"So, where are we anyway?" Alex asked from where he sat upon a dead kruthik. Eric was still out of commission and Rachel still had trouble moving, so the group had decided to wait till everyone was at a hundred percent.
"Heck if I know, I've been trying to scry this place, but I'm just not getting anything useful. This place's defensive wards are insanely powerful." Ashley said from her spot on the floor, where she'd been preparing for anything that might come their way. Mostly by flipping through her book and marking certain pages for spells that may come in handy. Her war scythe lay on the floor next to her. Freshly sharpened and oiled, ready for battle.
"Wards?" Alex asked.
"Permanent magical effects. Some of them stop certain things from happening, like scrying. While others keep things from entering or affecting areas their cast on. Some even cause things to happen."
"Like...?"
"Remind me to tell you about the vaudeville field when we're not in mortal peril." Ashley said with a grin as she closed her book.
"Sure... oh look, he's waking up. Eric, welcome back to the land of the living." Alex said congenially as he stood from his seat. Moving over to help a groggy Eric up from his place on the floor.
"Dude... what happened?" Eric said as he finished the process of awakening.
"You lost a lot of blood my friend. If it weren't for Ashley, you'd be on a cloud strumming a harp right now." Alex said as he pulled Eric to his feet.
"Well, um... thanks I guess." Eric then noticed the strange spear like weapon sitting beside Ashley. "Where did you get that?"
"My mom made me learn to use a weapon, in case someone got too close for comfort." Ashley said as she picked up her war scythe. "Plus, I enchanted it to burst into flame."
"Would you mind showing us?" Rachel asked as she pulled herself to her feet. Without a word, Ashley twirled the blade twice in her right hand and brought the haft down into her left hand in an almost stylized pose. The blade of the scythe burst into flame as she brought the scythe down.
"Well, at the very least we'll never lack a torch." Eric snarked from the side. A moment later the silence was broken by a dull thud as Alex smacked the joker upside the head.
"Ow! Hey, watch the brain cells. I've only got so many of them!" Eric snapped indignantly as started rubbing the back of his slapped skull.
"Too bad you don't have more." Rachel deadpanned to the laughter of Alex and Ashley. Eric blushed at the teasing and turned to stomp away from the group, only stopping to pick up the crystalline spike he'd used for a spear earlier that day.
"Aww, come back Eric. You know we mean no harm." Ashley said pleadingly as her laughter subsided.
"Fine." Eric said with a dramatic flair as he turned around to grin at the group continued to laugh and jest for awhile, before growling stomachs alerted them to the harsh reality of their situation.
"Yeah... We're going to need some food soon." Alex said as he rubbed his stomach absently.
"Think we could eat these... what are these things?" Rachel asked as she gestured towards the insectoid monsters.
"I looked them up in my traveler's handbook. Their called 'Kruthiks'. Should be safe enough, just cook them like you would a crab." Ashley informed them as she put away a big book in her deceptively spacious satchel.
"I have a better solution. Ashley, your a mage right?" Eric asked.
"Yeah...?" Ashley answered hesitantly.
"And you know magic right?" Eric questioned.
"What about it?"
"Couldn't you like... make food? I mean, the mages in World of Warcraft make food all the time." Eric finished, looking supremely pleased with himself. Ashley sighed with exasperation. Games like that made a mockery of the Art.
"No, I can't just make food. Sorry, but I'm not a conjurer." Ashley responded, trying to not sound condescending.
"Awww. Well, better to find out now then later." Eric responded, dejected.
"I do, however, have an item that might help us out." Ashley said as she pulled a wicker picnic basket. Delicious smells radiated out of the plain basket. Everyone's mouths watered as Ashley set the basket on the floor. With a flourish, she opened the basket, causing food to miraculously appear on a blanket that radiated out from beneath the basket.
"What didn't your mom give you." Rahel asked as the two boys wordlessly dug into the picnic spread out before them.
"A lot of things. I've got a few enchanted items to help with survival, but the potions and the basket of plenty are the only things other people can use. Everything else is set to work only for me." Ashley responded as she nabbed a ham and turkey sub sandwich from the blanket.
"Well... at least we won't starve to death." Eric said through a mouthful of sandwich. They all sat quietly and ate for a few minutes, only slightly perturbed that they were eating using the dead kruthiks as seats. Alex decided to break the silence.
"So Ashley, how many different types of magic are there?" Alex asked after taking a swallow of some of the water the basket had provided.
" Oh where do I start. There are literally dozens of different practices of magic. All of them work, they just take different methods to get working. For example, Chrisitan Black magic requires a connection to a demon of the nine hells while the magic of the Aztecs requires Human sacrifice." Ashley said as she put her sandwich down for a moment.
"So... I'm just gonna go out and say it, what type do you practice?" Eric said after the uncomfortable silence that followed Ashley's admittance of the existence of demons.
"American Wizardry. It's a tradition that developed from the cultural melting pot of our country. American Wizardry is the magical tradition that most closely relates to the type of wizardry you see in movies." Ashley began in a lecturing tone. "We use everything from arcane language to hand gestures to rituals. Making American wizards the most versatile of any magic user. The downside is that we can never really focus on one specific type, so we can never pull off the same power as pure magic users of different traditions. I'll never be able to perform the same rituals as a theurgist. Or speak the same spells as an Egyptian priest. But I can use most magical traditions and methods to some degree of success." Ashley lectured as she finished her sandwich.
"So your a jack-of-all trades when it comes to magic?" Eric asked.
"Essentially."
"Well, as interesting as that was. Is there a limit to how many times we can use that basket? I'd rather not find out the hard way." Rachel asked as she stood from her kruthik corpse seat.
"Yes, we can only use it six more times." Ashley said quietly as the sudden realization of their limited resources struck hard.
"Well, looks like we have to find a way out of this ruin. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't want to push my luck here. These bugs must have found some way in here, I just hope we don't have to dig our way out." Alex said as he stood and dusted himself off.
"Yeah, it shouldn't be that hard to find a way out." Eric said as he grabbed his spear and got up. Rolling his neck and stretching, the now-energetic spear man set off for the far side of the room with Alex in tow. Rachel stayed behind with Ashley to help pack up the basket of plenty before the girls set off after the boys.
Their adventure had begun, for as Lao Tzu once said. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
The group had left the star dome far behind, now traveling through the slowly collapsing tunnels of the ruin they were trapped in. The group's current plan was to track the kruthiks back to where they'd come from and hopefully find a way out from there. However...
"You know what just occurred to me? Those things might have come from a nest or something. If we keep following this tunnel, we could end up... in... a... nest..." Alex said as they walked through a doorway, into a room filled with eggs and the high-pitched chittering of young kruthiks. Whatever the room might have been in the past, the place was fully converted to the use of the kruthiks.
Long swaths of the floor had been pulverized into sand, serving as bedding for the masses of soft leathery eggs that kruthiks no doubt hatched from. Cat sized kruthiks wandered about the room, fighting and playing amongst themselves and the eggs. A hideously large kruthik wandered amongst the eggs, watching over the eggs till they hatched.
"Okay everyone, now we quietly make for the rear exit." Alex whispered as the whole group turned to retreat, but Erik tripped over his own feet and came to the floor with a crash and a yelp. The egg room, which had been filled with the happy chittering squeals of young kruthiks, now became dead silent.
Yeah, this is a problem.
Yeah, swarming is a-coming. Will our intrepid group survive?
