AMBROSIAThe next day, we were still in the forest near the desert. Since we had little water, we returned to Goji at nightfall, bought more supplies, and spent the morning at an inn. We had made enough money from wild creatures in the desert to have a somewhat sustainable income, so we didn''t sweat the price. We made it to the doorstep of the temple the next night, and this time the entrance didn''t seem to be forcing us back. Hearing about such a building and seeing it proved to be two different things. The building proved to be quite the impossibly shaped structure, a massive inverted step pyramid lying in the middle of a desert. Well, at least this pyramid didn''t suck.

    The stone entrance emptied out into a long corridor. The ceilings were low and the walls narrow, obviously as a precaution against larger creatures like ogres wrecking the place, but it was no problem for people of our size. The hallway branched to the left, but since we didn''t want to get lost right away, we passed side path for now. This was our first mistake. Aqorm was our mapmaker, since her skills at drawing seemed to be at least as good as her natural talent for music, so she at least made a note of such a path on a piece of paper. We ended up in a large room with a hole in the right side of the room, which appeared to extend into the darkness. The was a metal plaque on the wall, which read, ?To advance, there are times you must retreat. ? Elias, predictably, understood this almost immediately. Zoe and Azrael offered to stay at the current location, anticipating that there may be a puzzle involved to this room, while the rest of us continued back. There surely wasn''t any other reason they wanted to be alone.

    At the crossroads, we continued into the left path, and found ourselves at another expansive room. This room had a lever to pull, a shopkeeper, and a set of old stairs leading to the basement. The shopkeeper was apparently selling lanterns. She told us, “You might find this basement too dark. I recommend getting a lantern first.” I looked at her sad eyes and cheerful face. It was obvious that she had waited for much of her life, in a temple nobody could enter, hoping to sell something to adventurers who might never come. After the fiasco in Aiken Temple where all of us were fumbling in the dark, this seemed like a wise investment. I gave her the last 10 Gold out of my pocket. This was an old oil lantern, so we wouldn''t be able to use it much outside the shrine unless we bought a bit more oil, but I fully intended to get a better one later. Aqorm decided to scout ahead in the basement, so she could look for changes made by pulling the lever.

    She returned to report that nothing to her knowledge had changed, but she brought back some keys which she had found inside a chest. They were a gold key, a silver key, and an iron key. These were different sizes and complexities. The silver key was ornate, engraved with religious imagery. The gold key on the other hand was incredibly simple, it was valuable as it was pure gold with an alchemical process to harden it. I had heard somewhere that silver and gold represented the spiritual and material world, but none so readily as these. The iron key scared me to touch it, there was something deeply wrong about the way it felt. I suspected it was cursed or something, there was a sense of billions of runes crawling on its surface.

    We returned to the northern passage only to find there was no northern passage. The way ahead had been blocked. Elias had only to examine it for a moment before he concluded, “the switch we pulled must have moved this wall. You two, you stay here, Aqorm and I will check things at our end.” Yeah, right. They just wanted to spend more time together. We did as we were told. Sure enough, the walls opened up, and we rejoined Azrael and Zoe. Azrael looked disappointed. She explained, “The pit below has a platform that shifts... it just moved back when the wall opened again.” Oh crap. A puzzle.

    For the next few hours we tried different methods trying to walk back and forth to get the party together. Zoe created vines, but the walls squished them into shreds. Aqorm tried using her geomancy to create a stone pillar, but it jammed the mechanism for the pit, meaning either the pit was fatal or we would be trapped. To make matters worse, everyone had coupled up, making this puzzle a matter a splitting up lovers. Ultimately, Zoe and Azrael decided to head to where the lever was, Elias and Aqorm doubled back to where the pit was, and we also made it inside the room. Almost as an afterthought, Zoe appeared inside before it closed, leaving Azrael stranded with the switch.

    AZRAEL

    I sent Zoe on the other side before closing the wall. Before I did so, I advised to her, “I will use a dangerous spell. When the door closes, tell everyone to move to the corners of the room.” Zoe left me behind to do what I needed to do. I continued back to the room with the levers, and activated the mechanism. This mechanism appeared to be designed to separate groups. It slid the pit into place when the door was fully extended, but it didn''t seem to matter that the door was intact, so long as it was fully extended, and the wall clicked together. With this in mind, blowing a hole through the wall shouldn''t make too much of a difference.

    Although with a hole in the wall, she could easily join me, there was a specific reason why I couldn''t cast this in front of her. Despite us being joined together by past lives, there were just certain things I wasn''t willing to share with her. This spell was a family secret, with specific runes that were likely to get cast by accident. It took years to be able to safely use this effect, to control it properly. As it was, anyone who got caught in the path of this effect would be disintegrated, but if mishandled, it was more like a bomb. I''ve known people who mishandled magic, it is the most frightening experience someone can watch. One minute, the person is breathing, able to sweat and bleed, to blink and blush and feel, and the next, they are gone. They are atoms, motes of light, and dust.

