• ~Begin Chapter 12~

    Nico “ran”. His mind raced back, shooting towards his body like a meteor. When his consciousness finally found it's way back to him, his eyes shot open and he jumped up. His legs gave out as he tried to run, sending Nico back to the rocky cave floor.

    Nico swore as he tried to get up again. He felt light headed, his body ached, and his muscles refused to respond. He struggled on the ground, swearing as he tried to force his body to obey him. He had to get to Loki! Mora was in the Crater, and Leera had, inexplicably, taken her prisoner. Nico recalled the ropes on Mora's wrists, the aggressive, disdainful shoving of the person behind her. That had to have been Martin, the forearm that had shoved his friend had been wrapped in one of the silver gauntlets Septum had granted Martin.

    Slowly, his body started to follow his commands again, he got up slowly, having trouble keeping his balance. This must be a side effect of leaving my body, he thought. I have to shake this off, whatever Leera thinks she's doing kidnapping Mora, it can't be good.

    Using the side of the tunnel, Nico forced himself forward, to the tunnel he had “seen” Loki in.

    “Loki!” Nico shouted.

    The cat was perched on a rock, jaws clamping shut every few seconds as he chewed part of a rat carcass. He turned as Nico approached.

    “What's wrong?” Loki asked, concerned by the urgency in Nico's voice. “What happened?”

    Nico quickly recounted what had transpired. The meditating, his mind somehow entering the stone.

    “That's one of the effects of you nature awakening, you're linked to the earth now,” Loki explained. “It's like an extension of yourself. Your mind can reach into the rock and soil around you, as if it were another head. It also let's you into anyone or anything physically touching the ground.”

    “I know,” Nico said, breathing fast. He didn't need another lecture! He needed to get to the surface, to find Mora before they reached the center! “The others, the ones who were on the quest! Their in the Crater!”

    Loki's pupils shrunk to near slivers, shock spreading over his face.

    “How do you know?” The cat shouted, voice echoing down the tunnel.

    “I was exploring the stone, seeing how far I could reach, when I reached the crater floor. I was wandering around there when I found them. Mora's arms were tied up and she was being forced along by Martin and Leera.”

    “They must be heading to the Spirit stones at the center,” Loki surmised, speaking more to himself than to Nico. Nico could imagine the gears turning in the feline's head. “Those 2, Leera and Martin, must be planning to use her to get the stones. The stones are foreign to them, and they won't know what they might do when disturbed. If they send Mora to collect the stones instead, eve if she fails, they'll know what their up against.”

    “But that's just insane! Martin isn't the type to try something like that. Leera's competitive, but she wouldn't take somebody captive!”

    “This isn't just some contest to her, remember. This is the test to determine the next Grand Apprentice. Imagine if you were in here place, trying to insure your future, what wouldn't you do to win?”

    “I wouldn't kidnap somebody!” Nico exclaimed. He was panicking; The wasn't time for this! Every second they stood there talking brought Mora closer to the stones, stones that would drive her mad with power, that would warp her mind.

    “I know you wouldn't, but you said yourself that this girl is competitive, and after being raised by Septum I wouldn't count abduction out. That man has always had thirst for power, and it's obviously rubbed off on his student.”

    “But...to do something as insane as kidnapping the Empress' daughter is unbe-” was as far as Nico got.

    “EMPRESS!?” Loki's shocked bellow could have cracked the earthen walls surrounding them. “You mean that Mora is the heir to the throne and was still sent on that insane mission?”

    “She's not the heir exactly, she's the 2nd daughter, her older sister is being groomed for the throne,” responded Nico, stumbling as he recoiled from his instructor's outburst.

    “This changes everything,” Loki lowered his voice, eyes still bulging. “I thought this girl was just your friend, but if she's connected to the Royal family, this means Septum is up to something. He would never be stupid enough to send the Empress' daughter on this quest without a reason.”

    “What does that matter? We have to get up to the surface and stop them from reaching the stones!”

    “No.”

    “What?” Nico's jaw dropped, surely he had heard wrong.

    “Septum has something planned with this quest, and that means being anywhere near those 3 could be dangerous. I may not know what his intentions are, but if you go up there, you'll be putting yourself in unnecessary danger.”

    “Unnecessary!? Mora's my friend! I can't just let her get hurt!”

