Chapter Thirteen: Reunion
Lexis and Dekar sprang awake at Tia's shout. However, they were slow enough from sleep for the monster to get in the first strike. A downpour of gray fire showered from the ceiling. Amidst the deluge, Tia glimpsed twin Thunder Beasts reeling and soaring between the sheets of flame. Dekar and Lexis both got singed by the flame attacks. Tia hurriedly cast Champion. Lexis recovered, but Dekar found it harder to regain his old power. He sagged, clutching the wound in his side. The Thunder Beasts, seeing that the torrent had ended, dived straight at Tia. She threw herself to the ground. The Thunder beasts passed so close that she could feel the electricity emitting from them. "Be careful!" Tia yelled to Lexis and Dekar. "It's a mage! Don't get too close." Dekar did not even raise his head. Lexis began to cast a spell of his own. Tia began to worry. The party had always been within earshot of one another during battle. This time, however, they were spread out so much that they might not be able to hear one another until it was too late. However Lexis and Dekar seemed to be heeding her warning for the time being. Tia decided to cast stronger and let Lexis handle the mage that had wandered to the one hundredth floor. In truth, she was afraid to cast offensive spells, lest the other Tia materialize again.
Lexis let fly a barrage of bombs – a buster attack, he had called it. The mage swung his staff, allowing the enchanted wood to take the hit. The staff flared with fire that did not consume it. Lexis's attack had been useless. Tia cast Stronger, noticing with concern the lackluster in Dekar's eyes. The warrior who had once enjoyed battle so much did not move. Tia wondered what options were left to the party. They could not flee from this battle unless they wanted to face the dungeon master on their own. That, Tia knew, was courting death. Yet, everyone's strength was still low from fighting the dragons. Tia took a deep breath. She could feel the Iris jewel pulsing in her breast pocket, begging her to use it. Tia shuddered. She couldn't, she simply couldn't risk it!
The mage swung his staff twice this time, and slammed it into the ground with a sound like "Hungah!" Tia gaped in amazement as the mage rematerialized right beside Lexis. His stick flashed, and yellow flames enveloped it. The scientist gasped and barely managed to dodge the blow. Annoyed, the mage pointed at Lexis and hissed. The Thunder Beasts sped towards Lexis using the same cross formation they had used to attack Tia. Lexis stumbled out of their way. However, this time, the beasts doubled back and caught him between them. Lexis screamed as blue and green electricity raced up and down his body. Immobilized, he fell before the blue-robed sorcerer who laughed with mad glee. Tia screamed and started to run towards him. Dekar, too, went to help Lexis. However, the Thunder Beasts threw back their heads. Lightning burst from their maws, hitting the injured warrior head-on. Tia skidded to a stop just out of range of the mage's wave of gray fire. Lexis moaned in pain as the wave crashed over him. Then he fell to the ground where he lay very still.
Tia's eyes widened. You didn't use the jewel to protect your friends. Stupid girl, a cultured voice mocked her. Won't you use it now to save yourself? Or are you too hard-headed to even do that?
With trembling fingers, Tia reached into her breast pocket and took out the jewel. It glimmered in her hand so brilliantly that the wizard and his beasts stopped to stare. A low howl ripped from Tia's throat. Before she opened herself to the jewel's unbelievable power, white radiance filled the enormous chamber. A circle formed beneath the sorcerer, freezing him where he stood. Tia looked around her in disbelief at her fallen allies.
"Tia!" shouted a familiar voice. "Cast Champion on Lexis!"
Tia followed the sound of the voice. Upon the grand white stairs stood a blue-haired elf, a blonde warrior, and a wisp of a woman. "Artea!" she whispered. Her heart surged with hope. We have a chance! she suddenly realized.
Lexis rose shakily as Tia cast the spell. "A miracle," the scientist breathed raggedly.
Artea's spell flung the arch fiend backwards several feet. The mage howled wildly and slammed its staff into the ground.
"How did that thing get ahead of us?" Guy wondered.
"Who cares? We have a chance to kill it now," M'hana seethed.
