Chapter 6: CH 5 End of the Prologue. “Power of the ancient”

"... nobody knows what is the System. Some people think that the System is a gift from their deity or that it is the one true god. The few things we know however are that the System is ancient beyond belief and it somehow choices and grants two talents, one at birth and another at age 15. That is even the case to those races that are blessed with long longevity..."

                                                                                                                                                                  -Exert from a torn page from an unknown diary

 

 

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 Iris gazed at the depictions that were chiselled into the mountainside, flaking the entrance to the mysterious temple-like structure. Until she realized that an old-looking man was also attempting to decipher the worn-out gliffs that were under the murals. The old man possessed a darker skin tone than one might find in Havenfall, he also had a beard with plenty of grey hair in it. He wore a weird-looking cloth on his head that resembled an onion. A long light orange garment that ended just above the feet adorned the old man with another darker orange piece of cloth placed at his shoulders with a small golden chain, pinned under the neck. 

 

"MMM... I wish, I was able to decipher the gliffs of the ancients." *sigh* "O well, hopefully, this would be the perfect opportunity to learn more..." The old man whispered to himself with a hint of resignation in his voice.

 

 

 Iris did not entertain the idea to answer the comment. She rather quietly read over the gliffs and not bost about her talent.

 

" Di'arch Joseph I knew that you will be here," said Brad followed by his entire team but Di'arch did not even show any signs of noticing him, clearly finding the effort of translating the unknown gliffs to be of higher on his priority list.

 

"Found anything useful in tose scribbles?" Brad spoke scratching the back of his head from the awkwardness of the situation.

 

"They are not some scribbles those are cyclopean gliffs of some version that was never seen before... maybe an older ver...no a religious..." Di'arch retorted with his finger authoritatively going back and forward in the air but quickly being put on his chin deep in some thought.

 

"Iris!" came a voice of Alicia from behind Brad.

 

"Can you enlighten us about the meaning of those." she pointed at the mural behind Iris.

 

 Di'arch's eyes quickly focused on Iris making a drop of sweat appear on her forehead but she slightly bow to Alicia and turn around to face the mural. 

 

"This one tells the story of their creation myth, shall I translate fully or basic meaning?" Receiving an eager nod from Brad and Dian for the latter option, which received a hard stare from Joseph, she began to recite.

 

"In the beginning, there was Rohtua the Creator who chiselled the world out of stone but while he was working, he cut himself during his work and his blood created life and manifested magic. The first beings who crawled out of the blood were their gods. They helped Rothua with his creation, creating oceans, minerals and life. The gods later split into two camps the Pramil and Arkane who waged war over the nature of magic. In this war, the Cyclops were created by the leader Arkane, Orlak. The rest of the species were created by Pramil gods."

  Iris finished leaving a good bit of the information out of her translation.

 

She went to the other side to read the other mural with had much fewer gliffs. Before she could start one of the Di'arch attendants spoke.

 

"How are meant to trust an elf with this if we the Geni'i can't figure out what do they mean." 

 

"Because she has a talent that allows her to read those. Was it [Masterful Translator] or something." Spoke the old Di'arch with carelessly little thought given into his retort.

 

 Such a carelessness admission of using [Inspect] with even a high level mage present and not noticing, caused Iris to feel an urge to run from the powerful mage. Alicia made a face after Di'archs comment but motioned Iris to begin translating.

 

"T-This one tells the story of a comet impact creating the lake in front of us and holding within, some sort of gift from their gods..." Iris summarised the story and started to read the bottom paragraph that held lots of information about who started the construction of this building, which king contributed who finished it and from which clan they hailed from.

  

 Iris was then led in front of the door, where the assistants of Di'arch founded another set of gliffs. Above the door frame that had to measure 12 meters was a set of gliffs that translated into:

"This sacred ground of the dead is dedicated to Kiayicu the Child of the gods, Tyrant of the pale star, Bringer of slumber, Rouser of the dead and The ruler of Necropolis."

 

After a few hours in which Iris was bombarded with questions from the Di'arch and his attendants. The crusading human force finally cleared the city and they all assembled on the plaza. The humans did not even take up a quarter of the plaza, they all waited for the dungeon doors to be opened. 

 

 When the venerable doors finally were pried open, a torrent of white mist flowed out of the insides, everyone readied them selfs for a battle but after the deluge of mist decreased, nothing has happened. Everyone sighed in relief and got organized to enter the dungeon. Iris was placed beside Brad's team and coincidently both Di'archs, Joseph and a man called Horatio were right behind Hero's team. 

