Delian smirked back at the priestess.
"Of course not, Rosie. I wouldn't dream of it. Well, maybe I'd dream of it, but you get my idea. I'm just about the closest thing to Lire's Knight in Shining Armor, after all. I have to be chivalrous around lovely ladies like yourselves and protect you guys."
The Guard peered further down the cavern, trying to make out specific objects in the light provided by Melanie.
"Hopefully, there won't be much to protect you guys from down here."
Support Gravitaz on Kickstarter!The group heading upwards would find their journey much easier due to Anthony's actions. The rugged man with his earth magic managed to reinforce the flimsiest of the steps and even pull improvised steps from the wall. With this they wouldn't have any problem reaching the upper level, beyond the visible roof of the first chamber.
At the end of the stairs they would find a circular chamber, with six doorways spread all around them. Two of them were completely caved in and filled with rubble... the rest led into hallways with with more doorways into dark chambers.
Meanwhile, the group heading downstairs would find no obstacles whatsoever in the long descent. The more magically inclined among them might feel a little affected by the sheer concentration of mana emanating from below but it shouldn't be anything they couldn't handle.
Melanie for her part started to will the mana away from her as she had started to sweat and feel a little light headed "I never imagined there would be something like this place so close to home... A natural wellspring? Those aren't all that common... though it would make sense for a Goddess to be protecting such a place"
Anthony peered into the 4 open doorways, wondering what lurked down the dark passageways. Wondering if the paths behind the rubble would be more inviting, he asked the group aloud "So, which direction should we take?"
Lilia began to sweat as well as they descended, taking long, labored breaths as if the air was filled with heat. "If there is something down here the Goddess wanted us to look for, maybe it's something able to control or contain all this fire mana..."
Meanwhile Rosemary stayed her normal self, having as much aptitude for magic as their male companion. "Hey, maybe it'll let you be able to use magic, Delian!" she joked.
"It's no wonder there's such an elaborate place in here... Things like these tend to become highly important locations for the people who find them" Melanie commented as the group descended, finally making it all the way down to the circular room they saw in the divinations. They stood on the upper level, with no apparent way to go down, though maybe going around the place would reveal a stairway down. Still from their vantage point and over the little railing, they could see what was it that caused the bright light they saw in the divination.
On the lower level, standing a little away from the opposite wall there was a rather strange altar. The floor around it was a little higher than everywhere else, with a couple of steps visible from their position. On top of that platform there rose from the ground the strange altar, looking almost like a natural formation of the earth... if not for its otherworldliness. It was made out of a crystalline rock-like material, colored deep red and brown in the base and becoming a light shade of gold and yellow on the crown. The design was clearly reminiscent of a flame... and on its center there was a sphere of bright red light.
The result of Mina's divinations showed many interesting things... living quarters abandoned and in ruins, an old armory, kitchens, studies... It was a complete living complex. The distribution and nature of the rooms might make someone who has lived on a monastic environment a sense of nostalgia. Still the most notable of all things found was a rather big library room... mostly in ruins but with some sections intact. And around it... Wyverns. At least a handful of the beasts all gathered within or in the rooms around it.
"Mine!" was Rosemary's immediate reaction upon seeing the glowing red sphere. "...don't worry; I'm willing to share it..."
Lilia, meanwhile, looked for a way to get further down.
"If you want, you could wait here for us to return," Anthony suggested.
Since no matter what direction we take, you choose to complain...
"What a kind concession for you to make for us, Rosie. I am impressed," Delian replied dryly. The Giard noticed Lilia looking around and joined her. "Good thinking, Miss Lilia! Together, we will soon find a way down, I'm sure of it!
Support Gravitaz on Kickstarter!Cedi had given Anthony a quick nod, showing his appreciation for making his job of helping others across the stairs much easier. Although he only wanted to go upwards for the sake of assisting the others in doing so, he decided he might as well stay with the rest of that group.
Having stayed silent until Mina performed her divinations of the rooms surrounding- more specifically, until she asked to use the sheep as bait- the winged human finally interjected.
