The Ground Shakes
Ozzob emerges from the tunnel dragging Tolvis. Two arrows remain sticking out of his chest. Dedrick rushes to his masters side.
“What happened?”
“The trap he warned me of.”
“He should not have been leading the way.”
Dedrick jerks the arrows from Tolvis’s fading body. A grey colored drips from the shaft of the arrow. The flesh around the piercing wound is cracked and discolored.
“Some sort of poison. He may not recover.”
Ozzob leans over his injured companion and places hands near the wounds. A wave of glowing energy flows from the sorcerer into Tolvis, but the wounds remain.
“The Poison has been treated against magical healing.”
“He will survive, but it will be a long recovery.”
Dedrick explains, “I will remain behind and watch these two. You just get the gem, and lets get out of here.”
Ozzob stands, after a quick survey of the room he returns to the vault passage. This time he proceeds into the poorly lit darkness with a calculating haste. The crafty sorcerer’s soul embraces the darkness, his mind opens to the world.
#
Yes now, it tickles at my imagination, pricks my curiosity. I can feel the presence, but I can give it no substance. There is someone else inside my skin, inside my mind.
“Who is there?” I question.
A voice ripples apart and reveals its pitch to my thoughts. “I am that which you seek.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to… remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Remember me!”
I block it out, this demon is trying to break my sanity. He would use me for his own gain. I cannot allow him to manipulate my powers. My powers… He wanted my powers before… I remember something, but its just a fragment.
“Yes, you must awaken from this sleep of mortality.” Pounds the ghostly voice of this invader.
“I refuse to entertain your words.”
“You have no choice. I am in your thoughts.”
I fight this invasion of my spirit with every ounce of my soul as my body proceeds deeper into the vault. I can barely see what is in front of me, I’m just not watching. This… Thing, in my thoughts.
“Leave me along!” I silently scream.
“But, you owe me so much… and I ask so little.”
“I owe you nothing! Who are you?”
“I am Rhulgar, the very first wizard of this world.”
I can’t believe what he is saying. I don’t want to believe it. Even if this damnable spirit is the ancient wizard Rhulgar, what could I possibly owe him. I have never… seen him before.
“Welcome.”
I find that I have been standing in front of the pedestal where the gem rests for an indeterminate amount of time. I can not concentrate with energy invested in fending off this wizard. I reach out to pick up the gem.
The moment my skin touches the surface of the gem I am overcome with emotions. I can see memories… my memories, but I do not recognize them. My childhood was such a long time ago, I never think about it. I recoil from the gem.
Deciding that I do not want to offer any opportunities to this captive wizards spirit, I remove a long cloth from my pouch and use it to pick up the gem. I bound the cloth onto its self and replace it in my pouch.
With the wizard cautiously under wraps, I head back to the others. Perhaps we will be able to escape this pit with no more injuries. We have already sacrificed too much.
The voice returns to my thoughts, “You will not ignore me.”
#
Dedrick, Tolvis and Leone sit in silence, the blackness of the cavern offers no rest to there weary minds and bodies. They watch, staring into the dark, something approaches. Ozzob emerges from the vault passage in a half dazed stupor, after several questions he responds.
“Sorry, I cant concentrate on anything.”
“You have the gem?”
“Yes.”
“Then lets get out of here.”
The hissing of Rhulgar’s spirit is audible despite its muffled locale. “No!”
A thunder begins to resonate from deep within the catacombs. Then from the side passages, a flood of pounding booms; a cave-in. Rocks begins to fall all around the four heroes. Small and Large, the stones spell certain death for anyone who gets trapped under them. Only one escape dose not contain the thunderous danger, the vault.
A short time passes before the sounds of falling rocks fade. The companions now face a new challenge, escape from a trapped room deep under the ground. Although each suffers from different wounds, the four manage to efficiently search the room for an escape path, the find nothing. The trapped companions reach the same unspoken conclusion; this is a vault, there will be no other exits.
“Leave me alone!” Ozzob screams spontaneously.
Dedrick gives him a questioning look of concern.
Ozzob responds by saying, “I’m ok. We just…” An unfamiliar smile spreads across Ozzob’s face.
“I know how to get us out of here.”
Leone’s dazed stare slants at the sorcerer with curiosity.
“Its going to feel a little weird.”
The sorcerer reaches out with his hands, palms up; rainbow patterns of energy emanate from him form and reflect off the walls.
“What do you mea…”
Each of the four shrink down to the floor, there bodies and possessions morph until only four rodents are left standing in the trapped confines of the vault. Disoriented, and initially unable to move, the group struggles to move around the room. In time the new found size gives way to a small air vent built for the people who worked to create the vault room.
Squeezing
out the vents exit, the four find their selves in the middle of the
Ozzob grasps his head and doubles over in pain. He screams aloud, “You must leave me!”
Concerned, the others move to his side and attempt to console him. There questions are ignored by the sorcerer.
The sorcerer turns to look at his friends and says, “We are still in danger. We must get out of the temple. Now!”
The rumbles expand, echoing from the caverns under the ground. The dirt under everyone’s feet begins to shift; a deafening, thick roar rips from all directions as the ground begins to collapse. Dedrick leads the flight from the temple.
The stone structures that remain after the dark walkers battering begin to buckle under the stress of the shifting foundations. Giant stone arches split open, walls crack and the remaining structures crumble around the fleeing survivors. Within an hour the entire site has sunken into the ground; a pile of nameless rubble at the bottom of a deep chasm.
#
A crackling fire layers the area in waves of glowing red; the moon hangs high in the night sky giving a slight illumination to the field outside the, now collapsed, Temple of the Crazed Lynx. Dedrick carefully examines the wounds of his friend Tolvis.
“If the bolt’s impact was slightly to the left or right, it would have been fatal.”
“The gods were with us.”
Dedrick turns to Ozzob and begins to ask a question, and then he realizes that his sorcerer friend is in a deep sleep.
“I have noticed.”
“What do you think it means?”
“Do you remember what his familiar said… that the gem was a container for a powerful wizard.”
“Then you think this wizard is taking him over.”
“Perhaps, there is nothing to reinforce the claim… yet.”
Ozzob’s eyes snap open, he slowly
rights himself into a sitting position in front of the blaze.
“I know you worry about me.”
“We are concerned.”
“The wizard dose speak to me, but he dose not control me.”
“And if it changes?”
“We must get rid if it.”
Ozzob closes his eyes tight for a moment as he shifts his concentration to fight back Rhulgar.
“Soon.”
“I know the place, a day’s walk into the mountains, its called ‘The Well of the Damned’.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“We have to do something with it; the gem cannot remain on the surface.”
“I agree, but… what are we talking about exactly?”
“In
the mountains there is a cave whose entrance has been paved with the skulls of
dead men. Through the cavern complex
there is a giant bridge that spans a flow of molten rock.
“So be it.”
“The Well of the Damned.”
#
The dominance of memory exalts, “This gem is more. So much more… It is a power of the ancient world.”