Chapter Two- The Ruins of Thanas
The next day, the group arrived at the ruins, accompanied by the members of the
archaeological team. The sun was just beginning to rise above the sleepy horizon as
Tareth, the head archaeologist showed the Force where the entrance lay hidden.
"You can barely see it, but the entrance area is marked by an old rune, thanas, that
means 'Powerful Secret'. Since that was the only written thing we've discovered on the
entry-way, we've taken to calling this place the Thanas Ruins."
"The Thanas Ruins…hmmm…" the usually laconic Gong muttered to himself.
"It's right about… here," Tareth said as he put a hand through what had appeared
to be solid rock before. The spot where his hand went through rippled like water, and
Tareth stepped all the way through. Anri nodded and did likewise, as did the rest of the
Force.
The scene on the inside of the illusion was very different than the bare cliff-side it
had projected. A huge indentation had been carved into the mountain-side, hewn from the
bare rock with incredible precision. The walls of the ruins appeared to the naked eye to be
perfectly smooth, and two curved pillars stood over a door inset in the wall like mammoth
tusks. The door itself was crafted from two impossible massive plates of a dark green
metal, presumable some form of the rare metal mithril. A bas-relief of an imposing
armored knight holding out his hand in a gesture to stop decorated the door.
"Part of the reason we insisted upon your presence, Queen Anri, was that we
couldn't get the doors to budge an inch, and we were hoping you could… ah… blast them
out of the way…" Tareth said hesitatingly, as if s bit unwilling to sully the perfect
gleaming metal of the doors.
"Odd," Anri muttered to herself as she examined the entry-way. "There is no sign
of the Open Eye, the most common symbol of the Ancients. And this architecture is
completely different than what I've seen before… It's almost like a different civilization
made these ruins…"
Tao closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them a minute later. "I'm
getting a feeling of unimaginable age from this place… These ruins were made when the
world was very young."
Anri closed her eyes for a minute as well, and reached out her arcane senses.
"Yes… I… I feel dwarfed by this place… Wait… I feel…" Anri shuddered as the image
of an impossibly black roiling cloud of darkness filled her mind's eye. Two even blacker
spots seemed to be it's eyes. A sound like eerie whistling wind engulfed her. Anri felt a
sense of terrible awe at this awful presence. Suddenly she was brought to by Diane's
snapping fingers.
"Rune to Anri! Rune to Anri! Snap out of it!" Diane said as Anri came out of her
mystic trance. "What was that? You just spaced out for a second."
"I felt… I saw… Nothing… Never mind, let's see how to best open these doors,"
Anri said as she went to examine the sealed doors. Tao gave the doors an appraising look.
"I'd say a dual telekinetic spell by the two of us should provide sufficient force to
rip these babies open, Anri. What do you think?" Tao asked.
"Yes that sounds like a excellent plan. Good work, Tao," Anri replied as she
walked to where Tao was standing.
"Hey, I'm more than just a pretty face, gorgeous body and…" Tao's reply was
interrupted by Ken's chuckling. Tao shot him a look almost as fiery as the magics the
young elf could summon forth. Ken shut his mouth, still grinning.
"Enough bickering, let's just get these doors open," Anri said as she smiled in
spite of herself. Tao stuck her tongue out at Ken, then stood beside Anri as they began to
cast the spell that would hopefully open the doors. Weaving their hands in intricate
patterns, they molded the swirling arcane energy into the shape necessary to pull the
massive mithril doors apart. A final word of power from the two wizardesses, and the
doors started to groan, and slowly move apart. Tao and Anri concentrated harder, sweat
beads forming on their foreheads, and the doors finally slide into twin slots in the walls,
leaving the path to the ruins' inner core open. Tareth grinned like a madman and
whispered, "It's open… An intact Ancient site! I'll be famous…"
"Well, what are standing around for? Onward!" Ken said as he hefted his Atlas
axe and moved towards the entrance, followed by everyone else.
