Chapter 37: Rite and Wrong

  After an hour of painstakingly looking at every inch of the bars in his cage, Alex could unhappily say that he had no way of breaking the things. No attempt at brute force at his disposal would work. And his studies of the glyphs on the metal -and as he came to learn, the stone slabs above and below him- made him unable to break the enchantment the script provided either.

  He had made some more progress in the skill though.

  Alex had learned quite a bit from his study session. Connecting lines, amplifier glyphs, charging glyphs, it was all very complicated script work from what he could see. Luckily, he knew how to read electronic schematics, and that knowledge translated—albeit slightly—to the works of [Glyphcraft]. They made sense to him in a strange way. Despite this, he still couldn't break them. So he swiped away the popup screen and sighed.

  He looked over at Devon and Lance, his physically closest teammates on his left side. He could see the answer to his unspoken question in their eyes before they even shook their heads at him. They didn't come up with anything either.

  Alex didn't have time to look at Allie before they all heard it.

  A rustling noise in the darkness. The scraping shuffle of feet, many feet. It was the approaching march of their kidnappers.

  He saw the torches before anything else. Dancing fires that bobbed with their holder's gait. Soon after the Kobolds came into view from the previously unnoticeable dark tunnel in the cavern wall. There were dozens of them all moving in an unorganized cluster. Alex heard their movement as a march, but they did not appear disciplined enough to have kept it up. Once they all shuffled into the cavern the added torches they carried illuminated the rest of the large stone room for Alex to finally see its size.

  For what he assumed was a cave room, the place was large. Fifty feet across, and almost the same wide. The ceiling was a dozen feet overhead, no stalactites hung above them, somehow Alex was disappointed by that.

  "Check the livestock, I must prepare."

  The voice was the clacking hiss of the kobolds that Alex remembered from his first encounter with them. The ring translated their language into perfect English but with some sort of species accent. Even with that added change, Alex could recognize the voice he heard as female.

  He pressed his face against the metal bars to look into the group of Kobolds. They were spreading out now, some taking up places against the walls and some walking towards the cages that held Alex and his friends. One of the figures stood out to Alex as the only possible source of the female voice he heard.

  A female kobold clothed in a robe of patchwork fabrics. In one hand she held a scepter or a short staff, in the other she held a white stone. The torchlight shimmered over the surface of the stone making Alex think it was a stone or gem of some kind.

  The female seemed to be the leader of the kobold group. Her better attire and confidence in giving orders were a dead giveaway to that fact. What worried Alex was that she seemed to be some kind of mage. He believed himself able to handle any of the kobolds he saw in melee combat. Throwing magic in the mix put that into doubt.

  Is she like, a shaman or something? Alex watched the kobold mage as she walked to the center of the cavern. With the extra light, Alex was able to see some sort of stone altar set up there.

  It was a stone slab that came up to the kobold's waist and was as long and wide as her body. Large lines were etched into the stone slab in patterns that Alex recognized as more [Glyphcraft] scripts. The lines connected into the floor and spread out into a circle ten feet across, the slab and the mage stood at the center.

  Alex wasn't close enough to see the details or study the glyphs, so he couldn't tell what they did, but he assumed it wasn't anything good. Nothing good for him and his friends at least.

  "Do we do the big one first? He seems strong."

  "Nah, the injured ones first. Don't wanna have them die before Doudra can perform the rite."

  Alex heard the guards talking as they approached. Their dark beady eyes scanned over the cages, and they seemed to lock onto someone on his right. He didn't need more than one guess to figure out they were looking at Kate.

  Rite? Alex looked between the kobolds in front of him and the shaman, Doudra, as his mind raced to make sense of things. What the hell do they mean rite? A magical ritual? To do what?

  Doudra seemed to be busy muttering to herself. She held up her stone and looked at it. Alex wasn't good at figuring out lizard faces and their emotions, but he guessed she looked annoyed for some reason. She continued to mutter at her rock. Alex was too far away to hear what the crazy female kobold was saying to herself.

  "No, no," Kate yelled the best she could at the kobolds as they stood in front of the door to her cage. The kobolds just chuckled at her.

  If they just want to kill us, they won't be getting much. And why the elaborate altar and glyph? They are doing something, but what? His eyes fell to the stone altar slab and the lines surrounding it. If Alex got closer, maybe he could study them and try to figure out what they wanted. But to get closer he needed to be pretty much on the altar.

