Knights of Alchemy
Chapter 5: Heart of Poseidon
"Arr! Ye'll be swabbin' faster or it's the plank and the sharks fer ye, missy!" shouted Hail, hopping from ropes to the yard-arm before dropping onto the deck again. Cata paused in her efforts under the blazing sun and glared at the Djinni.
"Remind me again why we need to wash the deck. I mean, it's all water, right? Can't we just sail into a big wave and save the effort or something?" she demanded, leaning on the mop.
"Typical simplification of an element you don't understand," Elys remarked, leaning over the rail to feel the spray of the sea.
"And as glad as I am that I wasn't picked," Meg added, carrying a crate up from belowdecks, "I'd hardly call a Jupiter Adept ideal for a washer."
"Bah! The farm girl needs ta be building some muscles on that feath'ry frame!" Hail shot back.
"Muscles?" demanded Cata. In a flicker of purple, she dashed across the ship and leapt onto the upper level, picking Hail up and shaking her. "I've being ploughing, sowing, reaping, and above all else hauling massive quantities of vegetables since I could walk! Don't tell me I need muscles!"
"Legumes are not known for inducing strength," said Hail in an entirely different voice- equally cold, but now possessed of a sort of cold aristocracy.
"I'm not sure what kind of food builds brain mass, either, but it seems you could do with some!" Cata would have gone on, but at that moment the wet planks beneath her were (temporarily, in the hot sun) covered in a layer of frost, and she was dropped backwards onto the main deck.
"Please do not manhandle my Djinni, or I'll have to reconsider our deal," Padriac warned her, still keeping a watch on the sea as they sped towards Lemuria. "Those pirates still haven't had their fate decided."
"And ye'd best be rememberin' that Djinn don't eat!" added Hail.
Cata looked over at Zephyr, perched on the bucket. "She's right," the Jupiter Djinni admitted.
"It's getting cloudier," Meg noted, looking up at the slowly greying sky. "And there's a mist in the air. The whole thing's really quite repulsive."
"Mars Adepts are simply not delicate enough to appreciate real beauty," Squall muttered. Meg looked at her own Djinni, not impressed. Squall was one of the stronger-willed Djinn, though, and didn't flinch as she returned the look.
Cian appeared on deck, apparently having finished whatever task Hail had thrown on him in the hold. He looked around and took a deep breath, an expression of serene satisfaction on his face. "Home," the Lemurian whispered, luxuriating in the smell. "The water and the earth…"
"Carried on the breeze," Cata commented, innocently.
"Yes, yes, I've got the idea, 'Mars isn't welcome here'. I didn't ask to go along with this insanity, I might point out. I just didn't have anywhere to go from Naribwe except the same way as you," Meg pointed out, rather irritated.
"Of course you're welcome, Meg, we owe you a lot after that battle in the cliffs," said Cata.
"You're assuming I want to be welcome," she grumbled, but it was just bluster now.
"I'm not exactly welcome myself, o lady of the exceptionally disturbing swords," Padriac remarked. He had seen Meg's wicked fighting style during a lull in Hail's work-inventing creativity; she had sparred with Cian to ease her mounting hunter frustration, and it was obviously her own choice that the Lemurian was still a single, solid individual.
The mist wrapped around the Tide Raven swiftly and silently, dulling the sounds of the surrounding sea, and in the clouds ahead a dark shape began to form. Though the Seal of the Ocean hadn't been placed on the island, Lemuria was still by nature a foggy place, and the weather that day was at least getting into the adventurous spirit.
"Been a very long time," Cian said, still to himself.
"You probably expected better circumstances," Cata suggested, but the Lemurian simply turned and grinned.
"I'll take what I can get. Let's get the Sea God's Tear back."
It had been long enough that none of the Adepts wondered about the cave docks, but if they had the simple explanation would have been that, along with the spire walls, whirlpools, deadly currents, and blinding fog, the caves were part of the protective Seal that the Lemurians raised in times of danger. Now, though, the island was open, and though the mists of the day still veiled them, the sun could still be seen, a patch of brightness in the sky.
The Tide Raven slipped easily into dock and Padriac gave the wheel another seemingly carefree spin, at which the Psy Crystal in its centre went out and the ships 'wings' stopped rowing. There were others at port, but only a few Lemurians about keeping an eye on things, and none of them though the appearance of another trading vessel strange.
