We needed to solve the easy riddle first.

  “All this just to protect a family heirloom?” Connor asked.

  Thomas nodded his head. “I agree. It is all a bit much. I mean, really, who builds these things?”

  “Good points. But it is better asked around a table at the Double D later. For now, let’s figure this out. It seems to me a bit like the riddle at the entrance.”

  I tended to agree with her.

  “You think we each need to make an offering of some gift?” Thomas asked.

  “Right idea, wrong source.” I pointed at the alcoves. “My guess is that we need to find something here to place in or near the pedestal.”

  “Got mine,” Connor said as he walked over to an alcove and picked up a stone urn.

  We stared at him. “Ok, explain,” Nat said, finally putting her sword and dagger in their sheaths and crossing her arms. Her head was tilted to the side, and she waved her hand with a “get on with it” movement.

  “This urn is filled with ashes.”

  Thomas cleared his throat. “That is not uncommon in crypts, Connor.”

  The elementalist rolled his eyes. “Not bones and ashes, volcanic stone and ashes. Here, look inside.”

  He walked the urn over to us, and we could see that it did have volcanic stone and ash inside. As a lapidarist, I could at least confirm that. While a geologist could have been more specific, I had seen several raw tourmalines and opals that were attached to volcanic rock.

  “Connor’s right. It’s volcanic ash, not human. I think.”

  “Okay, assuming for a second it is as you claim, how is this your item?”

  He snorted. “Duh. Fire guy. Ashes. Volcanoes. I’m hot.”

  “In your dreams.” Nat retorted, but she walked away and began looking through the alcoves.

  While the connection for Connor was not perfect, it was a start. Thomas and I also went to look through the objects in the alcoves.

  Thomas was the next to locate what he thought represented him.

  “I found a bottle of pure olive oil. It is used in baptism to strengthen the individual to turn away from evil and sin. And it feels right to me. I think it is blessed.”

  Encouraged, Nat and I continued to search.

  Connor called out, “Hey, in this panel, there is a space for me to insert the urn. It’s at an angle, but I’m sure it will fit exactly.”

  “Hold off until we all get our objects. We should insert them together like a key.” I replied.

  “Not in the same order we came down here?” Nat asked.

  I paused. “That is actually a good point. Either way, hold off until we are all ready.”

  Over the next couple of minutes, I located a polished silver gem-cutting chisel. It was not magical, but it wasn’t tarnished, either. Natalyia found a carved wooden flute, which she used to play a quick tune as she walked over to the pedestal.

  “None of these four objects is magical,” I explained. “But they do seem to fit us and the riddle. The question is, do we insert them all at once like a key, or one at a time?”

  “Let’s see if we can find a spot on the other three panels for our objects. The riddle says near, it does not actually say we need to put it into the pedestal.” I observed.

  But in a matter of moments, we each found an obvious location that fit the outline of our objects.

  “Looks like Connor is right,” Thomas said.

  “Was there ever any doubt?” The elementalist replied.

  Nobody commented.

  “It’s fifty-fifty at best,” I said out loud. “But let’s try them all at once, and if three of us feel resistance, we hold off and do it one at a time like above.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Nat agreed.

  Connor counted us down. “We will go on zero together. Three. Two. One. Zero.”

  We all inserted our objects. They went in without difficulty.

  There was a loud snapping sound, followed by silence.

  Thomas asked, “Did that set off the trap or disconnect it?”

  “Seems good to me,” Connor stated confidently.

  And at that moment, we could hear a grating sound above us at the far end of the room near the alcove where my chisel had been found. It was followed by the sound of stone impacting stone directly above u, and finally a large stone slab slid into place at the edge of the stairs behind us, blocking our exit from the archway.

  “Did we do it wrong?” Nat asked.

  I looked at the pedestal and saw that the magical first ward was gone.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “No, the ward is gone. Maybe this was designed to motivate us to finish things, and we get a different way out.” I suggested.

  The others were less than optimistic.

