Temporal Stasis

Aaron and Lysa discover Helios' Menagerie, frozen magically.

6.

Temporal Stasis

 

It was the largest room that both of them had ever seen.  

Cavernous in size, it was lit by gently glowing white squares of light high above that activated as soon as they stepped into the room.

But the wonders did not end there.    All around the room were large platforms set off from the floor about a foot in height.    The platforms varied in size, but on each one were strange and terrible creatures, frozen in time.

“Are they real?”   Lysa asked as they stared at a nightmare beast that looked as if someone had combined some sort of shaggy bear or huge sloth with the head of a huge owl or parrot. 

“Oh, they’re real.”   Aaron said while warily glancing at the monster, “I don’t think they’re trophies, either.    They’re in some sort of Temporal Stasis effect, like we used on Mew to keep her alive when we took her to the Pool of Purity.    I’m guessing that all the creatures in this room are actually alive, but just magically frozen.”

“They’re not natural creatures, Lord.    I can’t find any normal animals here.    They’re all beasts that a wizard would put together.”

“That is the signature of Helios’ work.     He was obsessed with creating an army of humanoid beings that were part human or demi-human and part animal.     The Talminor were his partial successes.”

“Yes, but none of the… monsters… on display here are humanoid in shape.    Do you think he used these creatures for reference?”

Aaron shrugged, “Whatever his reasons were, he wanted them displayed like items in a museum.   It looks like he has placards with information about each one set on the base of each display, but I can’t read his writing… can you?”

Lysa leaned near the wild scribble of ink on the placard under the Owlbear, “I can’t read a word, but I’ll bet it was some sort of note system for himself.     There is a sign hanging from chains in the middle of the room.     It has block letters… I think it reads… ‘Animali’.   Is that ‘animal’ in the Linguam regali language?”

 “Yes”, He had only studied the fundamentals of the scholarly arcane tongue, but fortunately he recognized that common word.

“So this was certainly Helios’ collection.”

“Apparently so.    He had quite a collection.”

“Lord?”

“Yes?”

“If these creatures are in a suspended state by magic, what happens when the magic fades?    It did with the magic that bound the Talminor together, so if that Temporal Stasis spell fades, will they reanimate?”

“I imagine that they would, and here they’d be, confused and enclosed in an underground room.      Some would possibly escape and make it into the valley.   Perhaps it has already happened from time to time.”

“If this valley was populated, that could be very bad, Lord.”

Aaron nodded, “You’re right, Lysa.    They’ll have to be neutralized before we begin building in earnest and bringing settlers here to live.”

Lysa looked around the room, slowly shaking her head, “That will take quite a while, Lord.”

“We’ll have to hire help to get the job done.”

“How could you pay for that many warriors and wizards?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t pay them with gold - we’d let them barbeque the monsters - that would be a lot of meat.”   He kidded and Lysa wrinkled her nose in disgust.

They wandered around for a while in the room, looking at each exhibit briefly.

One particular beast close to the center of the room drew them in.   It dwarfed all the others in size, a huge bird of prey, frozen in midair as if swooping down to snatch up a rabbit.    But these talons could easily clutch a rabbit the size of a large elephant. 

“I can’t imagine a bird so large.”    Lysa whispered the words, for the size of the creature seemed to demand reverence.

“I’ve heard legends of huge birds… I think they called them Rocs.”

“Apparently this one isn’t a legend.    I wonder if Helios created it or if somehow he captured it?    It looks like a natural animal, not something patched together.”

“Perhaps it is a natural animal that Helios found somewhere else and then managed to capture.”

“How in the world could he capture something so large?”

Aaron shrugged, “I don’t know, but from what we’ve learned of the wizard, he was capable of amazing feats.     Just look at the size of this room, for example.     This huge bird could easily fly around in here.   How could he have constructed such a large complex?    We are far underground now and I cannot imagine how even a wizard could create a complex of smooth stone so enormous.”

 

They wandered from display to display, briefly looking at almost unimaginable creatures.   

A few they recognized from stories and legends from their childhoods.     The panther-like Displacer Beast with two tentacles similar to those of an octopus sticking out of the back of its neck.    An eight legged Basilisk that was said to possess a gaze that would turn someone who looked at it to stone - fortunately in its suspended state, this power was lost.    A legendary Beholder with its 10 eyestalks sticking out of the floating orb that was its body.     The large 11^th eye of the creature stared blankly forward as it gave a sharp-toothed grin that hinted at a demonic nature.

There were many huge dinosaurs, the majority of them carnivores from their sharkish teeth.     At the other end of the room were some of the most feared mythical beasts.   Yet here they were found in the flesh.     The creepy insect-like Carrion Crawler, displayed half-way up a scaled wall.     A massive Purple Worm that would have been nearly impossible for the giant Roc to grasp, with its rows of dagger like teeth.   