"We should be back soon," Cata told the captain as she walked down to the dock.
"If we're not, we probably won't be back at all anyway," Zak added, following her with his usual level of fatalistic enthusiasm.
"Actually… if you're interested, I do think I could be of some help to you," Padriac offered.
"Do you really want to take on a ruthless thief or two?" Elys asked.
"I told you already, I do so hate evil pirates," Padriac repeated. "And I'd hardly be defenceless, I promise you that, especially with Hail." The Djinni in question followed her Adept down onto solid ground and glared at the others for good measure.
"Arr, ye've never seen me wrath unleashed proper, 'ave ye? It's a sight everyone sh'd see once in their lives- plenty o' dead men already have!" Hail laughed in the style of a pirate who finds her own joke riotously funny, particularly with the worried expressions of those around her factored in.
"Don't get too worried, she's never killed anyone," Padriac assured them, but added quietly a moment later: "…As far as I know." They all looked at Hail for a moment, and she returned the stares with a tilted expression of anticipation. "Furthermore," the captain went on, shaking them out of it, "I haven't ever actually seen Lemuria beyond these docks, and I think it's about time I did something more for these people than bring them another blasted load of merchants."
"You'll be ready for a battle?" asked Cata.
"If it comes to that," Cian added.
"Oh, I hope so," said Meg.
"You'll get it," Zak told her.
"How do you know?"
"That's exactly what I'm hoping to avoid," the horse muttered. "Look, why am I even here? We just had to cross a sea, and horses aren't meant for water, and now we're on land, but it's a really small one and I know you're not going to need to get anywhere far away all that fast."
"You're here," Cata replied, heading up the hill to the Lemurian docks centre as Padriac tied the ship, "because we're going after a really nasty individual and need all the help we can get, because I know I can rely on you even if you don't want to, and because you were afraid that they'd eat you if we left you in the stables at Embarcaderos with the rest of the horses."
"True, but does that revoke my right to complain?" asked Zak.
"I'm starting to envision steaks even when I'm not hungry," Meg muttered. "I wonder why."
"You're sick."
"At least I'm not a horse who's convinced he can talk," the huntress shot back.
"What do you mean, 'convinced'? You can hear me just fine. I've been talking to people for years," said Zak, shaking his head in annoyance. He looked at Meg. "Well? Nothing to say?" She didn't acknowledge him. "Elys, can you do something about her? Elys? Elys, can you hear me? Elys!"
Ignoring the commotion behind her, Cata reached the crest of the hill and looked out at Lemuria. Some called it the Crown of the Ocean, others the Island of Lost Ages, and still other, less respectful people, the Realm of Those Blue-Haired Freaks. It was a great city, reaching into the cloudy distance, filled with beautifully shaped grey stone buildings and pillars, many covered in deep-green ivy or decorated with fountains that seemed to fill the air with streams of diamonds.
And there were people, oh yes. The streets were scattered with Lemurians of every kind, from tiny children to their nine hundred year old great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers. The many people all shared two things, despite their other differences: blue hair and eyes of bright gold (though even these were occasionally streaked with another hue).
"Lemuria is at your service," a woman announced, stepping out of the docks centre and noticing Cata staring in awe at the great city. Cata turned and bowed in what she hoped was proper Lemurian style.
"I'm not sure we need any service…" Cata replied.
"Go ahead, they can tell us where to look," said Cian, coming up behind her.
"Are you sure?" asked Meg, very quietly.
"Of course we can trust Lemurians," Padriac told her. "If they ever got really insulted by anything, she'd probably be insulted that you thought otherwise."
"I'm getting really tired of the immortal-and-blindingly-pristine-demigodly Lemurian image ," Meg grumbled.
"In that case, I'll have to take you by the Senate later on," the woman said cheerfully. "You might feel better, unless you decide then that we're hypocrites." Meg stared for a moment, then decided she was probably joking, and laughed. "Now then, how can I help?"
As they had confirmed in Embarcaderos, Jastyx -and her apparent new companion- was easy to remember, partially because so many people tried to forget meeting her. After explaining their pursuit to the Lemurian woman, Helena, she called in the watchguards and quickly pieced their sightings together.