"Alan's having a hard enough time here, Mina," he scolded, despite the fact that he was obviously not in the proper position to do such. "I'd rather not have us worry him by separating him from... what was the sheep's name, again?" he concluded in a question, fixing his glasses yet again.
"It's just a sheep. Food, wool and milk on legs. There a couple of wyverns there. Guess who would be left behind in case everyone had to hightail because of the beasties?" Mina answered."Plus, a sheep is a hinderance to wield a sword."
She paused.
"I've had my own share of experiences with wyverns on my trip from the North to Lire." She added, recalling events of her past life,"which is more that can be said about you -who probable spent all his whole life in a tower- and most of the townsfolk there. I'd rather have some big, juicy chunk of meat to throw at them just in case."
edited 18th Jul '11 6:38:08 PM by AtomicNut
Alan didn't have a chance to thank the winged guy before Mina interjected again. Julie hid ever more snugly inside Alan's arms. For once, he felt like takinga deep breath and expressing his own beliefs.
"Okay, miss. If a situation arises, feel free to leave me to die or whatever but under no circumstances, are we leaving Julie behind, alright?"
Anthony frowned. "Your concern for your sheep is... touching."
And perhaps a little disturbing.
"Though I can't help but wonder, if Julie's safety is your concern, why bring her outside of Lire to lands with dangers unknown to you in the first place?
"...but I guess that discussion can be saved for later. What direction you and your sheep goes is your choice, but I'd rather our climb up those stairs not be for nothing."
Anthony started to move the rubble blocking off two of the passages. "With Mina's divination, we can avoid the rooms the wyverns chose to reside in and explore the ones without. See if there are any items that might interest us."
As the group moved further, a downward set of stairs become apparent, which the group began to travel down.
"You know, this might be an exaggeration, but I feel like we've been in this cave for weeks." Rosemary looked down at the red orb below. "I'm half expecting the object to disappear by the time we reach the bottom, meaning we need to walk even more to find it again..."
Delian nodded. "Yes, that would be bothersome, wouldn't it? Thankfully, I don't think we have to worry about it moving away from us." I do want to get my hands on it, though. I wonder what it could be?
Support Gravitaz on Kickstarter!By the time the party descended the stairs and made their way closer to the strange altar an ominous feeling started to fill them. The whole place was a ruin, left alone by any kind of intelligent life since who knows when... but in this room you could almost feel like that was the ruin's design.
They did not want to be disturbed.
And so, when this party of strangers approached the greatest treasure of the ancient temple, its very heart, the guardian of the ruins was awakened from its long slumber.
A loud roar emanated from the altar... as from within the shinning red jewel the outline of a fierce beast appeared. Immediately the orbs of fire mana gathered around it... filling the outline and finally materializing into bone, flesh, fur and horn.
The creature's body was not unlike that of a great cat, it's fur a deep crimson color. However this beast had long bat like wings on its back. Furthermore it had a massive pair of horns... protruding from its upper neck, gong down around its side before finally pointing straight forward from under the great maw of the monster. As for that maw and head... the creature's face looked more like that of a dragon than a cat. Its face was pointed and covered in dark red scales.
The monster looked at each member of the party before letting out another mighty roar and charging at the nearest of them... Rosemary.
edited 20th Jul '11 5:59:33 PM by daltar
Cedi stood still for a few seconds, his mind racing to find the words he was looking for.
"...just because I didn't live a very social life doesn't mean I can't be concerned for others," he finally said, fixing his glasses. As tempting as it was to argue further on the subject of Alan's sheep, he somehow resisted the urge. "But I agree with Anthony, we need to see what's up here. Though to be honest, I'm also half-curious about why the wyverns are in the rooms they are in, not to mention if there's anything of use in them..."
edited 22nd Jul '11 5:25:01 AM by Cedi
Delian charged into the monster with his shield, hoping to push it away from the fallen priestesses. He then slashed at the creature's face with his other hand. I wonder what sort of monster this thing could be?