    Safely behind a stone wall, I intoned the spell, “Destruction.” Runes began to form in a concentric sphere and I wove them in a pattern with my index finger. This part was very difficult. The natural inclination of these runes was in the opposite direction, causing a black destructive explosion. Causing it to move in this direction was like swimming upstream in a fierce river. I managed it only due to years of training. The runes began to stop rotating entirely, and then the runes gave way to the form of a greyish-black sphere. The sphere expanded to a ball that was roughly the same diameter as the height of a person. The sphere made a hole with no explosive force exerted, no pressure, and no change in shape on the rest of the wall. It was closer to taking an eraser to the area than it was a standard offense spell. The ball diminished as it traveled through space, as the runes hidden inside the spell began to lose their power, until it finally dissipated into the air. I stepped into the room, rejoining the others. They didn''t seem overly thrilled about jumping into a pit that may or may not be a fall to their doom, but Ambrosia''s natural charisma won us over. We were apparently willing to do crazy things because we were cheering for her success. So it looks like I was jumping into a pit after all.

    The wind rushed through my hair as I fell, and all around me faded to darkness. No, I didn''t die. It''s just because the sides of the pit was not well lit. I landed on solid ground. We were on a platform of some kind of metallic alloy. At the edge of the platform was a hinge which slid back as a result of the movement of a nearby bar, which could retract to have us continue falling down the pit. I was suddenly glad not to have broken the mechanism, yet nervous that it wouldn''t be able to support our weight. But it held us, covering a patch of flooring that would otherwise be a fall to our doom. I looked around at the rock walls of what appeared to be some kind of underground cavern. It was dank and moldy here, but it appeared to be less so in a northern tunnel.

    The northern tunnel quickly led to an area which had carved stone structures crudely superimposed over damp cave walls, and a stone staircase leading back to the surface. Torches were studded along the walls, so battle in here would not be restricted by lack of visibility. The problem was, just as it was more advanced than it appeared, the area was more guarded than a simply cave would be. A group of soldiers with shields and armor stood at ready, and behind them was a user of thaumaturgy, from the looks of it.

    I got a closer look at them. Five valknuts and a necromancer. The necromancer was distinctive from its garb inlaid with bones and skulls, his tattered rags drenched in blood. The valknuts were covered with metal armor covering even their faces, but unlike the typical town guard, they were not chosen for their magical resistance. They didn''t need it. On their sword and shield was a mark, the mark of the Valknut. It was supposed to symbolize the power to bind and unbind, the power of both binding oaths or pledges, and of breaking those of others. These warriors didn''t need antimagic, for the power they had was able to cut spells in half, and they would not stop fighting since they swore never to abandon their duty. We had made an oath too, to follow Ambrosia to the ends of the Earth in order to help her succeed in her quest. I wondered at that moment, which of us would be able to keep their promise?

    AMBROSIA

    There were a few of these guys guarding the stairs. Some wizard or something that was wearing a bunch of bones, and three armored soldiers with a shield covered with a mark that looked like a bunch of triangles that kinda locked into each other or something.

    The wizard started mumbling some strange words, and dropped some bags of the ground. The bags popped open, and a group of bones started assembling themselves. Azrael moved to use her Exorcism, but it looked like she was currently busy helping Nevras with these armored soldiers. Zoe had tried to blast them with magic, but they somehow smashed her spells apart with their sword and shield. She instead switched to bow and arrow, and was taking shots at the wizard, who so far was dodging out of the way. Elias was busy keeping everyone healed. Aqorm, having used her geomancy, fought the skeletons at close range.