Helena leaned over a map of the island, tapping points in a line from the coast. "Pietr saw this Jastyx woman here, Darrow spotted someone who meets the description around here, and then Lyssa caught sight of them along Lumini Street… I don't like this. You're sure these are thieves you're following?"
"I saw the Sea God's Tear in her hands," Cata growled. "We've followed them all the way from Daila, and now it's time to exact a bit of enthusiastic justice."
"I hope you're quick about it. They're heading for the old undertemple. The Lemurian Ruins. No one goes in there by the command of the Senate, but I wouldn't be surprised if they've got something planned. No Venus Adept -even one as powerful as you say- would dare try to hide on Lemuria."
"Then we'd better be quick about it," Meg added. "If it's a bad place to hide, they probably don't intend to stay for long, either."
"I'd send a watchguard or two to help-" Helena began.
"We'll handle this one, don't worry about that," Elys cut in, firmly.
"But somehow I don't think you'd accept," she finished with a grin. "Adventurers usually don't like help from the official peacekeepers. Anyway, more warriors would probably just slow you down."
"We aren't warriors," said Elys. "Well, aside from Meg."
"I'm a hunter," she corrected.
"And you?" asked Helena, looking at Padriac, who was probably the most rugged of them.
"Ship captain," he replied.
"Artist," Cian put in before he could be asked.
"And Zak's a horse," Cata finished. Helena blinked. "He's outside," she added.
"Of course," said Helena. She turned to Pietr. "Take them to the ruins, let them inside, and don't let anyone else out unaccompanied."
"Or at least conscious," Elys murmured.
The name 'undertemple' was more apt than the Adepts expected. A quick canal trip took them to the northwestern coast of Lemuria in a few moments, and the land there sloped down in a series of natural terraces, like stairs for a giant, or a dragon. Or a giant dragon. Something huge, anyway.
Pietr led them down these to a point about halfway between the crest and the water's edge. They found an ornate door there with pillars on either side and friezes of Lemurians casting Freeze Prism on terrible monsters. Cian found this ironic. Meg decided she wasn't going to let the Lemurian people off the hook yet. But Zak was more intent on the temple itself.
"The whole thing is underneath the city?" he said, realising the magnitude of the ruins.
"That would be correct," Pietr agreed, amused but not shocked by that talking horse -evidently a nephew of his had a gull with some level of Psynergy that occasionally joined in conversation. "But since the core spring started flooding on a regular cycle, we have not used the temple, and it has fallen into disrepair. It really is a shame, I enjoyed the sculptures quite a lot."
Elys tapped a column, or rather, the bottom half of it, as the top was a few feet away. "It's crumbled this much and you remember a time when people still… oh. Right. Sorry."
"Don't worry about it. Most outsiders forget about the spring water. Speaking of which, Cian, how are you managing off the island?" the watchguard inquired.
"I'm still well enough supplied," he said. "How are you faring on the island? I haven't heard much good, and most of it has been about the Senate."
"Same thing," Pietr admitted. "Hydros has been losing influence for a long time, gradually enough that no one stands up and takes notice. Conservato has been causing trouble again, but not the sort that most of the people see. If Hydros hadn't declared that 'to keep politicians focused on the good of Lemuria, Senators aren't allowed to hold monarchic office', Conservato would probably be jockeying for kingship."
"Fascinating as this is," said Padriac, "and do take me seriously, I'm part Lemurian myself, I really think we have something a bit more pressing at hand that we might want to deal with."
"Arr, he speaks the truth, and ye'd best be makin' way for the captain o' the Tide Raven or be ready te have a Djinni-shaped hole put through ye!" agreed Hail.
"Djinni!" exclaimed Pietr, the first sign he had yet shown that he even had emotions. "I hope you won't be in any rush to leave after this is solved."
"Actually, we need to get the Tear back to Daila as fast as possible. That's the whole reason we're out here. Without the Sea God's Tear to balance Mercury Psynergy in the region, storms are getting out of control. I just hope they haven't been flooded already," Elys said fervently.
"Oh," said Pietr, sounding a bit disappointed.
"We just go through, do we?" asked Meg.
"Yes," Pietr responded, slipping back to 'infuriating' Lemurian calm. "I'll stay here at the entrance. I promise that no one will pass back through while I stand guard."
