Altmis-War of Athalos

Chapter 11

Me being the closest to the plane of mystery, I was the one to walk through first. It was like stepping through a waterfall without getting wet.

Immediately I knew that I wasn't in the dungeon any more. The smell wasn't the musty, stony smell, but that of freshly tilled soil and maple leaves.

I opened my eyes and saw that I was in the field that I saw on the other side of the portal. Behind me was the portal, but beyond that was a big sandstone wall not even a quarter of a mile from where I stood. It was heavily fortified with armored guards every ten feet, a small cannon next to them.

Marveling at my surroundings, I didn't notice the others step through the oval shaped plane. "Follow me!" Teruvia shouted, snapping me back to my senses. Even though I was a few yards from Teruvia, I could hear him mumbling under his breath.

We walked to a set of stairs leading to the near top of the mountain,

where a dozen or so soldiers sat around a fire, the flat face of the top of the mountain reflecting the heat.

"General Teruvia, sir! We were not aware of your visit. Is everything ok?" a soldier in a light blue armor asked, not noticing the prisoners.

The soldier was at least 5 inches taller than me, and at least twice as thin. His armor shined like a crystal, which I thought an unusual material for armor. It was also oddly shaped under the arms, which I guessed were for concealed weapons.

"All's well, Lieutenant Frostwind. Just bringing in prisoners for questioning," Teruvia answered, his expression lightening.

"What's the crime? Smuggling? Harboring?" Frostwind guessed.

"Ancients Thievery," Teruvia proclaimed.

"My Lord! Ancients Thievery! These people should be beheaded and...."

"No, Lieutenant. I need a truth spell cast. It appears that they might not be guilty of anything," the general interrupted.

"What was stolen?" Frostwind inquired.

"The ancient blade, Phoenix," Teruvia answered.

"Sir, that's impossible. Phoenix is in our vault. If someone would have gotten inside they wouldn't have gotten out," Frostwind questioned.

"Go get the one in the vault. It might be a fake," Teruvia finished, motioning for his prisoners to follow him.

He led us to the flat face of the mountain, his eyes scanning the face of the flat surface.

From my point of view, it looked like it was just a normal mountain face, but then I got a surprise as Teruvia reached above him and pressed a small protrusion coming from the mountain face.

After he pressed the button there was a faint clicking noise as the flat surface started to split open, leaving a doorway 7 feet high and wide enough for two horses side by side to walk through.

The inside of the mountain was hollowed out, leaving 5 feet of stone as the walls, which were smoothed down to a near granite touch.

The first room itself looked like nothing more that a storage room except for the two holes on either side of the room with ladders inside going down.

I looked at one of the chests lining one of the walls and saw that it was labeled "Classified".

Before I had time to look at any of the other chests, I noticed that Teruvia was moving towards one of the ladders.