The Storm King

Leon stared at the ruined colossus before him, the humanoid half lying on the ground, damp and scorched, while its serpentine half lay at his feet, gouged and eyeless. Both of the emeralds that had been embedded in its eyes had been pulled into his soul realm, but the gold Leon hesitated to try and take. He supposed he could try and start carving up the colossus into more manageable chunks to store in his soul realm, but he wasn’t sure he wanted something like this in his most sensitive place. If he screwed it up, then it might animate within his soul realm and start wreaking havoc—without further study, he couldn’t be sure if the emeralds were its power source, or if it drew magic power from something else.

However, there was a large part of him that was absolutely loath to leave it behind. He saw all of this gold just lying there, so much of it that it was probably impossible to properly envision its value on a normal human scale. Just leaving all of it behind really didn’t sit well with him, and the longer his eyes took in the shiny metal, glittering in the soft, indirect, source-less light that filled this chamber, the less he wanted to leave it all behind.

Leon was pulled from this mild reverie by a twinge of pain in his shoulder. It was raw and throbbing, having been severely injured multiple times this day alone. The colossus’ fang, the blade of the shade that had impersonated Artorias, and the damage he’d sustained going through the teleportation curtain to Gaius’ trial had all utterly ravaged his right arm. Thanks to his healing spells and some down time between these events, his arm was still fully functional and intact, but Leon could still feel more than a little bit of phantom pain, regardless. Add on top of all of that the other injuries he’d suffered today, and he was starting to feel not-so-great.

His armor was also destroyed, meaning he was weaker and more vulnerable than he was when he entered the temple only a few hours ago.

As if to add insult to injury, Nestor spoke up as Leon stared at the destroyed colossus, [You had far too much trouble with that thing, I think.]

[Do you think?] Leon asked, his tone indicating that his question could be taken in many different ways, and few of them were in good faith.

[Yes, I do think,] Nestor replied. [Gold, generally speaking, is hardly as good at holding enchantments as silver. However, it can hold lightning enchantments extraordinarily well, better even than iron or copper. Your power shouldn’t have had so much trouble breaking through its defenses. It should’ve ripped right through this construct and obliterated the enchantments within with little difficulty.]

Leon shrugged, not caring too much if Nestor could see the expression. [It makes some sense to me that whoever built this thing warded it against lightning. It seems that ‘the Serpent’ or whatever it was that ruled here was an enemy of our Clan. They built in defenses in other parts of this temple to keep me out, which Jormun admitted to disabling, so I understand why this thing would have some extra enchantments to insulate it from lightning attacks.]

[I’d recommend bringing it with us,] Nestor suggested. [I would very much like to study it…]

Leon could practically hear the dead man salivating, and he supposed that, if he were feeling charitable, he could say that Nestor hadn’t been insulting his capabilities when he said he had too much trouble with the colossus, and instead was praising its defenses. Leon wasn’t feeling particularly charitable, but he supposed he could see the merits in trying to bring the colossus’ remains with them if Nestor and Xaphan were able to keep an eye on it. Or the library golems, or whoever. Just so long as it didn’t activate within his soul realm and start breaking things, he was fine with it.

Leon pulled the remains of the colossus into his soul realm. It wasn’t easy, being so large and all, and Leon felt more than a bit stretched after, but it was done.

“Nice,” Gaius said after Leon finished. “Looks like you’re going to be even richer than you already are! That thing has to be made of thousands of gold talents, let alone whatever value can be found with it intact… or as intact as it is right now.”

“I’m sure it’d prove itself quite valuable if someone were to melt it down,” Leon agreed, but he wasn’t planning on doing that anytime soon. If even Nestor was interested in studying this thing, then he figured he’d be able to study this colossus for years and still find new things to learn about it. Turning back to Gaius and Maia, he asked, “How are you two doing?”

“I’m right as rain,” Gaius said as he smiled and lightly flexed, before wincing and clarifying, “Or, I suppose I’m about as all right as I can be expected after all of that…”

Leon nodded. Gaius’ biggest contribution to the fight had been the strikes he landed upon the colossus’ serpentine head at the end, but he’d been trying to get better shots practically the entire time. He’d not made much progress, though, and had wound up lightly injured. It wasn’t anything one weak healing spell couldn’t fix, though.

Maia, however, was completely uninjured. She hadn’t physically participated in the battle, choosing instead to let her water dragons handle things. But Leon wasn’t entirely asking about their physical state.

[I’m well and looking forward to getting out of this place,] she quietly whispered into his mind.

Leon nodded again and turned his attention back to the chamber. Nothing in the chamber seemed any different, so he began to walk toward the opposite wall from the place they’d entered the chamber from. If worse came to worst, he’d just start drilling holes into the silver walls until he found another control glyph for the teleportation magic in this place.

Before he reached the wall, however, Jormun began to speak once more, only this time, his speech wasn’t directed towards Leon.

“That was a spectacular display, miss. I have to admit to being quite impressed, I don’t think I’ve ever seen water magic used quite like that before, and I’ve seen many a nymph and other strange creatures. If it’s not out of line for me to ask, what is your name?”