With that assurance, Cata led the way (with Zak, under protest) into the undertemple, Zephyr at her shoulder. The corridors were low and rather dark, but lined with sculptures and murals carved into aqua-blue stone that shone with the faint glow of the evening ocean.
"I don't think I ever truly appreciated the meaning of 'dank' before," Cata muttered.
"I'm with you on that one," Zephyr agreed.
"I like it," Elys countered. "It's sort of… comforting. Safe."
"A haven for mildew and mold of all kinds," Zak remarked.
"You're quite cheerful for people heading into mortal combat," observed Padriac.
"We don't have long to wait, either," said Cian, ignoring Zak's strangled cry. "The undertemple had- has, I suppose, many chambers that were restricted to all Adepts but a specific class- Ascetic, I think -and there were plenty of things to keep others out."
"Lemurians don't keep guard monsters, do they?" asked Meg.
"Not monsters, no. But there are likely mechanisms, and maybe sentinels," he replied.
No one asked what sentinels were, in the hopes that whatever they imagined would be much, much worse than reality; sometimes unnamed fears are easier to ignore. But not too deep into the passages, the Adepts found out precisely what Cian meant by 'mechanism'.
It was a large hall, with high arches in the same dusky blue stone and statues of heroic Lemurians, tiled in a shade of grey rock that actually managed to be refreshing and dull at the same time. And just as Elys stepped between the first two statues a voice echoed off the walls.
"The one who steps here is no Ascetic. Is she a guest of Lemuria's undertemple?" The Adepts froze. After a moment, Cian decided that he wasn't likely to make the situation worse.
"Yes?" he answered.
"The one who speaks is no Ascetic. Let one who is-"
"Oh, get on with it!" Meg snapped, as still as a crouched lynx but not much enjoying it.
"Nor is she. Begone or becrushed!"
"This is not quite what I was expecting from a homecoming," Padriac commented.
"Becrushed isn't even a-" Elys began, but then the meaning became clear. At the far end of the chamber, tiles flew out of their places in the floor and launched in whirling volleys, turning end over end and descending upon the Adepts.
Meg was out of range in moments, pressed against the back of a statue's pedestal, and Cata was quick to follow, but Zak, Padriac, and Cian weren't nearly as agile, and Elys was too far out in the open. She dropped to the floor as a block of stone swept so close it scraped her shoulder. The others were at least able to avoid the rest of the first wave, but then the floor began pulling itself up in a horizontal avalanche, like a crumbling wall that had fallen over and forgotten about gravity.
Elys glanced back to see that the others hadn't been hurt at precisely the wrong moment, and a last rock clipped her leg, dropping her to the floor, fatally vulnerable. Cian pulled Zak over to the safety of the opposite statue, but Padriac had other, more insane and more aggressive plans.
He had taken the moment's safety to pull on a pair of gauntlets and then ran ahead to Elys. The slabs spun with lethal force through the air, but the wild captain closed his eyes, breathed deeply once, and when they opened, the light of Psynergy was in them.
Padriac lashed out with well-forged knuckles, bashing a tile out of the air a moment before impact, then struck another, another and continued the frenzy of shattering as long as possible, but too many minor impacts began to take their toll, and he was forced to change tactics.
At the next strike, Padriac called out "Quake Sphere!" The stone was blasted into dust by Venus Psynergy, and a wave of power radiated from it, blasting others apart as it grew. One did manage to avoid devastation, spinning like a massive prototype shuriken, and knocked the captain senseless, but even when she needed help, Elys -as Cata liked to put it- didn't 'do the helpless thing'.
"Prism!" A giant chunk of ice coalesced from pure Mercury Psynergy, crashing down in front of the two Adepts under assault and deflecting the rest of the flying stone tiles. Once the storm was over, Elys let it dissolve into simple power again, and was about to start fixing herself and Padriac when other sounds of struggle began.
Meg and Cata were only a little surprised when their sheltering statue drew its broad sword and stepped down to the floor, since this was roughly in true adventuring style, and it had been unnecessarily lifelike in their opinion anyway.
"What do we do to an enemy without flesh, anyway?" asked Cata, ducking a wide sweep.
"Enjoy the lack of morality inherent to the situation," Meg replied.
"What?"
"Not feel bad about blowing it to hell."
