The landing was softer than expected - Tasos had braced himself for a roll, but found himself sinking thigh-deep into a sand pit instead. Cursing low, he did his best to free himself from the sand trap for a couple minutes - until Eudokia wrapped a hand around his shoulder and pulled him out.
"Oof - thanks" Tasos said, taking the time to look around for the first time. A thin stream of sand fell from the stone ceiling above, but there was no visible sign of the passage or pit that had dragged him and Eudokia below. Around the corner of his field of vision Tasos could see parts of the wood they'd used for the now-smothered fire as well as some leftovers from the meal strewn about. The architecture of this... cavern-ruin was unlike that of anything Tasos had seen. Instead of the columned, often quadrilateral rooms, Tasos and Eudokia found themselves enclosed in an arched courtyard with geometrically-carved ceilings and symmetrical facets with heavy use of arches. The walls of the chamber supported the entire ceiling - with no need for columns. The whole building was constructed out of a combination of white sandstone, marble, and a foundation of directly carved rock - and looked practically intact.
This land had been clan territory for ages - how long had this cavern laid below? Tasos couldn't even begin to imagine- then a sharp snapping sound right in his ear drew him out of his thoughts.
"Come back to reality, Anastasios" A visibly frustrated Eudokia growled out. "Any idea of how to get out of here?"
"No clue - I certainly didn't expect
this" Tasos answered - making his companion huff in anger and stomp at the ground.
"Great.
Great!" She shouted, her voice bouncing off the walls, and fixed Tasos with a stone-cold glare. "If we miss the caravan, you're dead"
Tasos said nothing - he couldn't really, since Eudokia was right. It
was his decision that had led them to the cavern - and he didn't see any exit. Plucking at his bow, he fired at the ceiling just in case - and the arrow bounced right off.
"Doesn't look like we can get out the way we came in" He stated, securing his bow into the quiver-clamp. There was also no visible exit- but upon closer examination, one of the archway panels was slightly deeper than the others. Curious. "Look around - there's
bound to be another way out of here"
Eudokia's eyes narrowed - but she nonetheless did as told, heading to the opposite side of the room. Tasos approached the sunk-in panel and found a slight gap between it and the archway proper. The panel had a carved image of an eight-armed woman sat in the lotus position with no eyes on her face and three of the four pairs of palms clapped together. The final two hands were spread wide - in the palms of which were eyes with emerald pupils. A quick look around showed that
all the matching panels had similar images - with the exception of two, on opposite sides of the room. In fact Eudokia was standing in front of one.
"I'm guessing we have to fill these up?" She said, motioning to her own panel which was missing the eye on the right hand. "Don't have many emeralds on hand"
"I don't think it wants emeralds" Tasos answered back, moving towards the other incomplete carving. He prodded at the hole with an arrow - it didn't seem to have a pressing mechanism anywhere, and his cicada pendant didn't fit either. "Not sure
what it wants, though - is there writing somewhere?"
Eudokia motioned to a small lantern in the middle.
"Seems to be - but it doesn't look like standard Turtle World glyphs. Translation's not my thing" She explained. "All I got was 'mirror' - let me try again"
"Alright, I'll take a look in just a second" Tasos said, eyes still on the carving. He reached out to touch the hole on his carving's left hand, curious if he'd missed something while trying with his arrow - and all of a sudden his hand was dragged against the imprint. Liquid stone flowed over and around his hand - trapping it there and making Tasos gasp out. He pulled - but the hand was stuck.
Then, with a deafening crack, five of the carvings pulled themselves out of the walls. The emeralds on the statues' palms began glowing, and the heads turned, eyeless gaze fixed on Tasos.
"Fuck" He said
just as one of the statues screeched in rage and leapt at him - only to be deflected by a flying kick. Eudokia pushed back and spun in the air, landing on her feet - between Tasos and the statues.
"Well, we know what they do
now" Tasos's fellow legionnaire said. "Try not to get caught in a trap this easily- ugh!"
