Taol's Compendium of Nent

Chapter 21: Skyward Temple (Ventus)

As soon as we set foot on the stairs leading up to the entrance of the ruins, I could feel this unexplainable chill crawl up my back. My arms felt heavier than usual, and it felt like something was gripping my heart tightly as I felt my breath be forced out from my body, which admittedly get me to be forced in place for a moment – for a moment, my vision blurred for a second, and when I saw the door in front of me, I could see the Void Servants staring at me again, looking down on me with relatively concerned expressions. It was as if they knew of what dangers that could come my way if I kept this up.

But there was no way I was backing down either.

Knowing that I had to face this potential trial alone, I looked over to my companion and asked her to stay here, knowing that she could risk getting herself in some serious danger if she were to get herself into the fray. Despite her clear insistence on wanting to be by my side in case something terrible were to happen, I held my ground, explaining that there was this chance where she couldn’t enter anyway – with that thought in, mind, she knew that she couldn’t argue with me on this, and in the end, she would reluctantly back off from the stairs as she told me to be extra careful. In her attempts to lighten up the mood, she would playfully threaten to punch me in the face if I made her worried to no end again.

This was enough to make me c***k a smile and chuckle a little before I looked back towards the front entrance – only this time, the Void Servants would no longer be within my field of vision. It would seem that I had to be quick about this.

I would take a deep breath, attempting to gather up as much courage and determination as I possibly could before walking up the stairs and placing my hand against the door – suddenly, my hands would suddenly burst into a bright white flame…the hottest it had ever been. In fact, it was so hot that it felt like my hands were about to melt, and with me unable to take the pain, I began screaming in pain as my voice began resonating throughout the quiet land. Strangely enough, the door began to catch fire as the stone construct which blocked me off from the temple interior began to break apart and fizzle out into dust.

Sensing danger, Tirza seemingly let her senses get the best of her as she attempted to reach me in her attempts to help me, but out of the corner of my eye amidst all the pain I was going through, I could see her suddenly pushed back from the stairs by some unseen force, and no matter how hard she tried to get herself on the stairs, some invisible power was constantly pushing her away. So, I really was alone on this one…as I had expected…

Soon enough, my hands would suddenly extinguish its own flames as the stone door was reduced into a half-liquefied muck…the interior of the temple was now free for me to venture into. I could sense the dark energy emanating from the hallowed ground…and the energy I sensed was far from pleasant. With that, I would glance over at Tirza one last time, my tear-stricken eyes gazing at her as I gave her a wave goodbye before stepping into the ruins.

Instead of this place being a one-room temple, this place looked to be huge, and with me having no map to help me guide my way through an area like this, I had to rely on nothing but my senses in order to traverse these grounds and reach the corrupt magic trace that lingers within this temple. I could only hope that this would be enough for me to move around this place without much risk of getting lost.

It would seem that this huge hallway possessed four staircases on both sides of the walls and one door which was on the opposite end of the hallway – and what was strange was the fact that there was a huge sigil that was emblazoned on the middle of the floor within the hallway. It was jutting out from the floor as well, albeit only slightly, but it was still enough for me to notice it. However, the fact that it was not very well lit was rather frustrating, and so, as a response, I brought my hand out as a calm flame burst to life which illuminated a sizeable part of the room, revealing just what the insignia was.

It looked to be a sigil of some kind of octopus-like creature…I didn’t know what it was or what it was supposed to represent, but it was definitely a rather discomforting sight. At first, I ignored the four staircases and went straight for the door, and it was from here where I could basically SMELL the corrupt magic – it had to be on the other side of the door. However, when I tried to open the door, I was immediately blasted away by some mysterious power, and I was sent skidding against the floor before smacking against the wall.

A voice would suddenly boom throughout the entire ruins – in fact, it was so loud that the entire temple would be quaking slightly. It spoke about how the door will never be open unless the sigil was fully lit up – the voice demanded that ‘those who are infected’ must light the way before leading themselves ‘into the darkness’…quite cryptic, but I think the goal was clear.

Light the sigil, and I would be allowed to open the door. From that thought process alone, I figured out just was what those four staircases were for. With that in mind, I just took the closest flight of stairs – the southwest flight. It seemed to be a spiraling staircase, though it didn’t take very long to reach the second floor of the temple, and in front of me was some kind of glowing red lantern. Perhaps that had something to do with lighting the sigil.

However, when I tried to reach out to it, I could feel a rather strong spark course through my entire body as I instinctively stepped back, and soon enough, that familiar voice would come booming through the room once again as it spoke up.

It seemed that I had to be tested first, and suddenly, I noticed something beginning to lurk from the darkness which my flames couldn’t light up – they were…skeletons? They would be crawling out from the abyss at the very edges of the room, as if they had been stuck in there for ages on end…and soon enough, a horde of skeletons would surround me, swords and maces in hand, some donning armor and shields…

This…was bad.