    Zoe managed to get a good shot off on the wizard guy with her arrows and shot him through the arm, but he didn''t seem to bleed probably from some creepy magic. He then cut off his arm, removed the arrow, and sewed it back on. I kinda felt sick watching that. Aqorm was having trouble with the skeletons. True, she have knives made from a material that all sorts of creatures loathed, but unlike zombies, the fact that these things were all bone meant it was difficult to land a good hit. Any time she tried, that guy would wave his hands, and they would put themselves right back together. Uhhh, maybe she should attack him instead. Sear?h the N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    Meanwhile, Azrael and Nevras were having trouble with those soldier things. “Valknuts,” Azrael called them. She explained to Nevras, “These things can break magic with their sword and shield, and they are fast enough to block direct attacks. You will need to attack from the side but...” Nevras, impatient to fight said, “Okay, I''m on it. I''ll beat these things no problem, I promise.” Azrael with a sigh, hit her palm against her face, then finished her sentence, “...but above all avoid making oaths and promises, because these things can use them against you.” The eyes of the valknuts began to glow, as they announced in unison, “An Oath was made!” The same symbol on these guys'' shields began to glow beneath Nevras''s feet, and suddenly he was fixed in place. “By my oath, you shall not keep your vow,” said the nearest one, his sword and shield glowing as he spoke. He slashed hard at Nevras''s shoulder, leaving him in great pain, which Elias was trying to heal at range. Azrael pushed the sword back with her paper-covered sword. She called out “Break Enchantment!” Suddenly, he was moving again, and jumped to the side of the warrior. As I knew from dealing with our own town guards, just whacking armor with a sword wouldn''t do much good because it couldn''t really cut through the metal, the sword could only target weak points or possibly cut areas where the stuff was strapped together. Stuff like the armpits, the elbow, the visor, the backside, the back of the thigh, the back of the knee, and the groin. To pierce metal requires something not only sharper, but probably also harder. Sometimes if the slats of the armor were loose, someone could slide the weapon in between sections of metal, but that was a big if. Nevras outpaced the armored knight block with his shield, and stabbed at its armpits. He got another one through the back of the knee, and the third in the space under his breastplate. These were shallow cuts, but the knights began shaking visibly. “You failed in your vow,” said Azrael, “you know what that means.” The symbol near the shield and sword of the knights lit up, and then the inside of their armor glowed. The knights collapsed in a heap, leaving nothing but empty armor behind.

    While the others were busy, I decided to do my thing. I used the trigram of Alexander, flooding the room with an aura of light. If those guys were able to counter this magic, they were too busy to right now, as they were fighting Nevras and the others. The skeletons were purified to nothing. The bone wizard just tossed out more bags and animated those into skeletons. Urgh. I couldn''t just keep firing consecutive holy energy. My trigrams didn''t use mystic power, but my trigrams went dark when used, each used trigram gradually recharging after about five or ten minutes. It left me open to attack in the meantime. Elias, after healing Nevras on the shoulder with a ranged casting of Healing, was trying to summon up some holy attacks. Aqorm was also ready to pick up the slack. By the time Zoe finally shot the wizard dead, I was ready to use Alexander again. But Elias was quicker with his prayers. Seeing no more opposition, we just walked up the stairs to the next floor.

    The stairs kinda led us to a big open room. At the north end of this room were another set of stairs leading to the basement. Yay, back down again. This area looked much more man-made with its cobblestone walls, and sharp turns. Plus, the floor was something other than dirt or sharp rock. I made my way to the left side, and found a number of treasure chests. Weird. Contrary to what people think when playing roleplaying games, a treasure chest is something rather odd to see. Chests in general are far more likely to contain bedding than gold and jewels, since typically if one has such things, they just put it in a bank and get the value turned into an amount on paper. People can steal the money, but the bank is still expected to cover the amount the customer is supposed to have. To have money all in the physical world was crazy. Some random person could just come and steal it. Or as it was written, “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Further, having such things, in the middle of an underground temple, sitting in what was effectively a hallway... whatever. God obviously wanted us to take this, and it was best not to argue about the extreme oddity of this situation. The left treasure had 1000 Gold, which I pocketed without the party''s knowledge, “Nope, nothing in this one.” Nevras gave me a gentle yet rather firm lean on the shoulder, “Are you sure?” I blushed and shook my head, “I may have need of some pocket money.” He nodded, and said, “That''s better. Be honest.” The one on the right had a Sun Dress. No, not a sun dress, a Sun Dress. Like the dress I had worn on the mountain fighting that big bad wolf, it had elemental traits. Speaking of which, I called for the part to take a break. We needed to dress in gear that would protect us. Nevras was shy so right now, he wasn''t about to wear the Peach Dress, but Zoe changed into the Sun Dress that resisted thunder and earth, and I put on my ice-resistant Lilac Dress. The last chest was a rune chest, nobody could open it but those with a decent amount of magic, or in some cases only certain types. After several tries, we found that only Azrael fit the bill. Inside was the prettiest sword I had ever seen. Its body was made of what looked to be solid silver. The blade was decorated with an elaborate etching of two naked people but for fig leaves, being sent out of a garden, with an angel with a looming figure and flame sword nearby. The pommel was finely shaped with etchings depicting a similar angel protecting travelers from harm, and in other parts healing the sick. It swam in runes, much more than my pathetic eyes with their lack of regular magic could see.

