Guardian(Part IV): Revelation

Chapter 33: Morgan

The darkness surrounding the Necronomicon suddenly grew stronger, and everything suddenly went black. I formed my aura blade and looked around. I was in a dark passage, lit with red lights on the ceiling. I looked at the walls of the passage more closely, and they looked like pieces of paper, with entire paragraphs written on them. This entire passage was made from pages of a book. This wasn't a library, though. The aura of darkness surrounding this place was stronger, and more powerful than anything I had ever felt before. Was I in the Necronomicon? If I was, then it would explain what happened to my mother. Exposure to the Abyss itself, but with more of an effect on her mind than her body. It was difficult for me to hear that my own mother took her own life, but now that I was here, I understood that it wasn't necessarily her fault. I didn't know how I would get back to Zenartha, though. However my mother did, it must have been the wrong way. All I could do was try and find my own way out. I went forward through the tunnel, eventually arriving at a fork, with a decision to make between one path or the other. The path to the right had swinging pendulums hanging from the ceiling with black axes on their ends, while the left had spikes on the walls, floor, and ceiling that extended from their holes and went back in them repeatedly.

"Decisions, decisions," I whispered. It didn't seem to matter which path I went down. I would die either way if I took a wrong step. The only decision I did have control over is whether I would die from being chopped to pieces or impaled on about a dozen spikes. I would probably be able to dodge the swinging blades better than the spikes, so that was where I went. I warped past the first blade, then the second, and the third, coming out the other side of the trap. All that was in front of me was more paper tunnel. I was sure that someone who would have been affected by the darkness of the Necronomicon had to have either been killed inside of it by one of these traps, or by something else. Something worse. I would find out eventually. I went further through the tunnels, but came to a fork with three paths to choose from instead of two. Was there a maze inside every Necronomicon or something? Was the knowledge inside of them meant for anyone who could make their way through it? It was starting to annoy me, especially when I lost my way through possibly every twist and turn in this damn place! I ran into too many familiar sights, because I had absolutely no idea where I was. I kept myself calm, though. Losing my way in this place was bad enough, but losing myself? That was a recipe for disaster. It angered me to think about it, but I would end up like my mother if that happened.

"Is your thirst for knowledge that desperate, mortal?" a voice suddenly said, echoing through the walls of the tunnel. It sounded like a man and a woman speaking at the same time, echoing through my mind.

"And you are?" I wondered.

"The Keeper of this place," the voice enlightened. "The protector of the Dark One's forbidden knowledge."

"How do I get out of here?" I demanded.

"To leave with the knowledge you have gathered is a privilege," the Keeper denied. "You have survived this long, but you will never best me."

"Oh, we'll just see about that," I chuckled.

"As if your arrogance will not be your undoing," the Keeper taunted. "I accept your challenge, then."

The path in front of me slowly turned into a straight tunnel, right to what I could only tell was a sanctum of some kind, with an altar that had a dark, shapeless cloud of black smoke hovering above it. It must have been the Keeper. I was suddenly lifted off the ground, and was pulled towards it, until I was right in front of it. I kicked my feet and threw my fists out in front of myself, hoping to free myself, but I couldn't.

"I sense from you...," the Keeper observed. "Grief. Loss. Anger. Your heart is heavy with conflict."

I was in no mood for some sort of psychiatric reading. I unleashed an aura blast in every direction, and I fell to the ground.

"Very well," the Keeper hissed. The cloud of smoke broke into four pieces, which flew to the four corners of the room. When they touched the ground, they rose as monsters. They had long, lanky arms with claws on the ends of their fingers, and sharp, curved teeth in their mouths. They weren't any demons I'd seen before, but I wouldn't underestimate them because of it. All four of them charged at me as fast as they could. I parried an attack from the first one with my aura blade, and as the second one charged forth, I threw it backward with an aura blast. The third one lashed its claws at me, and I blocked its attack before warping away from all of them. All of them charged towards me to attack as I prepared myself. The first one swung its arm from above, and I swung my seax from below to cut across its chest before throwing the remaining three back across the room with an aura blast. I warped above the second one before it could stand and took its head off, and warped back again before the other two had the chance to attack me. The third demon rushed at me, and I clashed my sword with its claws a few times before I took its head off, and the fourth monster leaped into the air to pounce on me. I raised my sword and thrust it upward to impale the demon on the blade. All four of them were dead. I sighed with relief, and I began to feel the aura of darkness surrounding me beginning to fade. Eventually, it was gone completely, and I was back in the aqueduct, with Maddy, Connor, and Ruth. I couldn't have been happier to see them. Maddy and Connor were the closest to me, so I threw my arms around them, before I heard something from behind me. It was a crumbling sound from the podium the Necronomicon was sitting on. Suddenly, though, I saw something. A map of Zenartha, with several red dots scattered over it. Once the map was gone, the Necronomicon turned completely to dust, and its aura of darkness was gone.

"What happened in there?" asked Connor.

"Well," I informed. "I was pulled into a maze that was built with... I guess pages from books. It was filled with just about every trap I could think of, and at the end was a demon called the 'Keeper', which split itself into four different bodies, and once I killed those, I ended up back here."

"You are calm enough for me to assume that you haven't taken a serious psychological toll," Maddy diagnosed.

"Maybe because I wasn't killed by the traps or the Keeper," I guessed. "Maddy, do you have a map of the world that I can touch?"

"Yes," Maddy answered, and she projected a holographic map of Zenartha on the ground in front of her. I knelt down, and touched every spot on the map where a red dot was labeled in the map I saw. A dot appeared on Maddy's map with my touch. I had no doubt of what they were. They were more Necronomicons. Another one was in Chardan, in what must have been Logres. If Grimeus knew that, too, though, then he would be after it, and we wouldn't be able to fight him alone. I thought back to what Maddy had been suggesting, about bringing the members of Fireteam Pegasus back together, but when she suggested it, there was no reason to. Now, there was, and it was more than just because I missed them, and wanted to see them again. We were going up against an Archdemon.

"Maddy," I said. "Can you send a message to my friends?"

"Meaning the members of Fireteam Pegasus?" asked Maddy.

"Yes," I answered. "We need them, now more than ever."

"You're going after the other Necronomicons," Ruth guessed.

"Oh, no," I corrected. "They're all over the world. What we should do is inform the other Guardian Commanders of their locations so they can send their own Guardians to the ones in their regions. There's one more in Chardan, and it's in Logres. Grimeus will be after it, too."

"Then you'll have me along with you," Connor declared.

"And me," Ruth added.

"We're in this together," Maddy promised, with a hand on my shoulder. "Always."