Legacy of the M'Zee Chapter 21

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

Well, I accidentally deleted this, so here's draft 1 chapter 21 again!

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

The doorway warped as soon as I stepped into it, depositing me in a hemispherical chamber five meters in diameter. The wall and ceiling were dotted with gems glowing in dozens of different colors. The majority were the four primary Elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, with about half as many the secondary Elements of Lightning, Metal, Wood, and Ice. The rest, I wasn’t sure of, though I thought I recognized Mud and Acid among them.

My backpack was gone. I looked around for it, but it wasn’t inside the room Hopefully I get it back, I thought. I carefully walked into the middle of the room, looking around to see that there was no way out. At least, not yet. As soon as I stepped into the exact center, a ring lit up around me. Blazing in front of my face was a single word. Survive. “Ah, Darkness hide it,” I said, looking around wildly.

A red gem directly in front of him brightened, and I threw myself to the side on instinct. A beam of Fire left the crystal and entered another directly behind me, vanishing after a second. The flame was eerily silent, and only a slight thermal bloom followed it. “That would have incinerated me,” I said. “Oh Fire burn it and Lightning blast it, this is gonna suck.”

My head was on a swivel as I looked to find the next gem while walking in a circle. I attempted to go past the lit up ring, about two-thirds of the way to the wall, but found that a forcefield was projected there, limiting my movement. As I watched, the circle grew just slightly smaller. A flash from my left had me leap backwards to watch a Metal spear slam into the floor to my right, angling down from one of the gems on the ceiling.

A brown gem glowed near the ground, and then the floor began to shake. I stumbled for a second, only to throw myself forward into a roll, dodging a vine whip that slashed horizontally across the entire room. A jet of water and an icicle followed before the floor stopped shaking.

I barely saw the light blue gem glow, and I was much too close to really dodge. Air, counter with Earth, I thought, then punched out with a Forceful Punch modified with an Earth rune and using only Earth Aether. A blade of Air shot at me, only to be deflected by the Punch. “Yeah!” I shouted, arms going over my head to cheer.

“Ah!” I screamed as a bolt of Lightning hit me, charring my hand. I grabbed the foreign Aether in me with my will, and forced it to stillness. After a few seconds, the Aether changed and absorbed into my meridians. My hand was tingly and numb, but feeling was returning quickly after I got control of the Lightning. Well, that might be useful for advancing, if I can control it, I thought. Not sure about the others, though, since I’m not anywhere near as tough against even Fire as I am against Lightning. Speaking of Fire, ah!

Two gems lit up this time, and the circle moved to the halfway mark. I slid underneath one beam, dodging to the side of another, before having to leap into the air over a Metal bar. I kicked off it, changing my momentum slightly to have a swinging pendulum blade miss me, before shoving off the forcefield and spinning to land in between a set of Earth Spikes that shot out of the ground below a constellation of brown gems on the ceiling.

Vines grew out of the wall, swinging almost two-thirds of the way to the center. I drew a trisula and lined it with Metal and Lightning, then sliced through two of the vines. Water rose to my knees, then started to swirl, forcing me to channel the General Strengthening Technique to keep steady. Ice started to form on the water, threatening to freeze my legs down.

I leapt into the air, kicking off an Air platform to go over a waist-high Air Blade that dispersed on the upraised Earth Spikes. Idea, I thought, then swung my legs in an arc, sending my own, more focused, Air Blade into them. The closest three had their tops sheared off. Another Air platform let me land on one, and a quick gesture and expenditure of Earth Aether brought the cut off tips to my hand. I fused them into the Spike, giving me a larger platform to stand on.

Of course, that meant the Lightning gem above my head was the next to activate, but I was braced this time. The Bolt slammed into me, driving me to one knee, but I immediately pulled the Aether into my control. “How much longer!” I screamed out, then yanked up a screen of water from below me. The wall of Fire that split the room in two fizzled out, blanketing the room in steam.

Metal spikes extended out of the walls with a bang, and only a quick twist of my body kept me from being impaled. I wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid injury, though, as the closest spike sliced open my arm. A rush of Metal Aether shot into me, making me scream with pain. I focused internally for a second, sending a wave of Ice and Air Aether to beat apart the Metal, then wrapped it with Wood to finish neutralizing it. I got the blood flow stopped, only to have it break open again when I threw my arms in front of my face.

The Earth gems had activated, and the stone under me exploded into shrapnel. Almost all of the pieces were stopped by my Aether shield, but my total Aether drained significantly to maintain it. I fell towards the ground, then kicked off an Air platform to dodge a wash of acid that spat out of the Wood gems. The Water under me turned greenish, but I threw a massive Fireball into it, clearing a space before leaping back up again.