The three in the stair wings fanned out into the chamber. The Thunder Beasts sounded their dismay to their master. The arch fiend answered in a guttural hiss. The Thunder Beasts looked at one another and began to circle the five standing party members. The arch fiend prepared its spell with enraged fervor.
"Guy, get ready to attack the arch fiend like we did before!" Artea shouted. Guy began to focus energy into his sword. "M'hana, use Regain on Dekar! He's the warrior who's down. Tia, get Dekar back on his feet!"
"It's good to see you back," Lexis called to Guy.
"It looks like we got here just in time," Artea remarked. "Lexis, cast stronger on Guy when he finishes with the arch fiend!"
"Okay!" Lexis agreed.
Dekar could not rise even after M'hana gave him the regain. Even when Tia cast Champion on him, he only remained on his knees staring at the battle with glazed eyes.
Finally Guy shouted "What's wrong with you, Dekar? Aren't you the strongest man in the world? Lexis, how did you make it to this floor first if Dekar was just slacking off?"
When he heard this, Dekar managed to get to his feet. "I was interrupted out of a sound sleep, mind you!"
"Get ready, Guy!" Artea yelled.
Guy charged the arch fiend with a fierce battle cry. As he approached, Artea sent the Zap spell into the warrior's sword. The spell made the sword gleam white. The arch fiend managed to parry Guy's thrust, however. The two remained locked in a fierce contest of strength.
"Hey Lexis! Can we do that? It appears that my friend Guy here needs some help!"
"We can try," Lexis said. He began to chant the words to Fireball, a spell he was certain wouldn't break Dekar's axe. Dekar began to focus his own energy for the blow. When he sensed that the moment was right, the warrior charged at the arch fiend. The fiend gurgled and hissed for his twin thunder beasts to protect him. The beasts dived Dekar in their X-formation. The warrior skillfully dodged them, rolling to the other side of the arch fiend. When Lexis's spell reached him, his sword shone like the setting sun. The warrior plunged the blade in between the arch fiend's shoulder blades. The fiend screamed in agony and lost his grip on his staff. Guy swung his blade with all of his strength, cleaving the arch fiend from head to waist. The Thunder Beasts shrilled in dismay and vanished back into the realm from which they had been summoned. The arch fiend, meanwhile, began to emit an aura the hue of a ruby.
"Get down!" Tia yelled, sensing perhaps through the other Tia's senses that the arch fiend had one final surprise in store for the warriors. Guy and Dekar obeyed just in the instant that the arch fiend's robes exploded like a firecracker. Red sparks sprinkled from the ceiling, glittering like fallen stars before dying upon the floor.
"Thank goodness," Guy said, rising and helping Dekar up. "That was some killing stroke, huh?"
"Killing stroke," Dekar scoffed. "Bah! That killing stroke would have been a 'countered stroke' if I had not stepped in to help you!"
"Hah! Such talk from the strongest man in the world! I got the monster weakened many floors ago, you know. It's been following us for some time now. If I hadn't gotten it started, you wouldn't have been able to help finish it." Guy crossed his arms in his typical know-it-all fashion, challenging Dekar to argue with him.
"If it had been me, Guy, I would have dispatched the monster on the floor I found it!" Dekar smirked. "I am, after all, the strongest man in the world."
"You have no idea how glad we are to see you," Lexis said to Artea. "We were getting worried."
Artea smiled grimly. "I was worried. I suppose it was all for nothing, though. Lexis, did one of you fall in battle?"
Lexis gasped. "Yes, actually. Dekar perished when we were fighting a legion of dragons. How did you know?"
"The Doom Island Four are very sensitive to ki patterns…one ki among you burned out," Artea said. "I was worried that it was Tia."
"Tia?" Lexis smiled wryly. "She has proven to be the strongest of all of us."
"It appears that we have some catching up to do," the elf said.
"And some planning to do," Lexis remarked. "I suppose that beyond that dais lies the master of this dungeon. I am certain that he will not hand over the cup of wishes without a fight."
"Quite right," the elf agreed. "Come. We have much to discuss." He and Lexis moved off to Lexis's extensive collection of notes.
