The ground was cold. Morden opened his eyes slowly. He could not have been more tired if he had fought an army. WAIT!
He tried to get up as fast as he could, but his legs collapsed beneath him. 'Wasn't my arm broken? My ankle too!' He had no energy left in his body to move, but he had to. There was no time to worry about his injuries as he was still in the middle of a fight, right? He looked around and didn't see any statues near him and the room was dark. 'What happened? Did the statues think I died?'
He quickly and quietly crawled over to the door to take a look. To his expectation, all the statues that weren't rubble were back in their original places. He hid behind the wall again to figure out what he could do. 'I need to get back to camp, but its impossible in my current state. Is there anything I can do?'
After contemplating his options, Morden decided the best thing to do would be to wait. Only a couple statues were left alive and if Karaia was looking for him, she could definitely take them all on. He was a good Dismantler, but she was better. 'Guess it's the waiting game now.' He hid in the corner and tried to regain his lost strength in the case that he would have to fight his way out again.
-
It had been several hours and Morden was still stuck in the room. He was able to stand again and move around again. 'I can't wait any longer. I need food and water as soon as possible and waiting any longer will only hurt me.' He stretched his aching neck, back, legs, arms, basically everything, and prepared to step out. Right as he was about to take a step, a whisper behind him rattled him to the bone.
"Whose there?!" His voice was firm as stone, but quite enough to not leave the room. He looked around in the darkness but saw nobody. A few seconds later another voice, much deeper resounded right beside him. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but he didn't care to. All he knew was that for several hours he was alone, and now there was someone toying with him.
He scanned the room again and again but saw nobody. 'This damn place gives me the creeps. I should never have come here.' He heard several voices at a time speaking all around him but couldn't make any of them out. The voices got louder and louder to the point where they were deafening. There was no way the statues wouldn't hear this. He started to panick and looked around the main building. To his surprise, the statues were standing perfectly still. Morden also noticed that it seemed like the voices were coming from everywhere inside the building.
'I don't know what this is but I need to leave now. Nothing good ever came from random chanting from dozens of voices. Probably a spell.' He stepped outside the room and headed to the door. Unfortunately, the statues all turned their heads simultaneously and started to move to the area between him and the door. He tensed up and prepared to fight to the death again, yet what happened next surprised him. The statues all knelt down and made a path for him to the door. "What in the hell is this fuck fuck shit?" He cautiously walked towards the door. As he reached the door, he could notice a faint blue hue glowing. He looked behind him but the statues all stayed at their kneeling positions. He turned back to the door wondering if he should attempt to destroy it with force, but the thought left his head as soon as he remembered the explosive rune hidden underneath.
"I guess studying the rune and dismantling it would be the best bet." The voices still hadent ceased and were progressively getting louder and louder but they stayed as incoherent babbling. As the voices got louder, it seemed as though the world was starting to shake, but it definitely was not moving. Confused and disoriented, Morden braced himself against the door to catch his own fall. When his arm touched the blue, he noticed something that wasn't there before.
'A pattern?' What seemed like a flowing stream was connected not just to the door but to the rune itself. He followed it as it rippled along many paths and saw that there were like tens of thousands of different currents traveling along these pathways. 'Theres no way in hell I would have missed this. Don't tell me these things reinforced the barrier to the point where I can see the flow of the energy itself or something. Then I'm stuck in here forever with only these two faced things forever!'
Morden moved the thought from his mind quickly and decided it was better to concentrate on the task at hand. He followed the torrent of energy as it all came from a very specific point. The same spot the angel had touched originally to place the rune. Morden moved his hand along this space. As he did, the area began to distort slightly to his touch. He pressed harder, but nothing happened. A light punch to the barrier didn't change the spot, but Morden noticed that the area he hit seemed to draw in the flowing energy to strengthen the impact zone. Shortly after, the same energy that was pulled in flowed like water right back to where it was drawn from.
