Fantasia
Arc3: The Heir of Ardneria
Chapter7: the rise of the harbinger temple
It went to be the most joyful night that may ever passed in Juan's life; he went for the first time to the summer farewell fest, he took Tsuki as a company, Klaive apologized for his previous rude acts, and using her puppetry curse the imp made from Juan an alluring dancer that captured the hearts of the other present girls.
But this wasn't fated to be the night of his life, because a terrible thing happened following this joy; the old sage Luffine fell sick, he was on the ground, with his hand on his chest, and vomiting blood.
"Father!" Klaive shouted as he rushed to grab the weakened old man, "Doctors! Where's the Goddamned doctor?!" the man yelled at his clansmen.
The doctor rushed inside the crowed and carried the sage calling for his assistants to gather around, he put his ear over the heart, then he raised the nose, and checked his eyes, then he quickly shredded the old man's clothing, and dissected the skin over the left side of his chest with a scalpel, followed by injecting a medicament inside his body.
"Doctor! Is he gonna be alright?!" both of the son and the granddaughter asked.
"Hmm, he had a heart attack; he needs to rest now until the medicine takes effect, Pike! Prepare the carrier" was the doctor's answer followed by an order to his assistant.
Everybody seemed concerned about the health status of their leader so they followed the doctor to the clinic and gathered around it, but the doctor prohibited them but Klaive from entering.
Yera was crying heavily, Roné was consulting her, and Juan was standing there stray minded, he was thinking of a way to help the sage, the old man was one of the few people who treated him nicely, and now he's dying before his eyes, seeing how Klaive was worried and how Yera was crying made him feel guilty for no apparent reason, he even thought of bringing princess Cecilia to heal him with her empyrean powers.
But respecting the doctor's orders he returned with everyone to his house, ignoring those enigmatic voices haunting his ears all the times.
…
The next morning, after an uncomfortable sleep, the shepherd headed directly to the clinic to visit the sage, he entered his room in a rush, and moved the silky veil away to see that Klaive was still standing by his bed laid father, the man seemed to be awake all night as his pale eyes and dry mouth would tell, so Juan approached slowly:
"Um…Good morning Klaive…" he said shyly.
"Huh? Oh Juan, nice to see you here…" the man replied.
"So what did the doctor…um…say? About Lord Luffine" the shepherd asked.
"He said that…Father isn't particularly sick, it's a phase he's going thru because of his…"
"Age?" Juan interrupted.
"Not necessarily, he's aged but this phase is mainly due to the fact that he is born as a megalish, his body cannot take this amount of magic and…"
"And what? Tell me! I know an empyrean mage! Her majesty princess Cecilia! She can heal him!" the shepherd mentioned in panic.
"No, I believe because he's burdened" Klaive answered.
"Burdened? How's that?"
"It's a secret that passed in our family, but since Father considered you a special member of the clan, I can tell you about it, father had a very powerful spell sealed within his body, he inherited from his father and his father from his father and so, but none of them was a megalish, so they didn't suffer these symptoms, if we can get him rid of this spell, he probably can…" the man couldn't explain more because tears prevented him.
The sight of a tough man like Klaive cry like this scorched Juan's heart, as he couldn't see the son suffer in front of his sick father he walked out of the clinic in silence.
…
Following these events, Juan wanted to help the sage badly so he sat by their barn top with his friends to think of a solution:
"That's it!" Juan shouted while he was reading a book along with his notes.
"What is it Juan?" Tsukiname asked.
"Klaive mentioned that Lord Luffine suffers from symptoms caused by sealing a powerful spell in a magalish body, and the only possible solution is to take this spell out of his body, right?" Juan explained.
"So how's this gonna help?" Zolu asked.
"The underwater shrine, you know the place that you found weeks ago!" Juan said.
"Yeah, what about it?"
"That pole we found on the second floor, it's here (He pointed to a similar picture in the book) it's called a sealing idol, ancient civilizations used them to seal powerful magic, so if we can activate the idol we can take the spell away, and give Lord Luffine a chance to survive!" the shepherd completed his explanation.
"But isn't that dangerous? I mean sealing magic is a very dangerous process" Tsuki mentioned.
"I know but this seems to be the only way possible, so we've got to try it…"
"Nimmy thinks that orange boy has a big heart bigger than the secret garden!" Nimmy's voice echoed.
"Nimmy quit fooling around and show yourself!" Tsukiname scolded the nymph.
"Aw imp girl no fun!" the girl answered appearing suddenly behind Juan who was frightened asking for an explanation.
"When Nimmy close eyes, nobody can see Nimmy, but Nimmy then can't see anybody, and when Nimmy holds someone and close eyes nobody can see them too, but them still can see!" the nymph explained.
"Wow! That's some serious magic, when did you learn it?" the shepherd asked.
"Don't bother asking, she forgot already, she's so oblivious that she sometimes forgot to wear something when getting out of the room" Tsuki noted.
