To Cast Long Shadows
Chapter 2: Dark, Damp, and Boiling Hot
- POV: Lucifer -
The rest of the journey to Peace Village passed with no further incidents. I did question why we were dragging an entire bandit gang around with us, but Aidan had said that they might have had a bounty on them so I didn't complain. I was rather annoyed to find out they didn't. Two days spent dragging around a bunch of filthy bandits for no reason. If I had my way we would've hooked them up and used then to pull a cart but apparently that was cruel and unusual punishment according to the caravan master. No it would have been cruel and unusual punishment to burn out there retinas, as had been my first instinct. Murdering scum like them deserved nothing less.
The four day journey back to the guild also went without a hitch. The few conversations I had with my traveling companion were silted and stayed limited to a few topics, combat being the biggest. Aidan seemed a little bit obsessed with fighting, but he at least hadn't managed to burn down half of Peace Village when we arrived, so I reserved judgment for now. Beggars can't be choosers after all.
By the time we got back they had finally managed to calm down Erza, thank Zentopia.
Anyway, I still need to find somewhere to live and though the 50,000 Jewel certainly helped, I was still not able to find anywhere I could afford and was rapidly losing my patience with the rest of the guild.
And that is where Aidan found me, banging my head against the bar, trying to delay the onset of the madness.
"What do you want, Moore?" I asked, ignoring the pain as I continued to drive my head into the bar.
"I wanted to ask why you're disrupting my afternoon beer with that annoying banging." His sarcasm was not amusing.
"First of all, I'm broke and getting real tired of sleeping in train stations, second, I'm being driven mad by my own guildmates, and third, if Gajeel gets up on that stage one more time I am going to beat him with his own guitar."
"You just made 50,000 Jewel." He said.
"That isn't enough money to stay at a hotel for a month, let alone enough to rent an apartment." I lamented sadly.
He took a second to think before replying. "I see. So here you are, lamenting over the fact you have no money, when there's a well stocked job board right over there. That's kinda pathetic don't you think?"
"The problem is with how much money I can make on a monthly basis, Moore." I responded, resting my head on the bar. "Even a crappy apartment around here is still 60,000 a month.
Something landed on and rolled off my head. I turned my neck enough to see what it was. It was a lemon. "Oh real cute. Are you going to say when life gives you lemons make lemonade? If you do I will follow up on that retina threat from earlier."
"I wasn't. I was gonna say that there are plenty of jobs to make fast money if you look. The lemon was a gift from an old lady that had me carry a few crates of them across town. It was only a 2000 Jewel payment,but it's money I made in the time you've wasted here. So get up and stop wasting time that you could be spending on better things." Moore actually surprised me with how serious he sounded.
"I suppose you have a point. It's just hard for me to settle down into any sort of pattern." I admitted, "I don't suppose you know any good places to live?"
"I'm sure there's a few empty rooms in my apartment building, but you're focusing on the wrong problem here. Stop focusing on the fact you don't have a place to live and start focusing on making the cash to afford that place. There's no pattern, no puzzle, just a goal and a means to achieve it."
'Oh god platitudes, save me from the platitudes.' I opened my mouth to respond in a suitably scathing and cynical manner.
The sudden flash of anger cut me off before I could say a word. "Don't even open your mouth." Aidan's face had turned a rather foreboding shade of red. The constant sarcasm might have started to become slightly predictable. "Come on. We're going on a job." It wasn't a request, it was an order.
"Without any planning? Are you insane? What about travel planning? Food? Information gathering?" I sputtered as Aidan grabbed my arm and quite literally dragged me across the bar to the job board, not even stopping as I slammed into someone along the way. Kana cursed loudly at the both of us.
He was unfazed, "You're mixing up your priorities again. You get the job flyer that tells you where you're going before you start trying to get there." The extra emphasis on 'before' made me feel like he was treating me like a child.
He pulled one down and dragged me back down the bar to show it to Mira. "This one is perfect for you. Excavation jobs are usually long, so the team will have tents to sleep in, food to eat, and you get paid by the day rather than for the whole job. You'll have a place to stay and you won't have to pay for food so this will help you save money and beats sleeping on a bench. Now let's go."
