sαηgυιs sεcяεтσяυм

[εмρяεss αкαяα яαvεηℓσcк]

A storm had been brewing within the depths of Akira since the day K'Lar had been her first, last and single-handed defense. she had chosen to visit Lady Raven's tower that day or at least her tomb. The tower was all that had not been buried of Lady Raven's castle, but none living were aware of this. You could access some of what had not caved in during the day it had sank into the earth from the tower that still stood above ground. Akira found herself standing at the door of the tower looking up. Ravens were perched on the roof and the railing of the balcony peering down at her in pure silence. Looking to the door she reached for it and peered inside.

Candles and torches were lit along the walls to illuminate the interior. She stepped inside and began to wander aimlessly. She paid attention to every detail in the room. Paintings decorated the walls, runes were carved into the walls. Some talked about the history of Ravenlock and some were legends. Each place there were different runes that told different stories. She could not find a logical reason as to why she should come to the tower but she had done it anyway. She felt an unnatural pull to this place. A large tapestry hung at the other end of the room. curiosity drew her to it and the supernatural pull that had brought her here in the first place urged her to pull the tapestry aside.

In so doing she revealed a door. The Ravenlock Crest had been carved into it. She tried the handle but it didn't budge. a sealing spell she guessed. She concentrated for a minute and could feel that the spell had weakened over the centuries. the spell didn't take long for her to break. A few minutes was all it took before the door swung open revealing a very dark corridor. Frowning, she stepped through the doorway and as she did so torches that littered the walls flared into life. She could see flickering lights lining the walls for as far as her eyes could see. She had entered a labrynth, or so she thought at first.

Even though this was the original palace of Ravenlock she was not aware of it yet. Buried deep beneath the earth she descended into the depths of the castle. She passed many different doors as she slowly progressed. The temperature dropped the farther she got within the unknown structure. Akira's mind was reeling from all the possibilities. She could have returned to Ravenlock and spoken to Lady Raven about Túr Dorcha. Translated it means "Dark Tower". A title that had been given to the ominous structure by nearby villages. Up until the time that Akara had found the tower and brought Lady Raven back no one had dared get anywhere near Túr Dorcha.

After walking what seemed like hours, she came upon a set of great doors. Horrific scenes of mass murder and torture were depicted on these doors. Carved in such detail, the gruesome images seemed to move and come alive as they told stories of Lady Raven's reign. Akira studied the images, committing them to memory. She placed her hands on the only two spots on the doors that didn't have images carved in them. Pushing against the heavy doors she managed to open them far enough that she could slip passed them. The torches, braziers, candelabras and chandaliers flared to life in response to her presence in the room.

The window panes were all red and you could see the earth pressed against the outside of the glass, reminding her that there were thousands of pounds of earth pressing down on the citadel she was investigating. She could hear something moving in the darkness just beyond the reach of the light. Her footsteps were slow, careful and deliberate as she picked her way through the debri toward the remnants of what looked to be a throne. Scratched noises filled her ears as she felt the presence of many other creatures skittering about in the darkness. The closer she came to the throne the more she could feel herself being closed in upon by the unknown creatures hiding in the shadows.

As she approached the rubble that used to be the throne, the flickering light from a nearby torch revealed the tip of a blade. Carefully she removed it from the rubble. It was a dagger, a raven engraved on the surface of the blade. It must have been Lady Raven's. Akira wondered what happened here. The histories of Ravenlock were incomplete and did not date back to Lady Raven's reign aside from the one excerpt from a text concerning the myth of Lady Raven. No one even knew what the kingdom had been called prior to Raven's ascent to the throne.

[εмρяεss αкαяα яαvεηℓσcк]

The scratching noises grew louder while shadows flickered along the edges of the darkness where Akira stood near the throne. It wasn’t hard for her to figure out that she was already surrounded but she couldn’t see what manner of creature(s) had surrounded her. It seemed that as long as she remained in the light she was safe but the torches had begun to flicker, which could only be expected after so many years of abandonment and neglect beneath Naethia’s surface. While Akira wasn’t completely defenseless, she was not as well versed in battle magic as her sister’s and nowhere near as skilled with a blade. She had spent so many years secluded on the Holy Isle that she missed out on some of the training that her sister’s had undergone on the mainland. Clutching the blade in one hand she concentrated and summoned a ball of flame in the other. Since light was unpleasant to whatever was lurking in the shadows fighting them with light could only help as far as she could guess.

The torches began to snuff themselves out one by one, working their way around the room slowly until only the chandelier above her was still burning brightly. It must have access to a larger supply of oil somewhere. As the darkness began to close in so did what lurked beyond the light. She found her thoughts being divided between paying attention to her would be attackers, whatever they were and the history contained within the citadel. That would have to be dealt with later. Her first priority would be to survive and manage to leave this place and return home, then she could figure out coming back to retrieve any records that might have been preserved here it what seemed like the largest tomb she had ever seen.