"Oh. Good. Storm Ray!" Cata hadn't often tried this second-level Psynergy, and was aware that it could go wrong at times, but when the purple electricity stabbed at her 'stony'-faced opponent, then rippled all the way down like water off a giant, homicidal duck before exploding in a shower of sparks at the ground, she guessed something was up.
"That's a sentinel! Psynergy won't work properly on it!" shouted Cian, looking up from healing Padriac's injuries.
"You might have said!" Cata yelled back, stumbling as she tried to hold her guard against another deadly swing. "Now what?"
"Psynergy-resistant," Meg growled. Her twin swords were gifts from a Jupiter Clan village -the whole story was known only to herself and Squall- and could be charged with Psynergy at will, but that could mean almost anything against this thing. "I've heard of 'favoured' prey, but never 'oh-Spirits-keep-it-away-from-me' prey."
The sentinel drove Cata back towards the wall with a charging series of attacks, bashing down her defences until she was too tired even to raise her guard. Cata dropped her sword, focusing instead on dodging the construct's attacks, but she knew it couldn't last long.
So did Zak. He hated the whole idea of adventuring, long journeys across terrain-with-attitude, and particularly ocean travel to find an underground dungeons filled with whole new things that wanted them dead, but he came along anyway, because more than he hated all that, he cared about Cata.
The sentinel dropped to one knee and swept Cata off her feet, then raised its sword for a deadly blow. Zak raised too, and his flailing hoof struck first, smashing the sentinel's head off with a sound like a difficult cork finally rocketing out of the bottleneck.
"Thanks," said Cata, breathing hard.
"I'm wasting the rest of them before they wake up," Meg decided, and her swords began to flicker with Mars' power.
"Got it all together, then?"
"The Trident, however often it may have failed in legend, has not been broken for centuries."
"This would be a bad time for history to repeat itself."
"I believe most of those instances were fabricated anyway."
"Just be prepared."
An observant person wouldn't have had any trouble following the Adepts' path into the Lemurian Ruins. They wouldn't really have to be all that observant. A reasonably intelligent salamander would have managed it. There was a trail of still-warm statues with charred, blade-shaped holes roughly through the heart, though occasionally one had been decapitated by a well-placed hoof strike as well.
"I'm actually rather surprised that they don't dissipate Psynergy all the time. The intelligent thing to do would have been to build it into their armor," said Cian, studying one of the statues.
"Intelligent, yes, physically possible, no," Zephyr responded. "The only way to do it would be with more Psynergy, wouldn't it? Then someone casts Bind and the whole thing explodes in a fiery paradox."
"I'm beginning to think I'm claustrophobic," Zak commented.
"Where are they?" demanded Elys. "We're just wandering down here and it's driving me crazy!"
"Y'know," said Cata, thoughtfully, "it could be that these are just regular statues."
"It's still satisfying," Meg said, ventilating another.
"The walls are sort of closing in, the deeper we get…" said Zak in a quieter voice.
"You are likely the least focused troupe of adventurers I've ever known," Padriac said.
"He's got that right! What about Jastyx? I thought we were supposed to be hunting thieves!" said Elys, nearly shouting, but reluctant to speak too loudly. The corridors echoed enough already.
"Did you have a suggestion, then? Running through the halls aimlessly and totally losing our sense of direction?" said Cian.
"You're telling me you know where we are now?" Elys demanded.
"To exit, we would head, of course, in the reverse direction we are now, taking the third, first, first, fourth, second, third- all of these directions would be numbered from the left, of course-"
"You're making that up."
"I forgot how perceptive you are. My apologies," said the Lemurian, bowing.
"We're already lost?" asked Cata.
"It would appear so."
"Then I'm with Elys," said Meg, tugging her sword free and slipping ahead past the others. "Follow me and don't fall behind."
Meg moved at first with a liquid pace that didn't seem to move any less randomly than their previous path, but after a few minutes she reached a crossroads where she studied the damp dust closely for what seemed like an eternity. Squall hushed any beginnings of conversation until at last Meg straightened up. "At last. Two people, one person, probably male, in a cloak, and another of a build that matches what I saw of Jastyx as she ran by in the Cliffs… Right. I've got them."
And then she ran like patient lightning, the others following as swiftly and quietly as they could. Meg's footfalls were not silent, which surprised the others, but there was a rhythm to the tapping that insinuated into your heartbeat, wasn't background noise so much as it told you it was background noise.
