“So is this the sort of thing your uncle does — studying ancient ruins?” asked Evran.

  “More or less,” Kaila replied. “He’s part of a guild established to uncover the mysteries of the fallen world. And I feel bad for asking, but could you not talk about it in front of the others? It’s supposed to be a secret guild of sorts. Very mysterious!”

  He wasn’t exactly thrilled about helping Grist in any way, but it meant enough to Kaila. He’d help keep her little secret, but he wanted information in return.

  “I suppose. If you tell me more about it.”

  Evran resumed clearing out his section of the rubble. He was almost to a stairwell that led down to a basement, and given that floor of the building was intact, so too would be the rooms below.

  “Sure, and I appreciate it. And it’s not just ruins; we study artifacts and labyrinths as well. You might not know this, since your… displeasure with the topic, but there are murals within the labyrinths, usually in the safe zones.”

  A small pile of bricks shifted when Kaila’s magic plucked a load-bearing stone from the bottom. The falling rubble kicked up a cloud of dust, though the elf casually blew it away with her wind magic before continuing.

  “Unlike the rest of a labyrinth, the murals are always destroyed, though not always completely. We’ve managed to piece together fragments from various labyrinths all over the world. For some reason, they all have the same few murals in them, and the copies always match one another perfectly. There are seven in total, though we’re still missing all the most important parts of each one. Whatever destroyed them did a good job.”

  “Not so good that you weren’t able to figure out that much,” said Evran, launching a collection of crumbling bricks over the broken wall of the cathedral. He was almost through to the stairwell. “What do you think is depicted on them?”

  “Whatever it was, someone when to great lengths to prevent us from finding out. That just makes you want to know more, right?”

  “I’ll admit I am curious. So what does any of this have to do with avatars?”

  Kaila froze, feeling ashamed of her previous efforts to determine if Evran’s father had been one. “I’m not sure exactly. It’s not like I’m a high-ranking member privy to every one of the guild’s secrets. Maybe being an avatar of a dead god comes with some secret knowledge they’re after?”

  “Ah, so you were going to help them hunt my father. That’s even better!” Evran laughed as he shoved the last few stones to the side of the narrow corridor leading to the stairwell.

  “I… hadn’t considered that.”

  “That was a joke, Kai. I don’t know all your secrets, but I like to think I know you enough as a person. Unless you really were lying to me about being my friend this whole time.”

  Kaila pouted.

  “Ugh, don’t give me that look! It’s only fair I get to tease you a little.”

  Lerrum emerged from behind a pile of rubble wearing a grin. He waltzed over to the corridor Evran had just finished working on, heedless of the conversation he was interrupting.

  “I see you two are getting along!” he said. “Anyway, I’ve got great news! Depri found a spatial storage artifact.”

  Evran’s jaw dropped in excitement. He glanced over to see a similar expression on Kaila’s face. Aside from maybe Indon and Depri, the original four of them all came from well off backgrounds, so the money they would get from the discovery wouldn’t exactly be life-changing, but it was every adventurer’s dream to find a piece of treasure like that. His career had scarcely begun, and he was already enjoying what many would consider a crowning achievement.

  “If there was a storage artifact here, then I wonder what’s down there?” said Evran, staring into the shadowed depths of the cathedral.

  “Oh good, it looks like you’ve finished clearing the way for me, Ev! Thanks!” said Kai, playfully shoving past Evran so she could be the first one to explore the lower floors.

  Evran shook his head and followed Kaila down into the basement of the cathedral, Lerrum close behind. When he made it to the base of the stairs, he sensed that something was very wrong. The air here was strange; it moved differently. Dizziness crept into his consciousness. Only when the living wood of his staff trembled in his hand did he realize the danger they were in.

  “It’s the air!” he shouted.

  Having recognized the issue, Evran cast a wind spell from the green focus crystal atop his staff. The fresh breeze displaced the stale air within the basement of the cathedral.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Ah, I’ve heard of this,” said Kaila. “False air. You breathe it in, but still suffocate, all without ever knowing something was wrong. It often happens in cellars when things rot or rust.”

  “Wait, we nearly died?” said Lerrum, confused.

  Kaila nodded and began summoning a breeze of her own. Though it kept them all alive, the dust it kicked up irritated Evran’s eyes and throat. Lerrum coughed, breaking the brief silence in which they contemplated their brush with death.

  The first room they entered appeared to be a common room of sorts. There were two doors on the opposite wall leading to other rooms. Between them was a crumbling tapestry above a ruined set of shelves. Evran saw the glint of gold in the pale glow of Kaila’s lamplight spell. A single ornate candlestick lay on the stone floor. Lerrum saw it, too, sauntering over to pick up his first bit of substantial treasure besides the glowstone and mana crystals.

  “Heavy,” he said, confirming everyone’s suspicions. It was solid gold. Lerrum let out a sigh. “I thought I’d be more excited, but after finding a spatial artifact, a giant golden candlestick just seemed like a painful thing to carry back to camp.”

