Hero Tales: Expedition Below the Archives

[Andreas the Wise]

Once upon a time, in the years before the Chronoclasm, Arnole, Lord of Magic of the Kingdom of Toketi, had a problem. Beneath his magical academy at Storyash there existed a secret archive, containing books, tomes and scrolls accumulated from all over the land. This added up to a great many secrets that would be quite dangerous in the wrong hands … and them falling into the wrong hands was exactly the problem Arnole was fearing. The magical alarms had been triggered, warning of a powerful magical presence that had broken into the Archives, but all attempts to magically scry met with a complete blank, as if something was blocking their vision. There was nothing for it but to investigate in person. So Arnole summoned some of the mightiest heroes and mages of the land: Bayen Praygulin, his protégé and second in command; Longbow, Duke of Cride and the human most loved by the region’s dragons; King Lyam ronToketi, ruler of Toketi; Tsunade, mistress ninja; and Andreas the Wise, Lord of Magic in the neighbouring land of Novatainia. Together, they embarked on the expedition ... below the Archives!

As they entered the Archives, Lyam and Andreas were full of questions, neither having known of the existence of the Archives until today.
“How did you accumulate so many magical works?” Andreas asked curiously. “I thought few had survived the purge in either of our kingdoms.”
“We’ve been accumulating them for as long as I’ve been Lord of Magic,” Arnole replied. “Many have been donated to the academy, others written by our mages, and a few required more … unorthodox means.”
“Stolen?” Lyam asked, as he looked at the titles. “Some of these definitely belong in the Royal Library. I shall have to get copies from you afterwards, if not the originals.”
“Stolen? I prefer the term ‘comandeer’,” Longbow whispered to Bayen. “After all, that one there was ridiculously hard to get.”
“Normally we would never let people outside the academy into these Archives,” Arnole continued, ignoring Longbow, “but these circumstances are unusual enough to merit requesting aid. I did a quick search down here while you were all arriving, and found this.”
He gestured to a tunnel in the wall at the very end of the Archives. “That passageway should not be there. Something has broken into the Archives, and everything beyond this point is impossible to scry. There’s nothing for it but to investigate in person.” He led them on, into the tunnels below the Archives.

The tunnel twisted and turned for a while, and soon enough divided into three. “We’ll have to split up,” Arnole announced. “We’ll send one more powerful mage and one more physical fighter down each passage. Bayen and Longbow, you take the left one; Lyam and Andreas, the right; and Tsunade – we’ll take the centre.” Something about the way he said that suggested he expected the centre tunnel to be where the action was.
“Whatever is blocking our scrying is also blocking mental communication,” Bayen said, “and we’re too deep down for technological means of communication, so once we split up, we’ll have to find each other to get in contact.”
“So if you need help, scream. Got it,” Tsunade joked, and with a laugh, they set off.

The tunnel Lyam and Andreas went down twisted and turned so much they wondered they didn’t run into the other tunnels. As they went, they talked politics, for Andreas was also Novatainia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs. “You know trade is not my area, you’re best to take it up with my chancellor, Minister,” Lyam commented, after Andreas had proposed several new trade opportunities.
“Please, call me Andreas, or Lord of Magic if you prefer a title, your majesty,” Andreas interjected.
“I do prefer a title, but I also prefer a shorter sentence, Minister,” King Lyam began replying, when suddenly he stopped abruptly. “Do you hear something up ahead?” he said, his voice now reduced to a whisper. Andreas nodded, and the two of them went forward more cautiously, turning a corner to find a larger chamber where several tunnels met, and in the middle half a dozen short, stubby humanoid creatures sat at a makeshift table. They were playing some sort of game, and hadn’t noticed the humans approach until Lyam had a sword at one’s throat, and Andreas a fireball in hand. Though they had rock daggers, the creatures seemed too terrified to use them.
“What are these creatures, minister?” Lyam enquired. Novatainia’s academy, MANA, was well known to have the best bestiaries around – mainly from practical research.
“I haven’t seen them before, but they could be underlings – a deep dwelling subterranean species mentioned in a handful of texts from the Second Age. They also don’t seem to understand us, which will make questioning hard,” Andreas added, looking at the confused expressions on the creatures’ faces as he and Lyam talked.
Lyam tried Tokish, and then Old Tokish, and one of the creatures replied in halting sentences. At that moment, everyone heard a boom.

