Chapter Forty-Two: A Curious Specimen

  “Stay here, Emmett, and make sure Nightwind does not wander off until we come back.”

  Selriph wasn’t entirely sure if the dire wolf understood his words, but the animal seemed to hold some semblance of watchful surveillance and stoic companionship as it sat beside the black gulper steed. For the runaway youth, that was as close to an affirmative indication he was likely going to get from his cryptic canine companion.

  That was the last sight that accompanied daylight before the trio disappeared into the gloom of the unmarked cave—supposedly containing Oagat’s vault, or rather, study.

  Soon, they encountered the lifeless husks of the cave’s inhabitants, their state of death caused by the twins’ previous expedition through the cave.

  The air was thick with the scent of metallic rust, a pungent odour of insectoid remains that clung to the stale, mossy interior. Its source? The buckler-sized corpses littered the grounds of the cave; these arthropods’ legs lay curled up, although most corpses were on their bellies, as opposed to their backs—a rare state of death for chitinous creatures of that size; Selriph inferred that their heavy shells were responsible, pinning them to the ground even in death.

  Blue streaks of mithril were visible on the carapaces in the faint, arcane light. As he passed within sword-length of a corpse, Selriph appraised the near-unmarred shells. The fatal wound, he noted, had come from a blunt force; likely a rock, judging from the scattered fragments of dirt and stone littered around the carcass. Their dried, rotted innards, spilt carelessly around their remains.

  The conclusion was clear; rendering death upon these smaller specimens involved dispensing a larger implement of force, enough to crush the soft, vulnerable tissue despite their near-impregnable carapace.

  This, however, only germinated the seed of concern that had been planted; the mention of the ‘giant’ scarab. With the only known method of lethality being to collapse their shells with immense, conjured weight, his thoughts had been churning with one burning question for the better part of the morning.

  If it comes to it… how do we kill the giant scarab beetle…?

  The trio crossed a vast ravine, a hundred meters of empty air spanned by a wide, sturdy land bridge. The crossing was a peculiar blend of natural and conjured stonework. Its edges were rough with the marks of natural erosion, while its centre was a smooth path of magically conjured rock, bearing the distinct terramantic marks of its creation—a brown shade against the grey-black.

  The stone crossing was wide and sturdy enough to support the weight of a dozen humanoids, although Selriph’s mind gnawed with the thought of it buckling and sending them into the endless depth, one that contained the faint sparkle of precious ores and the streaks of mithril that seemed to reach into the murky depths below.

  I suppose one option would be to lure the scarab out here and push it into the depths with an arcane blast…

  Selriph shook his head, dismissing the thought as mere fantasy.

  No, that would never work… we just need to ensure the plan is executed flawlessly.

  The dripping of stalactites echoed in the darkness, the sound a rhythmic accompaniment to the forge that was Selriph’s mind. One that had pondered the strategy the twins had proposed at sunrise.

  Kaelan had reassured the pragmatically cautious Selriph that his and Kelas’s arcane interventions would ensure they remained undetected within the scarab’s chamber. The strategy seemed viable: the trio would sneak past in silence, using arcane muffling combined with the arcane shadow veil, one that would render them undetectable by sonic and visual means.

  Then, when they came to the metallic door—made of the same organic alloy—they would form a cloak of quiet, layered with an air bubble to contain the fumes that would be produced from Selriph’s forge-worthy flames; to bid the metal into a red-hot, pliable state. Once that had been achieved, Kela would use her terramancy to pry the rest of the door open.

  The plan seemed feasible, well thought out, even. However, it relied on a single lynchpin: that no noise or visual signal was made. A single foreign disturbance could stir the beetle that had made its home in the cavern just outside the vault—one they were traversing towards now through another series of tunnels, a cold, metallic manure hitting Selriph’s nostrils.

  Selriph knew by precedence imposed by the forces of fate that it was unlikely this plan would go according to how they had envisioned it. For the shouts carried on the wind from the night of his escape played in his head as a stark mockery to the very idea of a well-laid scheme ever being smoothly executed.

