Loremaster a progressi.., p.62
Loremaster - A Progression Fantasy Adventure, page 62
Rather than a frieze as the three circles around it had been, the center of the door was carved only with a single image, that of a wolf’s head with fangs bared. Its right eye was closed, with a scar running down over top the ruined orifice, and atop its skull, the wolf wore two magnificent antlers of wrought iron, the tips of the antlers swelling to fill the entirety of the upper half of the circle.
It was remarkable craftsmanship, and for a moment, Rowan just stopped to admire it. Then the moment passed, and he began to analyze the meaning behind the three circles and the wolf’s head within them.
On closer inspection, there were quite a few clues engraved onto the door that barred their way forward. For starters, the carvings were Ancient Windian, similar to those he had seen together with the Frost Blades back in his first dungeon. More importantly, they depicted a specific saga that they had studied in class. That of the twin founders of the empire: Canus and Clawius.
Originally, the territory that would become the base of power and the first territory of the Windian Empire had been a kingdom known as Stagheim. Ruled by a noble family of snow elves who used a stag as their sigil, the kingdom was the place where two boys would be born of a human father and a wild goddess by the name of Windia. These were Canus and Clawius.
To make a long story short, the two had grown up as lesser citizens inside the snow elf kingdom, and eventually fomented a revolt. Spearheaded by the two demi-gods, the non-snow elves rose up against their rulers and cast them down. This was what the outer circle had depicted, the two wolves rising up against the stag of the royal family.
Obviously, the twins had been successful, and had created the Windian kingdom from the ashes of Stagheim, named in honor of the goddess who had birthed them. This was what the second circle showed, with the two feasting on the remains of Stagheim.
Finally, they had ruled over Windia together, vesting themselves in the royal authority once owned by the snow elves of Stagheim. This was the subject of the third circle, both brothers clasping the antlers that had granted royal authority to the former rulers of their kingdom.
Given the prevalence of the myth, it was no surprise to Rowan that it would show up here. They had studied it in Rockhammer’s class, written about it on two separate tests, and discussed the important elements of the myth at length. Leaving the bulk of the analysis aside, Rowan’s eyes settled on the two antlers that sprang from the wolf’s head in the center of the door.
To the founding of Windia, there were few symbols more potent than the stag’s antlers. Whenever they appeared in the story, they were treated as a crown, the owner of the antlers the one who controlled Windia. If the way to open the door was contained within the story told by the circles, it was likely that it involved the antlers.
Experimentally, Rowan reached out and brushed his hand against the antlers, first the left, then the right. Nothing happened, but that was to be expected. There was no way that the solution to the door could be that easy. Rockhammer would not allow it to be so.
Pulling, tugging, prodding, Rowan set to examining the antlers and the area around them. But it was not until he inserted mana into his fingertips that something happened. As his mana-infused hand touched the antlers, they budged, flexing down slightly like a handle.
Emboldened, Rowan attempted to pull them farther, but no matter how he tried, they would not budge. Or rather, the left one would not. The right antler moved several inches downward, but the left remained stubbornly in place, refusing to go any further than it had upon his initial touch.
“Have you discovered how to open it yet?” Morgana’s voice distracted Rowan from his growing annoyance with the left antler.
Turning, he glanced at the fae girl, standing a few feet away as she looked past him towards the door.
“No.” He shook his head in frustration. “I’ve figured out that it has something to do with the antlers, but there’s something preventing me from going any further. Did you find anything on the pillars?”
“Yes,” Morgana responded. “There are inscriptions on each, though three of them don’t seem to be anything more than epitaphs. The fourth was different though: ‘Travel the path unseen’,” she recited. “Do you have any idea what it means?”
Rowan frowned, turning the phrase over in his head. Travel the path unseen. “Which pillar was it on?”
“The one closer to us on the left,” Morgana pointed.
Following Morgana’s finger, Rowan stared at the pillar in question. Just like the others, it was made of stone with a statue of an animal on top. This pillar in particular was capped with the likeness of a wildcat, perched regally on its hindpaws as it surveyed the room from its position of superiority. Just like a real cat.
