Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Book 4: Chapter 12: Foolish

Chapter 12

“Sorry, Holly, I think he’s right,” Cole said as he raised his hand.

They were doing the vote after Alex had explained his idea. Of course Alex voted that he was correct, and so had Kate, after only a bit of convincing. With Cole, that brought them to three votes.

Holly wasn’t convinced. And Garret, as it turned out, wasn’t into the idea of risking a massively painful death by poison, so he voted against. That meant there were two “No” votes.

That left only Devon, who could possibly bring the vote to a tie and muck everything up massively.

Alex watched as the man’s face went through a laundry list of expressions as he thought things over. He knew that Devon was analytical, almost to a fault sometimes, so he could only guess that he was doing a mental pro and con list, and weighing the two options side by side before coming to a conclusion.

At least he looked to come to a decision and frowned.

“Look, Alex is crazy sometimes, and his ideas… well they border the line between torture and… something else I don’t really know how to name. But he’s never been wrong, so far. If there’s anything I know, it's that I trust him with my life,” he said, finally raising his own hand as well.

“That settles it then.” Alex smiled.

“Damn it,” Holly cursed under her breath and shook her head. After an exasperated huff, she gave a single nod. “Fine, fine, let's do it.

Luckily, Kate didn’t give them much time to change their minds as she stepped toward the intricately carved pedestal and basin before cutting her hand with her sword and hovering above the container.

A small trickle-stream of crimson splattered against the smooth stone, bringing it to life in a sudden glow of aether energy. The blood swirled and moved to the center of the basin before it looked to be slurped up by some sort of mouth hidden at its underside.

They waited, breath held tight in anticipation for what came next.

There was a sudden shudder as the stone in the walls moved about, and Alex almost thought for a moment that the opening to the room would close shut just like he saw in the aether slate, filling the entire area with the lethal gas and ending them all right there and then.

Instead, the entire back wall of the room opened up like a giant stone hand unfurling its fingers, revealing a small interior room with an arched secondary doorway within. The archway was filled with a shimmering light purple energy, the exact same energy that Alex had faintly seen around the basin.

It had worked, he had been right.

“Well, call me a hedgehog,” Garret mumbled.

“Why do I hate that you’re right?” Holly asked with a scoff.

Alex only shrugged. “Sorry, not sorry.”

“Let’s go then, yeah?” Kate stepped into the newly opened area with a surprising display of confidence, as none of them knew that the next part of the chamber wasn’t also trapped. Though, that would have been rather redundant, in Alex’s opinion.

They all piled inside until the each stood only a couple feet from the glowing archway. Even with his [Aether Sight] Alex couldn’t see what was on the other side, the density of the energy was too much for him to glimpse past it, like a window heavily stained to the point light had trouble reaching through.

Devon was the first to approach and hold out his hand, something Alex guessed was due to his curiosity around the effect overpowering his caution. But just as his skin neared the surface of the energy and looked like it was about to pass through his hand stopped as if he was pressing against a sheer wall.

Alex raised a brow at this. Why open a passage if we can’t go through it? What’s the point of the blood test then?

He watched as Devon quickly performed the worlds greatest mime performance, pressing on, leaning into and searching around the apparent non existent obstruction. Whatever the energy field was, it didn’t want to let him through.

“Weird as hell, I don’t see any enchantments in the archway, so I don’t what its doing and why we can’t pass,” Devon said, after finally giving up.

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“So we risked our butts for nothing?” Cole asked.

Alex shook his head. He didn’t know what was going on, but he didn’t think it was ‘for nothing’.

That was when Kate stepped forward and reached out her own hand. Instead of being stopped by the energy like Devon had been, her hand touched the shimmering field then simply passed through it. She brought it back just as quickly, her face showing that she was just as surprised as Alex was.

“Holy shit,” she breathed.

“Fuck, of course.” Alex let out a sigh. “Only someone with the right constitution can pass through. This barrier is made of the same energy as what the basin was enchanted with. It won’t let anyone besides Kate pass by.”

“For real?” Garret groaned, “That’s cheap as hell. So only she gets whatever rewards are on the other side?”

“Or has to face whatever dangers are waiting there instead,” Holly countered.

“Are you really the dumb flesh-sack I worry you are? I thought I was raising you better than this.” Obby abruptly chimed inside Alex’s head.

What? He shot back.

