Exploration

Aaron and Lysa investigate the underground complex, searching for the lost soldiers.

5.

Exploration

 

Despite their plate armor, the pair moved quietly as they cautiously took the corridor at the bottom of the stairs.   It was pitch black, but Aaron pulled out his sword - it had been his father’s enchanted blade- which shined with a silvery light, giving them enough details of their surroundings to see where they were going.

There was a steel grate at the junction where the stairway ended and the corridor began that served as a drain for the rainwater that had filled the stairway.     The corridor was probably 20 feet in height and of an equal width, made of some sort of seamless, perfectly smooth grey stone.    It descended downward at a somewhat sharp angle, and the air cooled as they followed it.   For about five hundred feet it went, but as they neared the end, the smoothness of the stone was interrupted by a large grayish-black rock that covered half of the passageway.    Just beyond the rough boulder, the corridor turned sharply to the right.   

As they neared, they were horrified to see that a human form had been crushed between the rock and the floor of the corridor.

It had occurred recently, and the smell of blood and death made Lysa gag as they approached the scene.     In the middle of the smooth hallway the rock appeared very out-of-place.      Holding their noses, the duo bent down to glance at what they could see of the body underneath.

“Yesh preserve me, its one of the guards!”    Aaron whispered, though it seemed to echo in the corridor.  

“Walsh was his name.”   Lysa replied, struggling not to vomit at the gory scene.    The man had been flattened horribly by the boulder.    Protruding from underneath was one of his arms, his hand locked in a death grip around one of the light staves that Aaron had given to the soldiers to enable them to see at night.    

“He probably activated the light, but it reset when he died.”   Aaron explained to Lysa as he pried the man’s fingers away from the magic item.   It seemed irreverent to the corpse, but they needed strong light.

“Illuminate.”   Aaron gave the command word for the staff and instantly the quartz that was set into the staff’s head shined with a bright white light.

“Do you think the golem… or whatever that rock monster is… did this?”   Lysa asked as she leaned against the side of the corridor wall, away from the gory scene.

“I’m quite sure he did.    The rock looks the same.     Walsh was facing us when he was struck down, which means he was trying to run back to the stairway.”

“Perhaps that isn’t a bad idea.”   The girl mumbled, “There isn’t much room here to dodge boulders and if there is more than one of those things…”

Aaron nodded, “We’ll go, but let’s at least look around this turn in the corridor.     One of Walsh’s companions may still be alive, pinned under another rock.”

Lysa grimaced at the thought, but followed him as he went around the boulder with the light staff held high.     She had her sword out as they peeked around the corner.     It was another long hallway, the same as the first.   But at the very end of the area illuminated by the staff, there seemed to be a room with a strange blue glow covering the archway leading into it, like a strange door or gate made of light.

“Magic.”   Aaron whispered to her as they peered ahead.    The staff’s light made shadows seem to move and they were unsure from that distance if anything was actually in the hallway.

“Are we going closer?”   Lysa whispered, already certain that he would want to see what was ahead.

“We’ll see if any of the soldiers are there, and then return to the surface, I promise.”

She nodded and they crept down the hallway, their eyes darting all about them.     Halfway to the doorway covered by the blue light, they began to detect the certain odor of death.

“Oh no.”   Lysa whispered and they both began breathing through their mouths to keep as much of the stench from their noses.

 

They found the sources of the smell as they neared the hallway’s end.     Four bodies lay in front of a shimmering wall of blue arcane light.      All were under the rough boulders and were horribly squashed.     Through the shimmering blue light could be seen a large room that seemed to be filled with boulders and pieces of twisted metal.   Carved over the archway that was covered by the magic light was the word CONSTRUCTIO.   

As they slowly approached, the blue light flashed once and then disappeared.   Aaron and Lysa stopped in their tracks, weapons drawn, but nothing stirred.     After a long moment, they moved forward, verifying the identities of the bodies as members of the unit of soldiers that King Eleazar had sent to help.