  Laughing at the strange sentiment, Evran wandered over to a small corner where there appeared to be a ruined library, while Kaila disappeared into one of the deeper rooms. She took her lamplight with her, so Evran quickly summoned one of his own before the last of her light vanished. He failed to uncover any magical scrolls or grimoires, as he’d hoped. The bookshelves contained only dust and decayed wooden bindings. Whatever knowledge hidden within their pages had long since been lost to time.

  Evran took the other door and found himself in a large rectangular room with a statue in each corner. He inspected the nearest one on his right. It was of a proud elf with his hands resting on the hilt of a sword thrust into the ground. He recognized it immediately as a depiction of the god, Sygelion. If there are four statues here, that would mean…

  He squinted at the other statue on his side of the room, struggling to make out any details in the dim light. The short size of the figure depicted meant the statue was of Yeneb, the dwarven god. That meant their two sisters were on the opposite side.

  After walking across the room, Evran could finally make out the animalistic ears adorning the head of Alithia, goddess of the beastkin. By process of elimination, that meant the fourth statue had to be… her.

  “Find anything in there?” Lerrum shouted from the entrance. He received no response.

  Evran stood in front of the fourth statue. It portrayed a beautiful human woman tearing the last pages from a book. She was Vaygris, goddess of fate and change, slayer of deities, and ender of worlds. He shuddered at the sight of her.

  The Risen Faith forbade any depictions of the evil goddess, and this was the first he time he’d laid eyes on one. She looked so… normal. Well, normal for a goddess. She was depicted in much the same way he’d seen the other three. It was no secret that all four were worshiped equally before their deaths, during the time in which the builders of the cathedral had lived.

  “No way,” said Lerrum, just as shocked as Evran. “So that’s what she looked like.”

  “Who?” said Kaila, wandering into their room.

  “Oh, don’t mind us, Kai. We’re just two innocent boys in a dark, secret chamber beneath a ruined cathedral standing before the graven image of an evil goddess,” Lerrum joked, turning to Evran. “Hey, the sacrifice has arrived.”

  She made her way across the empty chamber and struck Lerrum on the back of the head. The three students stood in the soft glow of their lamplight spells, their gazes transfixed upon the profane statue.

  “Why’d she do it?” asked Evran.

  “They’re gods. Who knows?” Lerrum replied.

  “Whatever her reason, it can’t have been a good one. Her demons are still ravaging this world, as are her followers, who go by that very name.” Kaila muttered angrily.

  “Alithia’s children are hardly any better, and no one blames her for the islands the dragons burn down,” Lerrum added. “At least the angels and titans have the decency to keep to themselves, if they’re even around anymore.”

  They continued to stare at the statue of Vaygris in silence. It was likely the last time any of them would ever see such a thing. Even their current viewing bordered on transgression, though no one present was willing to call each other out on it. They were all complicit in the sin. Their forbidden vigil was interrupted by a slight tremor that shook the island. That, combined with the unnerving darkness surrounding him, became too much to bear.

  “I think we should leave,” he said. “And let’s not tell the others about this place.”

  They nodded in agreement, fleeing the room and shutting the withered door behind them. Kaila led the team into the other room, which she’d already explored. At the far end, opposite the wall to the room with the statues, was a small corridor that branched back toward the underground temple. Evran explored the corridor, finding only more dusty shelves with broken items strewn about.

  “I didn’t find anything back there, either,” Kaila lamented. “I really thought we’d find more than just a candlestick.”

  “There’s no door…” Evran mumbled.

  The room they currently occupied was C-shaped, and it lay adjacent to the rectangular room with the statues. That meant there was a void between the two rooms, though there were no doors on any of its walls. There might have been one in the statue room, but Evran was reluctant to return there for admittedly superstitious reasons. He approached the wall separating him from what he suspected was a secret chamber. Using earth magic, he projected his senses into the stone, feeling nothing beyond it.

  “There’s another room here,” he said, causing Kaila’s pointy ears to perk up. “That corridor wraps around it, but I couldn’t see any doors leading to it. It might be sealed.”

  “So, will unsealing it lead to our treasure or a thousand-year curse?” Lerrum mused.

  “If the people who made this place were capable of spatial magic, they might have simply had a way to pop in and out of the room,” said Kaila. “Unfortunately, we don’t have that ability anymore, thanks to the lady in the other room. But we still have earth magic!”

  Kaila gestured to Evran, not wanting to risk absorbing the full brunt of any thousand-year curses herself. That would be Evran’s job. He carefully pulled out a stone brick from the wall, first turning the surrounding mortar back to a slurry, then slowly lifting out the stone. Air rushed into the void between the walls.

  “That’s a good sign,” said Lerrum.

  Evran continued extracting stones one at a time, careful not to cause a collapse. He left a poor excuse for an arch in place in hopes of maintaining some stability in the stone brick wall. After a few minutes, Evran finished making a door into the hidden room.