Chapter 23 The Gigas
Since his death the dynast king had slept soundly in his tomb, the only way in being a hidden magical transporter had been undisturbed, allowing all manner of creatures to flourish inside this strange dark ecosystem. And now fro the first time in over a century two new objects had entered this little world. Two objects that were being watched closely by the other occupants.
"Vaan, we should go back." Hissed Penlo as they crossed the bridge over the pit. Vaan sighed.
"You worry way too much." He scoffed, "Nothing could have gotten in here for a few hundred years at least." He turned back to face forward, only too meet eyes with a vicious multi armed beast. Vaan yelped and jumped backwards into Penelo who in turn fell to the floor.
"Ow, Vaan!" She complained but Vaan was already running in the opposite direction. It was a long time before he heard her call from the other side of the bridge.
"It's just a statue." After the two of them examined their opponent and confirmed it was indeed a statue, they hurried on with Vaan very red in the face. "I feel so safe with you around." Penelo said sarcastically, "It was even part of the wall, how could you miss that?" Vaan said nothing until they reached the large stone door on the opposite side of the room.
"Well." Said Vaan. "Any bright ideas on how to open this door?" Penelo walked forward and pushed the door lightly, it swung open as if it's hinges were oiled yesterday.
"Woah." Said Penelo. "I didn't expect it to be that easy. It's like it was made recently."
"Or it's never been used." Said Vaan darkly. "Besides this room is identical to the last one." Peering into the dimly lit room Penelo saw he was right. Yet another stone box, yet another bridge and yet another bottomless pit.
"It's even got the same statue." Vaan complained. There it sat, just like tho other one. Only this time at this end of the room facing down the bridge.
"Maybe the architect didn't like anything new?" Penelo suggested hopefully as they descended the steps to the bridge. Vaan was about to answer but was interupted by the sound of creaking stone. Even that small noise was enough to echo around the chamber.
"What was that?" He murmered. Penelo grabbed his arm.
"Let's keep going." She whispered. Vaan nodded.
"Relax," He said. "This place has been here a while, I wouldn't be surprised if a few rocks were loose." Then a new noise echoed round the room. The sound of a lot of stone being dragged across the floor.
"Rock slide?" Suggested Vaan, Penelo shook her head, pointing over his shoulder. Back at the begining of the bridge, the statue wall was moving, surprisingly quickly as well. At it's base it had sprouted multiple insect like legs which were dragging it along at a remarkable speed. It's multiple arms all brandished weapons which were swinging round wildly. By this point in time Penelo and Vaan were already running but the wall was actually gaining on them.
"Look!" Penelo shrieked. Vaan looked ahead and too his horror saw that the way off the bridge was sealed, they were trapped. It was just a matter of what killed them first, the swinging blades or the crushing wall. Vaan dropped all reason and charged the wall. Penelo's screams fell on deaf ears as he thought to himself.
"If I'm going to die here I'll make this thing stop before it reaches Penelo." He closed his eyes and swung his sword into the wall, nothing happened. In fact the wall itself didn't seem to be advancing at all, or trying to kill him. Puzzled, Vaan opened his eyes. He had swung his sword straight into a large piece of the bridge which had risen up to stop the advance of the wall which was quite clearly struggling on the other side.
"My goodness Vaan!" Came an all to familiar voice from the first doorway. "Don't you know anything about rich men and their tombs, if you touch anything you get your head chopped off." Vaan sighed as Balthier and Fran appeared from behind their attacker.
"OK, how did you guys get in?" Vaan asked as the newly reunited party traversed stairway after stairway into a deep pit.
"Well, you did leave an obvious clue," Vossler chuckled. "We couldn't exactly miss the lantern." Balthier looked around, rather dissapointed.
"You know I expected the final resting place of the dynast king to be a little more..." He struggled to find the right word.
"Shiny." Fran quipped, smirking slightly. Vossler moved next to Ashe.
"It wounds me to look on as they pillage a place so solemn as this." Ashe put her hand on his arm to calm him.
"Yet without them you and I are as nothing." Vossler growled, unconvinced. "He thinks ever and alway of his own profit." She continued. "Asure him of that and he will remain true to our cause."
"I do not share your majesty's trust." The knight persisted, but Ashe silenced him.