  Then why not ask to go first? He can get closer then. He had the ring, he could convince them to take him instead. And then what, just die?

  Alex fists trembled as he stood there, uncertain. His heart pumped and the air on his arms stood. He felt the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the fear. The same fear that mad ehis freeze out in the soccer field when Henry and Garret needed him. The fear that had him hesitate the first night the badger attacked. So far, he’s always let his fear get in the way of doing the right thing, stopped him from helping his friends.

  He couldn’t keep living like that. He wouldn’t keep living like that.

  "Take me first." Alex yelled out.

  The kobolds froze and looked over him. Alex focused his eyes on Doudra, the female shaman, whom now looked away from her rock and stared at him. He knew all the other kobolds were focused on him as well.

  "Take me first. I'm the strongest, so take me first," Alex said.

  Silence rolled over the cavern for a few long seconds. The kobolds at the cages looked at the mage. She held Alex's gaze, no doubt analyzing him. Her eyes flickered to the kobolds by Kate and she nodded. Then she went back to muttering to herself.

  "Alex what the hell?" Devon asked.

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  "Dude why?" Garret shouted.

  "It's okay, it's okay. Trust me," Alex said. His heart still pumped wildly as he watched the kobolds approach his cage and pull a key from one of their pouches. He mentally noted that fact. They opened the lock and motioned for him to step out.

  Alex complied.

  He stepped out into the cavern and looked around. The other kobolds still stood guard around the room. The two that released him from his cage now pushed him toward the altar. They each barely stood up to his waist. He could overpower and kill the two of them right then. He couldn't kill all of them though, not by himself, and they'd be on him with spears and swords in seconds.

  He began his walk to the altar where Doudra waited for him. The two guards kept prodding at him to hurry, but Alex ignored them. The shaman didn't look to be in a hurry, so Alex took his time. His eyes stayed on the floor, looking at the glyphs that were carved into it. As he walked, he frantically studied the lines and sigils that made up the large circle and altar. It was even more complicated than the bars of the cages.

  Shit, I don't know enough to decipher these things. He thought. His eyes darted to one sigil and the next, trying to find connections, similarities, anything familiar.

  There were some things he recognized. Sigils for each of the elements were present. So it was somewhat like the attunement test glyph that Alex learned. But far, far more complicated. It's got all the elements, and it's going to focus on me. So what does that mean?

  He was already halfway across the room and to the altar by now. Even his slowed pace was too fast. He wouldn't figure anything out in time. Fuck, fuck, come on. He looked up at Doudra, the kobold mage that manically muttered like a cheesy movie villain. What does she want? She can't be absorbing every element can she? That wouldn't help her in the long run.

  Alex's boot scraped the ground and hit his opposite foot—completely accidentally of course, promise—and he fell to the ground. He stayed there, letting out an exaggerated groan. His eyes still danced though, taking in the scripts, searching. He had to see something, notice something. Everyone was depending on him to figure out a solution.

  There! He saw it. He didn't fully understand, but he saw it nonetheless. The sigils for the elements connected in a roundabout way to the altar and then the altar connected to a spot where Doudra was standing. She was planning to drain them. That wasn't the big epiphany Alex had though. It was when he stood back up and looked at the top of the altar again.

  There was a new sigil there, one Alex could faintly decipher to represent the mage core, the source of someone's magic, housed inside their soulspace. The sigil connected to all the elements, but it was heavily surrounded by other sigils, symbols that had some kind of effect to weaken, to erode.

  Doudra was planning to collect power from each of them. But she wouldn't just kill them for experience, she was going to suck them dry.

  Damn it, what can I do though? Alex was in front of the altar now, looking down at the lines on its surface. He didn't know the ins and outs of how it worked, but he knew what it would do. She's going to drain our cores and absorb the aether. Alex thought to himself. He looked up at the crazed kobold shaman.

  She was smiling at him.

  "Yes, yes, drain them and get stronger, that's the plan." She said. Alex didn't know if she said it to him, or to herself. Maybe both?

  Alex and his teammates had all only just arrived in this world so they didn't have much in the way of aether, but then again, maybe that didn't matter. This sigil was complicated to the point he gained a massive boost to his skill by just studying and learning one thing about its function. It might do more than just drain energy stored in their cores. Maybe it drained their mental stats too? Their life force?

