Chapter 4 - The Temple of Asdros

The sun began to rise. Its light shined through the trees and onto the group. The fire from the coal the previous night had gone out. Emily was clinging to Alina as she slept, and the ball of fire had returned to the ring from whence it came. Sadly, the sunlight did nothing to prevent the cold breeze from the mountain peaks above from blowing down at the group. The stranger from the previous knight woke and dropped from the tree branch she slept on. Kara was under the tree, ready to greet her when she came down.

"Good morning." He said to her. The girl happily waved before taking a small bow and simply responding.

"And a lovely morning to you as well." Kara smiled at the girl and kept his posture. Straight and unmoving. Alina was just waking up. She sat up slowly and yawned, quickly noticing Emily clinging to her side. She spoke in a tired voice.

"... Morning..." Alina let out a long sigh. Emily smiled at her and finally noticed the stranger. She sat up and looked at her. She was talking with Kara under the tree. Emily was able to make out a bit of their conversation, overhearing that the girl's name was 'Dalton'.

"Dalton? Quite an interesting name." Kara said, tilted his head a bit as he spoke.

"Yes, though technically the spelling has changed from the origination of my family's surname."

"Then what was it originally?" Kara asked.

"Well, I would need to write it down on account of it sounding the same, good sir."

Kara nodded and pulled out his journal, ripping a small piece out and handing over the ink feather he carried. Dalton quickly took both and wrote down 'Dalton' and 'Dalton' before explaining why the name was changed.

"See a few generations ago my family became successful in making toy dolls, and as it tends to do, they adopted their craft as their name. However, as we stopped making toys, we changed the name."

"I see." Kara nodded his head.

The group began to pack up their stuff and began ascending the mountain. The higher they went the colder it became. The wind blew harder, and the snow made it a challenge to walk. A couple of hours or so passed and the group was almost at the halfway point. Alina shuffled through the snow as they made their way up. Her eyes were narrowed against the strong winds. Her hood was up to offer at least some protection, but she remained sleeveless, even in the freezing weather. Emily had taken her hat off and put it into a bag she found at the campsite below. She had her hood up and held her two arms in front of her face as she fought against the wind, eventually being blown back a bit and started falling behind once the group reached deeper snow. Alina noticed Emily, and stopped, stepping back to grab her hand and help pull her through the snow. She shifted so that she was in front of Emily, preventing the wind from being too hard on her. Kara was far ahead of the group, shuffling through the snow, though he felt nervous about falling. Warden was a short ways away from Kara, and Dalton was just behind him, with Alina and Emily a little further back.

More time passed, and soon the group reached the sloped at the top of the mountains. Dalton looked around excitedly. Taking in the view, as she could see far and wide. It took some time before the group managed to find the temple gates. They had to follow a specific path that the king explained. Soon, they descended into a cave that was rather well hidden in all the snow, but the left behind footprints and walking trails by other travelers helped lead them. Once they entered the cave they could see it. The gates to the temple. One massive open door. The marking and etchings around it were written in a different language. The door was made of stone, yet it looked very weak. As the group got closer, they soon noticed something. They were no longer standing in the snow, but rather the stone flooring of the cave, and in front of them were corpses of recently deceased travelers lying scattered across the ground. The path ahead of them was covered in small holes, in fact, too many holes. Many of the corpses were elevated by large wooden spikes that had emerged from the hole. The closest body to the group looked like the unluckiest. From what it looked like, a wooden spike had shot up through his foot, causing him to fall onto more holes. Two more bloodied spikes went through him. One through his back and the other through the back of his head.

Alina gently pulled Emily to a halt and began examining the layout of the floor. Kara knelt just before another corpse. He was able to make out that it was a woman. Unlike other corpses, her clothes were torn and ripped, with bite marks that had dripped now frozen blood down her bare leg. Frostbite had formed on the body's, some worse than others. Alina looked back at the group.

"Suggestions?" She asked softly. Emily saw the body's scattered around and took many steps back. She was breathing heavily and trying to hold in the urge to vomit. She fell back into the snow, and sand pretty deep into it.

"No way around it. I'll go first." Kara stated. He started making his way closer to the holes in the ground.

"Oh lovely, let's see how badly this goes," Alina said as she helped Emily up. The second Kara got near one of the holes, a wooden spike shot up, out of it. He jumped back, startled by the quick spike. It missed Kara and sank back into the ground.

"How about we use swords to trigger the spikes?" Alina suggested.

"But they just go right back down?" Warden said back to her.

