The temple was falling apart.
Once-great statues had been worn down to mere lumps of rock with shallow faces that stared blankly at us. The stones that had been used to build the structure layer by layer were so eroded that I could probably stick my arm into the hole between any two. The elaborate warnings carved into the entrance were almost completely gone, only a few erstwhile symbols remaining for the translator to fawn over.
“Well, this doesn’t look too bad,” my employer said. Although his mood had worsened with every step he took when we were trekking through the jungle, he was all smiles as soon as we reached our destination. “You said this place would be well protected, but I’d hardly call a few primitive traps and native tribesmen a threat.” The man rapped on the walls with the back of his fist, and a small layer of dust fell out from between the stones. He brushed it off his expensive hiking gear. Somehow, he still managed to look elegant in it, a trick I haven’t quite mastered yet.
The translator shook his head. The long braid that was his hair swung about as he spoke. “Not safe. Very not safe. Look. Warnings here.” The man crouched down and pointed out some scuff marks on the floor near a certain tile. “See? Trap. Set off many years ago.” He reached into a pouch near his waist and dipped his finger inside. He removed the digit covered in bright red dust and smeared the stuff around the trap as a warning to future adventurers.
“There’s always the risk of a cave in,” I added helpfully. “You might want to curb that enthusiasm, sir. Just chewing our way through the entrance is going to take a few hours.”
Our employer’s mood soured again. “Listen here, Scribe. I’ve been slogging through this hell of leaves and insects for three days. I am not going to spend another 24 hours on this island. How old did you say this temple was again?”
“At least two thousand years. Probably more.”
He nodded. “Good. In that case, it’s unlikely that any traps will have survived the whims of nature. Even if they did, I’ll be leading the way, so there’s nothing to fear.”
I was hesitant, for good reason. “That’s a bit risky, isn’t it?”
The translator agreed. “Very bad, sir,” he said. “Strong things here. Power of Gods will hurt you.”
“That’s fine,” our employer snapped. “I’d rather die to a god than to some disease passed on from the rotting corpse of a fool who doesn’t know what proper burial is. We’re going through, so move aside.”
He pushed his way past me. Yep, a proper magus through and through. Not fearing death nearly enough. But he paid the bills, so I let him pass.
The moment he stepped past the boundary of the entrance, we heard a click, and a column of darts shot out from holes in both walls, catching the magus in the crossfire. The translator flinched. I flinched. The magus didn’t.
They bounced off his skin, which had gained a slight green sheen, and clattered to the ground. “Come along,” he said. “Unless these traps can reload themselves, you have nothing to fear.”
The translator looked at me, fear obvious in his eyes. I shrugged. “Magi,” I told him. “They only like going slowly when it’s someone else’s time they’re wasting.”
We rushed in after the magus. I lit a torch and passed it to the translator, who gripped the thing as if it was his only life line. The magus was strolling through the temple at a steady pace, setting off an almost ridiculous amount of traps on the way. If he hadn’t been completely ignoring them it would’ve been scary how many lethal pits, spike traps, and arrow launchers the original builders had decided to cram into the temple. As it was, we were treated to a show as everything, even a rain of boulders the size of a man’s head, bounced off the magus’ skin.
Going into specifics, nothing ever actually bounced off his skin, because nothing really reached him in the first place. He told me earlier that it was a boundary field rejecting space using one of his organs as the focal point. That way it moved with him, and he could feed it prana without even having to mutter an aria. A formidable defense that could repel bullets and possibly even grenades without difficulty.
I ducked as a ricocheting axe shattered against the wall behind me. “Are we there yet?” I asked the translator, who had taken to staying next to me half crouched.
He looked at the symbols on the walls. The temple had gotten more solid the deeper we went, but there wasn’t a single turn or side branch to be seen. We’d been walking down a single hall for more than 5 minutes. Even the magus was beginning to sweat slightly as the toll of keeping up even an energy efficient boundary field began to wear on him.
The translator started shaking. “Stuck,” he whispered to me. “We cannot get out. This is greatest trap.”
“What trap?” the magus snapped. “Out with it, boy! I’ve enough knowledge of masonry to know that this tunnel cannot physically be this long. We must have walked half a kilometre, but the temple was considerably smaller than that.”
