it was only the two of them. We can go quickly by sacrificing each other or take our time by killing the monsters.”

The table was quiet after that. The first to speak up was Asyr. She pulled out a paper of her own. It was one that Hal recognized from the time they went into The Tomb. It had eight symbols in a circle: the ones that were on the pillars from the first floor. “I had an idea while I was thinking about this. I don’t know much about arcane magic, but I know that there are eight elements and eight types of magic. The first floor is all about the eight elements. It has the symbols on the pillars and we have to cast the elements into the orb.”

Isha looked over at Asyr encouragingly and said, “That’s true. What do you think we should do?”

“Well, I also saw the second floor,” Asyr said, reaching for a second paper. It was covered in various drawings of magic symbols with small notes beside each one. “The second floor was covered in magic circles. Each of them could summon something if they were activated. Two of the types of magic are elemental magic and summoning magic. I think that the way to solve each floor is through that floor’s type of magic.”

Hal was busy thinking about what that meant about The Tomb when Dorak suddenly shouted, “Wait a minute! If it’s elements, then can’t we just melt the ice with fire?”

“You’re probably right, Dorak,” replied Asyr, before she paused and added, “But I don’t know what would happen after that. It might work, but it might make a new problem for us. I think we should just try and get to the second floor as quick as we can.”

Isha interjected at that moment to say, “Asyr is right. If we fight the Ice Hawk, it only wastes time. We don’t have any idea of what monster is waiting for us on the second floor.”

Hal turned to Asyr and asked, “What do you think is waiting for us on the second floor?”

“Well, I saw the floor was covered in tiles that had a magic circle on them. There was a path that could lead to the door on the other side, but it was closed, so I don’t know how to open it.”

The group was silent in thought for a moment when Dorak loudly sighed. Isha looked at him with an annoyed stare, so he threw his hands up in exasperation. “Hey, look. I don’t know any of this magic stuff. I don’t know how to make good plans. I’ll punch whatever I get told to punch. The thing is I’m just bored here.”

Isha stood up quickly to try and yell at Dorak but Asyr and Hal held her back.

Dorak continued, “We can plan and plan and plan, but if that plan doesn’t work, then it was just a waste of time. I’m not here to waste time.”

Isha wanted to say something, but Dorak was right. She had other, more important matters to deal with. If their plan failed, she would have wasted all this time planning. However, she needed to get to the bottom of The Tomb to get the world’s attention. That, and she needed to get there to help Asyr, too. If they went in without a plan, things would just end up like they did the previous day. She knew what to do.

“Fine. Here’s the plan.”

=======================================

As the stone door to The Tomb closed behind them, Yurasha began walking toward the room where the Ice Hawk was waiting for them. The familiar well-lit room with eight pillars surrounding an orb was just in front of them. The plan was simple: the Ice Hawk would appear when the last spell was poured into the orb. Asyr was the only one who could use that spell, so Hal would be with her to protect her from the hawk, while Dorak and Isha would be waiting by the door to the second floor.

As the group got into the room, Dorak started off by punching the orb with fire. Hal stood ready by the orb as the others began pouring magic into it. Isha cast a light spell, then a stream of water, then healing, and finally a small tornado all into the orb. Asyr cast her first spell, creating a blade of shadow which was thrown into the orb. Dorak continued with a rocky punch before he and Isha ran over toward the door to the second floor. As Asyr cut her other palm to cast her second spell, Hal pulled his tower shield from his back and held it aloft, blocking Asyr from any attacks from above. She cast a simple spell that she knew would have drained blood from any living creature, but to Hal it just looked like a chain made of red iron had hit the orb.

Hal was ready this time. He held his shield above him and his glaive was ready for a counterattack. As he braced himself, after about five seconds, he felt a heavy impact from above. He then felt a sudden jerk as the shield was trying to be ripped from his arm. That must have been the Ice Hawk trying to consume him again. This time, he was ready and safe. Asyr had just finished healing her palms from the cost of her spells. Everything was going according to plan. He looked toward the door where the second floor lay waiting. Dorak and Isha hadn’t gone through. The door was open, but the two had gotten into a battle stance. He suddenly understood why as the Hawk landed between Hal and Asyr and their exit. Running was suddenly no longer an option. It was time to fight.

“DORAK! HIT IT!”

The Hawk was 25 feet from Hal and Asyr and 25 feet from the door where Isha and Dorak stood. Its ten icicle-like feathers were a clear blue ice. Its wings were fifteen feet wide and radiated with the cold of the tallest peaks. As it landed, the lights in the room turned a dangerous red which everyone took as a signal to move. Isha, earlier, had come up with a plan for fighting the Ice Hawk. She knew that there was always a possibility that this could happen, so she knew to prepare for it. Things were still going according to plan.

