Raven Roth and Damian Wayne: The Walk of Life (Book 1 Of 2)

Chapter Twenty Three

A/N: oooh look, another update, i'm doing better already...because you all had to wait so long, and i said it be a GoT finale length, which it wasn't, so I'm working really hard to make it up to you all.... *Smiley face*

"Rather dusty here don't ya think?" Said John as he stepped out of the house of mystery. Zatana just rolled her eyes with a bit of a grin. "Come on we have to find the spear quickly remember." She said giving him a short peck on the cheek as she past him. "Well, best pack that in then or I'll be requesting some R&R if you catch my meaning" He said following on behind her. "John! For crying out loud." She laughed as they took a couple more steps. They stopped and looked around them, taking in the sight of all the destruction. "I knew it'd be bad but this, this is a right bloody mess." John stated knowing full well he didn't need to. Zatana sighed at the sight "So much death here." She said. "You don't have to stay." John told her. "No, I do. They need our help. That looks like the entrance." She said as she pointed to a large opening cut into the mountain. It had a pair of pillars carved out either side of it, with symbols and markings etched into them. "Yea. That looks like the place to me love." John agreed as he made his way in that direction. The pair walked in and found a large open room filled with column supports and large black iron chandeliers covered in old candle wax, there were old wooden benches scattering much of the floor mostly broken from age. "This place is huge, the house could've fit in here." John stated as they continued to walk through the old hall. "Looks like there's an alter of sorts at the end. Good place to start looking I say." He said pointing to a large stone table a short way off from were they were. It appeared to be purposefully cut into the room, still part of the floor as opposed to being placed there. Draped over it was a now worn and tatty cloth, once white but now greyed from dust and dirt. Along it forming a border, golden and red fabrics had been sewn in, making it look as though it was once a luxurious item. As the pair approached the alter they slowed their pace, a sense of unease falling upon them. "I feel like we are being watched." Zatana admitted and John carefully nodded in agreement. When they reached the alter John quietly inspected it. There were no markings on the alter itself, no marks on the floor to suggest it hid a passageway down like he had hoped. "Would be too easy that, wouldn't it?" He muttered to himself. A huge gust of wind seemed to circle around in the hall before being forcefully drawn out through the entry way. It was uncomfortably still for just a moment. "What do you seek here?" Thundered a female voice, calm and almost nurturing, but stern and forceful. Zatana and John looked at one another. "We seek a weapon to aid our friend in defeating a great evil." Zatana declared to the empty hall. "Weapons do not aid, they destroy." The voice retorted. "Word games." John thought to himself. "We are in search of help. A friend is losing the will to keep her father from destroying her home, for a second time." John called out as he stood up. "She is standing against Trigon, and although she has allies, she cannot contain him anymore. She is a child, he is a conquer of worlds. She can't do this alone." He finished and was met with silence. The hall began to shake and rubble fell from the columns as the stone alter started to become transparent and disappear. "I know of whom you speak. Trigon is a powerful foe to all of life. You have spoken truthfully and with virtue, proceed. Claim that which you seek and return to Gotham. Raven has a portion of my abilities and soon, much more." The voice concluded as the cloth over the alter fell to the ground with no alter there to hold it aloft any longer. John frown a slightly, he knew Raven had a sizeable amount of power already but wasn't sure how to feel about her potentially having more. It did confirm one thing he had running around in his head though, Azarath was interacting directly with Raven on some level. "Lets move." He said jumping down into the newly revealed stairwell.

