Chapter Three
Slowly, Aric blinked his eyes open, then winced, regretting it instantly as he snapped his eyes closed once more. No. Bad idea. Bright light. Not good. Groaning quietly, he shook his head a little...surprised to feel, not cold stone beneath his head, but soft turf and what seemed most likely to be grass tickling at his ears.
Trying the eye-opening thing again, this time more slowly, he began to push himself up on one elbow as the other hand rose to rub the sore bulge at the upper back of his head. Grumbling softly to himself, he swiveled his head in the direction of a soft and melodious feminine, voice humming a light-hearted little tune. The already blurry scenery merged into one colorless blur with the motion so that he regretted it instantly, but it thankfully dissolved again to attempt a more patient refocusing technique when he stopped.
However, apparently the signs of his revival hadn't escaped the source of the music, and the shining patch of gold that was only just resolving itself into hair shifted slightly to glint in the sun. After recovering from the brief instant of blindness that induced, his vision returned to sharper clarity than ever…and such clarity, he marveled as he beheld the radiant beauty from the underground shrine with luxuriant golden tresses and deep, dark eyes, and…
He resisted the urge to give himself a momentary cold shower, since she was currently looking over her shoulder, faintly startled. Upon seeing that it was only him awakening, Ellisia turned her attention forward again. She sat with her back to him, cross-legged, upon her cloak which was spread out upon the grass beneath her. From the way her head was bent, he didn't have to guess what she was doing, even as her soft humming started up again.
Forcing his protesting voice out of momentary strike, he coughed a few times to clear his throat and steady his tone before attempting to speak. "-the hell are you still doing here?" he muttered, discontentedly. Probably not the most tactful thing to say, since she had dragged him back out of the temple after braining him. But she had brained him and that was, at the moment, of more immediate significance.
"Studying the treasure we liberated," she replied matter-of-factly, as though speaking to a child or one brain-addled from too many miscast Mono Volts.
" 'Treasure'?!" He scoffed, quite loudly in fact. "The Golden Stuffed Fish of King Mortimer the Vaguely Impressive was more of a treasure!" Ellisia lifted her head and blinked briefly at the name, before giving a shrug and returning to her supposed work. "Anyway, what's the big idea whacking me over the head if you weren't gonna take the treasure and run?!"
"You were getting overly excitable." Still her voice remained as calm as ever, her position perfectly unruffled and not even a single strand of her flawless golden hair out of place. "And only an uncivilized ruffian would have resorted to such base and vulgar underhanded tactics. If I didn't intend to share the spoils I would not have permitted you to accompany me. Now be a dear and take a look at this. I can't make heads nor tails of it. So to speak."
"Alright, alright, fine," Aric snapped, reaching his hand toward the offered box and plucking it out of the young woman's hand, "Let me see that." He plopped the glass case down onto the grass before him, vowing silently to retain his senses and never again be befuddled by--
He never even got to finish his silent vow, for halfway through it he spied her reflection in the glass as the light caught just right, primping her gilded hair and fluttering her eyelashes just so. Biting his tongue to regain his focus, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, turned the box just so, and then sighed in silent relief when he peeked and saw that the reflection was no longer visible.
Right then. To work. Lifting the case up in his hands again, he bent his head to peer closely, opting for a more elementary sort of investigation before any more in-depth probing. The little platinum disc suspended in the very center of the transparent rectangular case seemed innocent enough; hardly enough to merit all the booby-traps and the great hulking beast set in the path of any interested in procuring it. On one side was a stylized Dragon's head, and on the other what appeared to be the back half of some equine. He bit the inside of his cheek at that, glowering at nothing in particular and instead focusing on the writing along the rim on both sides.
He wasn't much of a linguist, but any third-rate sorcerer knew at least a few obscure runic languages; after all, that was what most books of powerful magics were written in, to keep mere laypersons and demi-human from discerning their secrets. This particular language looked...vaguely familiar, reminiscent of one he was sure he had seen somewhere before, but for the life of him he couldn't place where. It almost seemed as though two separate dialogues had been used, the one on the back side simpler and less archaic than the front. It took him only a few seconds to puzzle out the back, and when he did he blinked momentarily.