Sure, they were just skeletons, it would be easy to just smack them and send them cluttering down into a pile, but they were already dead – hard to kill what isn’t alive, after all. Knowing that this had to be a test of my magic proficiency, I would bring my arms out, my hands immediately engulfed in a blazing blue flame as I watched the undead army beginning to close in on me with each step they took.

I concentrated most of my strength into my magic, and in response, the fires just grew stronger and stronger…and soon enough, it would reach its breaking point as it grew a bright white-red, and in that moment, I immediately smacked my hands against the small space of ground that I had, and in response, sudden blast of magma-like flames would burst out from the rock floor and spread throughout the undead army in a wave-like fashion, and in the end, all I did was just watch the skeletons begin to melt into the hotpot that I had just created.

The lava pool would soon rapidly cool, and soon enough, it was reduced into a huge slab of rock that took up a majority of the floor surrounding me. The voice would soon speak up, saying that I was allowed to take the lantern – and so, I did. With that, I went back down, and as soon as I took the last step and got myself back out into the meeting point, a stone door would suddenly come down from above and slam down behind me, preventing me from turning back and returning back to the southeast flight.

I guess there was that.

I would approach the sigil with the lantern in my hands, and upon noticing a hole at the end of one of the quarters of the circle, I would attempt to fit the lantern into the hole, and in response, it slotted in pretty well as the lantern began to be drained of its light, and in response, a quarter of the sigil would be lit up.

This red luster to it…something about it felt horribly wrong, and at the time, I didn’t know why I felt that way – I just hoped that my hunch was trying to play mind tricks on me. With that, I would move to the northwest flight of stairs, and in an instant, I was wondering just what kind of trial would the higher powers above put me through this time.

As soon as I took the final step up to the second floor however, I was suddenly drowned by a sudden depletion in light – here I was, surrounded by nothing but endless darkness surrounding me. The lantern doesn’t seem to be anywhere within the ‘room’ as well. The voice soon interfered, saying that this was going to be a test of my mind, and just like that, I knew this wasn’t going to be a good experience.

All of a sudden, I would begin floating about, as if this entire area had been brought into a state of zero gravity – why? Why was I floating? I was constantly wondering, with me on the edge of fear and paranoia, just what was going to happen…and soon enough, I was met with such a terrifying sight as something began to come out from the darkness.

It was…some kind of thing. I still don’t know how to describe it, even to this very day, and it still gives me a horridly uneasy feeling in my heart that still lingers and festers within…if I had to describe it through a comparison…it made the flesh, acid-spitting monster from the Clade Ruins look so vanilla in comparison.

While everything around me remained black as the night, what lied in front of me was this wall of red, and it wasn’t even a natural red as well…it was the red you would see in fresh, living flesh…and from that wall of muscle I could see this giant construct which had been raised from it. It was beating like a heart, blood cascading from its enormous body, and from the top of that disgusting creation was a face that should never be seen by anyone on this world – it was so indescribable that even thinking about it right now is making my heart race and my sight blurry…it’s just too difficult to comprehend it.

And the voices…my god, the voices…

It was just a cacophony and moaning and screaming…almost as if they were begging for help, begging to be free from the wall that they were a part of, and those very voices were what made this heart-like thing beat…and soon, it would set its sights on me.

It would stare down upon me, its fleshy arms lowering to slowly grab me, and when it did, I could feel its muscles pulsing about, getting its horrid blood all over me as it raised me up.

I found myself staring at the abyss, and the abyss stared back in the form of that monster – it shouldn’t even exist. It shouldn’t even be allowed to exist…not by any means at all…my heart raced. Raced faster than ever before. As if it was about to explode. The thing would soon speak, and when it did, it felt like everything around me was beginning to spin to dizzying levels, and I could feel it beginning to affect me as my vision began to weaken.

What this thing said…it still resonates in my mind. I can still remember it word for word.

“Your power…it belongs to us. You are meant to be here with us, together...for you are one of them. You are with the tainted, and you shall be one with the tainted. You cannot hope to understand me just as how you cannot hope to understand yourself…”

“You are nothing…for we are everything…and you too, can be everything…”

The room was spinning so fast that it felt like I was on the verge of puking – my sight was slowly turning red and I could see the thing moving me closer and closer to it…I could see it opening its maw, revealing a huge cesspool of conjoined bodies of creatures that had been skinned alive, and they were repeatedly piling onto each other, as if they were desperate to receive me. It would throw me into its mouth, and soon enough, I found myself screaming and desperately crying for help as I found myself inching closer and closer to the body pile, and as soon as I found myself facing it by just mere inches, I would just…phase right through it as I immediately smacked against a stone wall…the illusion was over.