Eudokia's chiding was cut off by two of the statues lunging at her, arms outstretched and ready to grab - which the girl barely avoided with a pirouette. Her nails raked across one of the statues' faces, carving deep gouges into the stone and making it stumble back - only for the stone to rapidly reform.
All the while, Tasos was thinking a mile a minute. Three imprints remained - the one he suspected was the exit was one, and the other was the one with the missing right eye across the room. There was a chance this whole thing was a trap - but he saw a single solution.
"Doesn't seem like I can brute-force these down - what's the plan? I can use the Eagle Formation to protect and distract them, perhaps buy us some time" Eudokia pressed - and Tasos made a choice.
"No" He said as Eudokia dodged a sweep and tanked a hit to the ribs, sending her grunting back. The statues pressed closer - they had to act fast. "How good are you at Hoplite or Kataphraktoi?"
"Hoplite's good enough - I prefer Eagle, though. Kata's not my style" She answered. Tasos nodded.
"I'll give you an opening by punching through with Kata - I can summon that one-handed. Rush through, use Hoplite to block off strikes and try to put your hand on the statue across, mirroring the blind palm" He quickly explained, already biting his free thumb. Another of the statues jumped to strike - forcing Eudokia to shoulder-check it back as the rest closed the circle further. While this happened, Tasos raised his free hand to his bow - but didn't grab it, instead just plucking the materialized arrows with his hand and throwing them at the room corners - a small formation talisman on the end of each arrowshaft.
"What if it traps me too!?" She cried back. Tasos sighed.
"Then we're dead - but if this doesn't work we're dead anyways!" He answered, rubbing some of the blood in the palm of his hand. It began to glow bronze "Go!"
Tasos then struck his hand out, an incantation circle appearing just in front of it. The hand pushed through the circle, melting into bronze-coloured liquid energy out of which a bronze armour filled with ashen smoke charged out, riding a horse and holding a gleaming spear locked under its arm. The
Kataphraktoi charged into the middle statue, impaling through the upper shoulder and carrying the effigy past the lantern and into the back wall, not far from Eudokia's target. The girl wasted no time - she clapped her hands and a plume of smoke shaped into her own
Hoplite behind her as the two closest statues swung at her, one low and one high. The
Hoplite's dove low, intercepting the sweep, and Eudokia slid under the high strike as it took her Formation's head clean off, dissipating it. She jumped at her feet and dashed for the empty socket as the two nearest statues screeched and ran in pursuit, the two others using the now open space to instead leap at Tasos, ready to take his head-
But the instant Eudokia placed her hand against the other empty socket, the whole chamber
clicked and the statues froze - one of them with its hand close enough to Tasos's head for him to smell the stone. Slowly, the five statues turned and walked to the central lantern - each pressing a palm against the lantern's cover. The lantern ignited in green fire - and the final panel, the one which Tasos had inspected at the beginning, rumbled before sliding into the wall, then to the side.
Only then did the wall release Tasos's trapped hand - allowing the archer to relax and breathe deep, releasing his tension for just a second. Eudokia stepped across the room while he was catching his breath and shoved him over.
"Hey what was
that for!?" Tasos demanded, glaring - a stare which Eudokia matched.
"Be more careful - you're supposed to be the
Akrites here. You almost got us
killed" She spat out.
"I also got us
out!" He cried back - making Eudokia roll her eyes.
"Until we're out of this damned cavern, this is
your fault" She answered, moving towards the now-open archway. "Now let's go"
Tasos decided to let it go and follow - his companion wouldn't listen to his words anyways. At least she had shut up now- oh.
The archway had led to a
massive antechamber filled to the
brim with treasures of all kinds - gold, platinum and precious metals, weapons so powerful as to project their own sword intent far enough that Tasos felt as if his skin was being cut just from looking at them, magical talismans of all kinds - even a flying carpet zooming through the air. To his right, Eudokia had a similarly flabbergasted expression - the girl was glancing from pile to pile, seemingly unable to process what she was seeing. She reached out to grab a loose ribbon - and Tasos slapped the hand away.
