Academy of Elements: Earth

Chapter 42: Gem of Hope

The light casts monsters across the walls, they dance and scream at us to run, to be afraid.

Our footsteps are muffled by the loose dirt, dust, and dissolved bones.
Haley shines her light around the hall. Jail cells are everywhere. Built into the stone small slits hide what I assume is too gruesome to be imagined. One wall is blasted apart, inside the crumbling skeleton of a young child.

Darkness lived within here, horrid and dreadful.

Get out! The walls scream at me as we continue to go.

Adornaz had been in prison here. On his own separate level. They kept him in a room of piercing light so that no darkness could reach.
He had gone insane in there. He had been my age when it had gone down. He had murdered his sister because she had stolen a toy. Then his mother and father, the owners of Herta Cavahr, had gone mad, torturing their own crazed son.

Darathiuz had recruited him and shared a small inkling of power with him.

It had made him immortal, and he had only done it with one other person, Verough Deksov, a werewolf who controlled an inkling of darkness as well.

Adornaz had escaped somehow, nobody knew how, and with his uncontrollable magic, his insanity and raw Warlock power flourished.

He had summoned the dead to do his bidding, turned people into zombies and brought evil spirits into the world. The world had created Halloween to keep him at bay. Three hundred of the worst prisoners had escaped from the first floor. And considering how horrible this place seemed, and that we were on the eight floors... I didn't want to imagine what the first floor was like.

Haley continues walking until we come to a large wooden wall. I shine my flashlight on it. Carved into it are trees and mountains.

"The power builds behind here." She murmurs.

Haley touches her hand to the wood panels and runs her hand along a groove. A click. And the door swings open.

The air changes in here. It is indeed filled with a faint tinge of power, though not as strong as what Haley describes.

A click sounds again and the door slides shut.

"The floors..." Haley whispers, shock lacing her voice.

They are marble. And the walls are made of smooth stone.

"This isn't Herta Cavahr," I say to myself mostly.

We walk through the long, clean corridor and step from a tight doorway into another hall. The floor is made of dark wood with marble detail embedded into it. Green carpets run along the wood, torches hanging on the walls. Vines hang from forgotten chandeliers, silence heavier than the air.

"What the hell." Murmurs Ella.
"This way." Haley calls. We walk through the halls as I try to sort through what this place could possibly be.
The walls here are made of wood panels carved with intricate details of flowers and scenes of beauty on the lower half, the top part of the wall made of stone.

We walk onto a balcony. Dull light comes from outside as I take in the large room.

We stand on a balcony overlooking a throne room. The green carpet continues down the curved staircase, the banister made of gold. A huge chandelier hangs from the ceiling and from it vines grow.

Trees grow through the floorboards and plants nest in walls.

And the energy in here...

Haley leads us down the stairs into the throne room. A throne sits against a wall looking over a small cove. The lip of the cave hangs a few meters away, the water lapping against rocks in the hidden bay. And the throne...

A throne made of stone is built from the floor and in it a statue of Earath, the son of Luenea who controlled Earth sits.
Atop his head sits a crown made of gold and emerald, and in the middle of shines the Affilatorian Gem.

It is an infinite gem of green and brown, twirling together in a storm of beauty. Ella starts to cry as she walks up to it, Haley shaking as the power builds in the room.

The horizon is of fire outside, burning with the hope of a better world.

Ella touches the gem.

I was so excited for you guys to read this! I hope you're enjoying the climax of Academy of Elements: Earth!

Question of the Chapter:

What was your favourite character moment?

(Jaxon and Nora moments, but Jaxon and Ella's moment in the cave during the survival contest)