    “I refuse to let you risk your life for something as insignificant as an adolescent puppy love.”

    “I have to save her!”

    “No, you don't!” Loki was growing again, his fur stood on end, his hackles were raised, and his form was growing more muscular with each passing moment. “You have to see the bigger picture! You're meant to train and refine your powers, to purge the empire of the Church of Light!”

    Nico was scared by the cat's changing appearance, but more than that, he was angry. His friend, the only person he had ever felt a real connection with, was in trouble. He had to do something, and he wasn't going to let this monster of a tutor to keep him.

    He acted on instinct, his body working of it's own accord. He knelt down, places his right palm on the cave floor, and sent a spark of energy into the ground. Between Nico and Loki emerged a wall of stone, reaching to the tunnel's ceiling.

    “I won't let her die!” Nico shouted before turning his back on Loki and wandering into the dark, with no idea where to head.

    * * *

    Mora was exhausted, mind, body, and spirit. She could barely feel her body, yet Martin still forced her forward, shoving her whenever she slowed. They had been walking for hours, and the strain was even starting to show on Leera. She no longer walked with the instinctual grace and lightness she usually carried herself with, instead she was trudging along, gait slowed to a snail's pace.

    Mora hoped they would soon stop. Walking on the ash that coated the crater's surface was like stepping through sand, tiring her all the more. After hours of being forced on, and not eating who knows how long, she was near her breaking point.

    Mercifully, Leera ordered them to stop for a few minutes later, weariness lacing her words. Mora collapsed as soon as Leera spoke. A cloud of ash and dust rose around her when she hit the ground, but she was too tired to care. Leera, despite her own weariness, daintily braced her self as she sat, minimizing any disturbance she might have made to the ash. It seemed even now, in a stale-aired, bleak pit of death, she was determined to keep from humiliating herself any further.

    Mora's stomach gave a loud gurgle, and the disheveled princess was reminded of just how hungry she was.

    “Martin, give the little b***h some of the bread, we need her to be mobile fro when we reach the center,” Leera ordered. Martin obeyed, wordlessly taking the pack from his shoulder and removing a piece of stale, molded bread. He knelt next to Mora and forced it into her mouth. She nearly choked as the disgusting morsel entered her mouth, but her hunger was too great to allow her the loss of sustenance.

    When Mora finished, Leera rose from the ground, and closed her eyes as she took a long deep breath. She stood still for several minutes, stock still, barely breathing. Finally she opened her eyes, a faint blue shimmer around her pupils. The shimmer quickly faded and Leera turned to Martin.

    “The center is roughly an hour from here, same direction. Get her up and moving. Quickly.”

    Martin did as he was told. He leaned down, grabbed Mora by the ropes ob her arms, lifted, and pushed her forward.

    “Follow,” Leera commanded, and Mora's arduous journey continued.

    * * *


    Nico stumbled uncertainly through another tunnel, no idea where he was, or where he was heading. He had regained most of his coordination, and was quickly getting used to his body again. After more than 2 hours of aimlessly trying to find a way to the Crater surface, he was losing hope, and the first stirrings of fear were coming. Would he be lost in these tunnels until he died?

    Pushing such thoughts out of his mind, Nico closed his eyes and took in a deep, calming breath. He had to relax and think clearly, otherwise he really would never get out. He opened his eyes, and jumped as the stone pulsed around him. In his strife over Mora and blind search through the tunnels, his connection with stone's “life” had slipped from his mind.

    That's when it hit him. He had been able to travel through the stone. Perhaps he would be able to find a way out the same way. He crouched down, placed his hand on the cave wall, and began to meditate. It happened quickly this time, his mind entered the stone, felt the stone. He spread his reach out this time, reaching in all different directions, searching diligently for a tunnel that led out.

    After several minutes he found what he'd been searching for, it was a small a hundred yards to his left. It was as thin as a chimney stack, barely big enough for him to fit through. He memorized the way to the entrance, rushed back into his body, clumsily stood up, and stumbled forward, into the darkness.

    * * *


    They reached the center just before what should have been dusk. In the bleak wasteland that was the Crater of Mephestis, there was no real sense of day. The choking clouds of smoke blocked out any rays of sunlight that might have reached them.