"Mela, you ever hear of something like this?" he shouted back towards his friend as he battered the monster before him.
edited 24th Jul '11 8:26:48 PM by Firebert
Support Gravitaz on Kickstarter!"I'm fairly sure they saw these ruins as safe lair for the time being. We are on a mountaintop after all." Mina said. Heck, they wouldn't be a bad residence for someone like myself. I may even more here once the score with Stramdor is settled. She added mentally.
"I think we should follow that tenet, I don't relish struggling with these beasties."She begun to walk forward. "This way..."
edited 28th Jul '11 7:33:53 AM by AtomicNut
"I... I don't know! I have never read of a creature like this!" Melanie yelled as she retreated a fair distance away from the monster. She had trained with her blade... but there was no way she could hold her ground against such a thing, even with help.
Instead the young mage searched within her mind for something that she could use against the monster... her most basic method of attack, a fireball, was to dangerous to even attempt.
As for the beast, it was untouched by the ice arrow... while Lilia's aim was good her rushed attack wasn't perfectly on target. The beast did dodge... straight into the shield and sword of the guard Delian. The shield rush wasn't particularly effective and his sword struck cleanly at the monster's horn, sliding down on it to make a long, though mostly superficial slash on the monster's scales.
The guardian of the temple recovered soon enough though. Jumping back it let out another might roar and his open jaws seemed to attract the orbs of fire mana all around it... All that power converging at its mouth as it stared at the guard.
Melanie seeing this, and with her magical studies letting her understand the nature of the move before it was carried out, yelled at the guard "Delian! Jump out of the way!"
... And not a couple of seconds passed after the yell before a beam of pure energy, with a heat far stronger than that of a regular fire, was launched from the jaws of the beast from the ruins.
As the party in the upper levels explored the safest rooms they got to learn more about the ruins. Given the amount of idols and a great deal of the instruments lying around it was fairly safe to say that the ruins were once some sort of temple... most likely erected in the name of some fire entity, the deep heat in the deeps of the world or even possibly the sun itself.
Given the numbers of alcoves, rooms, kitchens and the little remains of the possessions from its inhabitant that still remained on the place, it was quite likely that a good number of people lived full time on the place... Men, women and children.
What become of them, however, wasn't entirely evident. Their possessions had been damaged by time and the Wyverns so it was hard to tell if they had simply left, been forced to retreat from the place... or massacred within their own walls. The clothes they found were rather light for this weather... though the party found a couple of heavier garments they were horribly outnumbered by the light, short cut garments of the mysterious inhabitants of the temple.
Mina took her time to examinate the whole place, walking from spot to spot like a busy bee,her eyes flickering through all the miscellaneous places, now half covered in rubbles. If this place was a temple, there must be a treasury somewhere. She thought as she begun fumbling with a low cut dress, examining its quality.
"You know, I could get a lot of tips with this one." She said, a half smirk across the place as she tossed the dress with the same haste she was examining things.
She passed a hand on what she assumed the altars, all while gazing the holy symbols. They made her think of her past birthplace, some ruins like these, and that made a chill rise through her spine, remembering the monstrous and awe-inspiring shape of the creature that birthed her. She brushed it off, nevertheless Well, whoever they worshipped, it's long gone. Now, where's the hidden switch? Most of these places have one...
edited 30th Jul '11 1:11:29 PM by AtomicNut
Almost as soon as Delian heeded Melanie's advice and jumped away from the light growing at the creature's maw, he felt an immense surge of heat behind him, pushing him towards the floor.
"That'd be its attack then." Amazing! Was it using magic? "Interesting. Well, I wasn't exactly trying to jump in its mouth, but I guess we've discovered another reason not to try a frontal assault."
He drew Blake's enchanted bow. "Looks like your guys' magic will prove important in this battle!" If only my own magical prowess wasn't limited to Blake's bow...
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Alan checked the increasing gap behind him as he precariously balanced himself on the steps, hoping Julie wouldn't make too much of a commotion in his arms. When he went over with the help of Cedi, the gap was a barely jumpable, but risky distance. Now, with the entire path falling apart, Cedi would have to assist much more for the others to get up.