The room beyond the doors was a sight almost too fantastical to describe. An
impossibly high ceiling rose up beyond eyesight, and an equally deep chasm reached far
into the earth. Spanning this pit was a walkway of stone, and two semi-circular platforms
on either side of the chasm. Two pillars topped with huge white crystals, crackling with
pure energy, rose up from the pit on either side of the stone bridge. As awesome as this
sight was, it was not what caused the multitude of widened eyes and dropped jaws among
the group. Crawling, glowing runes covered every inch of the massive stone walls in what
must be a spell of immense power. As if all that weren't enough, a huge triangular
diamond, tall as two grown men, stood a few feet in front of the bridge. Carved runes
were inlaid into it, and seemed to cover the diamond entirely.
"By all the powers of the heavens, look at the size of that diamond!" Ken shouted
as he trotted over to examine the gigantic gem. The sound of his and Mae's hooves
echoed loudly in the vast chamber. Tao shivered with pleasure as she felt the raw magic
of the place flow through the room like a powerful river.
"I feel as if pure magic is being pumped through my veins… This place contains
an almost primordial power… I feel energized just by standing here!" Anri exclaimed as
she too felt the arcane energies surrounding the room.
"What kind of spell could possibly require this much power…" Tao whispered as
she glanced at the two crackling crystals of the pillars.
"I don't like this one bit. All my senses are telling me to get out of here," Mae
said, a hint of urgency breaking through her usually calm exterior. Zylo also spoke up,
saying, "I don't like the smell of this either. We should leave soon." Tareth seemed
horrified at the prospect of leaving.
"We can't leave now! We can't stop now!! Think of all the knowledge to be
found here!!!" Tareth said desperately. Ken called from the diamond tablet.
"Hey what's all this writing mean?" he asked as he lightly kicked the tablet with a
fore-hoof.
"Don't touch that, we don't know what it may be enchanted with. As for the
runes, let me see…" Anri said as she looked closely at all the writing on the tablet. "There
appears to be writing here in seventeen different languages! I can't read the rest, but this
last passage is in Old Runic, the language of the Ancients."
"What's it say? Diane curiously inquired.
"It appears to be a story of how the world was formed… No, how all creation,
more worlds than this were made! It says that a terrible entity known as the Darkness
tried to conquer all of existence, and was narrowly pushed back by an alliance of all
Light. Everything that was good joined to fight against all that was evil in a titanic
struggle. It goes on to say the Darkness' physical form was shattered by a great hero
named Iaiden, and scattered by a group called the Council of Twelve. It ends by saying
that it is the duty of everyone to insure that the splinters of Darkness never be released
back into the worlds. I… I don't think the makers of these ruins were Ancients, Tareth,"
Anri finished in a hushed voice.
"Why do you say that?" Tareth inquired as he studied the tablet and began writing
in a dusty book he had brought out of his pack.
"The architecture, the fact that no symbols of the Ancients appear here, the fact
that their language is among many on this tablet… I don't know who made this place, but
it wasn't our ancestors," Anri said as she looked around the enormous chamber.
"Even better! The discovery of a completely new civilization! This is what I and
my colleagues dreamed about!" Tareth said as he strode towards the stone bridge.
"We should turn back now," Mae said as she stomped her hooves nervously. "We
don't have a clue as to what we're dealing with save that it's very powerful."
"Bah! So was Dark Dragon! We can take whatever this place throws at us." Ken
boasted as he started to cross the stone bridge. Anri closed her eyes for a minute and
muttered a few spell-words.
"I can't detect any sort of sealing spell. Whatever lies within these ruins it's not
constrained by anything," she said after opening her eyes again.
"When then, there you have it! If something's here, it's unsealed and possibly a
danger! If there's nothing here, then what's the harm?" Diane said cheerfully as she
crossed the bridge along with Gong, who had been wordlessly moving towards the other
side.
"I still don't like it…" Mae said as she, and then everyone else, crossed the bridge
to the other side of the chasm. A huge door, twenty feet tall and ten wide stood
imposingly at the end of a raised dais. Tareth was in the lead now, and he opened the
doors without so much as a thought.
"Amazing! These doors should weigh a ton, but they're as light as a feather!"
Tareth said in wonder as he passed into the next room.
"I wonder what other wonders this place has in store for us…" Tao said, tossing
her ponytail.
"Or horrors…" Zylo growled under his breath.
