Ashera: Chapter 21

    After what seemed like an eternity of walking, snow, pain, torture, the group arrived at the peak of the mountain. They faced the mouth of a large cave, which towered over them. 
    “W-Well, th-there it-t is,” Ryan said, teeth still chattering. “Sh-Shall w-we?”
    Ashera nodded and slowly, cautiously, the group continued into the cave.
    As soon as they were completely inside of the entrance, her body started to feel as if it had been lit on fire. Ryan actually yelped in pain as the effect set in. “What’s happening?!”
    “It’s the cold magic; it’s dissipating,” Fox said through gritted teeth. “Stay still.:
    Ashera did, reminding herself that she had to be there for Saria, and eventually the feeling of her flesh being burned alive left her. She looked down at her hands, which were red and raw, but no longer frozen. Shadow licked her fingers, his tongue sending warmth further into her bones.

    “That was fun,” Fox said. “Let’s never do that again.”
    “Well, I have a feeling that whatever we’re going to face from here on will be ten times worse than that,” Ashera said. “Are any of you hurt? Do you need healing?”
    Ryan shook his head. “Save your magic. We’ll need it for what’s ahead.”
    “Okay.” Ashera looked around the dark cave. The walls weren’t smooth as one would expect, but were instead carved with elaborate markings and patterns. She summoned a ball of light in her palm so she could get a better look at them. “Where are we?”
    “I don’t know,” Fox said, walking over to a wall. She felt the indents along it. “Ashera, can you light the wall over here?”
    “Sure.” Ashera walked over, holding her hand up to the wall that Fox faced. It illuminated the carvings, which Ashera now saw were bunched together in different groups.
    “These look like a bunch of different languages,” Fox said. “Look, here’s Elven. Here’s English.”
    “What does it say?” Ryan asked.
    “The one in English says, ‘When Talic ruled this land, he had power over all. But he soon fell to his ambition.’” Fox read the one in Elven. “The Elven passage translates to the same thing.”
    “Who’s Talic?”
    “I don’t know, but whoever this cave belongs to must find him pretty important. Maybe he’s one of the forgotten gods or something.”
    “Maybe,” Ashera agreed. “Let’s look around and see if we can find anything else.”
    They spread out, looking around. After a few moments, Ryan called, “There’s a door over here!”
    “Is it open?”
    Ashera heard a dull thud as Ryan slammed into it. The door didn’t budge. “Nope.”
    “What’s that written on it?” Ashera asked. She held the ball of light up to the door. “5, 10, 17, 26, 38,” she read. “What does that mean?”
    “Maybe you add them together?”
    Ashera thought, but no formulas that came to mind made any sense. “Maybe it's numbers of items? Or could they correlate to paths outside of the door? Or maybe it’s a password?”
    “Guys, come look at this,” Fox said, standing in the middle of the room. She pointed to the floor as Ashera and Ryan came over. Ashera moved her light down to the center of the cave floor.
    Words were carved into it as well, and they said, “You must face many tests with no aid. I will not spell out what you must complete in order to face me.” And behind the words was a carving of a massive dragon.
    Shadow sniffed the stone, baring his teeth at the massive creature. “It’s okay, boy,” Ryan said, patting the wolf on his head. He read the passage again. “What could that mean?”
    “I don’t know,” Ashera said. “‘You must face many tests’, do we have to take a test? Maybe the numbers are the answer.”
    “Be quiet,” Fox instructed, squinting at the floor. Ashera could almost see the gears in her head, whirring and grinding. Fox rarely showed it, but she was a genius-and by far the smartest in their group. There was a reason why her full name was Sneaky Fox, after all, and it wasn’t just for her ability to stay quiet. She was cunning and sly and strategic, and the title that she was given suited these aspects of her.
    Fox looked back and forth between the wall and the floor and the door, trying to piece all of the clues together. She walked over to the door, waving at Ashera to follow her. She did so, and watched as Fox recited the numbers to herself, putting them to memory.
