"I bet it's empty" In a room of stone and dust by a locked wooden chest sit Tristin and Opip. Jakurk stands alone by the shut gate blocking their path decorated with a pattern that resembles shifting clouds across an open sky. The passage led them here to a nearly empty room with only a few empty chests and an enormous stone gate. Opip had tried to open it with raw strength yet the gate had not budged an inch, which put her into an irritable mood.
"Dont say that its bad luck" Tristin felt annoyed by the hounds bickering. Opening locks was his one good selling point and since the gate had none he might as well try to find something in the seemingly empty chests. Out of the three chests they had found so far both in small rooms adjectant to the passage and within the passage itself all had been empty. Perhaps someone had been here a few years prior. Or maybe this part of the fortress had never seen much use. "How's it going with the gate?"
"We might have to turn back, Gates Enchanted, I don't know if i can disrupt it" The gate was a marvel to behold especially for a mage which could tell its worth. The Enchantment put on it was woven into three separate seals although weakened by time they still held enough power to keep a high class mage from entering the room which the gate protected.
There are three principles of magic, Creation, Wish, and Destiny. Enchantment and Alchemy fell under the banner of Creation, Curses, Blessings and spells fell under Wish, And finally Souls, Oaths, and faith fell under Destiny. Jakurk was taught only from the principles of Wish and had very little understanding of the other principles. If one was to become a great mage they had to limit themselves as much as possible when it came to the magic they practiced. You were either a master of one or incompetent within all.
"That's too bad, A hidden room with a gate like that is sure to be important" Tristin had seen many gates like this on the first, second and third floor. They were gates used to seal passages or rooms when the fortress came under attack. Whatever it was that happened here in the past seemed to have left all the gates shut. Creating hidden rooms and unexplored paths
"Too bad you can't open a door as well as you can open empty chests" Opip snickered to Tristin as he kept slowly trying to open the small chest in his hands.
"Its a magical gate, not a door, and they can't be lockpicked anyway, can't cheat your way into a magical lock can you?" Tristin looked to Jakurk for confirmation on what he thought was basic information. But what he instead saw was a realisation begin to creep in on the mages wrinkly face. "You figure something out?"
"Yes, so shut up" Jakurk needed full concentration if he wanted this to work. and if he did get it to work he could call himself a genius.
"Rude" Tristin's remark went unnoticed by Jakurk, but gave Opip some amusement as she stood around doing absolutely nothing to help anyone.
"/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ /_/ /_/" The room was filled with a quiet tune. Much unlike any other spell Jakurk had performed earlier this was less of a whistle and more like a humming tune. "/_/ /_/ /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ "
Slowly the gate began to open. It rose little by little as Jakurk continued to hum the tune. As he continued drops of sweat began to form on his brow as he began to grimace slightly. His voice slowly began to fade like a musician holding out on the final tune of his own solo. And then he stopped gasping for air and stood silent for a few seconds just to recover.
"I guess the mage is the superior lockpick," Opip said as she looked down upon Tristin, who was still busy trying to open a normal lock on a normal looking chest.
"Magical gates don't count, Anyways how'd you do it?" Tristin had not seen someone open a magically sealed door before. From other more experienced adventurers he had heard that you should just let them be unless you had the key. But then again he had never been in a party with a mage before and he had never seen or heard of one this old.
"A magical zeal has only one key, one tune to open and close, the key to this place was lost to time so i simply made a new one" It was not the first time Jakurk had cheated his way past Enchantements, blessings, spells and odd conditions but he had never done it so easily and so flawlessly as he had done now. Quite frankly he deserved a medal or prize of some kind for his invention.
"The door is in a way a living thing since it is powered by magic, something that lives can be deceived, I presented a key which had no shape, no touch no smell, and repeatedly told it i had the right key until it accepted it" Since the lock created by a magic enchantment had no real physical shape or form it was less of a lock and more something between that which was alive and that which was not. As such it could be cheated, tricked as one would call it. A fact a veteran Mage like Jakurk wouldn't miss.
"Can any mage do that?" Tristin did not fully understand what Jakurk had done. But he knew it had to be special. The dungeon had many sealed gates like these on the first three floors. Each one was marked on both his own map and the once sold in town as dead ends, mostly since there were no competent enough mages on the island to open them. At least until Jakurk had arrived.