    Azrael took this sword, leaving her old one in the chest. Before she claimed it, however, she set it down. She said, “I call upon the spirit of this sword, I entreat you come forth in a comely and acceptable form, so that I may speak with you.” The sword glowed for a second, and then converted to the form of a lovely man with wings. Yes, I''ll describe this guy as lovely. Angels are androgynous and born as developed as they were going to get, and though they are usually male they are far more feminine in their appearance than human males are. This one had curly brown hair, a yellowish robe with brown trim, the wings, a bronze staff, and sandals. That Spanish painter Murillo got him dead on. “So,” said he, “you are aware that the Named Swords are more than enchanted weapons, then?” Azrael nodded, “I expected as much when I discovered there was an upward limit of available space for runes on an object that is not an artifact, but the amount of runes that can swim around a living being is virtually infinite. I thought I should ask permission before I use you.” The being shone with light, and once again transformed into a sword, “And you shall have me. I will be a sword of flames for you, protecting you on your travels.” Azrael strapped Raphael to her belt and walked along in silence within this underground area. Sooner or later, we came to a door blocking our path. To the left and right were levers. After talking to Raphael and finding that no, he refused to just burn the door down (something about undermining a living being''s effort in creating the lock), we set about pulling the levers. Through trial and error, we discovered that the levers were linked to each other somehow. If one was pulled without the other, it would pull the other back. And so it was that we spent much of the afternoon trying to sync up so that a stupid door would open, since a sword had a will of its own, and despite being able to cut and an burn metal, decided not to.

    Finding a staircase upward, we found ourselves in a room with a series of glowing areas on the floor. Nevras stepped on one and disappeared. Panicking, I stepped on the same area and appeared right behind him. It seemed these were some sort of teleportation pad. After the initial shock wore off, we dedicated our time to figuring out which pad led to what room. Elias marked each room with a number to make sure we didn''t wind up going in circles. But as this was still confusing, he also put a mark near any portals we had tried already. After many tries, we finally narrowed it down to one portal. The next room we encountered was fairly small, and poorly decorated, but managed to have a save point, which we took full advantage of. We definitely were not going to do this over again, if we could help it. At long last, we had made it to the stairs of the second floor.

    A bit to the side of the stairs, we noticed some keys laying around. One was encrusted with jewels, another was twisted into a strange shape, and the third was a skeleton key, made from the bones of what appeared to be a human corpse. Stifling the urge to vomit, I picked up the last along with the others. This path twisted and turned but ultimately led to another door. Near this one was a sign that read, ?When you have nothing, everything is equally possible.? Yay, more riddles. Unlike the other, which was clearly triggered by a lever, this one had a definite key hole. Trying each of these in turn, we realized that we must have missed something, as none of these keys seemed to work. Then Aqorm grabbed the keys, and threw them all against the door. I was astonished, as now we were left with no keys. After trying to grab them back, and repeatedly being pushed back by her, I noticed something happen. The keys that were nearest each other started to blend together, the gold and silver, the twisted and skeleton, the iron and jeweled. Suddenly, there was only one key left. It was very long, and very strange looking, but unlike those other keys, it was actually big enough to fit into the keyhole. I turned it, and we continued up to the third floor.

    This area had a hall that started out heading north, then turned sharply south, and to the left, south again, and then split to the left and right. The left path headed north, the right path led to a locked door that had no identifiable way to open. Since the other path was impossible right now, we took the obvious one, which wound up emptying out into a room with five levers and a similarly locked door to the north. Since there were six of us and five levers, Elias agreed to help us figure this puzzle out systematically. He pulled out some scratch paper, and told us to think of each lever as a binary combination. Some of us (not me, certainly) didn''t understand binary, so he explained that pulling to the right, or “on” was a 1, while “off” was a 0, and each number represented a place, so all on was 11111, all off was 00000, and the second and fifth levers on was 01001. Using this, he sequentially made it all the way through each lever combination, until at last, at 10011, the gate opened. There, in the room ahead of us, was one of those huge chests like we found at Phoenix Castle.

    Carefully, I opened the chest, checking for traps. Not that I was any good at that, that was Aqorm''s specialty. But I opened it from the side, so if arrows and stuff came out, they wouldn''t hit me in the chest. Given what we knew of this dungeon, I wasn''t taking chances. Inside, I saw a small red ring with a note attached. ?Fire Ring? it said, ?use this item to light small torches.? While I was pretty certain that we already had a magic sword that could set itself on fire, we needed this too. Especially, given the sass that sword gave us the last time we tried to burn something. I was at a loss, however, in terms of how to use it. I started saying magic words. “Alakazam! Presto Chango! Salvador Dali! Abracadabra!” Nothing. I tried poking the nearby torch, waving my hands in large circles, trying to punch people, everything I could think of. Finally, I asked Elias, “Come take a look at it. I dunno how this thing works.”