Hostile Exploration

Moving through the tunnel, we find an isolated door that had no label. Lucas opened it, and it was a storage room. Where they had kept all their weapons and armors. Lucas inspected the armor and the weapons they had kept inside.

"These aren't supposed to be here" Lucas says

I took a look at them myself and these are the type of equipment I've barely seen in my life. Seph picked up a short bow and immediately dropped it as she yelps.

"What's wrong?" Razz asks

"I picked up this weapon and it sort of rejected me. It shocked me for a bit the moment I touched it, and it shocked me more when I held it up" Seph responds

"Lucas, what are these equipments?" I ask

I pick a short sword up and my hand reacted to it glowing. Moments after, the sword started glowing the same color as my hand and stops glowing.

"Use a spell that allows you to detect magic. These are all magical items that shouldn't be here" Lucas answers

"How so?" Ravenna asks

"In Zlatan, the use of magic items that are ranked above blue. In this realm, the magic items have a ranking. From lowest to highest, the ranking goes like this. Gray, Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange. Only those from Hollow Arthas are allowed to have magic items that are ranked blue and above. Some adventurers posses blue and above ranked weapons, but that's another story. From what I know, some of them are well known heroes in different lands" Lucas explains

"Did the heroes of the Great Realms' War posses any weapons above blue rank?" I ask

"Indeed, Therion Valkenheim possessed the legendary sword called Galatine. One of the 13 Holy Blades" he says

"Is this sword in Avalon?" I ask

"Why do you ask?" Lucas asks back

"Just curious, it'd be nice to use the same sword that ended the Great Realms' War to prevent one from happening" I answer back

Lucas gives me a cold suspicious look then brushes it off with a smile. He grabs a long sword from the rack and gives it a two swings then examines it thoroughly.

"Well, this sword looks powerful. You guys should get a weapon that you can attune to" Lucas says

"These magic items require attunement? Well I guess I should give one of these a try" Razz says

Razz picks up an axe and holds it for a while. He gives it a swing then stares at it intensely. The axe shifts into a size that felt comfortable for Razz and he continues to swing it again.

"I think this one's my thing" Razz says

"How do we know the kind of magic these weapons have?" I ask

"When you use it for battle, anyways I'm settled with this sword. I won't get anything else" Lucas answers

Domotraus grabs a shield with drawings of a two headed dog. The shield glows purple for a bit as he picked it up.

"Arghh" Domotraus yelps in pain

The hand he used to grab the shield slowly started turning black and reached to his wrist. He drops the shield as soon as the pain got to him. The shield fades into thin air.

"Agh, what was that shield?" Domotraus says

"Whatever magic was placed on that shield must've come with a curse" Lucas answers

"A curse? What? How?" Domotraus responds

"These weapons don't just become magic out of nowhere, someone else puts their magic in it. Similar to an arcane focus where the magic travels, but in this case the magic is sealed in the weapon" Lucas answers

"Not sure of what the curse can do, but that black thing on your hand is a sure sign that it's a curse, but you'll feel the curse happening later on" he continues on

Seph picks up the short bow again. Her arm trembling a bit while holding the bow, as if she's feeling hurt from holding it. We all watch her trying to tame the short bow. It glows yellow and begins to having lightning sparks. Her arm trembling even more, she overcomes the power of the bow.

"I think I got it" Seph exclaims in relief

"Then I guess I'll pick one up myself" Ravenna says

She gets a staff and twirls it around for a bit. It glows light green and vines appear from the staff trying to consume her. She struggles twirling the staff, and plants it on the ground. The vines stop getting on her, and it goes back into the staff.

"Seems like we all got ourselves some stolen weapons, now let's go" Lucas says

"Right..." Domotraus responds

Domotraus puts on a glove on the hand that's black. We then leave the room, and silently go through the tunnel. We reach another corridor with room numbers and letters, which we assumed to be bedrooms again. We ignored that part and kept continuing on. All of a sudden we can hear screams approaching us. We prepared ourselves for whatever was coming our way. In a few seconds, I could see a dark aura flowing, but I couldn't see the entity surrounded by it.

"Something's coming this way" I say

"Yeah, I think the screams made that obvious" Seph responds

Ravenna grabs her staff and lunges it front. Vines coming out creating a wall of vines. Flower blooming from the other side of the wall.

"Are we supposed to run away?" Razz asks

At the end of the tunnel, the entity surrounded by the dark aura appeared. Walking elegantly wearing dark red robes. Having a bald head and horns, he stops as soon as he sees the vines.

"You must be the intruders, to think you have gotten this far inside our hideout" he says telepathically

I reach my hand into the bag taking out the spear and preparing to throw it. The others glance at me noticing that I had something in mind.

"We're taking this guy down in one blow" I say

"Hold on, don't throw it yet" Lucas says

I kept the spear on my hand readying to throw, charging up its power.

"I'll handle this person, I'm pretty confident in my abilities" Lucas says

He takes out the new long sword he got from the storage room earlier.

"He's one of the leaders of the Gem of Riders. Look he's got horns and all, he's obviously a devil from the stories of the Great Realms' War" Razz says

"But I'm one of Edengeld's servants, which makes me the superior one here" Lucas brags

"You sure?" I ask

"Yes, you're also gonna have to explain to me about that spear. I sense dark energy from that spear" Lucas says

The spear shrinks and I put it back in my bag, the rest of move back to the other corridor that we ignored and went through it. The end of the corridor had two separate pathways, we went on the left side and two cloaked Gems appeared holding their weapons.

The first Gem approached us with his sword that had blue flames. He dragged it along the ground leaving a trail of fire. Ravenna was on the front and brought out a dagger. The Gem slashed with the flaming sword, and Ravenna stopped the attack with her dagger on the hilt of the enemy's sword. I ran to follow up and strike the Gem with the dagger I immediately pulled out. With my other hand, I held a dart and threw it at the other Gem. It hits the left eye and he screams in pain. He was holding a staff and shot fire out of it pointed directly towards us. Domotraus ran and blocked with his hand that was black.

"I guess this hand is a shield now" Domotraus says

"Stay away from me you intruders!" the Gem says

Seph fired back a thunderbolt which was too fast for the Gem to react. The Gem took on the hit and fell to the ground electrocuted.

"Let's go!" I say