The Second Tower (2)
The island we reached by walking the path of transparent light that linked island to island took the form of a temple.
It looked remarkably like the temples one might find in Greece. Time had clearly left its mark—cracks ran through the stone, and some sections had crumbled—yet the smooth white marble still radiated a sacred presence. Set beside the temples I had seen in other worlds, this one felt larger and more magnificent still. The pillars, with their refined yet seamless curves, the foundation stones that seemed to press them down, and the angelic figures carved into the ceiling only deepened that impression.
"Hmm. So this is where it starts?"
I watched Hyeonseok as he surveyed the surroundings, approaching a pillar and running his hand over its smooth surface, preparing to trigger the tower's mechanism. Yeonseo was wandering about with a polaroid camera, snapping photos of everything, so once again it fell to Hyeonseok to handle the activation.
"It's about to go off, so both of you get over here!"
"Got it."
"Okay."
Yeonseo and I stopped admiring the surroundings and trudged over to his side. There stood a stele not unlike the one we had seen before, yet perfectly suited to this place—carved from pure white marble. The writing etched into its surface was, as before, unreadable to the naked eye, but the device's translation function let me make out the contents.
What? It's basically the same explanation we just heard. The only real difference is a line about beware the wrath of the angels—or whatever they are. We're fighting magical beasts either way, so it probably doesn't matter.
As I read, light began to well up from the letters. Before long, cracks spidered across the stele, light seeping through the gaps, until with a sharp bang the stone shattered and a pillar of light rose in its place.
"This one's pretty flashy. So where are the beasts coming from?"
"No idea. Just stay ready. They could show up any second."
I offered my take on the tower's mechanism—the stele exploding, the pillar of light blooming where it had stood—while Hyeonseok scanned the area and wound wind around his body, settling into a ready stance. Beside us, Yeonseo opened her grimoire and began calling forth her summons.
"They said angels, right? Better pull out the Chaos series again."
Ice formed in the air, shaping itself into centaur-like Chaos-series summons that began circling us, standing guard. How long we waited, I couldn't say. Gradually the pillar of light dimmed, shrank, and vanished.
Then a sudden whoosh drew our eyes upward. A vast gate had opened in the sky, and through it poured winged humanoid figures—magical beasts in the classic shape of angels. Golden arrows already rested against their bowstrings; they had loosed the moment they appeared.
"Tch! They fired the second they came out?!"
Brittany
I threw up a barrier around us at once, catching the arrows they had loosed. But the shafts were stronger than expected—each impact shook the protective dome hard enough for us to feel it, and the collisions rang out like great drums being struck: thoom, thoom, thududung!
Before we could do anything else, the angels already wheeling through the sky kept drawing and loosing, raining arrows down on us without pause.
A good thirty minutes of relentless assault later, we were still debating how to break the stalemate.
"Charlotte! You holding up okay?"
"Don't worry. Something this light won't wear me out. More importantly—what do we do? We can't just keep blocking forever."
"You're telling me. Even the summons I brought out can't get an attack in with arrows flying like that."
Not realizing the temple ceiling was open to the sky—assuming the pillar of light was just a pretty light show—had been a costly mistake.
"Hmm. Charlotte, can you open part of the barrier?"
"A little while ago I couldn't have, but now I can."
"Then Yeonseo, take the summons and fall back to watch the situation. I'll slow the arrows with wind—we hit them in that opening."
"Got it."
Yeonseo began gathering her summons and mounted one, waiting for me to open the barrier. Hyeonseok started gathering wind into both hands.
"Haaaah!"
I adjusted Brittany's transparency so the angels couldn't see what we were doing. For a moment the rain of arrows stopped—then, as if deciding it was nothing to worry about, they resumed firing almost at once.
"Good! Ready!"
Two broad, disc-shaped whirlwinds spun in Hyeonseok's hands. At his word, I opened a hole in the barrier large enough for Yeonseo and her summons to slip through behind us.
"Both of you be careful."
With that, Yeonseo rode out on her summons. The moment Hyeonseok told me to drop the barrier, I released it and, bracing for the worst, readied a shield of holy power—Atlantes.
