Rangers magic 3, p.11
Ranger's Magic 3, page 11
He listened to Farlo’s retelling of the tale with increasing enjoyment, putting in emphasis here and there, particularly when Farlo, as was his nature, tried to minimize the valiant part he himself had played in the fighting. By the end of the story, the eyes of the two women were glowing with interest in the story and admiration for the fighters.
“You did so well!” Sena said. “I have to admit, I’m quite glad I wasn’t there. It sounds like the strange feeling of someone being there and aware of you—the Watcher, as you call it—was very clearly present. I found that more disturbing than anything I’ve felt since I left the Black Spire, but I’m glad to hear that you’ve felt it, too. I wondered if I was going a little mad.”
“Definitely not,” Akhen said. Ralnor looked at him expectantly. Akhen muffled a smile, and Ralnor grinned.
Lana took up one of the strange coins between her thumb and forefinger and examined it with care. “I think,” she said slowly, her eyes traveling between Ralnor and their old mentor, “that Ralnor has a question or two for Akhen.”
“Oh really?” Akhen said innocently, his mouth twisting as he attempted vainly to conceal a smile.
“I think you know more about that dungeon than you’re letting on. I’ve never heard of such a thing before, but those were no ordinary monsters.”
“Aye, indeed,” Akhen said, relenting. “And it’s been good to hear the details of the story again and to have the opportunity to set my thoughts in order. This is just guesswork—there’s no way to prove it—but all the pieces fit. Well, I’ll tell you.”
He sat back in his chair, took a deep breath, and then began.
“In the olden days, in the golden age of magic before the Sundering, there were spirits, as I said before, that had the ability to feed off expended energy and, to a limited extent, use that energy to alter their environment. They were known to hang about in places where people expended a lot of energy and focus—battlefields were a favorite haunt for such spirits. Sometimes, one heard stories of these spirits being able to create environmental factors that actually caused people to expend more energy than they otherwise would have done.
“These were small effects, things like making a rockfall happen to block a passage, forcing people to work to clear the way, or changing the landscape to make ground that had been flat, hilly, rough, and hard to traverse. But the most powerful of these spirits were the ones that found themselves on battlefields where magical energy was expended. They grew more powerful and gained new abilities with their power. The most powerful spirits were sometimes said to occupy caves near the battle site, creating environments there where people could fight enemies with magic.”
“The spirits created a place through their own will, causing people to fight monsters?” Ralnor asked.
“Exactly. The more energy the spirits could feed on, the more power they gained, and the more they could alter their environment. They created monsters and traps and tunnels for adventurers to navigate and fight in, and they created treasure in their chambers to reward those who fought there. The people called them dungeons. Over time, dungeons and adventurers developed a symbiotic relationship. The adventurers fought for the loot, expending energy to feed the dungeon spirits and getting financial rewards and practice at fighting in return. The dungeons learned not to kill the adventurers outright, though that sometimes happened, of course. But a dungeon spirit that killed its adventurers soon ran out of food. Over a long period, a few of the dungeons became preeminent, while others died off or vanished from the world.”
“And you think one of these dungeon spirits is now in the lower levels of the tree city?” Ralnor asked.
“I can see no other explanation for what we have just experienced. The monsters we fought, the way they came in waves, the magic we were forced to use, even the presence of traps and the feeling of being watched… all these things are the hallmarks of the old dungeon tales. Yes, I think that one of these spirits has allied with Calgar, the great tree spirit. Now that Calgar has awakened again, I believe the dungeon has awakened, too, and I believe that it’s hungry. I don’t think any spirit could enter the tree city without the tree spirit’s permission, and so it follows that Calgar, the tree spirit, actively allows the presence of the dungeon in its depths.”
Farlo sat forward excitedly. “But what about the suit of armor?” he asked. He held his hand to his chest, where the Amulet of Shem still lay. “There’s more to all this than just the dungeon. The suit of armor shows that.”