But I never thought it was. That image of the wall…that image of the thing that jutted out from it…it was forever burned into my mind. I suddenly turned my back to the wall, my hands grabbing onto it with a vice-like grip as I found myself crying profusely, my eyes red from the constant tears streaking my cheeks as I gasped and panted for dear life, as if I had lost my breath for as long as the illusion lasted.

I was continually in a cycle of madness – I desperately wanted to get the nightmare of what I had witnessed in my head, but at the same time, it was as if that thing is now living within my thoughts, and it refused to let me forget about it…while my sight was suffering from a case of double-vision, I could see the lantern popping out from the middle of the room as the center of the floor opened up with a display column coming out from under the floor, and once it was available for me to take it, the floor would close itself up, leaving the lantern there for me to grab whenever I wanted to.

Sure, it was there, but I was so riddled with crazed paranoia that I didn’t know if I should take it or not – what if I were assaulted by such nightmarish illusions again? After minutes had passed, I was finally able to calm myself down, but I don’t know if I can ever be the same after that horrid incident…I was able to get myself back up to my feet, though my balance was still shaky – I wiped the tears off my face, and I attempted to take a few deep breaths to relax myself, and with that, I grabbed the lantern and went downstairs, with me bringing a flame to my hand once again to illuminate the area.

After fitting the lantern into the northwest quarter of the sigil, half of it would be successfully lit up – two left. I was now left wondering what kind of horrible fears and nightmares await me in the last two flights that lied before me. But I had to go through them all the same…it was the only way I could progress further in this temple and reach through the door.

With that, I made my move to the northeast flight to take on the third trial.

When I arrived at the third flight, the lantern was right there, as it was in the first flight, and sure enough, when I tried to reach out to it, I felt a shock course through my entire body – but my senses were so exhausted by that nightmarish frenzy I experienced from the second flight that I barely even felt anything. The voice would speak out, saying that my burnt-out reflexes will be tested, and with that, the lantern would be pulled into the ground as the floor closed itself over it, and with that my trial would begin.

I felt a sudden sense of danger overcome me as my vigilance was artificially raised, and just like that, I immediately forced my body to the side as an arrow was shot from the wall, just bare inches away from my face as I witnessed it whizz through the air and across the room before being stuck to the other end of the room.

Soon enough, I could feel my magic act up as I felt that same impending danger surrounding me – this was going to take a while…

Just seconds later, I found myself suddenly surrounded by a rain of arrows as a flurry of them were fired all around me at once, and just like that, as soon as I noticed them closing in on me with every blink of an eye, I immediately raised my hands to my sides as I forced out my shield constructs through my hands as I pulled them up over my head and upper body – while they were able to protect me from the arrows coming for the upper part of my being, the same couldn’t be said for my legs, and just like that, I found myself being pierced with arrow after arrow in the legs and feet as I soon found myself collapsing to the ground while the lantern was swiftly brought up, now available for the taking.

This temple sure does love breaking me, do they…not only was I mentally drained, I was basically crippled as well – there was no way my magic can help seal those wounds at the moment. I had to pull those arrows out from my legs and my feet.

Cue the part where I had to forcibly pull said arrows from my injuries, and while I was doing so, the temples quaked at the sound of my pained and crazed yelling as my suffering amplified more and more with every arrow I pulled out. Still, once I was able to get all of them out, my magic was finally allowed to do its work as the black goo began filling up the wounds – the fact that it was heated meant that I was momentarily overwhelmed by the feeling of burning…but it was better than nothing. I had to get those injuries treated quickly once I was done with this…

Only one trial remained now – surely it couldn’t get any worse, right? Just what will that voice make me go through this time?

I would return to the meeting room, with me quickly fitting the lantern into the northeast quarter of the sigil…all but one quarter remained for me to gain access to the door. I headed into the southeast flight, and once I arrived, I was met with an empty room – a room this empty smelled like danger and death…

The voice would return once more, acknowledging the fact that I had made it this far – however, it exclaimed that this would be my most difficult trial again, for it would be a test of both mind, power, and reflex alike. It would explain that I would have to face my darkest fear – the ultimate testament to my determination and persistence to finish off the last of the four trials that bind this temple together.

This was it – the finale.

The room around me would turn black once again, and sure enough, as soon as I felt the spinning motion beginning to kick in, I knew just what I was about to face. My heart rate shot up in an instant as I could feel it leap all the way up to the end of my throat…this wasn’t going to end well for me, that was for sure.

I found myself floating once more, and sure enough, I was met with that visceral flesh wall once again, and within seconds, my ears were bombarded by their cries and screams once more. The thing awaited me…and it was there to be my final test.

When the thing stared at me, as if knowing that it had seen me before, it would raise its arms up in the air before stretching its head out, the monster pulsing and throbbing in place violently as it screeched a deafening screech, and in response, the flesh wall would begin to squirm and struggle in place as it began leaking red and black all over.