"...'In Mort We Trust'?" Aric groaned, clapping a hand to his forehead. "Awh, dammit, not another of that idiot's joke-artifacts..."
He flinched when a hand smacked the back of his already aching skull, and he glowered over his shoulder to Ellisia's vaguely irritated face. "You're reading it upside-down, you nit," she said, stabbing a finger at the glass in an effort to point at the coin. "The top of the lettering is on the inside, not on the rim."
"But that's not how coins are printed," he protested, fishing around in his sadly meager pouch and procuring one to show her. "See? Coins are always printed with the tops of the characters facing outward."
"Monetary coins are," she conceded, in the weary tone of one explaining basic mathematics to an eight-year-old. "But this isn't a monetary coin, is it? Otherwise it wouldn't be where it was. And besides, that's just the kind of trick a wily sorcerer would use to throw off some simpleton who happened to bungle their way past his defenses at all odds."
That tore it. Eyes narrowed, he reached up to snag hold of the front of her collar, dragging her down to his level and bringing her almost nose-to-nose. "Listen up, lady! If it wasn't for me you'd have been chimera-chow down there! No, come to think of it, you would have been squished like a bug before the chimera even had the chance!"
"No, you listen," she retorted, as a slender little hand closed around his wrist with a disturbingly strong grip and pried his hand away from her designer shirt. "I was under no obligation to let you tag along with me to begin with; I could have left you in a crumpled little heap under those pillars and claimed the treasure myself. And as for falling traps turning me into paste as you seem so sweetly concerned about,"--She emphasized the stressed word sarcastically, a hard edge to her narrowed eyes--"well, let me demonstrate something to you, little man."
Pushing herself to her feet and daintily dusting off her fancy trousers, she strode toward the entrance of the ruins even as he watched with wide, stunned eyes. She paused before the strangely blue stone, lifting a finger to her petite chin in thought as she surveyed as though looking for something...then gave a decisive nod and crossed to one of the massive stone pillars that lined the front of the structure. Drawing back one tiny foot in a sleek brand-name boot, she delivered a terrific kick, and Aric flinched in anticipation for the sound of delicate toes breaking.
But then he blinked. Delicate toes didn't go kerunch in the manner of, say, centuries-old stone cracking in a heartbeat. At first, he could hardly see the hairline crack that ran all the way around what he could see of the pillar's diameter. He didn't really need to see much more, though, when he saw the ancient dust beginning to sift down, the monolith slowly leaning down, angled to fall just precisely down onto the tiny girl who had by some inexplicable fluke toppled it, and squish her into ignominity.
Except that that didn't happen. For, just as the falling column would have come crashing down onto her head, Ellisia's hands shot up and intercepted it...and, inconceivably, halted its descent. Though it bobbed, briefly, as her arms absorbed the impact like shocks and sand and stone chips rained down, the pillar held steady.
Even as Aric continued to watch, dumbfounded, Ellisia slowly turned with the massive pillar held up over her head, exerting about as much effort as it would take a bodybuilder to lift her surely less-than-substantial weight. Once she stood facing Aric himself, her back resolutely to the edifice behind her, she shifted her weight back just enough to get the proper leverage--then hurled, sending the blue-stone column flying. Aric shielded his eyes on reflex as it soared toward him, too paralyzed to even dive for cover. He was, however, able to hear it sail over his head, and he recovered the gumption to turn and follow its flight-path just in time to see it come crashing end-down somewhere in the woods surrounding the labyrinth, standing firm and solid like some strange blue tree, recently transplanted...if a little tilted.
Eyes still wide, Aric slowly turned back toward Ellisia--who was busy dusting off her hands and brushing blue sand from her creamy tunic--blinked a few times, and promptly fainted.
By the time he awakened again, the sun was already quite a distance across the sky, so they simply opted to make camp at the entrance to the ruins. Aric still didn't feel quite confident enough to even mention the earlier incident, nevermind ask how--and Ellisia volunteered nothing, so they simply spent the evening in vaguely uncomfortable silence around a small cook-fire, ate a simple and not particularly tasty stew made with water created by his magic and a small array of vegetables stored in her pack, and curled up in their respective cloaks to sleep.
