บท 57: Chapter 57
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"Lumos."
With a whisper, Ethan lit up the tip of his wand as he entered the dark tunnel, following behind Snyde.
Although he was better with runes than either of them, it was not what Curse Breaking was all about. Snyde was a professional, and to have landed the job had to be proficient in them at the very least anyway.
Behind Ethan was Tracey, and Henry was in the back of the formation.
Snyde stopped when she saw his lit-up wand, however, and took out a potion. She took a swing of it, and passed it to Ethan, explaining, "Dark Vision Potion. You probably want to keep your wand at the ready. The Flash Wizard and I will handle as much as we can, but better be safe than sorry."
Ethan grabbed the potion but did not immediately drink it. He first used his magical sense on it, but he did not find anything amiss with it. That did not mean it was entirely safe for consumption, only that it hadn't been tempered by a spell.
Unfortunately, Ethan wasn't good enough with potions to determine whether it was only a Dark Vision Potion. Maybe he would have drunk it without much hesitation, were it not for the strange interaction his parents had before.
So he shook his head and said, "I'll manage, but thanks."
He passed it to Tracey, and he did not even have to say anything for her to directly pass it along to Henry, who snorted, "Your loss," before drinking some himself and passing it to Bilaal.
Ethan was left confused about what kind of games his father was playing, but he did not budge from his decision as the group started moving forward.
Charging more magic into his spell, the light of Lumos became even brighter as it illuminated farther ahead, allowing Ethan and Tracey to see about five meters around them.
Ethan wished he was capable of forming an independent orb of light that would follow him around, but that required an advanced mastery of Charms and the spell Lumos, both of which he lacked.
The tunnel was narrow at first, barely big enough to fit two men standing side by side, but as they got deeper in it gradually got bigger.
The construction remained the same, however, and quite honestly, looked strange. Before this, in the part of the temple that had already been discovered, everything had been carved into a mountain. It wasn't so much construction as it had been careful, precise destruction. That resulted in smooth, one-piece walls, where everything was connected and there was no true beginning or end to surfaces.
Down there, however, the walls were made of stacked blocks of stone, possibly granite, although Ethan was no expert in stones. But this did not make sense.
They were underground, so why would anyone go through the trouble of moving stones down here? Even if the endeavor certainly would be facilitated by the use of magic, it would still most certainly remain a gigantic hassle, especially when they could do it much more simply.
Ethan did not see anyone else pointing any of it out, so he decided to keep quiet about it for now. Maybe his parents' strange interaction was turning him paranoid, but he would rather be safe than sorry.
Suddenly, Snyde stopped in front of Ethan, and said, "There is something ahead. Probably a trap of some kind. Move slowly."
Several meters ahead, they stopped again, and Snyde slightly moved to the side, crouching as she whispered, "How strange, a pressure plate."
Ethan narrowed his eyes and tried to take a closer look, but even then he could not see anything amiss. That is until Snyde made a twirl with her wand, and a square portion of the ground lit up with a gentle bluish light.
She observed it for a few seconds, during which she muttered spells Ethan did not know, and her gaze seemed to follow something under the ground as if she could see through it. She probably could.
Meanwhile, Henry looked down at it with interest as well he said, "This is the first time I hear of a pressure plate being used for a trap in this region of the world. You mostly see these in South America or Asia."
Snyde hummed lightly, not adding anything to the remark as she said, "This one looks like it connects to a particularly nasty kind of freezing spell."
She looked over her shoulder, and asked excitedly, "Wanna see?"
Although taken aback by the proposition of the supposedly professional Curse Breaker, Ethan did not get to say a word before Tracey exclaimed, "Of course!"
Ethan sent a look at his father for reinforcement but only found a teasing grin.
With Henry's indirect approval, Merula Snyde signalled for the other four to stand back, before stepping onto the pressure plate.
The moment she did, an opening so thin it could barely be seen by the naked eye opened on each side of the tunnel, and out of them came a thick blue gas. It reached Snyde in an instant, and quickly covered the other four's view.
The gas did not spread far, so they were safe, but they had to wait several seconds before it finally stopped and started dissipating on its own.
The area around the pressure plate had been turned an icy blue, and in the middle of it all was an oval-shaped ice structure, which almost looked like an egg made of ice.
Snyde's voice came from within, "Pretty cool, right?"
A fiery red light emerged from within the ice egg, and it melted down in seconds as Snyde emerged from it spotless.
Tracey was gawking at it, while Ethan had his attention on the thin openings. He had only felt the magic in them when they had opened, which probably would have been too late. Now that it had been triggered, however, he could see how it had been used.
He did not know how it had been preserved, but he was sure that this had been a charm. A powerful one that conjured an icy wind, much stronger than Glacius. Ethan wished he could learn the spell, but it had probably been lost to the sands of time. Maybe if they found another similar trap, he could study it.
But then came the question as to how it had been preserved. Had it been cast and the icy wind sealed, or was the charm itself placed and somehow activated through the trigger?
As curious as Ethan was, they had to move forward.
Fortunately, it was not just one long tunnel, as after three more traps, all of which they avoided springing because they were more dangerous, they arrived in a room.
It was a circular room, one that was quite high as well, going over three meters high, constructed as such to accommodate the giant coffins embedded into the wall. In the middle of the room was a strange pillar, obviously not there to support the roof as it was cut in the middle.
Within that cut part was a pair of small objects, hovering gently in between the two parts of the pillar. There was no other door.
Fortunately, the room was also illuminated by luminescent crystals, allowing Ethan to put out his Lumos spell.
As the five members of the group, or six counting Miyuki, stood around the pillar, Tracey tilted her head and asked, "That can't be it, right?"
Snyde looked at Bilaal, who said, "The other group has not met anything similar."
Meanwhile, Ethan and his father were both hunched over as they inspected the hovering objects. They were identical and looked like accessories. A small one that had been exquisitely made of pure gold and what looked like to be a sapphire. It seemed to be a pair of earrings.
Taking another look at the surrounding coffins, Ethan said, "So, grabbing this will spring the trap, I suppose?"
Snyde nodded, "Yes. And the way forward may be hidden behind one of the coffins, but by the looks of it, triggering any single one of them means triggering all the others. We should look for clues first, before taking any actions. Again, I don't want anyone touching anything."
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