Through the archway, they could now see clearly that it was some sort of huge cell or display area.     With the magic wall gone, they noticed what seemed to be animals or machines made of metal, most of them crushed by huge boulders.    At the opposite end of the room was another archway, and a shimmering blue arcane wall covered it.    Directly in front of it lay a human form, but this one did not look to have been crushed by a boulder.

Aaron and Lysa stared into the room for a long time.

“Obviously, this was where the rock monster was kept.”   He finally spoke.

“I’d say those men somehow let him out.    Maybe the magic is dispelled when someone approaches.”

“That sounds logical to me.    From the looks of the rocks in his room, he was there for a while.”

“What are those metal things?    Statues or something else?”

Aaron shook his head, “They aren’t realistic looking, but they all do look like they were functional.   I’d guess they were some type of animated golem or arcane machine.    Apparently they were imprisoned with the rock monster and he didn’t like them, so he smashed them.”

“I wonder if that is one of our soldiers lying across the room?   Maybe he tried to escape by the other entrance.”

“We’ll go check - if it is one of our soldiers, that will account for all of them, so we’ll head back and send a large group to finish exploring it once the airships arrive later this week.”

“Lord, it looks as if there is another room on the other side of that blue magic field.”

“There could be a bunch of rooms, I’d imagine.    This was Helios’ workshop… or maybe his zoo.”

“Yesh knows what could be prowling around here.    It’s too dangerous for the two of us to check out.”

“I agree.   Let’s go see if that man lying across the room is living or dead; then get out of here before we run into anything.”

“Alright.”

 

With their swords drawn, they proceeded forward.     All that could be heard were their footfalls on the stone floor.    As they passed one of the many boulders in the room, all at once there was the sound of clanking metal.   It sounded as if a plate-armored knight was trying to sprint across a floor of tin.   They looked up and saw it as it came quickly around the boulder.    

It was a large wolf made of black steel.     The shape was a masterful rendition, hammered out to capture much of the feel of the animal.    The eyes of the thing glowed an arcane yellow and it opened its bear-trap-like mouth to reveal long sharp steel canine teeth.

A rather hollow sounding growl came from the depths of the maw of the beast.    It somewhat stiffly crouched as if preparing to lunge at them.

“Nice doggy…”   Lysa said just before the creature leaped at her.    She spun to the side, chopping at the metal wolf’s head as it missed her.     Her blade contacted the neck, with a sharp clank, but it did not injure it.   

Aaron aimed his blow at one of the front legs, hoping his father’s enchanted blade would cut through the metal.    His sword bit deep, but not enough to lame the animated metal wolf.    It turned on him, snapping with its dagger-like teeth.    It caught the edge of his leg armor, but did not puncture it.  One of its front claws slashed at him, and though he dodged it, a metal talon snagged the illuminating staff he held in his left hand, breaking it in half, which dispelled the magic of the device.   The room immediately darkened to twilight.

Lysa swung her sword at the ‘nose’ of the wolf.     It did no damage, but the creature turned its attention to her.   Before it could snap at her, Aaron again swung at the damaged front leg.     This second swing cut through the metal of the leg, sending the metal wolf over on its side.     As it tried to stand up on its three legs, Aaron and Lysa focused their blows on the undamaged front leg.     It took several chops, but finally the other leg was cut free.   

The metal wolf attempted to move with only its rear legs, pushing its front half forward awkwardly.

But it had lost all of its maneuverability and the two Paladins kept to its sides, hacking at its rear legs until they too were chopped free.     The animated metal wolf now was a pathetically helpless creature without any movement, except to swing its neck around as they approached.

“How do we deactivate it?”   Lysa asked Aaron as they watched it, “I’ve already dented my sword hacking at it.”

“I think it is something they call a ‘Construct’.    Wizards use them as guard dogs.    I don’t think anyone but the wizard who made it can deactivate it, though Allea told me that some of them would self-destruct when incapacitated.”