"We don't have any other option," Alina said as she drew a sword from one of the dead travelers, careful not to trigger the trap. She used the sword to trigger the traps, testing them. Kara and Warden drew their swords and started doing the same. As the three tested the traps, Emily looked out of the bodies. She quickly spotted something. At the far end of the cave was a string of bodies with spikes through them. Some through the head, and some through the torso. One of the spikes only had a severed arm on the tip of it. Emily started approaching the body at the far end of the cave. They were a distance away from each other with a hole or two between them. Emily shuttered at the idea of walking on the body but did it anyway. She stepped onto the back of a dead woman and quickly jumped to the next one. She grabbed onto each spike as she jumped over to the next to keep balance. She slowly made her way across the trap. With every step, she could feel and hear a bone or two breaks.

When she made it across, she took a second to take a few deep breaths. She was shaking, not only from the cold but also from being nervous. Emily called out to her allies and told them about the path. Alina smiled at Emily as she made her way over the body with the other three. They didn't seem to have much of a problem walking over the corpses. The group peeked inside the temple door. The room was very dark, and it was hard to see anything. Emily summoned her small blue ball of fire to give some light. The light that they were given showed very little though. The room was very small and consisted of a single, short hallway with a massive 90-degree drop into darkness at the end of it.

"This is... Interesting." Alina stated. Warden peaked over the edge a bit as Emily gave him some light. There was nothing but blackness. Kara took a step forward and dropped one of the coals he had down the hole. There was a long silence before they could hear a faint splashing sound.

"Sounds pretty far," Dalton said. She was looking over the edge and into the blackness, looking very curious as to what could be down there.

"Anyone have any rope?" Warden looked back at the group. They all shook their heads.

"Maybe we can find some of the dead adventurers outside?" Dalton suggested. Alina nodded.

"Sounds like a good idea." She walked back with the other to find a rope. They eventually found enough rope from multiple different dead travelers outside. The ropes all had frozen blood on them, and it concerned Warden as he tied them together and looked for something to tie it to. It seemed like it was long enough but it was hard to tell.

"Can I go first?" Emily asked, looking down. There was a hint of fear in her voice, but also a bit of excitement.

"Not sure that's a Good Idea. You sure you want to?" Alina said, pursing her lips as she helped Warden tie to rope down to crooked chunks of rock outside. Emily nodded her head as she grabbed the end of the rope. Alina looked at her for a moment and sighed.

"O-Okay. But yell right away if something happens, okay?" Emily gave Alina another nod.

"Do I tie it around myself?" She asked Alina.

"I can, one second." She helped warden finish tying the rope down, and loops the rope around Emily in a makeshift harness, then nods for her to go up to the edge. Emily did so, carefully climbing down, and holding onto the edge of the cliff. Alina and the others grabbed hold of the rope, ready to lower her down. Emily let go and quickly grabbed onto the rope tightly. She dangled there, suspended by it. The blue ball of fire stayed near her as she descended deeper into darkness.

The group lowered the girl slowly, careful not to let go at any point. Emily soon reached the bottom. There was an open area with a single stone platform with a door. The rest of the area was water, and a few unlucky souls were floating in it. Emily felt sick again, looking at all the dead people floating. She held in her vomit once more and walked across the body's to the platform, using the rope to keep herself up above the water. Her foot squished against each body as she walked on it, pushing them a little deeper into the water. Once she reached the platform she let out a long sigh in relief. The bottoms of her boots were soaked in water, which was most likely contaminated by the bodies. Emily called back up to everyone, describing what was at the bottom and to be careful. She untied herself from the harness as the others called down to her to stay put.

"I'll go next. I would rather not be the final one to go down if it's all the same with you." Dalton said, grabbing the rope and slowly using it to climb down, not waiting for a response from the others. She didn't particularly have a problem with heights, more just the eerie setting. Emily looked out into the black room beyond the open door. She couldn't see anything and took a few steps forward to see inside. She sent her blue fireball forward to light up the room around her and show her different parts of it. The fireball went pretty far before stopping at the other end of the room. It was big judging by the distance the fireball traveled, but before she had the chance to summon the fireball back, something long extended from the darkness and stuck itself to Emily's back. She jumped and quickly spun around to see what hit her. She couldn't quite make it out. When she reached her hand back to feel it, her hand got stuck to it. Whatever it was, it was very sticky. She shivered a bit and froze once she heard a clicking sound above her. She slowly looked up but was quickly lifted her high into the air by the sticky thing that latched onto her. She let out a quick yelp and cry for help as she was forcibly pulled into the darkness.

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