The next morning it was agreed that, since neither of them could discern anything particularly remarkable about the coin other than that it was in fact somehow magical, they would accompany one another to the nearest village to sell it, and then divide the earnings evenly. Aric half-expected Ellisia to dispute this, but when he dared to question she idly tossed off a comment that he had been "remotely useful" in procuring it. Aric, himself, had no objection to the notion either. In spite of her snooty, self-centered and conceited attitude, she was still a stunningly beautiful example of the female persuasion. And she didn't seem all bad, especially in a clinch.
Thus it was that mid-morning the next day saw them striding down the simple country road, a strip of jerky between Aric's teeth and a hand-mirror in Ellisia's hand angled for optimum peripheral vision, as she primped her hair with her other hand. In a gesture of goodwill and mutual trust, the coin in its glass box was carried out in the open, clearly visible from Ellisia's belt-pouch--It was in Ellisia's pouch because of a minor dispute that ended in another demonstration of her strength, after which Aric had promptly decided he trusted her after all. If nothing else, things were at least somewhat less uncomfortable than the night before.
Ellisia was the first to try her hand at conversation. "You know," she said idly, neither looking up from the road, nor from the mirror--an impressive feat in itself, being able to keep track of both--"There are a few things about you that could use improvement."
So much for civility. He angled a mild scowl in her direction, set for the moment on "chill disapproval". "Is that so?" he asked neutrally.
"Well," she began, slipping her hand-mirror into her pack in a motion fluid with practiced ease, easing into the tone of a lecturer from the Sorcerer's Guild, "for one thing, you really should take up a weapon of some kind. No self-respecting sorcerer goes around unarmed."
"Don't believe in 'em," he tossed off lightly, shrugging and folding his hands behind his head, as he continued to while away a bite of the leathery-tough jerky at the corner of his mouth. "'F my magic can't get me out of a scrape, I just ain't meant to get out of it."
"Magic can't solve everything for you," she countered, finally glancing toward him with a delicate golden eyebrow arched over one darker-than-midnight eye. "What if you have to fight someone who specializes in Fire Shamanism? All your Water spells would be canceled out. For that matter, what if you ran into something that wasn't hurt by water or ice?"
"That's why I fall back on other things than Shamanism." He shrugged, bringing one hand around to grasp the strip of jerky so he could tear away the bite he had finally managed to worry off the end. "It's not the only kind of combative magic out there, you know."
"Black Magic," she sniffed disdainfully, as though the phrase were a term of vulgarity.
"It works," he defended his secondary specialty, inspired by a very particular source.
"Doesn't work on Mazoku," she retorted almost sharply, making him blink.
"Does on some of them. But not much at all works on the upper-level ones. Even the Ra Tilt won't kill the big nasties." He shrugged again, finally swallowing the bite of jerky and taking hold of the strip between his teeth again to start on bite number two. "Maybe something like a Dragon Slave, I guess. But Black Magic works about as often as Astral Shamanism, and with a lot more tangible results."
"A Dragon Slave isn't more powerful than a Ra Tilt," Ellisia corrected immediately, "just more destructive. And anyway--"
The impromptu debate on magical precepts was interrupted, sharp as ice cracking in the heat, by a sound that made Aric freeze in his tracks.
"Ahahahahahaha!" The laughter came from the foliage above and to the left, trite and overly-dramatized--and even with a faint echo magically thrown into the sound-amplifying spell for effect. "I might have known I'd find you doing something inane like this, Winterbourne!"
Ellisia stopped a bit later, at the mention of Aric's name, and she glanced over her shoulder at him with both brows raised. Aric, though, was too busy groaning with a hand clapped to his brow, letting out a long-suffering sigh after the noise. "Sweet Lord of Nightmares, not him..." Reaching to pluck the jerky out of his mouth, he tossed it regretfully aside. He wasn't going to be needing it at this point. "Emilio, will you can the dramatics and come out from there? You're embarrassing yourself!"
Ell continued to blink at him, still rather out-of-sorts with the situation, as he turned to face the treeline with crossed arms.