Then she turned a corner, ran through a shattered door and entered a vast chamber, perhaps an ancient amphitheatre. The walls rose at a slope behind the door, with ledges carved into them that might have been simple benches, and ahead was a wide, smooth platform with great pools of perfectly clear water on either side, leading to a single towering statue of Poseidon, guardian spirit and disciple of Mercury.
And standing at the oft-chaotic Poseidon's feet were two figures, one cloaked, and the other all too familiar. Jastyx turned, hearing Zak's hooves failing to be quiet, while the cloaked one continued to look up at Poseidon.
"You're good, I admit," said Jastyx, flipping her trailing hair off her shoulder. "And you've picked up a new idiot or two. Though the savage looks a bit familiar…"
"You probably caught sight of me while you ran for your life from the Little Death I felled a minute later," Meg shot back, drawing her swords again with a sound that snake fangs hope to reach when they grow up.
"I won't bother to correct you. It would imply that I could potentially care about your boxed in little mind," the dark-eyed Venus Adept said.
"I know the ways of nature, and you don't seem to fit." The swords flared red.
"Oh, but I know so much more," Jastyx replied, a look of wild excitement in her eyes.
"Do you know what it feels like to carry an anchor after being clapped in irons?" asked Padriac.
"Arr, she'll know what the Raven's keel feels like afore the day's out!" Hail seconded.
Jastyx seemed shocked at the Djinni's appearance. At the sound of Hail's distinctively inhuman voice, the cloaked figure turned as well.
"That was a Djinni," he stated from the hood's depths. "Mercury, which is unfortunate, but I'd settle for any element. Such concentrated power."
"Get the book and we'll see about Djinn later. I'll hold them off," said Jastyx.
"Hold them off?" said the cloaked man.
"Hold us off?" demanded Cata.
"You think they'd survive your first attack?"
"You think you can take us?"
Cata and locked eyes with the hood. There was a moment that seemed to contain a swift contest of willpower, and then they both looked back to the group at large as Elys pushed Padriac and Meg aside as politely as she could make herself be.
"Halt your scheme, vile thieves, and return the Sea God's Tear, or we shall take it by force. Do not doubt our strength, we fight for the lives of our family and friends, and can never be overtaken by such dark plans as you may hope to achieve," the Dailan girl announced, Mercury Psynergy swirling around her hands.
Cata looked at her friend in awe. "Elys, you're a natural."
"I'm beginning to see the attraction," Elys admitted.
"I'm not impressed yet," the cloaked man declared. "I admit a flair with words, but you're not the only one. Cower and beg for mercy, foolish weaklings, your attacks shall be defeated and returned with lethal force if we must. You face an undefeatable warrior, a fury passed from age to age by name and mantle. You face power that you can never imagine, and I am protected by another force far greater than your own." He threw back his cloak, revealing dark armor of silver and blue, held together by dark violet leather. He wore no helmet but a mane of red and iron-grey hair, and his face could have been any age, but was strong, as though carved perfectly from granite. "I am Dullahan!"
After a pause, Cata forced the thrill of old terrors down and spoke in a way that would have made ancient knights proud, particularly in abandoning the archaic style. "Y'know, the last Dullahan ended up headless. Want to keep with that tradition, too?"
Elys struck first, raising her hands and lashing out with Ice Psynergy, a rain of tearing icicles that didn't stop. Maintaining Psynergy wasn't an easy feat, but sheer anger can take the place of many things, and in this case the difficulties of becoming a channel for Psynergy decided that perfect mental discipline was overrated anyway.
The shards clashed harmlessly off Dullahan's armor, and could not even touch his unprotected face. He drew a sword that crackled with power, cleaved the air once before going into a ready stance, and Elys pivoted, striking Jastyx as she tried to slip in close while the others' attention was diverted.
Then it fell into chaos. Jastyx rolled away from the frigid assault and leapt to her feet again, but found that Meg and Cian were already prepared to meet her. The Venus Adept raised a hand and the ornamental spears from two statues flew from their stony grasps, reshaping in the air much like her technique in the Kandorean Cliffs. The metal warped together and then spun, stretching out into the double-bladed weapon sometimes called a maul sword.
