Chereads / KIN / Chapter 32 - Temple of Raging Winds (3)

Chapter 32 - Temple of Raging Winds (3)

Dagon clambered his way down the ledge of the pit. Sephtis had taken him down to the forest floor from the floating mass of rock. From there he began to make his way down the pit and into the water.

To his surprise, as he put his feet into the shifting water, it was actually quite warm and refreshing. As he went further into it and as the water lapped up against his skin, it felt soothing over all his wounds. He felt his soreness begin to fade away and he felt reenergized.

Dagon, once he was in the water up to his neck, pushed himself away from the wall. He was a fairly good swimmer, as it was one of his favorite pastimes when he was in the caves with Gena. He stared up at the floating rock above him. It sent a wave of uneasiness over him, since it was not exactly natural for a huge mass of earth to float above your head. But there it was.

He took a deep breath.

*Here I go.* he thought, filling his lungs, then dived into the water, kicking his feet and pushing deeper.

He made is his way over to the entrance below the water, carved into the wall. He grabbed the edges of the entrance and pulled himself through, but as soon as he did, he felt a wave of dizziness like the world spun on its head. He suddenly began to fall head first as gravity seemed to pivot in a completely different direction. He also found that he was no longer in the water, as he passed through the entrance it had been like emerging from the water, but straight into a free fall downwards. Except that downwards was not down, it was straight forward.

At this moment, Dagon was completely thrown off and confused, not knowing what was happening around him. The stone flew by as he fell before he crashed into another body of water, sinking down into the darkness.

*What the hell is going on…?* he asked in his mind as he regained his balance. He began swimming towards the surface of the water and he took a deep gasp of air as his head emerged.

"What in the world.." he mumbled. He looked up, seeing the entry way far above his head. Except.. that shouldn't have been up.. none of it made any sense.

Dagon peered down into the water. He couldn't feel any sort of current, and there was hardly enough light to see much at all. As his eyes adjusted, he could just barely make out what seemed to be a faint glow of light below the water.

"Okay.." he mumbled, trying to make sense of the situation. "I believe I remember Bella or someone saying something about earth magic being able to distort gravity. This dragon, Phenor, had power over earth and wind, so it's fair to say this… weird shit is due to gravity magic." He peered down into the water. "I imagine this is part of some kind of trial. This temple is probably meant to test the strength and worthiness of those who enter. So it's fair to say there are probably some strange creatures here."

He imagined a plethora of demonic beasts residing within the dark waters; giants serpents, flesh eating fish, giant, tentacled beasts, and so the list went on.

Dagon held onto the Drakeagen stone about his neck. *Well. Nowhere else to go but to follow the light.* keeping his eyes locked on the faint glow, Dagon took a deep breath and dived into the the water, but as soon as he did, it all disappeared in an instant. Dagon felt gravity shift as the water seemed to vanish and he crashed to the wall beside him, slamming onto his side. Except now this wall was the ground.

Dagon gasped for air, the wind having been knocked out of him when he made impact.

*What the hell…* he groaned. *Is going on… this is bullshit…*

Dagon rolled onto his knees, catching his breath. Now that he was out of the water, all the soreness of his body came crashing back to him and it made his body shake and tremble.

Groaning in pain, Dagon forced himself to his feet. He looked around until he could see that light again, and he began to limp towards it. His leg had been crushed beneath his own body weight, and now it was sore and he didn't want to put weight on it.

As Dagon made his way down the strange hall of stone, he noticed there were many pathways and notches in the stone around him like pathways, but they were in the roof, floor, walls and all around him at odd angles. It was like the rules of gravity didn't matter in there. But Dagon felt that he had an idea of how it was meant to work. Anywhere there was a pathway, the gravity would change.

In other words he had to both avoid and use this to his advantage to get to the origin of the light.

And then he heard something slithering above him. He looked up, but all he could see was the stone ceiling. He assumed there was a pathway up there.. and something was traversing it.

Dagon looked across the ceiling to where he saw a hole. He assumed that was the entrance for the pathway above him. Meaning if he were to cross through it, he'd be attacked.

He placed his hand on his Drakeagen stone and looked up at the ceiling. The next moment spikes of mercury suddenly burst from the stone, down and up.

Dagon waited, staying completely still as to see if whatever was up there survived his attack or not. And then blood began to drip down from the cracks of the ceiling.

"Well, that takes care of that." He said, moving forward once more, but he soon came to realize there were more than one of whatever that creature had been, as he heard hissing echo through the cave from all directions.