“From outside, yes,” the translator said. “From inside…”
“No.” I frowned. On a hunch, I scratched a sign on the side of the wall with a knife. “Hey boss, got another minute of walking in you?”
The flagging magus straightened. “Hmph. I could go on for another hour. Don’t underestimate the resolve of the great Lord-”
“Wonderful.” I widened the mark, cutting into the soft rock even more. Then I fished a string out of my rucksack and tied one end to the protrusion. “Okay, let’s keep going.”
We continued walking forward for another few minutes. I held onto the long string, letting it unwind through my hands as we made progress. The translator was sweating bullets with the magus not far behind. Arrow after arrow bounced off his skin. Spike after spike was blunted against his magecraft. Each one took more and more effort to deflect. I saw his field flicker after a few minutes. He was running out of prana, and not hiding it well.
Luckily, a few minutes was all we needed.
I spotted a familiar sight ahead of me. There was a mark in the wall, and a string tied to it. It stretched out into the darkness ahead, invisible after a few meters. Hypothesis confirmed.
I walked to the mark, untied the string, and tied one end to the other. I suddenly felt the object get much heavier in my hands, even more so than the original string had been. I was holding the equivalent of a hundred pounds of string in one hand.
“Now…” I grunted. “We break this thing.”
Bone snapped in my mind, and my magic circuit flared to life. I don’t have much capacity as a first generation magus and my repertoire of spells is quite limited, so I’ve come to recognize just how effective improvisation and exploitation of loopholes can be. In this case the spell was one that extended and looped space in a limited area. It had safeguards against being dispelled, and also against any paradoxes occurring from the bending of physics. Due to its age and mystery, we wouldn’t be able to put a dent in it the normal way. However, if a single paradox existed, then the World would crush it as an impossibility.
I’d just created one by running my prana through an infinitely long string. Thus, I had infinite amounts of prana. Thus, the spell would bear the burden of replicating and repeating an infinite amount of prana infinitely. Thus, reality rejected my action.
There was a sharp crack. I felt the world bend and warp around us, twisting into non-Euclidean shapes as reality tried to reassert itself. A pressure fell on my back, the defense system of the spell springing into action as it detected my attempt, but it was too little too late. Merely a moment later, we were back in the hall, the string completely gone from my hand as if it had never existed in the first place.
“That was… surprisingly impressive of you,” the magus said. I caught a hind of approval in his voice before he returned to his usual self. “I do wish you’d done it earlier, though.”
“I’m a scribe, not a miracle worker.”
We continued on. There were precious few traps after I broke the big one, and it was mostly a variation on the arrows, spikes, and falling rocks. There was even an obvious one that would bring a five thousand ton rock down, crushing not only a trespasser but most of the hall. Luckily, it was visible enough for our translator to notice it and warn us away. It took most of the magus’s remaining prana, but we made it past without a scratch, reaching the center chamber of the temple.
I neglected to describe it earlier, so I’ll do so now. The temple itself was nothing special on the outside, but on the inside it was expertly built so that all the secret tunnels and hidden passages were only accessible by someone who knew where they were at the time of building. The darkness and cramped conditions didn’t help the atmosphere, and neither did the vines all over the walls and constant skittering of blind insects. At least it wasn’t sandy.
The center room, however, was gigantic. The tiny spot of light our torch made in wasn’t enough to illuminate the ceiling or any of the walls other than ours. We could see the stone floor panels in front, and nothing else other than a tiny spark in the distance. It had to be some form of space warping magecraft, but unlike the previous spell, this one wasn’t a trap.
“This is where offerings were made,” the translator whispered. “Fruit, crafts, animals.”
A skeleton slumped against the wall to my right. It was picked clean and completely white from head to toe, with only the ragged scraps of clothing on its frame and complete absence of a left arm past the elbow showing that it had not died peacefully. Its empty eye sockets stared accusingly at me.
The translator gulped audibly. “Flesh.”
I raised my hand. “Licht.”
The weak flames of the torch faded as a corona of light spread from my hand. Soft at first, then brighter as the light spread out farther. At first it only covered a few square meters. Then more. Finally, the entire room was illuminated by soft white orbs that floated in the air, silently burning prana to keep it alight. It was a simple two part exercise for children. First, turn your prana into energy, in this case light. Second, create a system that operates independently. In this case, a simple spell to replicate what you did by yourself using a separate supply of prana.
Interesting what the simplest things can do.
