The Hero's Sidekick

I was the third person to reach the spire, and I arrived to find that things were only going to be more difficult going forward. I was not surprised.

Goodness knows everything has to be hard enough going in, I suppose it is foolish to think that it will get easier at some point… I stand corrected.

Alicia caught us all up after Alverd and Kuro made it up the ladder with the young mage being the last to arrive thanks to his innovative "lightfoot" spell. Even if he lacks proper training, his ability to come up with novel ways to experiment with his magic makes up for it. He would've made an exceptional sage under the right circumstances. Or at the very least one that went against convention in perhaps the best possible ways.

Long story short, at first I thought that Monaco had finally turned on us. The first thing I saw upon climbing over the railing on the bridgeway was Alicia wrestling with the taller woman, the two of them grunting and screaming as they thrashed about. It wasn't until I overheard the wolf beastwoman mentioning her father that I knew something was off. Even if she hadn't said anything, the unusual energy radiating off her told me everything I needed to know. She's being influenced by a magical force strong enough to override her senses. But where is it coming from?

It didn't take me long to figure that out. Normally I'd have to rely on magic of my own to trace and locate the source, but there was so much raw negative power flowing out of the open door ahead of the two that it was painfully obvious they'd set off some kind of trap. "What's wrong with her?" I yelled as I put my hands on Alicia's shoulders to help steady her.

"The crystal! It did some weird magical shit to her and now she thinks she can hear her father's voice. Help me pull her away from it!" I didn't need to be told twice. Once both of them were clear, I slammed the door shut. Immediately, the flow of magic from within the tower halted, and like a pair of shears to twine the connection between Monaco and whatever was controlling her was instantly severed.

After a brief breakdown on the functionality of momentum breakers, we had to tackle the still existing problem of what had afflicted Monaco. Without seeing it for myself, I can't know for sure how the trap operates. That, of course, opens me up to the possibility of being affected by it. Maybe I'll wait until Alverd and Kuro get up here before I try anything.

Alverd hauled himself over the railing a few minutes later. Not long after, Kuro appeared, with him offering him a hand to pull him up. The young mage yanked the ladder up and out of sight, leaving it next to the railing. The two of them joined us, where they were caught up to speed on everything.

"Are you sure you heard your dad's voice?" Kuro asked.

Monaco nodded. "Plain as day. He sounded a lot healthier, like he did when the disease first started eating away at him. That was before it progressed to the point where he had to be confined to his bed and be medicated daily." She frowned. "But how did I hear that? And how come none of you did?"

Scratching his chin, Kuro frowned as he puzzled things out. "It doesn't sound like the usual magical traps that induce hallucinations. In order to create an auditory or visual hallucination tailored specifically to an individual, you need to handcraft the illusion as part of the spell involved in making that trap. Which means the trap would only work on you. "

I nodded in agreement. "The only way to know for sure would be to open the door again and send someone else in to see what happens." It certainly isn't the best idea, but if we don't figure out how the trap works then this is all for naught. Getting up here was hard enough. We can't turn back now.

"I'll do it." I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, steeling myself. "We can't risk Alverd or Alicia being coerced by the trap. We wouldn't be able to restrain them so easily. I'll give you my staff so I won't have as much power at my disposal. Just make sure to stop me before I invoke my spirit contractor abilities."

The others exchanged worried glances, but no one made an immediate attempt to stop me. Finally, Alicia spoke up. "What if I use my nullification runes? They worked on the door after all." She pulled out her maul, the runes dangling from the chain she'd wrapped around the head of the weapon. Of the four, three were still glowing with magical light ready to be used.

"It's not a bad idea," I conceded. "Once the door is open, I'll take a look and see if I can discern anything about its nature. If you hear me succumb to the illusion, pull me to safety, and shut the door. If I can figure out how the trap works I can disarm it, or possibly interfere with it long enough for Alicia to use her runes to turn it off."