Bayen and Longbow had gone a little way down the tunnel Arnole had indicated, when Longbow stopped. “He’s picked the most exciting tunnel for himself, hasn’t he?” Longbow asked. “Somehow he always knows this …”
“If he has, he also knows what he’s doing …” Bayen replied, but Longbow was already moving quickly back up the passage. “I’ll just follow a little way, until I hear the screams,” Longbow yelled back. But soon enough he returned from the other direction. “What are you doing in this tunnel?” he asked, confused.
“I haven’t moved,” Bayen replied with a shrug. “Your tunnel must have gone through to here.”
“But I never encountered Arnole and Tsunade, nor any branches in the tunnel, so unless they’ve gone invisible, or hidden a tunnel entrance …”
“Or the tunnels themselves are changing,” Bayen replied, pondering this news. “As you went back up, did it seem the same?”
“Not quite as many turns, now you mention it,” Longbow answered.
“So someone or something is changing these tunnels around us,” Bayen concluded. “And keeping us split up from Arnole and Tsunade … at least for now.”
“In that case, let’s not play their game,” Longbow replied. He started walking along the tunnel, tapping on the wall until the sound changed. “Stand back,” he said, and then before Bayen could stop him, he’d whipped out a small set of explosives and detonated them, blowing a hole in the wall of the tunnel. On the other side were Lyam, Andreas and half a dozen very startled looking creatures. One was so terrified it had wet itself.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Longbow said with a smile.

Meanwhile, Arnole and Tsunade’s tunnel had delved down, deep. Unlike the others, they walked in silence, Arnole trying to sense ahead through the scry block, and Tsunade wary of alerting possible foes. Both stopped as they approached a corner. “There’s something magical up ahead, but I can’t tell what,” Arnole whispered. “Not in the coming room, but the next one.”
“There’s also about a dozen little creatures guarding that room then,” Tsunade replied, poking her head around the corner.
“I want to avoid magic if I can, to not alert our real foe,” Arnole began, and Tsunade nodded, heading in to deal with them herself. There were a few screams, and twenty seconds later she walked back with a smile. “All done,” she said, no longer whispering.
“That fast?” Arnole replied, impressed.
“Please, I’m a ninja,” Tsunade replied. “These guys are half my size. They never stood a chance.” As they turned the corner, Arnole could see they were all either knocked out or eliminated … and the door they had been guarding was open.
“I also took a quick look inside,” Tsunade added. “Couldn’t help myself.”
“But that’s the room I sensed powerful magic in!” Arnole protested.
“If you did, it’s invisible, because that room is a dead end,” Tsunade replied. “See for yourself. Just mind the trip wire by the door, I didn’t have enough time to disarm it yet.”

Arnole went on, careful to step over the trip wire, and found a large cave, ending suddenly in a smooth wall. He closed his eyes, and looked with the magical Sight. “There are footsteps leading right through past the wall,” he told her. “Something very powerful magically has trod here, and left traces. But to go through the wall … it must have been walking here, while shifting into another plane, where the wall doesn’t exist.”
“Another plane?” Tsunade asked. “Is that like another dimension?”
“Yes and no,” Arnole answered. “Think another dimension overlayed across our own space. Some things will be the same – earth and atmosphere are often stable across planes – but other things different. In this plane, there’s us, and this wall – in another plane …”
“There’s no wall, and it,” Tsunade finished. “So how do we sneak in?”
“Working on it,” Arnole said, kneeling down by the wall and closing his eyes. “Normally, shifting between planes is easy, if you know what plane you’re looking for; but whatever is blocking our scrying is also making it hard to find the right plane …”

After Bayen and Longbow explained why they had been blowing their way through walls, the four heroes returned to questioning the underlings. It was slow going, as Lyam was the only one who spoke Old Tokish, but also the least experienced magically, and the underlings’ story was hard to make sense of even knowing the magic they referred to, but the tale they pieced together was this. The underlings had been mining far below here (“I knew they were deep dwelling,” Andreas commented) but had come across an old shaft, at the bottom of which was a scroll that contained instructions for summoning an infernal (at least, that was what the heroes assumed was meant – the underlings simply called it a ‘fiery brother’). Not quite understanding what this would mean, the underlings tried it out, and got far more than they had bargained for – a full Infernal Lord (‘very powerful fiery brother’), who threatened them and immediately forced them into service. First he destroyed the scroll, so the underlings had no idea how to banish him, then he made them dig upwards until they broke into the Archives. Realising that mages controlled this space, he had the underlings guard different locations as he used his magic to shift the tunnel network around and set a trap for the people from the Archives. The underlings’ orders had been to stop anyone who came past, but it was clear to the heroes that they were nothing more than colour in the infernal’s plan – they were so cowardly they would be useless as guards against any powerful mage like themselves.

