PANACEA-Book One-By Hell or High Water

22. The Slightly Impressive Escape

Once again, the new room I arrived in was dark. I stepped onto the first tile, and it lit up. The golden glow was back, and I found it oddly comforting. I glanced around.

Once again, the room was very different from the first and second ones I had walked into. There wasn't really a ceiling there. Just columns in place of the walls, leaving small gaps to escape through. At the opposite side of the room, was a single wall with inscriptions on it. I sighed. It was a lot, and I wasn't very familiar with the language. I stopped in front of it. I did recognize it. Elvish Dialect. To my knowledge, I knew that the elven were all far below the first layer of the Ethers total surface area. It was difficult to leave, and the vast cities in Extradite were used to banish criminals. Crime ran rampant down there, mainly because of the lack of government, and the rest of the Ether couldn't care less about what went on down there anyways. Needless to say, it was difficult to leave, and the language didn't get around. It stayed below, and I had only been able to learn small fragments of it. I couldn't even make out a single work among the inscriptions. I wasn't sure if they were really important anyway.

I shrugged off my bag again, digging through to find what I needed. Soon, I held a short rod with magenta stained metal and gold accents. The top was bejeweled and resembled a rounded crown, with more purple and pink quartzes. I grabbed the end with my other hand and pulled it out. The rod stretched into a long staff, the bottom half being all golden metal. Rounded end pointed to the top corner of the wall, I began to trace its shape through the air.

Red light followed my staff, drawing the large rectangles form. Once I had finished, I swung the staff across the two dimensional shape of light. It filled in red, and faded enough to see the wall behind it. The image of the inscriptions was captured, and it shattered to dust. It all collected in a pile, blew to the tip of the staff and disappeared. Like many other runes and inscriptions I had come across in such places, it was saved in my staff should I ever want to come back to it. I always found it handy to keep them with me.

I shortened the staff again and put it back in my bag. I went behind the wall, and watched what must have been thousands of beetles crawl away wildly. They had all been collected on a pedestal, but now they fled to every corner of the room. I shrugged, not thinking much of it, and focused on the item placed on the pedestal.

It was a cluster of red crystals. In the light of the late night, it looked rather sinister. I could see it glint as I tilted my head. Why would She want me to find this? It was just another jewel. They weren't worth much to me. I figured it must have had magical properties of a sort. I reached out to grab it.

I was met with a pain in my ankle. It was small, and not particularly unbearable, but still there. I looked down, and saw a jewel beetle. I gasped slightly.

Many things were off about the insect. For one thing, it had large pincers, which it grabbed my ankle with. For another, it was larger than a normal beetle. Much larger. It only went up to mid shin height on me, but it was still impressive as far as size went.

It made a high pitched squealing sound, and I winced. Lifting my leg up, I shook it off. The beetle landed on its back and squirmed, unable to get up. It's legs wriggled as it squealed louder than before.

Such a fearsome guardian.

"Sorry, little guy," I said as I grabbed the crystal. I collected my belongings and left the building. It sunk into the ground behind me, leaving the area flat again, as if untouched.

.....

Going back down the mountain was slow. Day approached as the sky turned from azure to a pale yellow. I made my way down the mountain side, paying close attention to the sounds of the hissing snakes beneath my feet, curling around rocks and slithering through the tall, mostly dead grass. I approached the man made half of the mountain, seeing archways and tunnels carved into the orange and sepia rock.