- POV: Aidan -
This was actually going pretty well. It had taken six full days of Luc's constant complaining to get to the dig site, but since then we'd been so busy that the Light Mage had no time to complain.
Luc's magic apparently was no good for digging without a major explosion and the archaeologists didn't want to risk damaging the structure so he was being limited to digging like a normal human being. Surprisingly, he seemed to enjoy talking to the archaeologist's about what they'd studied to find this temple-thingy they were uncovering. I was just happy to finally get some peace.
The structure we were looking for had supposedly been carved into the side of this mountain we were on. The dig team had a theory that it had been buried under a landslide decades or maybe even centuries ago but I didn't particularly care and I didn't really think about it. Except to wonder why they thought anything was down here at all. I'd spent the last five days using my magic to speed up the digging process, moving boulders and dirt far faster than a dozen people with shovels ever could, but I had found nothing that made me think there was a structure burning under all this dirt and rock. So boring.
"We're getting close," The team leader said, "I can feel it in my bones." His name was Michael Ramesh, fairly old, a bit short and stood a little hunched over from all his years of archaeology, but his mind was clearly still as sharp as ever. He was dressed like your stereotypical archaeologist and had spent the last few days talking with me to help pass the time. I could tell you for certain he has a wife, two kids, and a dog. However some of his stories had just been so outrageous I couldn't possibly believe them.
"That's good." I replied as my shadow hands removed a five foot boulder. "Once we find the entrance we should crack open a bottle of champagne to celebrate."
He gave a jovial a chuckle. "That would be nice indeed, but if you have one I'd recommend saving it till after we've been inside. It'll help wash out the dust."
As we were speaking the dirt around the area I pulled that rock was pushed aside by a wall of my shadows, revealing yet another slab of stone. Once again I sent my tendrils around the edges and behind it to pull it loose. Something cracked loudly, the sound of stone scraping on stone rang out, and the earth above it caved in.
"That's new?" I questioned as I set the slab on top of my large pile of removed rubble. The old man cautiously climbed up to examined the piece. "We've found it! Come look! This is mortared stone on each side. You must've pulled out part of a wall. I'll wager causing part of the ceiling to cave in."
'Finally some progress.' "Alright, I'm going to clear a path in." Moving the earth in a way that didn't cause more to fall in wasn't easy, even more so because I didn't want to risk getting any closer lest it collapse on me. Eventually I made a gap large enough that a person could pass through. "Forget about finding the entrance boss, I made one."
The older man was as ecstatic as a giddy child. "This is excellent! Most excellent! I wish you hadn't damaged the structure to do it, but no use worrying about what's already done."
"So should we go exploring?"
"Unfortunately no." The man's expression became more than a little disappointed as he said it. "As much as I'd like to, we need to tell the others about this. If we went in on our own and something happened to trap us they wouldn't know."
"Yeah, I guess you're right." I agreed as we turned toward the camp, but the old man had a new pep in his step.
- POV: Lucifer -
I found myself rather enjoying this trip even if it involved a bit too much physical labor for my taste. The archaeologists had an extensive knowledge of early Fioran culture and it made for excellent conversation. The flip side of this was we really didn't make as much progress as we probably should have, but all work and no play as they say.
Aidan's team brought mixed news. On one hand, they had found an entrance to the ruins. On the other, most of the ruins seem to have been buried over the centuries. It pained me to admit it but I wasn't the best when it came to caves. But these ruins were clearly of the same origins as the temple. It was worth the risk no matter how distasteful I would find the whole affair. We decided to send in a team tomorrow morning after everyone had had a chance to rest up after the long days of digging.
We spent a few hours next morning getting all the necessary equipment ready and packing some emergency provisions before we approached the ruins. I had to restrain myself from punching Aidan when I found out that he'd damage the structure to make our entrance.
We entered the ruins in single file, carefully stepping over the broken masonry. Once past the caved in section the path widened enough for four people to stand abreast. The air was stale. The magic lamps that the excavation team had brought cast our shadows along the walls around us as we moved through the narrow corridors.