The next room was a long hall, with statues lining the walls. The statues were of
great mages, warriors, priests, all unknown to even Tareth and Anri, and bearing
inscriptions in a strange tongue. The last statue at the end of the hall showed an armored
man carrying a large sword in one hand, and a holding the other hand forth in what Anri
recognized as a magic gesture. The statue's features projected a feeling of gentleness, yet
an underlying strength that surpassed steel. Unlike the other inscriptions, the one on this
statue glowed and writhed around, until it formed a message in Runic, the language
currently used by the inhabitants of Rune.
i"Iaiden. High King of the Grand Templars, and savior of Creation. Those that
would be allowed to pass know the way."/i
"This must be a test to weed out those not allowed to be in this area. There must
be a secret door somewhere…" Tareth said as he got on his hands and knees and began to
look around the statue. Anri furrowed her brow in thought.
"Wait… Maybe it's a riddle of some sort?" Tao wondered aloud. Anri's eyes
suddenly brightened and she spoke excitedly.
"That gesture… It's the beginning of an apprentice's spell, one to make a small
ball of light! I bet…" Anri trailed off as she began to cast the spell. A small ball of golden
light appeared between her hands, and floated above the statue's head. Suddenly, with a
great grinding sound, the statue moved away, revealing a small hallway beyond. The
group silently moved single file through the narrow passage way. At the hall's end, a
small square room stood, the walls inlaid with crawling, glowing runes as the first
chamber had. At the center of the room stood an altar of bare stone. A most peculiar
artifact, a single link of black chain lay in the middle of said altar.
"What's this?" Anri said as she reached out to touch it. As she did so, the terrible
blackness once again engulfed her mind. A dark voice seemed to whisper to her in a
language she didn't understand.
i"…Ashgul akul-ya garrak terronis ecoi ashuda…"/i
i"…I could bring order to all, destroying all that oppose me and. I could break
those fools that dare disobey , making them bow and beg for mercy…"/i
i"…Ferro kin thanas alkul…"/i
i"People would kneel before my righteousness. Dissenters would be struck down
for the wretched tools of evil that they are…"/i
i"…Darris-Kerr, ragnarok ashgul alkulya garrak terronis…"/i
i"Wait…Evil…?"/i
Anri shook her head and released the link of chain, which dropped back to the
floor with an oddly loud clank.
Unknown to the Force, as soon as the link hit the floor, all the crawling runes in
the chasm chamber flared and went still. The crystals imploded upon themselves, their
pillars collapsing into the unimaginable depths of the pit, and a single invisible blast of
magical energy threw itself from the ruins into the heavens.
i"Where had those thoughts come from?"/i Anri thought as she cleared her mind of
the awful visions that had clouded her thinking. She was shivering.
"You okay Anri? You spaced out again…" a concerned Ken voiced as he stepped
forward. Anri waved him back with a hand.
"I'm fine. This link… I don't know what it is, but I felt tremendous power
residing within it… It should be brought back to Guardiana immediately for study under
heavy guard!" Anri said, concerned and a bit disturbed by what she had just felt.
"NO!" Tareth shouted desperately. "It's mine! I found this site!! I have the right to
study it!!! Give it to me!!!" Tareth lunged for the link on the floor, but was stopped when
the equine form of Mae interposed itself between him and the odd item.
"If Queen Anri deems that this object is too dangerous to leave it for public study,
then it's too dangerous to leave for public study," Mae said as she pushed the
archaeologist back. Tareth fumed with anger, but did nothing more. Anri tentatively
touched the link again, but felt no presence like before. She hastily picked up the link and
dropped it in her rune-covered enchanted pouch for carrying dangerous spell components
and potions and the like. She looked down at the pouch, then shivered. Raising her head
to the rest of the group, she proclaimed, "We leave for Guardiana, tonight."
The Drunken Dryad tavern was Max's favorite place to relax after a hard day's
labor in the fields. He'd silently drink a mug of ale and amusedly watch the other tavern
denizens bluster around after having one too many to drink. Adam would stand beside
him as he did so, his loyalty unwavering and undeniable. The robot often followed Max
around like a dog follows it's master. Adam's. Still, it was rather bothersome when one
was trying to stay out of sight, a seven foot tall war-robot was hardly ubiquitous. Tonight
the tavern was filled with farmers celebrating the fact that the new harvest was over, and
good, thanks in part to the new helper and his mechanical companion. A few travelers
were also in the tavern, swapping tales and downing mug after mug of ale. Max took a sip
of his ale, and felt the cool drink run down his throat and wash away the taste of dust and
dirt that had filled it from the day's work. The door opened, revealing the night sky
beyond, and two strangers filed in, strangers, in both the literal and figurative sense. One
among them wore a travel worn cloak that covered his entire body, although Max's
warrior senses alerted him to the clink of heavy armor beneath it. The other wore a robe
with the hood drawn over his head, so that no one could see his face. They walked to a
table near Max's and sat, ordering a two mugs of ale. Max silently promised himself to
keep an eye on those two. Adam shifted loudly behind him, as he turned his optic sensors
to focus on the new-comers. The same thought had occurred to him too, apparently.