    Mora's first reaction to the center was pure wonder. Before her was a sight more magnificent than she had ever seen. A glittering, shimmering, towering Obelisk if Quartz spears rose up in front of her, piercing the black clouds like a sparkling dagger, stabbing into the sky.

    Leera too was in awe of the massive monument. The stones pulsed with magic that reached out all around, filling the air with a thickness reminiscent of the calm before a storm. She stood speechless, feeling the energy, the power emanating from the ominous structure.

    * * *


    Nico scrambled up the tunnel, bracing himself by the sides with his legs, pulling himself upward. He was close. He could sense magic somewhere above him, and knew he was nearing the surface.

    The boy clawed his way up the cold, stone chute, arms aching after carrying him up so far. He was tired, he hadn't eaten in days, and was running on adrenaline and fumes. The tunnel lurched around him, not the steady pulsing of he had almost grown accustomed to, but a shift. He realized it wasn't the stone that had moved, but his own dizziness. Nico was running out of energy, and he knew he wouldn't have the strength to make it to the top.

    Unsteadily bracing himself against the sides of the chute, he tried to think. He was hundreds of feet above the cave floor, with nothing keeping him up but his quickly fading strength. He was too weak to come up with a solution, he just didn't have it in him.

    In desperation, Nico called out in his mind, calling out to Loki, to the Gods, to anyone for help. He had to get out! He had to escape this suffocating tomb of a tunnel! He needed to find his friend!

    Caught up in his panic, Nico didn't notice the stone's pulsing increase, or the subtle temperature increase. What he did notice was the flood of energy that poured into him, jolting him into sudden, rigid alertness. The energy was pouring into him from the rock, coursing through his body.

    Refueled by his miraculous revival, Nico uttered a thanks to Gaia, and resumed his climb.

    3 minutes later, he reached the top, his way blocked by rock. Nico reached up, placed his hand on rock, and willed it to move. He was ecstatic as the stone parted in front of him. He opened his mouth to cry out in triumph and was silenced as a pile of ash caved into the tunnel, treating him to a mouthful of the gray filth.

    Hacking and coughing, Nico blindly climbed to the surface. He emerged to see th most desolate place he could possibly imagine. A barren, ash-covered expanse extended in all directions, black smoke hanging in the air above him. The stench of death riddled the air.

    Nico sensed and enormous mass of magic to his left, a faint glow in his vision, far off in the distance, reaching into the sky, ominous and foreboding.

    A sense of dread creeping up inside him, Nico ran towards the mass, certain that he was headed to the center of the Crater. To where his friend and enemy must be. To his doom.

    * * *


    Mora was shaken from the tower's captivation by Leera gripping her shoulder. She turned to see her captor next to her, eyes filled with a dark hunger.

    “Get going,” was all Leera said before she shoved Mora forward. The haggard princess fumbled forward, trying hard to keep her unsteady legs beneath her. As she continued towards the imposing crystalline structure, the rope around her wrists loosened and finally slipped from her hands.

    “Leera must have magically cut them,” Mora thought, stopping to rub her aching wrists. I sharp electric jolt coursed through her back, her legs gave out, and Mora collapsed to the ground, fingers twitching sporadically.

    “Get up and keep going,” Leera ordered from somewhere behind. “You're going to break off one of the smaller spears and bring it to me, or I'll kill you where you stand!”

    Unable to speak, Mora picked herself up as quickly as she could to avoid another attack from Leera. She was only a dozen or so yards from the crystal now, and could see at the bottom there were hundreds of quartz spears, piled upon each other, jutting out of the side of the obelisk like a bed of nails.

    She walked on, plans for escaping buzzing through her head. She could use this to her advantage. She could take the spear, and then run to either side of the tower, hopefully losing Leera and Martin in the blackness of the Crater. It would have been better to run away before she took the crystal, while Leera was reluctant to approach the shining monolith, but her bloodline refused to allow it. The thirst for power had been ingrained in the spirit of her family for generations, and it thrived in Mora. She had always craved the power of the throne, but being the second born, she was denied the right to ascension. So now, with the key to becoming the next Grand Wizard so close, she was too tempted to leave without it.

    She was only a few feet away, she could see the air around the crystals pulsing with energy, heat radiating from them.

    She took one more step forward, tensing her legs to run as soon as she took the stone. She reached out, opened her hand to grasp the stone.