“I agree,” Akhen said. “The armor was intimately connected with the Amulet of Shem. It was azure blue like the amulet. Azure is the color of Shem. Water is Shem’s element, and we needed to use water magic to defeat the dungeon and unlock the suit of armor. I think that for some reason, the azure spirit—the spirit that became Shem, human god of the sea, of water, and of touch and healing—has placed this suit of armor deep within the tree city. We—through chance, fate, or both—stumbled upon the suit of armor. We had the magic required to beat the dungeon and unlock the suit of armor, and we had the amulet, which was required to take the suit of armor.”
“Wait a moment,” Sena put in, furrowing her brow in thought. “This dungeon is connected to the elemental spirit and to the suit of armor and the amulet. But you said there are five spirits and five amulets—the five chalices of the gods. We already know that there are three more amulets, and we have the map of their locations. Does that mean there are more suits of armor and perhaps more dungeons out there, too?”
“I think that is what it means, yes,” Akhen said. “There’s no telling what strange things have happened over the centuries since the Sundering. The spirits—both the five spirits of the elements that I described and the dungeon spirits—must have interacted in some way, making an alliance. The dungeon spirits integrated with the elemental spirits, creating a situation where the suits of armor that go with the five chalices were protected by having a dungeon that needed clearing before a user could access them. This means that only one who had mastered the elemental magic aligned with the particular god-spirit could clear the dungeon.”
“No one without water magic could have cleared that dungeon,” Farlo said quietly. “So we must seek to master the other magics as well.” He turned to Sena. “Who are the other five human gods?” he asked. “We know of Shem—we’ve found Shem’s chalice, and it’s this amulet. Shem is the azure spirit, and his color is blue. But who are the others?”
Sena listed them off on her fingers. “There were five, as you say. The five gods of the humans. One is Shem, the god of healing and of the sea. Then there was Calgar, the god of kings, the god of power and control over others, and also of trees and growing things. That one must be the green spirit of the tree that inhabits the city here. We have his amulet, too. The second chalice. The god of fire and of the hearth is Gleam, and his color is red. And then there are the gods of black and white.”
“What of them?” Ralnor asked.
“Delkor is the god of darkness. He is the god of fates, the god of the future. And lastly, there is Elemar, the god of truth. His color is white. I have never before heard this tale that Akhen tells, of the five ancient spirits, but there is an undeniable parallel between the five colors, the properties of the gods that we in the human lands know, and the ancient spirits Akhen speaks of. I have no doubt that the gods we in the human lands worship are the same beings as these ancient elemental spirits.”
“There are five chalices,” Ralnor said, “and so we must assume there are also five suits of armor and five dungeons to fight. The Amulet of Shem we already have. We found it in the dungeon in the center of the unclaimed lands.” He frowned, thinking back. “I never considered it at the time, but I suppose that must have been a dungeon in the same sense that the dungeon we just fought was.”
“We never explored it any farther,” Lana said. “Do you think there was a suit of armor in there somewhere that we missed?”
“If so, it was a suit of armor that was associated with a different element. I wonder…” Ralnor broke off, frowned thoughtfully, then spoke again. “I wonder if that dungeon had the suit of armor that goes with the green amulet of Calgar, the one I took from the Master. He had been working here in the city for a long time and using the power of the amulet to control the troops and boost his own powers of control. If the suit of armor here is the Shem armor, then perhaps the armor there is the Calgar suit?”
“It makes sense,” Farlo said, “and we cleared the dungeon, so we should be able to get the suit.”
“If we go back there,” Sena added, “which at this point does not seem like the easiest thing to do.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Akhen said. “I agree that all you say is probably true, but winter is coming, and you have the city to repopulate. We have the green amulet, the Chalice of Calgar. Without that, no one else will be able to claim the suit of armor, even if they went to the dungeon. Once you have fulfilled your mission here at Highbough, you can approach the discovery of the remaining three dungeons.”
“Ralnor, do you have the map to hand?” Farlo asked.