Maia ignored him completely, her face one of familiar stoicism that Leon had seen her wear whenever someone tried to speak with her whom she did not want to break words with, which was just about everyone save for him and Elise.

In an attempt to get Jormun’s attention back to where it ought to be, Leon shouted, “I thought there was going to be a door here, Jormun? I remember you saying on multiple occasions that you’d open up the way! Or are you going back on your word?”

Leon, of course, had no doubt that Jormun wasn’t good for his word, but he at least wanted the pirate speaking to him rather than Maia, if the pirate was going to speak at all.

“I did say that multiple times, didn’t I?” Jormun said in a thoughtful tone. “I don’t know, have you really earned me opening the door for you, though? I don’t really consider myself that polite of a person…”

“Your self-awareness is staggering,” Leon stated in a low voice as his eyes continued to scan the walls. The chamber was inundated with his magic senses, and he was carefully examining whatever he could of the flow of magic in the room to try and figure out where the teleportation glyphs were located. They required an immense amount of power to run, so it stood to reason that if he were able to sense a great deal of magic power flowing somewhere, then that would be the most likely location for the teleportation glyphs.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the Titanstone that Xaphan had been so excited about was living up to the demon’s description, for Leon wasn’t able to sense much of anything indicative of spatial magic in the ambient magic power.

“Relax, Leon,” Jormun said in an almost sultry tone. “I’m looking forward to seeing you in person, too, you don’t have to worry about that. Here, since I’m feeling generous, why don’t you come right through this? It’s still a little far from me, but I just know that you’ll find your way through eventually…”

As the pirate finished speaking, another inky black curtain materialized like an oily stain on the sparkling silver wall not too far from Leon, Gaius, and Maia in an obvious invitation for them to step through.

But none of the three immediately made for it. Instead, Leon stared at it like it owed him money, while Gaius and Maia alternatively looked at him and back to the curtain, waiting for his decision on what to do.

“This likely a trap,” Leon stated.

“You think so little of me,” Jormun bemoaned, but Leon ignored him.

“I doubt this is going to be immediately lethal, but prepare yourselves for anything…” Leon took a deep breath to steady himself and to suppress the pain and fatigue that had been building in his body these past few hours and began to slowly walk toward the curtain. Gaius and Maia flanked him, both of them with determined expressions and bodies filled with magic power. Leon could sense the slight undercurrents of killing intent in their auras, and he knew that they were about as ready as he was to step through this portal.

And so they did.

All light seemed to vanish from the world as they disappeared from the colossus’ chamber and appeared on the other side. However, instead of the expected strange, eldritch darkness of a teleportation tunnel, they instead found themselves in a dark room—not quite pitch dark, but the light illuminating the place seemed quite dim—richly appointed with a thick fur rug beneath their feet, stone walls adorned with serpentine mosaics, and twin lines of columns running down the length of the entire room.

And it was a long room, too, perhaps one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, perfectly trisected by two rows of columns that were capped with majestic vaulted arches to hold up the ceiling. It quickly became clear that the reason much of the room was so dark was because the material that the room was made of was the same black stone as the claustrophobic stairs that led down to the temple; there were magic lanterns strewn about the place, set into recessed alcoves at regular intervals, but they were dim and provided not even close to the amount of light needed to make this place seem inviting.

The darkness of this place was only the most immediate sign that they weren’t exactly welcome here; with the first breath they took, Leon, Gaius, and Maia were assaulted with the foul stench of rotting meat and animal waste. Leon’s face almost cramped with how quickly he grimaced once this fetid odor worked its way through his nostrils.

“Ugh, what in the hells is that?” Gaius exclaimed as he immediately covered his nose.

[Smells like something’s been living here,] Maia said. She didn’t quite go as far as Gaius in expressing her revulsion, but Leon could tell she felt it nonetheless.

Leon quickly glanced about, ignoring just about everything else around him in favor of finding whatever the hells was stinking like that. He didn’t have to look far, for about thirty feet behind them, at the closet end of this wide hall they found themselves in, was a pile of rotting carcasses so desiccated and picked over that it wasn’t immediately clear what they were. Not too far away, in a corner of the hall, was another pile of material that Leon didn’t even want to acknowledge, the logical result of what remained after something had made a meal of those carcasses and waited a few hours.

Leon’s face contorted in disgust, but a moment later, he realized where they were. The carcasses were piled up right next to a door, which made sense if Leon assumed this place to be a hall, though he was a little taken aback by the fact that this door seemed completely separate from the teleportation curtain they’d used to reach this place. Leaking through this door were the soft vibrations of conversation; there were people on the other side speaking with each other, though what little sound was leaking through wasn’t enough for even Leon with his seventh-tier senses to understand what they were saying.

However, he knew who was speaking.

“We’re on the other side of the front door,” he said to the other two. “Marcus, Alcander, Alix, and the rest we came here with are on the other side…”

Leon took a few steps toward the door, doing his best to ignore the stench and the bloody bones and viscera, when he stopped, a strange look passing over his face.

“Leon?” Gaius asked out of concern. “Something wrong?”

