Before I begin, thanks to everybody who's reviewed so far! It means a lot! And I'll work on writing fight scenes!
Here lies the ancient artifact, Broach of the Titan. It is embellished with great powers, so be warned. Many who enter may not come back.
Kirifuda reads out loud. It was mid-afternoon. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, a beautiful day... If you were below the mountain. Yes the sun was shining, but that didn't mean it wasn't cold. The group of mages sent to find the broach had spent all morning just climbing up the mountain. They almost reached the peak, but it got too cold so the mages took shelter in a cave. Luckily it was the so-called entrance to the broach. They spent two hours translating these letters on the wall since no one knew what language it was off the top of their head. By now most of the wizards were either huddled around a small fire or curled up in blankets.
"At-t leas-st-t we f-found the entra-ance." Kitty shivered.
"This fire isn't doing anything." Tanith complains, she shared a blanket with her teammates; Naomi, Brendon, and Buzz.
"Isn't it a fire lacrima? Can't you just put it higher?" Nero asks. He sat next to Kirifuda since both of them had been translating the wall.
"If it was, we would've done it sooner." Brooke snaps, obviously unhappy about forgetting a jacket. Nobody had really brought one since nobody informed them it would be cold.
"Well why don't-" Nero pauses mid-sentence. "Wait... Can anybody here use fire magic?"
"Not in our group." Patrick replies.
"Nor ours." Hikari responds.
"I don't have fire magic, but I do have magic that could create fire." Kirifuda answers. "If you need more fire, I could try to make some."
"Did you create that fire?" Nero asks. Kirifuda shakes his head. "So it's not a fire lacrima, nor does anybody use fire magic, and there we're on a rocky mountain with trees only near the base..."
"Nero just get on with it!" Brooke groans.
"How did we make the fire?" Nero glares at Brooke before concluding. There was a small silence before Lana spoke up.
"What do you mean?" she asks quietly.
"I mean there's no way we could've made that fire." Another silence pursues, this time with all the mages backing away from the mysterious fire. Suddenly there was a deep rumbling from deep inside the cave.
"Please say that was someone's stomach." Brendon asks. Nobody responds. Suddenly an ear piercing roar ripped through the air. The dragon slayers weren't the only ones who cringed in pain and covered their ears. Suddenly the ground started rumbling again, but this time to a larger degree. It felt like an earthquake was shaking the entire mountain. All of the mages were thrown around, colliding into each other and rocks. The floor cracked and opened up, swallowing the mages before closing. When the cracks closed, the fire still burned, untouched as if the chaos never happened and the mages were never there.
The near deafening roar of air whooshing past filled the ears of every mage. A darkness enveloped them and nobody knew who was close and who was near.
"My magic! My magic won't work!" Screamed Turtle. Her wings wouldn't appear.
"I can't fly!" Buzz yelled.
"Where is everybody?!" Hikari's voice cuts through. Nobody had time to answer. By now they had reached the end of the pit.
"I'm back!" an energetic girl bursts in. The ponytail that kept her long, dark blue hair, swished around near her waist. She pushed a few stray hairs in her face back in place on the left. Her almond shaped eyes were a brown color. Despite having a slim and fit build, she was curvy. Her height was 5'6" and her skin was very lightly tanned. A black hoop earring adorned her right ear and a sapphire stud in her nose. On her left shoulder blade is her guild mark. She was wearing a dark green tube top that covered her chest with a white mesh shirt over top. On top of that was a gray leather jacket that fell to her knees and was kept open. She had silver arm guards on her forearms that was covered by the jacket. She wore a pair of tight black leather pants that tucked into matching leather boots.
"Lily welcome back." Bandera looks up from where he was helping someone at the desk. "How was your job?"
"It was ok. Not that challenging." Lily shrugs. She walks down the hall going to Hale Tower. When she reaches the door, she takes out a key and unlocks the door. She was a little surprised to see the lights on, but then she saw a figure hunched over the table on the ground floor. The second floor held the jobs and where the S-Class mages and master could have meetings. The first floor was just a quiet place to relax when getting back from a job or whatever. "Hey Max!" Lily greets. She walks over and places all of her swords on the table. She usually carried them with her instead of learning to use requip magic.
"Hi Lily!" Max greets her back with a smile. He moves his cube of crystal out of the way. He was still examining the weird lacrima from the earlier training.
"You won't believe what I saw on the way back!" Lily plops down at a seat across from Max.
"What did you see?"
"An entire mountain shaking! Not the land, the mountain!"
"Really?" Max picks up the boxed in lacrima.
"Yeah I kind of feel bad for the poor suckers who went into Mt. Atlas."
"What?" Max looks up.
"Mt. Atlas. You don't know the story of Mt. Atlas?" Lily asks. Max shakes his head.
"Well before I joined the guild, for about a month I had lived in one of the towns near the mountain. All around there there's a story about how people go missing on the mountain." Lily starts. "Well when I was there, a man came down from the mountain, probably the first ever. He said he was a mountain climber who had tried to climb Mt. Atlas. Near the top, he said he found a cave with a fire light inside. He believed that someone else was there as well, hungry and weary, he went inside.
"He waited for a few hours for someone to come back to the fire, but no one came. He said he realized that the fire hadn't been dying down so he put his hand over it and realized he felt no heat. When he stuck his hand through it, he found there wasn't even a fire there at all! Then the mountain started shaking and the ground beneath him opened up! He fell through, but luckily he used a grappling hook to catch himself. The guy said he brought himself back up and when he reached the top, the ground closed back up as if nothing happened! He told his story to the village and apparently it spread like wildfire. Nobody really goes up there anymore, nor do they even go close to it. Whoever goes into that cave will get swallowed up." Lily finished her story. Max drops the crystal cube.
"Lily... Brooke went to that mountain."
"Brooke? Why would she-?"
"And Nero, and Ro, and Patrick. The council sent them and other mages on a mission to retrieve a magical artifact from the mountain."
"What?! Why didn't you say something earlier?!" Lily jumps up. She immediately starts grabbing her swords and putting them on. "We need to tell master now."
Only one OC this time. The next few chapters will introduce the rest. So out of everything, there's only 2 more spots open for S-Class, one in Diamond Hydra and the other in Angel Heart. I'll be closing up OC submissions for Siren Fang and Diamond Hydra soon while Angel Heart and the Dark Guild/Antagonists will be open. I'm waiting for some OCs from some people.
Character Credit:
Lily Veum- BrownSugarBae
