Side Story - Candrial 5: Once Again

Candrial lifted the claymore further back, so high that her hands almost touched the points of her ears. She waited, her stance lowered and muscles tense, until her husband had vanished from her aura and his whispered voice entered her mind. Then, with single-minded purpose, she shot forward, breaking the ground as she pushed herself into motion.

A yell escaped her lips as she thrust her weapon forward, the gentle touch of Eziekiel's magic flowing into her and giving her added drive as well as removing the sounds she was making.

With a quiet crack her sword pierced the kneeling priest's skull, and the momentum continued to carry her weapon forward until it embedded itself into the altar behind him. All of the shifting forms lining the hall, knights and wizards alike, ceased to move. They were now truly frozen in time.

A push against her sword caused Candrial to look down at the skeletal priest she had skewered, narrowing her eyes as she saw its jaw flap open and close without making a sound. A breath later, she found herself next to Eziekiel at the entrance to the hall yet again.

"Looks like he doesn't need to talk to work his magic," her husband commented as he pulled a book from the inside of his robes. "But I am also growing ever more certain that this is not actually temporal magic." He turned the book slightly so Candrial could see and tapped on a few notes. "I wrote these while you impaled him, and they are still there. With the kind of magic that alters time, I could understand our memories surviving, but a physical record that I did not even store in a skill? That seems unlikely."

Candrial only gave a huff in reply as the sword of her Goddess reappeared in her hands and the divine fire pulsed through her with renewed vigour. She did not really care what magic the skeletal priest was actually using, as the way it appeared was enough to make her angry; irrationally so. The prospect of anything — besides perhaps her Goddess and the All-Mother — being able to mess with time simply did not sit right with her.

"I want it gone," she spat, gripping her sword tighter. "This dungeon is playing with magics nobody should touch."

"I agree," Eziekiel said. "The priest's spells might only be an approximation, but it feels like it is trying to figure out a way to actually make it work. A dangerous endeavour. One we should report as soon as we are done here."

Candrial gave a nod at the words before she took a careful step forwards. Immediate impalement had not worked, as the monster seemingly did not need to actually speak to reset the room. Perhaps decapitation was the correct solution.

She took another step towards the skeleton, making sure to tread as lightly as she could so she would not alarm the monster.The bone entity might not have ears, but that did not mean that it could not hear.

Eziekiel stayed behind again, whispering incantations in a language long lost to the people of Verenier. They did not need to exchange words to formulate their plan; the centuries they had been together had made that a moot point.

She would try to… entice the monster into a more proper fight, while Eziekiel would do what many kingdoms feared him for: the creation of an area free of all magic. All magic this priest can use. The only downside of the spell was that he had to observe his opponent's magic in action for a good while before he could begin to bind the relevant mana.

Another step brought Candrial halfway between the door and the altar, seemingly close enough for the boss of this floor to awaken. With one part of her current objective done, Candrial pushed more mana into her legs, focusing the blessing of her Goddess as she broke into a sprint.

Her strides lengthened, each step creating a web of cracks in the time-worn stone as the priest's muscles and skin began to grow back once again. Partially reformed arms spread wide, and the monster closed its eyes before it was enveloped in a beam of golden light, momentarily blinding Candrial.

While she could not see the world around her, the Elf could still sense the sword and shield appearing in the monster's hands. The light seared away the robe her opponent wore and a suit of equally-golden plate armour took its place on the freshly regrown body of the priest.

"For your sins you will face judgement," it proclaimed with a raspy voice as it planted the giant rectangular shield into the ground and leaned into it. The hand that held the sword drew back slightly, the blade's runes glowing brightly a moment before the weapon was engulfed in a golden light. "Eternal judgement."

Candrial did not reply to the monster, instead planting one foot into the ground and letting the momentum of her approach carry her into a spin that drove the edge of her sword directly into the priest's shield.

It did not go through like she had thought it would. Instead, the priest tilted his shield slightly, causing her weapon to glide up and away from her target.

The Elf took one hand off of the claymore, one of the swords Eziekiel had made for her appearing in it. She let her redirected self be carried through the spin, using the momentum to drive her newly-summoned weapon upwards, clearing the top of the priest's shield and aiming directly at one of its eyes.

Just as she had expected, the strike did not land as the monster flickered slightly, just long enough to let the blade pass through the air where it had been before solidifying behind it again. A moment later, it pushed the shield forward in an effort to remove the assailant.

Candrial, instead of being shoved backwards, chose to jump in the air, placing one foot onto the shield and using the monster's motion to launch herself into a backflip. Her one-handed sword she let disappear as she spun in the air, and she landed with a crouch with both hands back on her claymore. She eyed the boss of the tenth floor as she raised her blade.

"Your struggle is meaningless in the eyes of the eternal," the monster rasped, raising its sword and pointing it at Candrial. "Accept your fate and repent!"

"Ridiculous," Candrial mumbled to herself, her eyes shifting from the boss itself to the monsters that lined the sides of the hall. If her senses were not playing tricks on her, their movements had become less erratic. She unfurled a few fingers from her grip on the sword, pointing them towards the increasingly more lucid looking monsters on the side.

A whisper entered her mind in reply, the voice of her husband telling her to disregard the rabble. He would deal with any monsters that thought entering the fight was a good idea, and she needed to get the boss to use more magic.

Candrial gave a nod she knew her husband would see and let go of another strand of magic that kept the blessing of her Goddess in check. The movements of the priest and its time-trapped brethren slowed, and though she closed her eyes, every crease in the cloth the priest wore burned itself into her vision. She took a deep breath, the smell of old bones mixing with the unique tingle of her love’s magic. If Eziekiel wanted the monster to use more spells, Candrial would make sure he got a proper show.

