"Luna..." Marika warned as her eyes sparkled at the sight of a dark tunnel. "I know what you are thinking..."
They had been traveling for about seventeen hours, following along the walls of the valley they had stumbled down into. They just so happen then to find the entrance to what appeared to be Luna's favorite pass time. An old abandoned mine. "Just one adventure. Real quick. Just imagine what we could find down there!"
Marika sighed. "Blaidd, try and charter a path by scent to where we are supposed to be going."
Fia chimed in. "Don't worry, Blaidd, Malli will be safe with us." So the wolfman obliged and took off while the girls stayed behind to prepare a brief camp. Luna, of course, grabbed Marika by the hand and ran head first inside without a single care.
The two soon found themselves descending a familiar form of rickety elevator as Luna bounced lightly. "Do you ever get tired of these places?"
"Nope!" She smiled that goofy smile at Marika. "The ancient tales, the secrets, the weird things I could fight! I could never get bored of knowledge and a good brawl." She gave an affirming laugh that made Marika sigh, but none the less smile. At least she had a reason for being a rather blatant adrenaline junky.
"Just make sure not to get us killed this time." A grace awaited them, and Marika swiftly blessed it for their use. Once that was finished, they took in the path ahead. The walls were entirely iced over, and the support beams all around were either rotted beyond belief or shattered by crumbling and encroaching ice. It was a mess of a place with only one visible path ahead, which Luna quickly took down with a rather excited bounce to her step. Marika was less enthusiastic, but she followed closely with her hammer drawn and a small smile at her lover.
Descending down through the winding tunnels and random pitfall descents that felt as intentional as they were unstable, they landed in a small cavern with several rare stones. Luna's eyes nearly popped from her head as she fussily rushed to start collecting them, muttering about how good this would be for her weapon.
Marika wandered off a little, confident that Luna could find her should she need to. Her steps slowly wandered down a darker hallway, lightly clacking against the ice with an echo that was as chilly as the ice around her. She felt herself nestling a bit more into her scarf, and her grip on her hammer grew twice over in strength without her even knowing.
She walked for a little down the hall. Light dripping off the stalagtites above made her nerves even worse. She began to hear a low groan coming from behind her. She turned and saw the darkness had solidified into a black and purple mass behind her. It pulsed before a tall, long climbed man with dark blue grey skin and wispy white hair stepped out. He held a massive blue sword that glistened like stars in his one hand. His body was bulbous and malnourished, and his face was disfigured hideous.
It let out a louder groan now as he began stepping closer towards Marika, the ground thumping lightly as he did. She could feel the weight of her muscles intensifying. "Gravity magic...!" She jumped back as the space she occupied was crushed suddenly. Ice and wood and bits of stone splintered across the air in a shower of force. She rolled back onto her feet, gripping her hammer and swinging just as a large stalagmite had been broken and hurled at her, destroyed instantly in a shower of ice and rock. "Bastard!"
She ran ahead, dipping under a heavy swing that tore a nasty scar across the wall, telling her that trying to use the cramped space was not an option. A heavy swing after his miss resulted in a loud crack of bone, launching the strange man down the cavern hall. He grunted painfully as he stood, looking positively enraged. The gilded queen smirked at that.
He ran at her wildly, his slashes a strange flailing dance that carved up rock and ice around them. The more he slashed, the heavier Marika felt, and the more the ceiling began to look unstable. He was faster than her, but she knew another good blow would end him easily. The madman swung down, a charged blow that crashed a series of boulders ripped from the ceiling that barely missed Marika on the chop but broke her left arm on the crash of rocks. Still, it was enough. She raised her right arm and swung down with a roar of fury as the hammer shattered the man, spraying blood, ice, and a brief flash of gold across the walls as her hammer met his skull.