Tia sighed as the four men went off to talk. She felt decidedly like a piece of forgotten luggage. "I guess it's just you and me, huh Flash." She sighed. The little capsule monster chirped at her sympathetically. Tia suddenly felt a strange urge to look at her jewel. The urge was so powerful that she had reached into her pocket before she consciously registered the thought. Its facets shimmered like fire in her hand, bringing tears to her eyes.
"So you are an Iris carrier." The filthy woman who had been with Artea's party crossed her arms, a sneer on her face. Though her face appeared as old as a hag's, her stance and voice were young, hot-blooded even.
Tia hid the jewel and stared unabashedly at the woman. Her pulse galloped as she remembered her encounter with the other Tia, who had also seemed interested in and integral to the jewel she carried. "Who are you?" Tia asked with no trace of her usual manners.
As if they had sensed the encounter between the two women, Artea and Lexis looked up from their discussion. Guy and Dekar, however, remained engaged in their latest argument about strength.
"I should ask you the same," M'hana said coldly, remembering all too well that the mocking woman in her dream had been clad in rose pink.
"I am Tia." Her face burned as she sensed Lexis and Artea watching her. They made no move toward them, which Tia supposed was just as well.
M'hana seemed to sense their gaze as well. Keeping half an eye on the thief and the elf, she bowed low. "M'hana." Chill radiated through her voice, so much so that Tia backed away. Flash even dispensed of his customary gentle demeanor and hissed at the thief. Laughing in contempt at the capsule monster's attempt at ferocity, M'hana slunk into the shadows. Tia sighed. The party's reunion with Artea and Guy was already less cheerful than she had envisioned. Before she could ponder the matter for long, Artea and Lexis were at her side.
"Did she say anything to you?" Lexis asked.
Tia shook her head. "Only her name… And she wanted to know mine. Also she said something about an Iris treasure."
"An Iris treasure?" Artea sounded incredulous. "Did you find one?"
"I have it right here," Tia said. She opened her palm slowly.
Artea's eyes widened. "I found a ring of similar make," he said. He held out his hand so that Tia could see the ring. "And our sulking thief over there has seven treasures herself. Be on your guard, Tia. She has tried to steal my ring on numerous occasions."
Tia's eyes narrowed, and her lips curled in disgust. "Let her try that with me," she hissed. "We'll see how she fares."
"Tia?" Artea said in disbelief. He could scarcely believe that the gentle girl he had spoken to outside of the cave had such a harsh core inside of her.
"That jewel might have the spirit of a mage inside of it," Lexis said, offering his explanation. "Occasionally that personality emerges in Tia. She can cast stronger spells, but she also…changes." The scientist winced. He felt bad talking about Tia while she was right there.
Tia, however, met his gaze steadily. "Most of what the scientist says is true," Tia claimed. "But how do you know what is in this girl's heart? She is excellent at deception. She can even convince herself." Tia blinked as if started. Then she glared at the jewel and hid it back in her pocket. "I'm sorry, Artea. Did you say something?"
Lexis shook his head in pity. Artea, however, maintained his elven nonchalance. "Did you have a strange dream recently, Tia?" he asked.
Tia thought immediately of the fire and the shattering mirror from which her other self had emerged. "Why yes," she said.
Artea's hand strayed immediately to the cut on his cheek. It was difficult for him to tell in the dim light of the bottom floor's torches. However, it appeared that Tia had several cuts on her face and a most peculiar burn. "I had an especially unsettling dream a few nights ago," the elf confided to Tia and Lexis. He did not have to look up to know that M'hana was listening in as was her fashion. "In it, I went to Eserikto. It was deserted. I went into one of the houses…it was as if I was drawn there. In the bedroom there was a mirror. I could not make out my reflection in it, but…I did see you in it, Tia. You had your hands against the glass as if you were trying to pass through it, and there was fire surrounding you."
Tia gasped, her hand going to the cuts on her face. Color drained beneath her fingers. "Yes," she remembered. "I was in a room filled with flame…the other me stepped out of the mirror and spoke to me, though I cannot remember what she said now. Somehow I ended up inside of the mirror and she on the outside of it. Then…the mirror shattered… I shattered! When I awoke, my face was burned and scratched."