Fully visible, the inner chamber was a beauty to behold. There was none of the decay or degradation we had witness outside. The inside was almost flawless, without a single out of place stone. Elaborate carvings adorned the walls, the vibrant dyes giving the colour having yet to fade over the years. Apart from the skeleton at the corner of the room, there was no evidence of anyone having been there.
And in the center was a tiny step pyramid, at the top of which was a bronzed, circular plate. A few inches above it floated a soft white clump of… something. I can’t really describe it. It was ethereal yet substantial at the same time. I could see it with my bare eyes, but there was a feeling of something much deeper underneath.
The magus grinned. “This is it,” he breathed. “You’ve done well, Scribe. Now make sure to record this moment, for it is the day this world regains a magic thought long lost thanks to my efforts.”
The translator just prostrated himself before the altar, mumbling prayers I couldn’t understand.
As the magus all but ran to the altar, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. Something was wrong. This was too easy. Ordinary traps? Not enough. A space warping spell? A bit overkill, yes, but someone had gotten past it. So why was that flame still there?
I looked at the skeleton again. Its left arm was gone, but the bones were nowhere to be seen in the room. In fact, it was as if it had disappeared. The humerus had been severed cleanly around the halfway point. I crouched down near it to get a better look. I dully heard the mumbled prayers of the translator and the steps of the magus approaching the flame he’d been seeking. There were no marks of a wild animal of any kind, or signs of the skeleton putting up a fight.
Instinctively, I looked to the right side of the skeleton. The room had been charmed against decay, but the skeleton hadn’t, so its possessions wouldn’t last long.
My hunch was right. Next to the dead man’s right hand was a smattering of rust in the shape of a long metal object. What had once been a blade had completely rusted away. Could it be? Had the skeleton severed its own arm and bled to death trying to get out? But why?
I looked up. “Don’t touch it!” I screamed, but it was too late. The green, shimmering hand of the magus closed around the floating ball of fire.
In that moment, everything went wrong.
The bounded field shattered, scattering fragments of white flame all over the magus’ upper right. He screamed as it settled on bare flesh and cloth. The translator fell back, panicked at the yell, but he and I could do nothing but watch as the flame started to consume the magi’s arm.
The magus turned to me, fear explicit on his face. “Help!” he croaked, but it was already too late. The flame had spread. In seconds his right arm was covered in fire, and the jumping sparks spread to his left as well. He stumbled towards us, but by the time he had reached the bottom of the steps his entire body was being eaten alive by the fire.
I grabbed my canteen, sliced open the side with a hunting knife, and threw it at the magus. The bottle broke open on contact, depositing almost a hundred litres of life giving liquid on him, but it was a futile effort. Magical fire wouldn’t be quenched by mere water.
“Great,” I muttered as his screams died down. “The enchantment on that thing was expensive.”
The magus sank to his knees in front of the frozen translator, his screams petering out abruptly as his life faded. The fire had covered his entire body, burning the corpse even after death.
“And there goes my paycheck.”
“W-Wrath of God!” the translator screamed. “Flames of Anger! We must go, outsider. We must go now!”
I wasn’t about to protest. Some part of my soul yearned for the fire, urging me to touch it and bathe in the warmth. However, a lifetime of training and instincts said the opposite. I knew that a single touch would be deadly.
I stood up. “Okay. We’re going. Don’t think we can take his body though.”
The translator nodded as he rose to his feet. “Yes. Leave him. Sacrifice to Wrath of God.”
Then a flame wreathed hand closed around the translator’s foot.
“No,” the burning skeleton of the magus looked up, white flame sparkling in his empty eye sockets. “Wrath of me.” With no more vocal chords, the words were formed by the reverberation of fire. And they were terrifying.
The translator’s screams were shorter than the magus’ had been. Perhaps without magic circuits, he was less equipped to resist the magical fire. This time the flame moved with purpose, rushing up the man’s leg and reaching his face in less than a second. As soon as the fire burnt into his brain, the man was silenced, standing stiffly as the fire spread all over his body.
Next to him the magus rose, turning its head towards me and giving me a familiar skeleton grin.
I bolted for the exit, but I was too slow. The magus skeleton opened its mouth and belched forth a torrent of flame towards the entrance, coating it in white fire and blocking it off. At the same time, the translator’s body turned to me, its flesh already burnt away completely. It broke into a shambling run.