“Hmmm…” Rowan’s gaze alternated between the pillar and the circles, hoping to divine an answer from the unmoving statue and the carvings. Beside him, Morgana took time to study the circles herself, perhaps hoping that she could solve the door for them.
Travel the path unseen. Rowan quirked his lips as he considered the phrase. It was clearly a hint; the question was, what was it hinting at?
Travel the path was likely a cheeky bit of wordplay referring to what lay beyond the door. In order to travel that path, they needed to figure out how to become unseen, or perhaps why the path was unseen.
“Ugh,” Rowan groaned and massaged his temples. No matter one’s social status, riddles were a crowd pleaser everywhere. He had heard plenty growing up, and they never failed to annoy him when the true answer was revealed. Why couldn’t people just say what they thought in a way that made sense?
Beside him, Morgana wore a frown, her gaze fixated on the third circle. “Why are the two wolves fighting?”
“Hmm?”
Morgana pointed at the two wolves clutching the antlers. “In the third frieze. They’re fighting over the antlers. Why?”
“They’re not fighting,” Rowan told her. “They’ve claimed the crown together, which is represented by the antlers. It’s supposed to be the founding of the Windian Empire.”
“I got that,” Morgana said impatiently. “Just because I didn’t do the loremaster essays doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of history. But they’re clearly fighting here.”
“No, they’re—” Rowan paused.
Now that he looked at it more closely, the two wolves really did look like they were fighting. Initially, he had assumed that they were arranged artistically on both sides of the antlers, like lions holding up a crown. But on closer inspection, the expressions and poses of both wolves suggested enmity, not harmony.
“They’re...?” Morgana prodded.
“You might be onto something,” Rowan exclaimed excitedly.
For most people, the history of Windia’s founding ended after the two brothers overthrew the snow elves and claimed their kingdom for themselves. It was a logical stopping point, a happy ending for everyone but the former rulers, and the story was long enough already.
However, for those who studied the myth, there was actually more to the brothers’ story. It did not end at their coronation, but continued for another several years and culminated in a civil war that nearly wiped out the nascent kingdom.
Staring at the third circle, Rowan did his best to recall what he had read about the final part of the brothers’ story.
The gist of it was that the two brothers had sparked a civil war, fought, and one had walked away victorious after blinding the other. Years later when the kingdom was in peril, the blind brother returned to save it, and Windia then prospered for seven hundred years.
It was an interesting story, but Rowan was not interested in the oratory aspects of it. What he wanted was the way that it tied into the door before him. The path unseen. As he ruminated over the line, Rowan’s gaze landed upon the wolf in the middle of the door, its left eye closed tightly shut. Infusing mana into his fingers, he reached towards the closed eye, brushing the stone upwards like he would a sleeping person’s eyelids.
With a slight rumble, the eyelid rolled backwards, revealing an empty socket. Unlike the right eye, which had a small gemstone within that glittered like an iris, the left eye was empty. But what if that could be changed?
“Did you find something?” Morgana was the first to notice Rowan’s actions. Behind her, Reinne peered curiously at him, trying to see what it was that had prompted Morgana to speak.
“Yeah.” Quickly, Rowan laid out the story of Canus and Clawius, as well as his deductions based on the clue they had found. “There should be a gemstone like this one,” he said, pointing to the right eye of the wolf. “Somewhere in this room. I’m not sure where, but it’s likely associated with a winged creature.”
“One of the pillars had a griffin on it,” Morgana said.
“Another had an eagle,” Reinne added quickly.
“Those are the most likely places it will be,” Rowan replied. “Inspect them thoroughly. I’ll stay here to test and make sure that it’s not something else that opens this thing.”
Moving with haste, the two girls each headed for a different pillar. Like spiders, they both began to climb around the pillars, inspecting them closely as they hauled themselves upwards. It was not long before Morgana let out an exclamation, one hand held aloft as the other clung to the pillar for balance.
