Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

The first thing we saw, other than the warped boards of the floor, was what might have been an ornate meditative water fountain on a short pedestal, cracked and blackened and fallen in place about another floor node that had burned through the stone and wood. On the opposite side of the door upon which it sat, a crude stone catlike head of some kind was sitting, except it had shattered into several pieces around its own burned hole in the floor.

The door of the antechamber itself was slightly open, and Princess Kristie pushed it wide.

“Uh, huh.”

We both blinked at the fact that most of the first floor of the mansion was completely gone.

By the back wall, the remnants of a staircase hung against the stones of what must have been a large and high basement, steps going all the way up to the watchtower on the roof. The massive basement was now cracked, broken, caved in, and turned into an even larger basement, which also happened to be mostly full of black scummy water at this point, burying from sight whatever was down there.

Moss was on everything, the air was dank and stale, but it looked like the second floor had survived somehow.

“Huh.” Kris leaned way out the doorway, nails digging into the wood for a perfectly safe grip as she looked around. “Secondary staircase, or remnants thereof, hanging from the ceiling over there.” She paused significantly, looking to the right. “I think we should just go in through the balcony.”

“Sounds fine by me.” I couldn’t fly at will yet, and while I was sure she could clamber around like a monkey if she was so inclined, neither of us wanted to waste the time of her proving her superior strength-to-weight ratios.

So, outside it was, Kris hopping up to the top of the entryway roof with casual lightfoot, my Disk zipping up with her, and from there it was an easy hop over to the upper balcony, with all of its holes punched in the roof and an easy half-dozen more of the gray stone pedestals scattered all about.

All of them were cracked and broken, and the remnants of the statues atop them were also scattered around the place, just like below.

“Could you reassemble those statues?” Kris pointed out to me, wondering.

“A Make Whole could do it, and I can Surge for it after dawn if you really want me to.”

“Ah, yes, rebuilding the spellbook you don’t have yet,” she nodded once. “What were you planning on taking?”

“Mystic Theurge. Right now I can only take Divine spells in my bonus Wisdom Slots, and I’m saving those for Healing spells, for the most part. With the Theurgy, I’ll be able to take them in my Prime Matrix, and I can start treating them as Arcane and put them in my spellbook, too.”

“Oh. Advantages of doing so, instead of praying for them?”

“I have means to draw spells right out of my spellbook if needed, which increase in number at higher levels. Can’t do that if the spells aren’t in there,” I informed her, shaking my head.

Oddly enough, the door to the balcony was closed, but not locked. Indeed, it didn’t even look like it could be locked, which was totally weird. This wasn’t a safe area at all, and I doubted it had been before everything collapsed. Was pure reputation enough to keep intruders out, or did the Wards actually prevent hostiles from entering?

The upper floors did show signs of fighting. However, there wasn’t much ‘homey’ feeling about the place. The furniture and décor was that of someplace to show off and display knickknacks and esoterica, not to live in. Specifically, it only had one devoted bedroom, although we discovered a cot that could be swung out in a back room. Weirdly enough, there was no bathroom on this floor at all.

“Well, what do you know,” she piped up as we entered the room with a hole in the roof. Moonlight came in, lighting it up, not that I needed it. She pointed at the wall, and I looked over at the painting framed up there.

Squinted, and looked closer.

It was warped and starting to mold, but it was behind glass and hadn’t fallen off, although the frame was bending and water creeping in.

It was a map and drawing of what looked like an island, an artist’s rendition that seemed fairly accurate, for someone who didn’t have access to satellite photos or scrying.

More to the point, it had specks for cities drawn on it, although the ink had run and I couldn’t make out the names.

Kris’ black fingernails reached out to one of those dots, followed a river down to the northern tip of a lake and another dot, then down along the western shore of that to a third dot on another lake leading out to a darker area, which broadened out, then condensed into another river flowing out east into what was a sea or ocean surrounding this place.

“Make Whole it is, I guess,” I said under my breath, and Kris just nodded agreement. If we had a map of the place, we’d be stupid not to make use of it. “You want to make a night of it here?”

“Sure, why not? Wind and rain protection, as long as there aren’t holes in the roof.” The furnishings in the room were completely ruined, and the floor was sagging badly under that hole, boards warped and splitting, sagging so the water could drip down from them.

We didn’t take the painting down, as it just might come apart if we did. Easier to just Cast on it in the morning.

------

With that done, there was only to see if I could find anything in the basement, or remnants thereof.