 

 Upon entering the dim-lit corridors of the dungeon they all started to catch, the cause of this was the air itself which was stuffy and incredibly dusty. After following the only path they could which was slowly descending they could see an orange light at the end of the corridor. Carefully entering a room that housed the source of strange light they looked upon a great lantern that hung on the ceiling, it possessed orange crystal walls with geometric designs carved into it. A magical lantern of this size would be enough to experience three lifetimes' worth of luxury life and then some. Many people smirked upon seeing their new treasure. Many corridors led, aspects know where and their first choice brought them to a long corridor that was lined with rooms. Upon entering one of the rooms their purpose was clear. They were all tombs.

 

 There were 16 giant sarcophagi lying on the floor, evenly spaced and at the top of the room there was a throne with a gigantic mummified corpse with only one eye socket, its arms were resting on the throne. At the feet of each of the sarcophagus were mummified remains of much smaller beings adorned with many prized objects.

 

"You think that inside one of them there are even more jewels?" Asked a soldier beside Iris

 

"You bet." Said Dian

 

 Both men smiled but upon Brad entering the tomb with his heavy armour two of the sarcophagus burst open and many of the surrounding carcases started to awaken.

 

Curses could be heard from the soldiers upon seeing such a sight.

 

"It's a... Cyclop Wither level 66!" Brad shouted.

 

He dashed towards one of the cyclopes while soldiers behind him cut down the lesser Withers. He stopped right in front of the mindless beast baiting out a savage overhead smash delivered by the Cyclope that sent fragments of the floor flying. Brad quickly pulled out a holy sigil and incanted [Turn Undead] which made Cyclop quickly cover his face and act as if it was screaming but no sound came from its mummified troat. Brad used this moment to move in between undead legs, Cyclop tried to stop the human hero but its body was unable to stop him. Brad raised his sword and cut back the Cyclope's feet which cause the lumbering giant to collapse, stepping on the undead back he trusted his sword between the head and the spine, destroying the Cyclop in the process.

 

  Iris looked towards the other Cyclop but the ranged firepower of humans already overpowered the Cyclop and the lesser withers.

Dian went from corpse to corpse looting all the valuables there were.

 

"I recommend trying to get the boss first and then kill the rest, we can't just be burning mana nor potions." Spoke Alicia with a bit of irritation seeing how much mana they spent already.

 

"Just wanted to test the something." Shrugged Brad.

 

You are reading story Necropolis at novel35.com

  They backtracked towards the first hall and followed the corridor that descended deeper into the earth. Iris looked around, dungeon appeared to be constructed entirely out of grey stone up to the ceiling which was blueish in colour and was supported by columns placed evenly spaced. They have encountered primarily [Withers] of the roughly human size which Iris assumed were of the races subjugated by Cyclops. 

   

  In the end one of the many winding corridors there was a great hall, its high ceiling was supported by six columns. At the back, there was a gigantic tipped doorframe that was engulfed in blue flames, in front of which was a rectangular altar attended by a clearly awake undead Cyclop who wore a tattered dark purple robe with blue outlines. Both of its arms were held in front of it, above the altar. Dian put his finger up to his lips and went in front of us to scout ahead. After a long and tense moment, Dian came back and whispered

 

"There are more of them beside the altar but that guy looks like the strongest maybe even a mini-boss."

 

"Alright let's go back a bit and get buffed and we will come back here."

 

"[Greater Shield]," "[Dark Energy Resistence]," "[Stalward Heart]..."

Priest, paladins and mages of many different elements started to chant their supportive magic. They came back to the great hall and left Iris at the entrance. The people with any kind of stealth spread out hiding in the shadows to strike when needed while the rest organized them selfs in a coherent formation with tanks at the front and mages at the back. Brad led them from the front finally attracting the attention of the undead cyclopses. The undead started to rise from their slumber around the altar while the Cyclop priest turned around revelling the previously unseen crystal ball appearing to hold the same azure colour fire within as the ones engulfing the door.

 

"Level 150 death priest ahead! Ten Level 100 withers surrounding it!" 

