Echoes Of The Seven

Nima shivered in the cold, but she couldn’t see her breath misting in the room. That was because it had darkened a few minutes ago to the point where Nima had to squint to see anything. The temperature had dropped below freezing, the level of ambient light had become little more than an afterthought, and even the silence was so overbearing that Nima could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.

She rubbed her hands together- thick gloves and gauntlets having been taken off to allow for fine motor control in her fingers. Thankfully, the temperature reduction had been gradual- only ramping up to this intensity after Nima had put her armor back on. Right now, her shirt was cut into swaths of cloth and trembling fingers carefully pulled the threads free until she had two piles in front of her- one of fabric strips, and another of loose strands that should catch fire with almost no effort whatsoever.

The fuel and the kindling.

Nima flexed her fingers a few more times and breathed as much hot air on them as she could. Even that exhalation of breath sounded like an explosion in the absolute silence- practically making Nima’s ears ring. Despite that, the feeble warmth only made the pain in her fingers grow. That was good- if she could feel her fingers then it meant there was still blood flow.

She huffed a few breaths into her gloves before stuffing her hands back inside them. It was a reprieve, but not a particularly satisfying one. Still, Nima carefully piled the strands in the middle of a ring of cloth strips, then grabbed her spear just below the head while lifting the flint striker. She barely took one breath of preparation before letting the steel grind into sparks.

Her heart seemed to beat a few more times when the strands began to smolder. Nima eagerly used one hand to try and fan oxygen into the tiny flame while the other goaded it to start licking into the proper strips of fabric. As soon as they began to burn properly, Nima scooped up the entire bundle in her gloved hands and stumbled over towards the brazier on her left- number Four.

Oddly enough, the room only seemed to be growing darker despite the new source of flickering light held in Nima’s grasp. It was so dark that Nima quite literally could not see the pedestal until she bumped into it- the only visible thing in the entire world was the fire in her hands. A fire that seemed to be doing nothing to warm her palms. In fact, her fingers only seemed to grow numb faster. Still, Nima blindly placed the burning fabric in the bowl of sand. She waited eagerly. Then…

Nothing happened.

Heart racing, Nima felt through her gloves to grab a handful of sand she couldn’t see, then lifted it over the already-dwindling fire to drop a little bit directly into the flames. Maybe it was like flour- only flammable when properly exposed to air. Unfortunately, no additional fire seemed to appear in Nima’s black vision. The little bits that remained were snuffed just as quickly even while Nima desperately scooped entire handfuls of the brazier’s contents overtop the flames- hoping that somehow the sand would light.

When Nima’s vision returned to complete and utter darkness, she sank to her knees. The tears welling up in the corners of her eyes were already freezing over- but she couldn’t feel the stinging. Ironically, it seemed like her attempt to light the brazier only seemed to make the room more devoid of everything.

Silhouettes and vague shapes turned into complete darkness. ‘Really, really cold’ turned into temperatures frigid enough that left Nima so numb she couldn’t even feel the frost building up on the inside of her armour. A silence that let Nima hear her own heartbeat was now so potent that she could listen to the way her blood was slowing down in her veins. It was like the room wasn’t just getting colder, darker, and quieter.

It was sucking the heat, light and sound directly from Nima. Absorbing her completely.

Nima was going to die here, barely two hours into her very first Obelisk venture all because she couldn’t figure out some stupid poem. Nima had never been one to talk to herself, but she still felt an obligation to speak now. Even if nobody would ever hear them, she wanted to have some dignity in her final words.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

The words were pulled from her mouth like an invisible hand had reached in and yanked them out. They echoed around the room in a way that seemed to supercede the silence- existing beyond her own body like the sound of her heartbeat slowing down. Even for a number of seconds afterwards, there was still a ringing vibration in the walls that seemed to repeat her words long after the echo itself faded. Nima’s heart skipped a beat. Talking was some kind of key?

Wait.

The realization hit Nima like a hammer blow to an armoured skull- ringing her thoughts in her head. To anyone else, this would have been the simplest puzzle in the world- so much so that they would have completed it by accident before they even understood what the end goal was. They would have sounded out the words to try and learn what was going on. They would have accidentally done the one thing that Ra’lan was made for.

Speaking.

”Fura balar askar d’kormon lohse.”

Nima’s voice was soft and slow- speaking the engravings on the pedestals she had carved into her own memory. Every word reverberated around the room and shook the floor under Nima’s knees. As soon as the phrase was finished, Nima’s eyes shot open. Or maybe the room finally became illuminated again- it was hard to tell which was which.