She dropped her hammer and clutched onto her focus, breathing as the pale flame bathed her briefly and healed her arm at the cost of some stamina. She let out a tired breath as she flexed her newly fixed arm, grabbing a small vial from her pouch and swigging it down. Luna had created these from flowers. They restored Marika's energy even if she was separated from Luna and didn't have access to the Tears, but were limited. They only helped revitalize her strength that was drained by her newer magic and nothing for actual wounds.
"Leave you alone for three minutes." She heard her knight chuckle as she rounded the corner to meet her. She offered the flask, and Marika, relieved, took a swig.
"Not my fault you stay still when shiny rocks get involved."
"Well, nowhere near as bad as my kin, Nisa. They go nuts for gems. I just like em for their use in smithing."
"I am going to make you a hammer when this is all over that says Sword Whore across it."
"Mmm, a wedding gift even?"
"You weren't supposed to like that!"
Her knight laughed, and Marika smiled warmly. "Come, there's likely more to find." Her knight nodded and followed closely as they descended deeper into the dark cavern of ice. After about a half hour of gathering and searching, Marika shivered slightly as a cool wind whipped through. It was odd to even have wind, which already set off alarm bells, but the taste of magic was heavy in the air. "Something down there is... Very old." She muttered, gazing down the hall distantly as she could feel it more as they had gotten further down.
"Ohhh, I am gonna go hit it." Her knight murmured eagerly.
She sighed a little. "Must you wake every dark thing? What exactly is your goal in that?"
"To protect those I love, of course." She said with a tender smile. "Old places have stories, tales lost otherwise to history. Ancient secrets that can warn us, or even be put to rest before they can ever be abused. People's. Cultures. Lives. Things lost that can be given one last chance to be saved." There was a gentle warmth to her knight's eyes as she spoke. "It... It's important to me."
Marika gently hugged her knight and sighed. "What ever will I do with you?"
"Love me forever?" She pecked her lips and smiled.
"Eternally, my dear." She smiled as they both turned and started back down, continuing a thorough dive into every nook and cranny of the cave. Eventually, they found what they presumed to be the end. A large wooden entrance built into the ice walls on one end, and a door that led back to above the initial ice chute they had descended.
"I bet whatever is behind that door is hiding something awesome." She clapped her hands together as she approached the door.
The gilded queen nodded, knowing full well that even if it didn't, that would do little to sway Luna from wanting to fight it at this point. She stood beside her knight as she grabbed and began to push open the old creaking doors.
What they walked into was beautiful. It was a lake bed, still glistening with fresh and clear across pale white and blue stone floors with speckles of icy patches that seemed to glisten with snow. The ceiling looked like a gateway to the very stars themselves. Bursting novas, glistening depictions of active nebula, swirling arrangements of dancing stars. It was one of the most beautiful sights Marika had ever laid her eyes on.
Then, a load boom resonated through the chamber as a portal opened far across from them. What flew out was ghastly and monstrous. It resembled a scorpion built entirely from meteors and starlight and twice as many spikes in all the places they didn't belong. Its head was a massive skull with the top broken open and a swirl of the cosmos itself radiating from within. It's jaw was gone, replaced by four massive pincers that seemed as hatefully sharp as they were eager to grab. It had four long, unnatural looking arms and two massive wings made stitched together constellations. It was beautiful at the same time that it was abominable.
Luna slowly unfolded her scythe as Marika stepped forward. Her hand glowed and formed a small barrier around them both. A dim glow of light that would make them more resilient for a time, modified from a similar incantation. She then dove to the left just as the massive beam the creature had been charging fired and launched her knight right back to their grace, leaving Marika the choice to retreat and regroup, or fight alone.
She picked herself up from the waters, wiping the frigid water from her face. She would not retreat. She was far too used to relying on others to fight her battles, to bail her out of her troubles. True, Luna had led them down here, but Marika knew full well that now that this thing was awake, letting it live was a risk to the entirety of the lands between.