The Water swirled into a whirlpool that slurped up the sides of the room, before freezing into foot long Icicles. The pointy, frozen water then exploded at me. I threw a shield of Fire and Metal around my body while crouching and covering my head. With a sizzle, the Icicles melted, and I stood in a cleared area. “Bring it on!” I shouted.

The shield flashed twice, then shrank quickly. I tried to go over, but was unable to, and it caught and dragged me to the center roughly. I had nowhere to go, barely able to stand. All around me, the gems lit up, every single one of them charging. My Aether Sight showed the massive amount of Aether flowing into each gem. “Is this a death trap? Was it all a trick!” I bellowed.

Spirit didn’t answer, and then every gem let loose an amorphous beam of their respective Aether. I tried to shield myself, but my attempt was immediately overwhelmed. I braced, sad that I led Vaya, Aleks, and Jamila into a trap and not the test I thought it was. Darkness, I’m sorry, I thought.

The beams didn’t bring death. They hurt, pain flooding through me as each Aether strike burned away part of my body, but the extra Aether I’d seen being pushed into the gems was used for a healing and tempering technique. Over and over again, Aether flowed into me, and pushed itself into my muscles, bones, tendons, and organs.

The room was pushing my advancement through the Threshold Condensation stage, each second affecting me the same way than an entire evening of gathering had just two days ago. The pain was excruciating, but when it stopped I almost asked for more.

I lay on the ground, now clear of Water, Ice, and stone, and a door opened in the side of the room. “Give me, uh, five minutes,” I said. I gathered a little bit, but I was mostly full already, even with channeling Aether into healing myself.

The door dinged, slamming shut and then opening again immediately afterwards. I reluctantly got up. “Really, Spirit? Can’t give a guy five minutes to rest?” I said. “Grumble, grumble, grumble.” Just before reaching the door, I stopped and tried to pry one of the gems out of the wall. I jammed my trisula into the stone, but the gem would not budge.

Another ding made me sigh, and I grumbled, “Fine,” then gave up and walked out of the room. “I guess getting six weeks closer to advancing is enough of a bonus from that room.”

The world warped again, and I found myself in another hemispherical chamber. Two doors led out, and in front of them were two guards. They were both wearing full plate mail armor, with nothing to distinguish them. “One door leads to success,” the left-most guard said.

“The other leads to failure,” the other one continued.

“One door will bring you to the next trial.”

“And the other to your doom.”

“Be wary that you choose the correct door.”

“Else, you will suffer for all time.”

“You may ask one question to determine where to walk,” the first told me.

“But be warned, one of us will lie,” the rightmost guard said.

“And the other will tell the truth”

“Ask your question.”

“Open a door.”

“And receive your reward.”

I sighed, shaking my head. “Really, this one?” I laughed. I walked up to the guards and took a close look. There was no one in the armor, but they spoke all the same. “Okay, I don’t even remember what movie this was from. I did have a crush on the actress for a bit, though, she was cute. You,” I pointed to the right-most guard. “What door would the other guard tell me to go through?”

“The door behind me,” the guard answered immediately.

“And so, I go to the other door,” I giggled, then moved to the leftmost guard and opened the door behind them.

“You have chosen wisely,” the guards chorused, then vanished.

“Really?” I asked.

“I thought it was a good puzzle,” Spirit said, appearing beside me.

“How did you know about it?”

“I read all of your memories to determine the language to speak,” Spirit said, this time in English.

“All of my memories!?” I exclaimed.

“Yes, though I ignored all of your daydreams. I did not need to see you copulating with,” Spirit started to say.

“Okay! That’s enough. Please do not finish that sentence,” I said, blushing. “So, what is the reward?”

“Continuing up the Tower of Trials,” Spirit saiI glared at them, and they grinned. “And a single gem from the previous room. A citrine, I believe, would be best for you.”

“Citrine?”

“The yellow ones. Citrine is very effective at absorbing and emitting Lightning Aether,” Spirit said. “Now, go, your gem will be available in the next room.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said. I walked through the door, and found a small square room immediately behind it. A table with bread, water, and a fist-sized yellow gem waited on my left, and another door was straight ahead of me. Underneath the table was my backpack. On the right was a lounge chair and pillow. “Ah, I guess I get a break here. Good.” All of the objects in the room glowed brightly in my Aether Sight, but I had no way of transporting out a meter long table.

I quickly grabbed the loaf of bread and scarfed down a large portion of it, then gulped down the water. Feeling satiated, I yawned and stumbled over to the lounge chair. Laying down in it, I closed my eyes.

I woke up some time later to see the room hadn’t changed. I felt refreshed and ready to continue. The bread and water had been refilled, and this time there was a small hunk of cheese and an apple. I scarfed down the food. “Wow, this stuff is as potent as level four Beast meat,” I commented after eating the cheese. “So far, profitable if painful.”