The brazier she had her forehead held against erupted into light. Lifting her head, she could see the white-ish sand now shimmering and glimmering as a pale white flame burned intensely over a foot in height. Warmth turned complete numbness in her face into painful stings, and her eyes welled in grateful tears. Meanwhile, she let her mouth continue.

”Teer rai ragr f’nallow m’mori. Tol navon murthe f’drix fere.”

The right brazier was engulfed in white fire, followed by the middle one as Nima spoke the poem aloud into the room. Each word brought with it several degrees to the temperature, rising so quickly that Nima began to sweat. The entire room was vibrating with sound- so loud that Nima was halfway tempted to cover her ears. However, she didn’t get the chance. The instant that the final word of the middle brazier’s phrase passed her lips, her chest convulsed and her head tilted back to point directly at the ceiling while the final phrase pulled itself free from Nima’s throat- one she didn’t know yet somehow spoke anyway.

”Ohn kadell awaren d’zhuul ani.”

All three flames burned brighter and brighter, casting the room in such intense heat and light that Nima was afraid she would get a sunburn. Then, after a few seconds, white fire all simultaneously turned a vibrant shade of pink. Glowing lines of the same light crossed over the entirety of the stone dome until it looked like a den of bioluminescent spiders. Still, they continued, becoming more dense in some spots as they hung in the air- to the point where a shape was forming.

A fabrication of light to form a three-dimensional image like the holoarcanic projectors, but formed entirely from intangible pink strands. As the strings continued to form and add details to the image, Nima could make out short, choppy hair and slender limbs curled up in a ball. Where the pink crossed over open, unblinking eyes, Nima swore she could see a hint of green.

The Spellblade raised an eyebrow. It almost looked like Eris, completely naked and huddled in the fetal position. Just as quickly, she cast the thought away- Eris wasn’t here. Obviously, this was showing an image of Meghan, somewhere else in the Obelisk, and presumably stuck in her own situation. It likely split all of them up, forcing them to all do individual tasks and complete them to get out. Though, if it was showing her Meghan, did that mean Nima had to go and rescue her from some trap she couldn’t get out of on her own? Presumably, but that didn’t change the fact there was still no visible way out of this room-

Nima didn’t have an opportunity to complete the thought when the floor vanished from underneath her. Every bit of pink light faded as all three braziers snuffed simultaneously, removing the image of Eris-but-most-likely-Meghan from existence.

Nima was still confused even as she plummeted into darkness.

Meg still didn’t understand quite how it worked. Gaining and spending a literal emotion at will? That was certainly a roundabout way of anger management, especially since Meg could watch in real-time as Jaxie’s shrunken irises expanded while the Berserker spent her Rage. That was a relief in of itself- Alex had already struggled to calm down the raging warrior. Thankfully, whatever parts of Jaxie could still analyze seemed to understand that being uncontrollably angry while trying to figure out a riddle wasn’t such a great idea.

It was barely a second before Jaxie let out a long, slow, controlled breath, then turned back towards the incomprehensible space where the thing was.

“Can you say that again?”

That creepy, whispered voice emerged again.

”In Blood I call for it to spray, until thine death meets my decay. In Love I am who shows the way, sharing warmth with those who’d lay. When I Wander, the world’s my claim, none the land or sea the same. Of all three, I share a name- in fear that I mark Sin with blame.”

Meghan held still for a moment. “Do we have to try and say what you’re supposed to be? Like… Humanity or something?”

”I am not Humanity.”

“Wait, I was just trying to clarify-”

At that, the distortion where the space encompassed vanished, suddenly letting Meg see clearly in that direction. At the same moment, the sand began shifting and rumbling under their feet, prompting both girls to clutch their respective weapons just as a huge, chitinous claw exploded outwards in a cloud of dust.

Meg stumbled several steps back, desperate to make at least a little bit of distance while the scorpion let out a horrific, echoing screech. The plated, bony body was nearly twenty feet in length, and that wasn’t accounting for the tail sprouting upwards like a twisted tree of mottled brown chiton. The tip was shiny and bulbous, coming to a curved point so sharp it looked like it could pierce metal just as easily as skin. Of course, the creature’s massive pincer claws were nothing to sneeze at either- each were about the size of a doorframe and Meg could only shudder at the thought of what they could do if she got stuck between them.

Immediately, another problem became clear for Meg. To clear her head in an attempt to help with the riddle, Jaxie was no longer seething with Rage. That meant she was no longer some giga-warrior capable of tearing enemies’ hearts out with her bare hands (which was both disgusting and awesome).