"We will continue this later, for now we need to find the dawn shard." She snapped. She stepped away from Vossler and began musing to herself. "It sleeps, in waiting. Somewhere deep within."
"How can you be sure?" Vossler muttered, Ashe turned back to him, more kindly.
"Because I can hear it's call."
Suddenly through all the conversation Fran stopped moving, and it was a full ten seconds before anyone noticed.
"Fran?" Balthier called back. "Sometime today would be nice." Fran didn't move. Then Penelo saw it too. The air around them was slightly distorted, not cleanly like a mirror but heaving like an ocean in a storm. Flowing around them like a river, though it looked like ordinary fog.
"Fog, underground?" Penelo breathed watching the spectacle.
"Not fog, mist." Fran said, Penelo's eyes widened.
"You mean the natural magickal energy around us?" Fran nodded. "But I thought you couldn't see that with your eyes?" Fran chuckled.
"Where it is thick enough you may." She stared into space for a while. "The nether runs deep in this place." She murmered quietly. Penelo looked alarmed.
"So does that make the mist dangerous?" She asked suddenly, Fran's trance was broken as she turned to face her pupil.
"The presence of a mist like this can only mean a powerfull source, this can be both good and bad." Noticing Penelo become more agitated she added. "But it also acts as a catalist to magick, enabling us to perform powerfull feats in return." Suddenly the whole group stopped, the path split into three.
"What do you think?" Basch spoke for the first time in a while. Ashe pondered.
"It's the central path." She said finally. "I know it is." Balthier shook his head.
"That's what any trap ridden place would have you do." He said dully. "If I know tombs, and I do. Then the way to the treasure is to the left."
"Perhaps Raithwall anticipated this." Basch said. "And chose to leave it to the right instead."
"This is getting us nowhere." Ashe bellowed. "Me and Vossler are going this way, we'll see who finds the dawn shard first." She pouted at her competition and strode off down the central tunnel, Vossler following at her heels. Balthier sighed.
"Well, if she turns up dead don't blame me, come on my dear." He beconed to Fran who followed lazily. Basch scowled.
"Coming Vaan." He rumbled as he went down the right path, not wanting to antagonise the knight, Vaan followed with Penelo right behind him.
For another hour they delved deeper and deeper into the black abyss, the mist getting thicker all the time. It was unnerving, having so much magickal energy around you. Quite often Vaan would catch reflections of himself in the energy around him, more than once he nearly lost Basch and Penelo trying to follow himself.
"How much further do you suppose it is?" He asked Basch, the knight shrugged.
"I'm starting to think we should have taken the left path." He mumbled quietly. Penelo blanched.
"You mean we have to waste another hour getting back to that crossroad, that is if we can find our way?" She complained, but she was soon silenced. The Passageway they were on had opened out into a giant chamber which was brightly lit with blazing torches all around the room.
"Looks like the others got here first." Vaan observed, Basch's eyes narrowed.
"Or they were already lit." The trio descened the short staircase into the hall where multiple carvings adorned the walls
"Now I'm no expert," Basch said carefully. "But I believe these depict Raithwall's life." Vaan looked in wonder as he moved along the wall, he could make out battles and quests. Finding three stones, uniting the nations... His view of the wall was suddenly obscured as a statue was in the way. Rather annoyed Vaan looked up at the stone creation. It was some form of bipedal beast with four arms and a horned head carrying an enormous mace like weapon.
"The guardian of the tomb." Explained Penelo. "I heard that rich people put scary statues in their tombs to frighten the superstitious thieves." Vaan grinned.
"Never stopped me, that thing is harmless." Basch gave him a warning look.
"If it was put here to defend Raithwall I do not believe it to be harmless."
"Look here!" Shouted Penelo from across the room. "I've found the way through." Vaan and Basch joined her to see an ornate archway, certainly not the same as the other entrances to the room.
"How do you know this is it?" Vaan asked skeptically, Penelo shrugged.
"Cause it's big and weird and in the middle of the room." Basch smirked.
"Good enough for me." They hadn't gone a yard towards the door however when an iron gate slammed down over their path.