The fiend’s teeth would soon grow out from its gums, and they looked so crooked and yellow that it looked so unnatural…its hollow eye sockets would be staring at me, but I would be seeing nothing but an infinite cosmos of nothingness within its own eyes, or lack thereof.

This was it. This thing had to die – this thing and what it was made up of. The body of the thing would open up, revealing a giant gaping hole dead center in its stomach as a giant tongue would come out of it, which was laced and laden with teeth while the tongue also possessed a mouth of its own – there seemed to be bile leaking out from the entire tongue as well…it smelled like as if a blight had taken over and festered within the entire room…

It definitely wasn’t going to hold back…

And neither was I.

The thing would begin its attack by firing its tongue right at me, and I immediately responded by throwing myself to the side with as much force as I could muster, which was enough to barely escape the tongue’s range as I attempted a counter by bringing out my blazing red hands and grabbing onto the thing’s tongue, and just like that, the monster would recoil in utter torment as it let out a guttural, near-indescribable roar as it forced its tongue back into its stomach, and in response, it would angrily screech at me as I was suddenly snagged in the leg by a tentacle that just burst out from below me.

The appendage would quickly extend itself and wrap around my entire arm before unleashing a vicious grip, and just like that, I felt something snap in my leg as a surge of pain overcame me – the damn creature broke my leg…and just like that, I was momentarily left vulnerable as I was instantly clawed by the thing as a follow-up attack while I was still stunned, rendering me gravely injured and incapacitated.

Some test this was…is that why no one dared to go inside this temple…?

I desperately tried to shake off the excruciating pain that came with my leg being broken, and in response, I brought my hands forth, a bright flame engulfing them once again as I fired a flurry of fireballs at it in an attempt to burn the damn fiend, and instead, while the thing recoiled in pain, it looked like I had done very minimal damage to it…

There had to be some way to destroy this creature…

And that was when an idea came to my head.

Conveniently enough, I would be snagged in my broken leg by that tentacle once again, which was quick to disrupt my train of thought as I would be tossed straight into the monster’s gaping mouth, and right there, I could see the sea of bodies that were killing each other just to get a taste of me – however, I had other plans in mind.

There was no way I was going to die that day.

I immediately dived into the creature’s mouth, flaming arms put together as the fires turned white-hot, and just like that, I found myself blazing straight through the bodies within the creature’s mouth, leaving a gaping, burning hole through the screaming, skinned beings that I effortlessly seared through as I felt wild quaking within the monster – it could sense what I was doing, and soon enough, it would begin to rip itself apart as I saw a hand suddenly burst into its throat. Well, I assumed it was its throat anyway.

I quickly grabbed onto its fingers, and with that, I was forced out of its throat by the monster as a gaping hole was left in the creature’s neck – it would try to consume me once again, only this time, it would seem that it wanted to make sure I was caught between its crooked teeth. Knowing that I cannot afford to repeat my tactics again, I immediately burned the monster’s hand, forcing it to let go of me before attempting to pull off a dangerous move.

I swiftly fired off a pair of violent white fireballs directly into the fiend’s eye sockets, and when they hit their mark, the thing began to pulse at an increasing rate as the screams and wails intensified to unholy proportions – the thing began to glow as it began to scrape into its eye sockets, and just like that, everything around me would soon explode into a bright white flash that momentarily blinded me as I soon heard the sound of a violent, visceral explosion.

Was this it?

When my sight finally returned, I could see the entire room painted red and small bits of white as pieces of flesh could be seen strewn around the area – I myself was basically splattered with red all over too. I found great difficulty in standing up, considering how that thing broke my leg, but soon enough, the final lantern would be right there for the taking. The last lantern, which signified the success of my final trial.

I forced myself back up, and I painfully limped towards the lantern, picking it up before my battered, broken and lacerated body down the stairs and out into the meeting point, where I fitted the lantern into the final quarter of the circle. With the squid-like sigil now fully lit, the door would finally open up as it retreated into the ceiling, and within the room lied a statue which possessed this musty, menacing aura to it…

I could see the dark mist which surrounded this unknown statue, and in response, I drew myself closer to it as I entered the room, and as soon as I rested a hand on the statue, I could feel the mist disperse as the dark smoke began to circle me before painfully seeping into my skin, and just like that, unable to take the pain much longer, I collapsed onto the ground as I forced myself back into a seating position while I rested myself against the statue’s legs.

I desperately wanted to faint, but it felt like I wasn’t allowed to. That image of that fleshy thing…it was still fresh and burnt into my mind, never to let me go. I could soon hear the sounds of footsteps as someone saw me in my destroyed state. It was Tirza – it would seem that the barrier stopping her from entering the temple had been removed. Thank goodness…