  But the stone blocking our path was not the only rocky problem. Growing out of the ceiling near the location, we heard the first grating sound was an earth elemental. It dropped to the floor, its coal black eyes, which I think actually were coal, stared at us.

  “Well, crap. I said.

  “Fire is not especially effective against earth,” Connor remarked as we backed up and spread out.

  “I thought you said it worked,” Nat said to me over her shoulder.

  “Sorry?” I replied.

  She drew her sword and dagger.

  I cast an enchantment on her blade since I could see that it was not magical. It glowed a faint yellow.

  She looked over at me. “Was that you?”

  “Yeah, I meant to do it when we faced the werewolf, but there wasn’t time. It’ll last four hours.”

  “So mine is still good?” Thomas asked.

  “Yeah, the initial glow fades quickly, but the spell will be good for a while yet. It hasn’t been that long since we fought the wolves.”

  “It’s a fourth element, earth elemental,” Connor informed us.

  It could be worse, but it could be better. I thought to myself.

  Thanks to my visit to the summoner’s guild hall, I had the ability to unsummon it, but that seemed like overkill for a midrange elemental. Still, it was probably more powerful than any of us individually. The question was whether it was tougher than all of us combined.

  “As long as it stays in contact with the earth, it will regenerate itself.” Connor relayed.

  It just became worse.

  I had only dealt with the little elementals, and they were not especially strong. If they were also able to regenerate, it had been minor enough that I hadn’t noticed.

  “Can you send it back?” Nat asked Connor.

  “Not really my element.”

  “You have trespassed in my lady’s crypt. You will suffer the wrath of the Corvell family.” It made a grating, rock-sliding-against-rock sound as it spoke.

  “Elementals can’t hold a summons for centuries. At best, it could maybe hold for a year.” Connor argued.

  “Clearly, they can,” Thomas responded.

  “It was probably a trigger enchantment with a programmed summons,” I said, guessing how something like this could be done.

  “Boys, stop talking and start fighting,” Nat said before launching into a song.

  I knew she had a good voice from the way she held the clear note against the werewolf. But her singing was amazing. Her voice energized me and made me feel more confident and courageous.

  I realized it was a spell effect. She was using a bard spell to rally us. I hope it came with more protection than mere confidence. Not that it was a bad thing.

  The earth elemental began lumbering toward us. It was not as fast as I expected it could move, but it was advancing.

  Connor pulled out his wand and cast a spell before any of us got close. “Detonate!” He yelled.

  A chunk of the earth elemental’s shoulder exploded, dropping it down 20% with one shot.

  Thomas moved a little closer and yelled, “Immobilize!”

  I guess we were yelling the spells we were casting. I guess it was a good way to let each other know what we were doing.

  Other than Mage Blast 1, my personal spells were terrible for combat. That is, unless I wanted to add sockets to it or give it magical damage against us.

  But I did have some tricks in my gems and rings. Air is the element that opposes earth. I already used my lightning bolt spell, but I had a decent air attack that I wanted to use before it got too close, so that splash damage would affect my friends.

  “Air Blast!” I yelled with a silly grin, using a gem attack. I also had an Airbolt spell which was weaker and only good against one target. I’d use that next.

  My spell did double damage against the earth elemental, and it was now down below half.

  Nat added a cheer in her song that made us all feel great.

  Until the elemental dipped into the floor and recuperated twenty-five percent of its lost health in one action.

  “It’s regenerating!” Connor yelled unnecessarily.

  If we didn’t kill it quickly, we didn’t stand a chance.

  Connor sent another detonate spell, although he didn’t shout it out loud this time.

  The elemental dropped to half again, and just as quickly pulled back up to over three-fourths.

  As long as it was in contact with the earth, it could heal. That power was too much. How could it not touch the earth, how-”

  And I suddenly knew the answer. I pointed my battlestaff at him and yelled, “Levitate!”