There were occasionally passages branching off to the left and right. Some of these quickly led to rooms which yielded little more than broken pottery, everything else lost to the slow decay of time. The others seemed to extend much further so we stuck to what seemed to be the main corridor. Theories were passed around about if we were in some kind of living quarters. I found myself wishing for something, anything to confirm that this place was of the same origin as the other. Eventually we came to the end of the hall and were confronted with a series of staircases. After a short discussion the group decided to go down.
It seemed as if we were starting to enter the catacombs of whatever this place had once been. The blank walls of the previous section started to be replaced with intricate carvings. We stopped for a while to examine these, several members of the research team pulled out cameras to take pictures. Some of the images were unrecognizable, either by design or simple erosion, but many of the simpler images were still clear enough to make out. The sun, the moon, a king or priest of some kind, and a dragon. Myself and the archaeologists found all of this extremely engrossing, Dalyn of course didn't seem particularly excited, but considering the average intelligence of the guild as a whole this wasn't a real shocker.
Eventually, we were forced to leave our examination and continue further into the ruins. After what seemed like hours of mapping different corridors (apparently no one thought to bring a watch) we emerged into a chamber much larger than any we had seen before in this ruin. The room was round with a lowered floor. Stairs split the stone benches that lined each level of the room. The bottom floor of the room was flat, polished stone. Opposite the entrance we stood was a kind of raised box that overlooked the rest, giving it an amphitheater kind of look. If I had to guess I would say the chamber was a courtroom or speaking hall of some kind. I half-turned to Michael to confirm my suspicions, but something caught my eye.
Hidden partially out of sight behind the lower set of benches lay something stark white. Bones. Michael and I were the first down to the skeleton. The once living man was little more than a pile of random ancient bones, but after all this time there shouldn't be anything left here at all? Ancient or otherwise, they should've been long turned to dust. It meant whoever this had been had died here long after the original inhabitants had abandoned this place but before it was all sealed underground. Only one other thing remained from whoever this had been, a disk shaped pendant sat where its owner's neck had once been. I turned it over looking for an insignia or image of some kind, only to be dumbfounded as the dust brushed away to reveal a rising sun with a sword thrust through it. My eyes widened in shock, my mind sent reeling as I tried to understand why this was here. This symbol I knew all too well.
- POV: Aidan -
The sound of slow clapping reached my ears and I immediately looked for the source. A person stepped into the room from another entrance. It was almost impossible to make out more than a silhouette in the darkness, but it was definitely a woman's voice. "Look who finally decided to show up, you really shouldn't keep a lady waiting."
"And why were you waiting for us?" I asked calmly.
She lit her own magic lantern, revealing her face, short, spiky, red hair, and clothes. She was wearing a red crop top that barely covered her chest, leaving her midriff exposed, black leather pants, and had a backpack slung over one shoulder. She moved with confidence in more than just her curvy sex appeal, the confidence of someone who was within their element and ready to put it to the test.
"To fight over the relic of course. I could've just taken it and left, but I want to see what a Fairy Tail wizard can do."
I smiled, this was something I could understand. "You're looking for a fight then. Must be my lucky day."
"Wait! You can't fight here. This temples is hundreds of years old." Cried a member of the dig team.
"Seems only appropriate to fight where the relic was hidden. Now shut up old man, this is between me and the wizard."
"Wait a minute, relic?" Luc asked eyes narrowing.
The woman rolled her eyes as she set her lantern down and moved to the bottom floor. "Of course. Why else would you be here? Now unless you want to get buried alive I suggest running."
I got the feeling this Redhead could back up that threat. "All of you get back to the surface now."
"Um, I realize I probably should have told you this sooner, but I'm really not the best underground." Luc was clearly trying to act calm and failing.
"What? Why didn't you-" I started before I realized it was not the time to get mad. "Get them out of here." I pointed at the archeologists rushing from the room.
"Excuse me. Getting bored over here." She was being awfully patient and polite. It made me wonder why the hell she was waiting at all. If the situation was reversed I would've attacked already.
