He shifted the rubble, bit by bit, using only his hands, and proceeded down the staircase. It all clung to what seed to be a door. Once he revealed it, and the dark wood that was still relatively intact, he found the handle, and kicked it through. The last of the rubble went skidding off through the doorway, and Oliver followed after it.
Torches lined the wall – already lit. Oliver’s eyes narrowed. An ominous feeling from up ahead drifted off towards him. Lines in a strange language were written upon a wall. He could not decipher what they ant.
Strange pictures too, of what seed to be n, kneeling before large creatures that were far bigger than they were. Oliver would have called them Titans, though he knew not exactly what they were.
He unsheathed his sword, and proceeded on down the corridor with cautious steps, feeling a dreadful sense of wrongness seeping through his heart. He suddenly understood why this place had been blocked off. Just having the door open, it felt as if whatever was contained inside it was leaking out.
Step after step, he followed the winding corridor round and round. It was difficult to tell how old the place was, but Oliver thought it to be older than just a few hundred years. Which ant, it likely belonged to a ti beyond the Stormfront. Just the thought of that made him shiver.
When the corridor opened up into a vast cavern, he was not nearly as surprised as he should be. The entire length of the corridor he had expected it. For the strength of the foreboding that he felt, there ought to have been a space in which that creature existed.
Blue fire kept the room well enough lit, despite its size. It burned like a mighty bonfire, rising up towards the ceiling. It sat on a raised platform, in the centre of the room, with several staircases leading towards it. It brought to mind the mory of the chamber where Oliver had first encountered a blue fla under Skullic.
Here, Oliver sensed two terrifying presences. One ca from the giant creature that lay just before the platform that held the blue fla, its size impossible to truly grasp, with much of it hidden in shadows. The other ca from just before it, and seed more terrifying than the first.
"Hoh," ca the voice. "Well, if it isn’t the newly crowned King Patrick."
Oliver squinted but was still unable to see. He wrestled one of the lit torches free from the wall, and carried it with him, as he proceeded deeper into the chamber.
He saw a man with long white hair, and a long white beard, and a crow perched on his shoulder.
A great roar ca from the creature before him, as it rose to its feet, but the man quietened it with a wave of his hand. "Not now," he said. "We’ve visitors."
"Have we t before?" Oliver asked.
"In so form or another," the man smiled. "I hear you’re at war with the High King."
Oliver stiffened. "Are you a servant of his?"
"I serve no man. I am the Mage Magnus. No King is mighty enough to bring into service."
"Mage," Oliver said, unable to keep the scorn out of his voice.
Magnus smiled. "I see you’ve a certain amount of disdain for ."
"What are you doing here?" Oliver said. "Or rather, what have you done?"
"Nothing. Yet. This here is not my work, I cannot take credit for it. Were you set to do sothing about it?" Magnus said.
"I was."
"Then do not let stop you," Magnus said. "I rather require you and your little war with the High King to continue for a while longer. It’s highly profitable."
Oliver advanced on him. "Do you?" His sword showed his intent.
Magnus laughed. "Don’t make kill you, fool. Though it is tempting... No matter, if you are here now, then I will allow you this. You’re more valuable alive than the acquisition of another re blue fla."
He walked forward fearlessly. Oliver brought his sword down. A shield of ice rose up to stop it, without Magnus even looking his way. Oliver swung again as the mage walked past him, but once more the icy shield stopped him.
"You’re looking the wrong way," Magnus told him, as he neared the corridor. "You’ve gone and awoken the guardian."
The beast to the front of Oliver roared. A mighty thing Oliver could tell it was. He looked towards an already disappearing Magnus, but could do naught to stop him, as a giant tail ca looking to flatten him.
"Damn it," Oliver cursed, rolling out of the way.
Chapter 23 – Guardians of the Land
A cloud of dust, and a vague depression in the stone floor from where that mighty tail had co to land. Oliver ca back to his feet with a sigh, his sword brandished.
A pair of yellow eyes glowed in the darkness, high up enough that one could begin to guess at the height of the creature. The light of the blue fla illuminated the giant foundations in which it stood upon. Those scaly legs, with their claws as long as a man was tall. The vast cavern in which Oliver stood suddenly began to appear rather cramped.
To evaluate the creature, there was little he could draw from. He could only compare it to other things, and other experiences. He knew not of its like. He had not heard of it. A creature of such proportions – was there ever that? It made even the likes of a Boulder Crab look small in comparison, and if he had to guess at its strength, he would not have said it was any inferior to the Fourth Boundary. Perhaps it even went as far as the Fifth, or even beyond it.
His curiosity had dragged him that far. His want to find sothing to solve that feeling of corruption that had sat in his chest for so long, but he had not expected to stumble upon such an obstacle, and especially not so quickly.
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