I couldn’t read it out to them, not fully. These struck me as the sort of people who would punish the messenger. But I wasn’t about to outright lie either. With my ears lowering just a bit in concentration I said “It is a message asking for information as to what is going on here.” There, truthful and it seemed to satisfy the high cleric.

  Velkcathus tilted his head back, eyes closed as he let out a long hiss. “The master speaks to us and we have fallen so far that we cannot even remember how to speak to him! But we have been blessed from the heavens to receive one who can.” He raised his hands before finally dropping his head, eyes opening to look at me.

  “You,” He continued, “Are the one summoned and now must full-fill this holiest of tasks. You can read the words that the Great Master has sent. You are a messenger and will respond with our words.”

  It was a weird feeling to be both praised as a higher being and threatened at the same time. A messenger of a god trapped by a summoning ritual, much like the fantastical stories I read as a child. “Yes.” I said at once, taking a step toward the mirror.

  Even as I reached for the scanner at the top of the mirror I could hear Astaril’s low muttering “Great, now I’m going to lose another assistant.” I was not fond of him considering his threats and disregard for people but at least he wasn’t gripped by the religious hysteria that seemed to surround Velkcathus.

  The larger hillsec was watching me, hissing as I touched the scanner, trying to work it free. His eyes were narrowing and it seemed if he hadn’t just ordered me to respond to the message that he would have struck me down for daring to touch such a holy relic. These fools had used an Alliance scanner as an object of worship, having no idea what it really was. To be fair though it could communicate with those of higher powers than their own.

  I got it down, in spite the annoyed hissing from the leader, and ran my thumb over a section to project a screen. That stopped the hissing, instead garnering an amazed gasp from both hillsec.

  The message feature was right there. Easy to figure out as it wasn’t too different from communication devices back home, just with more capabilities. I started typing back a message, ‘Hello. I am not with this cult but understand how to use this device. What should I tell them?’. And then I waited. I didn’t know how long the previous message had been blinking against that mirror. How long had the one who sent it waited for a response?

  As a minute passed with no reply yet, Velkcathus turned towards Astaril. “Have the guards bring up my new pet. I want to familiarize it to this room. And a platter of fresh meat.” It was funny hearing the researcher treated like a servant. Even as I carefully searched through the functions of the scanner I saw Astaril stiffen before bowing to the High Cleric.

  “It will be done.” And in a lower voice, “I hope that thing bites one of your hands off.” Before he slithered off.

  ———————

  Raven looked over the other members assigned to their group. Four of them for their mission making up a range of classes. Clemersel had volunteered to join their unit once he found out what was going on. He had been too late to join them on their trek here or he would have been with them from the beginning.

  “Yea I hope that Ramjack guy is alive.” He was saying, “I wanted to be in a group that made finding him and anyone else taken from Dacathus a priority. He seemed like someone you’d want to trust in a fight.”

  The other new comers had never met the librarian but seemed to trust in the lizardfolk’s assessment. Raven hadn’t worked with any of them but Jace had spent time with Luskis, an aulterun [Healer] and [Tinker]. She usually kept the second class quiet but had come to support Jace who had raised the esteem of the class within the guild.

  The other two were a Talloni [Protector] dressed in armor named Firth and a nearly naked minotaur [Berserker] called Dranmir. They were both quiet as Raven started with their plan. Each team had an assignment but the individual teams had to make their own plans of how to go about it. Raven’s team was to find and rescue any prisoners that the cult might be keeping.

  “We are going in third.” She told them, “Team Distraction will use the threat of another velkamir attack to draw guards and hunters out of the entrance. After they vanish off into the woods Team Containment will go in and head up to the top. They will fight to contain anyone they can, tie up those that surrender or who can be knocked out. We have a similar mission as team rescue but we will be looking for cells, likely down though it is possible that Team Containment will be the ones finding the prisoners and we might be running into whoever runs this cult.”

  “Like with Team Containment,” She went on, “Our job will be to secure guards if possible. Anyone who surrenders gets tied up.” She looked directly at the minotaur and saw him nod, then at Mazen where he did the same, “We will take who we can alive. The first prisoner who we can talk to we need to get them to show us where prisoners are kept. Are we all clear on this Team Rescue?”

  There were head nods all around. “What about the prisoner you already have?” Firth asked, leaning on her slightly dented iron shield.

