SOLAR KNIGHT

As her vision cleared, Azinax realised that she was lying on the ground, and that the fuzzy shapes hanging over her were Kaellatch and Razorfang peering down in concern. Her flathead was still lying in the dirt where she had dropped it.

"Just stay where you are for the moment-" began Kaellatch, but Azinax had already propped herself up back on her elbows into a semi-sitting position and had begun the laborious process of rising to her feet. Kaellatch tried to push her down as she did so, but the only impact of this was that Kaellatch was lifted up too, leaving her clinging to Azinax like a baby animal. Azinax pried her off with one hand and set her back down on the ground.

"What happened?" asked Azinax as she inspected her flathead before sheathing it.

"I don't know," said Kaellatch. "We all stayed back like you said, and everything looked like it was going to plan when all of a sudden you just screamed and collapsed."

"I don't remember screaming," said Azinax.

"Well, you did," asserted Kaellatch, "loudly."

They were interrupted by the excruciating crunch of stone on stone rumbling from the tower.

"I suppose Dain stepped over my unconscious body to go investigate without us," observed Azinax. "At least it sounds like he's doing something useful. How long was I out, anyway?"

"Not long, but that's not the point," said Kaellatch. "You should take it easy for a bit, especially considering we don't even know what-"

"I know exactly what it was," interrupted Azinax. "It was psychic backlash from something inside the grounds. Most holy wards are intended to keep things out. This one has a secondary component intended to keep things in. I failed to account for this and suffered accordingly. Now hurry up or they'll leave us behind!"

Azinax marched over to the tower with Razorfang at her side, leaving Kaellatch trotting behind. Inside the tower, Micaiah was looking down a newly revealed staircase leading down in the centre of the tower ground floor. The tapping of boots on stone sounded from above and Azinax looked up. Dain was hurrying back down from the tower's loft, keeping one hand on the wall as he did so.

"It's good to see our fearless leader up and about so quickly," he chirped, but there was an edge to his mock ebullience. "Something didn't seem right about the tower, and before I resorted to anything too destructive I thought I'd check for hidden switches," he continued. "The upper storey seemed like a natural place to hide it. I'm impressed the mechanism still worked though."

"The ancient elves have a lot to answer for but they did build things to last," said Azinax. Micaiah looked vaguely uncomfortable at this assessment, but the lapse in her upbeat demeanour was fleeting.

"The reason I was unable to complete the rite is that something within the temple grounds was actively resisting me," explained Azinax. "For that reason, the nature of our mission has changed, though the end goal remains the same. Our new objective is to track down the origin of this resistance, which in all likelihood is somewhere down that staircase, and neutralise it at the source. I'll take point to begin with, and we can re-evaluate once we're inside."

As Azinax led the group down the stairwell into the dark, Razorfang muscled past the others and gently pushed his head against Azinax, whining softly.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me," she told him. "Now get back in the queue. There's not enough room for us to walk double file."

Razorfang growled in disagreement as he fell back in line. It was not long before they arrived at a semicircular landing. Directly ahead from the staircase was a large set of double doors, once of which had been violently broken down. The one that remained was carved with a facade that may have been depicting elvish priests making offerings to the serpent triad, but the damage made it difficult to be certain. Lying between the staircase and the doorway, run through with thin metal darts and still sticky with blood, was the corpse of a goblin.

"Probably in with the thugs we fought earlier," said Dain.

"For a given value of 'we'," interjected Kaellatch.

"He's got their scent on him, too," Razorfang informed Azinax.

"Kaellatch, I believe this is your area of expertise," said Azinax, gesturing to the scene ahead of them.

"It most certainly is," said Kaellatch as she slalommed between her companions' legs to reach the head of the queue. "Light source please."

Dain snapped his fingers. A tiny spark blossomed into a globule of flame hovering over his hand. "Will this do?"

"Excellent," said Kaellatch. "Now stand behind me, point that exactly where I tell you to, and don't step anywhere I haven't already checked. Everyone else, stay where you are. If I want your help, I'll ask for it. Now, the first order of business is the poor sod who came in ahead of us."

Kaellatch approached the body and began to inspect it as thoroughly as she could without touching it. Dain followed along behind her as instructed, holding the flame aloft.

"These sorts of darts are typical for the era," explained Kaellatch. "They would have been coated with snake venom when they were new, but it will have lost its potency by now. Still plenty stabby though, as this poor chap found out. But his loss is our gain. It means that locating the holes where the darts come out is dead easy. Right here!" Kaellatch pointed to the eyes of a spider carved into the frescoes on one of the walls. On closer inspection these could be seen to be carefully disguised holes.