"Don't" He said before Eudokia had a chance to say anything. "We need to be careful - this may also be a trap. Let's try and find an exit first, or something"
Eudokia bit her lower lip, shooting a conflicted glance towards the nearest pile, then nodded. The two moved further into the massive room, past the mountains of treasure - and eventually reached a central arena carved out of a ring of stalagmites. Compared to the rest of the chamber, the arena was
shockingly empty of any treasure - with exception of a single oil lamp, placed in a pedestal where the
Basileos's chamber would have been if this was a Golden Devils construction. Outside of that, it was eerily void of anything - even sound.
Eudokia's nails hardened and Tasos readied his bow - they had nowhere else to go, sure, but this was about as obvious a trap as there could be. The sound of stone gates closing behind them the instant they reached the lamp pedestal was almost conforting in a way - a confirmation of their situation.
Then a
giant two-tailed scorpion dug itself out of the ground, clad in golden armor, and Tasos gulped. He dropped back and fired a prodding arrow - which bounced right off of the beast's hide. The scorpion hissed and spat out a spray of acid at the pair - forcing Tasos to dive down to the main ground floor to avoid it.
"Any clue what that thing is?" Tasos asked Eudokia who was rushing at the beast, ready to strike - only to be slapped back by a wide tail swing. The girl spun in the air and pressed against the arena wall before dropping back to her feet - the scorpion turning fully towards her, with one of the tails still trained towards Tasos.
"Two-Tailed Gouger Scorpion!" Eudokia called out. "We had a lot of them where I grew up - problem is they're usually about the size of my
hand, and not armored! One hit from the stinger and the poison
will put you down"
The scorpion hissed again and struck at Eudokia with both pincers and one of its stingers - forcing the girl to slide low and purposefully tank the claw sweep to avoid the poisonous tail. The hit sent her flying sideways, towards the gate. Tasos moved to reinforce, but the other tail shot out towards him the second he moved - forcing him to instead dive low and
barely slide under the strike. He pulled at his bow and felt an incredibly heavy arrow materialize - which he fired at great strain, the staff-sized projectile slamming into the tail and flinging it across in a circle that gouged a deep crease into the arena wall. Tasos was now just below the pedestal with the scorpion fully trained on him, ready to strike - then an echoing shriek pierced through the cavern as a two-headed golden eagle shot into the sky. The scorpion turned, shocked at the sudden appearance - just in time to match Eudokia's diving strike and force the girl to kick off the side of one tail to avoid a hit. The tails continued on, fishing for a hit on the eagle which flew just out of reach.
Eudokia landed right besides Tasos.
"Alright, archer boy - any plans? Kata again?" She prodded. The eagle swooped for a strike, avoiding another tail strike - but its rending talons did nothing to the beast's hide. Still, Tasos noticed scratches near its pincer...
"Your claws have been the only attack of ours hurting it - Kata probably won't break through" He answered. "If I get you a clean hit to the head, can you take it?"
"I could, but I don't see how I'm getting the hit with those tails" Eudokia confirmed. "Unless you can do that?"
"I can damn well
try" Tasos answered, his right hand collecting a bamboo slip and a talisman from his waist. "Going on your cue - I've only got
one shot at this"
Eudokia whistled, prompting the eagle to dive down towards her position. She grabbed onto a talon and let herself be carried up into the air, twisting to avoid the scorpion's tail again as she got into position. Tasos set down the talisman on the ground in the meanwhile and stabbed the bamboo slip into it - the talisman making the slip sink into it. The inscriptions upon the slip began glowing, then spreading into a circle that became an arrow and finally an elaborate spade glyph - pointing towards the scorpion.
