Beware.
Beware.
Felix swallowed the fluttery feeling in his gut. Meter is kinda funky. Why does it feel more intimidating when it rhymes?
A secondary set of symbols lined the floor in front of the doors, inscribed in an arc and leading up the walls and around the frame. At the very top was a single character that looked like a precise 'V' cut with flowing lines and hash-marks.
A warding, and still active. If I'm wrong about this, I don't think I'll have time to be mad. The last time he'd walked too close to these doors, green lightning had almost fried him. He unsheathed his Crescian Blade.
Trust, Felix. This is the key, and yours the hand meant to hold it, Karys said.
Yeah. Well. Here's goes nothing.
Felix stepped forward, over the line of sigils. The ward pulsed, once, andnothing. No lightning. The ward had immediately gone dark. Step one, successful, he thought.
He moved to the door, tentatively reaching out to the dull metal surface. Again, no lightning, and his fingers touched the cool metal, felt at its raised sculptures. There was no handle, so Felix pushed against it. The eighteen-point star above lit up without warning and Felix made to jump back, but his hand was stuck fast.
"Shit!"
Wards Breached
Temple Defenses Failed
Analyzing...
Unbound Detected.
Nymean Detected.
Primordial Detected!
Countermeasures Deployed.
Shit! Felix flared Stone Shaping, trying to move the metal, but the door was impervious to his spell. The Mana slid off of it ineffectively. He pulled, straining his Strength against the hold it had on him. Karys!
I am trying!
Inheritor Status Recognized
Inheritor Status Supersedes All Bloodlines!
The star above him dimmed, and the voice inside his head shifted its tone entirely.
Welcome Inheritor.
Internal Containment Breach Detected
Do You Wish To Access Containment Unit #135?
Almost in unison, Karys and Felix both answered. Yes.
With a sound like the groaning dead, the doors opened, pulling away from Felix's now-free hand. Beyond the threshold, the tiles continued, but each one was a complicated design of geometric points. Eighteen-point star tiles, contained within a hexagon. Six steps in, all detail faded to darkness, one that not even his Manasight could penetrate.
Wards. Wards upon wards, Karys said in an astounded voice. I have never before seen so many layered in once place. What threat does this place hold?
So involved was Felix with that first step, that it was only Pit's panicked shriek alerted him to danger. Without questioning his Companion, Felix leaped aside, rolling to his feet in a smooth tumble. He came up holding his sword and lightning crackling in his left hand, but still, he wasn't ready for what he saw.
"You sensed me. I am impressed," said the Archon. He loomed in the broken Temple, filling up the space like a living wall of golden metal. "I suppose the reputation you've garnered is not entirely unearned."
Felix's eyes boggled. Where the hell did he come from?
I do not know! Karys sent, buzzing in his grip. I still cannot sense him now!
"Thank you for opening the Door, Nym." The Archon's helmeted face deformed, the bottom portion stretching wide in a grim facsimile of a smile. "I have been waiting for you."