Time for plan B. I drew Miss Daisy from my pocket and in the space of a second emptied three rounds into the fiery skeleton’s face. The translator stopped in its tracks, almost falling backwards, but kept its foothold. It looked at me again; the three holes in its head leaked even more fire. The skeleton’s smile hadn’t shifted an inch.
“Fuck.”
This time they both charged me, the magus skeleton throwing globs of flame at me while the translator’s stuck to running me down. I ducked and dashed away, hoping that their less than fleshy appearance would translate to a harder time moving.
I was partially right. Perhaps because some part of his soul resisted the movements, the magi’s skeleton was less agile than the translator’s. What it gained in spell power it traded for reduced ability to move. It shambled much like a cripple towards me, while the translator’s gained an agility far surpassing anything a human body could output. Flames exploded behind it, launching the creature towards me.
I spun in place, throwing myself onto my back and firing both of Miss Jane’s barrels point blank into the translator’s chest. Less than a foot away, I felt the heat scorch my eyebrows before the magical portion of the shots kicked in and launched the skeleton backwards, sending it flying into the opposite wall. Being lighter in mass than a human, it had flown much farther than expected, and with a pulverized spine it wouldn’t be rising any time soon. Almost as an afterthought its skull exploded outwards. Miss Daisy's bullets must’ve finally activated their effect, most likely delayed by the fire somehow. Once it was finally dead the white fire faded, leaving behind only bones.
It must’ve been sheer dumb luck that the flying skeleton absorbed the blast of fire that would’ve enveloped me in a second. Instead, I was given the chance to fumble in my backpack for more shells while the magus skeleton screamed at me with that unearthly voice.
“Not very tough, are you?” I shot back while ejecting the spent shells. Rule number one when facing an insane, speech capable opponent: Always banter. Always. More often than not they’ll end up doing a nice monologue and giving you some time to get your bearings.
The skeleton cocked its head. I heard sharp cracks as its joints popped. “Beware,” it proclaimed, pointing a bony finger at me. “All intruders must be eliminated.” Then it turned into a flamethrower.
Okay, so the monologue thing only works on really stupid magi. Thousand year old defense systems don’t exactly qualify. I danced back, narrowly avoiding being reduced to ash as the fire blanketed the floor in front of me. The flames quickly faded, however, except for the spent shells, which burned brightly.
It was then that I realized it. A glance at the entrance confirmed my thought. The flames that had blocked off my exit were already gone. The room itself was also completely unaffected by the fire, which made sense. The defense system wasn’t meant to destroy the temple, just stop intruders. To let it use its abilities freely, the room must’ve been enchanted to resist fire and damage. So all I needed to do was kill the thing or distract it and I’d be free to go.
Of course, it would be easier said than done. Time to bring out the big guns, literally.
I drew Miss Velvet from my backpack, unfolding the stock and bracing it against my shoulder. After jumping back from another ineffectual blast of fire that would’ve flash fried an entire cow, I took aim, squeezed the trigger and was rewarded by the skeleton’s head shooting back from the impact of high velocity sniper rifle bullet on skull.
With a series of sickening cracks the magus straightened his skull, glaring at me with empty eyes. The bullet had lodged itself in his forehead, creating a spider web of fractures on the bone but little else. Reinforcement. Reinforcement strong enough to stop my heaviest hitting weapon in its tracks. If I tried using anything else it would probably just bounce off.
I fired four more times. By the end of it, my hands were aching from the recoil and Miss Velvet's barrel was glowing red hot, but the skeleton’s skull looked like someone had taken to it with a jackhammer. It roared like a forest fire and charged as soon as it became apparent that I was out of ammunition.
Only to fall flat on its face.
The skeleton tried to push itself up, but it couldn’t. Its hands moved, as did the rest of its body, but its skull was squashed against the floor and not moving.
“Five tons,” I said, folding my gun back into its more compact form and stuffing it into my backpack. “One per bullet. Delayed effects are annoying, aren’t they? Well, I’m sure you’ll figure out the spell eventually, but by that time I’ll be long gone.”
I paid a final goodbye to the center chamber and walked right past the immobile, screaming skeleton, waltzing out of the temple as if I owned the place.
