Brian Pratt - Warrior priest of Dmon-Li

“There was a bronze plaque in the room up there,” he says, gesturing to the room. Grimacing from the pain, he gingerly puts his arm back down. “On it was a diagram showing the five pyramids and how they’re linked to the main one here.”

“And?” Jiron asks, urging him to continue.

“And, there may be another plaque, hopefully, that may tell us something else,” he explains to them.

“You’re in no shape to be searching for some plaque that may not even exist,” Miko says.

“No,” agrees Jiron, “but I am.” Getting up, he looks to James and asks, “Just what am I looking for?”

Shrugging, James says, “I don’t know, but you’ll probably know it when you find it.”

“Alright,” he says. Then to Miko, “Stay here and keep an eye on him until I get back.” When he sees him nod, he turns and hurries from the room.

James starts to get up and says, “Help me up, will you?” He reaches a hand to Miko who grabs his arm and helps him to his feet. Grimacing with pain as his side is stretched and pulled with the effort to stand, he finally gets to his feet. Then, as he stands there, he has Miko go over and retrieve his walking stick for him.

He takes the stick and begins to carefully move through the rubble choked room to the doorway leading outside the collapsed building. “Let’s move outside while we wait for his return,” he says.

Miko helps him along and once they’ve left the building, they find a block of fallen stone to sit on.

They’re not waiting long before Jiron returns in a hurry. The look on his face indicating he may have found something.

“You find it?” James asks.

“I think so,” he replies. “In a building over there,” he says as he points back the way he’d come. “I found a bronze plaque similar to the one you described.”

“What was on it?” James asks.

“I couldn’t really make it out,” he explains. “There were lots of lines and boxes, I’m not sure just what it was trying to show.”

Leaning heavily upon the staff, he gets up off the stone and says, “You better take me there.”

“Is it on the ground floor?” Miko asks, worried about James having to climb unstable stairs again.

Nodding, he says, “Yeah, it is.”

“Good!” Lending James a hand, Miko helps him as they follow Jiron over to where he’d found the plaque.

The building wherein it lies looks to have been but a single floored structure and still to be in fairly decent shape. Jiron leads them up three stairs to the entrance of the building where they enter through the doorway.

“It’s over here,” he says as he takes them through another doorway into an adjacent room.

When James enters the room, he immediately sees what Jiron was trying to describe. Having designed many dungeons for his role playing games, he instantly recognizes what he’s seeing. It’s a layered map of different levels.

“This is showing the layout of an underground complex,” he explains to them, as he steps up closer to the plaque. “Here,” James says, pointing to a set of squiggly lines, “this looks like it could be stairs leading down.”

“Does it show what’s in there?” Jiron asks, not able to see it for what it is.

Shaking his head, James says, “No, this is just a map of the layout, nothing more.” He turns his head to look at Jiron and says, “We’re going to need to get in there.”

“How?” he asks. “I found no entrance to a lower level during my search.”

“Hmmm…” James says as he turns back to study the plaque some more. He points to a section and says, “This here looks to be where the entrance lies.” He points to a pyramid shaped symbol and continues, “And I bet this is the main pyramid over there in the courtyard.”

He studies it some more as Jiron and Miko watch him. Suddenly he turns to Jiron and asks, “Did you find what looked like an empty pool or possibly a fountain while you were searching?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s over there a ways,” he explains as he points to where it lies.

“That is the entrance,” he states.

“You sure?” he asks, not really believing him. “How can you tell?”

“Practically one hundred percent,” James replies. “Here, look,” he says as he points to a circular formation near where he said the entrance is.

“I see,” Jiron says, still not convinced.

James turns from the plaque and says, “Show me where it is.”

With Miko helping James along, Jiron leads them out of the building and over to where the dried up pool is.

The outer edge of the pool stands two feet high and about six inches thick. The interior is bare, just the flat stone of the bottom showing.

James slowly walks around the pool as he examines it. “Here, look,” he says as he points out five triangles evenly spaced on the top of the outer edge. “I’d bet anything that these are the five small pyramids.”

Excited, Miko cries out, “And look in the center, that must be the main one.” They look to where he’s pointing, and sure enough, there lies a pyramid that’s proportionally larger to the ones on the outer wall of the pool, as the main pyramid is to the ones on the perimeter.

“But what do we do now?” Jiron asks.

“Not sure,” he replies. He begins to closely inspect the designs, pushing and pulling at them but nothing happens. Then suddenly, the plaque he’d seen in the upper room flashes to mind. What if it wasn’t showing the skull pyramids at all? What if it was in fact showing the designs on the edge of the pool?

What did it show exactly? he asks himself, as he pauses a moment to recall the details. A power grid, that’s what it reminded me of. Maybe it’s a lock only a mage can open.

He turns to the others and says, “I think I may know how to gain access to it, but you both better step back, just in case.”

“What are you going to do?” Jiron asks.

“Not sure,” he says, “just watch.”

After they’ve moved back, he turns again to face the pool and begins to concentrate. In his mind he pictures a sphere of magic hovering above each of the outer triangles. He opens his eyes when he hears Miko gasp behind him.

Five red, pulsating spheres are hovering above the five triangles. Nodding in satisfaction, he again closes his eyes in deep concentration. He needs to get this just right and when he’s ready, he completes the spell.

Opening his eyes, he sees a thread of energy shoot out of each of the spheres and connects simultaneously above the triangle in the center of the pool. When they connect, the combined beam seems to be drawn down to the larger triangle engraved in the bottom of the pool. The ground begins to shake slightly as the pool slowly begins to rotate.

Maintaining the spell, he watches as it continues to turn and is startled when a bottom section of the pool drops down into the ground. At regular intervals, more sections drop down into the ground as it continues to turn. After turning halfway around again, the pool stops. Where the bottom of the pool had been, now lies a spiral staircase descending down into the complex beneath the ground.

James releases the spell, halfway expecting the pool to begin closing again, but is relieved when it remains still.

He creates his glowing orb and steps over the edge of the pool. “Shall we, gentlemen?” he asks over his shoulder as he begins to descend the stairs. Miko and Jiron come over and follow him closely as he descends the stairs down into the darkness below.

Nervous, he continues down until he reaches the bottom where a corridor extends away from them. The air is stale, as if it has been bottled up here for a millennium. The light from the glowing orb reveals carvings upon the walls, people going about unknown tasks.