  There has to be a way to despatch these scarabs. The next carcass I see, I should —

  In an odd occurrence of convenience, the cave answered Selriph’s internal need for a sample by providing signs of a live specimen; the scutter of insectoid legs along the walls. Kaelan raised his glowing shield, and the blue arcane light illuminated the mossy, dung-streaked walls. A gauntlet-sized beetle was crawling upside down just a few metres ahead towards the gloom beyond.

  Selriph stepped forward, his hand briefly resting on Kela and Kaelan’s shoulders as he passed. He then raised his other hand, with a wisp of arcane energy glowing in his palm. The tendrils of light wrapped around the beetle’s mithril-streaked shell.

  With a sudden tug, the youth pulled the beetle free from its rocky, inverted perch. Its legs spasmed in a struggle that was accompanied by a soft but high-pitched squeal of warning, while its claw-like fangs snapped at the empty air.

  “Selriph, what are you doing…?” Kela’s voice echoed through the tunnels from behind him, muted by the sheer concentration painted on the human youth’s face, a reflection of his internal thoughts of concentration.

  One that was about to experiment with the scarab held in his arcane grip.

  He withdrew his estoc in a slow, calculated motion, testing the blade in his hand before bringing its tip to the exposed, wriggling underbelly of the scarab.

  As the tip touched its abdomen, the creature’s legs latched onto it, the faint metallic crinkling emanating as the mithril-coated legs and its setae—the spike-like implements on its limbs—dug into the blade, faint scratches forming on its otherwise pristine edge.

  Selriph pushed the steel into the underbelly, feeling as if the estoc was being pressed against pure stone—an expected result. Despite the belly likely containing a softer material than the elytra shell, it would likely not yield to a mere steel blade.

  Selriph’s eyes bored into the legs that held the blade, as if the beetle was desperately holding onto it in protest. The joints exposed a white, soft tissue showed, not unlike one would see in a crustacean, something that Selriph had built an expertise in the Daryth estate’s kitchen.

  Ok… if I could…

  The arcane tendrils guided the beetle onto the stone ground. As he did so, he could feel the curious, concurring gazes of the elves behind him, their faces no doubt plastered in a mix of bewilderment and curiosity at the near-clinical nature of his experiment.

  Then, one of the magical tendrils birthed as an offshoot, holding one of the back legs of the beetle stationary, held in a position where the tarsus and tibia joint—the lattermost and second lattermost parts of an insectoid’s legs. Selriph sheathed his estoc and quickly swapped it for his parrying dagger, placing the blade on the joint, leveraged by the tip.

  With a swift motion, the steel blade came down with a crack, the insectoid’s leg snapping into, the other limbs wriggling in protest.

  Great… there is a soft portion and can be overcome with steel … Selriph repeated the motion for the remaining legs. With clinical stoicism, Selriph meticulously amputated all the implements, leaving the mithril scarab a limbless specimen.

  Only then did Selriph dispel the arcane tendrils that held it in place.

  The creature, as expected, exercised its insectoid intelligence by flailing the useless stubs of its former limbs. Its efforts were for naught, for without implements to perch on, it could not correct itself from its belly-over state. Now, its organic, mithril carapace was an natural endowment acting as an ironic chain holding it down.

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  This is good… we can disable like this if it comes to it… But it won’t be long before it attempts to correct itself by…

  Selriph waited seconds for the panicked bug—if it was even capable of such a feat—to conjure the last possible means to correct its motion. Flexing its elytra shell in a desperate attempt to flip itself up, revealing its unremarkable wings, was a strange sight given its outer features.

  Hmm, this means that luring the larger specimen to the ravine would not work; it also means we would need to hold it down…

  Selriph did not wait to see if it would succeed, for he only wanted to confirm the existence of wings under the creature despite its underground habitat.

  The tendrils shot forth once more, this time forming a translucent, almost fabric-like sheet over a sheet, a semi-opaque blanket of restraint over the nearly indisposed creature.

  Then, the rest of Selriph’s fingers closed inwards towards his palm, save his pointed finger, which drew a tiny circle in the air, the arcane sheet parting in the abdomen of the beetle.