“I found it!”
Atop the pillar, the griffin statue had opened its wings, and Morgana hung there with a gem in hand, wearing the closest thing to a smile that Rowan had ever seen on her.
Jumping down, Morgana raced over, followed hotly by Reinne, both eager to see if Rowan’s guess was correct. Now that she was closer, Rowan could see that the gem in Morgana’s hand was indeed a mirror image of the one already in the wolf’s right eye. There was no mistake, this was how the door was supposed to be solved.
Moving back, Rowan motioned Morgana forward. “After you.”
As Morgana stepped forward, Rowan watched closely. This was his favorite part, the moment where everything came together, the tumblers all aligned, and the lock clicked open. Behind him, the faintest sound of steel on leather could be heard, a knife sliding out of its oiled sheath—an unremarkable sound in a butcher’s shop, a deadly warning in a noble’s bedroom.
Out of habit, Rowan turned. What greeted him was Reinne’s dagger, the blade digging deeply into his chest just over his heart. Surprise struck him as hard as the blow itself, and Rowan fell, choking on the blood that filled his mouth as Reinne moved past him, her sword unsheathed as she leapt towards Morgana.
His vision already starting to darken, Rowan watched as Reinne’s blade stabbed towards the defenseless fae girl. His body falling had made a noise, but the time between it and Reinne’s leap was less than a second. Although Morgana was turning, it was not the urgent movement of one under attack, and Reinne’s blade would arrive long before she saw the danger.
Rowan gasped for air. He wanted to call out, but the strength had already fled his body, and no air filled his windpipe, only blood and bile, the last drink of a dying man.
With the sound of metal on glass, Reinne’s blade slammed into a shimmer of purple magic that appeared around Morgana’s body. For a moment, the shield warred with the sword, pulses rippling across the violet screen as it fought to protect its owner. Then the blade of Reinne’s sword flashed azure, and with the sound of breaking glass, the shield shattered, and Morgana was impaled upon the blade.
Eyes going dim, Rowan slumped forward, his view of the battle disappearing as his forehead impacted on the unforgiving stone.
He was dying, again.
Had he had the strength, Rowan would have laughed at the irony of it all. He had been saved from bleeding out after receiving a dagger to the chest only to now find himself with yet another damn dagger in the chest barely a year later. It was poetic, really. His punishment for cheating the gods of death.
All things considered, his second go of it had been much better than the first despite the difference in length. He had lived the life he had always dreamt of, become an adventurer that delved into dungeons, and even made some friends. Well, only two really. But that was still enough to make the word plural, and also infinitely more than he had possessed the last time he had found himself dying with a dagger sticking out from his chest.
Rowan coughed, forcing a bit more blood past lips that were rapidly going cold. Even now he could feel it, the steel still cold as it rested inside his chest cavity while the pommel pushed uncomfortably against his ribcage.
Around him, the sounds of battle could be heard. Apparently, Morgana had not died after all. Good, Rowan thought. Hopefully she avenges me.
Soon, even those sounds disappeared, his hearing the next to disappear as darkness claimed him.
Screw being poor. In my next life, I want to be a dragon.
With that final thought, the last of Rowan’s senses departed him, darkness enveloping him wholly and completely as consciousness faded.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The first thing Rowan became aware of was the heat. Emanating outwards from the bracelet on his wrist, it spread through his body like a wave, replenishing the blood he had lost as it knit torn flesh and severed arteries back together.
The second was the pain. Magic, as it turned out, was not able to remove a dagger lodged two inches above the heart without causing the patient significant discomfort. Or at least the magic that was currently working on him was unable to do so.
Had Rowan’s lungs been working, he would have screamed. As it was, he settled with contemplating the white-hot agony which caused him to wonder if returning to the void would not be preferable to the suffering he was now forced to endure.
All things must pass though, and fortunately, it was the pain that faded and not his consciousness. Now able to think without spikes of searing agony interrupting him, Rowan began to piece together what had happened.