It also meant that when she swiped out with an axe at a lightning-fast tail, Jaxie wasn’t quick enough to do anything. Even Meg barely had enough time to send out a quick spell before a stinger the size of a shortsword slammed about six inches into the Shaman’s stomach- punching clean through armour like it were nothing more than sheets of paper.

Meg let out a horrific, pained gasp as her entire abdomen flushed with molten rock. Fire crept up into her chest and through her limbs as Meg was flung across the arena with the way that the scorpion whipped its tail to shake her free. When she came to a stop facedown in the sand, Meg let out a sputtering cough and pushed herself to one elbow. The other hand reached down to the hole through her chain mail at the blood flowing free- eliciting even more pain as she touched the puncture in her stomach. However, it also let her feel the way that the flesh was mending- healing moss growing out like webs and strings to pull together the sides of the open wound. However, just because her pre-emptive regeneration spell was dealing with the immediate damage being impaled by a venomous stinger, it did nothing for the pain.

Boils and blisters were already forming over Meg’s arms, and every inch of her body felt like she was burning alive. No numbness, which was good. Based on the extremely quick analysis of moving her limbs amongst searing response, Meg could safely deduce that the toxin itself wasn’t meant to be paralytic like many spiders and scorpions. That was beyond preferable, because that meant this venom was clearly designed for immediate and instantaneous damage alongside excruciating pain. In other words, something Meg’s regeneration spell could deal with over the next several seconds. Seconds she could spend in relative safety because of the way the scorpion flung her almost fifty feet away. Meg pushed up to her knees and surveyed the situation.

Jaxie had managed to avoid getting grabbed by one of the massive claws by such a short distance that it knocked her helmet clean off, and her retaliatory strike only caused her axes to bounce off the carapace. The Berserker’s eyes glanced over in panic towards Meg, who held a weak ‘thumbs-up’ outwards to signal she wasn’t dead. At the same time, Meg willed Kitty- who had been sitting like an unresponsive statue thus far- into action.

The wolf broke out into a quick sprint, clamping its jaw down onto the glass orb dropped where Meg was standing pre-impalement before starting to close the distance back to the Shaman. Furthermore, Meg released her thumbs-up into an open palm facing out towards the Berserker and the scorpion, willing mana into another cast. It took noticeably longer to manifest the energy without her weapon, and the effect would be much weaker, but Meg still managed to send out a regeneration effect on Jaxie. Just in time, too.

The Berserker was completely scooped up off her feet while huge pincers clamped around her midsection and one arm, leaving only her right hand free. Jaxie let out a loud grunt of pain from being crushed, which turned rapidly into a scream of agony when the huge stinger decided to strike again.

To Meg’s surprise, Jaxie’s armour seemed to almost completely stop the attack, whereas it went clean through Meg’s like it was nothing. Still, it looked like an inch of the stinger managed to pierce through the plates covering Jaxie’s chest and find purchase- just enough to inject the venom into the Berserker’s system.

It was hard for Meg to properly describe what happened next, because she genuinely wasn’t sure. Jaxie screamed in pain from the venom, only increasing in pitch as the skin on her neck visibly split open, blisters burst and wounds started oozing. With every passing millisecond, the venom almost seemed to ramp up further and further, making Jaxie twitch in torture. Only after watching for a second did Meg remember one key detail from the battle planning the group had done over the last two days- Berserkers were more susceptible to toxins.

The same toxin designed to cause instant damage and immense pain.

To the one person in the party that actively became more powerful the more damage she takes and the more pain she was in.

Jaxie’s attack a few seconds before did nothing more than bounce off the hardened plates covering the scorpion’s body, but when the Berserker slammed her free axe down, the blade sank to the hilt in the chitinous claw clamping on Jaxie’s body. Kitty returned with Meg’s weapon, meaning that when her fingers wrapped around the glass, her next spell seemed to leap directly from her will instead of needing to be manifested.

Toxic energy fired out from the glass orb- a purple streak of mist that launched like an arrow and vanished underneath the plated head of the scorpion. It screeched and recoiled, dropping Jaxie who wrenched her axe free at the same time.

From there, the fight was trivial. One more regeneration spell on Jaxie now that Meg had her focus, then it was all up to the Berserker who had been instantly brought to the highest end of her Rage after a single attack. The girl didn’t disappoint. An attempt to swipe a claw led to Jaxie burying both axes in the joint connecting it to the arm and severing the limb entirely. A strike with the tail had pretty much the same result. Then, Jaxie leapt on top of the scorpion like a rabid animal and started cleaving with her axes into the top of its head like a homeless miner looking for gold.