The creature clicked its mandibles, raising them up and aiming at Marika directly as another ball of cosmic magic coalesced between its mandible. She ran, making it harder to keep aim while steadily closing the gap as her feet clapped across the wet rock beneath them. It's beam fire and exploded a section of the cave, but gold matriarch managed to avoid it by a narrow margin as she finally got in close to the offending monster. One arm drove forward with a trail of cloudy magic that exploded after seconds, but Marika managed to dive to the side and throw her weight behind a heavy hammer blow that shattered the upper right mandible from its jaw. She hoped that meant an end to those beams.
It did not take kindly to this, spinning back and snatching at her with two of its arms with shocking speed, which managed to grab her and begin crushing down on her body. She screamed for a moment as its skull's empty eyes seemed to radiate an old forgotten form of fury as it tried to smash her between its boney fingers. She flexed, struggling against the audible cracking of her rib cage before breaking free, shattering two of the hands and knocking the other two aside as she came back down with a violent, two handed swing. It shattered more of the skull, while the creature roared in defiant pain as it quickly retreated back into a portal.
Marika knew better, however, than to think this was over. She snapped her fingers, a much weaker spell stitching up two of her four broken ribs. It would have to do. She needed her reserves for offense, and she couldn't waste it on always healing herself from mistakes.
It was quiet for only a short moment before four separate portals opened overhead. Four of those things emerged, each swooping at her with its arms to try and snatch her up. She barely managed to avoid it, diving low and causing two of the creatures to crack heads and disperse, which showed her they were only illusions. The other one dispersed while the real one rushed back into its little hole. She righted herself, listening, and spun just as the now silent portal opened. Her hammer crashed into its face with an audible, thunderous smash as the creature was hurled from its portal into the cavern wall.
Marika breathed deeply, muscles aching. She had incredible strength now, yes, but her flesh had not yet grown accustomed to it. It wasn't likely to break her apart, but every blow was a drain on her stamina. She had to end this very quickly.
The beast raised up its tail, rattling its remaining limbs oddly as the ceiling slowly became an even more focused portrait of the sky. Marika marveled for just long enough to realize the massive rocks flying from this portal towards the entire cavern floor. She leaped, rolled, dipped, and dodged her way through while making her way forward. Twice she was clipped, and she felt the muscle in her lower back start to tear near her overtaxed ribs. Her arm was starting to ache badly already from incomplete healing that she hadn't even noticed. She gritted through the pain, slamming her hammer right through one of the hurtling meteorites with a violent roar, her eyes glowing heavy with golden light as shards flew into the beast and making it recoil.
Marika dipped beneath its lashing tail, letting out a partial scream as the barbs raked past her back before smacking away one arm as it swung forward to grab her and was shattered instantly. "You will not end me!" Catching the other arm as it lashed at her, ripping it off with a scream of bloody fury. She had never felt such indignant rage before. Like even witnessing this thing was lighting a fire in her heart. Even looking at it fueled her with contempt for its presence, and it made her into a powder keg of strength.
It shrieked, fumbling aimlessly now against the wall as it tried to open another portal. Marika raised her arms in the motion of a bow as the flames licked by her fingers. The glow of the white flame formed bow bathed the starlit cavern in light as if a star had descended from its painting of the cosmos. "Be gone, Wicked thing." As she fired, the arrow shattering the creature from skull head to bulbous barbed tail as it screamed into nothing but dust.
Left behind where its skull had last crashed was a glowing shard of glintstone that pulsed with ancient power. She knew Ranni would be able to make something from this. Perhaps this was a good idea after all. She supposed that she would spare Luna the lecture. She had gotten blasted right out of the good fight after all. Still, the runes Marika could feel being drawn from the defeated beast would go far to ensure their journey was at least a little easier. Especially now with Melina able to act as their maiden again, it wouldn't be long before Marika mastered her strength.
She hoped that it wouldn't cost her something more important, though. With a hand idly falling back to her stomach, she worried worried their child. Their son.