Eyes Up, Guardian

Chapter 24

The room in which Oryx had chosen to die was so vast, Tessa hardly felt she could even call it a room. The cavernous space was in the shape of a large rectangle, behind them was more of the dreadnought, and on the other three sides, the space beyond. Within the rectangle itself, a center istle ran down the whole area, starting from where they had just dropped. Both sides were symmetrical, immediately to the left and right were a few sets of precious stones, and dark stone columns. The columns were at least a head taller than Edon, the tallest person in the fireteam, the other stones, set in tall wedges, were twice the height of the columns.

Off to the right and left sides of the walkway, a bit ahead of them, were two raised platforms, about the height of the black and blue stones from the center. Both platforms were circular, with four shorter rectangles set at right angles off each platform. Likely plates, for some sort of summoning. Perhaps to begin the battle with the daughters, as they had not moved from their own high platforms, shields protecting them both.

            The second set of platforms were the ones the daughters stood on, seeming to be about twice as tall as the first set, with similar rectangles on each side, though these had their long sides pressed against the circles, rather than their shorter sides, as the previous set had. These were right against the walkway, the two rectangles on the closest sides touching the walkway. She realized as she moved closer, the inner rectangles that touched the path stood taller than the ones that did not, and on the opposite side, a wall came out from the rear of the platforms, cutting the large space in two. Behind this wall, the room was identical, with another set of shorter platforms and an identical walkway.

            The group had broken up to explore, Ada was climbing to the tops of the platforms, Edon was surveying the corners of the room, frequently ducking out of sight to examine something. Damian had taken to studying one of the plates on the platforms while Estella stared up at the daughters, watching them silently. Balendin was standing in the back, simply watching everything around the fireteam.

            "The plates will likely start the battle," Damian was saying, "But I don't think they're linked to the shields around the daughters."

            "Why not?" Estella asked him, not agreeing or disagreeing, simply questioning.

            "I don't know." Damian confessed, "I just think that would be too easy. Oryx's daughters are likely the greatest sorcerers of all time, I feel like they would make it a bit more complicated." He moved from his plate to glide towards the shield, throwing a small arc bolt at it and watching it simply be reflected back.

            "Maybe a similar energy source would do it?" He suggested.

            "An energy source like that one?" Tessa asked, pointing up to a bright glowing orb floating high above them off to their left. Echo had placed a marker for it on her screen after a quick scan of the room.

            "Like that one." Damian agreed with a nod, "The only question is how do we get to it?" He summoned Kylie with a hand, but her scans revealed no hidden platforms that could lead up to it. 

            "Well, I suppose there's only one way to find out." Estella said, glancing around at the team, who had slowly made their way back to the center of the room.

            "We need to remember we're going into this blind." Balendin reminded. "Call out anything you see, regardless of if you think someone else already saw it. And keep an eye out for a way up to that energy source. I suggest we take out any enemies they might summon for us to fight before we take down any shields, and if we can, take them down one by one so we can focus on the daughters individually."