The stairs ran deep, ten minutes of walking and they were still going. "Who built this, a fitness instructor? Just end already." John said exaggerating how out of breath he was. "Told you to quick smoking." Zatana joked peering over Johns shoulder with a raised eyebrow watching him place a new cigarette in his mouth. "Oh don't you start. Anyway, does it feel like its getting colder down here?" He remarked back as he ignited his lighter. "Yes it does. I've been able to see my breathing on the air for a little while now." Zatana acknowledged. Shortly after they had finally reached the bottom of the stairs and were met with a fairly long corridor that had a large pair of iron trimmed wooden doors at the end. The corridor was lined with tiled walls, each tile carved from stone and embroidered with symbols. The thing that caught Johns eye was the fact that the tiles weren't placed together, there was a slight gap between a tile and its neighbour. "We need to tread carefully here, something is off." He said as the pair examined the corridor from the foot of the stairs. "spart eseht laever" Called Zatana as she raised her hands towards the corridor, her magic glowing from them. After a few moments nothing had happened. "No traps here. Odd." She said as she turned to look at John who had taken to wearing a deep frown. "Yea. That just aint right love. Something more is going on here. Are the stones on the floor designed to look like traps to make people hesitate, sort of a question of faith thing? Are the traps guard from magic by other magic?" He questioned as he dug around in the pockets of his trench coat. "I, had a bloody, thing for this, somewhere." He said going through each pocket until he found what he was looking for. "Ah, here we go." He stated dangling a doughnut sized pendent on a chain from his hand. "Win this in a game of cards. Lost the game actually but I wanted it, so I placed a replica on the table as I threw down my cards in a 'fit' and nabbed the real one." He told Zatana, who eyed her eyes shaking her head with a grin. He held the pendent at arms length and let it gentle swing in a circle like a pendulum, slowly increasing in speed. Soon the pendent started glowing orange and as it's speed increased it began to look like a solid disc of orange light. John let go of the chain but it didn't fall to the ground, it continued to spin in place John knelt down beside it. Taking in a large amount of air he blew across the disc like blowing dust off a counter and the disc slowly travelled down the corridor. It had got no more than a quarter of the way past the second tile before it appeared to strike a wall that flashed with what looked like a deep blue lightening. Within a split second from all the gaps in the tiles blackness, with a purple tinge, shot out like tentacles whipping themselves forward into spikes, skewering the point where the disc had been. "I'll come too she said, could be wards she said. You'll need help she ... said" John jested, his sentence trailing at the end after seeing the 'Keep it up and you'll lose your teeth' look Zatana was giving him. "I'm kidding Zee, least we know it is wards." He defended. "That's not my concern John. Do you not think that those attacks look familiar?" She asked, still looking very serious. John Straightened himself as he looked toward the spikes. "Yea, appears to be the same magic our young Raven uses, but, it's a more aggressively offence form. Also, it doesn't appear to have a wielder. Or if it does, we have yet to face them." He theorized. This didn't sit well with Zatana, she didn't like the idea of having an unknown opponent operating down here, especially if the didn't know how much more advanced their power could be from Ravens. "Any ideas?" She asked John who seemed to be thinking things over. "We could use your magic to try cancelling out the magic of Azarath in this place?" John put out there, he didn't think it was a good idea, but it was an idea. "Her magic runs deep here John, I can feel it in the walls, which means that that in itself could be a safe guard. If we cancel her magic out, we could end up bringing this whole place down on us. On top of that, what if this is a hub of sorts and Ravens magic is channelled to her from here, we'd be leaving her defenceless against her father." Zatana suggested. John sighed in agreement "I thought that too, I was just hoping that something would be easy, just once. Ok. Look at the tiles, they look to be in blocks, four tiles make up one two by two block. We have what I count to be sixty tiles, so, thirty blocks along this corridor. Judging from my trinkets little trip, each block is going to have one of those wards so thirty wards to get through. Ugh, this is gunna suck." He decided after his analysis. Zatana let out a long breath. "I've always been better at defence. I'll block the magic that attacks us, and you break down those wards." She said stepping closer to John. He looked at her with a slant over his shoulder and then back down the corridor. He dropped his cigarette to the floor and stamped it out as he pushed up the sleeves on his trench coat. "Sounds like a good plan to me." He agreed taking the first step forward and pulling out another one of his magical trinkets from his coat pockets. 

They approached the ward and John got to work with Zatana stepping up in defence as more of the black tentacle spikes came baring down upon them. It took a few seconds, twenty or thirty at the most for John to dissipate the ward as the barrage of magic continued to rain against Zatanas barricades. They forged ahead, taking each ward down one after another but as they went the wards became stronger and stronger, requiring more and more time to dispel. It took a total of forty minutes to get through them all and the pair were becoming worn down, Zatana more than John. "We're here." John announced as he got the last ward down and stepped towards the large doors. "Good. I'm not sure how much longer I could have kept that up." Zatana admitted. The duo took a few final strides towards the door and studied it carefully. "It just opens. It just opens It just opens." John hoped aloud as he reached out, taking up one of the ring like handles and began to pull. Nothing happened and as he pulled, nothing activated. And yet, the door didn't budge. "Of course it wouldn't bloody open. Is there a switch? A seal? Retina scanner?" He cursed. Zatana giggled to herself. "John? No hinges this side. It's a push door." She stated pointing to where the edge of the door met the wall. John just hung his head and sighed "Right..." He let out weakly. He placed both his hands upon the wood and heaved forward. As the door began to creak open a huge blast of black shot up from the stone threshold enveloping the door and spiralled within the doorframe. It then rocketed forward sending the pair flying backward nearly a third of the way back down the corridor. Acting on pure instinct Zatana threw up a protective barrier as the tentacle spikes resumed their assault. John jumped to his feet. "We run for it, on three. One. Two. THREE." He said as he grabbed Zatana by the hand and the pair made a mad dash for the door. He had assumed that the wards wouldn't have gone back up and luckily, he had been right. As soon the pair reached the door, all became quiet behind them again. "Right, back at it then." He said catching his breathe once more. He placed his hands back on the partly opened door and began pushing once again, this time now magical attack came, and he pushed the door wide open. Inside was a dark room, not as large as the hall above but still rather big. In the centre was a single source of light, but it did not come from candles, or a hole high up letting in the rays of the sun. The light was emanating from an object standing unaided atop a small podium. "I feel a trap. There's going to be a trap here, right?" He asked, not directly at Zatana but to anyone who would actually have an answer. Just as had happened in the hall, a large wind came flooding in and swirled around them before emptying out down the corridor. "You have proven the determination of your purpose and loyality to your cause." Stated a familiarly bodiless voice, causing John to quietly snarl with annoyance and disapproval but he did understand the necessity of the trials. "You may step forth and collect your reward. Know that to leave this place you must simply step through the door." With that the other half of the door slammed open to reveal the courtyard out side the pray hall on the other side of the doorway, and the presence of Azarath herself was gone. The pair stepped up to the spear in silence. John took in a deep breath and put a hand around the spear.

He lifted it up and it freely gave itself to him from the stone beneth. "Alright, lets get back to the big guy and see what our next move is." He said and Zatana nodded and joined his side as they walked towards the door and their exit.