"Defense mechanism." Basch reasoned. "Don't worry, I'll have this out of the way in no time." But Vaan wasn't worried about the gate, his eyes were fixed on the other side of the room. And for good reason, the statue was moving. Parts of it's stone skin were peeling of like scabs to reveal strong heaving muscles, the weapon lost it's covering and became deadly and sharp. In little more than a minute the creature was standing before them in all it's glory. It seemed to have grown, it was now three times the height of a man, it's fire red skin and brown mane of hair glistening in the torchlight. The temperature in the room skyrocketed, it was like being back out in the desert. There was nowhere for the group to run, to get out of any of the doors they would need to get past this thing. Basch was the first to realise this and charged in, sword drawn. The creature swung it's weapon to counter the knight's, Basch swung in an attempt to throw his opponent of balance but it's strength was astonishing. It stayed to the floor as though bolted there. Basch tried to retaliate but the creature was too quick, it swung the blunt end of it's weapon into Basch's side. The hapless knight barely had time to shout before he was thrown into the stone bricks of the wall, things broke, not the wall. Basch crumpled to the floor and lay still. Vaan drew his own sword, he knew he had no chance but he wouldn't let this thing hurt his friends. The beast looked up at him as if to say, you have no chance, relax and it will be over quickly. And then the wall to their right exploded.
The creature leapt into the farthest corner of the room to face this new opponent. As the dust cleared Vaan heard a voice through the hole.
"Well, we had to take a few short cuts but we got there in the end." Balthier said cheerily as he stepped out from the chaos he'd created. "Well, who are you then?" He smiled at the sight of the creature. Fran's jaw had dropped, showing a rare case of extreme emotion.
"Nu'mou." She breathed, Balthier raised an eyebrow.
"My dear this is hardly the time for a language lesson." But Fran was already sprinting across the room towards Basch.
"We must escape!" She shouted frantically back to him. "This is a fight we cannot win." Balthier scoffed.
"Nonsense, all it takes is a little..." But what exactly it took a little of we will never know. The creature crossed the room in a single bound and tightly wrapped the fingers of it's third hand around Balthier's neck. Unable to do anything else Balthier ripped his gun from it's holster and fired two shots into his captor's chest. The bullets even at point blank range failed to even make a dent in the creature's skin. At once Fran was on her feet, chanting words too quickly for Vaan or Penelo to follow. At once a huge amount of water appeared from nowhere and with Fran's guidance hurled itself at their enemy in the form of a giant wave. The giant raised a single finger lazily to touch the oncoming water, at once the entire wave evaporated. Not detered Fran readied her bow but the creature was too fast. Fran was already engulfed in it's own fire magick. Vaan stared at the situation with disbelief. In the blink of an eye this animal had flattened their group that Vaan had considered to be invincible. And now it once again began it's advance on him and Penelo. Vaan looked desperately around, there was no one left to help them. Basch probably had more broken bones that healthy ones, Balthier lay choking on the ground and Fran smouldered in a still raging fire.
"I'm sorry." Vaan looked around for the source of the words, but Penelo hadn't reacted at all. "She cannot hear me, just you." Came the voice again. "I'm sorry but you all must die." Within Vaan's mind the words burned like a raging inferno. Then the beast paused, and turned around. Unnoticed by everyone present, Ashe had entered the room and was brandishing her sword at it, her knees were shaking but her stance was solid.
The creature approached slowly, it didn't need to hurry, the girl couldn't outrun him or defeat him. But all the same something was off about her. Something familiar. Ashe could only stand frozen in fear as the enormous figure stood over her, gazing straight into her eyes. Ashe had never seen anything like it, she felt completely naked in the presence of those eyes, as if they could see through to her very soul. For at least two minutes their eyes were locked.
"Forgive me." The voice seemed to come from within Ashe's very head, confused, she thought it could posibly be a powerful magick user. But then the creature lowered it's head and bent it's knee in an unmistakable bow. For a moment she wasn't quite sure how to react but then the voice came again.
"Your orders?" Finally it dawned on Ashe the animal was waiting for her, she said the first thing that came to mind.
"Just go away and leave us alone." She whimpered. Without hesitation the creature vanished out of this reallity, leaving no trace it was ever there at all. All the concious members of the group stared at the princess.
"Well," Said Balthier finally. "I'm at a loss for words." Vaan scowled.
"For once." He added.