Mere moments later, a figure emerged--no, two figures, which startled even Aric. Emilio looked the same as always, landing on one knee in true dramatic form. At full height he stood, of course, significantly taller than Aric by almost a full head, platinum-white hair combed immaculately down over his left eye, as the other peered chillingly blue from beneath the shadow that partially obscured it. As he slowly stood, his folded-down leather boots creaked audibly in the silent stillness, which also made the rustling of his loose gray pants more prominent. Studded black leather bracers adorned his forearms, matching the sleeveless high-collared black shirt he wore. Belted at his left hip was an ornamental but very, very functional falchion, which he drew with a flourish to point the single-edged and slightly-curved blade in Aric's direction with tangible menace.
His companion, however, was new. She was easily a rival for Ellisia in terms of looks, in a darker sort of way: long, lustrous hair the color of raven-feathers, with eyes the mottled gray of a timber-wolf's pelt--which was rather fitting, since it seemed that was how she had patterned her attire. The only clothing she wore was a single sleeveless tunic that covered her from shoulders to just above the knees, all of gray wolf's fur (or some magical facsimile, possibly), cinched at the waist by a belt of the same. Wolf's-hide wrist-bands complimented the tunic, and even her boots were made of wolf's-hide bound together by some leather-like twine. The only thing about her besides her hair that seemed to upset the scheme was the weapon in her hands.
The sword was nearly as long as she was tall, its blade as broad as Aric's straight-fingered hand. The entire affair, from point to pommel, was an eerie inky black that didn't seem to be obsidian or damascus, but rather composed itself of tangible shadow. Along the length of the blade, to either side of the fuller, were two lines of scarlet runes etched into the metal (if it even was metal), glowing faintly with their own inner illumination and leaving subtle afterimages with each motion the sword made.
"I don't believe you've met before," Emilio began, gesturing to his new colleague by way of introduction. "This is Lhynn. Poor girl doesn't really talk, but I assure you she's quite lethal in the art of the blade." Glancing toward the dark-haired young woman, who stood with her sword held point-up behind her back in an inverted fist--how she could hold that weapon in one hand so effortlessly still baffled Aric--he continued. "Lhynn, kindly relieve the young lady of the Artifact, would you?"
With only a curt nod, the dark-haired woman moved turned toward a slowly comprehending Ellisia, and even as Aric moved to intercept Emilio side-stepped to bar his path. "Can't let you do that, Winterbourne," the platinum-haired man replied, lifting his empty hand and conjuring up a ball of magical flame ready for casting. "Now draw your sword!"
A bead of sweat rolled down Aric's temple as he lifted an index-finger. "Ah, Emilio, I don't carry a sword. Remember?"
The other sorcerer fell over with a muffled crash, the Fireball sputtering out. He hastily pushed himself back to his feet, scrambling to regain his composure, though the dramatic character of the situation was long since beyond his grasp. "Still?! Well, you need to get one, Winterbourne! Or at least a staff! Who ever heard of a sorcerer with no weapon at all?"
"Don't you start," Aric grunted, slowly uncrossing his arms and letting his feet slide apart. Emilio may have been a moron, but Aric had to admit he was still a competent sorcerer and a potentially dangerous foe...and one who would not move without a fight. "What do you want this time, anyway?" Aric demanded, both to divert the conversation away from his lack of a weapon and to try and keep his opponent talking.
"Don't be daft, Aric!" Emilio replied loftily, sweeping his fingers through his platinum-white hair, struggling to regain his verbal upper-hand. "Surely you can't mean to say you don't even realize what you carry!"
"What are you babbling about?!" Aric demanded, balling a fist before him so tightly that his glove creaked over his knuckles, and taking an aggressive step forward. "Out with it, Emilio! No games! I'm not in the mood to play around."
"I'll tell you what," the platinum-haired sorcerer said coolly, again combing fingers down the forward fall of his hair. "Best me, if you can, and I'll pass on to you the sordid tale I learned of these mystical relics. Fail, of course, and I shall simply have to take it and leave you with no--"
"Freeze Brid!"
Emilio froze--literally, as Aric released the spell he had been charging the whole of his would-be nemesis' tirade. Emilio Van Strahd never changed. Ever pretentious, ever self-important, and ever a student of drama. Aric didn't have time for drama at the moment. Not sparing a second, he strode casually around the sorcerer coated in a thin layer of ice, toward where Ellisia was dealing with Emilio's new sidekick.