"Traps of this kind are usually triggered by some sort of switch or pressure plate," Kaellatch continued. "Judging by the position of the body, I'd say the the trigger mechanism is somewhere on the intact door."

"And so the vanguard decided to cut their losses and break down the other one," said Dain.

"There must be some way of opening the doors safely," said Micaiah. "People went to a lot of trouble to build this place, and clearly it had a purpose that required repeated access. If they just wanted to keep everyone out it wouldn't make sense to have a door at all, even a trapped one."

"That's all well and good, but I don't think it matters much right now," said Kaellatch. "Just nobody touch that door, and we should be fine."

Ignoring Kaellatch completely, Micaiah stepped carefully around the dried puddle of blood surrounding the dead goblin and began studiously examining the carvings on the door.

"Oh, it's so obvious," said Micaiah to herself. "How could they possibly have had trouble with something like that? It's just like the nursery rhyme!"

As Micaiah reached out to touch the door Kaellatch momentarily froze, torn between trying to stop her and diving for cover. As Micaiah pressed down on three carved shapes – the sun, the moon, and a star – there was a click and a crunch. Kaellatch dropped flat, but no darts whistled overhead, nor did any other calamities manifest in that moment. Instead, the panel directly above the high priest slid back to reveal to reveal a shallow recess containing an angular rod that glimmered gold in the firelight. Micaiah then took it, and the door swung open. As Micaiah paused to examine her find, Kaellatch snatched it from her with a running leap that landed her on Micaiah's shoulder. Micaiah tried to grab it back out of reflex, but Kaellatch nimbly scampered out of reach.

"I'll have that, thank you very much," she snapped as she darted to safety behind Azinax. "Look with your eyes next time. You're worse than a child." Micaiah straightened and stared down haughtily at Kaellatch. A worrisome thought crossed Kaellatch's mind. "How even are you, anyway?"

"Seventy-three," huffed Micaiah.

"Baby," taunted Dain. "Baby baby baby. No wonder you're always babbling."

"Baby," agreed Kaellatch.

"I can't speak for Dain, but you of all people are hardly qualified to say what counts as a baby and what doesn't, or what babies are or aren't allowed to do for that matter," said Azinax to Kaellatch.

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Kaellatch.

"It means that someone who was hunting mega-fauna while she still had her egg-tooth doesn't get to tell septuagenarians what to do," said Azinax. "There are enough potential threats as it is even without us turning on one another. Focus on the mission."

"Hear, hear," affirmed Dain. Azinax turned in surprise, but held her tongue.

"You've been praising Azinax ironically for too long. Don't you realise that doing things ironically is a gateway drug to doing them sincerely?" joked Kaellatch. "But the points stands. Back on topic. The surest indicator of traps is traps, so that means everyone single-file and don't touch anything!"

They proceeded as Kaellatch had described, Dain still lighting the way, until they arrived at another door.

"What's the hold-up?" demanded Azinax as she forced her way to the front of the queue. "Is this one trapped as well?"

"If it is, I couldn't tell you how," said Kaellatch.

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"I don't know," admitted Kaellatch. "I just don't like the idea of barging on though without a plan. There could be anything back there. Whatever lashed out at you earlier is down here somewhere and while I know that's the point of coming here in the first place I…"

Kaellatch's rambling was cut off as Azinax picked her up and lifted her so that their eyes were level.

"Is opening the door, in and of itself, likely to be dangerous? Yes or no?" asked Azinax. Kaellatch inhaled deeply, her legs swinging awkwardly in the air. The shadows on the corridor walls danced in synchrony with the wavering of Dain's flame.

"No," said Kaellatch, with an air of regret and resignation.

No sooner had she said this than Azinax set her back down a few feet from the door and yanked it open. A weighty pause followed as they all stood quietly anticipating the worst. When no terrible calamity materialised in those ensuing seconds., Azinax concluded that this was the warmest reception she was likely to receive and stepped over the threshold. The next room seemed to the hub of the complex. Oblong tables were set out in rows with aisles between them leading to two other doors on either side of the room. The desiccated remains of two elves sat in a posture of contemplation. It appeared that they had been killed instantly while studying a tarnished whorl of filigree. At the rear of the room was an ornate metal balustrade, beyond which nothing was visible but interminable darkness.