  “We will leave them in here. With any luck we will be able to put them with other members of the cult once this is done and decide what to do then. My instincts are once this cult’s leaders have been taken down the rest will fall apart and be no trouble for the people of Dacathus. That is what the guild will be paying for. The city wants people who might have been taken prisoner back and the leadership brought for trial or killed if the guild cannot take them in safely. The rest is open to interpretation.”

  “Good.” The talloni woman shook back her flowing mane of orange hair, “That one in there looked very young and I would hate to see a child killed because of the actions of their people. It is morally repugnant.”

  ——————————————————————

  I nearly missed seeing the new message arrive on the scanner due to being distracted by the new creature brought up into the tower. At first I thought it was a small brown aulterun, as its head and face resembled one of the bird folk in a great deal. But it was four-legged with tiny claws on its toes that didn’t resemble a bird at all. The body was covered in hair-like feathers, darker brown than the head. The smell wasn’t unpleasant but it was nothing like an aulterun either.

  A guard held it with a loop around it’s neck. The beak opened wide, showing off several sets of teeth that marked it as a meat loving omnivore that could easily bite off a hand if not careful. I watched as a second guard held a platter of meat out to the high cleric, only turning as I felt the scanner vibrate once in my hand.

  The new message and I wasn’t sure if I should say anything before reading it. ‘Cult? Please confirm that there is a glowing quartz type crystal in the room with you.’ Yea, I really didn’t want to distract the leader with this one. As the hillsec fed the creature I turned my eyes to the crystal. It really was glowing. The sun was getting low outside and I could see that the glow in it I had taken as just reflected sunlight was actually generated by the thing.

  ‘Yes’, I typed back rapidly, looking back at the hillsec, ‘It is glowing and in front of a mirror this scanner had been attached to.’

  ‘Find a stasis box and carefully put it over the crystal unless you want to be overrun with demons within the next few months.’ My whole body shivered when I read that message. Demons? This crystal thing connected with them? I didn’t have time to think it over as I looked around for anything that could be a stasis box. This room was pretty plain beside the mirror and a bed of pillows in one corner. No shelves, one table with visible food stains, and a pillow that was likely a chair for a hillsec.

  ‘Not sure where. I am a prisoner of this cult and they seem to think the crystal is a holy symbol’ as I typed back I noticed that the cult leader was turning his head to look at me. His eyes narrowed.

  “Has the Master responded?” He hissed, ignoring his new pet slithering close to me.

  ‘I will be most unhappy if I have to fight through demons to contain that crystal again.’ The message appeared just as Velkcathus loomed over me.

  I swallowed and decided it was best to try and explain, “He says that the crystal needs to be contained in a stasis box.”

  The look on the man’s face terrified me. His eyes turned into slits, showing only a hint of the pupils. His tongue flicked out briefly as he assessed me. I felt like prey in that moment, both rooted in place and wanting to run. But if I ran that would be it for Mildred and Camphus. I might be able to escape, get through one of the windows up here perhaps and hope I could find a way down without breaking my neck but the two of them would be trapped inside.

  He reached out with one hand and actually touched the glowing crystal on the pedestal. It pulsed then shot a beam of light up into the sky. “Is that really what the Master said?” He lingered while touching it until the beam seemed to strengthen, pulsing a second time before he pulled his hand away. A bit of light pulsed through his own body for a moment then both he and the beam grew dark.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  A message scrolled through the air. I nearly dropped the scanner I was so surprised from it. It even momentarily distracted me from the terror of Velkcathus’s presence. ‘Why are you touching it? I said contain, do not touch it. You are causing breaches. The demons will come’.

  “A new message! The divine continues to speak!” Velkcathus said in a rapturous voice, turning his face up towards the now darkening sky. The message itself terrified me, as did his mood. Something bad was happening. Breach. That was not a good word.

  And while I was busy taking a step back from the maniac in front of me my ears twitched. There was a sound, carried in on the breeze from one of the windows rather than muffled by the stone around us. One that the velkamir close by seemed to hear as well because it looked in the same window direction I did when I heard the distant hooting. The little creature responded to it, letting out a mighty but high pitched hoot of its own.

  ————————

  Raven lead her team into the stone structure only a minute after Team Containment went in. She had seen the light shoot up into the sky just prior to the distraction, hoping it would not prove to be a portent of doom.

  The corridors themselves were not well lit so the paracrest had her staff out, light orb glowing at the top of it to help them on their way. Firth took point as she was both a [Protector] and could see in the dark. Her shield was out in front and she used it to bash into one of the black robed cultists who hurried around a corner.

