The Staircase Shaped Door

Chapter 16: Resarauth in Waiting

Chapter 16

Resarauth in Waiting

"We must continue west." Sauth said pointing behind the portal. "I pray they have not yet focused on the land.Too many of them are nearing our city and I feel our only option of closing the ancient portal is to attack from behind it."

The printels glided over the neon grass and some highly oxygenated flower fields. The trees shimmered and were near blinding as they went further west. The trees as beautiful as they were, became a glowing distraction and an accident waiting to happen. This caused them to veer southwest near the ancient city of Annatar. The once glorious city of rock now lay in ruins. Grass and shrubbery have taken it over. This rock was not the regenerative white rock of Resarauth. But an older sand rock, the ancient Moogalytes found by the river of Luvar. The river did not flow in the trench of a canyon or as high as the water in Zorauth. It tore through the soil leaving sand stone enriched with metals and gems in its aftermath. These boulders had a different power when enchanted. The enchanted rock would influence a spell cast by the Moogalytes to wield fifty plus times more powerful, depending on the caster. But the rocks weakened after the enchantment to the city, causing it to eventually crumble to ruins. At least that's what they were all told by the High Elders.

"Let's gather some of Annatar's stone. It will help us in our battle ahead." Sauth said.

"But master, it will make us mad with power. We all really know why the city lie in ruins!" Jubar said with intensity. "We just choose to believe what they tell...Did you see them?" He asked interrupting his own sentence.

"No, see what?"

"There were at least ten of them."

"What Daulpers?" Sauth asked.

"No, I am sure they were a version of us, they took cover in the forest there."

"What do you mean a version of us?"

"They looked like us, but their glow was red and orange." Jubar replied.

"The angle the sun is hitting the woods and how high we are...I'm sure you were just distracted by the glow, it is practically everywhere in the trees right now." Sauth insisted as they landed their printels far enough from the city to avoid a possible ambush situation.

"I suppose you are right." Jubar uneasily agreed. "I just get a negative energy flow out of those ruins. It literally makes me sick. My stomach is on edge. Isn't yours, don't you feel the same way?"

"No."Sauth replied.

"I am not stepping foot in that place. The walls will literally load our head with the past. I heard the High Elders of that time infused the walls with memories good and bad. They engraved mental images and recorded the city's history on the ruins before they left. Anyone who enters inside the old walls will be hit with the images and could possibly be locked in the memories like a prison―if not prepared."