Jastyx lifted the sword-staff into a block just in time to catch the rapier and one of Meg's swords, but the second came in underneath, letting Meg keep the offensive. Then, to Cata's eyes, the three of them became a rampaging globe of points and glinting steel. Certain that any attempts to help there would leave in her worse condition than most of the local statuary, she beckoned to Elys and Padriac, and the three of them faced off against the man who called himself Dullahan.
He wasn't as unnaturally fast as Jastyx, but even a deflected strike from him was as vicious as that of the Lemurian sentinels, and his armor was flawless, without opening or weakness, and Cata felt like she was trying to chop down a castle with antisocial tendencies.
When the combatants calmed down enough to start using Psynergy, Zak was glad he had stayed at a distance. Ice shards burst from both melees, Meg kept Jastyx off-balance by sweeping the ground with Flare, and Cata's intermittent Ray attacks showered them all with sparks. Worse were Jastyx's attacks -glowing skulls of more than one kind and occasional blasts of flying stalactites- or Dullahan's simple Psynergy-strengthened attacks that threw even Padriac several feet through the air.
"Find way to be helpful without getting turned into steaks, find way to be helpful without getting turned into steaks…" Zak muttered, looking around the wide room for anything a horse could use to aid his friends in deadly battle. Something caught his eye. "If that… and it could dislodge… time to see if those stories were anything more than artistic license, I guess."
Padriac did, admittedly, carry a cutlass. It was expected of a sea captain. But he preferred the personal involvement of his well-forged and Psy-tempered gauntlets, and was careful in his movements while Cata and Elys kept Dullahan busy. He just needed one chance.
"We don't need to kill you, you know," Dullahan said, graciously. "Leave now and we shall not follow. We have more important things to do."
"Not likely," said Padriac, behind him. "I was promised pirates and I intend to get pirates." Dullahan knocked Cata backed, slashed a Prism into halves, and turned to look at the captain. Padriac raised one metal-clad fist and smashed it into Dullahan's face, then pulled back, cradling it. "What the hell are you made of?"
"It is not skin that protects me, but the power of-"
"Cata! Elys! Get away!" shouted Zak from afar. Dullahan frowned, looking up to the source of the call, then slashed, cutting diagonally across Padriac's chest and seriously opening him up. The captain clutched at the long wound as Cata grabbed him and pulled him away from Dullahan. Elys threw another Prism and then moved to help her friend.
Zak judged them to be far away enough and then looked at the old, worn wall. The stone was cracked and damaged by floodwaters, enough that a good kick with a back hoof here should cause… should… wow, that was more effective than expected.
The stone crumbled under his strike, for Zak was an Adept too, and had talent similar to Dullahan's in giving power to his attacks. Several levels of the benches above broke as well, taking the support from a spear-wielding statue that fell over, smashing through a supporting pillar. Fractures ran along the ceiling, all the way to Poseidon, and then a small avalanche of wreckage fell from the arches, crashing into Poseidon's crossed arms.
The arms shattered too, raining broken stone onto Dullahan, but he shrugged it off as easily at Cata's sword strikes, instead simply staring at what was revealed. A bright light shone from the damaged statue's chest, precisely the point where the arms had crossed over.
"Jastyx! He found it!" shouted the armored warrior. A great Earthquake knocked Meg and Cian aside for a few brief moments, long enough for Jastyx to see the swirling light and draw out the Sea God's Tear, which she threw into the air. It pulsed a deep blue once and the light from Poseidon faded. No one but Elys noticed the Tear's fall, and she leapt to catch it. The Tear landed in her palm with a satisfying thud, and she quickly pocketed the stone.
With the blinding light gone, a perfect cube of crystal could be seen embedded deep inside the statue, and something else was hidden within that, a small black object. Dullahan pulled a very short staff from his armor, and in his hand it expanded into the Trident of Ankohl, gleaming even in the dim light. This too was thrown, a swift arc that led it straight into the crystal. Lightning leapt from the Trident to the cube as its prongs bit in, and then the whole thing exploded.
The three parts of the Trident landed at Elys' feet, and she absentmindedly gathered them up as well. The black artefact within was also thrown free, and while Elys might have managed to catch it under different circumstances, she was smashed aside by Jastyx, who clutched at what she now saw was a book as though the very world depended on its safety.