“If we’re right in assuming they have summoned an Infernal Lord, this is very bad news indeed,” Andreas said, as the heroes stepped away from the underlings to confer. “They haven’t been seen in these lands for a very long time, but what we can tell from history is that they can only enter our world if they are summoned, or … but that way should be blocked.”
“This one was clearly summoned, anyway, Minister,” Lyam said, not caring for a history lesson. “So do we kill it or banish it?”
“Without encountering it we can’t be sure we have the strength to kill it,” Bayen cautioned, “but anything that can shift these tunnels around is very powerful magically.”
“Yeah – we can’t just blow up the tunnel to drop on its head, it’ll just free itself,” Longbow suggested.
“I don’t know the way to banish an infernal, but if the underlings could find a scroll in Old Tokish, there’s a reasonable chance a similar tome exists in the Archives, hopefully in a more modern translation,” Andreas said. “I’ll go back and look for one – unless anyone is confident Arnole will know how?”
“Arnole!” Bayen exclaimed. “If this is a trap, then it would make sense to separate us and capture us while divided. If we’re together, then Arnole and Tsunade …”
“… may be the ones getting trapped,” Longbow finished grimly.
At that moment, they heard a sound from behind them, and found Tsunade running down the passage, focussing so much on speed she wasn’t making her normal stealthy movements. “Guys, Arnole is in trouble …”

Arnole had spent several minutes trying to find a way into the other plane, while Tsunade waited, bored at the delay. When he finally found a gap in the magical defences, he leaped straight into it, only to find a powerful mind brush up against his and he felt, rather than sensed, a large clawed hand reach out and grab him, pulling him in. He heard Tsunade shout as he blacked out.
He awoke strapped to a rock – still within a large cave – and finding a myriad of small cuts along his arms and legs. “Ah, you awaken,” a deep voice said. “I find pain is always effective at that.” He tried to focus on the voice and saw a tall humanoid figure, skin a leathery black, sharp claws, and fiery, glowing eyes. “If you are the best this world has to offer, it will not be long until I am in control.”
“I am more than enough for you, infernal,” Arnole spat, while his mind probed for ways to escape.
“Given that I am the one free and you are the one tied up, I think not, Lord,” the infernal replied with a laugh, drawing his claw along Arnole’s chest and lightly breaking the skin, causing another fiery burst of pain. “Unconscious, your mind was not hard to break, and I learnt all that I needed about you and your friends. And don’t worry about them coming to ‘rescue’ you, I know exactly where they are in my tunnel maze. They will join us soon enough, and we shall see how long they last after they see their leader murdered.”
“God will protect me,” Arnole replied, simply, “and if not, I simply go to Him.”
“Religious platitudes – always the shelter of the weak before death,” the infernal retorted. “And you will face death soon enough.” He stabbed his claws into Arnole’s thigh, and laughed again as Arnole cried out in pain.

It didn’t take Tsunade long to explain what she had seen – a large black arm coming out of the wall and pulling Arnole in. Since this was clearly magic rather than something she could infiltrate or hit, it was out of her domain – so she came back to find them. “It was pretty easy too,” she said, “I thought I’d have to go all the way back to the Archives but I found a side tunnel that wasn’t there before which led me straight to you.”
“That worries me,” Bayen commented. “It’s as if our foe wanted to capture Arnole, then wants us to find him. Why?”
“That is a question we may not be able to answer before finding him,” Andreas replied. “I still say we need more information. If we don’t know how to defeat or banish this infernal, we’ll achieve little by finding it – especially if it wants us too.”
“We shall have to split up again,” Lyam concluded. “Duke Longbow, go with the Minister here back to the Archives – he will likely need your explosive skills if our foe doesn’t want us returning. Duke Praygulin, Mistress Tsunade – we go to find Arnole. Nobody captures the Lord of Magic in my kingdom.” The others agreed, and they set off.

