Finally, after the countless draugr ambushes, puzzles, and deadly traps, the group of five arrived at what looked like a final door. But of course, it too had been locked by a puzzle.
The extravagant sequence had Onmund's head spinning (and fingers aching since he was the one charged to turn all the mechanisms) but thanks to Lili and Tolfdir they had finally cracked the ancient enigma. Heart pounding with a mixture of fear and anticipation, he watched with the others as the giant gate groaned into the cragged ceiling, opening the way forward to a much simpler, hall with an engraved iron door at the end.
He watched his feet as they walked in, careful not to trigger any more traps. Seeing a circular stone in the middle of the room, he noted it to the others and they together curved their path around it. Lili looked at him, her amused expression out of place on her normally cool, frowning face, but said nothing. She didn't have to.
Suddenly he heard a heavy thump followed by a metallic click. Feet practically dancing in alarm, he realized with relief that he hadn't caused the noise it this time. In fact, the sound had come from behind the party. Whirling, he caught Rennis in the act of intentionally triggering the trap.
With varying yelps, they all ducked as hundreds of little darts flew from the walls and watched as Rennis leapt back, shielding his head. A maniacal smile stretched across his face.
"What the hell?!" Onmund shouted over the clinking din, incredulous at the older student's behavior. "Are you trying to get us all killed?!"
"It's alright!" the Breton panted, wiping his messy white hair from his eyes. "I only threw a rock at it. I waited till you four were nowhere near—,"
"Are you insane!" Lili yelled simultaneously with Nirya's, "YOU were near it!"
"I was simply testing the mechanics," he protested, the smile unfaltering. "The architecture is amazing; it's impressive that it's held up this long! I bet it will outlast the ruins themselves! If we could simply look at the work, see what kind of forces hold them in place—!"
"Students, if you would please help me with this door…" Tolfdir grunted behind them, throwing all of his weight into opening the giant, black iron door at the end of the hall. His feet slid underneath him as he repeatedly lost his traction.
Onmund hadn't even noticed the old professor left. Slightly irked the man neglected to chastise and send Rennis away after his most recent scheme, he took his time, arriving at the door last. The five of them then pushed on the massive door. It moved slowly at first, but then finally grinded opened under their combined force.
A harsh, light flooded the dark hall, rushing from the depths of the staircase below. There was no describing the color. Blues and greens swam in and out of each other, pulsating in brightness and tone. It was the color magic.
Onmund blanched, feeling dizzy. As the light washed over him he felt the same sensation as when the Psijic order contacted him. Except this time his comrades were not frozen.
"Well now," Tolfdir said in awe, "would you look at that."
"Trying, professor." Onmund responded wryly, shielding his eyes in an attempt to force them, and his stomach, to adjust. Strong magic lied down those stairs and, judging by the similarly sick expressions on his comrades' faces, they all felt it.
"Divines…what is that?" Lili murmured, slipping past the group crowding the doorway.
Onmund and the others similarly gaped in awe as a colossal, suspended sphere slowly spinning in aqua light came into view. No, it was not just in the swirling light; the sphere was emitting it. Basking in the light of this great find, the rest of the room was a void.
Well, not a void, but the hall was so vaulted and wide that it could have been the grand hall of a king's palace. The bright, wispy light darkened all the corridors, making the shadows the pillars cast dance like trapped demons on the walls. The floor they were on was one of the room's various lofts, and the bulk of the sphere dwelt in the chasm below.
"Oh my gosh!" Nirya squealed in disgust, jerking the party back to reality. Her hand pointed to the floor below. "There are dead people down there!"
Sure enough, Onmund saw a grand feast table lined with dead bodies. It had been their last meal.
Upon her scream, the corpses animated, their empty sockets blazing the same shade of blue as the sphere and ancient bones creaking as they dutifully awoke from their eternal rest.
"Seriously?" Onmund scolded the boisterous elf, reluctantly pulling his eyes off the magnificent artifact. He verted them towards the corpses, breaking free of the cobwebbed layers that clung to their decrepit bodies like chains. "Way to go, spaz."
The draugr at the head of the table stood from a large throne, its shrunken body adorned with crumbling, regal gear. From the table it jerkily picked up a long horned helmet and slammed it on his head. Whipping a great axe from its side, it roared in defiance at the explorers, gummy spittle flying from its pit of a mouth. The shout tore through the group and Onmund dropped he head down between his forearms, eyes pressed shut and hands shielding his ears. His brain felt like it was about to explode.