Tasos breathed deep as the inscriptions then flowed up his arms and legs, glowing ochre and making his skin darken. This particular talisman combination was one he'd found in the clan libraries, upon some never used and long-forgotten jade slip - a technique to empower the user's Blood of Bronze to multiple degrees of power above what they could normally achieve, in exchange for a period of rebound the day after the effect faded. It was a valuable tradeoff that would have been widely utilized if it wasn't for its key drawback - the effect would instantly fade the moment the user stepped out of the created glyph - It forced you to stand almost completely still.
For most combatants, this made the technique useless - but for an archer like Tasos whose weapon strengthened itself to match and maximize his own physical power, it was a perfect match - so long as he didn't miss, that is.
The Skycarver Basilisk extended and curved to match Tasos's new strength, two flagpole-sized arrows notching themselves into the bowstring. The Scorpion, lured by the whistle, had turned back towards Tasos and was rearing in to strike. Tasos aimed, turning his bow sideways to align each arrow with a tail, and steadied his breathing. The bow began drawing on his Qi, lines of ink-like glowing scripture carving their way up the arrows whose tips exploded in green flame.
At his current Realm, Tasos could only pull this trick when empowered. He moved his eyes away from the tails and locked them into the scorpion's beady upper eyes. Eudokia whistled sharply and dropped from the eagle's head, nails extending into foot-long talons, and spun like a drill towards the scorpion's head the instant it moved to strike.
'
My pride refines in stillness. My hope refines in motion. My soul refines through change" He muttered low, releasing the bowstring as the words rippled outward. The arrows flew, each catching a tail right in the stinger and smashing them against the far wall of the arena. There was an emerald glow as the Scorpion shrieked - then the light died down, showing the arrows hadn't just impaled into the far wall. Instead, the arrows and the stinger tails had
petrified, changing to match the sandstone that the arena was carved out of and almost melting into it.
Defenseless, the Scorpion raised its head and tried to raise its pincers to block - but Eudokia was faster and tore through the upper eyes, into the head cavity and out below in a spray of chitin and hemolymph. The beast gurgled and swayed in place - then fell to the ground, fulminated and dead. Then the corpse grew smaller and smaller - disappearing entirely as a golden cuirass and helmet dropped to the ground beside Eudokia. The girl didn't waste a second, and grabbed the armor.
"This is
mine" She roared - making Tasos grin. Eudokia turned to him and nudged to his side. "Take the lamp - we damn well earned it"
Tasos did so, swiping the lamp - and the very moment it left the pedestal, the entire arena crumbled down. He was about to whoop in triumph when the cavern itself began shaking - and stalactites dropped from the ceiling to crash against the piles of treasure.
"Does it never end?" He said, incredulous - just before Eudokia pushed him out of the way of a falling stalactites.
"Pay attention, archer boy!" She called out - and Tasos couldn't help but feel like Eudokia's tone was
slightly less condemning this time. That's what facing death with someone did, he guessed. "How do we get out of here now?"
On another hunch, Tasos grabbed at his cicada amulet - which began singing like the real thing during mating season. A flying carpet suddenly swooped down towards the pair - stopping in front of them. Tasos jumped up in an instant and offered a hand to Eudokia.
"I don't know, but I sure hope this is it!" He answered, and the girl grabbed onto his hand. He pulled her up, then grabbed tight into the carpet's side-tassels. "Hang on!"
Eudokia locked her arms around Tasos's chest just a second before the carpet
shot upwards at breathtaking speed, swerving through the falling rocks and straight at the ceiling. Tasos closed his eyes just as they were about to hit the rock - which opened up, letting them speed through the sands and back out into the desert three schoenus away from their original position. The carpet then turned upside-down, unceremoniously dumping the pair into the sands, and flew away into the sunset.
"This is the
last time" Tasos groaned, picking himself off the ground. He quickly made sure he had kept everything - his bow, the lamp, his other belongings - while Eudokia climbed to her knees and tossed the armor at the sand in front of her. "If this amulet tosses me into the sand one more time, I'm flinging it into a lake"
"I don't think you have much to worry" Eudokia said, looking over Tasos's shoulder. He turned just in time to see the gigantic antlion pit that had formed behind them explode into a sand geyser reaching fifty stories tall. "I don't think there's much of a cavern left"
"At least we got out" Was all Tasos could say. He lifted the lamp he'd retrieved and turned it to get a better look. "What did we get?"