A gauntleted hand alighted on my shoulder. "We're right behind you. At the first sign of trouble, I'll get you out of there." My heart did a sudden backflip at the sound of Alverd's voice so close to my ear, and in such a low and frankly attractive tone. My word, that was unexpected. I think that made my heart race more than stepping out onto empty air.

The others stood off to the side of the heavy door, well out of line of sight of the entryway. I nodded to them, planted both hands against the door, and pushed. It opened with surprisingly little trouble despite its apparent weight, and I beheld what I had only briefly glimpsed before I had shut the door a while earlier.

I've only got a few seconds to take in as much as I can. Whatever we do will have to be based on whatever critical information I can glean from taking one good look at this trap with my magical senses. The glistening crystal loomed before me, ethereal light shimmering across every surface of the inside of the tower, and already I felt strange tendrils of mental pressure probing the edges of my mind.

Metal beams protruded from a central ring that held the crystal in place closer to the ceiling above me. Below me, past the metal walkway, I could see dozens of shelves with various objects on them with the shelves continuing all the way to the ground floor. Some of the objects were mundane, like swords or beaten up pieces of metal armor. Others were alien in shape with no apparent sense to their design or function. Each shelf had some kind of magical conduit linking it to a huge grid that ran through the walls of the tower itself reaching from the ground to the very top. The entire bottom half of the tower thrummed with dormant but unmistakable power, like a sleeping giant waiting to be roused.

If I'm not mistaken, whoever designed the Repository had the idea to use the artifacts housed within it to power its own defenses. That grid feeds off the inherent magic in all those objects below, negating all exterior attempts to use magic on the tower itself. Even if a Slumbering Calamity leveled its full power against the Repository, it wouldn't leave so much as a scratch if these artifacts are truly as dangerous as the scriptures claim they are.

Enough distractions. The grid can work for me. If it keeps hostile magic out, it can keep my magic in and focused solely on the space inside the Repository. That will narrow my search for answers significantly.

With the same method I'd employed at the Valley of the Last Sunrise, I put out feelers of my own. Crisscrossing lines of energy overlaid themselves across the room, each draping themselves over the walls and crystal as my will guided each thread into place. Color went flat, the air became slightly stale and time crawled to a near standstill as my waking consciousness untethered itself from my body to seek answers among my web.

Nothing happened at first. As the lines solidified, I awaited the rush of information that would accompany their analysis. Instead, a slow feeling of encroaching cold ran along my skin and in my veins, almost as if my blood were turning to ice.

Something is here. Hidden from my sight, both physical and magical. But it won't stay hidden for long. The threads of the web thrummed as I sent out pulses and signals, trying to flush the entity out into the open. There isn't anywhere for it to hide in here. So why didn't I see it the moment the door opened?

Spiders hunted by sensing vibrations in their webs made by insects struggling to free themselves after getting caught. Having read about this as a child, I used it as inspiration for my magical detection spell. Any single ripple or change in nearby magic would immediately alert me to its presence the way a fly would give away its position in the web, and then the hunt was on.

Then the threads were plucked, almost like the strings of an instrument.

On my left, then my right. Then above, then ahead, then beneath. Multiple signals of surging magical force became perceptible within my web, only to recede seconds later. Where the signals manifested, I could feel the same icy cold that was now inching its way up my arms to my torso. The tendrils attempting to worm their way past my mental defenses felt like they were coated in cold slime, adding to my discomfort.

Off to the right the frequency of the signals sped up. Whatever the entity was, it was now setting off multiple areas of my net, throwing off reverberations of chaotic magical resonance that battered me like waves on a shore. Underneath those reverberations was a pattern, though. Against the chaos, I strained myself to untangle it.

Like a seasoned musician, the strings of my web vibrated almost as if the entity were playing an instrument. There was almost a rhythm to it, but I was loath to admit to calling it that for fear of what it meant. Rhythm implies will, which implies intelligence. It would mean something capable of sentient thought is in here trying to play cat and mouse with me.