"What in oblivion was that!?" Rennis yelled eagerly as the shout ended, ears so damaged he felt compelled to speak louder than necessary. The sound continued to echo down the hall.
Then the revenants charged.
Blinking hard in an effort to refocus, Onmund hastily formed two ice spears in his hands, wielding them like sickled daggers. He glanced at Lili and the others, all who similarly readied spells. White flames blazed in Lili's hands as she looked from Tolfdir to Onmund. She nodded.
Onmund hurled a frozen spike at the first draugr to take the stairs. It tumbled back and landed on a few of the others. The proud smile on his face fell as the draugr untangled itself off the ground and headed back up the stairs with increased speed and a ferocious growl, ice spike in its head and all.
"Dammit." Onmund spat, quickly chucking the spike in his left hand and readying to cast some more.
The others had begun casting spells as well from varied points in the room. Tolfdir was a few feet from him casting dual defensive alteration and illusion spells to madden the draugr. Nirya stood near Tolfdir quickly casting stoneflesh and other alteration spells. Lili had maneuvered to the left hand side of the loft and was casting fire balls from a flanking position. And Rennis…
Onmund looked around the dark room, trying to find the prematurely whitehaired man amongst the flashing lights and archaic shouting. Every explosion sent a hot pulse across the room and Onmund felt his brow brim with perspiration. As he began to slightly pant, he hoped it was from the heat and not his rapidly depleting magick reserve.
"Professor, watch out!" Nirya yelled, skirting behind the old man as he threw up a hasty ward, barring a burning draugr from conquering the flight of stairs. Fortunately the monster was about to meet its limit. It crumbled into a charred heap of stink as Onmund deftly lodged an icicle into its hollow socket.
Turning from the breaching point, he noticed that several other draugr had fallen and most of the tirade was ignorantly trying to climb the wall under Lili in hopes of engaging their fiery assailant. Onmund turned from her, feeling the high elf could handle herself, and focused his attention on the one creature everyone seemed intent to ignore. The Death Lord.
The undead ruler still stood where Onmund saw him last, eerily positioned at the head of the table. A great axe was armed in its lean, flesh rotten hand, but it held it lightly as if the brutish weapon weighed nothing. It was quiet and stared off at something in the dark, but then suddenly the blazing, blue sockets locked on Onmund's as its head jerked around. It opened its rotten, phlegm filled mouth and released another ear bleeding scream.
"Divines!" Onmund cried out, dropping down behind the stony ledge, as if the half wall would protect him from the sound.
With a groan as his head spun once again, Onmund pulled himself up, dizzily readying another spike of ice with the intent of sending it right into the Death Lord's throat.
"Rennis, no!" Nirya yelled, interrupting Onmund's vengeful plot. All the party's eyes drifted to the young man who had somehow appeared behind the screaming creature. Of course Onmund groaned to himself. The bastard had used an invisibility spell.
With a quick slice, the Breton cut the draugr's throat with a spectral dagger, and…nothing. The creature bucked the man off and lifted the heavy axe at its side, bony knuckles curling violently around the obnoxiously large hilt.
"Look out!" Nirya yelled, sending a spark of blue light from her hands in desperation. She collapsed to the ground (fortunately into Tolfdir's arms) as the spark connected with Rennis, lighting his body in a blue, glassy glow just as the Death Lord performed a circular swipe.
The large, grotesque blade connected with Rennis's side, picking the small man up with the swing and sending him flying across the room. He hit the wall with a pained grunt, clutching his side. A look of surprise spread across his face as he found no blood. The ironflesh spell had reached him just in time. But the draugr was advancing, the loudest shout yet bellowing from its undamaged neck.
Skull buzzing, Onmund leapt from the loft without a second thought, connecting with a sloppy roll below. His joints ached, but the stoneflesh spell Tolfdir cast on him a nearly minute earlier had yet to expire.
"Hey!" Onmund yelled at the Death Lord, waving tauntingly.
It turned around with a bony snap, soulless blue eyes hovering over him. It opened its pit of a mouth and released an airy sound similar to that of person dying from cough. Onmund could only interpret the death filled noise as laughter.
