Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Raiders of the Glass Vault

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Raiders of the Glass Vault

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As we crossed beyond the secret door hidden behind Mimir’s altar, Liara and I found ourselves standing at the end of a long, narrow corridor built entirely of polished stone.

“Wasn’t the fifth stack pretty small from the outside?” I asked.

Liara nodded absentmindedly while her right hand brushed against the wall. A second of concentration later, she said, “I sense magic flowing through the walls… I think this is a pocket realm.”

For those unfamiliar with the lingo, a pocket realm is an artificial dimension folded within a predetermined area that allows for a much larger space to exist within something that could be as small as a bag of holding or as large as a dimensional doorway which was the case right now.

We each pulled out our hearthstones from their chains on our necks and activated their function to illuminate our surroundings with the help of the ‘Kenaz’ rune.

“You’d think they would have someone guarding such an important place,” Liara noted as she led the way through the narrow corridor.

“Not much point in guards when the only key in requires you burn uber-rare grimoires you can only get in one place,” I replied.

“About that,” Liara glanced over her shoulder, “you told Mistress Grimsever that the books would find their way back to the special section.”

“And they will… Mimir will send the Lesser Key of Solomon back where it belongs after he’s done rereading them or something. It’s not like the god of knowledge would let me burn something that precious on a whim…”

Liara stiffened suddenly. “You trust in the gods?”

There was something in the way she said it that made me think she wasn’t as trusting of the gods herself.

“Nope…” I moved past her while I tamped down on the curiosity that rose in me after I noticed her mood change. Liara would tell me about her circumstance in her own time. “I don’t trust anyone except for Divah and my journal.”

And maybe Liara. Maybe. Eventually. She seemed the trustworthy sort despite being half ljósálfar and all. That was the biggest kind of compliment I could give that I would never tell her out loud.

“Smart,” she said as she followed me. “Trusting the gods never did anyone any good…”

Eventually, we crossed through an arched entryway that opened into a much larger space. One that was at least five times the size of the temple we came from.

“Whoa,” I whistled. “It actually exists… the Academy’s Vault of Glass!”

The entire rectangular space—from its reflective floor and walls to the carved pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling and even the large chandelier hanging off it—were made entirely of glass. Not the kind that adorned windows, but hard, crystal-like glass that easily held our weight as we tread its floor.

“I’ve never even heard of a Vault of Glass…” Liara’s gaze took in the scene I saw while mirroring the wonder I felt too, and it took her a long while before she managed to come back down from this initial high born of discovery. “It’s beautiful… wait… are those—”

“Yep”—my smile was as wide as it could go—“we’ve hit the motherload.”

Scattered around the floor were glass pedestals, with each one housing an item that one might only find inside high-tier dungeons or as the heirlooms of ancient families and institutions—the stuff legends were made from.

“And they don’t have security for all of this?” Liara asked skeptically.

“Same principle as the special section, I think… If we found our way here then we deserve to pull out a relic or two,” I deduced.

“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” she replied.

“That’s why you have me…” I took her hand in mine and led the way forward while reminding her not to get too greedy. “The guide says we’re not allowed to take more than one item each…”

“What happens if—”

With her free hand, Liara reached out for a silver goblet with blue flames licking its rim, but I pulled her away just before her fingers could brush its metal surface.

“We don’t want to know… so let’s keep our half-elven fingers away from the nasty ‘Goblet of Fire’ yeah?”

With the way Liara’s eyes glazed over, I imagined she only half-heard me.

“Liara… are you okay?”

“Yes,” she responded in a dreamy tone.

Nope, she was not okay. If she was, she would have commented on something I only noticed myself—we were holding hands! Balder’s balls, I was holding a girl’s hand!

While my cheeks flushed red, I pulled Liara in close and used the back of my other hand to check her brow. All while being acutely aware of how close her face was to mine. My cave boy thoughts didn’t last long though as Liara’s temperature sounded alarm bells in my brain.

“Frigid Hel, you’re burning up,” I cursed. “Vargr… I think you’ve got ‘gold fever’, Liara…”

Gold Fever—also called Dragon Sickness—is a kind of mental curse that sometimes affects certain species whenever they’re in the presence of a treasure horde. Usually, one that belonged to a dragon, which in this vault’s case might actually have once been a dragon’s horde long ago. Elves and dwarves were the most easily affected by this curse, a fact I should have remembered when I led the she-elf into the vault.

The glassy-eyed longing in Liara’s face for the shiny objects around us was almost a dead giveaway that she had contracted gold fever, and far too quickly to boot. It made me wonder why. At least until I caught a glimpse of something shiny to my right, and my gaze was immediately drawn to it.

