The party slipped down the long corridor, making little to no sound at all. Hah'roo glided along with her effortless, silent grace; the only indication of her presence was a pair of pale arms and calves, as well as the settling dust kicked up by the breeze that followed wherever she went. Of Earcellwen, there was no sign at all. Joe was also moving well; his [Whisperstep] had already ranked up once.

Tezeno had donned a new suit of mail that he had withdrawn from his dimensional storage belt. This set of armor was clearly designed with stealth in mind. He must have already worked out that their team would favor stealth over durability. This new lamellar cuirass was formed from rows of small horizontal plates that hung over a padded hauberk. Walking just ahead of him, Joe heard almost nothing from the tiled suit. Even the chainmail around his neck barely jingled.

Yuk had vanished from sight a while ago. The area around the team quivered with movement as the majority of the swarm followed along on the walls. Joe found himself host to a fairly large section of Yuk's fragmented body as well. Riding on the pelt were well over a hundred multi-legged passengers. While he was not overly thrilled by the distracting insectoid throng, Yuk had said that maintaining the telepathic link would require most of his focus. The majority of the swarm needed to hitch a ride on someone, and Joe happened to be the one the collective creature was the most comfortable with.

Kendell brought up the rear. Her breastplate was already quiet. Only her heavy leather war-kilt gave off slight creaks every now and then. She had donned a pair of goggles that allowed her to see even in complete darkness. She was constantly glancing back into the pitch black behind them to make sure nothing was coming up on them from that direction.

In each hand, she carried one of her favorite tomahawks. Even though the axe-heads were smaller than most of her hatchets, the rare-quality weapons had several enhancement buffs that offset the base damage difference. The long shafts were ideal for parrying attacks. She had coated the hafts with sacred oils to prevent the wights from grabbing the weapons out of her hands. A ring of magical sponge at the base of the shafts prevented the slippery fluid from getting onto the weapon grips. Kenda could hurl those axes as far as a javelin throw and call them back to her a second later.

While each team member had an alternative light source if needed, the only illumination the group was actively using was Tezeno's [Golden Guide]. The archon had the spell dimmed to just a bare blush of pale light. With [Night Eyes], that faint glow was enough for Joe to see as if it were a cloudy day.

Hah'roo had woven a charm for herself and Wen that gave the two of them night-sight equal to Joe's. The three of them needed only a hint of light to see by, but not through complete darkness.

Tezeno had a racial trait that allowed him to discern order and chaos. The walls were straight and regular enough for him to distinguish their path, and the twisted undead glowed a bright, sickly green for him. While he couldn't discern details all that well, he could easily navigate and fight in pitch blackness if he needed to.

The corridor they walked led deeper into the pyramid. Roughly every fifty feet, they reached a T intersection. So far, there had been three types of junctions: a stairway leading up or heading down, or coming to a closed, heavy stone door. The doors had an ornate plate mounted on the wall beside the doorframe. The plaques were carved with hieroglyphic symbols.

The passages had been trapped at some point, but these devices so far had all been triggered and broken. Long metal spears had sprung out of the walls and rusted into place. Most had been snapped off some time ago, likely by the wights. There were also several runic mines, but Joe could read that the magic within them had been completely depleted.

He had lost count of the turns they had made. His idea of keeping to the right-hand wall had been disregarded. All he knew so far was that they had remained on the same level, avoiding the stairs. They had also yet to try any of the doors.

When the group finally stopped, it was the first time they had found something other than intersection variations they had seen so far. The corridor ahead intersected with a staircase that headed in both directions.

"We have traversed roughly half the length of the ziggurat and have moved about a quarter of the way closer to the center," Hah'roo stated. "I'm guessing the maze was designed to confuse interlopers, but it is too regular to succeed."

'Maybe for you,' Joe thought to himself. 'I'm lost.'

"We could try some of the other branches we passed," the winsome ranger continued, "but my guess is they will just weave us around this level in a circuitous route. I think we should try the stairs. The question is, do we want to ascend or descend? Does anyone have any strong feelings on the matter?"

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"I think the obvious choice is whichever one the Hellions are not taking," Tezeno declared. "Kendell, ask Myllo if the other team has taken any stairs yet?"

The hatchet fighter put a pair of fingers to the jeweled earring. A moment later, she replied, "They went upwards. Nara says if we do the same, we need to watch out for the glyph traps. She says they found a dozen above us that are still functioning."

"So, we go down?" Wen asked in a quivering voice, peering down the steps in front of her.

Joe stepped up to the shivering archer and willed the hide into a loose poncho. He pulled her slim form to him and wrapped the fur around them both. "Ooooh," she sighed. "You are my hero, Joe. How are you this warm? Is he always this warm, Ken?" the elf asked in a mischievous tone.