"Ok, just one last question. Where's the relic? I'm not fighting you for something you don't have."
With an annoyed groan she let her backpack slide off. Catching it with one arm, she opened it and pulled out a roll of fabric. "There ya go. Happy now?" She quickly dropped it back in and returned the pack to her shoulders."
"Very." I replied as I launched the first attack. Dozens of my shadow fists sprung from the darkness.
She jumped back and slammed her hands against the ground. A wall of glowing rock erupted to block my attacks. As I redirected my attack to go around the barricade, bright red globs of liquid flew over it aimed towards me. I jumped to one of the higher levels and watched them splatter around where I'd been. Returning my gaze to her wall, I saw it stop glowing and solidify as she jumped over it. With a flourish of her arms and the sound of glass breaking, small chunks of the barrackade broke off, coming at me at high speed. I blocked with a shield of darkness only to feel the ground beneath my feet grow hot. I was forced to jump away again as the stone floor below me melted.
Ok, she's not bad. Time to stop messing around. "Shadow Ball." I launched a ball of darkness in mid air.
"Lava Geyser." Again she slammed her hands onto the ground. This time a magic circle appeared and a stream of lava shot from it. Our attacks met and my blast sent lava flying everywhere. I had to dive behind a row of benches and pray it would protect me.
After a few seconds I pushed myself up and found her running towards the exit she'd come from. "Darkness Stream." A large beam of shadows shot from my fist and cut off her escape. Running to close the distance, I keep my attack focused on her forcing her to dive back behind her wall for cover. Cutting off my stream, I followed only to jump back to dodge a knife she'd drawn the moment she was out of sight.
I launched a volley of shadow arms at her but she ducked around her barrier again. I saw her run towards the door I'd come in and chased after her.
In the hallway, I created a bunch of tendrils in front of us to grab her, but she smacked the wall creating a lava geyser to destroy them. We were both forced to jump over the molten rock left on the floor. As we reached the stairway she caused both walls to liquifi. I created a solid path of darkness above the magma before it covered the entire floor.
"Solarfl-Oomph!" A voice called from the top of the stairs, followed by a grunt of pain. I got to the bottom in time to watch Luc doubled over in pain and get thrown down the stairs.
'What the hell was he doing here?' The thought came and went in the time it took to catch him with shadow tendrils, saving him from a painful death by boiling lava.
Putting him down at the top of the stairs, I continued my chase only to realize in horror that a flood of lava was rushing down the hallway. No time to plan, I threw up a dark barrier and ran back the way I came.
Thoughts ran through my head like lightning. How long will that barrier last? How long will it take for the lava to cool? Will I have enough magic power left to dig a way out of here?
In the light of his lantern I saw Luc running towards me. He had no idea what was coming. For once in his life he better listen. "Luc! Get upstairs!"
Maybe he heard the fear in my voice, maybe it was because I saved him, but he turned and ran as ordered. We made it to the stairs and had ascended to the next floor before the lava filled the lower corridor behind us. As it drained down the lower staircases Luc just looked at me with a shocked stare. "She uses lava magic." I answered the unspoken question.
"Ok next question, why are we still standing here and not chasing her? We can't let her get away with the relic."
"Because she just blocked our way out." I slumped against the wall. The adrenalin was starting to wear off. "Now what did you mean by you're no good in caves?"
"I can't, um." He mumbled the rest of the answer.
"Speak up."
"I can't use my magic underground ok." He almost shouted.
"Why not?" I asked, annoyed at his tone.
"I need light." He responded. Now he was shouting. "Celestial light and there isn't any of it underground."
I couldn't stop myself from shouting back. "Why didn't you tell me? Why are you even down here?" I didn't realize it before I'd spoke but it was true. If he couldn't use his magic then he couldn't defend himself, let alone fight.
"It's not exactly something I like to talk about." His tone became sarcastic. "Oh look at little Luc afraid of the dark. The sad thing is it's true, I am afraid of the dark. The cold, lightless void you people call the dark. But what was I supposed to do? Leave you here to die? Abandon the relic and hope lava bitch was just a common thief?"