I picked up the citrine, then started to channel Lightning Aether into it. I stopped after almost a minute. The crystal absorbed a full half of my available Lightning Aether, which just astounded me. “This. This is going to be used to make me a weapon,” I said. I stopped trying to fill it and gathered for a few minutes to fill up. “Okay, next room.”

I opened the door, and found myself in an octagonal chamber. In the center, a brilliant white light caused me to squint. I looked up to find the ceiling but there was only blackness. Eight waist-high stones lined the left wall, or at least what I thought was the left wall.

The walls and ceiling were black, like Vanta black. I stepped to the side and touched the wall. It was rocky and slightly jagged, but I could not see the differences except where my hand was. “That’s crazy,” I said.

In the floor there were eight depressions, each sized to hold a stone. “Okay. Eight stones, eight depressions. Light in the middle, darkness on the outside. Just gotta make a mandala right?” I told myself. “Maybe there’s something on the stones.”

I moved to the closest stone and looked over it. It was perfectly smooth. With a shrug, I picked it up, then tipped it over. “Yup, there it is,” I said. “That rune means Fire.” I lifted the stone again, then walked over to the three-o-clock position on the ground and set it in the depression.

I quickly found and placed every Element in the grid. Nothing happened. I kicked the Lightning stone in front of me, the last I’d placed, but it didn’t react. “Well, crud,” I said. I shoved them all down, getting them better seated in a few cases. Still nothing.

I stared at one for a second, then nodded. “I need to activate them.” I channeled a small amount of Air Aether into my hand, then placed it on the Air stone. It absorbed it greedily, then began glowing a light blue. Lightning was next, resulting in a yellow beacon. I slowly made my way around the octagon, until they were all lit up. After a few seconds, they flashed brightly. Yes! A blast of Air threw me into the wall, and the stones turned dark.

“Ow,” I whined at the Light in the center, where the blast had originated from. “What’d I miss?” I slowly examined each block, but they were featureless except for the rune on the bottom. “Maybe the runes need to go on top? Worth a shot.”

The blast of Air this time bounced me off the ceiling first. I’d managed to get an Aether shield up in time, though, so it didn’t hurt too much. “That felt weird,” I told myself. I jumped onto the nearest stone, Earth in this case, and felt the ceiling. It took several Air platforms and ten minutes, but I was sure the ceiling had an outcropping shaped like a person.

I sat on the Lightning block and thought for a minute. Okay, standard Air on top doesn't work. The blocks only fit in with the rune either up or down, not sideways, so this isn’t the right order. Unless I have to put them in this order but light them up in a certain pattern? Nah, there’s no way that’s correct. The person is the key. Maybe I should put Lightning at the top, since it’s my strongest? Do I continue with a normal pattern or go in order of my strengths? Let’s try normal first.

Lightning went in the top whole, then I put Fire, Metal, and so on. After placing them, I lit them up in order from Lightning. This time, rather than getting blown back by an Air blast, a wave of Lightning zapped me and sent me twitching to the ground. “Blarg,” I said, my lips tingling. “Light in the order of my Affinity?”

A bolt of Lightning broke my Aether Shield and threw me into the wall again. “This is getting tiresome,” I said, struggling to my feet. Each mistake was harder to recover from, each blast getting stronger. “Not sure how many more mistakes I can make.” I pushed myself to my feet, then spent a minute gathering and channeling Aether to clear out my hurts.

“Next test, in the order of my Affinities,” I said. I carefully gauged where each Affinity was, then set out Lightning, Fire, Air, Metal, Earth, Wood, Water, Ice. After carefully checking the order, I activated them. The blast this time knocked me unconscious for a few seconds.

I lay on the ground for a bit, letting my body heal with the ridiculous tenacity I’d gained over the course of my time here on Zemia. “What am I supposed to do?” I complained to myself. I shook my head, then struggled back to my feet again. “Not going to give up, though I don’t think I’ll make it through many more failures.”

I leapt up and felt at the body again, but nothing stood out to me. I sat and thought about everything I’d seen in the room. Again, no new ideas. Each wall felt the same, rough stone with no discernible pattern. For some reason, though, I thought back to the underwater history lesson I’d gotten. “Wait, the frescoes there were counterclockwise in order. The glowing figure at the end, he was left handed, not right handed. Counterclockwise, not clockwise.”

I quickly rearranged the stones, still in the order of my Affinities but going left not right from the top. I flinched as I sent my Aether into the stones. After activating them, the Light stone dimmed, and then a doorway opened in the wall. I walked through, and was warped to the next challenge.