Artea's eyes were fierce. "In my dream, the mirror shattered with you in it. One of the shards cut me." He traced the cut on his cheek. "I think it has to do with the Iris treasures," the elf concluded.
Tia closed her eyes. "It is a possibility," she admitted. "But how do we know for sure?"
"M'hana carries seven Iris treasures with her," Artea said. "The ill effects from her dream were the strongest. Look at her withered face. She appeared just your age when Guy and I encountered her. The transformation did not take place until she had the dream."
Tia stole a look at M'hana, who was staring into space.
"It appears to me that the treasures are cursed," Lexis hypothesized. "Maybe you two would be better off without them."
Neither Artea nor Tia said a word. Nevertheless, their silence spoke volumes. The scientist threw up his hands. "It was just a suggestion!"
{****}
The party spent the entire morning resting from the fight. Later that afternoon, Artea and Lexis got together and discussed various strategies they could use against the enigmatic dungeon master. By evening, the party was refreshed enough to stomach their waning rations. In the dim torchlight, Artea disclosed the strategies he and Lexis had decided on.
"We are six," the elf began. "Four are a formidable match for a Sinistral," he added. "Lexis and I have decided, therefore, that M'hana and Tia should remain at the bottom of the dais in the event that something goes wrong."
Translates to, 'M'hana can't be trusted, and Tia's too unpredictable, what with her stupid jewel. Besides, they're women. Why not leave them behind?' Tia thought.
A grave mood overcame the six as Artea spoke of spells, weapons, techniques, and their limited supply of regain and miracles. "Neither party was fortunate enough to find Valor or Rally, so we must be cautious above all," Artea said, looking pointedly at Dekar and Guy, the two most likely to show off recklessly. "But, with that said, this is a momentous occasion." Artea smiled, and suddenly Tia felt that everything would be alright. "The end that we came here to achieve is almost accomplished. Very soon we will have restored Maxim and Selan to rightfully deserved life." The elf, having finished what he wanted to say, returned to the shadows to talk to Lexis.
"Think of it," Guy was telling Dekar. "You'll get to have that fight with Maxim, just like you wanted!"
Dekar smiled broadly. "That's right! Maybe you should come fight too… Then again…you might get hurt."
"Who are you kidding? You're the one who's going to get beaten!" Guy and Dekar laughed long and loud. Tia sat near them with Flash in her arms, wishing she could be as carefree as they were, yet knowing that it could not be. She took small comfort in noticing that Dekar had a more serious, deliberate air about him, even engaged in his favorite pastime of tormenting Guy. She looked about the vast chamber. It was not so tremendous, nor so ancient as the room where she, Lexis, and Dekar had fought the dragons. Nonetheless, it was a grand room with walls of icy marble and spotless white columns. The dais seemed to rise into infinity.
It's been a long journey, Tia thought to herself. And now it's almost at an end. She looked again at the dais. Now she could see that M'hana was leaning against it. There was a definite sulk in her slump. Tia thought she knew what the woman was feeling so sour about. It was the end of their journey, and they would not even get the fight the final battle. Tia realized that she and M'hana now had some common ground. She left Dekar and Guy to their debate and walked to the thief's side.
"Are you going to do it? You might get in their way, you know," the thief said.
Tia started. "Am I going to do-" She broke off, suddenly understanding intuitively what the thief had said and why she had said it. Tia touched her Iris jewel. She could sense it from M'hana too, indignation at being excluded from the deciding battle and her full intention to follow the men, whatever the danger. Tia nodded, meeting the thief's eyes. "I will. And you are too, I take it."
"The elf won't like it," M'hana commented. "But that won't be anything new for me."
Tia marveled at the awesome powers of the Iris treasures, which allowed their holders to read minds. She was not certain if it was because the treasures were all gathered in one place, or simply because they stood in the heart of the dungeon. However she fully expected M'hana's warning. "Be careful what you think. You don't want the elf to know what we have planned."
Tia nodded and moved off into the darkness. How she was expected to sleep to sleep through her anticipation of the coming morning, the fight with the dungeon master and the revival of Maxim and Selan, she could not begin to fathom. Nonetheless, she carefully masked her excitement and waited for the morning to come.