Adykon completed the rituals, save for the very last one. The horror beneath the tower was all but awake... even now, power could be felt coursing through the very stones of the cave... a dark, draining, consuming, engulfing energy that would easily absorb the very life force from this valley as a sponge absorbs water.
And now, it had come to this... the heart ritual. The very last one. Adykon went over to the central cave of the caverns... and awaiting him were Asthia and Arcantas...
"Let us begin Adykon. First, you must climb up to the stone platform in the center of the room. I will stand on the right one, Arcantas on the left."
"Let's just get this over with!" Arcantas shouted.
"I do believe you are jealous. Is it that I, a female, triumph, where you, a male, had failed? Or is it a more personal failure... that you failed to unleash a similar being so long ago... but you were stopped... killed at the hands of Adykon?"
"I wish to see nothing more than your triumph, Asthia. A victory for you is a victory for the dark master..." the vampiric male told the female.
The stone platforms were raised out of the side of the wall, requiring that Adykon climb up; Asthia and Arcantas used levitation spells to rise up on two other stone platforms. By the time they were all up there, the three of them were over 20 meters in the air... quite a drop.
"Now Adykon, recite the final ritual!" Asthia commanded him, a gleam in her eyes...
Adykon took out the parchment on which the ritual was written and began to chant:
"Oh great horror, We summon thee!"
"Oh, Shadows of Darkness, enter the land of the living!"
"Oh, Master of the eternal night, return to your own body, and live again!"
And, with great pain, completing the terms of his geas, Adykon recited the final line...
"Oh great horror We summon thee!"
And with that, the whole cave complex began to shake, and the parchment flew into Asthia's hands. Her energy continued to flow into the horror, enabling the spell to continue. Arcantas's power was also being used for this purpose; the spell was complete, but it was taking time for the effect to manifest...
"Yes, ah ha ha ha! Yes! The spell is completed, and the horror awakens!" Asthia shouted, triumpantly.
Just then, Arcantas launched a fireball at Adykon, knocking him down, making him dangle off of the side of the platform!
"No!! How dare you ?!" Asthia yelled at Arcantas, launching a bolt of magic from her hands at him. The bolt hit him, but as it did, it also shattered the bonds of her control over him!
"Ah, you have just shattered the bonds which bound me! Now we shall see who is the true archmage!" Arcantas shouted back.
A brief duel commenced. While each side was powerful indeed, Asthia's magic was beating that of Arcantas's; her vampiric form was more refined than his, and she had more experience casting spells in an undead body.
"I am still a far greater Master of Magic than you. I am a far more powerful Vampire than you. Do you really think your spells can harm me? Ha ha ha ha ha! Guess again..." Asthia boasted.
"But my dear Asthia, I do not need to cast spells at you to destroy you. I intend only to destroy my enemy, the one you seem so fond of. Care to watch him die?"
"No! I will not let him die!" Asthia screamed. Panicked, she teleported between Arcantas and Adykon, as the former cast as spell which conjured a Dragon's head. The spell alone was countered by Asthia easily enough, but, as his research had shown, Arcantas's spell attracted the horror. From out of the cave, several black tendrils emerged, and wrapped around Asthia! Now that the horror was being released, they were far more powerful than the ones which had drained Rhiga; they were able to absorb Asthia's ENTIRE life force, magical energy, and her physical body... which they did.
Asthia had been destroyed.
"The fool! I knew that the horror would be attracted by that spell. Now Asthia will have all the Darkness she so desired, and much, much more." Arcantas said, now free from her control forever. The first part of my vengeance is complete. Now I can enjoy watching you die slowly... and painfully.
"Damn you, Arcantas! I swear, I killed you once, now I'm gonna ki-" but before Adykon could complete that thought, Arcantas blasted the stone Adykon was standing on. Adykon had gotten up during the magical duel, and was no longer dangling off of the side, but the stone upon which he stood was being blasted away...
"There's no place you can run, and no place for you to hide. Soon there won't even be a place to stand upon. Getting worried, Adykon?"
"Not a bit !" Adykon pulled out the greave from his leg, and it quickly reshaped itself into a staff... the staff the archmage had given him!
"Ha ha hah! This is rich! A warrior with a magical staff that has almost no charge in it. Go ahead, take your one shot, which I will easily deflect, and then, I will send YOU falling to your death!"
Adykon aimed the staff at Arcantas, and focused on making it fire an energy bolt at him, but instead, he felt a compulsion to throw the staff instead, which he did. As it raced through the air, and in a split second, the staff reshaped itself into a spear which went right through Arcantas's heart, destroying HIM as well!
The staff rose under its own power from the corpse of the vampire, and deposited itself back in Adykon's hands. A voice emanated from the brown wooden item, that of the archmage.
"You have done well, Adykon. This day, you have freed the valley from unspeakable evil. Without the power of either Asthia or Arcantas to complete the spell, the horror will remain trapped in its own dimension. To prevent it from being released, burn the parchment with the rituals so that no one may even use them again. Without Asthia, the soldiers here will automatically revert to the direct command of the dark master... they will leave before long, and then, there will be nothing to stop the shamans of this valley from coming together and casting the purification ritual needed to remove the horror from this land for good!"
Adykon paused for a moment...not quite sure what to say. Then, he spoke.
"I could never have done it without your help... but... that seemed too easy. Two archmages dead, a horror stopped, and the valley saved in all of five minutes... it
can't be that simple..."
"And it isn't." The female voice told Adykon, continuing. "Evil has a way of sowing the seeds of its destruction. Asthia and Arcantas were fighting on the same side, for the same thing, under the command of the same master... and yet, they could only destroy each other. That is the way of evil; each one under its influence thinks only of himself, even when doing things for others. Arcantas was driven by his hatred of you to the detriment of his mission, and his hatred of Asthia was a liability that the dark master should never have overlooked."
"It is perhaps ironic that it was not Asthia's hatred that brought about her death... it was not true love that caused her to come between Arcantas and you, but it was her female instincts. She felt close to you in body, but not in soul; even her being a vampire could not prevent her from feeling attraction, but in the end, she was unable to realize that true love needs free will; compulsion is contrary to love, it must be arrived at by choice and one's own heart. By putting you in a clearly dangerous situation and yet still retaining her... attraction... Asthia set herself up for trouble. I wouldn't be surprised if she half-expected you to be in mortal danger... she must have thought that her magical powers would be enough to fix ANY problem... her mistake."
"Even though they could capture you, those archmages couldn't overcome their own evil, and in the end, it destroyed them." the voice finished.
The forum should now be back up and running. Please don't hesitate to let us admins know if you run into any issues.