The Hawk locked eyes with Hal. Its icy blue eyes were unfeeling, like it was simply crushing insects. Hal held out his shield to defend Asyr as she began working on casting a spell. The Hawk went to stomp on Hal. This was the signal for Dorak, who went to the other leg which wasn’t moving. He began to surround his fist in sharp stones, forming a massive stone spike. As he went to punch the Ice Hawk in its other leg, it turned impossibly quickly to block the attack with one of its wings, smashing one feather. Isha had noticed this in their previous fight with the Hawk. It always seemed to respond to everything in a set way. Whenever it was attacked, it would block the attack with its massive feathers. The plan was to destroy all ten of the feathers, but doing so one-by-one would be too slow and too dangerous, so there was another step to the plan.

The plan continued when Asyr finished preparing her spell. She had pulled out the book she kept at her side and opened to a page with a strange magic circle on it. She held out the book and spoke the command word to activate the circle: “Arcblaze”. It was a slightly stronger version of the basic fire magic that was taught in magic schools. As the Hawk spun back to try and block the attack, the ball of flame burst upon contact with the feathers, melting four of the feathers on the other wing. There were only five feathers left.

“THAT’S IT!” exclaimed Isha as the plan succeeded. Now that the party knew how to break the Hawk’s defense, it was just a matter of melting the other feathers. The Hawk, however, took the small opening to open its wings wide with a freezing gust of wind.

“IT’S COMING NOW!” shouted Dorak. He remembered what happened after the Hawk’s gust. It was only a matter of who the Hawk tried to attack. The lifeless blue eyes locked with Asyr. Two massive icicle feathers came shooting like spears at her. Dorak and Isha were too far away to do anything but shout at her to dodge them, but Asyr froze as she watched death approaching her.

A metallic slam, then two deep thuds could be heard as a freezing aura surrounded Asyr. She opened her eyes to see massive chunks of ice surrounding her. She could feel her skin beginning to freeze just by being near them. In front of her kneeled a tall half-orc as his thick blue scarf fluttered behind him. His tower shield was planted in the floor in front of him. Even though it had taken two attacks strong enough to pierce Dorak through the torso and to destroy Isha’s shield and arm, Hal’s shield wasn’t even scuffed. He did, however, switch arms to hold his shield on his right arm, completely dropping his glaive. Asyr could see that his left forearm was probably shattered. His upper left arm was broken at a bad angle and the left shoulder was slumped below the right one. There was no time to heal him yet, so she simply went to pick up his glaive, but just before touching it, felt a malicious aura exuding from it. She knew that she shouldn’t touch it, so she kicked it towards the door.

The Ice Hawk was in flight, so Isha called out, “IT’S ABOUT TO SWOOP DOWN!”

Hal raised his shield above himself and pulled Asyr underneath it, but it didn’t matter. The Hawk had a different target. As the Hawk began its dive, Dorak tried to dodge out of the way, but was too slow. The whistling screech of the Hawk’s dive sounded like an arrow that pierced through Dorak. Blood was rushing down the left half of his body. His shoulder was screaming with pain, his leg had a gash running down its side from hip to ankle, and the whole side was quickly losing blood.

“QUICK! BEFORE IT STOMPS!” Hal called out to the room. Anyone who could do something needed to do it now. Asyr began looking for a spell. Isha began chanting a prayer. Dorak gathered flames on his right fist. Dorak ran out to the legs of the Hawk and began rapidly punching one of the legs, but the rhythm was odd. That’s when he realized. He had no left arm.

The feathers went to block Dorak’s attacks, but the flames melted any defense that could be put forward. The punches melted two more feathers and knocked the bird off its balance, causing it to stumble slightly. That was all the opportunity that the party needed to finish this.

“EXABLAZE!” A massive magic circle burned into the air in front of Asyr. The heat was enough to scorch some of her hair. At each of the eight points on the magic circle, a smaller spell, Blaze, was cast. These eight Blazes formed into a screaming, burning circle that shot out at the Hawk. The last three feathers hopelessly tried to block the attack, but when it made contact, the Blazes exploded into a new massive magic circle that surrounded the Hawk and burst into pure flame. The flames consumed everything in the circle before exploding in heat across the rest of the room. Everyone’s clothing, hair, gear, and everything that could catch flame threatened to do so. The room shook from the shockwave and the heat made everything look hazy. But when the room returned to normal, the lights were back to their regular glow. The Hawk was nothing but ash.

Isha stopped chanting her prayer and began to chant a new one. “This suffering has gone on for too long. Ease these people’s pains. End the suffering before death can claim them, o Mother of Storms.” A pale blue light like the endless skies filled the room. Hal could feel his shattered arm begin to knit itself back together. Dorak could feel the wound on his leg closing, the wound at his shoulder begin to close over, and the blood flow back into him. As Asyr fell to her knees in exhaustion, the battle was truly over.