Azinax advanced into the room with caution enforced by experience and strained her senses for the even the faintest whisper of the supernatural. The disordered, intrinsic wrongness of undeath was absent from the corpses, and yet the impression of being watched did not leave. Her eyes scanned the room but nothing stood out. Picking her way between the tables to the other side of the room, she began to investigate the shaft opposite the entrance. Moving closer had changed nothing; though there were walls to the left and right, the rear and depths of the pit extended far beyond her vision, offering up nothing but darkness.

"It seems safe enough, but stay alert," she called out to the others. "Dain, bring your light over. I want to get a better look at this hole." Dain hustled over and the two of them peered into the dark. Azinax began to lean a little over the railings for a better look, but stopped.

She didn't have an opportunity to pin down precisely what instinct implored her to withdraw before a blur of filigree and talons crashed down from above. The balustrade crumpled under the combined weight of Azinax and her attacker, and she found herself hanging face-down over the pit as something heavy pressed down on her armoured back.

"It was hanging from the damned ceiling!" yelled Kaellatch from what sounded like the front of the room. As a waft of heat washed overhead and the twangs of metal on metal echoed above, the weight on Azinax's back lifted and she began to work her way back from the edge. Gripping the bowed remains of the balustrade, she crawled backwards until she had all four limbs on solid ground, then stood up and turned around. Dain and Razorfang were engaged with a large silver construct made of a material similar to the analyte in the hands of the corpse beyond it. Made of twisted silver and about the same height as Razorfang, its movement bore an uncanny similarity to those of an oversized chicken. It might have been comical if not for the curved, wicked claws on its toes and its maw full of needle-sharp teeth. A patch of metal coils on its side glowed red-hot, the braids warped and drooping. The construct's head jerked as one of Kaellatch's cross-bow bolts struck it on the jaw. The moment its attention was drawn away Razorfang pounced, trying to fit his claws and fangs between the silver wires to pry the construct open. The two of them twisted and jostled, the construct searching for a weak point in Razorfang's armour while Razorfang tried to force the construct to the ground.

Azinax edged closer to the melange of claws and teeth, sword in hand. As she did so the construct twisted free of Razorfang's grip, tossing him to the ground. The moment they were separated, Dain hurled another glob of flame at the construct, sending awry the clawed kick that was aimed at Razorfang's underside, causing it to miss the gap in his armor where his foreleg met his body and instead skid over metal plates. With the construct already off-balance, Razorfang kicked it away, sending it lurching back toward Azinax. As it stumbled back towards her, she stepped aside from its lashing tail and struck. Her killing-edge forced aside the still-warm threads of metal that covered the construct's flank and pierced through biting into its mechanical innards. As it screeched and struggled, still impaled, it began to lurch towards the damaged railing. Azinax tugged at the hilt of her killing-edge, but it was stuck fast, lodged in the metal monster's body. As it forced her closer to the edge, Razorfang launched himself through the air, tackling it from the side. The blade's hilt was yanked out of Azinax's hand as the construct tumbled away with Razorfang on its back, his paws gripping its shoulders and his jaws around its narrow head. Already weakened, it went to the ground easily, and its crystal eyes shattered as Razorfang crushed its filigree skull.

"Is it… dead?" asked Micaiah, peering from the entrance-way before drifting into the room. Azinax staggered up to the battered metal wreckage, then braced herself against it with one foot and tugged her sword free.

"Seems pretty dead to me," she confirmed. "Alright, sound off. Everyone still alive?"

"You had me fooled for a moment when that thing dropped on top of you," said Kaellatch, "but yeah, I think everyone else is fine… wait, everybody shut up for a moment."

As they all fell silent, they heard the faint clicking of claws on stone and the thuds of heavy footsteps slowly coming closer in the direction of the left exit.

"What do you think, friend or foe?" whispered Kaellatch.

"Given our luck so far, definitely foe," replied Dain.

"No disagreements there," whispered back Kaellatch.

Azinax turned to Micaiah and inclined her head towards the entrance. Micaiah took the hint and meandered back to the doorway while the others took up a defensive position. The footsteps drew closer, then stopped as the door scraped open. The one who opened it and stepped through struck an imposing figure, resembling a humanoid dragon with batlike wings that made him look even taller than he really was. He had a taught, rippling physique obscured by nothing but a sheen of red scales and a hide wrap, and seemed more amused than perturbed at the weapons pointed at his toothy muzzle of a face. Though the new visitor bore a superficial resemblance to a member of the dragonborn peoples, Azinax immediately recognised him as not one of them. She had had plenty of dealings with red dragonborn in the last three years, and with them as a point of reference there was something uncanny about this reptillian interloper. Something deep in Azinax's soul shrieked to her in a thousand discordant voices wrong, danger, beware!