Or at least, that’s what would have happened if the skeleton hadn’t simply removed its head and gotten up anyway. Where the skull would have been was instead the angry, barely visible face of a white tiger, shooting daggers my way with its glare alone. As I watched, a familiar green field appeared around the flaming skeleton sans head. Now even all my grenades wouldn’t the trick.
It roared.
I ran.
I was closer to the exit and made it out first. Unfortunately, there was nothing keeping the flaming skeleton in the large room, so it ran after me with none of its previous clunky movements. It leapt from spot to spot like a hunter, gaining with every step. I could’ve sworn I saw a green force field sharpening into claws around its limbs.
I poured all of my prana into a hasty reinforcement. My legs protested the treatment and I knew I’d barely be able to walk the next morning, but if I got touched by that thing my life would be over. The headless skeleton fell behind only slightly before it sped up too, slowly but surely closing the distance.
There were a few hundred meters until the exit to the temple. Even at a glance I knew I wouldn’t make it. The skeleton was too light and too fast, and I was tiring. It was when an arrow shot past my cheek that I realized what I had to do.
We’d disabled most of the traps on the way in, but there were a few left untouched and simply avoided. One in particular even the magus wouldn’t have been able to survive. It was coming up soon, and it would be my only chance. Even so, I couldn’t stop. I’d have to trigger it at just the right time. All or nothing.
It was as I felt the heat creeping up on me that I stepped on a certain floor tile. There was a click, and the sound of hundreds of tons of rock scraping against stone. I shot forward with a reinforced leap, feeling rock scrape against my back.
The skeleton at my back barely had time to look up before a five thousand ton spherical boulder flattened it like cannonball against a tomato. There was a sickening crunch, and the magical monster’s roar abruptly cut out. I saw the white flames brighten momentarily as it put up an ineffectual struggle, and then they faded away, leaving behind nothing but shattered bones.
I stopped, almost collapsed, and leaned against the wall, laughing. There are plenty of ways that could’ve gone, I told myself, but this was better than expected. Sure, my guide was dead and I’d have to find my way back alone. Sure, the guy who was supposed to be paying me had bit the dust, but perhaps I’d be able to negotiate with his family to have them refrain from killing me in retaliation. At least I was safe.
Here’s a fun fact for you. Although it was very slight, so much so that we didn’t even notice it on the way in, the hallways was sloped. The entrance was the low point, and the main room was the high point. That meant all round objects would inevitably begin to gravitate towards the exit if placed on the floor.
It was the groaning that tipped me off. I looked up and saw the leftover bones continuing to crack as the rock on top of them shifted. I blinked a few times, not understanding. Then the giant boulder lurched forward, and I finally got it.
“Oh hell no.”
Once more, I ran. This time rather than a ferocious magical creature, I had a giant rolling stone behind me, and it wouldn’t stop for anything. Honestly, I would’ve preferred the tiger skeleton thing. At least it could be killed. Theoretically.
I’m not sure if I screamed. I do know, though, that I finally discovered the sprinter in me. Through a combination of reinforcement and sheer desperation, I moved faster than I ever had in my entire life. It almost wasn’t enough.
I made it out, of course. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be around to write this. It was a close thing, but in the end I got to the entrance and swung to the side right before the boulder could flatten me. I saw it continue through the forest for a few hundred meters, knocking down several trees in its way, leaving me feeling at once guilty and glad to be alive.
So here I am, writing this thing. Gotta at least do my job, even if the guy who hired me is dead. I wasn’t a very good companion, but I’ll try to be a decent Scribe to the end.
Now… how the hell am I going to get out of this damned forest?
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So, yet another story. This one's going to be an almost purely OC based experience with only a few nods to Nasuverse canon characters, and thus will probably end up being the best and least popular thing I write.
Yes, it will read like a crossover with Indiana Jones.
No, the protagonist isn't named after an American State.
Yes, there will be waifus.
Oh right, and thanks Dullahan for looking over the chapter. I appreciate it.
Table of Contents:
Prologue
First Entry
Second Entry
Third Entry (Part One)
Third Entry (Part Two)
Fourth Entry (Part One)
Fourth Entry (Part Two)
Fifth Entry (Part One)
Fifth Entry (Part Two)
Sixth Entry (Part One)
Sixth Entry (Part Two)
Seventh Entry (Part One)
Seventh Entry (Part Two)
Last Entry
Memories
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Originally Posted by Hymn of Ragnarok
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