The tunnel the three of them went along didn’t seem to have changed since Tsunade travelled it – they soon got to the room with the wall, and Arnole in the other plane nearby. Tsunade had already disarmed the tripwire while waiting for Arnole to find a way in originally, so led them straight into the chamber. “Somewhere behind this wall, on another plane, Arnole said,” she reminded them.
Bayen prepared to search magically, but Lyam put his hand on his shoulder. “I don’t want you being pulled through too, Praygulin.”
“I can come to you, if you prepare,” came a silky voice from behind them. They turned to see the Infernal Lord leaning casually against the cave wall. When Bayen heard the voice, he called out “You!”
“So you recognise me?” the Infernal Lord said, smiling.
“Yes...” replied Bayen angrily, “I remember you. You destroyed the monastery. You and your army of beasts, you foul ranger!”
“I'm no ranger,” laughed the infernal. “That was simply the guise I took for that job. I am Arrtu, the Prince of Darkness. The destruction of your monastery will be as nothing compared to what I will do to your world soon. Your ‘Lord’ is already on his last breath, dying under my torture. He trusts in his God, but that won’t save him now.” He paused, as if listening. “Ah, I hear him crying out again. Shall I bring you to him?”
“We are not afraid of you, foul creature,” King Lyam retorted. “Return my Lord of Magic at once, and I may yet let you leave unharmed.”
“Not afraid? Your body language says otherwise. And your lady here has already assessed my physical strength and seen she is far less than my match,” Arrtu replied. “As for the apprentice … why are you smiling?” Arrtu’s confident tone suddenly turned to confusion.
“You may have destroyed the monastery, but you can’t hurt me,” Bayen replied. “As you said, Arnole trusts in his God and fears you. So did the monks. But without your army, that’s all your power is – theatre and fear. I don’t believe in infernals, so you have no power over me.”
“Don’t believe?” Arrtu cried, exasperated. “I’m standing in front of you! What are you, a blind-faith atheist?”
“Oh, you’re something,” Bayen replied, still smiling, “but infernals don’t exist, so you’re not what you claim to be.”
Without warning Arrtu flung a magical bolt at Bayen, but the mage didn’t react. “As I said, nothing,” he replied, with a yawn.
“How?” Arrtu roared, and then with a wave of his hand was gone from their view and returned to the plane with Arnole.
“Yes, how?” Lyam demanded. “I don’t believe being an atheist gets you out of being affected by infernals.”
Bayen slumped, and held his side. “No, but training as a monk does show you how to control your feelings. I just hid the pain and kept talking … I think he may have bought it.”

Back with Arnole, Arrtu roared again and fired a bolt of magical energy at Arnole, who cried out again in pain. “Clearly it does work,” he said to himself, “but then …”
He returned to the ordinary plane, and saw Bayen still clutching his side. “As I thought, just a trick!”
“Almost worked,” said Tsunade, drawing her sword. “My turn.” But before she could move, Arrtu waved his arm again, the wall disappeared, and Arnole was further down the chamber, strapped to what looked like a crude stone altar. “By all means, try to fight me,” Arrtu told Tsunade, “but soon enough, your Lord will die, and you are all here to witness it.”
“Lyam, Bayen, tend to Arnole,” Tsunade said out of the corner of her mouth. “I’ll distract this one, you figure out a way back.” And with a cry she leapt at Arrtu, who summoned a magical blade and began duelling her.

Meanwhile, Andreas and Longbow made it to the room with the wall, soon after the others had left. “I appreciate your explosions, but I’m not sure dropping us through the floor was entirely necessary,” Andreas told Longbow, dryly.
“Hey, it worked,” Longbow replied with a shrug. Both turned to survey the wall.
“It all seems a bit much, doesn’t it?” Andreas said. “I mean, if you want to go to another plane, sure, but why build a wall on this one?”
“Shall we see what’s behind it?” Longbow said, grinning cheekily.
“Definitely.”

