TRC - Lord of the Glass Desert Ch. 19

"We'll see," said the spider, flexing her foreleg. "I was planning on sealing this and never coming back for as long as I live. But now that we are here, I'm curious what more we could learn about the Ancients inside."

"Curiosity is a harsh mistress," the mage chuckled. "Let me see if I can push this door the rest of the way open."

"How?" the spider asked.

Kal set the bag full of armor down before getting his staff from Kashka. Resting the staff against the wall and flashing Anika a grin, he started drawing a rune in the air. "With what would be my worst spell if it weren't for the fact it saved my life." Once completed, the Greater Telekinesis spell pulsed just before the weapon rose into the air and floated toward the door. Anika winced as the platinum endcap contacted the bronze, then looked on in confusion when there wasn't even a spark.

"Did it use up all its power on me?" she asked as the door slowly opened.

"No, but you were touching the ground," he answered, his voice strained as he willed the staff to press against the heavy door. "Lightning always tries to travel toward the earth, which is why you were able to kill Tavik when you shoved my staff into the ground while he was stuck to it. The lightning from his suit went into the earth instead. Now that I think about it, you should have been shocked as you pushed the staff through his shield."

"I was, but I was out of time and ignored it. Besides, those shocks weren't as bad as this.," she said, waving her foreleg around experimentally before resting it on the floor again.

"Fair enough," he said as the door thumped against the inner wall. Reorienting his staff, Kal began pushing on the other door giving Anika enough room to pass safely. Once both were open, he floated his staff back to Kashka and retrieved the bag of armor.

As Anika entered, the room lit up from the enchantment on her mother's locket.

"That really is an amazing piece of magic," said Kal. "All of my light spells come from a single point. But your locket makes the area light up without any discernible source."

"You don't have a spell that does this?"

"I think I do, but I've always used this," he said, summoning a ball of light. "It works well enough I never looked into the other light spells much. Now that I've seen your locket, I'll need to change that."

Two shelved armor displays stood in the middle of the left wall, with another skeleton wearing a Reaver's belt in front of them. Kal and Anika dropped off the satchels of armor before inspecting the rest of the room.

Immediately to the right of the entrance sat an ornate stone slab stained black with blood from hundreds of sacrifices. The engravings on the surrounding walls and on the base of the slab revealed it wasn't stained with animal blood.

Further back, the top of a large stone table had been carved into a miniature version of the surrounding area. Anika was incredibly excited to see the entirety of the ancient city and began noting where to start excavating. Kal used some magic to make a small map of the city and promised the arachne a larger version once Ria got better.

The fountain Anika believed to be a scrying pool was set in the back of the room. The fountain seemed to purify the air in the room around it, and the ever-present mustiness of the labyrinth faded as they approached the basin. Kal's sight told him the pool was heavily enchanted long before seeing the spout still pouring after thousands of years and the crystal clear water below.

To either side of the armor displays stood wooden weapon racks in varying stages of decay. Kal was surprised to see they still held an assortment of bronze weapons, figuring the Reavers would have taken everything they could grab along with the belts. After a bit of inspection, he noticed the weapons were not enchanted. Now it made sense. The Reaver's steel weapons were far superior to the softer bronze.

Above the racks, the Ancients painted rows of pictures depicting scenes of gory battles where the enemies ranged from neighboring tribes to giant boars.

After their quick tour of the room, Kal and Anika eventually returned to the armor displays and their reason for being there. Seeing she wasn't immediately needed, Kashka wandered over to the sacrificial altar to look at the engravings

"This ancient civilization really liked their traps," said Kal, peering at the thin needle protruding from the shelf meant for the brass chest piece, then looking back at the skeleton on the floor behind him.

"I only told you about the interesting traps, and those make up less than a third of what I have disarmed," said Anika as she began searching the other display for a trigger to disable the poisoned needles.

"Those poor women," Kashka muttered by the altar.

"What's that?" asked Kal, joining her.

"Near as I can tell, they brought a woman down, then each of the men had sex with her before she was sacrificed. The men look to be royals and military leaders."

"There's more to it than that," said Anika as she found the button to disarm the trap already pressed. "In the catacombs, there is a special room just for the women sacrificed here, and they are held in the highest regard. The women were chosen by lottery from the volunteers--"

"They volunteered to be sacrificed?" asked Kal.

The spider nodded. "Look further and see if it tells you more," she suggested while retrieving the Silver armor.

Kashka turned back to the engravings. "She's floating away. Then meets another woman. Then they... well, that was unexpected."

"The women sacrificed were all virgins when they entered this room," Anika explained, "and it was their duty to carry the men's seed to their goddess of war. If the goddess tasted their seed and its strength pleased her, she would bless them with victory. Since they were entreating a goddess of war, they believed the woman's virginal blood would ensure the goddess's favor. Her job completed, the woman's spirit is then guaranteed a place in paradise."

"Remain a virgin. Have sex with a bunch of men. Get killed. Get eaten out by a goddess. Spend eternity in paradise. That's quite the life... and death, I suppose," said Kashka, shaking her head. She turned to Kal, "Let's check out that pool. I'm curious to see what these women you always talk about look like."

"What? My memories aren't good enough?"

"Your memories tend to gravitate toward them moaning beneath you."