Pushing the chilling idea aside, I tightened the web, shrinking its area of detection slowly but gradually like a fisherman drawing in his net by hand. Cat and mouse it is, then. Let's see how it fares against the former Witch-Queen. As the web shrank, the threads moved closer together, intensifying their power and drawing the noose close around my target.

Suddenly, multiple "pluckings" pinged in several different areas of my web. Those interactions were immediately followed by wrenching impacts that tore through the threads, punching massive holes in my carefully laid trap. An enormous presence alighted in the center of the web, radiating cold and emptiness as it continued to rend my spell asunder.

Wait. I'm not the cat. I'm the mouse. This… thing just let me believe I was the one in control.

The presence was like a blob of translucent blue fluid glistening with pinpricks of sparkling light like the ones in the crystal. An intelligence far beyond my own lurked within it, saw me and recognized my talents and powers. More pressure drilled at my mind, the layers of mental defenses I had in place beginning to fail before the assault. Biting frost nipped at the skin of my ears, cheeks, and neck spreading down my shoulders and up across my temples.

Then something snaked around my foot and pulled, and I was floored instantly.

My arms flailed reflexively, but the sensation of whatever had curled around my ankle felt like frozen fire, the pain being so intense that I couldn't make sense of what to do. I tried to find the door, the only means of escape, but my vision had gone dark and there was nothing in every direction but stars glittering like gems in a sea of black.

Then the voices started. From the dark, my uncle's voice beckoned to me. "My darling niece. There you are. Even future queens must go to bed at a decent hour. Come, I'll read you your favorite bedtime story." It was clear and unmistakable; it was the same tone he had when I was merely a girl of six, full of warmth and affection. Needless to say, it chilled me to the bone to hear a voice that didn't belong here trying to trick me into accepting oblivion.

Words failed me. I babbled and shrieked, the grip of some horrible thing I couldn't see wrapping itself around my neck, strangling any further cries with searing sensation. "Come along now. Time for bed, young lady. There will be plenty of time for your studies in the morning." Something lurked under that voice, something that hungered and knew with satisfaction that it would soon feed, and despite my desire to keep fighting I knew that I was now the fly thrashing about as the spider crept towards its meal.

A great battle cry brought me to my senses. Arms enfolded themselves around me, lifting me up and away from the foul presence. Whatever was around my neck and ankle let go of me, and a horrific hissing sound filled the room and my ears as Alverd drew me close to his chest and hefted me behind his shield. His blue eyes were practically blazing like fiery beacons in the dark, terrible and yet so eerily beautiful. He carried me out of the room like a sailor pulling a drowning woman from a stormy sea.

With a gasp I breathed in the night air outside the spire as he wrestled me out of the grip of the suffocating darkness. Behind him, Alicia and Kuro slammed the door shut, and as it closed whatever remaining hold the entity had on me ceased. Alverd laid me gently on the ground, his voice filling my ears. "She looked like she was possessed. What is this filth on her neck?"

Hands pawed away at my neck, removing the last of the entity's burning hold on me. "Gods, it's cold! Don't touch it with your bare hands." Monaco tore off a few strips of white cloth from her tool bag and used them to wipe off my neck. When she pulled away, I saw the sparkling blue slime that made up the being that had attacked me staining the bandage. "It's on her leg too. Hold her still, I don't want her to kick me while I get it off her."

Kuro's voice was full of caution as he joined the conversation. "That goo is emanating some seriously wicked vibes. Ten gold says that's what messed with your head when you went in, Monaco." His finger hovered over the bandage as if he meant to poke at it then thought better of it.

A few minutes later, my breathing returned to normal and I was finally calm enough to share my findings with the others. "Based on what I sensed, I believe the trap we anticipated isn't some static construct, but a living creature capable of mental manipulation. A magical predator species kept locked up inside the Repository to keep thieves out."

Scowling, Kuro leaned against the railing. "What kind of predator are we talking about? Your description rules out quite a few. There are a few monsters that can create illusions using rudimentary magic, but nothing with the raw intelligence to specifically target vulnerable parts of your memory to manipulate you to that extent." He leveled his staff at the door almost as if he expected the creature to poke its head out to say hello.

