Copyright J.B. Norman
In her lynx form, Lucia pads towards the pedestal where the magical object she, Apolline, and Petra have been hired to reclaim floats suspended in a field of its own potent magical energies.
The object, Pascal’s Triangular Pyramidion, an essay in magical artifice created centuries ago by the powerful Gallicantien wizard Pascal Briller, was recently stolen by a renegade wizard from the Ducal Treasury of Middlesbrooke. While the Pyramidion is generally agreed to be an object of immense power, what exactly it does remains unclear to Realmgard’s magicological scholars.
Lucia approaches the pedestal and leaps. In mid-air, she shifts back to her human form and snatches up the Pyramidion. The magical energies flowing through it make her fur stand on end.
She hits the ground, rolls, comes to a stop at Apolline’s feet and passes up the magical artifact to her. Lucia figures the Aurorean Sorceress is the most qualified to handle the thing. Plus, then if it ends up blowing up Middlesbrooke, it’ll be her fault…
“Thieves!” a voice calls shrilly.
The wizard stands in the archway, staring indignantly at Lucia, Apolline, and Petra.
“Dirt Golems,” the wizard cries. “Arise!”
“Dirt Golems?” Lucia mutters. “You’re a wizard, and the best thing you can make Golems out of is dirt? I feel personally attacked.”
As the wizard’s Dirt Golems coalesce into their combat-ready forms and stalk forward, Lucia promptly finds herself being personally attacked in a much more literal fashion. One of the Dirt Golems punches her across the room.
“Ow,” Lucia groans.
She staggers to her feet, clutching bruised ribs.
“Well. That shut me up.” She looks at Petra and Apolline. “Ideas?”
While Petra is faring much better against the Dirt Golems — Lucia supposes that being made of rock gives her a natural advantage over things made of dirt — Apolline is clutching the Pyramidion, trying to discern its secrets.
“It’s a puzzle-box,” she mutters to herself, realising that the panels on the triangular faces of the artifact slide beneath her fingers.
“Magic faster!” Lucia cries desperately, using Petra’s broad, stony shoulders as a springboard to attack one of the Dirt Golems.
Apolline slides the panels around. She begins to recognise the shapes the lines on the sliding panels make. They’re magic glyphs. She hurries to slide the panels into proper position, completing the glyphs on the faces of the Pyramidion.
There’s a click.
One of the faces of the Pyramidion opens up like a blooming flower. The magical light in the middle of the Pyramidion hums with an almost-musical sound like a tuning fork.
“And what,” Apolline mutters, “would happen if I tried resonating my magic with the Pyramidion, I wonder.”
She conjures magic at her fingertips, channeling it just right until it’s humming with the same frequency as the Pyramidion.
Lightning flashes from the Pyramidion, spewing a storm of bolts all over the room, arcing safely away from Lucia and Petra and bearing down on each of the Dirt Golems and blasting each of them down to individual specks of dirt.
The Pyramidion closes up back and drops into Apolline’s hand.
Apolline blinks in surprise.
“I didn’t know it could do that,” she mutters.
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