In all actuality, it rather looked as though his help wouldn't be needed at all. Ellisia was holding her own nicely, proving that hammer she carried was more than simply for show and clouting innocent sorcerers from behind. It had never occurred to Aric that a battle-hammer could be used to parry a sword, but Ellisia was setting the bar, as it were. Using the metal shaft to catch swings of the raven-haired woman's eerie black blade, she would then push them aside and swing, recovering nicely even when she missed and struck the unyielding ground. She fought as though the hammer were completely weightless…which wasn't entirely surprising, considering her stunt the previous day.
But this "Lhynn" was doing more than simply "holding her own". The woman was obviously an expert at her trade, masterfully wielding her own great sword as though it too were weightless. Two super-strong women in two days? Aric frowned and shifted his weight from foot to foot. His luck certainly wasn't improving.
It was during another brief moment of clashing, blade locked against metal shaft as the two pushed against each other, that Ell saw Aric over her enemy's shoulder. "Well, don't just stand there, you oaf!" she blurted upon spying him. "Do something!"
The distraction would have been a mistake, had Aric been any slower, for Lhynn didn't even bother to look and instead took advantage of Ellisia's distraction to gain a leverage advantage. Shoving the other woman back, she struck out with a foot to kick the blonde in the stomach, driving the wind from her lungs. Before she could swing the fatal blow, Aric drew his hands up over his head, gathering power into them and speaking the incantation faster than he had ever chanted before.
"Dark Lord, who dwells in the cold, lonely Sea;
Deep Sea Dolphin, lost child of Madness;
With your dark blessing, defeat the fools who stand before me!
Dolf Stlash!!"
The power ignited between his hands roughly in the form of a lance (if only in the sense that it was oblong and vaguely pointed at the front), darker than shadow, the same black as Lhynn's blade, though it struggled in his hands as his clothing and hair and cloak whipped about as though in a localized typhoon. The bolt of Black Magic power sailed straight and true as he hurled it, tearing apart the very air as it screamed its way at the swordswoman.
Time seemed to slow. Aric could see Lhynn turn, see her eyes widen the tiniest fraction in surprise--and then time decided to catch up, skipping a few beats in a blur. Aric blinked, then blinked again to see…not only the warrior woman standing unharmed with her sword crossed before her body, the scarlet runes on its surface flickering momentarily brighter before dimming again, but not so much as a handful of dirt disturbed. He knew that spell: that was a rather destructive spell. It should have at least scattered some leaves and thrown about some dirt, even if blocked with an Astral Vine-enhanced sword and especially if dodged.
While Aric was still assimilating this, Lhynn turned away without a word and raised her sword, just in time to block a hard swing from Ellisia's hammer. Before Aric could collect himself and ready another spell, he heard the distinctive sound of ice cracking and shattering, and turned to find himself on the wrong end of a sword-point opposite a very irate Emilio.
"Bad form, Winterbourne, but I'd expect no less from your ilk." This time Emilio didn't delay either; he withdrew the point of his sword to level it horizontally, parallel with his shoulders, and laid a pointing index-finger upon the flat. For a moment, Aric blinked in confusion…a dangerous mistake, because by the time he realized the fingertip was beginning to glow it was too late. "Burst Rondo!"
Reflexively, Aric lifted his arms to shield his eyes as a series of fist-sized globes of flame burst into being and exploded around him, producing more flash and sound and smoke than actual heat. He staggered back, by instinct, just in time to feel the passing wind of Emilio's falchion passing through the air where he had been.
When the smoke finally cleared and Aric could see--and breathe--again, He saw only Emilio, standing with the dull side of his falchion propped against his shoulder and a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
"Hah!" Aric scoffed, slowly crossing his arms and matching smirk for smirk. "You're getting sloppy, Van Strahd. That was a grandiose waste."
The platinum-haired sorcerer said nothing, simply lifting his empty hand to breathe on his knuckles and then rubbing them against the collar of his shirt. Aric blinked slightly, then looked up…and groaned, wearily. "Awh, sh--"
The branch that landed on his head wasn't heavy enough to send him back to an early sleep, but it left him staggering and dazed, just long enough for Emilio to work up his next spell.