Ralnor reached into his pouch and took out the map that Parlax had given him, then unrolled it on the table while the others crowded in to look. Ralnor gestured to the different points on the map as he spoke. “Here’s one amulet location—the Forbidden City of Highbough. Well, we have that chalice, it’s the green Amulet of Calgar. Then there’s the blue Chalice, the Amulet of Shem, that we also already have. Here’s the location where we found it, marked by a cross.”
“Yes,” Sena said, “that’s the location of the dungeon where we fought and where Lana almost lost her life.”
They all stopped and looked at Lana, but she smiled. “It’s fine,” she said. “Go on.”
Ralnor pointed at another location, near the Unclaimed Lands dungeon that they’d just been looking at. “This other location is to the south of the dungeon where we found the Amulet of Shem,” he said. “It’s almost within the Cursed Lands—in fact, I think it might even be within the boundaries of that deadly area.”
“Then there’s one near my home village,” Lana said, “in the mountain country north of Greenwood and Suntower City.” She pointed with one long, pale finger to a location a long way south and east of the Forbidden City. “That’s night elf country. The mountains there are full of strange things, and I confess it wouldn’t seem so strange to me for there to be a dungeon hiding out there, concealing a god-spirit’s chalice.”
“And the third,” Sena said quietly, “is marked right in Tullian’s Vale, the capital city in the heart of Venetia, the kingdom of the humans.”
“The chalices have lain hidden for many years, for centuries even,” Akhen said. “We must find them… you must find them, that is clear. But it can be as dangerous to rush toward a fate as to avoid it. Take your time, and do not be diverted from your path. It may be that the great spirits have all gone from the world, all except Calgar, the great spirit that has inhabited this mighty tree city. It may be that the other spirits lie sleeping, dormant, and just waiting for you to awaken them. I cannot tell.”
“So,” Ralnor said, “you recommend continuing on our current path for now?”
“Most definitely,” Akhen said. “Do not forget your promise to Calgar the tree spirit, though. Repopulate Highbough as you have sworn to do. Once that has been done, then you can set out on your quest to find the remaining chalices. And I don’t doubt that you will find them and that the quest will lead you in the end to the heart of the human kingdom, to the dungeon that may be awaiting you in the city of Tullian’s Vale.”
Ralnor leaned back in his chair and sighed out a long breath.
“I want to know more about these coins,” Lana said, looking at the gold coins the dungeon had bestowed on them. “King Ralnor the First, eh?” She gave Ralnor a half-considering, half-mocking look. Ralnor rolled his eyes and flapped a dismissive hand at the gleaming coins.
“It’s a joke,” he said, “it must be. This dungeon spirit must have a warped sense of humor. That’s the only explanation I can make for it.”
“Really?” Lana said, thoughtfully, fingering the coin. “It strikes me that this dungeon spirit may have an idea of the future. Perhaps you will become the King of Highbough?”
Ralnor frowned. “I don’t see how that could be the case,” he said. “King Harald III is the rightful king of all the elven lands. He was king of Highbough back in the old days before the Sundering. I have no desire to set myself up in opposition to him as king of this city. If you ask me, this dungeon is trying to cause trouble. Perhaps it would benefit the dungeon for King Harald and myself to be at odds with one another, and so the dungeon is trying to give me ideas above my station? I won’t be drawn by such nonsense. After all, despite everything that’s happened, I’m still only a Ranger.”
“King Harald has no heir,” Farlo said speculatively. “Perhaps the fates will align to cause your ascension in the end?”
“I think it highly unlikely,” Ralnor said.
But despite his own certainty, his friends continued to gaze at him with a speculative air that he found incredibly annoying.
* * *
Winter’s iron grip took hold of Highbough soon after that day in the dungeon. The season had been threatening to change for some time. Now, the snows came down off the mountain and carpeted the plain in deep, motionless white. Northern winds swept down on the land from mountain and from sea, lashing the waves and whipping the falling snow into a blizzard.