At the same time, Anri and the Force, minus Tareth, who had decided to stay at
the ruins, were making their way back to Guardiana. Diane and Zylo had opted to stay
with the group in order to see their old friends back in Guardiana. Despite everyone's
protests, Anri insisted they skip resting at Manarina, and instead press on as far as they
could before breaking camp for the night. Tao lit a huge bonfire from logs cut by Gort's
mighty Atlas axe. Ken was using his Valkyrie to roast a delicacy he had bought while in
Manarina, something called a marshmallow, on the fire. Mae was chatting with Diane
about various trivial things. It seemed as if the dark depression that had settled over her
after Max's death had finally lifted. Anri recalled the dark days of gloom that had settled
over herself, Lowe and Mae directly following Max's death. Lowe had suffered because
Max was his best friend, one he had known since childhood. Mae has suffered because
she had long considered Max somewhat of a brother, and a close friend. Anri had suffered
because she… She… Anri shook her head. The past was painful, and once again, she
buried it deep within her heart. Best to let it lie. Anri turned her thoughts form the past to
the present. This new artifact… what could it be? A link of chain, yes, but what an odd
receptacle for so much power. Anri's attention was diverted then to the comical spectacle
of Zylo running around howling, a stray spark form the bonfire had set his back fur
ablaze. Anri sighed and brought to mind the words of the freeze spell she'd need to
extinguish him. i"Never a dull moment with this crew,"/i she wryly thought, as she cast a
cone of frost onto the wailing wolf.
The next day, the group arrived at the ruins, accompanied by the members of the
archaeological team. The sun was just beginning to rise above the sleepy horizon as
Tareth, the head archaeologist showed the Force where the entrance lay hidden.
"You can barely see it, but the entrance area is marked by an old rune, thanas, that
means 'Powerful Secret'. Since that was the only written thing we've discovered on the
entry-way, we've taken to calling this place the Thanas Ruins."
"The Thanas Ruins…hmmm…" the usually laconic Gong muttered to himself.
"It's right about… here," Tareth said as he put a hand through what had appeared
to be solid rock before. The spot where his hand went through rippled like water, and
Tareth stepped all the way through. Anri nodded and did likewise, as did the rest of the
Force.
The scene on the inside of the illusion was very different than the bare cliff-side it
had projected. A huge indentation had been carved into the mountain-side, hewn from the
bare rock with incredible precision. The walls of the ruins appeared to the naked eye to be
perfectly smooth, and two curved pillars stood over a door inset in the wall like mammoth
tusks. The door itself was crafted from two impossible massive plates of a dark green
metal, presumable some form of the rare metal mithril. A bas-relief of an imposing
armored knight holding out his hand in a gesture to stop decorated the door.
"Part of the reason we insisted upon your presence, Queen Anri, was that we
couldn't get the doors to budge an inch, and we were hoping you could… ah… blast them
out of the way…" Tareth said hesitatingly, as if s bit unwilling to sully the perfect
gleaming metal of the doors.
"Odd," Anri muttered to herself as she examined the entry-way. "There is no sign
of the Open Eye, the most common symbol of the Ancients. And this architecture is
completely different than what I've seen before… It's almost like a different civilization
made these ruins…"
Tao closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them a minute later. "I'm
getting a feeling of unimaginable age from this place… These ruins were made when the
world was very young."
Anri closed her eyes for a minute as well, and reached out her arcane senses.
"Yes… I… I feel dwarfed by this place… Wait… I feel…" Anri shuddered as the image
of an impossibly black roiling cloud of darkness filled her mind's eye. Two even blacker
spots seemed to be it's eyes. A sound like eerie whistling wind engulfed her. Anri felt a
sense of terrible awe at this awful presence. Suddenly she was brought to by Diane's
snapping fingers.
