Khi’nai stared at the ceiling, listening to the sound of the old ornate clock ticking away. She rolled over towards it, one AM; it was time for her plan to go into action.
She sat up in her bed; She slowly wrapped her paws in linen wraps to dampen the sound she’d make and grabbed her satchel that she had prepared. Whatever was going to be down in the Grove was not going to be friendly and going unnoticed was probably the way to go.
She softly pounced from her bed, sneaking quietly out the doorway and door the abandoned hallway. She had managed to steal a floorplan of the Academy from the library, which, as expected omitted several key areas. She assumed that the Grove’s entrance would be somewhere where no student would dare go. She had heard custodians complain of a cold breeze coming from a storage room on the western edge of the Academy, a clear indication of a hidden entryway or illusionary door.
She trotted quietly checking every doorway for stray custodians wandering the halls. Making sure to dim the Aetheric torches far behind her to throw any followers off the scent. She approached the stairs to the lower levels, slowly traversing down. The stale cold air from the basement levels was oppressive to inhale and me her wince a little.
She stowed the floorplan in her satchel, none of the basement levels were included. It was mostly used for storage so it was common that only custodians would be clued into the exact layout. The chamber was inky black as none of the torches were lit.
She whispered a soft phrase and pawed a rune on the cold cobbled floor. Her eyes glowed a pale green as her vision lit up. She slowly moved down the cold hallway, checking each of the doorways for the illusive storage room the custodians spoke off.
Right at the end of the dark hallway was a large storage space; the doorway bore an eroded sign that read “Expired” in old draconic runes. Sniffing the air, she realised why. The air had the pungent smell of expired foods. Stepping inside she looked around. The room was different to the others. Crates and boxes had poor organisation and waste was haphazardly strewn about. Near some broken barrels of rotten food, she noticed claw marks up against the walls and shelves. A fight perhaps? No, the damage was too localized.
Khi’nai approached the deep marks on the wall rubbing her hand over them. These marks were not made by dragon claws, whatever had damaged this wall was infinitely sharper than any dragon claw. Tracking the claw marks with her hand she followed them along the wall till they disappeared behind a heavy wooden cabinet. She swallowed, could they have already found the entrance? It seemed like a very brute force method of entry to scratch the walls, but illusionary magic probably couldn’t fathom such a low-tech approach.
She stepped back looking at the tall, heavy cabinet. Moving it with Aether would likely trip one or another protection, but it was far too heavy for her to move. She took a deep breath and swept her hand left to right in smooth motion. The cabinet creaked but refused to move.
She sighed and took a few more steps back. Gritting her teeth, she pooled as much Aether as she could muster, her eyes glowed brightly. Went a grunt she swept her hand from left to right again. This time the cabinet moved tipped precariously to the right. Khi’nai growled holding out her hand towards the cabinet. The thin bioluminescent lines down the length of body starting to glow bright yellow. The cabinet creaked as it slowly started to tip right.
Khi’nai snorted, gritting her teeth: “move damn it!”. Suddenly her strain released as the cabinet flew off to the right at speed with a loud metallic snap, slamming into the wall and exploding into a rain of slinters and rotten food. The crash echoed down the hallways.
She spun around panting, staring down the doorway. Nobody. She turned back to the spot the cabinet stood, the remained of rotten bolts protruding from the ground.
She sniffed, wiping a thin trickle of blood from her nose. She felt her organs twist inside her, she has not realised how much strain she took just to move the cabinet, but she’d have to conserve her Aether to avoid any further mishaps.
The space behind the cabinet revealed an ornate doorway leading to a staircase. She slowly stepped down the stairs. She couldn’t quite understand why this secret basement was so poorly hidden, especially since it was off limits to students, but she knew that she would probably find the answer to that question down these stairs.
The long spiral staircase felt like an eternity. Her body started to ache from her earlier exertion as she stepped off the final step into a large chamber. Green aether torches lit the ancient sandstone walls with faint light. Large pillars along the length of the room formed a pathway, each pillar adorned with runes inlayed with gold.
She walked slowly admiring the scenery. A stream of water, that appeared to come from the wall, ran on either side of the chamber and the air smelled surprisingly clean. The floor was clean, free from any sand or dirt. A suddenly feeling of dread came over her. This all seemed too easy and too perfect. An ancient chamber, meant to be untouched, but so well kept, it didn’t make sense to her.
“Confused, are we?”
She spun around; the brown kobold stood behind her leaning against a pillar: “you’re right to assume that something is awfully wrong about this place.”
Khi’nai snorted: “you followed me down here?”
“Perhaps, but you were so enamoured by your ability to toss cabinets that you didn’t pay attention to the amount of noise you made. If I had not applied a fresh illusion, you’d have surely been suspended by now.”
She groaned: “So this is all fake?”