"Fireball!" The resulting explosion sent Aric tumbling end over end, coming to a rather painful stop when he collided with the base of a tree. He surged to his feet, hands cupped to his side as sparkling blue lights gathered between them, but Emilio was already out of sight.
It took only a glance up to find him, standing in the fork of a peculiarly-shaped tree with Lhynn lounging on one of the sturdier branches to his left. Even as Aric spied him he was sheathing his falchion, and in his left hand…he casually tossed a small, platinum disc with his thumb, snatching it out of the air and then flipping it again. A quick scan revealed Ellisia lying face-down in the road a short distance away, sparkling shards of shattered glass littering the dirt nearby.
"Ell!" Aric lunged toward her, but before he could get more than a step another Fireball erupted at his feet. He turned to glare venomous daggers at Emilio, who snatched the coin out of the air one more time before pocketing it and sweeping fingers through his hair.
"She'll be fine," the other sorcerer assured coolly, lifting an eyebrow the same platinum-white as his hair. "I'm a treasure-hunter, Winterbourne, not a murderer. Sorry to counter dirty pool with dirty pool, but I'm in something of a hurry. I'll tell you what, though: If you want this Artifact back, and want to know the secrets behind it…beat me to the next piece. There's an old, abandoned sorcerer's tower about a day's trip southwest of here. The next piece, the Armor, is sealed at the bottom of the sorcerer's underground laboratory. If you've any semblance of a spine, Winterbourne, I'll see you there!"
With that, both Emilio and Lhynn leaped upward, vanishing into the foliage overhead, Emilio leaving a final "Ahahahahahaha!" in their wake. For a moment, Aric debated launching himself after them, but a soft groan from behind alerted him to higher priorities.
"Ell…!" Picking his way around the scattered shards of broken glass as best he could, he moved to where she lay, gently searching out her shoulder beneath the white of her cloak and using it to roll her onto her back. Her eyes, which had been half-opening, winced closed at the sudden light and she gave voice to another groan.
Frowning, he checked her over briefly for injuries…and found none, as Emilio had promised. Her hammer lay a couple yards away, her hair was a little mussed and she grimaced in obvious pain, but he could find no sign of permanent damage, blade-wound or otherwise. Reluctantly, worriedly, he kneeled next to her and bent low. "You okay…?"
His initial answer was a dainty gloved fist to his jaw, rocking him back and setting the countryside to slow-waltzing around him. When he could focus again he saw Ellisia pushing herself up with one hand, the other lifted to her temple. "Do I look okay?" she groaned irritably, slowly shaking her head. Then, surprising him, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye and mumbled a very quiet, almost inaudible, "ah, sorry."
Still rubbing his jaw, Aric found his glower stifled by the unexpected apology. He waved it off without a word, however, squatting in place with his elbows on his knees. "What happened?"
"She kicked me," Ellisia replied, rather offhandedly Aric noticed with a suspicious frown. But he didn't say anything. Instead, he glanced down at the broken glass with a frustrated sigh.
"Emilio got the coin," he started, but she cut him off with a lifted hand.
"I heard. Who was that guy, anyway? If that's a friend of yours, I can see why you greet them from above and out of sight."
"Emilio's…" Aric frowned for a moment…then took a deep breath and released a sigh. "It's complicated. I first ran into Emilio Van Strahd a few years ago…not too long after I graduated the Sorcerer's Guild and started the whole 'adventuring sorcerer' bit. I beat him to a treasure he had been tracking down for months, completely by accident, and ever since he's had the impression that I'm his arch-nemesis or something. The girl, I don't know anything about--she's new." He shrugged, glancing over his shoulder in the direction the treasure-hunter had disappeared. "I hate to concede a win to that idiot, even if I don't really care about his so-called rivalry, but--"
"We have to go after him," Ell interrupted, her tone resolute and her eyes hard.
"Look, it's just a trinket. I'm sorry your trip was a bust and all, but…"
Her hand lifted up to seize hold of his collar, and she brought him down until he was almost nose-to-nose with her. "We're going after him."
"We're going after him," he agreed, suddenly feeling very, very tired.