"Rune to Anri! Rune to Anri! Snap out of it!" Diane said as Anri came out of her
mystic trance. "What was that? You just spaced out for a second."
"I felt… I saw… Nothing… Never mind, let's see how to best open these doors,"
Anri said as she went to examine the sealed doors. Tao gave the doors an appraising look.
"I'd say a dual telekinetic spell by the two of us should provide sufficient force to
rip these babies open, Anri. What do you think?" Tao asked.
"Yes that sounds like a excellent plan. Good work, Tao," Anri replied as she
walked to where Tao was standing.
"Hey, I'm more than just a pretty face, gorgeous body and…" Tao's reply was
interrupted by Ken's chuckling. Tao shot him a look almost as fiery as the magics the
young elf could summon forth. Ken shut his mouth, still grinning.
"Enough bickering, let's just get these doors open," Anri said as she smiled in
spite of herself. Tao stuck her tongue out at Ken, then stood beside Anri as they began to
cast the spell that would hopefully open the doors. Weaving their hands in intricate
patterns, they molded the swirling arcane energy into the shape necessary to pull the
massive mithril doors apart. A final word of power from the two wizardesses, and the
doors started to groan, and slowly move apart. Tao and Anri concentrated harder, sweat
beads forming on their foreheads, and the doors finally slide into twin slots in the walls,
leaving the path to the ruins' inner core open. Tareth grinned like a madman and
whispered, "It's open… An intact Ancient site! I'll be famous…"
"Well, what are standing around for? Onward!" Ken said as he hefted his Atlas
axe and moved towards the entrance, followed by everyone else.
The room beyond the doors was a sight almost too fantastical to describe. An
impossibly high ceiling rose up beyond eyesight, and an equally deep chasm reached far
into the earth. Spanning this pit was a walkway of stone, and two semi-circular platforms
on either side of the chasm. Two pillars topped with huge white crystals, crackling with
pure energy, rose up from the pit on either side of the stone bridge. As awesome as this
sight was, it was not what caused the multitude of widened eyes and dropped jaws among
the group. Crawling, glowing runes covered every inch of the massive stone walls in what
must be a spell of immense power. As if all that weren't enough, a huge triangular
diamond, tall as two grown men, stood a few feet in front of the bridge. Carved runes
were inlaid into it, and seemed to cover the diamond entirely.
"By all the powers of the heavens, look at the size of that diamond!" Ken shouted
as he trotted over to examine the gigantic gem. The sound of his and Mae's hooves
echoed loudly in the vast chamber. Tao shivered with pleasure as she felt the raw magic
of the place flow through the room like a powerful river.
"I feel as if pure magic is being pumped through my veins… This place contains
an almost primordial power… I feel energized just by standing here!" Anri exclaimed as
she too felt the arcane energies surrounding the room.
"What kind of spell could possibly require this much power…" Tao whispered as
she glanced at the two crackling crystals of the pillars.
"I don't like this one bit. All my senses are telling me to get out of here," Mae
said, a hint of urgency breaking through her usually calm exterior. Zylo also spoke up,
saying, "I don't like the smell of this either. We should leave soon." Tareth seemed
horrified at the prospect of leaving.
"We can't leave now! We can't stop now!! Think of all the knowledge to be
found here!!!" Tareth said desperately. Ken called from the diamond tablet.
"Hey what's all this writing mean?" he asked as he lightly kicked the tablet with a
fore-hoof.
"Don't touch that, we don't know what it may be enchanted with. As for the
runes, let me see…" Anri said as she looked closely at all the writing on the tablet. "There
appears to be writing here in seventeen different languages! I can't read the rest, but this
last passage is in Old Runic, the language of the Ancients."
"What's it say? Diane curiously inquired.
"It appears to be a story of how the world was formed… No, how all creation,
more worlds than this were made! It says that a terrible entity known as the Darkness
tried to conquer all of existence, and was narrowly pushed back by an alliance of all
Light. Everything that was good joined to fight against all that was evil in a titanic
struggle. It goes on to say the Darkness' physical form was shattered by a great hero
named Iaiden, and scattered by a group called the Council of Twelve. It ends by saying
that it is the duty of everyone to insure that the splinters of Darkness never be released
back into the worlds. I… I don't think the makers of these ruins were Ancients, Tareth,"
Anri finished in a hushed voice.