It was a long while after the scorpion stopped moving that Jaxie finally stopped turning flesh into soup. Meg felt the last bits of pain get washed from her system by her healing spell, then took a cautious step forward. “Jaxie?”

The warrior snarled and snapped her gaze to Meg in a way that was feral. However, Meg could also see that Jaxie’s Rage-fueled face instantly twisted. “Eris?”

Watching the anger literally melt away from Jaxie in less than a quarter of a second almost gave the redhead whiplash. At the same time, the lingering scars and blisters that the regeneration hadn’t quite mended yet instantly sealed to leave behind nothing but blood on unblemished skin. Another second passed and Jaxie blinked. “Oh.”

“Not Eris,” Meg began, “just her doppelganger. Though, if it works that well at calming you down when you go all frenzy on us, I’ll be whoever the fuck you want me to be.”

A whispered tone began to emanate through the room again.

”In Blood I call for it to spray, until thine death meets my decay. In Love I am who shows the way, sharing warmth with those who’d lay. When I Wander, the world’s my claim, none the land or sea the same. Of all three, I share a name- in fear that I mark Sin with blame.”

Meg turned to face towards the distortion that dropped from the ceiling, but decided to keep her mouth shut. Obviously, wrong guesses- or in her case, clarifying questions- led to fights and she’d very much prefer to avoid doing that again. The only downside was that Jaxie didn’t seem like the sharpest egg in the ocean when it came to intellectual stuff, so it would be up to Meg to figure it out when she had no idea what the answer could possibly be-

“You’re Lust,” Jaxie said with a strange look on her face. “Lust, Bloodlust, and Wanderlust. Of all three, you share a name and you’re blamed as the sin.”

All the torch sconces surrounding the arena suddenly burst, the blue flames exploding upwards and turning to a bright pink that cast the room in a vibrant light. Meg hefted her glass sphere, readying a spell until something else caught her attention.

Jaxie was glowing.

The Berserker looked down at herself with wide eyes, both girls watching as pink lines scrawled over every nook and cranny of her form. Wait, no. It wasn’t Jaxie, it was her armour. The intersection of every plate, each strap that was barely visible, and even the small puncture wound in the chest the scorpion left behind were all casting a magenta tint. Even her helmet laying a few feet away on the ground was scrawled over with light, and it also perfectly outlined the antlered crests that Eris had engraved on the breastplate and both of Jaxie’s axes. Meg confusedly watched Jaxie reach into a pouch to pull out a silver pocketwatch that was also glowing. When Meg looked down at herself, not a single scrap of light was emerging from her equipment. She glanced up with a worried expression.

“Jaxie, why is all of Eris’s stuff glowing- aaah!”

The question was cut off abruptly by the entire room disappearing, along with the floor underneath them. All Meg could see in the darkness were strings of light wrapped all around the girl falling right beside her.

Claire gripped tightly onto Alex’s hand and tried not to let the smell of the vomit spilled all down her front bother her. Or the fact she was in a magical broom closet. Or the fact that she was going to die here, and so was Alex, and nobody would ever find her body, and-

“Claire, what does it say again?”

She opened her eyes at the sound of Alex’s voice and tried to take a deep breath. It smelled like rotten eggs. Still, she flicked her gaze to the little cubby in the wall outside of Alex’s view and squinted in the low light to make out the words. She really tried to keep her voice steady while she read.

“Father’s second sun watches the moon. The fiery scales are balanced by righteous claws. The crow spills no secrets to anyone except the sparrow. What does the dog swear vengeance to?”

Claire felt Alex idly rubbing a thumb over the back of her gloved hand- lost in thought as the Knight tried to figure it out. The tall blonde mumbled.

“Alex, please…”

“I’m trying, okay? None of it makes sense!”

“Alex!”

The Knight paused, then clutched Claire’s hand a little tighter. “Sorry, it’s okay. We’ll figure this out. We just… we just need a few more clues.”

“There’s nothing else here!”

“I know, just…” Alex let out a breath. “I don’t have any context. There’s no correlation between the options. A crow and a sparrow- okay, sure. They’re both birds. But then a set of scales and claws? How is that a hint? And who’s this father, who’s the second son, and why is he watching the moon?”

Claire raised an eyebrow. “Why is who watching the moon?”

“The second son.”

Claire groaned and tried not to get sick again. “Ugh, not son. ‘Sun’, as in S-U-N.”

That made Alex recoil a bit. “A second sun? There is no… oh hold on a second.”