    “Fox?” Ryan asked once, looking at her uncertainly. “You okay?”
    “Be quiet! You made me lose count!” Fox said harshly, not even looking at him. Ashera shrugged, smiling a bit at the confusion and worry on his face. He shrugged back and sat on the floor next to Shadow.
    Ashera followed Fox as she went back to the wall with the paragraphs. When Fox went into one of these stages-when she was trying to figure something out-she was blind to the outside world. If you weren’t useful to her, she didn’t even see you. 
    “It’s the letters of the passage, right?” Fox thought out loud. She wasn’t looking for an answer. “‘I will not spell out what you must complete in order to face me.’ It spells something out. How do the numbers play in?” A few more moments of her thinking passed before she whispered, “Trial. Trial!”
    The door across the room swung open.
    “How did you do that?” Ryan asked.
    “It was simple, really. Just figuring out the play on words.” Fox said it calmly, but the smug smile on her face showed that she knew what she had done was not a simple task.
    “Nice job, Fox,” Ashera grinned. “Let’s keep moving.”
    They walked through the door and into another small room. It was almost entirely open, except for the remains of what looked to be previous adventurers who had met their match, scattered along the floor. Another door stood at the end of the room.
    “Looks like we’re in a dungeon of some kind,” Ryan said. He looked at the bones that littered the floor. “I wonder if any of them were carrying something useful on them.”
    “Anything that’s useful is probably gone by now,” Ashera said. “Let’s just keep moving.” She took a step towards the door and heard a creaking sound behind her. 
    “What was that?”
    Ashera turned around, seeing the skeletons standing up, grabbing their swords and axes, and they started swarming the group.
    “Ack!” Fox said, jumping away. A skeleton hit her in the thigh with its sword.
    “Oh no you don’t,” Ashera said, unsheathing her own blade. The familiar sensation of warmth filled her chest and she swung her sword.
    It connected with the skeleton’s torso, slicing through the bones with ease, Interestingly enough, the blow had a similar feeling to it as when she fought Calidi. Her magic left a scorch mark where the sword had hit the skeleton.
    “They must be sensitive to light magic,” Ashera grinned. “Sucks for them I guess.”
    She continued with her strikes, each one blowing at least one of the skeletons apart. Fox sent arrows into the slits where their eyes would’ve been, but instead glowed with a white magical presence. Ryan crashed his sword into them as well. Shadow nipped at the bones in the skeleton’s legs, tearing them apart limb from limb. It wasn’t a challenge, really, and all of the skeletons had been blown apart in a matter of seconds.
    Ashera sheathed her sword, grinning at the bones which were now scattered across the floor. “That was easy enough.”
    Ryan agreed, “A real challenge would be nice.” Even Shadow seemed pleased with himself.
    Fox, however, was not celebrating with the rest of the group. Instead, she was frowning at the floor. “What is it?” Ashera asked.
    “Something doesn’t seem right about this. It was too easy.”
    “Oh lighten up,” Ryan said. “It’s not our fault that we’re awesome.”
    “But-”
    “I agree with Fox, Ryan,” Ashera said. “At the very least, it doesn’t hurt to be careful going forward.”
    “Oh come on guys, I’m not that blind. Do you really think I won’t see a tripwire or a pressure plate? Relax.”
    He took a step towards the door, reaching out for the handle. Fox yelled, “Watch out for traps!” but it was too late, for as the words left her mouth, his fingers closed around the handle. Ashera heard a clicking sound as a trap was set off.
    “Uh oh.”
    A flash of arcane magic burst through the air, and Ashera watched as the cave walls fell down around them, revealing the true layout of the place where they were. They weren’t inside of a cave at all, but instead they were in a giant labyrinth. 
    A wall fell down, cutting Ryan off from the group. Another, cutting Fox off. And another, cutting Shadow off. Ashera was left in the middle of a small pathway, all alone.
    “Guys?” she called. There was no response. “Guys?!”

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