As soon as he said this, he spun around to look at Lysa, finding that she had already started quickly backing away from the creature.

They had moved back about five or six steps when suddenly the metal Construct began to glow red as if heated over a forge.

“Aaron…”   Lysa warned, but he sensed what was coming and they flung themselves to the floor an instant before the creature exploded like a wizard’s fireball.

Metal shrapnel flew every direction, but luckily, their prone position on the floor avoided all of it.     Their ears were ringing horribly from the blast as they sat up, dazed.  

“Are you alright?”   Aaron asked Lysa, though she could just barely hear him over the ringing in her ears.

“I’m fine, my Lord.”   She accepted his hand and he pulled her to her feet.

“That was quite a guard dog - nasty to deal with and when you finally incapacitate him, he explodes.   I see why wizards construct them to guard their treasure.”

They walked over to the body on the far end of the room and recognized him at once.    It was Charlie Levont.   His chainmail was pierced in a hundred places and from the wounds, it was clear that he had been killed by the metal wolf that they had just encountered.

“How horrible.”   Lysa said, shaking her head.

“Probably looking for gold or treasure.”    Aaron said grimly, looking around, “I guess the others were as well.    All they found was trouble.”

“Lord, can we leave now?”   Lysa meekly asked.

“Yes.”   Aaron replied, glancing at the blue shimmering barrier that covered an archway near Charlie’s body, “I guess Charlie was hoping to run through that archway.     Maybe in his panic he didn’t see the blue magic barrier.   Or maybe he hit it and it stunned him, then the Construct got him.”

“He almost made it.”   Lysa said as she followed Aaron to glance through the barrier before they left.

“I want to see what will await us when we return with a better equipped search party.”    As they neared the blue barrier, they could vaguely make out a truly gigantic room.     The details of the room were faint, though it looked as if there were large objects on pedestals spread out all around the room.

“It looks like a museum…”   Lysa commented, squinting to get a better look.    As she leaned forward slightly to peer in, suddenly the blue wall just vanished.    The girl jumped back in alarm, nearly knocking Aaron down.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to do that!”   She exclaimed.

“It was probably automatic.”   Aaron glanced around, then pointed back toward the archway that they had come through a few minutes before, “See?   It has reactivated the other door barrier.”

“This is an unsettling place, Lord.”   She told him, “Are you ready to leave?    I’d feel more comfortable here if we had ten or twenty more people with us.”

Aaron nodded, “Yeah, and several of those ten or twenty should be wizards and clerics.     Come on; let’s get out of here for now.”

To her relief, they turned from the archway leading into the cavernous room and went toward the blue barrier covering the exit into the hallway.   But when they approached it, the arcane barrier would not disappear.    Aaron waved his sword, then his hand, inches away from the barrier, but it didn’t change.

“Oh no.”  Lysa groaned, wondering if her curiosity over the other room had caused the arcane barrier to reactivate.

“Maybe there’s a trigger.”   Aaron suggested, and they searched all over the archway and the walls next to it.    But they found nothing.    Finally they picked up Charlie’s dagger and tried to toss it through the blue field of magic light.   It zapped upon contacting the field as if hit by lightning and bounced to the floor, blackened and very hot.

“Wow, I’m glad we didn’t try to touch that!”   Aaron exclaimed.

“What are we going to do, Lord?    That was our only way out!”

“We don’t know that, Lysa.    Maybe there is another exit in the adjoining room.”

“There could be more of those Constructs in there.”   She warned.

“That is a distinct possibility.”    Aaron paused, glancing around the smaller room, “Before we go in there, let’s see if there is anything in here that might help us if we do encounter more of those creatures.   If Helios made them, then I’ll wager he had other creations in here too.”

They began looking around, but found only smashed and flattened Constructs.   

“Apparently the Rock Golem was beyond Helios’ control.”    Aaron told Lysa as they searched the room.

