Bloody foot prints trailed off to a darkened portion of the maze leaving the Saturday's alone, Solomon scooped his unconscious son up in his arms, his worried wife looking up at him. Self blame filled her eyes, she let her gaze wander to the tunnel Azurvi had disappeared into.
"It's not your fault Drew, we had no idea van rook-"
"I know, I can't help but want to quit my job when times like these come across."
"Look, I don't think it was anyone's fault. We just find Azurvi and have her reverse the process with the stone." Doyle pipped up attempting to cheer the somber party up.
"Look for her if you will, I don't feel comfortable just wandering around here with him. It's too dangerous without any sense of back up. Besides we don't know if she's reverted to what was in the cave or if she can even reverse the process." Solomon spoke as calmly as he could to his over eager brother in law.
"She is as much a part of the kur stone mystery as she is to why he's like this. She has to know something." Doyle shrugged and made his way toward the tunnel with foot prints.
"Please stay in contact, we don't want anything else to happen."Drew spoke quietly.
"Don't worry sis, I'll be fine. Zak will be fine."
The two scientists made their way back to the entrance as the former mercenary made his way down the tunnel that could be leading to his death. That thought was in the back of his mind, the beasts that lived in here were vicious, a pattern he'd began to take note with any creature closely involved with Kur.
The tunnel smelled of blood and death, both old and decomposing to the fresh scent of iron tinged blood. The foot prints occasionally skipped from where she'd jumped a creature and torn into it, blood pools getting more frequent as he traversed down the eerily silent tunnel, each carcass he came across began to paint a more grotesque picture of the uncontrolled power that lived inside the small woman. He couldn't help but feel afraid of her and what her actions would be. Would he have to fire on her? Would he have to essentially end her, to get Zak back? These questions floated through his mind as he side stepped a few fresh corpses, some of the corpses looked unfamiliar from the long horned creatures they were fighting off earlier, were these just as aggressive or were they creatures that merely wished to be alone?
His thoughts began to wander as he followed the trail of bodies to a large open room where a slaughter lay before him. Could this have been the nest of the unfamiliar creatures and if so why the need for the death and destruction. He felt his fist tighten as he imagined these creatures helpless before her, if he had to, he'd end her. For the world and for her sake, he remembered the look of relief when she first changed back into a human like form, to feel humanity and to feel like she had some control over herself. He didn't want her to feel that pain of knowing what she did and not be able to stop.
He took note of the separating passage ways and the footprints going in and out of the tunnels, if she had disappeared into one of them, she'd be hard to track at this point. He simply called out to her hoping that a shred of humanity was left.
"Vi?"
Then he heard the growl from a side tunnel and a scrape of claws against stone. Azurvi in her monstrous form emerged covered in bloody, the half snout revealing a fang that was stained pink. However fearsome and vicious she may have looked, her eyes were the eyes of a soul crying, someone feeling the deepest regret that one person could even feel.
"Vi I know you're there. What happened to Zak, I know you can fix this some how."
"The stone....combined with living crystal, will wake." The words came out broken and forced, her animal form pushing for control.
"Where do I find that?" he was feeling threatened now, her eyes were beginning to change from sorrow to a predator's eyes. She stepped forward, a clawed hand flexing around a stone jutting out of the wall.
"Priestesssss..."The word was lost in a growl and she lunged forward toward Doyle, fangs aimed for his juglar.
Doyle had little time to react, she was faster like this than she had been before. He barely rolled out of the way before she was rebounding and lunging for him again. This time he had time to move and attempted to talk some sense into her.
"Vi, look, you're not LIKE this. You said yourself, you were a priestess, you were supposed to protect lif-" Doyle was cut short as a slim crystal shard pierced his shoulder.
"See? I knew you were in there some where, look you can still throw these things. Which means the real you is somewhere inside of that."he winced, that crystal hurt a lot more than he thought it would.
Azurvi stood over him a clawed hand reached down and grabbed him, lifting him in the air. The snarl in the back of her throat threatened his end. He had to try, one more time.
"Azurvi, come on. Your mother gave her life and here you are, subcoming to the very thing that got her killed. You are better than that. Honor her damnit!" he shouted as he swung for her. His fist made contact wit the side of her blood caked face and forced her to let go of him. She backed up against a wall, watching the hair from her drop off like some sort of bizzare speed shedding, her hands got smaller and more well formed. She now looked like she was supposed to, a young priestess.
"Doyle! I'm so sorry! Please let me help."she cried dashing over to him, liquifying the barbed crystal she'd embedded in his shoulder.
"I'm okay, I'm just glad you're thinking humane thoughts again. I was nearly dinner." He gave a weak smile attempting to keep the situation under control.
"And Zak, they'll never forgive me for that. I nearly killed him. That diving into one's mind is difficult for even the most skilled, but to dive into my soul. I don't know what he was thinking."
"He was trying to protect a cryptid."
"I am as much of a monster as I am with the extra hair. I just have more control." Azurvi sighed looking to her hands which still had splotches of blood on her pale blue skin. Doyle stood up testing his balance before letting go of stalactite.
"Look, I'm not condoning what you have done and tried to do just now, but beating yourself up isn't going to help anyone, including yourself."
"You're right, I need to fix what I can." She sighed wishing she could push out the memories of her ruthless killing which still played fresh in her mind..
"We need to get going. I don't want something to trigger you back to whatever that thing was, I don't want to have to hurt you or something worse." Azurvi nodded quietly to him "Good thing I brought the jet pack. Do you mind if I carry you? We'll get out a lot faster." He was beginning to feel edgy, the room was beginning to feel unpleasant and oppressive.
"I don't mind..."
Doyle scooped her up and with a quick push he was off in the air, following the same path he had taken tracking her down and paused at the cross roads where the whole thing had started.