"Onmund what are you doing!?" Lili shouted in disbelief from above, clearly recovered from the mind blurring shouts. She eased to the edge and nervously glanced down below. With an annoyed sigh she looked at Onmund, eyes more terrifying than the draugr before him, and gracefully jumped down.
"Same thing as you, evidently." He replied with a hasty smile, jumping back from the draugr as it lunged. "Helping those in need. Now I need you to light up this Death Lord."
"With pleasure." Lili sighed, bringing her hands together and twisting he fingers as the fiery essence grew.
Onmund drew the creature a little farther away so the blast wouldn't reach Rennis or Lili, and as he threw up the strongest ward he could manage, he yelled, "NOW!"
The fire rushed past and through the draugr, white flames piling into its exposed orifices. As her flames died down, Onmund let the ward fall and rolled to the side. He felt a little tired, but the ward was the first spell he'd cast for a minute or two, and he was starting to regenerate his magicka.
With an expectant smile he turned back to the draugr fully anticipating to find a pile of ash. The smile dropped in horror as the draugr turned to him unharmed, completely naked besides the red hot, glowing armor. The bestial crown it war was charred and flaming, matching the liquid metal oozing down its rotten chest. It was a devil from hell.
Falling back in sudden, uncontrollable terror Onmund scrambled away, bewildered and mortified. He didn't have to look at Lili to confirm her expression reflected his. The horrified gasp that escaped her usually stoic lips was enough.
"That doesn't seem to work!" Tolfdir yelled from above, gently laying the unconscious Nirya down.
Onmund was so terrified he didn't even thank Tolfdir for pointing out the obvious. At least the onslaught of lesser draugr must be dead, Onmund thought with a shred of hopefulness. All that remained was the demonic apparition before him.
"Keep it busy, I'll try draining some of its power."
"And how do you suggest that?" Onmund managed, pushing himself up and backing around the table, anything to separate himself from that thing.
"Get your ass up you worthless—!" Lili grumbled as she eased around the table, dragging a half conscious Rennis. She must have made the decision to rescue the fool while the draugr was distracted. "This is all your fault, you know!"
Onmund was about to object when he realized she was for once accusing someone else. "What do you suggest we do?" Onmund repeated to his elven comrade, instinctually plucking a tray from the dusty table and throwing it at the lumbering creature slowed by the fire and dripping armor. At least the molten metal was good for something.
It shouted, a quick taunt of a bark, spraying flecks of the hot liquid dripping from its headdress. Lili winced in pain as a fleck connected with her cheek.
"Like Tolfdir said." She answered, quickly wiping the ember off. "Keep it busy." With an irrational halfsmile, she picked up a goblet and hurled it at the Death Lord's head. It's skull knocked backward from the force but the n unnaturally snapped back into place. If a draugr could express emotions, Onmund would guess this one was slightly more than irritated. "Come on, Onmund!" Lili demanded, jumping up onto the table, one arms full of crusty goblets and plates, the other summoning a strong ward. "I realize it might look scary, and is apparently invincible, but it is still bound to the physical realm. If we can't beat it, we can at least slow and distract it until Tolfdir figures something out."
Onmund looked from the draugr, to Lili, then up to the edge of the loft where Tolfdir stood with his hands out over the strange spinning orb. He'd almost forgotten the colossal sphere was there. It whirred loudly as the professor began to tamper with it, unnaturally floating and bobbing in the air. Onmund felt the same sense of nausea rush over him. That orb was not something he wanted to mess with. He prayed Tolfdir would be careful.
"I'm not scared!" Onmund growled back, jumping onto the table next to his elven companion. The draugr lifted an arm up, shielding itself in confusion at the tableware raining down on him. The metal was beginning to harden, and it struggled to step forward.
With a fiendish smile, Onmund cast a frost rune to the floor in front of the trudging Death Lord…but he missed. The archaic ice rune flew just to far to the right, ending up right behind the draugr.
"Dammit." He spat, quickly conjuring another rune.
"Wait," Lili ordered, catching onto his plan. Dropping the ward, she raised her left hand in front of her. Instead of the light of destruction elements, transparent blood orange cubes began to rotate around and phase out of her closed palm. The draugr began to rattle, and as Onmund jerked his head to it, he saw it body stumble backwards. Right onto the rune behind.