"He he, I must agree with you in this" Juan added remembering how Nimmy forgot her capability of flying during the tower of Grimoires events.
"So everyone, care for another trip to the temple?" the shepherd asked.
…
And so the four of them went inside the map room of the temple again, this time Juan ignored the idol floor, and went to a pillar and started reading it:
"Um Dude, weren't we heading for the idol? Remember, the pole, the seal, save the old dude…focus!" the ragon asked.
"I know, but we can't bring the sage all the way down here, so I thought we bring the temple up there." Juan noted.
"Bring the temple up? Juan, are you sure you ate your breakfast?" Tsuki asked.
"I'm not crazy guys, the text on the pillars mention that this temple had been moved from his original location since ages, so basically it must had a mobility mechanism, and it should be inside one of these rooms"
"Nimmy sees something! Nimmy can see a beautiful jewel under Nimmy's feet" the girl said while gazing at the floor.
Juan headed to the pillar near her and read the text on it, then he smiled at the nymph "Nimmy you are a genius!" he complimented the dim girl.
After few turns, he activated the pillar and made another set of stairs appear but this time it led to the lower floors "As expected…Now we proceed" Juan noted.
"Um so what was that jewel Nimmy saw?" Tsukiname asked
"It's probably a magite, and since Nimmy managed to see it then it means it's still active, hopefully enough to raise this temple and to activate the sealing idol for the sage."
"Wow dude, you really are into this, sure you haven't been here before?" Zolu commented.
"Of course not, it's just I like this sort of stuff…" but he was silenced by witnessing the floor they've reached.
It was even wider than the idol room, of course it had something centered within it, a large stone pedestal carrying a massive spherical black crystal, it was for sure the magite that Nimmy saw, which was linked to an octagonal prism in the ceiling by eight glowing chains, with more concentration one can see that the room's walls were -unlike the other rooms- filled with different patterns.
"That must be the biggest piece of magite ever!" Juan said in happiness.
"So with this we'll be capable to make this thing go up" Zolu commented.
"There must be a way to make this happen" Juan noted while checking the pedestal, and opened his books and notes.
And so Juan spent hours there deciphering the symbols, making his friends take a nap until he's finished, Nimmy didn't sleep though she was just glaring obliviously at her reflection on the giant crystal rubbing it with her hands, this didn't bother the shepherd since he grew used to her antics.
"Aha!" he shouted waking his friends.
"So did you find anything?" Tsuki asked while taking a long yawn.
"Yep, this magite is a very special sort! It's called the eternal crystal; its power never fades away since it absorbs energy from nature constantly in parallel to its natural effect pf producing power…" he explained.
"So how's this gonna help us take this shrine up?" Zolu asked.
"Well you see those patterns on the walls, there's a certain combination of mechanisms that allows us to move the shrine at our will, it's as simple as moving a ship!
Everyone looked lost in this vague explanation, which annoyed Juan who decided to demonstrate it for them, by heading to the edge of the room where he turned few tablets and adjusted some stones, then to another corner, then another finishing this by returning to the pedestal pushing some stones, then suddenly the whole shrine trembled frightening them.
"Juan! What's going on?" Tsuki asked.
"It's working! The temple is ascending now, we'll soon be at the surface" he answered while holding himself tightly to the crystal.
"Nimmy is scared! Something bad is going to happen!" the nymph screamed in fear shortly before disappearing in a pink flower shaped portal she created beneath her.
"Nimmy!" Juan and Zolu shouted in worry.
"Don't worry about her, she's doing this all the time, she teleported herself back to our room, she'll be safe!" the imp said calming the men down.
And so after few minutes the shrine arrived at the surface, right beneath the totem pole in the center of Ardneria -Which was revealed to be a part of the temple- every beastmen got out of their houses fearing this earthquake, shortly before they gathered around the gigantic monument.
The shrine showed its full structure from under the dust; a massive short tower with octagonal prismatic base with the large stairs jetting out, followed by a square based level, then a cylindrical one to be topped by a dome that carried a pole with the symbol of Ardneria on it,, diamond shaped windows although the walls, its stones were dark grey carved with glowing letters, as fearsome magical aura was emitted from the ancient building.
After the floor calmed down, Juan slowly ascended the stairs with his friends, and quickly they got out of the temple, to face the crowd in front of them who were amazed one looking at the other in confusion.
What's this building? Where did it come from? Is it some sort of witchery? Or a miracle sent by the heavens to them? Or perhaps it's the wrath of Gods that's about to be served upon them? These thoughts filled the minds of the beastmen witnessing this shrine.
Some elder screamed in fear knowing the truth of this temple describing it as: "The harbinger temple!" pointing at it with shaking hands.
"You bastards!" Klaive's voice echoed filling the place, driving everyone's attention.
The sage's son approached Juan and his friends in a rush and cursed them with everything he's got finishing his words claiming that "They doomed them all!"
To be continued