  Selriph laid the dagger gently on the stone floor before two fingers shot out with the bright orange, forge-worthy flames.

  For a creature of this size, I could probably burn through its head, but if it were the bulk of a Cerberus…

  Selriph’s eyes tracked to the abdomen, the flames brought to bear on the helpless insect’s exposed underbelly.

  For the next twenty seconds, the mithril-lined carapace smoked under the effects of Selriph’s pyromancy, the odour a strange scent of burnt metal, organic carapace.

  Selriph only stopped when he smelt the distinct acidic pungency of burnt organic flesh, one that he was all too familiar with from the weekly observations of pyre-flamed executions.

  The flames cooled, revealing the beating, contrived innards of the belt.

  Then Selriph gripped his parrying dagger once more, driving the razor-sharp blade into the exposed abdomen of the creature.

  Over five seconds, the creature let out a high-pitched sound of protest before life finally faded from it, its amputated stubs curling up as it reached its state of death.

  Only then was Selriph’s experiment complete, a grin of satisfaction on his face.

  One that was interpreted as sadism by the male elf standing behind him, and the other as unnecessary implementation of his cognitive faculties by the other.

  Her sentiment boiled through in the remark that escaped her lips, “Surely... that won’t be necessary…” Her voice trailed off in uncertainty, tinged with a grudging understanding.

  In the pure gloom of the cavern, Selriph heard the high-pitched cackle, no doubt emanating from the giant arthropod that had nested in the far corner of the cavern, its silhouette barely visible from the faint light that emanated from Kaelan’s hand.

  In the next second, Selriph heard whispered mutters as he felt a velvet, almost snuggling texture envelope his legs—the arcane muffle spell. He made out the two swift jerks from Kela—her feet stamping into the cold stone below, no doubt testing the spell‘s effects.

  Then, Kaelan’s movements dovetailed to his sister; her arms danced another set of intricate gestures, invisible glyphs drawn in the air as Selriph felt another veil, this time, a black wisp of arcane energy, wrapped around their figures, the faint arcane light from the casting completely blanked by the veil of shadow.

  Selriph struggled to make out his companion in the gloom, his mind drifting to his non-physical senses—the arcane. As the trio followed their plan. There, to their right on the other side of the cavern, Selriph could make out the flowing veins of the mithrilite obstacle to the chamber beyond.

  The trio advanced through the cavern in a crouch, the only indicator of their movements to the naked eye being the shifting of shadow, one that was indiscernible in the gloom.

  As they approached the metallic feature, Selriph could feel an immense well of arcane energy emanating from the chamber behind and the mithrilite object itself.

  Selriph paced cautiously forward, just beyond the boundary of shadow trickling from Kela’s staff. His hands rested on the metal, feeling a distinct velvet static pressing back against them. His fingers traced a groove running down the length of the mithril-streaked structure, a clear indication that it was, in fact, a door.

  One that could be opened if they could figure out the means to do so.

  This…

  A surge of familiarity washed through him; his memories drifted back to the lockbox that marked his first encounter with Vick.

  Selriph closed his eyes, taking in the arcane energy that hummed beyond the wall. The signature in his memory and the one that pulsed before him felt like distant brothers. The intricate web of arcane energy that formed a dormant lattice in the door held a complexity that surpassed, but did not necessarily eclipse what Vick had conjured.

  What was a sure difference was the sheer scale before him.

  As his senses reached out, he felt it beyond the veiling forces from the twins behind that encompassed their figure; the faint tendrils of energy that reached into the very cavern itself, faint, almost imperceptible.

  If this is an arcane lock, if I apply heat to it, it might trigger a backlash, and if that happens….

  Selriph’s darkness-acclimatised gaze shot backwards to the massive beetle that lay along the walls. The curious specimen—its gargantuan proportions jolted the cogs of speculation in his mind.

  A seemingly obvious conclusion precipitated in his mind now that he brought his mental faculties to bear; this creature far outsized the cavern-dwelling kin they had encountered thus far.

  This was no oversized bug.