"It's about time we test, no?" Eudokia said, donning her cuirass before Tasos could stop her. There was a split second where nothing happened - then the helmet flew over, covering her head, and the armor gleamed as if in direct sunlight before molding itself to her form. The cuirass resized itself and was joined by a pair of
mela spaulders and a long metallic
lorikion that nonetheless moved like leather. The helmet seemingly melted into Eudokia's hair, becoming a circlet and bands decorating her shoulder-high dreads.
Manikia wrist guards and
mouzakia greaves and sandals were next - then from behind, two golden scorpion tails longer than the girl was tall formed, coiled above her ready to strike. Eudokia gave a couple quick strikes with her hands and legs, then with the tails - which moved independent from anything else at her command.
"This is
weightless" She said, awed. "I like this
very much, yes. It'll take a while to get used to - but I think I can live with that. I think I'd like to doff it now, though"
The armour began melting into itself, until only an ornate scorpion-shaped gold necklace remained. Tasos whistled in appreciation.
"That was... something" He admitted. "You might've gotten the better part of this adventure"
"We still don't know what your lamp does, archer boy" Eudokia answered, leaning forward. "Go ahead, do something with it"
Tasos obliged - and spent a few minutes trying to get the lamp to do just so. The cap wouldn't come off, and it didn't seem to take his Qi no matter what he did - he eventually began trying random things, like flicking it with a finger or tapping the top, or trying to light the lamp. Finally he rubbed it to clean some sand off the side - and a stream of sand came out of the end, whipping up a dust devil that battered into Tasos and Eudokia and turned the spot right below it into glass. The dust devil then collapsed inwards, shaping into a humanoid form - bald, with eight hands and a bandage wrapped around its face. It turned its head towards Tasos and opened its hands - revealing a single green eye in the middle of each palm - then spoke.
"I am Sandcradle Al Xian - Spirit of the Sands. I have been trapped inside the lamp for a thousand years-" it said - its voice echoing through the air in different octaves. The pupils of all eight eyes fixed on Tasos "-And I ask the name of the one who freed me"
Tasos gulped, looked around, and eventually spoke out.
"Tasos Basilakes" He answered - and the being nodded.
"So be it - Tasos Basilakes, raise your hand" Tasos wordlessly did so - and the being wrapped a hand around his wrist. Tasos hissed as pain shot up his arm, the smell of charred flesh filling the air - then it stopped and the creature let go. At the back of Tasos's bowstring was now the image of an eye, inscribed in gold, with lines going down and around the wrist in the shape of a tattooed-on bracelet. "The mark of the Covenant has been given, as a return for my freedom. One time, when you call on me, I will answer. Is there any further boon you would ask of me?"
"Uh - that's plenty good" The archer said, a bit overwhelmed. "Maybe transport to the southern gate?"
"So be it" Al Xian said - and waved his hand, creating another flying carpet. "This shall take you there. Until we meet again, Young Tasos Basilakes"
Then the form of Al Xian was blown away by the wind, turning into sand. Tasos and Eudokia shared a look.
"I think I win" The archer said, making Eudokia make a rude face.
"Shut up, Anastasios - please"
I think Tasos and Eudokia would be around late 2nd Heavenstage at this point. I tried to fit in Formations and only realized that they needed some field setup like... 3k words into this, but I tried to work it out afterwards. Hopefully people enjoy my take on this! Detailed combat descriptions are kind of my thing, but I tried to dial back on the specific and let things go a bit more grandiose here to match a Xianxia feel - let me know how it went. Not sure if I want the Six-Circle Bronze Spade (the thingy tasos used to uber-boost his bronze) or his first Basilisk-centric technique to be his Fighting Across Realms thing or if I'd rather something else - any opinions?
Also, I'll add new seeds to index after dinner - I think there's a couple.