The circle of light she had been safely contained in was growing smaller by the minute. Every time she heard a noise closer to her than before she turned in its direction, trying desperately to see clearly enough into the all-consuming shadows of what lay beyond the rapidly disappearing safety of the chandelier’s light. In an attempt to discern what was circling her, she let the fireball she had conjured sail into the darkness off to her left. Luck was on her side and she finally caught a glimpse of what it was that had been circling her. Spiders, spiders that were big as she is. A shiver worked its way down her spine.

Sure, she was powerful, as powerful as either of her sisters, but she had never tested the extent of her powers in a setting such as the situation she had just found herself in. She cursed silently at her own curiosity that one day was going to be the death of her if she didn’t learn how to properly protect herself. She vowed to herself that somehow she was going to find a way out of this in one piece and would return with enough forces to purge these abominations from the depths.

Conjuring another fireball she let it grow to a large size in her hand. (Roughly the size of a basketball) She summoned flames from the same place within her and let them dance their way down to engulf the blade in her other hand. The spiders that she had seen were close enough now that she could roughly make out their sizes now which varied slightly. The chandelier had since burned out, leaving the only light that of what she had summoned.

One of the spiders lunged at her from behind forcing her to whirl to face it and without thinking she shoved the fireball between its pincers into the spider’s gaping maw. As soon as she released the fireball she began to conjure another one slowly retreating toward the hallway that had led her down into the great hall from Túr Dorcha. She caught a whir of movement off to her right and she slashed out with the dagger catching another spider on one of its legs and it stumbled backward into the cover of darkness. An unholy screech echoed through the chamber that froze her and the spiders in their tracks. She recovered from her temporary paralysis, much faster than the spiders did and managed to cross half the distance to the corridor that had led her here.

A flurry of what sounded like wings whipped up a breeze around her causing her to duck. ‘This is going to get much worse before it gets better.’ She thought to herself. There was nothing to do but react to the situation at hand. If she spent time thinking about what to do or how to get herself out of here she would surely lose. She had to become the warrior just as she had seen other’s do in the heat of battle. It was her turn to find that clarity born from the ferocity of battle. Finally the creature swooping around the room on leathery wings dove at her. Instinctively she put her hands up to shield her head forgetting about the fireball in her hand. All it took was a slight shift of her wrist and she was able to catch what she believed to be a harpy in the side as it flew. An answering screech confirmed that she had wounded it. Smirking and taking a few steps back she froze again as the ground began to shake. The spiders that had surrounded her were scuttling away as fast as she could. The shaking came at even intervals signaling to her that something large had been woken by the battle between her and the creatures that had made a home deep beneath Naethia.

The ground seemed to groan with every footstep of the large being that was headed in her direction. She turned to check and see if she was clear to run the last quarter of the way to the only way that she knew would lead her out of here. A group of spiders had gathered at the opening of the corridor and did not appear to be moving from it any time soon.

The room began to shake more violently as the creature grew closer. With only the light from the fire, she had conjured she knew she wasn’t going to be any match for whatever was closing in on her as long as she couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her. Concentrating, she lit the fire in her hand grow to twice the size of her head and hurled it in an arc at what she estimated was the location of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room. Luck was on her side while she watched it fly through the air and hit the chandelier causing the candles to flare to life and sending it swinging from side to side. A soft glow permeated down into the room from the candles. While it wasn’t enough to fully illuminate the room it did help.

She needed more light and it wouldn’t be long until the cause of the earthquakes reached her. Frantically, she started hurling fireballs at the walls in several different directions along the line in which the torches were bolted to the walls. She missed quite a few, only hitting stone and watching as the fireballs burst and the remnants fluttered to the ground. Torches flared to life at the touch of her fireballs brightening the soft glow of the room. With each torch that flared to life from the magic fire, she had conjured she was finally able to see from one end of the room to the other. Satisfied with her work, she turned toward the corridor that would lead her back to the surface.

The spiders still gathered there, but she wouldn’t let that deter her. She had a greater chance of fighting her way through them than she did of fighting the creature descending upon her, or at least she assumed it was a creature. Akira advanced on the spiders with careful footsteps. The last thing she needed was to roll her ankle on any of the debris. When she neared the group of large arachnids hovering in front of the hall, she intended to use for escape, one lunged at her and she hopped to the side out of the way slashing out with the dagger. She missed and lunged for the nearest spider letting another fireball fly. ‘This may not have been the best idea’, she thought to herself as they formed a circle around her.

The quakes stopped abruptly just as a low groan followed by a growl that made her cover her ears pierced the darkness. The spiders that had surrounded her sunk toward the ground in a crouch and backed away from her toward the corners of the room. Slowly she began to turn and when she saw the legs of the creature that had finally made its way to join the fray. Araneae Ingentes. There had been rumors whispered at night to scare children of the horrors of Araneae Ingentes. She never believed that they existed but here she was standing face to leg with one of them.