“How did that one Construct avoid being destroyed?”

“I don’t know.   Maybe the Golem responded to movement and this last Construct didn’t move.    Then Charlie and his gang stumbled into this room and the Golem went after them.    It looks like Charlie avoided the Rock Monster.”

“He probably hid.”   Lysa said, “He may have just waited until it chased after the other soldiers then, when the room was empty he searched.”

“I think you are right, and I’ll wager that he was crossing over here to look through the barrier into the larger room when the wolf Construct activated.”

“The Construct might have only been activated when someone approached the entrance into the other room.”

Aaron smiled at her logical reasoning, “That would fit.    This last Construct may have been created to only be activated by the movement of living things.   Perhaps the enchantment Helios selected for it was somewhat different than what was used on the other Constructs.    But whatever the reason, this last one attacked Charlie and killed him.”

“I’d think that Helios would have more guardians in that larger room.”

“I imagine you’re right about that.    But those Constructs and that Rock creature were put into this room for a reason.   I don’t think it was just to guard the doorway into the larger room.    That’s why we need to look around here before we go through the archway and see what that other room holds.”

“So you are thinking Helios may have had treasure in this room?”

“Or magic.  If we can find something to help us, if we run into any more Constructs, then I think we should search.”

“Well, since we don’t really have many options left to us…”   She followed him as they rummaged around the room, looking closer at the crushed Constructs.    In the very middle of the room was a ring of boulders, where a group of five Constructs had encircled something and had been flattened one by one, by the Rock Golem.

“It looks like they were protecting something.”   Lysa commented as they tried to peer around the boulders and squashed Constructs to see what was in the middle of them.

They could see something on the floor, but they finally had to climb over one of the boulders and slide down the other side in order to see it better.

It was a large, square, stone box, seemingly carved into the very floor of the room.   On top was a sarcophagus-type of lid, with a very well-crafted figure of a menacing dragon carved into the stone.   

“Something inside it must be valuable.”   Lysa glanced at Aaron, “Shall we open it?”

He didn’t seem sure, “That dragon carving on the lid seems a bit over-the-top for a treasure chest lid.”

“So you think there is a purpose for it?    A trap, perhaps?”   She smiled unconsciously, for she was finding it difficult to stay mad at him.   She was terribly hurt that he didn’t want her around as soon as her training was complete.     It had seemed so different between them when they had been alone in the Hutcaiah forest.    What had changed his mind about her?

“I think it is rigged for a trap.   Come stand over here behind me - I don’t want you to get stuck with a poisoned dart or blasted with toxic gas.”

“Don’t worry, Lord, I’m a squire, so I’m expendable.”

Aaron frowned, for he knew she had said that to remind him of his words to her last night.

“You are not expendable to me, Lysa.”

“So I serve a purpose, I’m just not worthy of your… friendship?”

Aaron sighed, rubbing his forehead, “You are extremely dear to me, Lysa.    Don’t you understand?    I said what I did to you last night because I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what, Lord?” She wouldn’t let him off the hook.

“I’m afraid of this life, Lysa.”   He was frank with her, “I wish my parents would have just been farmers or craftsmen.    Then they and my sister would still be alive.”

His words melted her iciness, “So you don’t want to be a Paladin, Lord?”

“I don’t know, Lysa; I just don’t want to have a life where everyone I care for is exposed to danger.    My whole life has been about duty.    My parents were Paladins and servants of Kings and Dukes and so that is all I knew.    I know it sounds stupid, but I never really realized how dangerous that life was while I was growing up.”

“Until it was too late.”   She finished his thought and he nodded.

 

“Lord, let me ask you something - if you hold to what you said and go through your entire life without any sort of close relationships, do you think your life will have any happiness or warmth in it?”

 

Aaron didn’t answer and only pulled out his sword, “I think I’ll try to push this lid off with my sword.”

“It looks too heavy for that.”   She suggested, ignoring his avoidance of her question.