  Could… this be a curated guardian… for the vault? If that is the case…

  As Selriph’s mind whirled with speculation, his surroundings dimmed as he caught the fluid gestures of shadowy limbs in his periphery; the twins extended the auditory and visual concealment.

  Once the orb of shadow encompassed them, Kaelan’s voice finally broke the silence.

  “Eldeitian, you have been staring at the beetle for the past minute. What’s got into you?” his voice clear, a testament to the faith in the arcane barrier.

  Selriph turned, his eyes struggling in futility against the shadowed veil before him, the effectiveness of the twins’ spell an impediment more so than assurance now.

  Then he turned, his eyes gazing through the darkness to where the door stood, his voice a whisper. “This door… It’s enchanted, locked by magical means.”

  Selriph could swear he could perceive the scowls of scepticism on both of their faces despite the absence of light. Kela’s voice all but confirmed the unseen image. “Are you sure, Selriph? I don’t sense anything from the door.”

  A flame of doubt flared in his mind for just a moment, only to be extinguished when his outstretched hand made contact with the door, the unmistakable tingle of arcane energy flowing back into him.

  “Positive,” his voice assured, as if stating the time of day.

  Kaelan’s voice bellowed in frustrated protest, “So what? We aren’t trying to unlock the vault; we are trying to burn our way through.”

  The human youth’s brow furrowed, half in confused amazement at how Kaelan’s voice remained perfectly contained by arcane means, but also frustration from his remark. “You don’t understand; if we do that, the door will flare; it will attract the beetle’s—”

  Kela interjected, her voice diplomatically calm. “Our veil of shadow is enough; no light will? not escape this.”

  Selriph turned in the direction of the female voice. “Listen to me; I can feel the dormant veins of arcane energy leading into the cavern. Think about it; that beetle can’t be natural.”

  “Maybe it just ate too many rocks.” Kaelan’s voice was a dry rebuttal.

  Selriph’s whisper came edged full of irritation, threatening to vocalise fully, “This is no overfed bug. Its location here, its size — we have to consider that the vault’s owner—”

  Selriph felt a hand on his shoulder, which caused him to jerk back beyond the veil of concealment. “You are probably overthinking this, Selriph. Look, if it assures you, we can extend the concealment spell; we do that, right, Kaelan?”

  “Horseshite, I don’t feel any magical signature. I think he is trying to get us to turn back so that we can run his little errand. Watch.”

  “Wait, Kaelan, even if that is true, don’t—”

  Selriph could make out the extension of Kaelan’s arm as it flared with terramantic energy, a stake-like construct birthed with a sharp crack, then plunged into the door.

  Within their arcane bubble, silence.

  “See, I told you that—”

  Then, a glyph appeared on the door, then another, and another, the door lighting up with faint blue light. Slowly, the ignition of runes traced past the metallic confines of the door into the very cave itself.

  But it wasn’t just light that came with it—a metallic, almost high-pitched scream that bore a calculated resemblance to the calls of the scarabs.

  These glyphs now passed into the cavern beyond, carrying the light and sound of warning.

  The twins’ hold on the arcane concealment was a display of miraculous concentration despite the ear-shattering noise.

  One that Selriph shouted through in desperation, his senses tingling as he felt the stir beyond the concealment.

  “Shit, lower the veil now! The beetle is coming for us!”

  “Are you crazy? If we do that-”

  Selriph did not protest; instead, his hands flared bright blue with arcane energy as he sent out a wave of mystical energy. The ripples ruptured and tore through the bubble and wisp of shadow.

  What seemed like a suicidal protest by the youth soon revealed its purpose. As the wisps of blue light cleared, the faint glow of Selriph’s spell revealed the monstrosity before them: its elytra fully deployed, its wings beating so hard that the gust of wind from them buffeted the group. The beast was in the middle of a mid-air lunge, its pincers bared and ready.

  It was at that moment that proved that Selriph’s earlier experimentation on the minor specimens was indeed necessary.

  For they now had to best the giant scarab—or rather the ‘oversized’ beetle; the guardian to Oagat’s vault.