"How are you holding that right now?" Jacob asked, or more like yelled at me. I took another look at the staff in my hand a look at all of them before putting it down.
"Are we not supposed to touch it?" I asked them.
"Not exactly, the question was supposed to be, 'how are you lifting it?'" one of the riders said. It took me a while, but I had finally realised where I had seen him. He was one of the dragon riders that accompanied Caspro on the first day that we arrived.
"How is it you are able to lift?" Jacob asked again. I was still oblivious to what I had just done. I didn't even have the full story on how the artras were here and what they were doing fighting the Dark mages for a totem. I didn't even know what the totem was for.
"You have no idea what that is, do you?" Ciara asked and I nodded in confirmation. "That makes more sense now." She said before finally beginning the explanation of everything that was actually going on. She told me everything they knew about the totems even the fact that not everyone could simply carry them around. Having been placed in their positions almost eight hundred years ago by the Great Beasts, the totems hadn't been moved at all in that long.
"Where have the artras been?" the dragon rider whose name I still didn't know the name to spoke up clearly frustrated.
"What do you mean?" Ciara asked.
"I am to believe we only stood a chance because the Siege arrived in the nick of time, but this is not the first raid the Dark mages have made today," he said, "where have the artras been? It's almost like we cannot count on any of you to protect Armensia anymore."
"I do apologize for not being around when Armensia needed us, but…" I decided to cut off Ciara before she made the situation any worse.
"It won't happen again. We will make sure to be here when called upon next time," I said interrupting her.
"Oh, and does that also mean that the alpha and the Siege of this generation are also enemies?" he asked. I was getting all the wrong vibes from this guy, but I guess it was understandable. From what Ciara had explained, it was imperative that the Dark mages do not acquire all of the totems.
"No, it doesn't. We were still dealing with the mess the previous generation left for us to clean up. I do not deny that it hasn't affected our abilities as artras, but we are more of a team than they were," Ciara said.
"Where is the sixth artra? The homage," he asked. I found that I did not like this guy's tone very much , but I guess it couldn't be helped.
"We have not yet found the Homage," Ciara said to them.
"Well you better find them quickly. After what happened in the previous generation, Armensia lost hope in the artras. Eight hundred years and they still haven't achieved what they were supposed to. My former senior, Caspro, saw this as a weakness and decided to side with the Dark mages. He is of the opinion that the artras will never be able to defeat the Dark mages and as such, we can as well surrender to them," he explained.
"That is not true. We will find a way to beat him. Giving up now is not going to make anyone's life better," Ciara argued.
"You should be noticing it too, the fact that we are always fighting on the defensive. The Dark mages attack us and we never once get the upper hand. There is almost nothing we can do against them. We only protect ourselves from them, but a good defence can only go a long way if you have no offence to back it up," he said before getting on his dragon, "A word of advice, alpha. Find your Homage, free our world. Armensia is on the brink of destruction, no one is going to wait for another generation to play this game of yours with the Dark mages while you risk the lives of many. The Ice and Fire Dragons handed the Dark mages, their pieces of the totems without any resistance and do you know why. It's because they knew you were not coming. Find a way." With that the eight dragons all flew away and into the forest which they had fought so hard to protect.
"That was harsh," Isaac said.
"But it was true, we cannot afford to waste any more time. We will not let the Dark mages win this," Ciara said, "Kevin, pick up the totem."
I did as I was told and watched as she cast a spell that left a copy of the totem on the tree stump. We all stood off the stump and quietly watched cast numerous spells around it. "This should buy us some time. The protective barrier will protect the fake copy from Dark magic, which will keep the dark mages away, but it is only a temporary solution. The spell eventually wears off if the barrier takes too much damage."
"What are we going to do with the real one?" I asked.
"We shall take it back to the Artarak with us. We cannot let them have it," she explained before opening a portal that led us back to the Artarak. Portals were different from teleportation since they were like walking through a door so they didn't have the same effect on me as teleportation did. Unfortunately, they took too long to prepare and as a result could not be used in battle.
"Welcome back, masters of the Artarak," Jeremy said the moment we stepped into the lobby, no wait, this was the conference room. I had almost forgotten about the council member we left in the conference room.
"Thankfully that threat has been repelled for… now…" Jovenor paused mid-sentence or mid-speech. Who knew if he had prepared a whole speech or not? We all followed his gaze to find out what had frozen him. He was staring intently at the staff in my hand. "How…." he wasn't even able to finish the sentence. He wasn't making any coherent words now. Well, he did open his mouth, but no words came out of it.
"None of us know how any of it is possible, but it works to our advantage since we can keep the totems here instead of having them out in the open for the taking. This way, we can even hide the totem pieces somewhere else, away from the reach of the Dark mages," Ciara explained to him.
"Yes, definitely, how convenient it is that the Siege can lift the totems. The only problem is that you have no idea if he can lift all the totems, this may simply be an exception that you happened to stumble upon," Jovenor said. He was even trembling a bit whilst he said this.
"Let us hope it isn't," Ciara said. I was getting tired of the looks that Jovenor was giving and decided it would be best if I ditched the staff altogether.
"Ciara, where should I put this?" I asked her.
"Take it to the armoury," she said and I did so. The armoury wasn't that suited for its threatening name. In my opinion, it was just a weapons room for it didn't have enough weapon to supply a whole army with firepower in case of a war. But still the weapons it held were powerful. Many of which we didn't use simply because none of us knew how to use them yet. I had heard that the elves had offered to train the artras in the art of combat. Although I agree it was important for the artras to know how to fight, I also saw magic as an even more important necessity since we were fighting moving calamities. I found an empty rack in the armoury on which I mounted the staff before heading back to the conference room diving back into my thoughts naturally.
It was impossible for someone to convince me that they were going to learn how to fight so they could punch a dragon in the gut. Maybe if we learnt how to use the weapons in the armoury, then they would pose a threat. But then again, it was impossible to kill the Dark mages with magic unless one wanted to experience the repercussions of the Armensian law of Magic. I always felt like the law was only preventing the artras from finishing the job, but in truth, I was grateful of that law, for it was also the reason the Dark mages had not murdered thousands. With all the power they wielded, they were capable of so many atrocities, but the law that was set up by the Great beasts protected the people of Armensia, probably protected them more than the artras themselves did.