  Alex felt the guards that flanked him punch at his legs. They were not gentle, and Alex grunted as he felt his muscles give out, he stumbled to kneel on the altar. They moved back at that point, spears angled his way.

  I can attack and kill her right now, Alex thought. Maybe.

  He didn't know how powerful this Doudra was. She might have spells like Allie's blinding light flash or something like Alex's [Flare] spell. She might have stats even higher than himself. She could be physically stronger than him, even if she didn't look like she was. If he attacked and failed, everyone else would still die. If he attacked and succeeded, the other kobolds would rush him, he would get killed, and everyone else would still die.

  Doudra began to chant.

  It only took a second or so for it to all start.

  The glyphs in the stone slab and the circle around it began to glow an azure blue. Doudra's chanting rose and fell, and the glow of the glyphs dimmed and brightened following her lead.

  Then the pressure came.

  Alex felt an erupting headache as pressure bore down on him from every angle. It was a magical force, as Alex saw nothing around him, but the feeling was undeniable. He felt an ethereal hand grasping his core gate, the connection of his body into his soul space where his core resided. The hand squeezed, and Alex screamed.

  Do something, do it now. Alex could barely hear himself think from the pain in his mind. Doudra began chanting louder, and the hand squeezed harder. He could feel the aether in his core, the meager amount he managed to gather over the last couple of days, begin to be dragged towards the hand that assaulted him.

  He had only one thing he could try.

  Alex pulled up his status screen and began pumping every experience point he could into his intelligence. The warm tingle of energy flowing in his body did nothing to mute the pain he was feeling. That was something that he was starting to get used to.

  Alex started to chant as well. He never cast his [Flare] spell before, but he knew how to do it. It was ingrained in his head by the system when it awarded him the spell. A part of the system shenanigans that Alex was thankful for.

  His hands moved a frantic set of gestures that were foreign but familiar. Aether surged even more quickly to his core gate. The draining force snatched a lot of it away, but not all of it. Some of it entered his body and built at the outer layers of Alex's skin.

  [Flare] was a quick spell to cast, and Alex finished his aether spell-pattern a second later.

  A blazing wave of fire erupted around his body. A torrent of white tendrils that shot in every direction. The two kobolds that escorted him to the altar were outside the glyph circle, but they weren't outside the radius of his spell. They were engulfed in the heat and the flames, catching fire themselves, and began running around.

  Doudra was not like her guards. Alex looked up to see her hand was held in front of her, gripping the scepter. A barrier of green energy flashed between the scepter and Alex, blocking his spell and sending the fire cascading around her body and away.

  Shit, Alex felt his core and how little aether remained inside. He didn't have enough to cast his spell again.

  No second chance.

  He didn’t have any other ideas. He looked down at the sigil between his legs. It glowed at him mockingly as he felt the last of his energy pulled from his core and gathered up by the hand that still had a stranglehold on his soul gate.

  I failed. He thought.

  His mind started to grow fuzzy. The headache receded as he felt the energy inside his soulspace wash away. There wasn't anything else left, but Doudra didn't stop pulling, and squeezing. She was going to kill him like this. This is where he would die.

  That’s when he saw it, his one shot.

  I’ll die, but I'll be the last. He assured himself silently.

  He was close to losing consciousness, and he could barely see, but he focused on that sigil at the center of the glyph circle that sat under him. He had studied it the whole time, and he knew what to do now. A last-ditch effort.

  He activated his storage bracelet, pulling out the only object that was inside it. The Stake of Condensing Breath. The object felt heavy in his hand, which was good, he didn't have much strength left so gravity would help here.

  He drove it downward into the sigil and the glyph flashed erratically. The aether around him rushed towards the stake, warping the circle and causing Alex's mind to lose consciousness momentarily. The pressure on his soul gate fluctuated as energy flowed into his body and back to his gate, then into the sigil once more then back again. This repeated over and over.

  Doudra began to scream. Alex didn't understand what was happening, but he was confident in the fact he had destroyed the altar because he felt it crack and break apart underneath him.

  There was a second sound of something breaking that Alex heard and then a gut wrenching agony that assaulted his very essence. The screams of Doudra mixed with the shouts of his friends as they called out to him.

  He smiled.

  Everything flashed a blinding white and Alex knew no more.

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