Arrtu and Tsunade fought around the room, as Bayen and Lyam got Arnole untied and standing up. “I’m not as bad as I look,” he said, coughing up a bit of blood. “Those ropes were just enchanted to limit my magic. I’ll be better in a moment.”
“Do you know how to banish an infernal, Lord?” Lyam asked. “Because if you don’t, you really better be up to your magical strength – I don’t think Mistress Tsunade is going to last much longer.”
As he said it, Tsunade fell to the ground, her sword clattering behind her. She was good – very good – but Arrtu had strength and skill several times beyond any human. He held his blade at her, then cocked his ear, as if listening. “It appears the last of your friends have joined us. Shall I bring them in to see, before I kill you and then finish off your Lord?” He waved his hand again, and Andreas and Longbow appeared … but they were grinning. Longbow lobbed a grenade into Arrtu’s hands, as Andreas ran to where Arnole and the others were.
“I know how to banish him,” he said quickly. “The portal used to summon him is back in the other plane, behind where the wall was.”
“Was?” Bayen asked.
“Longbow,” Andreas replied, and the others nodded. “We just need to force the infernal back through – once we return to our plane.”
“Take my hands and lend me your strength,” Arnole said, reaching for both Bayen and Andreas, as Lyam helped him up from behind. “I think I can solve both of those problems.”
There was a muffled boom as Arrtu created a ball of magical force around the grenade, containing the explosion, and at that moment of distraction Arnole nodded with his head and leapt away from Bayen and Andreas, transforming as he went. Suddenly they were all back in the plane which now contained a wall with a hole in the middle, and next to the crude stone altar, which existed in both planes, there was a glowing portal. As Arrtu turned to see the cause of their return, Arnole finished his transformation into a great white dragon and barrelled into Arrtu, pushing him towards the portal. As he dropped in, Andreas saw something glint in the gloom past the portal, but first he ran to the portal and, pulling open the tome he and Longbow had found, spoke the words needed to close the portal. The glowing ceased – Arrtu was gone.
“I didn’t think you knew Old Tokish, Minister?” Lyam asked, marvelling at the words spoken.
“When it’s the secret to an old magic book, I’m a fast learner,” Andreas replied, as the white dragon fell to the ground, and transformed back into Arnole. Everyone walked to him except Andreas, who, seeing Arnole was tended to, went to the thing he had seem gleaming in the corner. It turned out to be a small orb, which he immediately sensed had powerful magic. He put it into his pocket to examine later, and turned back to Arnole, who was on the verge of collapse. “I think a few explanations are in order,” Bayen said, looking first to Andreas and Longbow, then to Arnole. “But first, let’s get out of here and get you patched up, my Lord.”

An hour later, they were sitting in the sickbay of the academy, above the Archives, standing around Arnole’s bed. He had protested he was ‘basically fine,’ but Lyam, as king, ordered him to spend at least a day in bed, which the academy nurse had amended to two. Longbow and Andreas explained how they returned to find the book that Andreas had brought with him (“I’m keeping this by the way – I’ll give you some MANA bestiaries in exchange”), Andreas reading as they travelled back along the tunnels (“And tripping every twenty metres,” Longbow added), and learning that anything summoned could be banished only in the same location. “Then it was simply a matter of figuring out where that place was – and given there was this wall built here for no apparent reason ...”
“Ok, that I all get,” Lyam said, “but Lord Arnole, how long have you been able to turn into a dragon?”
“It’s not something I do often, your majesty,” Arnole replied, “as it requires a lot of strength, but with the magic of both Bayen and Andreas to aid me, I could accomplish the feat despite my injuries … long enough. Don’t worry – it’s not a skill I intend to be teaching. You won’t have drunk students accidentally flattening a pub for a bet.”
“That is good to know. But are we safe? That’s my real question,” Lyam continued.
“I think yes … for now,” Bayen replied carefully. “This has not been the first time Arrtu has visited this land in our lifetime – but if we avoid any more infernal summoning, perhaps it will be the last. He clearly had some plan to invade, but I couldn’t tell from what he said whether he had just come up with that when he arrived, or it was a plan he was putting into motion. What I do know is this. The first time I encountered him, he led an army. This time, he was alone. If he returns at the head of an army, then I will be afraid.”
“You guys worry too much,” Longbow said, clapping them all on the shoulder. “We’re safe, the Archives is safe, and everything is going to be fine. I’ll just go and make sure that passage into the Archives gets filled in, and we’ll be all dandy. Arnole, you didn’t need all of the ceiling at the end of the Archives, did you?”
“Longbow no!” Lyam and Arnole cried out together, as everyone laughed.