"The Book of Summoning," said Cian, fitting together a few old Lemurian stories about hidden treasures and 'the heart of Poseidon'. "You've found where we hid the Tomegathericon."
"If you wanted to keep it out of others' hands, you should have burned it." Jastyx grinned. "You couldn't, could you? It's too powerful even for an altruistic to willingly destroy. You didn't need to, did you? Surely it was safe simply to hide it? Fools." Then a flicker of motion caught her eye and she turned, fighting with all her skill to hold off Meg's relentless attack.
Cian rushed over to the fallen captain. Padriac was looking pale and a single glance would not only show why, but give a doctor some first-hand information on internal anatomy.
"No… Elys, can you heal this?" asked Cian.
"Maybe with a few years' intensive training for Pure Ply," she replied. "A simple Ply wouldn't do anything more than delay… um…"
"I get it," said Cian, not wanting her to finish the sentence either.
"Well, get on with it," said a Mercury Djinni that walked up beside him.
"Hail, I don't have time for you… hey, where'd your pirate act go?" asked Cian, too curious to keep the words from coming out. The Mercury Djinni looked up at him, eyes widening.
"Pirate? Hail? Hail?! Where is that psychopath?" demanded the Djinni, looking around.
"Who are you?" Cian demanded right back, grabbing the Djinni.
"Spring, ancestral Djinni of Lemuria. I'm quite the healer. Want some help?"
Meg struck as swiftly and as hard as she could, but Jastyx was always able to just keep up with her. In theory, having two separate blades should have given her the advantage over Jastyx's maul sword, but that didn't seem to be the case. If there was just…
The obvious solution hit her just quickly enough to let her jump back to reality and block the first attack Jastyx had made in some time. Meg focused, not having quite the skill of the other Adepts, but still a hunter and follower of Mars, by the Spirits. "Fire!" A volley of minor fireballs flew from her hand and wrapped around Jastyx's sword. Being able to craft weapons from raw metal was an interesting skill, but when the entire thing went red-hot, the Venus Adept wondered if maybe she should invest in something with an insulated hilt. She turned to run.
"Jastyx!" shouted Dullahan. So far only Cata, not involved in any of the struggles, had noticed the warrior's predicament. The wreckage from the ceiling and statue might not have hurt him, but it had gathered in quite a heap, and at the moment Dullahan was a rock pile with arms and a head. At the call of her name, Jastyx didn't stop, but hurled a charge of Venus Psynergy behind her, blasting the rocks to dust.
Dullahan pulled free of the last stones and sprinted to catch up, but Padriac was quick, and grabbed a plated ankle as it became available, tripping him. Silently thanking Spring's amazing healing powers, the captain placed a boot on Dullahan's back.
"I believe that you shall always remember this as the day that you almost defeated Captain Padriacazulen Briggs," he said, grinning. Dullahan smashed a fist against the ground, shaking them all off balance with another Quake, and then sank into the earth, out of sight.
"They both got away?" asked Cata.
"I guess," Elys answered. "But we've got the Tear, and this Trident they must have stolen too."
"It's from Ankohl. They'll want it back. Maybe we can get it reforged first," suggested Cian, wondering what the Elders' reaction might be to find that their most prized artifact had been broken again.
"Got another Djinni, too," Meg noted, seeing Spring on Cian's shoulder. "That's two Jupiter and two Mercury now."
"Don't start," Squall warned her. "The fewer Mars Djinn the better."
"I swear I didn't know that book thing was in there," said Zak.
"The Tomegathericon," Cian muttered.
"Not good," Zephyr decided.
"We had better-" began Padriac.
"Run," Cata finished. The others looked at her. She pointed to the space where the crystal holding the book had been. Water was flowing out of it, causing the pools to overflow, and there was a strange rushing sound that made itself understood when a great torrent began to rush out of the hole.
"RUN!" they all agreed.
[Author's Notes] First off, yeah, the 'maul sword' thing was a reference to Darth Maul. Second, well… there isn't a definite second, and I don't have the concentrational capacity to think of one, or do much of anything other than make up long words that almost mean something. If computer problems are going to cause me this much trouble, they should at least be in my computer (don't ask). Next chapter… I have no idea when it'll be up. Sometime within the next couple of weeks, I guess, as usual. Ja mata ne.