"We are not getting sidetracked into that conversation," the auburn-haired guilder scoffed to her friend. "Down seems as good as any idea? Joe? Yuk? You two have been silent. Any thoughts?"

"I have a terrible sense of direction," Joe admitted. "I'm happy to leave navigation to you guys. You lead. I'll follow."

'Down is much bigger,' Yuk's voice spoke in their heads. 'Less regular in places, too. We think the ziggurat was built over caves.'

"How do you know that?" asked the archon out loud.

'Bugs talk. But they are very limited in what they know. More like instincts than memories,' Yuk professed. 'We can't tell you much more than there are caves down there. More corridors and rooms, too.'

"It's more info than we had a minute ago," Kendell offered. "I say we go take a look."

"We are looking for a room with the loom in it, so we should probably stick to the worked passages," the sensible sentinel suggested. "We should also check for traps on the stairs before we head down them. Joe? Hah'roo?"

Joe ran his [Witch Sight] over every step and the walls as far as he could see. "Nothing magical. Or at least nothing actively charged. If something powers up, I'll call it out."

It took the windy ranger the better part of fifteen minutes to make her way to the bottom, checking each step for something mechanical. She had marked three steps with red chalk X's, indicating that those steps were trapped. Two had holes in the walls beside the booby-trapped stairs. These would likely thrust forth more of the metal spears. The third had a cleverly carved rune that began to glow in Joe's vision as Hah'roo approached it.

At the bottom of the stairs, the team was presented with the options of right or left. Yuk said there were large rooms to the left, so they went in that direction. Each of them kept their senses peeled for more traps and wights.

The first large chamber they reached was not the loom room, but it was equally as huge, if not larger. The ceiling hovered in the gloom at least thirty feet above them. A doorway was cleverly built into each wall so that the portal flowed seamlessly into the murals depicted on each of this vaulted room's massive surfaces. Each face of the room was dedicated to one of the four seasons and the corresponding fey monarch. Wanting to be able to see the imagery himself, Tenezo brightened the [Golden Guide] to the level of lantern light.

In front of them was a tribute to the bounty of summer. Flowers and fruits filled baskets of freshly woven reeds carried by graceful elf-like beings and winged pixies. The central figure was a stunning woman in cloth of gold, holding a swan in her arms. This was Gloriana, the Queen of Summer.

Joe spun around and found Summer Queen's counterpart glaring at him from the wall they had just entered through. The Morrigu was no less stunning, but where Gloriana was precious and endearing, the Dark Queen's gaze was exacting and austere. She stood half in and half out of a great hall. On one side of her was a fire-warmed chamber filled with shelves of lore and winter stores. The fey here were darker of form, wearing fine robes instead of the alluring wrap and kilts of the Summer Court. On the other side of her, snow-covered forests held both beauty and menace. The Winterlands seemed like a place only the best-prepared should ever venture into.

Looking to the right and left, he found Spring and Fall. Since they were there for the Erlking, Joe turned that way first. The figures depicted here were even more handsome and beautiful than the courtiers on the previous walls. Not just the humanoids either. Graceful beasts and brightly colored birds filled the mural. Everything about the image drew the eye in as if compelling the watcher to stay and ponder the glory of spring and its imagery. The central figure was a tall, regal man wearing a crown of flowers and bearing a small harp. Like the queens, he, too, was beautiful. Instead of summer's vigor or winter's precision, the lord of spring was all about enticement, begging one to come and walk by his side.

Joe pulled his gaze from the glamorous mural so he could give autumn's tableau a glance, fully intending to return his gaze to the wonders of the Erlking again. Yet the moment he looked to the last wall, all other thoughts fled. In the deep woods depicted on the fourth wall, hundreds of hunters bounded through the wilds. Wolves, cats, satyrs, and elk-borne riders coursed after prey. Hawks, owls, falcons, and eagles soared beside the others as fierce participants.

As soon as Joe's eyes fell on the mural, the wildness surged inside him. It wanted to leap into the depiction and join the hunt so badly, he found himself panting from the inexplicably fierce desire. His head swam as the wildness practically dragged Joe up to that mural. There was something here that it needed him to see. A weight on his arm grew as well, as the Mark of Death also invested itself into this moment.

Joe vaguely heard the other speaking as his eyes roamed across the forest mural of Autumn, hunting for what the two forces desperately wanted him to find. Then his eyes landed on a section filled with strange creatures. These were not lions, wolves, or eagles, but amalgamations of several beasts rolled together. They were chimeras: griffins, manticores, sphinxes, harpies, cockatrices, catoblepas, sea-lions, akhluts, hippogriffs, and hippocampi, and many, many more.

While the others discussed something, Joe's gaze was locked onto this section of the mural, knowing there was something very important here he needed to unravel.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.