  The man went down, one of his fangs chipped as he groaned on the floor. He’d been holding a dagger and it was now up against the wall as Dranmir and Luskis tied him up. Jace retrieved the weapon and the group continued on.

  The place was winding and huge. They poked into several empty rooms, likely sleeping quarters from the look of the pillows, before finding any ramps. The first ramp they encountered they ignored as it was leading up. Up was not their job, they needed to descend unless they found nothing else on this floor.

  A bedroom and a supply room with racks of robes, buckets, and cleaning tools later they found a ramp winding down. The floors here were swept clean but Raven felt an air of dinginess, of oppression as she descended down them. The corridors here were wider, going off in several directions that they had to pick from.

  The group stood there, peering down each corridor in turn. It was Raven’s choice as the leader in the end. “We go forward.” She indicated the passage that opened up across from the bottom of their ramp. Good a place to go as any given there were no signs anywhere she could see.

  There were several guards in the halls as it turned out, all dressed in pure black robes. Some had knives, others swords. All looked scared to see a well armed team rushing them. Only one gave them a real fight, hissing and slashing at Firth before Dranmir decapitated him with an axe. The other guards, facing Mazen and Raven respectively, instantly surrendered once sprayed with the blood of their leader.

  As the remaining guards were tied the paracrest wrinkled her nose. The stink of charring meat came from the room nearby. A kitchen she guessed. She pointed at the swinging door and set Firth on it. The talloni went in first with the hulking minotaur behind her.

  A brief scream of surprise came from the room, many voices from the sound, before rapid talking in that same unknown language. But as Raven entered the room another voice hit her ears, one in common. “Oh thank the gods, rescue!”

  The room was wide with many work tables separated from a kitchen area. It was much brighter in here and in the corridor with magic light orbs hanging down over each table. There were many hillsec here, all dressed in black robes trimmed in gray. But the one who talked wasn’t a hillsec but a human dressed the same. She was at one of the tables, a bundle of fabric in her hands.

  The woman held her hands up to the other’s dressed like her and said something in that language that caused them to noticeably relax. The human then stood, taking a deep breath, and said in common, “You are here to rescue us right? These ladies did nothing wrong, they’ve been held prisoner here all their lives. Most of them anyway. A couple got lured when they were young but have been held here all the same. But you’re not here for them, you came for me and Camphus and Ramjack right?”

  Raven’s heart soared at that. She came straight over to the human as her team took up their own posts. Mazen and Dranmir held the door as they had the most intimidating looks about them while the rest worked the room.

  “Ramjack, he’s alive? He’s here?” She demanded of Mildred.

  The human just smiled a bit and looked her up and down, “Would I be right in assuming you’re Raven? Yea unless that researcher guy did something to him today he’s alright. They figured out who knew how to read their old language and have him translating some book. They only speak it and read everything in common… the ones who do read anyway.”

  Raven closed her eyes, feeling her sail tighten then relax as she breathed. “Where is he? And yes, we’re here for you. We’ll help with these woman too. Can you speak to them?”

  “I think he’s on an upper floor. And he only taught me a few words of what they speak. I got them to calm.” She then turned to a blue and yellow scaled hillsec who was sitting close by and nodded to her. “Ansiss. Friends. Help.” She gestured at the adventurers.

  The other woman bobbed her head and called out to the room in their language, which cut the quiet murmurs that had been persisting throughout. “And who is Camphus?” Raven asked, remembering the names.

  “She’s the owner of the Inky Quill. I think she is down a level at the nursery today.”

  Children. Just as Raven had expected given the nature of cults. But getting to them now might be a problem. “What else is on this floor? Anything I should be worried about?”

  Mildred pursed her lips a moment, looking past the paracrest towards the door. “I haven’t been out much. Mostly been brought in here from the upper floor room they put Ramjack in. I think the cult is trying to recruit him. Gave him a nice room, and me and Camphus.” She looked back at Raven and held up a hand, “Nothing bad I promise. He’s only got eyes for you.”

  She hadn’t been worried about that really but it was nice to hear that she wasn’t wrong about his character. Hopefully Team Containment would be able to rescue him.

  —————————

  The hooting of the velkamir is the only thing that took the high cleric’s attention off of me. He slithered away, giving me the opportunity to back away past the pedestal. Everything was bad up here, but I knew something was going on. My sensitive ears could hear people in the distant tree line crying out in pain. I had thought that it was just another velkamir, perhaps the baby’s father or something, until Astaril and two guards slithered up the ramp.

