Ch 49: Separated

On their way to the temple, Piaras had mentioned that he hadn't sensed as many people in the village as there should be. Many of the able bodied were missing from the village.

The group could only guess as to where they had gone but it could give them an advantage.

Outside the temple there were only two visible guards. Both of them were very old and were not in shape for overnight guard duty.

A decent sleep spell put both of them unconscious.

As they entered the temple, Piaras used his senses from his aspects of the Oncoming Storm and the Wild Hunt. Inside the mountain the temple stretched in various directions. Piaras sensed several potential enemies but there was one area that pulled his attention.

It seemed to be a throne room with a powerful man sitting on top with another man standing in attendance next to him. There was a spell active in front of them but Piaras wasn't able to sense what it was.

He was also surprised that he was able to sense that much. Normally you'd lay down anti sensing magic in your base. They weren't even that difficult to maintain.

Either they didn't think they were necessary or they were being led somewhere. It was possible that parts of the temple complex were shielded and this was just what they wanted him to see.

Before he could express his worries and potentially pull back, he sensed the space twisting around the entrance sealing them in.

"It's a trap!" Piaras yelled.

"Of course it is. Our Lord is all knowing and all seeing." An older woman appeared on the side of the entrance hall opposite them.

As she floated in the air she moved her hands in circular motions, twisting space around her.

Spells launched from the group towards her. Unfortunately with space wrapped around her and the spells were easily redirected. Piaras was already transformed into a silver wolf and was rushing forward.

"The mistress already has plans for all of you." The woman said.

Space continued to twist as hundreds of pre-set up runes began to glow around them. One by one their groups were teleported away.

The old woman sighed as the task her mistress gave her had pulled her to her limit. Even with the help of preset up runes she almost failed.

She started to turn to report her success when the space near her began to twist again.

Before she could react, Piaras forced the space to reopen and lept at the woman.

-------

Derbail landed in a puddle of water. As she pushed herself up she felt the squishy grounds.

With a wave of her hand tiny lights scattered around her.

"Well at least we aren't alone." Haydn said from a few hundred feet away.

Their brief moment of relief ended as they saw a mound of flesh between them. In addition to that, all around the cave they were in was covered in flesh. Slowly a number of tentacles began to extend from the nodes of flesh all around them.

"No, no, no, no, no." Derbail began to panic as she saw that they were in the middle of a dokunpal.

Haydn pulled out the scroll Baldeur gave her and used it. The runes glowed and burned as she used the Multiply Spell scroll to amplify the Lightning Spell she cast.

Dozens of bolts of lightning began to crash around them.

The cavern they were in was over twice as big as the previous dokunpal they encountered, and even though she was casting a powerful spell, Haydn feared that the creature would recover before they were able to escape.

"Derbail, snap out of it. This is a plant and you can control plants." Haydn yelled.

Derbail was lost in thoughts of her death when the words entered her mind. Controlling plants, killing plants, the whole life cycle of plants began to play through her mind.

She had already been studying the aspects of fall and winter around the life and death cycle inorder to become a druid of the four seasons in the future. The stress of the situation pushed her understanding to the limits.

Her mind began to see her own life and death cycle and her psyche began to fracture under her fear. Connections to two more aspects of nature were forced into being.

She had already been on the verge of forming a connection to Fall but was no where close to forming one for Winter the natural way. Such a connection was highly unstable.

The pain of the forced connection caused Derbail to scream in pain as she lost control.

All around her Anodular swirled with the energies of the four seasons. Parts of the Dokunpal grew rapidly under Spring and Summer only to burst from too much growth. Other parts decayed and withered in an instant under Fall and Winter.

Haydn stopped her spells and formed the strongest barrier she could to keep the raging energy from killing her.

Moments later Derbail collapsed.

Haydn raced over to her friend and pulled out the strongest healing potion she had and forced it down her throat. The other woman was pale and her breathing was very shallow.

'Caw' From the side of the cavern a raven called out to them.

Seeing the bird perched above a tunnel, Haydn carried Derbail out of the destroyed Infernius monster.

After they left parts of the dokunpal began to pulse as it began to revive itself. Three ravens that were perched on ledges on the top of the cavern flew down and dropped flasks on the central node.

The flasks broke open and a green liquid covered the central node. The flesh was quickly eaten away by the acid from the flasks and the beast soon died.

----

Aisling landed on squishy moving ground and she quickly waved her hand to call forth glowing spores. All around her were maggot-like creatures, some as large as her head.

Small feelers came out of the maggots and brushed against her skin. Her mind began to go blank as the creature's secretions entered her blood stream.

"Don't let it affect you." Kyriake called out to her from the other side of the cavern.

"These are corpse maggots. They'll put you to sleep and slowly eat you while you're still alive." She explained.

The other woman's words gave her enough to pull her mind together. She stomped on the one closest to her and Wrath flames spread out from her foot.