“Son of a…” I shut my eyes to the dazzling golden aura emanating from not one but all the treasures in my line of sight. “Okay, I take it back… this vault does have a security system… and a tricky one too.”

A trap that Divah’s journal failed to mention might mean it’s not very old which would mean it isn’t strengthened by time… I’ve got a fighting chance then.

I felt Liara tug at my hand, and out of instinct pulled her closer to me so that our noses were nearly touching. As my brain was currently in Defcon-one mode, it wouldn’t be until much later—once I was back in my dorm room reminiscing the day’s events—when I would finally blush at the thought of how close her lips were to mine too.

“Don’t worry, I know a good remedy for this,” I whispered into her ear. “Divah calls it cognitive recalibration… which is just a fancy way of her hitting me hard on the head, I guess.”

I didn’t do that though. There was just something abhorrent about the idea of smacking a defenseless, mentally afflicted girl hard enough to knock some sense into her. I’d rather the first time I punched Liara’s face to be in a ranking battle. Still, I couldn’t just leave her be. Especially since I could feel gold fever’s hold at the corners of my mind now too.

“Let’s hope this move works…” I raised my hearthstone to our eye level and pumped as much magic as I could into it before yelling, “Kenaz!” into the sky.

A brilliant flash of light exploded out of my hearthstone, causing the world around me to turn completely white for those long seconds that the ‘flash’ I’d conjured with rune magic to work its way into my brain and dispel the curse that was taking root there.

Soon enough, both Liara and I were kneeling on the ground. We’d even knocked a few relics off their pedestals in our stumbling around.

“Seriously, I didn’t know that would hurt so much,” I grimaced.

“You’re an idiot, Wisdom,” Liara growled beside me.

“Yeah, well, at least you’re okay now,” I reasoned.

Seconds ticked by while we waited for our sight to return and then we picked ourselves off the floor and promised each other that we would never tell anyone how easily we got caught in the vault’s trap.

“We could have died,” Liara whispered.

“We would have died,” I corrected her. “Once we were both under the curse of gold fever, we’d have picked up one of these grimoires unprepared and died from whatever magical protection they’ve got on them.”

“Subtle.”

“Brilliant.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. Then she sighed. “Okay. Yes, it is godsdamn brilliant, isn’t it?”

“Dwalinn’s making?”

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“Probably. Who else would be so conniving?”

With a promise to keep both our eyes away from the shiny objects and their pedestals, Liara and I resumed our trek across the Vault of Glass.

“Wisdom…”

“Yeah?”

“The history books talk of ancient grimoires being made from stuff other than paper… I’m assuming these relics around us now are exactly what the books were describing?”

“If you mean they’re stored with the knowledge and experience of those who came before us then yeah. Pretty much.”

“Over on the right… do you see it?”

I glanced ever so briefly to my right and noticed the polished golden sword hanging from its jeweled weapon rack about two rows down from us. I’d browsed the vault’s section of Divah’s journal enough times that I knew most of its special grimoires and their descriptions by heart, and this particular sword was on Divah’s do-not touch list.

“I see it… Is it… calling to you?”

“Yes…”

I figured something as powerful as the ‘Sword of Damocles’ would be the kind of pervert to whisper sweet nothings into a budding blade enchanter’s ear. It was also the perfect grimoire to help Liara in her training too. If only the sword wasn’t cursed with forcing its wielder into a state of perpetual paranoia for their impending doom.

“You’re familiar with the story of Damocles, right?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you want the ‘Grimoire of Impending Disaster’ to be your pick.”

“Alright, let’s move on then…”

I could hear the longing in Liara’s voice—that sword must have been trying its best to woo her—and promised her a grimoire more worthy of her talent.

“I’ve trusted you so far.”

A few steps later and it was my turn to stop suddenly.

“What is it?” Liara asked.

I could hear the whispers in my mind; the promises of power over death and all that usual drivel—and I almost smiled.

“On your left,” I said. “See that ring…”

A glance to her left would have shown Liara the simple golden ring lying on its glass pedestal.

“What’s wrong with it?”

Ah, she was getting it now. Yes, there was certainly something wrong with this grimoire, a fact anyone would realize just by looking closely at how its glass pedestal was stained with black spots.

“It’s called the ‘One Ring of Wraiths’ and it used to belong to a long-dead dark lord who’d terrorized the realmsverse a long time ago.”

Honestly, I would have found the One Ring’s whispered promises very enticing if it weren’t for the fact that I already had power over death. Or rather, death had no power over me anymore.