 

 The death priest made some unintelligible noises after receiving no answer to its question the Cyclop held the crystal ball high which unleashed a fire held within, bathing everything in its path. Humans retaliated by blasting the closest wither until it could barely support its weight. After the first volleys from both sides were exchanged, the hidden humans started to lose their arrows with deadly precision but as if the undead were mocking the efforts of the humans, the mummified undead appeared to take little to no damage. The mainline of humans, charged the undead trying to silence the powerful death priest but they only met with the ancient steel of the undead. A chaotic clash began, one of the giants grabbed a Nordling shield-bearer by the leg and proceeded to use the human as a club to smash his fellows. The Oriripol Di'arch Harotio cast a powerful [Firebolt] that fell one of the undead. Utrecht charged the death priest with a thunderous warcry, axe held high above his head. The priest dashed as if floating to dodge but it did not anticipate Utrecht to backswing the axe into the knee of the priest with an audible crack. The cristal ball fell onto the cold stone floor from the death priest's hand. The Cyclop coat his hand with a dark mist and tried to grab Utrecht but an [Astrall Arow] from Alicia managed to stop its attack. Brad who managed to kill his opponent with some help sprinted towards the death priest cutting his mummified leg in twine followed by a [Turn Undead] right in front of its face. Without their priest, the remaining Cyclopses were thrown into a berserk state but they were neutralised by long-range spells to minimize the casualties.

  Priest hurried to heal the injured but to everyone's surprise, the doorway and the crystal ball flames extinguish them selfs.

 

 "Maybe that's why it went so smoothly?" Dian said out loud that nobody wanted any harder encounter.

 

"Well let's find out what these mummies were guarding," said Brad 

 

"W-What if they were trying to keep s-something in there." a young mage tried to voice his objection.

 

"You chicken out already? Haha!" laughed the leader of the nordlings Havdan.

 

  They all approached the now open door and saw another long corridor.

 

Once they entered they noticed that the air quality increased somehow and that there were more operational magical light sources with a cold blue hue to them. They turned a corner and saw what look like another set of doors but those ones were clearly emulating a gatehouse of some kind. While the humans tried to open the massive doors Iris looked around and saw an inscription on the top of the door.

"Death, the curse of the mortals and the pursued blessing for immortals. All shall be ruled under."

 

"What you are you speaking about?"

 

"N-Nothing!"

 

  Iris thought the inscription nothing, Messages left at the top of gatehouses were a common sight, maybe this trend was created by them?

 Finally, after opening the sealed door they saw a relatively small room with a statue of a humanoid with a skull of some reptile as a head, its body was made from some kind of black stone with a curved sword in each hand measuring about 6 meters and broad stairs that now went up. They passed the statue and began climbing the staircase.

"F..."

"AA..."

A horrifying shrieks came from the back of their party. The statue managed to cut down two mages before anyone could react. The abyss black statue constantly twitched and moved in inhuman ways. Its two curved swords managed to kill two more people before anyone recovered from the shock, a girl that was owned by one of the Di'arch was the fastest to try to cast an offensive spell but was quickly crushed by the statue's leg stomping down.

 

"How could you, she was my! Die!" Horatio casted [Firebolt] towards the construct but upon contact, its skin appeared to shimmer with blue energy.

 

"It has magic resistance! [Inspect], N-nnno! Impossible!" Horatio appeared to have a mental breakdown and just stared at the construct which was slaughtering defenceless mages with an expression somewhere between horror and anger. He had collapsed from the slash he received.

 

"My pla..."

 

Utrecht charged the statue but his axe was similarly useless as magic to the construct. His weapon was knocked out of his hands by the relentless advance of the construct, Utrecht in his final moment tried to tackle the towering opponent but was met with the cold gaze of the statue and its blades.

 

"What level is this thing! Brad!" Dian screamed at Brad.

 

"[Inspect] I-it tells me it's a [Eternal Sentinel] but the level is blank!"

 

Everyone still alive knew what that means but was still hopeful or coping with the reality of their situation charged at the sentinel. Every trick up the remaining human forces' sleeve was used but all the effort was pointless. 

 

The sentinel raised its sword to cut down Alicia but before it could connect Brad pushed her aside, both of his hands were separated from his body and before he could scream the construct's second blade decapitated the strongest human alive with ease. Alicia fell to the ground and seeing such selfless sacrifice she shrieked.

 

"Y-you dumass why?" Alicia's eyes were a waterfall of tears.

 

  Suddenly all the light went out both natural and magic and a great beam of light appeared just as suddenly appeared from Alicia's open palm. In desperation, Alicia had fried her mana circuits to do something but all effort was futile.

 

 Lastly, it was Iris's turn on the sentinel list, she realised that she was crying, not really knowing why was it from the relief of her struggle finally ending or from her executioner staring down at her. She blacked out before the sentinel could hurt her.

 

 

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*Gasp* 

  Iris suddenly woke up in the bed, she instantly sat up. She saw standing at the edge of the bed a girl no more than 20 years old staring down at her. Upon realising that Iris is awake the girl asks her the most bizarre question that Iris could not even comprehend.

"Hit me."