The two of them killed as many as they could but there seemed no end to them.

A few sweet smelling pouches fell from above and Aisling looked up to see a raven standing on a ledge a dozen feet above them.

Where the pouches landed the maggots became lethargic which allowed the two women to move towards the ledge.

They helped each other climb up and out of the pit. Looking down they saw hundreds of maggots crawling around. Here and there they could see bones of others who had found themselves in the pit.

At the back of the ledge was a tunnel. With no other option they went in.

----

After a moment of free fall Fiam landed in water. Water was a natural weakness for her kind. Though the stronger the phoenix the less being drenched in water affected them.

Fiam was about to leap out of the water to fly away when a dangerous aura assaulted her. She was very confused how a deep one was located in this cavern of water.

"Fiam, can you get us out of here." Nilo called out to her.

She didn't respond.

Phoenixes had very few predators but a deep one was the worst. Their natural water aura suppressed the phoenix's flames, making them weaker.

The water around Fiam began to boil as her fear started to overcome her.

"Ouch, Fiam calm down." Nilo had been swimming towards her and was being burned by the boiling water.

Hearing his cry of pain, Fiam came back to herself. But before she could move something grabbed her leg and started to pull her down.

The fear returned as she was surrounded by water. Fiam thrashed and released her flames as powerful as she could at the moment but couldn't remove the hold of the deep one.

Suddenly she felt her legs become free before cold arms wrapped around her and pulled her back to the surface.

"Don't worry Fiam, I'll protect you." A frost covered Nilo as he held her close in his arms while spectral swords made of pure mana danced around him.

As the deep one reached out again, Nilo looked down and one of the swords shot down into the water, slicing the deep one's limb.

Seeing the determination in Nilo's eyes, Fiam felt ashamed at how she had panicked.

BOOM!!!

Above them an explosion broke off one of the cavern's stalactites.

Looking up they saw a number of ravens flying around and rune covered paper on stalactites. As the ravens passed the papers they scratched them. The runes would then activate and cause an explosion that would break off the stalactites.

Not wanting to be out done by simple birds, Fiam used all her strength to sprout wings and pull the two of them out of the water. Once they were in the air the aura suppression from the deep one lessened.

'Flow to my command, rush and swirl: Whirlpool.' Nilo cast the spell once they were free from the water.

The deep one's appendages had started to reach out towards them but were unable to reach them as the water began to spin rapidly.

"Caw." One of the ravens called out from a ledge higher up in the cavern.

Fiam flew them up to the ledge and found a tunnel.

After they entered the tunnel the remaining raven began to tear into dozens of runed paper. The multiple explosions destroyed the ceiling causing a cave in to fall on the deep one.

----

As soon as Sigurd landed his sword was out and his defensive spells were activated to full. A few feet from him Mathys landed and fell on his face.

Looking around they found themselves surrounded by large forges.

"Ah hahahaha. Welcome to your demise." A gnome with a half burned face and a metallic right arm was standing on one of the forges.

"Caw." A raven called from a massive bucket suspended by a chain from the roof of the cavern they were in.

"Ah hahah, Mistress, watch as I eliminate these heaths in your father's name." The gnome called out to the raven. "Arise my minions and take care of these trespassers. For the Glory of Lord Sathanas."

The gnome held out a glowing green gem that had rune covered wires wrapped around it. A number of what looked like piles of stone began to move and revealed themselves to be golems.

"Come at us. We are heroes destined to rid this land of your foul presence." Mathys called out.

Before he could charge at the enemy, Sigurd grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him to the side of the chamber.

"Hold on to this." Sigurd directed him to a chain attached to the wall that led up to the bucket the crow was on.

He had noticed the Mana runes on the bucket that would keep what was inside extremely hot. There was also a slight glow coming from the top of the bucket, telling him it was full.

"We need to fight them." Mathys yelled as he tried to run towards the golems but Sigurd grabbed the back of his neck,

"Don't just swing your sword wildly. Fight smart." Sigurd forced the chain into his hand before grabbing it himself.

'All shall separate before me, with a swing of my arm: Perfect Edge.'

Mana glowed around his blade as he struck the bottom of the chain.

The two of them rocketed upward as the bucket dropped and dumped liquid metal on towards the golems.

"Ah Hahaha. They are designed to work the forges. This will not stop them." The gnome said.

'Blow with frigid might, warmth shall flee and cold shall inherit what is felt: Arctic Wind.'

The air around them howled with frozen might as it descended on the liquid metal. It didn't fully cool it but started the process.

"Raaaa." The gnome went to pull out a wand but was struck by a small bolt of lightning from Mathys, dropping his implement.

'Burn all….' The gnome tried to chant a spell but was stopped as he grasped his neck and coughed up blood.

Sigurd had sent out a blade of pure Mana taking care of him.

After a few minutes the two of them dropped down from the chain and made their way out of the forge.