Thankfully the arrows didn't pour toward Yeonseo; they kept hammering us instead, and I felt a small wave of relief.
"Remoli Disco!"
Hyeonseok launched the disc-shaped whirlwinds skyward. The spinning gales swelled as they flew, swallowing every incoming arrow, then tore on toward the angels themselves. The two whirlwinds collided, growing larger still; the point of impact began to glitter, and a sound that shook the heavens rose from the clash. The merging winds took on a glow, and that light stretched out toward the angels and their metal weapons.
"Whoa—is that lightning? I thought you only controlled wind. You can do that too?"
"Haha. I can induce most phenomena wind is capable of producing. Of course, landing it cleanly like this isn't all that likely—but the gamble paid off, so we're good~"
"What? You mean you tried something that might or might not work?"
I stared in disbelief and smacked his smirking back, then turned my eyes to the bolts of light streaking across the sky and the angels' frantic movements. A few of the more seasoned ones managed to dodge—only to take ice arrows full in the chest and plummet.
"Ah! More importantly—where's the one with the key?!"
"There—the one draped in red cloth, maybe? The others are yellow or blue, but that one's the only one wrapped in red."
"Got it!"
I scanned the sky, following Hyeonseok's pointing finger, and found the figure—a pair of pure white wings beating in mild panic, red cloth streaming around its body. I shaped a spear of holy power—Ardbhar—and loosed it. Chance had already struck the creature with one of Hyeonseok's light-bolts, freezing it in place for a heartbeat, so the spear found its mark easily.
A sharp boom, and the angel burned as it fell. Something glittering tumbled free toward us.
"What is that? Gotcha!"
I jumped and closed my hand around the glittering object. Cold metal pressed against my palm.
"Is this the key?"
"Looks like it. Look—the ones that were left are vanishing."
At his words I looked up. Angels still aloft, and those that had fallen to the lightning with only a thread of life left, were crumbling into dust and disappearing.
"Hmm. Next time we should prepare wide-area attacks in advance—or at least watch a little longer before we commit."
Hyeonseok studied the vanishing figures, already thinking through how to handle the next island.
"Yeah? Well, if we run into something really nasty, killing the key-bearer fast is probably the right call."
"Right. Dragging it out could put us at a disadvantage, and we don't know how many islands we still have to clear. Conserving stamina isn't a bad idea either."
"Fair point. Oh—here comes Yeonseo."
Once she rejoined us, we searched the temple interior, but found no path to the next island. We stepped back outside and surveyed the grounds. On the side opposite the way we had come stood a door of the same marble as the temple itself.
"This has to be it—but I don't see anywhere to put the key."
Yeonseo, who had been photographing as she looked, took her hand off the door and turned to me.
"Charlotte, what does the key look like? Can I see it?"
"Sure. Here. Pretty unusual design."
The key I handed her was, as I'd said, oddly shaped. Instead of the usual shark-tooth notches along the bottom, it was carved in the form of a tower.
"I keep wondering—why does the tower insist on making even tiny things like this look like towers?"
"But that's exactly what makes the tower feel like such an unknown to us."
Yeonseo and I talked about the tower as we examined the door more carefully. Then she pressed the key against various points on its surface—and suddenly a grinding clunk-clunk-clunk sounded.
"Huh? The door's moving?"
From the spot where the key had touched, the surface fractured into tiny cubes that spread outward, until a keyhole finally appeared.
"Ugh, this place is seriously exhausting!"
Yeonseo shoved the key in with open irritation and turned it. The key rotated, the door absorbed it, and the way began to open.
"Hang in there~ We're only just getting started."
"That's exactly why it feels even more exhausting."
"Haha. Still, if this mechanism is anything like the last one, we should be able to finish fast as long as we handle things quietly."
"Hey—that's flag-planting talk!"
Not long after, a storm of light-arrows and spears forced us to throw up walls and stand locked in place, doing nothing but defend.
"See?! You planted the flag and this is what we get!!!!"