"That we're aware of. There were purges after the War of the Five Kings, according to the scripture. 'The Angels of Eternity led the people to hunt down the vile spawn of the Imbalancer, the lucid scraps of Chaos that followed in his wake.' Maybe not all of those monsters were fully exterminated." Unfortunately the scriptures were never very specific on what those monsters were capable of, instead choosing to go into lines of flowery language to describe their appearance and wickedness.

"Okay, so we don't know what's in the Repository. Just guesses at what it is and what it can do. Was there anything that could help us defeat it?" As per usual, Alicia was fixated on solving the problem in the most direct way possible, although this time it was to her credit. "Rather than worry about something we don't know, let's think about what we do." She said with as much confidence as she could muster.

"The inside of the Repository is built like some kind of cage. There's a magical field that both protects and contains everything inside of it, and it's powered by the artifacts housed in the Repository itself. My hypothesis is that the artifacts must be capable of suppressing the creature. Otherwise, how would anyone be able to enter on official business?"

"So how do we make it work for us?" Monaco said, her fingers already thumbing through a series of tools she'd taken off her belt. "I won't lie, fighting demons is way out of my depth. I was expecting traps, not overblown guard dogs." Her tail swished indignantly, one of her wolf ears bent at a rakish angle as she grimaced off to the side.

Alverd folded his arms. "If there's a way to contain the demon, we do what has to be done. Any idea on how to use the magic field?" His question and gaze were directed at Kuro and I.

I shook my head. "I don't know. I didn't see a switch or anything that would imply simple activation. But there must be something in the room that allows the field to focus specifically on the demon."

"I have an idea." Kuro perked up as if it had just occurred to him. "An illusion tailor-made to a single individual would be effective so long as the demon only has to worry about one person at a time. This time, what if we all went in together to look for the means to activate the containment field?"

There was some sense in his plan. "So you're saying we overwhelm the demon by forcing it to divide its attention between all of us?" I asked.

He nodded enthusiastically. "Precisely. You or I can look for how to concentrate the field on the demon while the others distract it. If they can fight the monster or defeat it, more power to them but all they really need to do is keep it occupied long enough for the two of us to figure out how to turn the Repository's own defenses against it."

The principle of the idea is sound, but I'm worried about how effective it will be in practice. Assuming the demon can only focus on one person is risky. But I don't have any other ideas, and the thought of being subjected to that demon's grasp again terrifies me. My body shuddered at the remembrance of my uncle's voice, how authentic it had sounded despite my knowing it couldn't be real.

"Wait. You're saying the demon can affect your mind, right? So why didn't it affect me?" Kuro pondered for a second. "Maybe it did," I said. "Did anything happen after you looked at the crystal inside the room?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I bumped into Monaco."

He shrugged. "Maybe the physical impact stopped it from getting a foothold in your mind. Or maybe those runes of yours might've helped nullify the worst of the effect? I'm no expert in demonology, princess. Just count your lucky stars you weren't affected."

The five of us gathered in front of the door again to take another look at the engraved image on it. "You think that giant blob thing is what's sealed in here?" Monaco said, pointing at it.

"When the demon got a hold of me, it grabbed my leg and neck with some kind of prehensile appendage covered in that blue slime. It could be some kind of parasitic creature that feeds off its prey's emotions. So don't let it grab onto you." I gripped my staff tight, stepping closer to Alverd. He smiled at me reassuringly, although I found myself only partially comforted by it.

Kuro stepped to the front, his staff at the ready, one hand on the door. "Okay. We have a plan, we know what to do. Mostly. Is everyone ready?" He looked at all of us, seeing how uncertain we looked.

"No. But we have no choice. We came here to get the Hand, and we can't afford to fail. Open the door, Kuro." Alverd steeled himself, his sword and shield raised. The others followed suit, all equally nervous.

Sighing, Kuro pushed open the door. He was the first one in. The rest of us charged in after, throwing our fates to the wind.