  “High Cleric!” One of the guards bowed low, but urgently, “We’re under attack! Several outsiders have been spotted in the hallway following reports of another beast sighting in the woods.”

  Astaril’s face was set into disgust as he stood off to the side, both sets of arms folded as the cleric loomed over the guard. “What?” Velkcathus hissed, “Release the demons from stasis and ready the golem if it isn’t already active.” He waved his arms around in such a way that if the guard hadn’t been low in a bow he would have been tossed aside with the force of the swings.

  Fear swept through me at the demons. A phantom pain lanced through my chest causing me to shiver as I locked eyes with the researcher. He was watching me for the most part, his tail tapping the ground with impatience. He was muttering to himself again but with all the commotion in the room I only caught half of it.

  “… wasted. Whole day… move lab…” He was shaking his head now, turning from me to watch the high cleric rage. The large man was slithering at some speed around the room, looking like if there had been more in here he would have been throwing it. He calmed down when he looked at the softly glowing crystal.

  I had to make a choice, one that could destroy any advantage I had if he figured out I could hear him all this time. I moved closer to Astaril while Velkcathus was distracted. “Do you have a stasis box?” I whispered to him.

  He blinked at me, lowering the top set of arms. “Why do you ask?” His voice was low but not as low as his muttering.

  “Because you are not the zealot he is.” I gestured at the high cleric and then held up the scanner, “This is a communication device from where I come from. There is someone somewhere in the world sending messages back through it saying that if the crystal there isn’t contained it will cause dangerous breaches.” I knew it might be a mistake to tell him that. He was a curious scientist with no morals. “Demons that cannot be easily contained.” I added when he was studying me.

  He said nothing, his eyes drawn to the scanner I held. I could see his interest, his revelation. He even looked to the mirror, to the fabricated twins on either side of it, placed to make a trio of a decoration at some point.

  “All this time.” He muttered, “And there was knowledge right there.” His sails puffed up on either side of his head and he seemed to stare daggers at Velkcathus’s back.

  I decided to ignore his muttering for now. He wasn’t moving to help me but he also wasn’t calling guards on me either. He didn’t even notice as I stepped away from him and nearly blundered into the path of the little velkamir. It was making weird noises that I couldn’t comprehend and turning in a circle. Having no way to contain the crystal and without any new messages coming from the scanner I decided to distract myself by crouching before it.

  I knew it was potentially dangerous but I touched the creature’s beak, feeling it press into my hand. Even without the teeth the creature contained the beak itself had the potential to take off my hand, but it made no move to do so. Instead it just rubbed, making soft little hooting sounds. If I got out of here I knew I had to take this little one with me. Find it a place where it could be taken care of.

  —————————

  Raven looked at the assembled woman in the wide servant’s room. She hoped between Mildred and Ansiss that her words would be understood. “Alright. We will be helping all of you but first we need to contain all the guards and potential threats in the building. My team is here on this floor but we have two others. One is on the upper level going for the leaders of the cult and the other is outside securing the hunters. Hopefully we will be able to translate better what happens after this place is shut down.” She said that last one mostly for herself but could see a bit of a smile dance on Mildred’s lips as she and Ansiss translated what they could.

  Luskis had circled the room, placing healing hands on some of the woman who looked unwell. Most of them looked underfed to Raven’s eyes. Mildred had explained it to her, that there was only so much meat brought in by the hunters and that they all expected to be fed or there would be problems. And that was on top of the degrading tasks assigned to them. Serving and.. Comforting… which made Raven’s feathers fluff up in revulsion.

  At the door Dranmir pulled his head back into the room from the hallway. “Hey Rav, we have movement. There is something thumping down the hall out there, back in the direction of the ramp.”

  Mazen lifted his blade and nodded to the minotaur. “On your word Rav.”

  She nodded to them and watched as the two warriors and Firth all left before turning to the room again. “Please stay in here. We’re adventurers and will check it out.” Then looked right at Mildred, “If we don’t come back be careful and good luck.” She said this with little inflection, hoping that the hillsec women wouldn’t pick up on her concern.

  The human woman swallowed and nodded. “Already spoke with Ramjack about this sort of thing. If anything goes down I promised him Camphus and I would try to get out… and we promised each other we’d try to save these woman.”

  The woman was brave enough to be an adventurer herself. Raven didn’t know what she did for a living but would pitch the idea to her when they got back. Assuming that whatever was coming down that hallway didn’t kill them.