After examining the interesting phenomenon, Morden looked around. The voices, although incoherent and loud, strangely didn't affect the sound of everything around him. While they were screaming in his head, he could hear himself stepping quietly. As he moved to one of the statues, he noticed a similar rippling energy coming from it. A close look showed that the angel statue had a very different flow about it. Rather than being flowing like a river, it looked like thousands of tiny cubes were put together to make one being. What was even more fascinating was that despite not being able to see through stone, Morden could examine the entirety of the brick energy stacks without having to walk around it himself. It was as though he was sensing the energy and not seeing it with his eyes. It was the equivalent of looking at an object from all sides and the inside from one spot.
"What the hell is going on?" He asked. A voice came from the angel statue in front of him, "If you wish to leave, comprehend the rune and disipate it, master." It spoke in angel tongue. Even though Morden didn't know angel tongue, he somehow comprehended what the statue said. "Okay this is too much!" He shouted as he backed away towards the door. "I got angel statues telling me to disipate runes like I know what the fuck that means and I also have a hundred voices screaming at me! I just want to go home and sleep!"
He turned around and put his hand on the energy cluster again and did what he considered "pouring his sould into it". Although the ripples moved, it seemed to move spurradically and uncontrollably. He tried to think for a moment how he could remove this rune, then a though occurred to him. 'Maybe "comprehending and dissipating" the rune means understanding the energy flow and "unlocking it"! I'm so smart sometimes'
He tried to concentrate for a moment, but the voices became so loud that it was like a dozen drums beating right next to his ear. He covered his ears but they didn't stop. 'Don't tell me these are in my head!' He started to panic, hyperventilating and squatted down holding his head. 'Focus on these voices, make them stop!' Morden sat there talking to himself and trying to calm the aching noise as best as he could, but the longer he tried, the louder they became. He screamed as loud as he could out of sheer frustration. After letting out his voice, the voices quelled down. "GO AWAY!" He shouted. The voices slowly quieted down to the point they were barely audible.
With this temporary moment of quiet, Morden quickly examined the rune again. He held his hand to it and tried to "channel" some energy into the rune and manipulate how much and where he sent it. If what he did previously made it go spurratic, maybe he put too much into it. He channeled a very small amount of energy into it and noticed that rather than going spurratic, it seemed like a small layer of the mass in front of him peeled off. Excited, Morden did it again, but it caused the original energy to come back, hiding his progress.
"Is this like a lock?" He asked, "Do I have to take it apart piece by piece? Maybe thats what that stupid rock told me." He applied the same energy and saw the same layer dissappear again. After some trial and error, Morden noticed the second layer was peeled off after applying not only a certain amount of energy, but it had to be guided to a specific spot. "I hate puzzles so much," he said to nobody.
He proceeded to disect the rune in front of him until his eyes started to become red. After so many tried that he lost count, the last layer came undone, forcing the entire barrier to disipate starting from the 'lock'. The red barrier behind the blue dissipated as well. "Thank the gods it didn't blow up. I don't think I could survive that again. Oh no, I'm talking to myself."
The door opened with his push and with it, the voices came back. Morden slowly caught his breath and tried to think of how to get rid of them. They did nothing but scream. "Does this have something to do with the rune book? Damnit I really shouldn't have come here." Right then he noticed the voices seemed distant and weren't screaming like before. They were more fearful and lamenting.
It doesn't matter, there will be time for figuring this out later. Right now he had to head back to the camp sight. Karaia was probably worried sick.
-
He wandered back slowly to the camp sight. It was dark outside and the night was silent. It was almost eerie. When he got there, Karaia wasn't waiting for him. He didn't think too much and decided that she would probably come back before morning. She was most likely searching for him. He grabbed the food he bought and scarffed it down like a wolf. Aftee enjoying his meal he prepared for several days in one sitting, Morden leanes against the tree trunk and relaxed for the first time in what seemed like months. He rested his eyes for a minute and said, "I can't believe I survived that. I lost all my angel runes too. This is gonna be extremely hard to explain to leader and Karaia. Worst part is there's nothing to show for either, just my life."
He relaxed and noticed in the distance a glow. "Morning already. I haven't even gotten a chance to sleep yet. He stood up and looked closer. "Hold on, thats not from the direction of the sun, thats coming from the colony!" Morden could hear the voices getting louder although fewer. He didn't like the feeling it gave of, so he yelled at the voices to shut up before heading towards the colony. Still being completely drained of energy, he made his way back slowly.