“Okay, is everything in this vault cursed?” Liara complained.

“Not everything… We just have to know which is which.” I patted the journal clipped to my belt. “And I’ve got a list of who’s being naughty and which ones are nice.”

I led Liara past more sparkly treasures—one or two actual Norn Stones, the Eternity Glove, Staff of Moses, Eye of Myrdinn, the Golden Fleece, to name a few—and over to the very back of the vault where seven pedestals were lined together on a glass dais.

“Here we are,” I grinned excitedly.

On a quick inspection, I noticed that two of the seven pedestals were empty, which sucked because I was hoping to nab the ‘Wheel of Time’ for myself. However, I couldn’t find the wheel-shaped grimoire on its pedestal and figured it was probably in Grandmaster Dwalinn’s hands. He was the only practitioner of Chronomancy I knew of after all.

“The pedestal on the right that’s missing its grimoire has the alchemical symbol for air carved on its glass…” Liara’s brow creased slightly. “Also… I can sense the elements from these grimoires. There’s so much of it… It couldn’t be…”

That was an understatement. There was so much power gathered around this dais that just standing close to its bottom step gave me the shivers, and I wasn’t one to shiver lightly. As for that empty pedestal, well, Divah hadn’t left this place emptyhanded when she’d visited it, you know.

“These are the grimoires of the elemental kings, aren’t they?” Liara asked.

“Good guess,” I answered.

Of the many stories of creation scattered throughout the realmsverse, the one I liked best was the tale of how the ‘Maker of Old’ awakened the elements within the ‘Everlasting Darkness’ and then used their collective powers to give birth to life, Yggdrasil, and the Realm Ethereal. These first elements of earth, air, water, fire, light, dark, and time would later become the kings of Yggdrasil’s springtime days, which according to history, was the most bountiful time of the realmsverse.

“When the ‘Maker of Old’ called the kings back to her side in her heavenly palace, they made sure to leave their teachings behind for their successors, the custodians who would lead the Realm Ethereal into more prosperous days… Within their symbols of power, the kings stored their knowledge, their strength, and their shared wish so that those worthy of their grimoires could fulfill the duty that cannot be forsworn,” I recited the tale just like Divah had taught me. Then I shrugged. “Basically, with great power comes—”

“Don’t say it,” Liara sighed. Then she elbowed me in the gut. “You’ve been here all of two days and you’re already on the verge of upending the novice ecosystem, aren’t you?”

“What makes you think I haven’t yet?” I began walking up the steps of the dais which wasn’t easy to do when one was also bombarded by a bunch of leaking unstable elemental energy. “I did make that bell ring already, right?”

“A challenge to everyone in the Academy then?” Liara asked as she followed me up the steps like she was showing me she could do it too. It made me smile inside because I was beginning to think I had found the right partner for my future adventures.

“A promise,” I replied. “I’m going to be the number one adventurer in all the realmsverse.”

And figure out why the Hel I was given Extra Life too…

I was already at the top step when Liara slid to my right and basked in the same energy storm that was making the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

“You’ll make a fine number two, Wisdom,” she stated. “That number one spot is mine.”

“Challenge accepted.”

Liara stepped toward the pedestal that was third from the right almost as if on instinct. Interestingly, the grimoire sitting on it was the same one I would have recommended to her even though it wasn’t exactly a match for her chosen class.

“It’s calling to you, huh?”

I asked a question I already knew the answer to because the pedestal to the right of hers had been calling out to me too. Not by name or half-baked promises, but by the feeling of sunshine on my face and the sand beneath my feet. I could hear the rumble of a volcano and smell the scent of chestnuts roasting on an open fire. More importantly, I tasted the chili mead on my tongue, and that was all I needed to know this grimoire was my kind of lady.

The ring of my status bar's alarm awakened me from that very nice dream. However, by the time sense came back to me the trinket that had been nestled on the pedestal was already in my hands. It was an orange gemstone shaped to resemble a burning hearth. A soft, golden glow emanated from it, bringing heat and warmth to my palms.

“Oh, frigid Hel,” I gasped. “I shouldn’t have done that…”

“Done what?” Liara asked.

I glanced sideways at her and noticed that she’d committed the same error I did. A glowing white tiara was wrapped in her hands. No, this wasn’t gold fever. It was something more primal than that. This was us making the mistake of answering the call to adventure before we were properly ready for it.

“Picked up the damn grimoire without preparing to attune to it…”

It was an explanation that came too late, however, because the elemental energies that had been locked away within the grimoires spread out to greet us in full and overwhelmed us entirely, forcing us both to scream in unbearable pain.