=======================================

Yurasha was sitting in the hallway that led to the second floor. Asyr had nearly passed out from overusing her magic. Dorak’s arm hadn’t returned from the healing, but he was alive. Hal had picked his glaive up off the ground and was looking around the first room to see if anything had changed. Isha was shuffling through her bag for something.

Hal looked around the room, but the walls were the same, the lights were the same, the pillars were the same, and the orb was the same. The only thing that changed was the aura of the room. Before the Hawk appeared, the room had a sense of normalcy, but now, that normalcy felt too still. The air in the room didn’t feel like it was moving now. Hal shook his head to try and shake off the uneasiness. He happened to glance down and saw a small hole in the floor next to the orb.

“Was there always a hole right here?” Hal called out to his party. Isha and Asyr didn’t say anything, but Dorak looked over and responded, “Oh, that? That was there before, but I just thought everyone else had seen it already.”

“What are we discussing?” asked Isha, confused and slightly annoyed as she gently helped Asyr drink a clear blue potion.

“We’re talking about the hole by the orb.”

“What hole by the orb?” interjected Asyr, also confused.

“The hole by the orb! I’m pretty sure there’s just the one.”

“I hadn’t seen a hole next to the orb. Are you certain it was always there?” asked Isha.

“It was there. I thought that everyone else saw it already.”

Isha gently set Asyr down to rest a bit longer as she stood up and walked back to the orb. She kneeled down to examine the hole, but couldn’t find anything notable, so she walked back to the hallway to help Asyr stand up. As the full party gathered around the half-inch wide hole, Asyr opened up her book and found a magic circle that was much more complex than any of the spells she had cast in battle. She cast the spell with a rather simple command phrase: “Eye of Magic.”

One of Asyr’s eyes began to glow with the same magic circle seemingly etched into her pupil. She covered the non-glowing eye with one hand and looked at the hole. To everyone else, it looked like a simple hole in the floor that was a half-inch wide and maybe six inches deep. To Asyr, however, it was covered in magic circles. The circles were incredibly small and layered on top of one another, so it looked like the hole was simply glowing with the faint blue glow of magic. When she looked closer, each individual circle was so complex that when they overlapped, it looked like there was only a pure glow, rather than the intricate drawings of magic circles.

“I think this is a magic device. If some magic item is put in the hole, it would activate.”

“Well, what does it do?” asked Dorak.

“I don’t know. I also don’t know what magic item we’d need.”

“That’s fine. It doesn’t change our plan,” said Hal, “Do we want to continue or do we want to keep resting? We have about 45 minutes left.”

“I’m ready to keep going. Let’s go to the next floor,” said Asyr, before the group began walking towards the hallway.

=======================================

The second room, much like the first, was nearly one hundred feet wide and circular. The door to the next floor was on the opposite side of the room. Unlike the first floor, there was no orb in the center of the room and no pillars surrounding it. Instead, there were hundreds of foot-wide tiles that covered the floor. Almost every one of them had a magic circle inscribed on it. Asyr had told the group that the circles would summon something if touched, but there was no way to get to the door on the other side of the room, nor was that door open.

“I should probably say this now. There’s another hole in the floor right here.” Dorak suddenly spoke up, pointing at a similar hole to the one on the first floor. Asyr looked at it, but without her spell, it just looked like a hole in the floor.

Hal began looking out into the room at the many tiles across the floor. He had little understanding of magic, but even he could tell that there were three different types of tile. Some had magic circles that featured an elemental symbol in its center. Others had highly complex circles that almost appeared to be multilayered. Others still appeared to be relatively simple, but what any of those circles did was beyond him.

Isha stood beside Hal and looked out across the tiles, as well. She pointed at a tile close to the center of the room. “That one appears to be different than the others.”

She was right. Hal crouched down and noticed that the tile was much taller than the others, almost a half a foot so. The circle on the tile also appeared to be made up of nearly ten layers. The tile was very noticeable once it had been pointed out, but before then, it looked like just any other tile.

Asyr called out, “I’ve got my notes from last time here.” She had spread out her notes across the floor beside the strange hole in the floor. She had three pages with various sketches of the circles. “There are three types of circles here. The ones that have the elemental symbols in them will summon that element. Some will be more dangerous than others. The very complex ones will summon objects or creatures. Then the last type will summon us. It’s a teleportation circle.”

Hal was about to ask a question when there was a sudden burst of air near the group resulting in a slight popping sound. The group looked over and didn’t see Dorak. Where the popping sound had just come from, Dorak had previously been standing. Isha stood up and scanned the room. She found Dorak standing near the center of the room. The tile he was standing on had a slight glow to it, same as the one next to where he had just been standing.

“You absolute idiot. Why did you step on the tile?” asked Isha, trying to stay calm, but failing.