From what he could tell, the magic knitting his shredded chest back together was emanating from the bracelet Darm had given him as a parting gift, the metal pulsing with heat and seemingly the source of the magical power that coursed through him.
So Darm saved me. Again. In a way, it was poetic. Everything had changed, and yet the situation he found himself in still mirrored his time back in Taureen, bleeding out in an alley. Since Rowan already owed Darm his life, he had no problem ticking the number of life debts up to two. He had already been prepared to spend his life repaying the halfling, what was another lifetime added to that? Given how long he had lived those two lives, that would only be about twenty years in total anyways.
Rowan could feel as the sensation returned to his body, his hearing and eyesight both growing clearer as the magic worked its… well, magic. Now able to hear properly, he could make out the sounds of battle, steel clashing against steel as two people fought a few dozen feet from where he lay.
Apparently, Morgana was not dead, and this was immediately confirmed by the girl herself, spitting out words amidst the song of steel that filled the air.
“Who sent you?” Morgana’s voice was ragged, but her intonation was clear and her words dripped with venom.
“You know who,” Reinne replied. The sounds of battle let up as she spoke, apparently not too concerned that she was giving her opponent a break from the hostilities.
“Tianna.” It was not a question, but a statement.
“Got it in one. That’s our top student for you.” Reinne’s words were laced with mockery, but Morgana ignored it.
“On behalf of another? Orders from the crown?”
“Does it matter?” Rowan could almost picture Reinne’s shrug as she said this. “You’re about to die anyways. Just lie down and accept it, and I promise I won’t make it too painful.”
Morgana let out a grim laugh. “As if I’d give you the pleasure.”
More sounds of fighting followed this, the clear sound of steel clashing against steel once again ringing out through the chamber. Feet shuffled against rock, ragged breaths were taken, and grunts of exertion accompanied every sound, a symphony of steel echoing all around.
Turning his attention back to himself, Rowan wiggled his fingers and toes experimentally, testing to make sure everything still worked. As a kid, he had heard enough horror stories about inexperienced mages whose healing had done more harm than good. Thankfully, Darm was not one of those. Everything worked, and he could feel his strength slowly returning.
Not quickly enough though, and he willed it to return faster. Every second he spent lying here was another second closer to Morgana’s probable loss. If she fell and Reinne decided to make sure that he was dead before leaving...
Around him, the battle was moving, shifting from one side of the hall to the other. Mixed in with the sounds of swords clashing were the booms of rocks slamming into hard objects, and the rustle of plants, both sounds that Rowan had heard often throughout the dungeon. Morgana was using magic.
“You can’t possibly think you’ll get away with this.”
Apparently, magic was not enough, for Morgana’s words did not have the ring of confidence bordering on arrogance that Rowan normally associated with her.
“I already have,” Reinne replied. “The magic monitoring they’ve been using to observe us was disabled by my artifact the moment Rowan figured out how to open this door. It’s a long dungeon, and the professor will think that it’s just a temporary malfunction. So we’ve got at least five minutes before any help comes. Once they arrive, all they’ll know is that we were only three people challenging a boss. Tragically, we overestimated our abilities, and you two fell in combat against the climber through that door.”
This provoked a response from Morgana. “There’s a climber in there? How? This is a closed-off dungeon. Any monsters in here were placed by the academy. And how do you know this?”
Reinne shrugged. “You think Faebrook is some impenetrable fortress? People can be bribed. Don’t ask me who, because I don’t know. But they told me about the rockfall trap and that was far more dangerous than it should have been, so I believe them on this. In the end, when the professor makes it here to see what’s happening, she’ll find that I alone managed to barely escape. I’ll have a few injuries of course to make it believable, and it will be just another set of deaths in the Faebrook final exam. There are some every year, and even big names such as yourself aren’t immune. Even if someone suspects foul play, you two will be so mangled by the monster that lies beyond this door that they’ll be unable to tell which parts belong to each of you, let alone that you died at my hands.”