    The ground beneath her shook. Ash erupted in front of her, and Mora instinctively jerked her hand back.

    She waved her hand trying to disperse the cloud of ash, coughing as the gray dust smothered her. When at last she could see through the shower of soot Mora was greeted with a peculiar site.

    Before her stood a wall, roughly five feet tall and 3 feet wide, standing between her and cluster of Spirit Stones.

    “Mora! Don't touch them!”

    Mora turned her head, trying to find the person who'd called out. She recognized the voice, but her mind couldn't believe it. Then, she spotted him.

    30 feet from her, kneeling with his hand buried in the ash, was a young man with shaggy, jet-black hair, clothes ripped and torn.

    “Nico!”

    * * *

    Nico slowly stood, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. He had run full-speed nearly a mile, trying to reach the immense aura he had sensed, and had only just made it in time to stop Mora. He'd acted on instinct and forced the stone floor of the crater to rise.

    “Mora!” He shouted, moving forward. “Whatever you do, don't touch the Stones!”

    “Nico!”

    Breath slowly returning to normal, Nico moved forward, awkwardly lifting his feet from the ash. It had been tightly packed on the ground before, but near the Crystal, it was like walking on loose sand. Moving with the same difficulty, Mora hurried towards him.

    Nico could tell she'd been through hell. The circlet Septum had given her had been knocked askew on her head, her clothes torn and ripped, her face coated in ash and mud, hair hanging raggedly down over her shoulders.

    She had just reached Nico when Leera's voice broke through to them.

    “What in the world are you doing here!” She bellowed, flabbergasted. She was marching towards them, Martin in tow, and she wore a scowl with so much loathing Nico would have been terrified if he'd had the energy.

    “Leera, what do you think you're doing?” Nico asked when she came to a stop a few feet from him. “What the hell did you do to Mora?”

    “You'll answer my question first! How did you get here? What was that wall?”

    “Nico! Stay away from her! She kidnapped me! She was going to kill me!”

    “I know! But right now we all have to get away from here!” Nico shouted. “This place is more dangerous than you could imagine.”

    “As if I'd listen to you,” Leera interjected, distrust in her words. She had a look of sour bile working it's way up her throat. “I know damn well you're just trying to trick us so you can get one of the stones. I'm not falling for your bluff.”

    “Leera, you have to believe me,” Nico said, pleading with her. “If you so much as touch those things you'll regret it.”

    Nico was struggling to find a way to explain it to her, desperately searching for a way to convince her he was telling the truth. But before he could figure out how, Leera acted. She raised her arm, pointed directly at Nico, and said:

    “Attack.”

    In an instant martin was upon him. A metal-plated fist struck Nico in the gut and stars danced before his eyes. He was on his back before he knew what hit him, with ash and dust billowing up like a storm.

    Nico hadn't even had a chance to catch his breath before Martin's metal-clad fingers were wrapped solidly around his throat and he was hoisted into air. His hands instinctively went to his throat, scrabbling at the hand, trying futilely to loosen the grip.

    Martin was at least a foot and a half taller than him, and more muscular than Nico could ever hope to be. Nico felt the mind fading as the gauntleted hands of his former classmate tightened on his throat. His base reflexes took over as his conscious mind panicked. The magic within him surged.

    His right hand fell from his neck, but instead of going limp, his arms clenched. He thrust his hand forward, fingers open, aiming for Martin's chest. Nico felt the familiar tingle in his veins as the elements inside him jolted into action. But something was different.

    As his hand smacked into Martin's chest, the magic burst out from his palm. The hand around Nico's throat let go as a burst of air knocked Martin off his feet and flew backwards, stunned. The ash around them spun and danced in the sudden wind.

    Nico dropped to the ground, the ash cushioning his fall. Grasping his neck and coughing, he stood up as quickly as his shaking body could. He tried to find his bearing in the dust storm and ran towards where he thought Leera and Mora were. He emerged from the cloud of ash to see Leera just steps from the cluster of crystals at the tower's base.

    “No!” was all he could get out, his voice hoarse.

    Leera reached out, wrapped her fingers around one of the brittle crystals, and broke it off from it's neighbors. She did all this with a triumphant look on her face. With dramatic fervor she held the crystal above her head, to deliver a call of victory.

    The look of triumph morphed to panic, as the darkness consumed her mind.

    ~End Chapter 12~