“Wait, what?” Claire’s heart rate picked up a little bit more. “Do you see something? Another clue?” She felt Alex shake her head.

“No, but the only thing that could be a ‘second sun’ is Tezreilyon, the dragon familiar of Pollus, the god of the sun. A father of two suns, and according to the legends, Tezreilyon was secretly in love with Hanya, the familiar of Vinteus.”

Claire blinked a few times. “...what?”

Alex cleared her throat. “Hanya is the moon rabbit that would be sacrificed on an altar of ice every morning so that the moon would leave and make room for the sun in the sky. Then, every evening, Hanya would be reborn and call the moon back. Father’s second sun, watching the moon- Tezreilyon being in love with Hanya. The puzzle; it’s about the familiars of the Seven.”

Claire’s stomach churned. “Ungh, just figure it out already!”

“Okay, okay,” Alex readjusted her grip on Claire’s hand and- apparently, started thinking out loud. Claire wasn’t entirely sure whether Alex actually found it helpful to talk her way through it, or whether she was doing it to help Claire instead of leaving her in silence. Either way, Claire appreciated the distraction.

“Firey scales balanced by righteous claws… the only familiar that directly has anything to do with fire is Golaji, the flame serpent of Hennel, who’s the god of fire and creation. That means that it isn’t scales as in balancing scales, but scales as in a snake’s scales. If that’s the case, then the righteous claws can only be Medakuna. She’s the bear familiar of Esmer the Matriarch, and was the only one capable of calming Golaji down when he got angry and started causing wildfires.”

Claire’s jaw probably would have dropped if she wasn’t so focused on keeping it closed in case she threw up again. Who would have thought that this random Knight was such a huge nerd when it came to the Seven?

“The crow telling secrets only to the sparrow- that’s gotta be Hilani and Vektra, the familiars of Yerrow and Raelan. Yarrow, the god of dreams, death and secrets only entrusted the knowledge with his familiar, the crow Hilani. However, Hilani was so entertained by the stories and songs that Vektra would sing- the ones she learned from Raelan who’s the god of travel and art and passion and stuff, that Hilani would tell Vektra the deepest secrets of the world so Vektra would sing to her more. So the dog swearing vengeance…”

Alex thought for a moment, then spoke.

“Wendagar, the wolven companion of Mizzari the Relict. Incredibly loyal and faithful to his master, and was completely enraged after some mortal poisoned Mizzari and put her into an endless sleep-”

Alex paused suddenly. Claire stiffened. “What?”

The Knight shook her head.

“Err, nothing. Just remembered something I need to talk to Eris about. Anyway, Wendagar was furious, specifically with Demeri, the goddess of fate, prophecy and knowledge, because her foresight would have let her and her familiar know that Mizzari was going to be poisoned but neither did anything to stop it. However, since Wendagar was here in Tonshlur and Demeri was in the Stream, he couldn’t do anything to her, so he started hunting down her familiar to try and get payback. Demeri’s familiar was in hiding until the Sundering killed both them and the Seven.”

“Who was the fucking familiar?!” Claire sputtered out, officially tired of the woman-splaining and just wanting to get out of this damned coffin. Alex recoiled.

“Kadu, the Final Sight. The raccoon with three eyes, one that saw the past, one that saw the present, and one that saw the future. The familiar of Demeri the Augur.”

The sound of cracking stone echoed in the tiny chamber and Claire fell forward onto hands and knees as the wall gave way. She gasped for breath, quickly feeling Alex come up behind her and lay a hand gently on her back. After a few seconds, Claire felt the rest of the oatmeal that hadn’t quite risen earlier finally making the appearance she’d been desperately trying to stave off.

As she hurled onto the stone beneath her, Claire was so dizzy she could almost swear that Alex was starting to glow pink in her peripherals.

“Uhh…” Alex sounded, concerningly. The Evoker hurled a wet splattering again, then blinked her eyes a few times.

No, Alex was definitely glowing. Twisting back to look at her properly, it almost seemed like Alex was wrapped up in a glowing pink net tangled all around her armour. Looking off to the side, another source of pink light illuminated their weapons laying on the floor of a stone room that was small, but was a veritable mansion compared to what they were just trapped in. Claire’s staff laid bare as ever, but Alex’s sword and shield were glowing brightly- the antler engraving clearly visible on both. Alex looked extremely concerned.

“Why are you-ooh!”

Claire’s question was interrupted by the ground unceremoniously vanishing from under her hands and knees. She, alongside a puddle of vomit, were dumped into a freefall in complete darkness. Well, not complete darkness.

She still had her Knight-light.