"Why do you say that?" Tareth inquired as he studied the tablet and began writing
in a dusty book he had brought out of his pack.
"The architecture, the fact that no symbols of the Ancients appear here, the fact
that their language is among many on this tablet… I don't know who made this place, but
it wasn't our ancestors," Anri said as she looked around the enormous chamber.
"Even better! The discovery of a completely new civilization! This is what I and
my colleagues dreamed about!" Tareth said as he strode towards the stone bridge.
"We should turn back now," Mae said as she stomped her hooves nervously. "We
don't have a clue as to what we're dealing with save that it's very powerful."
"Bah! So was Dark Dragon! We can take whatever this place throws at us." Ken
boasted as he started to cross the stone bridge. Anri closed her eyes for a minute and
muttered a few spell-words.
"I can't detect any sort of sealing spell. Whatever lies within these ruins it's not
constrained by anything," she said after opening her eyes again.
"When then, there you have it! If something's here, it's unsealed and possibly a
danger! If there's nothing here, then what's the harm?" Diane said cheerfully as she
crossed the bridge along with Gong, who had been wordlessly moving towards the other
side.
"I still don't like it…" Mae said as she, and then everyone else, crossed the bridge
to the other side of the chasm. A huge door, twenty feet tall and ten wide stood
imposingly at the end of a raised dais. Tareth was in the lead now, and he opened the
doors without so much as a thought.
"Amazing! These doors should weigh a ton, but they're as light as a feather!"
Tareth said in wonder as he passed into the next room.
"I wonder what other wonders this place has in store for us…" Tao said, tossing
her ponytail.
"Or horrors…" Zylo growled under his breath.
The next room was a long hall, with statues lining the walls. The statues were of
great mages, warriors, priests, all unknown to even Tareth and Anri, and bearing
inscriptions in a strange tongue. The last statue at the end of the hall showed an armored
man carrying a large sword in one hand, and a holding the other hand forth in what Anri
recognized as a magic gesture. The statue's features projected a feeling of gentleness, yet
an underlying strength that surpassed steel. Unlike the other inscriptions, the one on this
statue glowed and writhed around, until it formed a message in Runic, the language
currently used by the inhabitants of Rune.
i"Iaiden. High King of the Grand Templars, and savior of Creation. Those that
would be allowed to pass know the way."/i
"This must be a test to weed out those not allowed to be in this area. There must
be a secret door somewhere…" Tareth said as he got on his hands and knees and began to
look around the statue. Anri furrowed her brow in thought.
"Wait… Maybe it's a riddle of some sort?" Tao wondered aloud. Anri's eyes
suddenly brightened and she spoke excitedly.
"That gesture… It's the beginning of an apprentice's spell, one to make a small
ball of light! I bet…" Anri trailed off as she began to cast the spell. A small ball of golden
light appeared between her hands, and floated above the statue's head. Suddenly, with a
great grinding sound, the statue moved away, revealing a small hallway beyond. The
group silently moved single file through the narrow passage way. At the hall's end, a
small square room stood, the walls inlaid with crawling, glowing runes as the first
chamber had. At the center of the room stood an altar of bare stone. A most peculiar
artifact, a single link of black chain lay in the middle of said altar.
"What's this?" Anri said as she reached out to touch it. As she did so, the terrible
blackness once again engulfed her mind. A dark voice seemed to whisper to her in a
language she didn't understand.
i"…Ashgul akul-ya garrak terronis ecoi ashuda…"/i
i"…I could bring order to all, destroying all that oppose me and. I could break
those fools that dare disobey , making them bow and beg for mercy…"/i
i"…Ferro kin thanas alkul…"/i
i"People would kneel before my righteousness. Dissenters would be struck down
for the wretched tools of evil that they are…"/i
i"…Darris-Kerr, ragnarok ashgul alkulya garrak terronis…"/i
i"Wait…Evil…?"/i
Anri shook her head and released the link of chain, which dropped back to the
floor with an oddly loud clank.