There was a beast of a type that Aaron had heard the King and Queen speak of, for they had encountered one like it, years ago.    It was the horrible Ah’ndengin-mat, with its armor like skin, terrible claws and dragon-like mouth.     

Aaron shivered as he looked at it, for the stories had told of its fierceness and lust for flesh.

Not to be outdone, next to it was a very large Dragon.     It was jet black in color, but the scales seemed almost highlighted in bright red, giving it a devilish appearance as it glared at them with frozen red eyes.

Just past the last display in the long room was a small archway, about 10 feet high and rectangular in shape, with the word ‘Hominidae’ carved into the stone above it.     A familiar blue field of energy covered the doorway.

“I was hoping it would be free of a barrier.”   Aaron sighed as they stood staring at the possible way out.

“Maybe if we approach it as we did the other doorway, it will deactivate automatically.”   Lysa suggested, so they went close to the portal and waved their hands near the field of energy.    They could not make out anything through this field and after a few minutes of trying, they finally gave up and sat down on the edge of the nearby display stand of an odd creature.

It looked like a huge pile of seaweed, swamp grass, wet plant matter and rotting vegetable material had been crudely shaped into a somewhat humanoid form.     There were no eyes or mouth that they could see, but covering the body of the creature was a winding vine with strange yellow flowers that were shaped like the end of a trumpet.

“What an odd thing it is.”   Aaron commented as they walked around it, “It looks like it is made up of plants.”

“Maybe it is a type of golem… a plant golem?”  

“It seems a bit out of place here, doesn’t it?”   Aaron asked, and they kept glancing nervously backwards at it as they sat down on the edge of the creature’s display, facing the blocked doorway.

“Maybe it was put near the door for a reason.”   Lysa theorized and Aaron liked the idea, for the rest of the strange creatures in the huge room had seemed to be animals.     Yes, they were fantastic and quite odd, but all of them, except for this last creature, would have been classified as some sort of animal.

“What could it be here for?”   Aaron wondered aloud.

“Perhaps it alone can stop the others in this room if they are reanimated.”    Lysa said chillingly.

“How?    It looks like a big pile of half-rotted compost.”

“Sometimes the most innocent seeming things are the most formidable.” 

“That is true.”   He looked at her, pleased with her wisdom.   Lysa sat there, clearly uneasy in this place, her lovely blue eyes constantly moving about scanning the room for any danger.   

Aaron was about to say something, when Lysa did a double take and then leaned in, squinting as she looked at something to the left of her.

“What?   Do you see something?”   He followed her gaze, but all he could see was a section of stone wall next to the doorway blocked by the magic barrier.

“There’s something odd with that wall over there.”   She told him and they went over to it to have a closer look.    With her superior Elven vision (which she was still getting used to), she had made out a faint carved outline in the wall.     Aaron could not see it until he was directly in front of it, but he was only Half-Elven, so did not have the hawk-like sight of a full Elf.

“There is a word lightly carved into the wall next to the outline of circle.”   Lysa announced as they examined the wall.

Aaron drew close so that his nose nearly touched the wall.

“It is in common.”   He told her, “It’s ‘Deactivate’.”

“Lord, there is some sort of image or design carved into the middle of the outline of the circle.”

“There is?    Wow, Lysa, your eyes are incredible!   In this dim light and the shadows I really can’t make out any detail.   What do you see?”

She leaned in close to the circle and examined it for a moment, “It looks like… a stick being poked into a hole.”

As soon as she said it she blushed and in spite of himself, Aaron laughed at her embarrassment.  Her expression was wonderfully innocent and sweet.

“Sorry, Lysa.”  He said, though she now was grinning slightly at the humor, “I don’t think it was meant as a fertility symbol.    Obviously Helios was showing that this circle was activated by something pressed into the center of the hole.”

Lysa pointed at the staff that Aaron held, “What about that staff that was in the treasure trove?    Perhaps that was why it was guarded so closely.”

“That makes sense to me.   This close to the doorway to this smaller room, I’d guess it would deactivate the magic barrier to let us pass.   We’ve got to try it, at any rate, for there doesn’t seem to be any other way out of here.”

Aaron took the staff and held it horizontally; lining it up with some guidance from Lysa until it matched the position of the carving in the wall.

“Ready?”   He asked his squire.   She nodded and came to stand behind him, glancing over at the blue magic barrier.

Aaron touched the butt end of the staff against the circle etched in the stone and immediately the circle glowed blue and the stone inside the circle disappeared.    Aaron pushed the staff into the hole about an inch.     For a long moment, nothing happened.

Then the blue barrier disappeared, there was a clicking sound and a hidden doorway appeared to the left of the circle on the wall.

But it was what happened behind them that pulled their attention away from the doorways.

The monsters in the room were moving.