Jackal Among Snakes

Argrave pushed into the red crescent moon on the front of the metal door, and it clicked a few times. Once enough of it had been pushed in, it made space enough to get a grip. Argrave fit his fingers into and pulled. He was rather pleased with himself when the door shifted—he’d half-thought that he’d need Galamon’s help to yank this thing open. The door itself was four inches thick, and quite heavy. Still, it shifted well enough.

Beyond, pure darkness awaited them. Argrave knelt down, getting a better look. “I am only now reminded how much this is going to hurt my back.”

“We’re entering, Your Majesty? Should we not get people to… scout this place out?” one of the royal guards asked innocently.

“Nonsense,” Argrave waved his hand behind his back, and not wishing to have their presence kill his fun, he quickly ordered, “Come on, then.”

As Argrave awkwardly shambled in a half-crouch through the door, he heard some of the royal guard call out in protest. Soon enough, everyone was pressed into the hallway. Argrave cast a simple spell to light the path, holding it below his face. It was a long and uncomfortable hallway, and his feet felt like they were walking on concrete once again. Yet soon enough, the hallway opened into a room, and Argrave cast the light away with abandon to illuminate the place.

The vast room ahead reminded Argrave somewhat of old architecture Rome and Greece, both from the symmetry of it all and the strange antiquity to the style. The room was round and tall, and rather than stairs, the balcony they stood on wound around the walls, slowly sloping downwards in a spiral towards the bottom floor. The railings were intricately carved white marble with statues on them—statues of bugs, faces, bats, each and all facing towards the center. There were many rooms along the winding spiral ramp downwards.

The ceiling was high and round and painted so elaborately as to put the Sistine Chapel to shame. They were portraits, each divided from each other by winding patterns that served as frames. The people depicted on the paintings were unusual—short of stature, brawny, and dressed in unorthodox clothing. They had curly, dark hair, and wreaths of gold atop their heads. And on the bottom floor, there was a marble statue dimly lit by Argrave’s spell. He couldn’t help but smile looking upon it. The statue depicted a dwarf.

“Knight-commander, should we be…?” one of the knights questioned, before trailing off when he entered the room.

“His Majesty has survived enough trips of similar nature,” Galamon confirmed, perhaps the least impressed of everyone. “Our duty is only to protect, not to decide.”

Argrave walked to the marble railing. It barely came up to his knees, and it felt more a hazard than anything. He sat upon it, keeping one hand firmly grasped in case he teetered, then declared, “Welcome to one of the abandoned nexuses of dwarven civilization.”

Anneliese’s eyes jumped about quickly enough it seemed they were malfunctioning. The pure, almost child-like wonder in her expression made Argrave glad he had been somewhat reticent regarding what they would be dealing with here. Argrave was not divorced from the wonder, either—it felt like he walked in the Athens of old in the height of its power, suspended in time and devoid of life.

“In time, we’ll come to occupy this place in greater numbers. Today, though, we’re here for one thing alone before we seal it up again.” Argrave stood up. “We’re not the first non-dwarf to come here. Come along.”

Argrave started to walk down the winding ramp along the wall, staying close to the walls, yet Galamon and his royal guards insistently took their place ahead of Argrave. He let them do their duty, despite knowing danger was not to come quite yet.

They passed by room after room, and Anneliese poked her head inside each one. There were only statues, tables, and chairs within each of them, and before long she was curiously asking, “What is this place? What purpose does it serve?”

“This was a diplomatic meeting area… and an entrance to a fortress. Considering the paranoia of the dwarves, they thought the two weren’t mutually exclusive,” Argrave explained. “That’s why I’ll make something very clear—under no circumstances do we try and press beyond the door at the bottom of this ramp,” Argrave said insistently. “To do so is to invite death upon us all.”

“What is death?” Anneliese asked, overwhelmed, then rephrased, “I mean, what would we invite?”

“The corrupted constructions of the dwarves,” Argrave said simply. “And worse things. The Ebon Cult.”

Galamon stopped abruptly at those words. “You mean to say…”

This was another reason that Argrave had not been too detailed about this place—Galamon’s focus might be swayed. A group by the name of the Ebon Cult had been responsible for turning his brother into a vampire, and after, turning him into one. Argrave couldn’t say for sure that this Ebon Cult in the old dwarven cities was the same, and nor could Galamon—frankly, Argrave thought it dubious. He couldn’t see the connection between the two.

But they were a threat for the future. They were a religious state persisting underground headed by a man named Mozzahr, the Castellan of the Empty. Comprised of elves, dwarves, subterranean humanoids, and regular humanoids, they worshipped Mozzahr as though he were a god. He viewed Gerechtigkeit as an opportunity for expansion rather than a genuine danger to the world. Consequently, he was a problem to be dealt with accordingly.

“Yes,” Argrave nodded, stopping. “This is the staging grounds for the war to come against them. And though I can’t promise anything, we may get answers for you, Galamon. But for now… let us focus.”

The royal guards looked lost. Argrave gave them a pleasant smile and kept walking down the ramp.