“You really don’t recognize the energy at all? Didn’t even notice that reaction your body had to this area hmm? I know its hard for you, personally, but think for a moment, okay?”

Alex scowled but did what the little rock suggested. He thought over the reaction his body had been having to the Dungeon, the basin, the roar of the thing that was surely buried down beneath the normal Dungeon proper.

He thought of the energy, and how it had indeed been faintly familiar when he looked at it.

After a few long seconds, it all finally clicked together for him and he couldn’t stop himself from face-palming right then and there.

“Sonofabitch, it’s so obvious.”

He had seen the energy before. In fact, he had used that energy before, a few times actually. He had felt it flood his body and empower him in ways few other things ever had. He really should have seen it from the start.

You freaking idiot. Told himself. At the same moment he had his revelation, he heard Obby snicker inside his soulspace. Inside that mental metaphysical realm Alex could already see the little rock’s illusion-body was dancing about in air next to a large beating mass of muscle.

“What?” Holly and Kate asked at the same time.

“It’s Draconic energy,” Alex said, pointing at the barrier. “The purple energy, it’s Draconic energy. Kate’s constitution is a Hydra Beast constitution, and Hydras are Dragon-kin beasts.” It was the same exact energy that his Wyrm-Heart released each time it activated and filled his body with. Obby had been hinting at it all along, just not saying it outright.

“Which means we probably could have even used my blood for the basin. And it also means…”

He reached out his own hand, and just like Kate’s, it passed through the barrier without any issue.

“Oh yeah, you’re part dragon too. Tom-Tom’s basically confirmed that. Plus that weird thing you say you have floating in your soulspace.” Devon said with a snap of his fingers.

“Exactly,” Alex said.

“So only the two of you can pass through? I still don’t like that. In fact, I especially don’t like that,” Holly said stepping forward. Alex could see her face scrunching up in a displeasure.

She getting jealous? He thought humorously.

“Not like I built this Dungeon and made the rules, Holly,” Alex said in his own defense. “You think we should just let Kate wander in there alone?”

“Yes! No… maybe we can… I don’t know, okay.” She was getting fluster now.

He reached and grabbed her hand, squeezing it softly. “Look, I’ll be okay. Promise. And we have made up to this point, we can’t just turn around now.”

“I mean we can,” she said, rolling her eyes heavily. “But yeah, I get what you mean.”

“I can handle it alone it this is a problem for you,” Kate said with a smile. Alex winced at that, knowing she wasn’t exactly helping.

“Yeah, I’m sure you can,” Holly shot back.

Kate crossed her arms and shrugged. “If the problem is your confidence, then…”

“Knock it off ladies, we don’t have tails in this world, no cat fights,” Cole stepped in then, giving each of them a stern look.

Alex chuckled, earning him a round of stares of his own.

“Fine, fine, go,” Holly eventually said after a minute of silence. “But you better not die, and don’t anything stupid. That goes for both of you.”

Kate only slashed her another smile.

“You know I’ll be careful, always am,” I winked.

“Damn, idiot.” Holly pushed him away and towards the barrier. “Hurry up already.”

Alex decided not to antagonize or tease her further and turned to Kate and the draconic energy field. “After you,” he said.

Kate took a deep breath and moved herself directly in front of the archway. After only a second, she nodded to herself and took step forward, her entire body dissapearing into the energy, swallowed up instantly.

Without much pause, Alex followed after her, stepped through as well. He felt a strange tingle in his body as he stepped through, something entirely different that the normal System’s teleportation that he was used to inside Dungeons.

In a blink he had seemingly been moved, finding himself and Kate standing inside an immense rockey cavern. The entire area was alight with streams of purple aether, dancing about over the ground, the walls and the high ceiling.

But they weren’t just moving about randomly, or without purpose.

Each stream swirled about the others, moving in a tighter and tighter pattern until moving together in a single deep purple thread that connected to…

It was huge. Perhaps the largest creature Alex had ever seen. A hundred feet tall, if not more, as it was hard for him to see the entirety of its mass inside the cavern. It was something he could imagine seeing in a Holovid fighting against Godzilla.

As Alex looked at the creature, fourteen glimmering red eyes stared back at him from seven massive heads, each of them as wide as an elephant’s body, and probably even weighing far more. Its teeth as large as tusks, and far more deadly.

In that moment, he suddenly knew the fear and trepidation that Hercules must have been going through when the mythic hero had been going about his impossible tasks.

It was a Hydra.