It looked like there had been a real basement, complete with cross-braces holding up the main floor, and then a ‘new’ basement had erupted underneath it, taking out many of the timbers as it was forced into reality. The ‘new’ basement, from above, had a kind of flower design, with two floors, a large central area, and multiple side rooms to put things in. The lower floor and about a foot of the second floor were now underwater, rain coming in with nowhere to go, and the ornamentation and stuff had really suffered for the atmosphere. What might have been magical lights had even been blown off their sockets, so it was no brighter now than it had been before.

That said, I still scanned the area for...

“Damn!” I muttered in shock, looking at a particular side room underwater. I pointed at it. “Kris, there is a LOT of precious material scattered in that room...”

“Really? Anywhere else?”

I panned the Detect Precious Materials III back and forth slowly using Crown, even sticking it deeper into the water to be sure, and Kris helpfully made a circuit of the place.

“One more time around.” She obligingly towed me around on my sole Disk, the rest of them left upstairs with our stuff piled on them.

I paused at another side chamber. “There’s something magical under there.” I pointed directly at it. “Minor Telekinesis won’t reach...”

She didn’t hesitate for a second, diving right into the scummy water without hesitation into the area I pointed, so smoothly there was barely a ripple in the water.

I had naturally scanned for living and undead things in here first, making sure there were no foul surprises under the water, which frankly surprised me. Then again, with no easy ingress or egress came no food or supplies, so anything falling in was likely dead... unless it could survive on squirrels or snails or something.

It only took her a minute, her Tremblesense letting her navigate perfectly and her Vajra making her an incredible swimmer. Then there was a bit of a splash, and she almost poured up out of the water, rising to the top on her Tats and lightfoot. The water and scum sloughed right off her as she shook her head, politely not forcing it away in my direction, and she lifted her hand.

She had two Swords in hand, glowing very gently in her grasp, raising my eyebrows high.

“They looked like they were crossed on a wall mount, and fell on the ground together,” she explained, lifting them up. Both were about the size of human bastard Swords, with a solid yard of blade to both of them.

“Longswords, made for taller people?” I hazarded as she spun them in her hands, getting the feel for them.

She flourished the one with the brighter Blade, and a swirling helix of particles of light began to steal up along the blade from the bright blue of the ornate guard and pommel. “There’s a strange energy running through this one on a passive level. It’s also ready to receive a charge, but seems to be completely empty. There’s crystalline aspects to the blade, it’s not made of a true metal.”

I eyed it in some consideration at her words.

She hefted up the other weapon, which had a set of jewels embedded into it, including forming the anchor between the hilt and the Blade itself. “This... has elements of Isparian design to it, specifically some Aluvian techniques. But the Weapon is made almost entirely of Air Gold, save for these jewels, which seem to be removable.” She indicated the large scorched crystal forming the ricasso by itself, with two black stones further up the blade. “It looks like the jewel here took the brunt of the surge, and preserved the rest of the weapon by stopping it from entering the charge pool, which seems to have fused shut as a result.

“This other one, the energies inside seem to have simply ignored the surge, although the charge chamber is also crystallized and useless now.” She stepped away and cut with the two Swords through a simple, yet rapidly-evolving dual-wield pattern, somehow getting the overlong Weapons to swirl about as if alive, yet never clash or get in one another’s way. “These are finely-made Weapons, definitely magical, quite superior to almost anything back home, but they were just left sitting on a wall, their charges left to bleed away?”

“Which is something you do with mementos and faithful Weapons that are no longer powerful enough to be of use to you.”

She looked at me, was about to say something, and thought better of it. “Trophies and memories of younger times.” She held both of them up, the very faint illumination showing magic that made the disfiguring Cursemark on the side of her lovely face glitter and move uncomfortably. “These are both made using magical techniques I’m not familiar with, and I know all the Matrix stuff, and I thought I knew all the Isparian stuff that was relevant.”

“So, from the magical civilization that Called everyone here, or at least derived from them?”

“Yes. Especially this Air Gold Sword, here. Making Air Gold into a Sword... it doesn’t have the natural material strengths, but it is holding even the passive magic like a champion. It’s like, hmm, they had an excess of Air Gold, and not even real metal, so they subbed magical strength for material strength. There’s a lot of Force structure enhancement inside the blade, reinforcing its structural integrity so it can perform.”

“Let me see them.” I held out a hand, and she passed the brighter, foreign-style straight blade with the bright blue hilt and guard, into my hand.

“For the Light! The Light!”

The Dericostans were everywhere, their foul darkness and animated flesh blighting the world, overcoming the defenders and their shining Weapons. They were trying to reach the source in the Hall, to bind it and cover it in their darkness, for the Swords of the Lost Light were their most terrible bane...