“I’m going to try anyway.    Stand behind me, to the side.”

“Be careful, Lord.”

He stood slightly to the left of the front of the lid and worked the end of his blade into the gap between the lid and the chest.     It wouldn’t slide, but he sensed that it might be levered off, so he pushed upward with his sword in the hope that the lid would tilt upward and then slide off the back of the chest.

He had moved the lid a few inches, when suddenly the eyes of the carved dragon glowed orange and a blast of flames shot out of the carving’s mouth.     Aaron dropped his sword, pushing himself in front of Lysa, but the flames only singed the edge of his armor.

“Are you okay, sir?”   Lysa asked.

“That was close, but that is why I did it from the side instead of the front.   Did the flames get you?”

“No, thanks to you shielding me.”

“I think that might have sprung the trap, but just in case, stand over there and I’ll try it one more time.”

She did as he asked and Aaron stood further to the side then tried to move the lid off again with his sword.   Again the eyes of the dragon lit up and flame shot out of the front of the mouth, but it missed him completely and he pushed mightily, sending the lid slipping off the back.

It smashed into the floor into countless pieces.

“Now it’s safe.”  He joked as Lysa joined him to look inside the chest.

There was a long white staff with black engravings resting between four glass bottles of the type that alchemists used to hold potions.    The bottles had corks in them, but all four were empty.   Nothing else was in the chest.

“I wonder what the staff does?”   Lysa pondered as they stared at the treasure.

“It looks like something a wizard would use.    Those bottles are mysterious as well.    They seem empty, unless they hold some invisible gas or something.”

“Like maybe an annoyed Air Elemental or angry genie?”

“So you don’t think we should pop the corks?”   He asked her.

“I wouldn’t while we are trapped down here.”

“I concur.  But we’ll take them with us and the staff as well.”

They carefully pulled out the items.   Each of them took two of the alchemist’s bottles and Aaron carried the staff.   Aaron put his two bottles into his belt pouch, and Lysa did the same with hers.

 

The rest of the room held nothing but the debris from the rock monster’s boulders and the smashed Constructs.   

“Well, our exit is still blocked, so I guess we’ll have to go into the big room and see what waits for us there.     Are you ready?”

“Yes, Lord, but will you answer the question that I asked you earlier?   About living a life free of relationships.    Is that what you want, sir?”

Aaron looked at her gravely, “Lysa, I fear being alone more than anything.    Either way is trouble.    If I’m alone, I will be miserable and if I let anyone get close to me, I will fear for their safety.    What a horrible choice to have to make.”

Lysa touched his arm, “I don’t think that you really have a choice, Lord.”

“I don’t?”

“You don’t want to be alone, and regardless of what you feel for me and what I said earlier to you, I will still care for you… as a friend.”

He smiled gently and took her hand in his, “Good.  I don’t think I could feel cold to you, Lysa.    You’ve been too kind to me and you are too wonderful of a person to reject.    Forget what I said earlier, okay?    I… I really don’t want you to leave… unless you want to, of course.   I really… value your companionship.    It has brightened a dismal period of time in my life.   It may cause me pain in the future if something happens to you, but I’d like you to remain in my life… I-I mean…”

Lysa just squeezed his hand, to ease his awkwardness, “I was going to stay around anyway, Lord.    My people have been servants of nobles for many generations and I can’t imagine doing anything other than serving you.   It makes me happy, Lord.”    She blushed and pulled her hand away, “Are you ready to go see what that big room has to challenge us with?”

“Sure.”  He replied, distraught that his worry over her safety would continue, but overjoyed to still have that problem.    

Reviews

[Elina]

"It was another long hallway, the same as the first, but at the very end of the area illuminated by the staff, there seemed to be a room with a strange blue glow covering the archway leading into it, like a strange door or gate made of light." You might break this apart, a bit, to prevent having a run-on sentence.
"...bounced to the floor, blackened and red hot." You might clarify this a bit.