Unknown to the Force, as soon as the link hit the floor, all the crawling runes in
the chasm chamber flared and went still. The crystals imploded upon themselves, their
pillars collapsing into the unimaginable depths of the pit, and a single invisible blast of
magical energy threw itself from the ruins into the heavens.
i"Where had those thoughts come from?"/i Anri thought as she cleared her mind of
the awful visions that had clouded her thinking. She was shivering.
"You okay Anri? You spaced out again…" a concerned Ken voiced as he stepped
forward. Anri waved him back with a hand.
"I'm fine. This link… I don't know what it is, but I felt tremendous power
residing within it… It should be brought back to Guardiana immediately for study under
heavy guard!" Anri said, concerned and a bit disturbed by what she had just felt.
"NO!" Tareth shouted desperately. "It's mine! I found this site!! I have the right to
study it!!! Give it to me!!!" Tareth lunged for the link on the floor, but was stopped when
the equine form of Mae interposed itself between him and the odd item.
"If Queen Anri deems that this object is too dangerous to leave it for public study,
then it's too dangerous to leave for public study," Mae said as she pushed the
archaeologist back. Tareth fumed with anger, but did nothing more. Anri tentatively
touched the link again, but felt no presence like before. She hastily picked up the link and
dropped it in her rune-covered enchanted pouch for carrying dangerous spell components
and potions and the like. She looked down at the pouch, then shivered. Raising her head
to the rest of the group, she proclaimed, "We leave for Guardiana, tonight."
The Drunken Dryad tavern was Max's favorite place to relax after a hard day's
labor in the fields. He'd silently drink a mug of ale and amusedly watch the other tavern
denizens bluster around after having one too many to drink. Adam would stand beside
him as he did so, his loyalty unwavering and undeniable. The robot often followed Max
around like a dog follows it's master. Adam's. Still, it was rather bothersome when one
was trying to stay out of sight, a seven foot tall war-robot was hardly ubiquitous. Tonight
the tavern was filled with farmers celebrating the fact that the new harvest was over, and
good, thanks in part to the new helper and his mechanical companion. A few travelers
were also in the tavern, swapping tales and downing mug after mug of ale. Max took a sip
of his ale, and felt the cool drink run down his throat and wash away the taste of dust and
dirt that had filled it from the day's work. The door opened, revealing the night sky
beyond, and two strangers filed in, strangers, in both the literal and figurative sense. One
among them wore a travel worn cloak that covered his entire body, although Max's
warrior senses alerted him to the clink of heavy armor beneath it. The other wore a robe
with the hood drawn over his head, so that no one could see his face. They walked to a
table near Max's and sat, ordering a two mugs of ale. Max silently promised himself to
keep an eye on those two. Adam shifted loudly behind him, as he turned his optic sensors
to focus on the new-comers. The same thought had occurred to him too, apparently.
At the same time, Anri and the Force, minus Tareth, who had decided to stay at
the ruins, were making their way back to Guardiana. Diane and Zylo had opted to stay
with the group in order to see their old friends back in Guardiana. Despite everyone's
protests, Anri insisted they skip resting at Manarina, and instead press on as far as they
could before breaking camp for the night. Tao lit a huge bonfire from logs cut by Gort's
mighty Atlas axe. Ken was using his Valkyrie to roast a delicacy he had bought while in
Manarina, something called a marshmallow, on the fire. Mae was chatting with Diane
about various trivial things. It seemed as if the dark depression that had settled over her
after Max's death had finally lifted. Anri recalled the dark days of gloom that had settled
over herself, Lowe and Mae directly following Max's death. Lowe had suffered because
Max was his best friend, one he had known since childhood. Mae has suffered because
she had long considered Max somewhat of a brother, and a close friend. Anri had suffered
because she… She… Anri shook her head. The past was painful, and once again, she
buried it deep within her heart. Best to let it lie. Anri turned her thoughts form the past to
the present. This new artifact… what could it be? A link of chain, yes, but what an odd
receptacle for so much power. Anri's attention was diverted then to the comical spectacle
of Zylo running around howling, a stray spark form the bonfire had set his back fur
ablaze. Anri sighed and brought to mind the words of the freeze spell she'd need to
extinguish him. i"Never a dull moment with this crew,"/i she wryly thought, as she cast a
cone of frost onto the wailing wolf.