Leon’s eyes narrowed as they flickered back toward the carcasses. He’d almost forgotten after everything that had happened since, but this was where the three monsters that Jormun had sent out had come from. These carcasses were likely their last meal… The centipede and the reptile thing were both dead as dead could be, but Leon remembered the black shadow cat that had managed to escape back into the temple.

“Keep an eye on—” Leon began, before he sensed a sharp spike of killing intent. He reacted immediately, throwing himself to the ground just in time for a smoky black tendril of darkness magic to whip over his head faster than the mortal eye could track.

“—the shadows!” Leon finished as he sprang to his feet, his body crackling with silver-blue lightning. He couldn’t see where the attack had come from, but Maia and Gaius had both assumed a more defensive posture and were looking around for anything suspicious.

Leon’s eyes searched every dark corner, every long shadow in the dimly-lit entrance hall, but he couldn’t see anything. Not even his magic senses could pick up on any sign of where this shadow cat might be.

“I guess this is how we’re going to have to play this…” he muttered as he started to edge back to the door. If possible, he’d like to get it open and call in some reinforcements, or at least just link back up with his people.

Unfortunately, just as he drew close enough to the door to touch it, a barrier of darkness suddenly appeared over the door.

“Sorry, Leon, but I can’t let you do that,” Jormun said, his smug voice echoing throughout the empty hall. “The way forward is forward, not back.”

“Eat shit you damn coward,” Leon muttered in impotent anger as he glared back at the barrier. “ALIX!” he roared, hoping that maybe his voice might be able to carry through. “MARCUS! ALCANDER!”

His voice was almost deafening in the doorway, ringing in his ears for long seconds after he’d closed his mouth. However, he detected no change in the low sounds of conversation happening just on the other side of the door. Leon reached out a hand and sent a stream of lightning into the barrier, but it just splashed across the black-as-night surface, leaving it unharmed.

‘Shit,’ Leon thought, realizing that Jormun was right: the only way he could go now was forward. He didn’t like it; he felt like he was being herded by the pirate, but at this point, there wasn’t much else he could do for the moment other than head deeper into the temple and keep alert for anything he might be able to use to gain the upper hand.

“Let’s keep going,” Leon growled as he moved back toward Maia and Gaius.

Maia took off right behind Leon, but Gaius paused a moment. “You sure?” he asked Leon.

Leon, too, paused, and glanced over his shoulder at the black barrier. He wasn’t sure if he could crack it open—at the very least, from what he’d been able to gather from probing it with his lightning, if he tried to brute force his way through, he’d be trying all day and still likely end up no more than frustrated and angry. If he tried to mess with the enchantment creating the barrier, then he’d probably be here for hours trying to dig through stone first.

“Yes,” Leon replied, his tone final. He didn’t want to spend the time trying to get through that door, not with how unlikely it was that he’d actually manage to get through it. Besides, Gaius and Maia would have to defend him the entire time, and that would be mentally draining. “That cat is still here, so keep your guards up,” he added, and Gaius voiced his acknowledgment.

With as much determination as he could, Leon led the way down the hall towards the other end. It was a little strange to him that there was an actual entrance hall after seeing the teleportation curtain, but he supposed it shouldn’t be. It would probably be a waste of power to keep that curtain ready at all times, so whoever built the temple would likely need a way in outside of teleportation.

The other side of the hall featured a door much less grand than the entrance. Rather than being large enough for a stone giant to comfortably use, this one was barely more than human-sized. Without sparing anymore time than he needed to check the door for potential traps, Leon pushed it open and strode into the next room with as much caution as he could muster. His magic was ready, what remained of his armor was protecting his body, and his blade was brandished.

All of that seemed both hardly necessary and absolutely essential once he stepped into the darkness of the next room. There were no lights at all activated in this room, but with his magic senses, Leon was able to assure himself that there was nothing else, either. In fact, it as just a square box room, with nothing but bare stone within. No carpets, no furniture, it was just a stone box with a simple wooden door on each side. However, all of that darkness meant that the shadow cat could be hiding anywhere, just waiting for a moment when their guard was down to strike.

Leon cocked his head in confusion as he entered, his caution high and defenses raised. He had no idea what this room could possibly be used for, and from the similar looks gracing the faces of Maia and Gaius, neither of them had any idea, either.

He quickly walked over to the door on his right and opened it, revealing a bare stone hallway, barely wide enough for him to spread both of his arms and not touch the walls. This hallway went on and on and on, farther and farther until even his magic senses failed to find the end, a little more than twenty miles away. All along the hallway at irregular intervals were intersections with other, similarly bare hallways.

“Ah, well. Fuck,” Leon whispered. After a quick check of the other two doors revealed the same thing, Leon swore again and took a deep breath. Jormun was probably laughing at him right now. The pirate had access to all the defenses of this temple—of which, Leon was certain he hadn’t even seen a fraction—there was a sixth-tier shadow cat on the loose, a beast powerful enough to cause serious and potentially fatal damage if it struck while their guard was down, and now the only way forward was through a damn maze, one that wasn’t even lit. These halls were dark, completely devoid of light; the perfect place for a shadow cat—or any other manner of monstrous beast, for that matter—to hide.