Chapter 5: Chapter 5: The Cavern in the Mountain

Luna landed comfortably the base of the mountain beyond the forest. She retracted her wings and took a moment to compose her breath. She needed to use them sparingly. Whatever magic energy she had, she needed to conserve for more dire circumstances.

The trees behind her had grown quiet again, perhaps resigned to their failure to trap the trespasser within their brush. Ahead, to Luna’s surprise, was a proper entrance—a cave carved into the mountainside.

“You’ve done well to clear the trees…” rumbled the voice, carried by a passing breeze. Judging how it trailed off, there was probably more it intended to say once Luna entered the cave.

She did.

First it was dark, with only the daylight peeking through the entrance to illuminate the inside. Luna ventured further, crossing into the shadow of the cavern. As she did, she accidentally kicked something at her feet, prompting it to roll a few feet forward. It was too light to be a rock, but it was too large to be anything else she could think of.

Curious, Luna crouched down and grabbed the silhouette she had disturbed, holding it up in the palm of her hand. She closed her eyes in concentration, gathering her magic energy.

Light.

At her summons, Luna felt her hand go warm. Even through closed eyes, she could see the illumination in her hand ready to reveal to her what it was she had found.

She opened her eyes.

It was a skull.

Unprepared for such a grotesque sight, Luna cried out in alarm and recoiled. The skull fumbled off her hand and fell with a hollow clack on the ground. Her hand now serving as torchlight, Luna could see what lay at her feet in every direction: bones.

Suddenly, torches around the cavern began to light. Human bones of every size and anatomy lay scattered across the ground, crushed and cracked as if from combat. In the shadows between the intermittent torchlight, Luna could hear the sound of clattering rocks. Someone was disturbing the earth.

The voice finally followed up from its previous clause. “…But how well can you fair against my children?”

As Luna let the glow in her hand fade, she could see the results of the earthly ruckus in front of her. Rocks were being clumped together by an unseen force. They piled up in the torchlight—a body, stocky arms, and a small head for good measure.

As if with final indication it had come to life, two eyes glowed red like possessed rubies on its little head. It was a golem.

Two more piles of rock formed in the same way. There were three golems.

And they began lumbering towards Luna.

In her party, Sarech took care of the majority of the combat situations. Being a seasoned bounty hunter, he was efficient and oftentimes ruthless. Sage could fight too, utilizing the martial arts of her tribe and the small capacity of shamanistic magic still afforded to the men and women of the world. Combat wasn’t something Luna often engaged in.

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable.

Silent resolve in her pale blue eyes, Luna held a hand out towards a golem. She fixated her focus on it, her sight and concentration converging on a singular point. When that point was met, she closed her hand—with great effort, as if closing against a resistant force.

Erosion.

The first golem crumbled to the ground, its boulders reduced to pebbles and dust that fell among the bones of its previous foes. It gave pause to the other two of its kind.

“So, you’re a woman of magic,” rumbled the voice, echoing through the cavern as the wind blew through. “A rare breed in this age.”

Indeed. This was a dire circumstance Luna was saving her energy for. Here, where no one else would find her, she was free to unleash whatever magic her angelic self could muster. But that reservoir was limited by her incomplete soul. Just crushing the first golem took a sizeable amount of energy, and it left her feeling as if she had just flown an entire league with her wings.

It would be a gamble, but she probably had just enough to repeat the same trick on the remaining two. She just needed space—time enough to zero in her concentration again. Luna slipped into the shadows between the torches, hoping the lack of sight would buy her the time she needed.

The golems didn’t need sight of their own. While Luna aimed her hand at her next target, the golem raised a heavy arm over its head and brought it down like a two-tonne hammer. Luna saw in the torchlight that its aim was true and broke her focus. She had just enough time to dive out of the way, tumbling over the skeletal piles.

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“You may have eluded me for lack of sight beyond this cave. But in here, I see everything.”

In here. The puppet master of these oversized rock animations was somewhere in the cave.

Even with the torches scattered around the cavern walls, she couldn’t discern just how deep or high the mountain cavity was. But if it was truly a singular room, she needed only to break the concentration of her concealed opponent. She knew a bit of magic that was easy and quick to conjure to that end.

As the golems advanced towards her, Luna rose to her feet. Bracing herself with knees bent, she coiled her arms across her chest in an X-shape. Taking in a deep breath, she called upon the well of her magic energy in her soul once more.

Each golem swung an arm at her in a sweeping motion, attempting to crush her between their solid limbs.

Luna swept her own arms outwards and bellowed, “Wind!”

Heeding her command in the instant she called, a powerful gust of wind whipped through the cavern. It tossed the broken pieces of skeleton into the air and scattered their bones. The fire on each torch stake fluttered violently but refused to go out—perhaps because of the magic that supported them. The golems were abruptly caught off-balance. Even the trajectory of their heavy, solid limbs shifted wildly as the bodies they were attached to tripped and crashed to the ground.

Whether or not she also caught her true foe was of no matter in the moment; now was the chance Luna needed.

She aimed her hand at the second golem and threw all her determination into her focus. Her well of magic surged within her soul, pouring more of its energy into alignment.

Erosion!

The golem in Luna’s sights trembled violently as an invisible hand crushed it between its fingers. More than the first animation, this living pile of rock was reduced almost entirely into ash and dust.

One more. When the wind subsided, the remaining golem collected itself, rock after rock piling back on themselves and reassembling the earthy creature into a stand. Its ruby eyes flashed, and it once again lumbered towards the intruder.

But her last endeavor drained Luna almost entirely of her reserves. After using such an excess of magic, she now felt as if her limbs were jelly. She collapsed to one knee, her body quivering with fatigue.

She was out of tricks. The only option she had left was to flee to the outside and hope she wouldn’t be caught. As the golem neared, quaking the ground beneath its heavy feet, Luna clasped her shaking hands together and summoned her wings one more time.

But it was no use. The energy she had left wasn’t enough to sustain them. After a few short seconds, the wings fizzled out.

The last golem raised both its arms over its head, its hammer-like fists poised to crush its foe at last.

Luna let her head hang, and her eyes close. She accepted defeat. None who came to the Isles Beyond ever left. How arrogant she was to think she even had a chance of retrieving her lost shard and returning to civilization.

It was over.

…

…

She could hear the sound of crumbling rock—but none of it collapsed over her defeated head. Opening her eyes, she saw the solid form of the golem implode on itself, laying to rest as a pile of stone that few would believe had been alive just a moment before.

“You… You’re one of us?”

This time, the voice didn’t sound like a nebulous echo skirting over the wind. Instead, it came from a clear direction from within the cave. Footsteps approached from the same direction. As Luna turned her head towards the sound, a man stepped into the torchlight.

Shock was plain in his dark brown eyes as he leaned on his staff for support. “Are you… an angel too?”

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