I wasn't sure if he was worried more about me or the relic, but the thought of him afraid of the dark cut right through my anger. I couldn't help myself as I burst out laughing. "You, a light mage, afraid of the dark." I said as I calmed down, I must've needed a good laugh. "Alright then, I'll keep that in mind."
"You're a douche. You know that?" He stated, back in his angry voice. "I can feel the light all around me, Moving, buzzing, and bouncing around. I have lived with those feelings for since the age of twelve. For five years I have known that feeling the light around me made me powerful, put me in control. To have that feeling, that reassurance taken away. Imagine not being able to feel the wind on your face, or not being able to taste the air on your tongue. But it gets worse. Imagine not only that but knowing that you have become powerless to defend either yourself or others."
Now that I was feeling better, I sat through his rant and waited till he was done. "Alright I get it. I can't imagine what that'd be like and I don't want to. What I will say is I didn't start this. You insulted me the first time we met. Now how about we find a way out of here?"
"You forgetting something? We need to get that relic back before she figures out how it works." He reprimanded.
"There you go again, mixing up your priorities. We need to get out of her before we can chase her down." I got up and looked down the stairs and the remaining lava. "And what do you mean before she figures out how it works?
"Oh right, you didn't see it." He said, pulling some sort of amulet from his coat. "This is the symbol of the Aurora Gladii." He stared at me like he expected that to mean something.
"And?"
He sighed. "The Aurora Gladii were a group of mages dedicated to defeating the Black Wizard Zeref several hundred years ago. Sufficient to say they failed but their leader was, among other things, a master artificer. After Zeref destroyed their headquarters a lot of the items he had created vanished. I always assumed that they were destroyed along with the tower. But the fact that one of their members was here? Along with the presence of some kind of relic suggests that at least one of his creations survived. Which is a problem if said creation just fell into the hands of a dark guild."
I tried to remember if she had a guild tattoo, but I could've missed it in the dark. "Well first things first." I created a dark bridge over the cooling magma. "Let's go."
- POV: Lucifer -
The journey back to the surface, the second time for me that day, felt longer than it actually was. We grabbed our bags, offered a hurried explanation to the archeology team, and received our pay before taking off in the direction they said the thief had run off.
We searched the woods in that direction for several hours before stumbling upon a small path with fresh footprints that seemed to wind back and head up into the mountains. It was getting late, so with no other leads it became take the path or keep blundering around in the forest till it got dark.
The trees began to thin out as we climbed higher. The sun finally sank below the horizon to reveal a full moon and mostly cloudy skies. Luckily Aidan had thought to borrow a lantern from the dig team before we left. The night sky was calming and the adrenaline and anxiety that had filled me in the cave began to melt away.
I began to wonder what exactly the artifact could be. Light Binder had created many artifacts during his lifetime any number of which could cause terrible destruction in the wrong hands… or could be as harmless as an enchanted doorstop. He'd had a rather wide range when it came to artificing. Although it was unlikely that one of his disciples would have risked life and limb to save something relatively worthless. In this fucked up world something's worth usually equaled its ability to turn someone into a pile of ashes.
In what was starting to become a trend, our hunt was mostly silent with only scattered conversation between me and my guildmate. Soon even that sparse conversation petered out.
The moon was high in the rapidly darkening sky by the time anything of note occured. That thing came in the form of a vulcan leaping down from its hiding spot, ready to waylay passers by.
"Ho ho ho, humans have we? Give me all your food and women." The vulcan yelled jumping back and forth.
"We have no women." Moore responded. I sighed. 'Why is Moore talking to the monkey?'
"Then give me all your food" the vulcan demanded.
"No." I stated.
"Then I will make food out of YOU!" It yelled as it prepared to attack.
"He's all yours Sunshine." Aidan snarked as he stepped back.
"If you insist!" I said stepping forward. As I raised my hand to gather the thin starlight, my sleeve slipped down to reveal the guild mark on my forearm illuminated in the lantern light.