"No"
Beyond the beautiful gate was a large chamber. The stone inside was coated in a bluish colour and the room itself was held up by two rows of pillars four on each side. At the room's centre was a small round podium like a tall waterless fountain upon which a large rock was neatly placed. The rock had a slight tilt and its surface was rough and uneven. Upon it were several circular engravings connected by long red lines. On the cold ground leading up to the podium were several unmoving skeletons some covered in cobwebs others only in dust. Their dead hands grasping for the monolithic stone atop the podium.
"I don't like this place" Opips' nose twitched as she winched. Something was off about this room, something which gave her an instinct to turn back.
Tristin was still struggling to open the lock on his small treasure chest. But the sight of the room caused his fingers to stop working for a moment. "What you, the warrior, scared of a few dead skeletons?" With a snort-like laugh, Tristin walked into the room. But as he did a chill washed down his spine. "Is it just me or did it get a little cold, in here?"
"So the rooms are a little cursed so what? come on" Jakurk walked into the room without a problem. Pushing a side a few broken skulls as he continued towards the podium. Reluctantly the other two followed. Wary of the shadows dancing on the room's old walls. Tristins torch felt like their only guard against the room's creeping darkness. Even Jakurk seemed bothered as he walked just slightly ahead of the group. Something was clearly off about this place. And it likely had to do with that odd stone atop the podium.
"Just so we are clear, don't touch the cursed ancient stone plate on the podium" Jakurk did a pointless gesture by pointing at the object which had already gotten the others attention from its sight alone. The rock which must have been around the size of a grown man was undeniably cursed. In the same way one would look at an antique child's doll in the attic and decide to throw it out before it chokes you to death at night.
"Isn't that obvious?" Tristin might be young but that did not qualify him as stupid. A few things one shouldn't mess with if they wanted to live a long life was, Monsters, Dungeons, Mages and Curses. Of course he already checked off three of those but that did not mean he wanted to check off another. A curse was a spell which remained in a place long after it was cast. It could also be inherited and most importantly it could also spread from victim to victim. You could think of it as an incurable disease which was as deadly to its caster as it was to its victims. Hence why the practice of creating or spreading curses was banned. And creating one was seen as a crime worthy of a soul shattering penalty.
"You know I kind of want to touch it just to see what would happen" Opip had never seen a curse before. She knew it was dangerous but she was also intrigued. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. But she could tell by instinct alone that if she were to touch it would be the last thing she touched.
"That's a bad joke" Jakurk's voice was dry as he passed by the podium. On the other side at about the same distance from the podium as the gate they came in through was another gate. "There seems to be a path through here"
"I thought so, if my map is right its the sealed door on the left wing of the first floor, its a well known location not so far from august's drop" Tristin continued to work at the locked chests mechanics as he walked through the room. Suddenly the lock clicked and with joy in his eyes he exclaimed "Got it!"
But when he opened the lock what met him was not a pile of coins nor an artefact, trinket or potion but instead an iron bolt which launched itself straight up at him. Luckily it only cut through his red wavy hair. "tch, just another trap" Tristin threw the worthless chest to the side and as he did something large and brown fell down from the ceiling beside it. An iron bolt still stuck within its carcass as its eight legs crumbled inwards. "A spider?"
"A what?" Opip turned around to see what had the small hill folk in such a fuzz. Immediately she noticed the large brown carcass, a Giant Bellwood spider. A creature with incredibly long small limbs that shot out from its otherwise smaller body. The body itself must have been around the size of a cat while the legs that extended from the petite corpse were as long as two metres each.
The Bellwood spider was known mostly for its venom which could paralyze you for hours. But Tristin was not looking at the spider, no he was staring directly up into the ceiling with more fear on his face then he had had when staring down the knife guild back in the tavern. His lips quivered, his breathing was ragged, his pupils distracted and his cheeks now pale as snow. For a moment Opip did not want to look up.
It was as if the ceiling itself was moving. Hundreds of legs and tiny yellow eyes danced around the ceiling like stars in the sky. White cobwebs hung between the many pillars of the room causing the ceiling to be swept up in a storm of white. Opip felt every hair on her body sand on edge. They were within a Nest.
"WE NEED TO LEAVE NOW!"