36 – End of Obscuria

There was an archway in the garden, a small pillar that survived the destruction of the old city upon which Obscuria had been built. Beside it was a broken remain of another, even grander pillar that was now lying flat on the ground. And a great stone.

“Lithos mirat, sed eios animum vacuo manet.” Ishrin read. “What is this? It’s not even grammatically correct!”

Lucius stood, crooked and immobile, not breathing. The writing on the stone glowed under Ishrin’s magic vision.

“I want to check it out, but I also don’t want to check it out. What do I do?”

He pondered for a moment, but eventually curiosity won and he approached the stone. There was a small passage below the archway, leading into darkness below the mansion. However, it was barred shut by an invisible forcefield that showed itself when Ishrin tried to cross and when he touched it, it sent him sprawling on his butt on the wet dirt of the garden.

“Really?” he exclaimed, brushing the dirt off of his self-cleaning armor. “We are playing games?”

The inscription was a riddle, a legacy of a past long gone when the city was a powerful outpost of an empire that was no more. The riddle had kept out even the greediest of people, people like Lucius himself who for years had tried to crack the vault open but never managed to even chip the seemingly broken and weathered down rocks that surrounded the forcefield.

Ishrin cracked his knuckles. The conventional means didn’t work, and after having exhausted his options he sat down to draw. A small circle, surrounded by stars and the symbol of a key, a ritual he stole from a renowned thief who in turn had stolen it from who knows who. He was famous in Eternia, Ishrin’s old world, and Ishrin had tracked him down to collect a bounty for a local lord. It had been surprisingly easy to find him, even too much so. But the man wanted to be found, and was prepared.

Good times, Ishrin thought as he reminisced about the fight against the thief. They had ended up becoming friends for a while, until the man decided it was time to embark on an epic adventure that eventually got him killed in some remote corner of the universe. Ishrin got up, and flexed his magic power.

Ritual complete: Boseman Passepartout. The path ahead is now open to you.

The invisible protective field flickered, shimmering out of existence. Ishrin walked down the uneven steps, carrying a torch he fished – already burning – from his inventory. There were many traps lining the walls, but he marched past them almost as if he didn’t care about them. He was peppered with poisoned arrows, spiked balls, the bones of what must have been serpents a long time ago, magic projectiles and globs of acid. They all slid off of him without him even taking notice of them, thanks to another ritual he casted before entering the crypt.

It was just like that scene from a TV show Mekano liked to watch on the multiversal network. It was boring and definitely not very adventurous when you were that much more powerful and well-equipped than the dungeon. But real life was like this, and Ishrin liked playing it safe.

At the bottom of the stairs was the treasure. Immense mountains of gold and locked chests, rubies and diamonds, rivers of pure greed in the form of plush sofas made of the best silk, overflowing with items and little treasures filled the cavern to the brim. The grey ceiling of rock and moss was almost invisible through all the treasure that shimmered and glinted in its golden hue at the dancing light of the torch, and glowed like a beacon when exposed to Ishrin’s magic sight.

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He yawned, and behind him the portal to his storage dimension opened up.

“Damn, I’m beat.” He turned to Lucius. He wondered what the lizard’s reaction would have been if he was still able to express himself out of his free will. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate this stuff, it’s that I need to sleep! Okay? Come on, get loading.” he said.

Lucius obediently began to gather the things by the fistful, shoving them inside the portal as fast as he could. Other things, entire mountains of coins and small gems were lifted up into the air and shoved into the inventory with Ishrin’s telekinesis, controlled by his mind while he sat on a regal chair of gold and crimson silk. In a matter of minutes the room was empty, even the torches and their rusted stands were gone, sucked into the black hole that was Ishrin’s seemingly infinite storage.

What he found below the Red Mansion would have been considered by everyone a great treasure, something that could change their life forever and allow them to live the rest of their days in luxurious languidness. But Ishrin was tired, and the ease with which he managed to get to the treasure meant that in his eyes it didn’t hold too much value. He wanted to sleep, and dreaded the fact that he still needed to perform a teleportation before he could rejoin the rest of his team. Teleportation meant concentration, risk, and a huge headache afterwards.

“Whatever. Okay Lucius, this is where we part ways.” Ishrin said. “You remember your instructions, yes? Set the Mansion on fire, making sure it spreads to the rest of the city. And I want you to stand in the fire once you are sure it’s going to destroy everything, and I want you to laugh like a maniac. Make sure everyone sees you.”

Lucius nodded robotically, as if there was a part of him that was trying to resist the commands. Ishrin disappeared soon after, and Lucius went to the dungeons below the mansion to gather the barrels of flammable material. On his way there he met one of his servants, who was gathering the body parts of the slaughtered pixies from the afternoon summoning, and without saying a word he stabbed him in the chest with his bare claws, rending his flesh and snapping his body in two. He growled, letting out a guttural sound of anger and resentment, before his head snapped back to face the corridor and his eyes lost their luster.

He grabbed two barrels of oil, and began to douse the whole mansion, and the city, and each time someone stopped him to ask what he was doing he killed them in cold blood, mercilessly. There was nobody who could stop him. The smartest of the guards and of his servants, as well as some of the closest collaborators he kept to run the city figured out that something was not right with him, and some even tried to escape. When they saw that unless they tried to stop him he didn’t seem to notice them, they began to run away in flocks, and panic soon spread through the city. The roads filled with people, scared and frightened and not even knowing why they were there and why everyone was screaming. Then the fire. It exploded out, following the leads of oil and explosives Lucius had spread through the city during the night, and as the sun rose above Obscuria, all that was its light lit was the raging hellfire of death, flames and terrible screams.

By nightfall, the city was back in ruins, just as it was before Lucius had come to call it his own. And he, the last survivor of the slaughter, watched from the tallest ruin the last of the towers collapse under its own weight in a blaze of embers. His body was burned and scarred, his flesh molten and his scales cracked, but he laughed. He laughed and laughed, until he took his own sword and plunged it into his brain stem.

He fell.

***

Melina was keeping watch over the caravan, sitting at a small fire while Lisette slept inside the tent. The air was chilly and moist, the smell of rain carried by the cold wind that had picked up half an hour ago. In the distance she sometimes saw the brief flashes of a thunderstorm, and the muffled and low rumble of thunder reverberated across the fields and the hills until it reached her sensitive ears.