Kal blushed. "Yeah... I can't argue with that," he replied as they walked toward the fountain. Kal's ability to see magic made quick work of figuring out how to activate the pool.

---

Anika placed the brass prince's armor on the second display and re-armed its trap. With the armor back in place, she took a thin piece of charcoal and some parchment Kal gave her and started making detailed drawings of the room's paintings. Though the arachne was extremely curious about what the women in Kal's harem looked like, emotions seemed to be running high over at the fountain, and she decided instead to give them some space.

---

Kal wiped his eyes as the scene of a wooden glade with a sunlit sapling faded from the pool's surface.

"That's all of them in Telsin," he said, his voice still thick from seeing his women and checking up on his daughters.

"Not all of them. What about the blonde cleric, Elta?" Kashka asked.

"She's not one of mine."

"But you want her to be."

"I won't deny that, but it won't ever happen unless something changes. It's odd. Even though I say that, it doesn't feel true."

"What about the women at the Tower?"

"Sure, I think I can do that without tears this time."

The mage made a few attempts without success before remembering the tower's defenses included wards against divination magic. He managed to get a distant view of the tower by looking at the ruins of Te'thalas and shifting the point of view. As they watched, a tiny black dot fell from the top of the tower before flying off to the east.

"I bet that's Vier," said Kal as the image faded out before showing the raven-harpy flying with a slightly larger fleshy version of Ria flitting along next to her.

Kithana looked directly at them, then said something to Vier before buzzing over closer to the pool's viewing window. The sprite flipped around in the air and backed up until her pussy and ass covered the entire pool. Just as quickly, a small hand dove down and shoved itself inside the sprite's sex. Kit fisted herself for a second before pulling her hand out and making a rude gesture with her glistening fingers. A moment later, the image in the scrying pool vanished.

"If anyone could detect us looking in on them, it would be her," Kal chuckled. "Let's go back to Telsin. I'm curious what has happened to the town since I've been gone. Then maybe check up on Shella and her pack."

"I'm afraid to ask, but could we check up on my sisters afterward?"

"Absolutely."

On their tour of Telsin, Kal showed Kashka around the town and pointed out the people he knew. Kal was amazed to see Silma working beside the blacksmith and some of Dax's pack helping the town guard, but he was equally surprised how much the town had grown and how many new faces there were. They also discovered the scrying pool had no sense of privacy. A few times, Kal focused on someone he knew and caught the person in an intimate moment.

Afterward, they looked for Kashka's sisters and found the first still enslaved in Fazal, working in a brothel. They made plans to track down and free her on their way back through.

The mage breathed a sigh of relief as an empty room began appearing in the pool. He had worried one or both of Kashka's sisters were dead. The style and architecture of the room were unfamiliar, and its lack of occupants made Kal wonder briefly if the pool had made a mistake and he should still be worried.

As the room finished fading in, a cat-girl nearly identical to Kashka and wearing a dress similar to one of Perra's backed through the door. With her came a human male she dragged along by his shirt collar. Kashka's sister hopped into the man's arms and wrapped her legs around his waist as their lips came together.

The human carried her across the room, not breaking the kiss until he laid her on the bed in the far corner. After a brief tussle because she didn't want to unwrap her legs from his waist, he flipped the cat's dress up, then knelt down and buried his face between the woman's legs. They couldn't hear anything, but it was clear from her mouth and the hands in his hair she was enjoying the feel of his tongue.

Kal caught a hint of movement elsewhere in the room and changed the view until it looked inside a bassinet holding a baby girl sporting a striped tail and tan ears.

He turned to see it was Kashka's turn for tears. "I was so worried they might be dead," the cat sobbed, echoing Kal's concerns, "but they're both alive, and she's even has a family of her own."

The mage returned to the original view to see the man standing between the other cat-girl's legs, slamming into her as she covered her face with the bedclothes. If the way her chest heaved was any indication, she was trying hard to muffle her moans and not wake the baby.

"Hmm... now I want to see you in a dress," said the mage after watching for a few more seconds.

"Kal, it's the first time I've seen my sister in more than a decade. I'm glad she's happy, but I'd rather my memories not be of her having sex."

"Right, right," he said, lifting his hands off the basin and turning the water clear again. Sighing heavily, he said, "I suppose it's time to use it for its intended purpose."

Placing his hands back on the side of the pool, he spoke aloud, "Azrin."

The surface shimmered before showing them a hellscape of sand melted down into orange glowing glass. In the distance, a fountain of green fire sprung up from the ground. The glass twisted and grew inside the column, pulled upward by the flames. When the green fire vanished, it left a gnarled and pointed glass 'tree' that sagged slightly before freezing in place. Some of the outer branches snapped under their weight and shattered on the glass landscape's hard crust a few seconds later.

Kal missed the glass tree's formation as he stared with hatred at the back of the man who nearly killed him and the reason Ikuno gave up her life. Once the green necromantic flames faded, Azrin slowly turned and looked up at him. The brown, leathery skin of his face slowly pulled up into a grin.

"I know you," said a voice inside Kal's head that matched the movement of the lich's lips. Kal all the defenses Kelthor taught him into place, shielding himself from any mental attack. He felt the lich poke and prod around the protective barriers, searching for a way in.

The undead pyromancer's grin widened as his eyes flicked to the side.

Beside Kal, Kashka screamed.