A sunflo beetle? My eyelids felt heavy and fatigue had piled up high. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief but no, the orb of angry red energy really was guarding a tiny little sunflower-like beetle. The beetle began falling gently through the air. I opened my palm and let it slowly settle in.
I'd encountered a beetle like this one near the tomb of the Mad King. It had led me to its partner beetle that was held by another tribe. I quickly concluded that the beetle must be pointing to something really important, since all three immortals seemed to want to control it. The first thought that came to mind, was that the beetle pointed to Noel!
I looked around the base of the ravine. Our battle hadn't damaged the beautiful landscape at all, but the sky was overcast, and the lack of light gave the place a menacing air. The three elders were all down for the count. They seemed to be breathing, which made a chilling question float through my mind. Should I kill them?
They were clearly working with the God of Evil, despite how much they had been denying it. Even if I gave them the benefit of the doubt, and believed what they said about not directly working for the God of Evil, they were secretly carrying out a ritual that I had now forcibly disrupted. Letting them live could be dangerous.
And it wasn't like I hadn't killed someone before. I dropped the Oracle into a hole, which definitely killed her. I'd killed a lot of monsters, too, so it wasn't like I was shying away from the act of killing. But still. I hesitated. None of them had claimed to be ikons of the God of Evil, and they insisted they were only carrying out rituals passed onto them by their ancestors. Maybe their ancestors had been aligned with the God of Evil, but their affiliation had been diluted as knowledge of the ritual was passed down the generations.
I winced as I felt a pain in my leg. Right, I was in no shape to do anything about them anyway. What little energy I had would be best spent going back to the humans' camp. Hopefully, Kelser had managed to figure out the situation back there, and I could rely on the Roja tribe to help me follow the sunflo beetle to its destination.
I lugged my body back to the passageway leading out of the ravine. I glanced over my shoulder, one last time, to make sure the old men weren't about to follow me. Satisfied by their prone bodies, I began making my way back to Bek Tepe.
The tunnel was harder to navigate now that my legs felt like lead and my body was flooded by pain with every step. Breathing was a chore, and my heartbeat was unbearably loud in my ears. I almost tripped over unseen rocks, several times, since I didn't have the energy to light a torch anymore. I followed the walls all the way back to the room with the humans who had been guarding the relics. The humans were still lying on the ground, unconscious, which made sense, because my fight with the three old men hadn't taken very long.
I absentmindedly noted that I'd left the elfin skull at the ravine, although I'd brought the other relics with me. I'd left my copper dagger too, since it was scorching hot and seemed like it was going to take too long to cool. I left the unconscious humans on the floor, and went out the next passageway.
Approaching the end of the tunnel, I realized the clouds must have finally parted, because the pit was awash with sunlight. I had to blink my eyes several times to get used to the brightness. By the time my blurry vision settled into focus, I noticed two strange blobs beyond the walls of the temple. I could see them from here because of the way the temple was built at an angle, but I couldn't quite make out what they were. I hoped they weren't enemies, because there wasn't much I could do if that was the case, except for rolling over and begging for mercy.
Garbled noise came from the direction of the blobs. I hadn't even noticed the ringing in my ears until now. It felt like a bad case of tinnitus earned gleefully at a rock concert. The ringing mixed with my still rapidly beating heart, to make a mess of whatever the blobs were saying.
My vision cleared as the blobs went behind the walls. Their voices still reached me somehow, and I was starting to recognize them. By the time the two figures finally came into view, I was already hearing my name being cried out loudly, along with questions about what I had been doing and where I had gone.
But I didn't care about that. Instead, I kept blinking my eyes and fighting the wave of confusing emotions that were flooding my brain.
"Noel?" I managed to croak out through my tired mouth.
Noel and Kelser rushed up to me, saying words that made sense, but refused to stick in my brain. A wave of exhaustion drove the last of my adrenaline away, as my sore body finally felt safe enough to collapse, right into my friends' arms.
---
"You can't find them?" I asked.
"They're gone," replied elder Kezler. "Priest Oxi, elder Rann, elder Sunki, and many other elders and members of the Jora, Jeni, and Nare tribe, are all gone. We sent a search party down the secret passageway, but we could not find the ravine you spoke of either. We could not find it, even while searching above the ground."
I frowned, which made me wince again. I told the elder it was strange that the ravine and all those humans had disappeared, but also said that it wasn't surprising. If the immortals were involved, it was best to throw out our assumptions about what was 'normal' and 'real.' Noel agreed, suggesting the ravine and second secret passageway might only open during a special window of time on the day of the solstice.
I was lying inside a tent on the campgrounds at Bek Tepe. Noel was here too, filling me in on what happened, while Kelser was standing outside, talking to the elders of the other tribes. Noel told me the kid had done an amazing job since I left him at the entrance to Bek Tepe. He'd rallied the other tribes to search for Noel all around the hill.
The tribesmen managed to find Noel sleeping in a dried up watering hole near the base of the hill. She was hidden by some trees and rocks, and was very far from the area that I had searched before entering the temple, which explained why I couldn't find her.
"And you don't remember anything strange?" I said. "You weren't dragged out of your tent, kicking and screaming, or under the influence of an immortal?"
"No," said Noel. "I was feeling frustrated because it seemed like confronting the human Jora tribe had been a dead end. The humans didn't know where our tribesmen had gone, and I felt lost and alone, so I decided to sleep on my own too." Her eyes brightened up as she stared at the yellow beetle in her hand. "I guess this wasn't a dead end after all."
I set aside my questions about what I'd seen that made me think Noel had been kidnapped, and instead focused on the beetle too. It was still facing the same direction, far North beyond Bek Tepe. Noel had gone on a quick scouting mission along the nearby area and confirmed that the beetle was probably pointing to somewhere far away.
"Elder Kezler," I said. "Do you know what lies to the North of Bek Tepe? A few of the human tribes live there, don't they?"
Elder Kezler nodded, slowly. "The forest and hills should stretch for a few days, after which there are several wide rivers and shallow marshes. After that, there is the roof of the world."
I raised an eyebrow at that impressive sounding name. "The roof of the world?"
"It is the name our ancestors gave to the many massive, impassible mountains that border the double river basin up North," he said.
"Wait, didn't the human Jora tribe's priests say something about ascending elves?" said Noel, quickly. "Do you think the elves went up there, to the mountains?"
"It's impressive that that word carries the same meaning between our languages," I said, thinking about the word ascent. "Honestly, the only lead we have right now is this beetle, so we're stuck going wherever it tells us to go."
"Teacher, I must answer the second question you asked me. About which other tribes live in that direction," said elder Kezler.
"Oh, right, please continue," I said.
"The only tribes that live in the direction of the roof of the world," said the elder, grimly, "are the Nare, Jeni, and Jora tribes."