He shrugged: “No, this is very much the right place, but you notice its less illusive than you imagined. Words like off-limits and hidden come to mind, it is neither of those things though.”
She looked towards the end of the room before looking back to the kobold: “Where’s the guardian? The monster?”
He gestured towards the next room with his eyes. She slowly walked into the next room, the torches suddenly lighting up. She took a step back feeling her heart pound in her chest. A giant serpentine skeleton was suspended from the roof like an ornament drawing attention to main centrepiece of the room, an enormous golden pedestal upon which sat a giant glowing crystal. She stammered: “W-what the hell is this?”
The kobold sighed: “The truth. The monster never existed. It’s all a sham.”
She snorted: “but…the headmaster, your teacher…”
He snorted: “I’m so sorry Khi’nai, but I didn’t want you to get hurt by interfering with our plans.”
A shadowy figure stepped from behind the kobold, their thick black cloak adorned with golden runes. A set of piercing purple eyes staring into her soul from underneath the hood.
“So, you are the little one that has been prying?”, the figure approached her slowly.
She panicked: “y-you, you’re the teacher”.
“Oh? You are a preceptive one. Tell me Khi’nai, do you know why I repressed my gag reflex to enter this place?”
She growled.
“Because I wanted something, something that I need to get revenge from people who’ve done some very, unsavoury things. You see Khi’nai, while I don’t need to explain myself to the likes of you, I must applaud your ability to follow instructions.”
She didn’t respond.
“You see, I knew that place was all just an elaborate ruse created by your Headmaster to hide something in plain sight. Can you see it?”
She looked about the room, what was he talking about? There was nothing in this room, it’s all so clean and sterile. It’s wrong. It’s completely, utterly wrong.
A switch in her mind suddenly snapped: “this isn’t it, this, is all fake, to throw anyone off finding the real Grove which is…” she looked down at her feed, seeing a faint runic pattern on the floor: “underneath us”.
The caster laughed: “…and how do you suppose we open the door to Grove young Khi’nai?”
She felt her heart beating fast, bones, runes, a pattern on the floor. She gulped. No, please no.
The black dragon smirked with a sinister grin, his purple eyes flashed furiously and the bioluminescent lines on his body glowed brightly underneath his cloak. Crystal shards on his arms grew into long sharp razor claws: “I’m going to enjoy watching the life drain from your eyes. Don’t worry, after you perish, I’ll parade your body through the courtyard so nobody will miss you.”
He lifted his hand to slash at her. “Din, stop!”
The long-lost name echoed in his mind: “Din’Yah’Miin”, the sound of it repulsed him to his core.
The caster turned towards the kobold who held out a hand to him: “the girl isn’t worthy of the Sacrament. You need a worthy sacrifice.”
The caster snorted: “How dare you use that name?”
The kobold gestured with a hand, throwing Khi’nai towards the wall and pouncing in front of him in her place: “Go on, Din, this is what you’ve always wanted isn’t it. Let’s open this door together.”
The caster growled: “So, it’s death you want you fucking cretin, why lead her here to just throw yourself in front of me and demand to perish.”
The kobold gestured with his eyes for Khi’nai to run before facing the caster again: “The door’s magic is more powerful than even you Din, it requires a sacrifice of greater value than some random girl.”
The caster snarled: “You seem unyieldingly set on keeping this welp alive Kobold. It’s of no consequence to me, blood is blood, even if it means breaking sacrament to get it”. He raised his claw to strike when the kobold’s eyes glowed a bright yellow, his cloak blowing back as he raised his paws: “As you wish Din; be warned my blood will not come easy”.
He slammed the caster back with tremendous force into a pillar in the other room. The loud clatter of breaking rock and cracking bones echoing through the room. He turned to Khi’nai: “Go, alert the powers that be, I will keep him occupied. Go now!”
Khi’nai bolted past the caster, towards the staircase as the commotion intensified. She froze mid-way up: “No, I can’t leave him”, she grabbed a piece of scrap on ground, dipping her finger on her bleeding nose and hastily scribbling a note. “Scalah Ahalumia”, a flash of green flame. Her mother would know to come down here, she’ll bring the others. She turned face down the stairs towards the lower room.
Her heart raced, stepping in, to find the caster standing over the kobold, this was it, she took a deep breath and lunged at him with a slash. He turned face, slapping her down with the back of his paw. The kobold used the hesitation to throw the caster back with another blow: “I told you to RUN, we don’t stand a chance against him”, he dusted off his robe looking at the caster, which raised himself out of the rubble.
She picked herself up, staring the caster down: “I can’t just leave you here to…”
“Die? Yes, but now he has twice as many targets. I can’t let you get hurt”. That caster roared, a flash of purple energy snapped at the kobold sending him back.
Khi’nai unleashed a plume of fire which the caster blocked with ease with his crystal gauntlet. He snorted: “Honestly? Is there a point to this pathetic show?”. A flash of purple energy slammed her into the wall with loud gasp, knocked the wind out of her lungs as she hit the ground.