“I heard you talking about the tiles and just planned to try one out. I’m sorry for trying to solve the problem.” Dorak had tried to fold his arms, but the missing one made it impossible. He started to try and walk back to the group, but Asyr yelped, “NO, DON’T!”

Unfortunately, it was too late. Dorak stepped on the strange tile which immediately caused all of the magic circles across the room to fade. The tile Dorak was standing on suddenly dropped a few inches as the circles magically engraved on it began to glow brighter. Asyr grabbed Hal and Isha and pulled them into the hall as the lights in the room went a familiar red. Dorak began to run toward the hall, as well, but the magic circles were growing larger and glowing brighter.

Dorak was a fast runner and was nearly taking leaps like a dancer across the room. Three leaps away, the circles reached their apex. Two leaps away, a large stone object began to appear from the circles. One leap away, the object landed with a thud in the center of the room. As Dorak was in midair, the massive object glowed with a different magic circle that nearly flew out toward him. As he was just about to cross the line into the hallway, the magic circle summoned a small orb that was black as the void. When that orb was summoned, Dorak could feel his entire being pulled toward it. He instinctively knew that if he touched that orb, he would be destroyed along with everything around him. He tried to avoid it, but the pull was too strong.

Hal’s arm reached out and pulled Dorak into the hallway just before the orb could reach him. As the party left the room and took shelter in the hallway, they could now get a full view of the thing that was before them. It wasn’t a monster, it was simply a pillar. It had no face, no eyes, no mouth. It couldn’t even be said that it had intelligence. Even the dumbest golems and slimes had some kind of intelligence. Golems could follow basic commands and slimes knew how to hide and wait for prey. The thing before them didn’t move or turn, it simply began to float slightly in the air, nearly twenty feet off the ground. It was a pitch black, glassy material. It appeared both powerful and fragile. There was only one thing that could be said to describe it: it was an Obsidian Pillar.

Isha, now that the danger had temporarily passed, began to chew into Dorak. “What in the name of all that is holy do you think you are doing?!”

“I told you. I was just trying to find out what was going on!”

“Are you sure? Because here’s what I think happened. You couldn’t wait for anyone else to come up with a simple plan, so you rushed in, thinking everything would turn out fine.”

“That’s not-”

“AM I WRONG?”

“YES! I was just trying to be helpful. I can’t believe this. I’m trying to do something, instead of just talking about doing something, and this is the thanks I get?!”

Isha was stunned by Dorak’s words before murmuring, “Horn of Plenty, grant me strength. I thought you were just stupid. Turns out that you are not only stupid, but also willfully so.”

“Oh, come on! I got the door open!”

As the group turned to look, they could see that the door on the other side of the room had opened, leaving a straight path toward the next floor.

Isha took a second to calm herself down before she said, “Look at your arm. No, the one on the left. That’s right, you don’t have one right now. It will be fine for now because we’re in this place where time rewinds, but if we were anywhere else, you would have lost an arm and almost certainly your life. If you take stupid risks, you will only lose the things that matter to you. I’m a healer. I may be a priest and a Speaker, but more than anything, I am a healer. I can’t heal the dead. I can’t save what’s already gone. Healing only fixes bones, muscles, and blood. So keep looking at that missing arm. If you think that you can do anything and everything, you’re wrong. You need to think about what you can do and what you can’t. If you can’t think of plans, then rely on us.”

Dorak felt like a scolded child for the first time since the monastery. He knew Isha was right, but he hadn’t known how wrong he was. He wanted to cut in with a joke or an insult, or even a mention about how he opened the door, but he knew it wasn’t the time. For all of his flaws in the mental arena, he did know how to read the room.

“In any case, thank you for opening the door, but never do that again.”

Those words from Isha gave Dorak back some small glimmer of confidence. He held his head high and went to sit down with his back against the wall of the hallway. Isha, Hal, and Asyr stood in the hallway as they began planning how to get to reach the next floor.

“I say that we simply run. We don’t need to risk anything if the door is already open,” said Isha, who was looking out toward the floating Pillar.

“I think that she’s right. I’m worried about that orb that it summoned, though,” added Asyr, who was looking over her gathered notes.

“I think that running is going to be our best plan. We don’t know what else the thing can do, but the room is only about a hundred feet across. As long as we rush, we can get there and get to the safety of the next hallway. If it shoots something at us, I have my shield and Isha has hers. Asyr, you should come with me and Dorak should go with Isha. No complaining.”

Dorak stood and approached the others who were now all standing just behind the line to the room where the Obsidian Pillar floated before them.

“Does everyone have their weapons out?” asked Hal as the rest nodded or grunted in agreement. “Does anyone need healing or a potion?” No response came. “I’ll take that as a no. Let’s do this on the count of three.”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three!”

The group stepped over the line and hit a dead sprint as they rushed to reach the next hallway.