As soon as its unsteady feet connected with the surface of the frost rune, ice shot from underneath, sending it slipping to the ground and limbs encasing in ice.
"What did you do?" Onmund asked, bewildered.
"Telekinesis." Lili responded blearily, pinching her brow. "Adept alteration. I've been practicing it for the past few weeks. He should've moved farther and faster, but he was proved more difficult to control than a spoon. But making him slip," she said dismissively, letting her reserve of dishes drop to the floor. "That was one way to do it."
"Hey, you were throwing cups at him!" Onmund objected. "At least I tried something!"
"You started it!"
Their petty argument was cut short as the draugr bellowed in rage from the floor. The ice had completely cooled the metal and though it had started to melt and crack, the draugr's once proud armor rendered it immobile.
"There that should do it." Tolfdir said tiredly. Simultaneously, a pale green light emitted from the pinned Death Lord and went rushing back to the sphere. Onmund felt his head spin again and fought the urge to throw up.
"Every time I look at that sphere…" he whispered to Lili with a shudder.
Lili went forward, a tight expression on her face, and summoned an icy spear. Onmund felt himself grit his teeth as she effortlessly performed the expert level spell of his chosen destruction branch. Though he could admit he no longer hated her, she should stick to her fire spells and leave ice to him.
"I feel it too." She murmured back without looking at him, and then stabbed the shrieking draugr through the skull. The shout ended with a hair raising halt and its the blue lights flickered out of existence. Onmund almost felt bad for the creature. Almost. Maybe now it could rest in peace.
Lili's golden face was paler than usual as she asked, "How did you stop it, professor?"
"I'm not exactly sure." He confessed.
"What?!" They both balked.
"Well," he began, delving into a long winded explanation. "First I stretched my mind into the orb, searching for any strands of magick. It was quite overwhelming, I must say, so I strongly advise you four to refrain from interacting with it. When I located what I was looking for, a bond between the orb and the seemingly invincible Death Lord over there, I began to dissect how to sever it. This proved to be quite simple as the bond was forged by the draugr in haste, and the orb did not much like being sapped. All it took were a few gentle harmony and rally spells and the orb broke the bond itself."
"Nirya," Rennis mumbled from behind. He was pulling himself up from the ground, hands on the back of the Death Lord's throne for support. "Where's Nirya?
"Oh, I nearly forgot!" Tolfdir said with a self-incriminating laugh. "I left her upstairs."
"Well go get her!" Rennis demanded, hands shaking on the chair as he struggled to hold himself up.
"Rennis, I'm okay!" Nirya moaned from above. "I'm coming." The elf stumbled down the stairway and emerged through the door. Her normally gold skin was tinged a sickly yellow. "I just—overexerted myself, that's all."
"Nirya," he stated, a note of severity entering his voice for the first time Onmund ever heard. "You saved my life."
"Oh Rennis!" She cried, abandoning her slow attempts to maneuver across the room. Hurtling headlong into his shaking arms, she nearly sent them both tumbling to the ground. She then moved in for what Onmund, to no surprise, thought was a kiss. Whatever it was, or she hoped it to be, it was interrupted by Rennis affectionately patting her head as if she were a good little girl. Which was more funny than awkward, given how he was a good plus foot shorter than her.
She then began to cry. Loudly. Onmund had the strange feeling they were not tears of joy.
As Lili and Onmund did their best to not watch or laugh at the pathetic scene, Tolfdir made his way to the table and pried a stiff piece of paper off of the back of the Death Lord's throne.
"Jyrik Gauldurson." Tolfidr read aloud. "Be bound here, Jyrik, murderer and betrayer. Condemned by your crimes against realm and lord. May your name and deeds be forgotten forever. And the charm which you bear be sealed by our ward. Huh. Gauldurson, Gauldruson. Why does that name sound familiar? How interesting. This requires some further study."
"Professor," Lili interjected, irritations and fatigue mixed in her voice. "What about the giant, floating orb?"
"Ah. Yes." Tolfdir said, folding the ancient paper, which threatened the crumble in his palms, and carefully placing it in his pouch. "This is utterly unique! Absolutely amazing!" he mused, full attention back on the orb like a child re-noticing a discarded toy. "Arch-Mage Savos Aren needs to be informed immediately. He needs to see this for himself."
"Do you know what it is?"
"I have no idea. But this place is utterly amazing, don't you think?"