Daily, Ralnor gazed out at the spectacle from his chambers high in the tree city.
The human army moved into the city. Rizan had initially been in favor of their remaining in camp on the plain despite the cold, but Ralnor would not hear of it.
“Your men have worked long and hard to clear the upper levels,” he said. “It’s only fair that they should be the first to benefit.” He had not shared his pact with Calgar the tree spirit with Rizan, and Ralnor did not mention that moving the soldiers into the city would help fulfill his end of the bargain to repopulate the city.
Rizan considered Ralnor his liege lord and treated him like a king—whatever Ralnor might say—and so the soldiers broke their camp and shifted ‘upstairs,’ as they called it, into the freshly cleared chambers in the middle rooms of the outer level of the city. These rooms were good, with wide views and good access to the main central stairs that ran up and down the city’s body. The mapping efforts of the human soldiers had yielded information about the city’s structure, and the humans knew their way around.
At the heart of the city, there were three great stairways, each acting as a central highway up and down. From these stairways, hundreds of smaller stairs and passages led off, giving access to the landings and corridors that granted access to the rooms where most of the soldiers took up their abodes.
The work in the forest at the edge of the plain, south and east of the city, had yielded a great many supplies for the winter. While Ralnor had forbidden the wholesale felling of the trees, the workers had still been able to bring a great deal of firewood back to the city. The stone-lined fireplaces and chimneys—cleaned and made ready for use—now heated the chambers and made cozy rooms for the new inhabitants.
There were still great tracts of the city that were uninhabited—and even greater areas that were unexplored but for an initial cursory visit—but Ralnor felt the tree spirit’s satisfaction all the same. Since that day in the dungeon, he had felt the tree spirit often, and not just in the lower levels.
“Calgar,” he said, sometimes, trying to reach out to the great, unknowable presence of the spirit. But the name did not seem right, somehow. Calgar was the name the humans had given to the spirit when they had worshiped it as a god, but that was not truly its name. If it even had a name, it was not one that was conceivable for the minds of mortals; not even a long-lived half-elf like Ralnor. For the moment, Calgar would have to do.
Ralnor was glad that Calgar was pleased. He felt that he was fulfilling his promise to the spirit and that he would continue to be able to do so.
Ralnor had set up his quarters in the high chamber with the locked treasure room. The room was large and rather bare, but Ralnor didn’t mind. Though far from luxurious, it was a great deal better than his room in the base of the tower back at Rayne’s Outpost, and better still than the hovels of Suntower City’s lower districts where he’d spent his childhood. It had a big window at one end, which commanded a magnificent view of the plains, the river, the forest, and the stormy bay.
Every day, he kept a lookout for new arrivals.
The Dernwaith came first, arriving in twos and threes after the first snows. Anaxis came with them.
There was a good fireplace in Ralnor’s room, carefully lined with stone—as were all the fireplaces in the city. On the day the Dernwaith arrived, a fire of sappy pine logs crackled and sparked in Ralnor’s hearth, sending out a generous heat into the room. The human soldiers, with the help of Akhen and Farlo, set about helping the Dernwaith to settle in, but Anaxis came up straight up to Ralnor with the snow still caking his boots and flecking his hair.
“So, my friend, you convinced your people of the wisdom of joining us?” Ralnor said with a smile after they had greeted each other warmly. They were sitting at a table near the fire, and Ralnor was pouring tea for Anaxis as he spoke. The Dernwaith leader’s dripping cloak hung from a peg by the hearth, and the wind whipped the snow hard against the windows and sang mournfully in the chimney.
“It was not an easy task,” Anaxis said. “I am no leader—not like you or your elven king. The Dernwaith were at first reluctant to leave their villages, and they were doubtful that the Forbidden City—as they call it still—could have been made habitable. But the monsters that were released before the portal closed have been making a nuisance of themselves in the forests. They have formed into packs and have been raiding the sheep and cattle that the villagers rely on for their winter supplies.”
