Mantle of the Gods

I ran to the door.

Tophua grabbed the handle and held it closed.

“The pretty lady told me to keep you in here and I’ve already lost one of you.” He looked at me, “I’m not losing another.”

“Do you know what those are?” I let go of the handle and took a step back.

Tophua took a position in front of the door, “It’s ugly, glowing, and people are killing for it. That’s enough for me to know not to mess with it.”

“Those are dungeon seeds!” I pointed at the back of the station. “I saw one go off in Tres. It created a wave as tall as the lighthouses!” I took a deep breath, “Those things create dungeon breaks and dungeon tunnels. Do you really want to figure out what level of the dungeon they are breaking?” I motioned widely towards them, “With THREE of them?”

“So I let you go out there. What are you going to do to stop them?”

“We have to stop them from activating them.” I had a feeling we were too late for that. “And If they’re already activated, then we have to get them as far away from here as we can. If we get them far enough, then worst case scenario, there's another dungeon in Wurn. Best case, there's just a big explosion.” I wasn’t a hundred percent sure those were the right details, but that was the summary of what I’d gotten from Tres.

He took a deep breath, “Fine, but I’m coming with you.” He opened the door.

“I’m not going to turn away Tier Four help.” I ran out the door into the darkness.

It wasn’t really darkness. There were lights on everywhere and with the fighting happening, it didn’t feel like nighttime.

“Let’s go this way.” I turned to my left and started running. I knew Tohphua wouldn’t have trouble keeping up with me and the east side was the route away from all of the fighting.

We rounded the corner and I saw the ritual. There was a purple circle that was forming on the ground around the three Mundane. The seed in each of their hands looked like they were leaking purple ooze onto the ground.

There was a person in a purple robe who was chanting something around them.

I pointed at the man, “Tophua! Take him!”

I ran at the Mundane and tackled the closest one to me.

The seed that he was holding rolled into the edge of the purple circle. Purple gunk spit out of the ground as the mark began to absorb the seed.

“NO!” The man grabbed the seed, but he couldn’t pull it out of the ground. “MY MANTLE!”

I decided that trying to get that seed was a lost cause, so I turned to the other two. I grabbed the seed out of the woman’s hand and tried to run with it, but when I reached the edge, I was able to go over it, but purple light shot out of the ground. The seed couldn’t go past the barrier, which stopped me in my tracks.

“GIVE IT BACK HEATHEN!” The woman grabbed the Seed. She wasn’t strong enough to take it from me, but that didn’t mean I could move it through the barrier.

The seed got really heavy and I was having trouble holding it up. “Tophua! Help!”

The blonde man had finished restraining the man in the purple robe and ran over, but even with his help, we couldn’t keep the seed from falling to the ground. We both backed away as the woman tried to dig the seed out of the ground.

“NO!” The third man was trying to pull his seed out of the barrier as well.

“What’s happening?” I kept backing away.

“Nothing good.” Tophua grabbed my shoulder and started pulling me back as the entire ground of the circle illuminated and began absorbing the three Mundane into the ground.

As soon as they all went under, the whole thing shone and then there was a flash of light that knocked us down.

All of the people fighting stopped as we all focused on the thing that was floating where the ring had been. It was pretty easy to do because the blast knocked out every light in the town.

It was translucent and looked like a purple ghost of a Minotaur.

I chill ran down my spine as one of the bowed their face to the ground and screamed.

PRAISE WURN!!!