They’ll learn to stop questioning in time, Argrave decided. Or maybe Galamon will loop them in. I doubt it. But for now… let’s see what it is they can do.

#####

“The stone changes here,” Anneliese noted, looking down at the light gray floor. Things were as she said—the stone held the faintest hints of black streaks, each emerging from a room deeper within.

Argrave was fixated on the door behind them. It was a fortified door, with the same sort of mechanism locking the first door they’d entered—a red crescent moon, plus two suns opposite it. It was bigger, though, and there was something ominous about it. Maybe it was that the suns seemed to make a smile when next to the moon. Or maybe it was because Argrave knew what lurked beyond there.

But their destination was another hallway opposite the fortified door. Ahead, the stone went from light gray to darker like a gradient across the ground. Argrave cast a spell of light and sent it into the corridor ahead. It illuminated a different sort of room—wider and longer, it could accommodate many more people. It seemed like a gateway into something hellish, hued black as it was.

Argrave stopped at the precipice. “Why is the soil above nonarable? Why are these mountains black, and easy to work with earth magic? The answer to that lies beyond.”

Anneliese stopped just beside him. “It’s safe?”

“It is,” Argrave nodded.

As he walked forward, so too did his royal guard advance. The area ahead had a strange, almost entropic aura entirely separate from the orderly stone of dwarven make not ten feet behind them. It was difficult to tell from afar on account of the dark color, but the walls had scrawling on every inch of them. There were statues and tables in this room too, but the stone had become so dark it was nearly impossible to perceive them as separate. It was the darkest black Argrave had ever seen, and it made him feel as though he stepped on an abyss even despite the light swirling about the room.

Anneliese studied the writing on the walls with particular interest. Ever so slowly, her eyes roamed it, reading and attempting to absorb the information left behind. Finally, she took a deep breath.

“This is magical theory,” she decided. “I cannot make sense of it, because I’ve been placed in the middle…” she stepped back, as though following an invisible line.

“Don’t bother trying to find the beginning,” Argrave said. “This text is incomplete. It was a frantic effort to inscribe a method of A-rank ascension as its creator slowly succumbed to death because of it.” Argrave shook his head. “He found a better method to convey the information before he met his end.”

Anneliese turned to him. Argrave, uncomfortable knowing what he was to ask, said quickly, “I know it might discomfort you knowing the one who wrote this method of ascension died… but trust me, I—”

“I do trust you,” Anneliese nodded. “Where is it, then?”

Feeling a bit emotional at those simple words, Argrave looked deeper into the room then cast another spell of light. The ball danced into the room, slowly illuminating what looked to be a statue of a man hunched against the wall. It wasn’t a statue, though—it was a corpse, preserved in time.

Argrave and Anneliese walked to this corpse together. She knelt down, looking to him. He gave her a nod, and she touched the flesh. Argrave could see that it was hard to the touch, like stone. He spotted something else on the floor and touched her shoulder.

“There. See that cube?” he pointed.

She looked around, lost. It was difficult to distinguish objects from one another because of the absoluteness of the black color. Eventually, she felt around until her fingers brushed it and picked it up decisively. The cube looked strange in contrast with the gray leather gloves she wore, like it wasn’t real at all.

“Should be an indent in the—”

A click interrupted Argrave, then the cube made a horrible screeching noise. The royal knights all scrambled, panicked, yet the noise settled into a dim hum.

“I don’t know if this will work,” the cube sounded out—a recording of some sort. “The dwarves gave this to me near a century ago, long before the advent of the thousand-eyed demon drove them deeper beneath the earth. Meant for… music, I think. I can’t remember. But I can’t move anymore, and I long ago ran out of space to write… so, all I can do is try.”

“He recorded his voice,” Anneliese looked to Argrave. “How is that possible?”

Argrave said nothing. In the game, the player merely used the item and got a quest—he’d never recalled hearing a voice.

“My name is Llewellen. I had a terribly low affinity for magic my entire life. It took me ten years to reach D-rank spells, and the ranks after… far too long,” the man said, that fact still bitter in his voice despite the time that must have elapsed. “My method of A-rank ascension was meant to alleviate that fact, give me access to limitless magic that I lacked all of my life. I have succeeded in this. But people have limits for a reason, and even now the boundless magic pouring within me kills me slowly. The only way I have sustained my life whatsoever is by projecting some measure of magic into the earth around me. I came here to avoid corrupting the entire realm with magic.”

Anneliese sat down on the ground, listening to the device as though enthralled.

“I hope to leave behind a modified version of this method… for the dwarves, perhaps, should they ever reclaim this city. If not, for whomever should stumble upon me… no, my body. Hah… the person might not even be a mage…” There was a long pause, and Argrave could practically hear this Llewellen accepting his death once again.

“You will need to remedy the mistakes that I made. It will not be a simple task. But if you can… you can take what is not yours. You can harness the magic of the living. You can turn the attacks of your foes into your strength. You can circumvent the cycle of magic, become the first among equals. And so long as you never tap into the force I have… you can avoid my fate.”