She removed a hand from her sword, the increased effect of Ferio's blessing rendering its weight a trivial matter, and pushed the flames that surged through her with renewed vigour into the palm of her hand.

Just above her skin, a flame of orange and pale blue came to life, and Candrial opened her eyes again. A small smile spread across her lips as she watched the monster's eyes dart between her and the flame through the shimmer of heated air she had brought into being. Let's hope you have something else besides your fake time magic.

That, in essence, was the true issue with this monster. At any point, the priest could use its ability to reset everything in a snap, and they would have to get to this point again to learn anything new. As much as she very much wanted to use her sword against this aggravating situation, she needed to work with Eziekiel to unravel the solution, and that meant getting more samples of magic for her husband to analyse.

With a flick of her wrist, the dancing flame in her hand shifted into a ball and launched itself at the priest who, much to Candrial's delight, planted his shield into the ground and whispered what sounded like a prayer. In response to his words, a faint golden glow began to emanate from his shield and slowly spread over him.

The flame she had produced only took a moment longer to reach its target, engulfing the monster in a dome of orange and blue fire. Candrial did not need her eyes to know that the monster was still alive. Her attack had been strong, yes, but it had also been a rather tame expression of her Goddess' will. Should it be required, Candrial would step things up, even to the point of burning the entire floor to the ground.

///

Eziekiel hummed a happy tune to himself as he watched his wife throw another ball of fire at the priest through his closed eyes. This boss, in all its difficulty, was something he and Candrial had sorely needed. It had been all too long since he had actually needed to tap into his powers, as the way he was currently seeing the world was not usable for everyday life. Can do without seeing everything the neighbours are getting up to.

His mind tugged at another strand of magic that stretched out from the boss and connected it to its surroundings, and he added it to the weave he was creating. Reality's tapestry always turned a little weird when you descended into a dungeon, but this one definitely took the cake when it came to abnormalities.

At first glance, it had seemed to him that the dungeon itself had actually wound back time, as the threads of magic around him twisted and turned in ways that should not be possible. Dipping deeper into the powers of his God, mixed with the liberal application of the skill he had fashioned himself, had helped somewhat in deciphering what was really going on, but it also gave him a mild headache.

The information they had had going into the dungeon was that it was different from the others. Older, from a time before the All-Mother had vanished. Ediscio had confirmed via prayer that the rumors were true, also adding that the followers of Aperio had built this not at her behest, but as a form of dedication.

Eziekiel pulled at another thread as Candrial closed the distance between herself and the monster, pushing his wife a little further along as well as pulling the priest a tiny bit forward, smiling a little when the action caused it to lose some of its footing.

Another strand shot forward from the monster as Candrial ignited her sword and thrust it in front of her, uncaring of the priest's instinctual shift of its shield that deflected her weapon. He knew why, and as soon as her sword smashed into the only defence the priest had against it, the result made it obvious to anyone who might have been watching.

The orange and blue flames stuck fast to the shield, spreading quickly and causing the monster to drop it in order to protect itself. For a moment, neither Candrial nor the priest moved, simply eyeing one another. Eziekiel silently continued his work, pulling free another thread of the dungeon's magic and adding it to the tapestry he wove.

The monster mumbled, and a low rumble spread through the chamber. Eziekiel's attention shifted from his creation towards the skeletal knights and mages that lined the sides of the room. The loss of the shield was, seemingly, not enough to reset the whole fight, but caused sufficient duress to make the boss call for help.

That the countless threads of magic the act produced also were exactly what Eziekiel needed was, of course, unknown to the monsters and by extension the dungeon, but he still offered them a small thought of gratitude.

The new threads quickly found their place in his work, and with each strand he wove in a few minor undead enemies crumbled away. If the priest would have noticed the fall of his reinforcements, it might have tried to reset the fight, but Candrial struck again and again at the monster, keeping its attention focused on her while never pushing it too hard.

Eziekiel opened his eyes to the tapestry he had made of the dungeon's magic, and was blinded for a moment. He snapped his fingers, and his creation simply ceased to exist.

The remaining mages and knights lining the sides of the tempel simply crumbled to the ground, the piles the piles of bones they left behind only recognisable by the equipment that lay on them.

Candrial caught the change in her surroundings out of the corner of her eye and pressed forward, the fire engulfing her sword losing its orange and becoming wholly pale blue as she sidestepped an incoming swing from the priest and impaled it yet again.

"Your strength is not a righteous one. Again," the monster announced, as it always did after one of their attempts, slowly sliding off of Candrial's blade.

Unlike all the times before, the singular thread which always shone so brightly and heralded a reset did not appear. All the strands of magic that powered this particular dungeon level's fight hung, frayed and waving in an unseen wind, just beyond the physical realm.

Perhaps his solution to this puzzle was a little overkill, but unmaking some dungeon magic was always an entertaining and enlightening experience. Might get a headache though, he mused as he let go of his own magic. As always, he found himself blinking to help his vision return to normality, and he waited for things to settle before he started walking towards his wife.

Candrial stabbed her sword into the downed monster's head, glaring at it for a moment longer before the weapon and the orange glow that covered her vanished.

"I hate time shenanigans," she said, looking at her husband. "Why did the dungeon make this?"

"Perhaps to teach people that brute force is not always the answer," he replied as he looked at the monster they had just beaten. "Or maybe it just wants to annoy adventurers."

"There are plenty of ways to teach people that that don't involve bogus time magic," Candrial huffed, crossing her arms in front of her chest as her eyes briefly unfocused. "At least we can move on now."

"Indeed," Eziekiel agreed and dismissed the notification that he had cleared the tenth floor of the Ardynshaide dungeon. "Down we go."