  It was really heavy, close to a ton, I’d estimate. The spell struggled, but it did slowly lift the elemental out of the floor and about a foot into the air. My forehead was sweating with the concentration to keep it aloft.

  As soon as the elemental lost contact with the ground, it began to spin rapidly, and it formed a rotating sphere. It did not move much from its location, but it gained even more speed.

  “What’s it doing?” Thomas called out.

  We all looked at Connor. “No idea!”

  At that moment, perhaps keying in on Connor’s voice or at least knowing that the mage had hit it with two powerful fire spells, it attacked. Spinning jagged rocks the size of ping pong balls flew out at him.

  Ping pong balls were smooth and weighed next to nothing. These stones were anything but. And there were a lot of them.

  Connor ducked low, but not before he was pelted with five or six rapidly moving projectiles. Dozens smashed into the floor, into alcoves, and against the magically protected glass bookcases around him.

  We could now damage it without regeneration, but the battle was not over.

  Nat and I had the same idea as we ran over and dashed behind the pedestal. The sound of crashing stones all around us told us we timed it just right.

  “Any more tricks in your stick?” She asked with a grin.

  “Just spells that would kill all of us in here or whittle it away, bit by bit.”

  She frowned. “Start whittling then. You might want to pass on the other choice.”

  I peeked around the corner and sent an Airbolt spell at it. It still did double damage, but it was a lot weaker.

  A third round of stones followed another detonation spell from Connor, but there were maybe half as many that time.

  Thomas had hung back but decided to charge it. “It’s weakening, we need to attack before it recovers!”

  “Don’t shoot me,” Nat said, as she left the pedestal and spun around to join the cleric.

  With our friends in close combat, Connor shot Firebolts at the elemental, and I followed up with Mage Blast. We were able to control where it hit since we used our minds to guide the spells.

  We both got off five shots, but his did more damage. I was able to split my attacks across multiple targets, but that came at the price of damage intensity. He could only target one creature, but the damage was more.

  Either way, between us, we accounted for some more damage. And so did the bard and cleric. Thomas seemed to do better damage with his mace than she did with the sword, even though both were magical.

  I was just thankful I could keep attacking it and not lose the Levitate spell. I had to concentrate to get it in position, but then it stayed there just fine since it couldn’t move much, just spinning in the air. It had nothing to push against.

  The elemental seemed to reduce in size, but in so doing, it shot out another round of stones, and Nat and Thomas took point-blank hits.

  Both went down, but they were not out. Just bruised and bleeding.

  Seeing them drop sent Connor into a rage, and he shot another two Detonate spells, one after the other.

  After that, it was pretty much just cleanup. Thomas had the final shot with his mace, exploding the elemental into dust and rocky fragments that flew around the room.

  We dusted ourselves off, thankful it ended as it did.

  “Quick thinking with that levitate spell,” Connor said, patting me on the back.

  I grinned. “And those detonate spells were wicked strong.”

  He shrugged. “Used up a big chunk of my wand’s casting points doing it, but better that than a full wand collecting dust for another century before someone discovers us.”

  “Speaking of which, how do we get out of here?” Nat asked.

  “I’ll summon a lesser earth elemental to make a hole in the block for us to pass through.”

  They all looked at me.

  “What? It’ll take a while. Did you want me to work on that or pick up granite pants over there?”

  Thomas knelt down and picked up something from the ground. “Looks like the elemental dropped a gem.”

  “Oh, what kind?” I asked, walking over to him.

  Nat was there before me and said, “More than one, it looks like.”

  We searched through the rubble and found four gemstones. None were magical, unfortunately, but I estimated their values at around a hundred gold each. There were two emeralds, an amethyst, and a ruby. Each was of high quality, and I could use them to make magical 7pt gemstones.

  They agreed to take one hundred gold for each, especially given the ring gifts I had offered them earlier.

  “Well, before you dig us a way out, we still need to open the wooden chest,” Natalyia observed.

  “How are we going to solve the second ward? We can’t just know the name? There are thousands of options out there.” Connor stated in frustration.