The vulcan leaped back, hair on end. "Fairy Tail? No no no no no!" It exclaimed as it fell to its knees. I shot Moore a confused glance. He merely raised an eyebrow clearly as unsure of what was happening as I.
The vulcan started bowing rapidly as it groveled. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't know, please forgive me!"
"Oookkkayy" I said as I adopted my best arrogant pose. "Why should I forgive such a weakling like yourself? You attacked your betters, trash. That can't go unpunished." I continued to gather the starlight to my hand.
"Please I will do anything," the hapless creature cried "PLEASE!"
"Hmm." I hummed as I stroked my chin pretending to think "There is one thing a weakling like yourself might be able to help with. We are following a women, red hair, kind of a bitch, Did she come this way?"
"Yes! YES! She kicked me away when I attacked her. She was very strong. I mean not as strong as you of course. I just mean stronger than other people. Oh crap I didn't mean to say-" The now groveling vulcan stammered.
I waved off his explanation "Yeah whatever, where did this woman go?"
The beast pointed further up the mountain pass. I sighed. 'Well if nothing else it confirmed that we had been going the right way. There's that at least.' We'd walked about ten feet beyond the still terrified vulcan when an odd thought struck me. I turned around to face the beast.
"Oh yeah, and if I hear that you have attacked or harassed any more innocent travelers, and trust me I will hear of it if you do, I will not hesitate to track you down and deal with you permanently."
I left the implied threat to hang in the air as we started moving on. My thoughts left the vulcan and turned to our quarry. It was then that the first raindrops began to hit my head.
- POV: Aidan -
'Why rain? Why tonight? We need to track someone and this could wash away any clues she might've left.' I looked up into the dark storm clouds and wondered when they rolled in. There hadn't been a cloud in the sky when they'd left the dig camp. Was this storm bad luck or magic?
Luc clearly didn't like the rain any more than I did. "As much as I hate to say it, we need to find shelter for the night. Even if we kept going and managed to catch up we'd just as likely walk right past her in the rain and the dark. Furthermore even if we did find her my magic will be severely weakened by the storm clouds."
"Right." I agreed. "Not trying to be rude, but if you're weakened underground and in the rain when is your magic useful?"
Luc shot me an annoyed glare "It's not so much that's it raining as much as that it is raining at night. Moonlight and starlight aren't strong enough to break through the clouds. It's different if it's raining during the day. Enough sunlight makes it through to not make a huge difference to my fighting ability. There are even a few spells dedicated to working with sunlight in the rain. As for being underground, I just avoid going into caves whenever I can. It's not that difficult."
We stopped under an overhang but with no wood to build a fire we were in for a cold, wet night. After laying out my clothes to dry, I slipped into my bedroll looking forward to some well earned sleep. I had a fight, an underground chase, and we've been walking all afternoon, I should've fallen asleep instantly.
Luc must've been having a similar problem. "Hey Aidan?" he turned to his head towards me.
"Yeah?"
"You haven't been in the guild much longer than me, have you? I joined the guild because I needed the money. So why did you?"
Slightly pleased that he finally asked about something important, I gave my answer, "Because I'm entirely self taught and I'm looking for someone with magic like mine to learn from. Where better to find wizards then a guild? How'd you learn yours?"
Luc tilted his head up and stared at the ceiling of the overhang a bit before answering reluctantly, "I had a teacher of sorts I suppose. At least for the basics. A lot of the more advanced stuff I had to learn from old books. Thought to be honest what I know is so very little compared to the skills of the Celestial Light Mages of old. Most of the field was lost hundreds of years ago."
I gave a slight chuckle. "So we both use rare magics and neither of us have any idea how strong our magic can get. You're light and I'm dark. Maybe fate does have a sense of humor."
"Maybe." Luc agreed, equally pleased by the irony.
"Well if you're looking for a place to stay, the place I live has apartments for 40,000 a month. It's a cramped shit hole but it's cheap as dirt and the water is safe to drink. Now get some sleep."
"At least the apartment won't be moving at several hundred miles per hour. If I had a Jewel for every time I had to sleep on a train. But you're right. Goodnight."
Author's Notes:
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