"Go south and then go east then continue south til you can go east again. Keep going east until there is no more south, then take the west till you find south again. Follow south to find the entrance." Azurvi spoke quietly, reversing the song that was printed on the wall of the entrance. It had taken her a while to fully translate it was an old form of Atlantian that she wasn't that familiar with. She spent the rest of the trip in silence, the silence worried Doyle, but also the fact that she could get set off by something small, he was unsure of how stable she really was.
Upon coming out of the maze, surprisingly nothing terrible was happening, the sun was out now and the airship stood where it had been with the only change of the broken window, which Doyle immediately blamed on his former employer, even if it wasn't his fault. He still took joy in shifting the blame to an easy scapegoat.
"I am still afraid that they will not let me close to him, something I need to be in order to fix this."Azurvi commented as she was let go and touched the ground. "I only need a small amount of material to make the crystal itself, but getting close I fear will be the hard part of the entire process."
"I'm sure it will be fine."
"I can guarantee this will reverse what has been done. He will wake up fine as if nothing had really happened."
The next couple minutes he watched her walk around occasionally picking up a stone or a small handful of dirt and then proceeded to find a small puddle of water and dumped the contents in her hands in and the next moment the puddle began to evaporate, taking the stones and dirt with it, leaving a small crystal behind.
"The living crystal is complete, I can undo this now."
"See one step closer to redeeming yourself." Azurvi gave him a weak smile, but the look of being on edge and nervous never left her face as they made their way to the door, it opened with the same hiss as it did before, the metal felt the same, but the feeling of walking into the airship didn't feel as it did before.
"They'll be in the med lab driving themselves nuts." Doyle put his hand her shoulder and steered her toward the elevator. The ride was short and quiet as the flight was, she cradled the small gem in her hands. The gem itself was small, clear but seemed to pulse with a soft light within, almost like a beating heart.
The doors opened to reveal Doyle's brother in law, Solomon. His face displayed many emotions when his eyes met Vi's.
"I've come to help, please, let me just reverse this."
"You're certain you can do this?"
"Yes I am, I have had to do this a few times in my life."
It was very clear that he wasn't moving to let her by, Doyle looked to Azurvi and then to Solomon.
"I can probably guess nothing you've tried has worked and she's offering a different solution. Let her help, what's the worst that can happen."
"WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?" Solomon's temper finally surfaced as his hand shot out to pin the red head to the wall. In a split second Azurvi caught his wrist, her small hand surprisingly stopping the larger man. Doyle let the breath he'd been holding in out and looked to her, hoping that her next words were chosen wisely.
"I understand that something happened to your son. I am offering a cure, I know I was part of the problem at one point, but I'm trying to fix things. Make up for what I have done, which is going to be very difficult if you are going to be like this. Stop fearing outside influences and let someone in to offer a hand." Azurvi spoke clearly as she pulled his hand away from Doyle.
"You don't know what it's like to have a child..."
"Maybe I don't, but the followers of the temple were my charges as well. They looked to priestesses for guidance, protection and healing. I am offering what I do best. Let me help"
Solomon was quiet for a moment and Drew appeared behind him. Her husband's shouting had alerted her to the argument and had come to quiet them down.
"She is right, my love, we do need to let someone step in sometimes. We can't do it all ourselves."
"See? She's thinking clearly, come on doc. Just give her a shot." Doyle remarked as he edged by Solomon.
"Alright, one shot."Solomon sighed, stepping aside to let the priestess by.
Drew smiled, still feeling the same fear she had been for the past few hours in the pit of her stomach. She would give anything to hear Zak or see him running around the airship. She watched the small girl walk into the med lab, past Fiskerton who was seeming to be suffering depression without his brother and past a melancholy Komodo.
Zak was laying on the table, breathing softly, his hand still tightly wrapped around the crystal. She placed the crystal she'd created on his forehead and began repeating in Atlantian a soft chant, the crystal pulsed along with the speed of the chant and then began to increase as she stopped and ended with the last word, 'Siash'. The crystal glowed now with a light that got brighter and brighter, finally the crystal shattered and the light in the room faded. All was quiet as Drew stepped in.
"Did it work?"
"Mom?" a groggy voice responded to Drew. All at once Fiskerton, Doyle, Solomon and Komodo rushed to the table as Azurvi stepped back. Choruses of 'you're okay', 'don't scare me like that again.', 'welcome back' and the comforting sounds from Fiskerton and Komodo were heard as Zak peeked up to see Azurvi making herself small and out of the way.
"Azurvi..I'm sorry."Zak said quietly. The clamor of his family quieted at this remark.
"You don't need to, it was my fault."
"No for everything. I saw what you had to go through, and what you have to deal with now. It doesn't look like fun."
"It's my path and I have to walk it, no matter how rocky."
"This key, the other half. What does it have to do with the water exactly, I couldn't sort it in your mind."
"It combines with the water to allow you to soul dive into a god. To take control of the powers he controls."
"Then that's why it's needed for when Kur is woken up."
"Yes but you need the right incantation and rituals to soul dive. I don't know how you did it without any of that."
"I don't know either."
Drew looked thoughtful with this new information and walked over to the atlantian and looked closely at the burned on characters that had changed in the temple. "These have Sumarian bases, some of it doesn't make sense, but the language itself is based from Sumaria."
"So she is part of the key?" Doyle said tilting his head.
"It would appear so."
"Sooo what does that mean?" Zak said sliding off the table to the ground.
"It means we have to find out what those marks mean and what they have to do with the Kur stone."
"Also we can't let Argost find out that she's part of this. He was wrong about just needing the water."
"Also we will need that water back." Azurvi said quietly."it taints anything it touches, it could spread that influence of Kur on to the world again before he even awakens."