She groaned as she pulled herself up, “I’lain, you have air powers?”
He grunted as he stood up: “I know what you’re planning he won’t fall for it”
The caster approached like a foreboding force: “What are you two children plotting? Naughty, naughty!”
She spat a burst of fire to the left of his head, he dodged to the right. She swept her right claw at speed flinging a puff of loose debris at his eyes.
He stepped back grasping his eyes: “Foolish child, I”
“I’LAIN NOW!”
I’lain raised his hands and unleashed a column air, as Khi’nai jumped as unleashed a plume of blue-white flames along the column air.
The fireball hit, square in the casters face. The room lit up with a brilliant flash of white light as the plume exploded.
Khi’nai felt dizzy as she tried to remain standing.
I’lain grabbed her, holding her upright: “That was foolish, you have Aether sickness”
“I’ll be fine, I just need to”, she let out a hacking cough, a spray of blood hitting the floor.
“You are weakened, you must leave”
“We can beat him, he”, she staggered: “he’s, just a bitch”
I’lain raised her up: “Strong words do not defeat opponents”, he turned to watch the dust settle, the pillar room was dark, all the Aether torched has failed from the blast.
Khi’nai smiled weakly: “See, he’s done for”
A pair of purple glowing eyes pierced the darkness.
I’lain stood in front her: “No child, this is far from over, the Teacher, he will not go down easily”
The eyes approached, following by glowing purple lines from the darkness. The black dragon’s scales sheened in the dim light. His cloak and wraps were missing, revealing his marred body.
He growled: “I have got to admit, that was dirty, very, very dirty. Who would’ve thought such a little dragoness could be so powerful”.
He laughed maniacally: “You really got my blood pumping, what a thrilling experience”, he sighed as his laughter turned to a scowl: “Watching you bleed to death will be like an out of body experience for me, the closest thing to an orgasm I’ve had in my life”.
Khi’nai spat a weak fireball at him, that burst harmlessly off his scales: “Oh my, your lustre, while glorious to behold appears to have been surprisingly short-lived”. He smirked: “Like a tea candle in a tornado”.
She groaned: “Why? What do you get out of this?”
He laughed maniacally: “Of course, the hero’s dying wish, asking the bad guy to exposit his entire sad fucking story. Why? What? Who? Boo-fucking-hoo, everyone sheds a tear for the poor sad little dragon. You want to know why?”, he inhaled sharply, looking at her with dark expression: “Because I get off on punishing those even more evil than me”, he lunged plunging the crystal spire wrist deep into the kobold’s chest.
Khi’nai throat seized up. She collapsed.
The caster flung the kobold to the side off his claw like a ragdoll, before running his tongue up the length of the crystal licking the blood with a glazed expression.
Khi’nai stumbled towards I’lain, her eyes were tearing up uncontrollable: “I’lain, no no no no, please no”.
The kobold did not respond, she frantically muttered every healing spell she knew, pressing down on the wound: “please, please, please don’t leave me”. The glow on her paws faded, her energy was too depleted. She lunged at him: “YOU FUCKING MONSTER[BK1] “. He slapped her away with back handed blow. She hit ground with a thud.
“Honestly, don’t cry for the little bastard, he’s just a traitor. He forsook his Sacrament for something pointless like friendship” The caster, soaked his hand in the blood of the kobold.
He traced out the runes on the floor with the kobold’s blood and muttered a few words. With a mighty rumble the floor began to part down the centre of the room.
He stood back and watched the passageway open before him. He gave Khi’nai a sidelong glance over his shoulder with a smirk. He gestured to I’lain’s body with his eyes: “You gonna eat that?” He laughed, before stepping into the passageway into the darkness below.
Khi’nai could barely move, her body ached all over as she dragged himself towards the fallen kobold. She furiously wiped the tears from her eyes. She collapsed next to him, her head on his bloody chest.
“You didn’t deserve this, I’m sorry. I should’ve. I”
She felt herself being lifted off the kobold’s body and being moved aside, a shadow looming over her.
They stooped down to inspect him: “Oh I’lain, sweet I’lain”.
Khi’nai tried to focus her teary eyes.
She felt a paw on her face, a soft wipe of her face, she saw bright yellow eyes.
“My daughter, I should’ve trusted you”.
“m-mother”.
“Quiet, rest, the Shi’na will take care of you”.
“I-I’lain”
“I’m so sorry Khi’nai. If I had known the lengths that he’d go to protect you I would have never let this happen”.
Khi’nai shuddered weakly.
“Is he down there? The one who did this to him?”
“Y-yes”, she felt her emotions overwhelming her.
Scalah stood up, her eyes glowing bright yellow: “Then mark my words. Before this day is done; I will paint the walls with his blood”.
I think I’m allowed one curse per book 😉
