© J.B. Norman — Published by Emona Literary Services™
“I can feel the magic in these ruins,” Scarlet notes. “Wow. You’d think it would have dissipated after so long.”
Kat has a bad feeling about this. Magic ruins are always, always bad news.
She glances cautiously at the ancient carvings and statues bathed in eerily dancing shadows cast by the illumination provided by the orb of light hovering at Scarlet’s shoulders.
She just knows that one of them is about to come to life and try to eat them.
“I’m sure there are wards all over the place,” Scarlet continues. “Be careful what you touch, Kitty-Kat, we don’t know what will happen if the wards are disrupted.”
“What’s going to happen, is that one of these statues is going to come to life and try to eat us!” Kat notes.
“That would be a very clever defence mechanism,” Scarlet mutters.
“Not helping!”
“Look,” Scarlet says. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll cast a Detection spell so we can see where any wards that will activate any of the ruins’ magical defences are, okay?”
Scarlet waves her hand. A wave of light washes over the chamber, briefly bathing every nook and cranny in its glow before fading away.
Kat may not be a magicological professional, but she’s seen enough Detection spells to know how they work. If there were any magic wards in the chamber, they would have resonated with the Detection spell and become plainly visible.
“See, Kitty-Kat? Everything’s fine. You worry too much.”
As far as Kat is concerned she does not, in fact, worry too much…
“And look,” Scarlet continues. “That Detection spell even revealed a hidden passage.”
The one thing the Detection spell did pick up is a panel on one of the walls, which is now illuminated in a magic golden glow.
“Shall we, Kitty-Kat?” Scarlet asks, moving over to the wall.
“Didn’t you just say to be careful about what we touched?” Kat asks.
Scarlet shrugs.
“We know there’s a door here. It’s not like we’re just fumbling around blindly in the dark,” she answers.
She kneels in front of the door and sets to work fiddling with her magic, trying to undo the ancient wards and magical locks holding the passage closed.
Kat still has a bad feeling about this whole endeavour, which only gets worse and worse as Scarlet continues to fiddle around with the magic locks.
It’s only a matter of time. Kat just knows one of the statues is about to life and try to them. She’s betting it’s the third one from the far door on the right side of the room. There’s just something off about it…
“Aha!” Scarlet says.
There’s a click as the panel in the wall begins to recede.
Then, there’s a loud, stony rumbling groan that shakes the entire chamber.
At the sound, Kat glances over her shoulder.
Sure enough, one of the statues has come to life, slowly rising from its plinth and lumbering towards them.. And, she can only assumes, it is preparing to try to eat them.
With a groan, Kat reaches over her shoulder for her bow. She hopes those new magic arrows she bought are up to the task.
She hates being right all the time…
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