The inside of the temple was nothing like Eleazar had ever seen. Circular patterns of runic shapes decorated the dome ceiling with a slow pulsing blue light in an effervescent spiral. Four silvery columns held the edifice together, beautified with twisting carvings of vines. Tiled dark grey and cream marble made up the floor and walls, whilst embedded soft lights with no visible source were positioned strategically throughout both.

Eleazar knew he was seeing magic, but it was still hard to accept. A pressure from above stopped him in his tracks. It almost felt like the spiral on the ceiling was trying to reach out to him. He tried to concentrate on the strange tension. An electric sensation began building at the base of his spine.

Just as the tingle started to spread into something meaningful, a polite cough from the guard that had been leading him broke his concentration. The pull evaporated. Eleazar realized he had been standing in the middle of the entryway with a slack jawed mouth, staring at the ceiling. After a shy apology he resumed following the guard, hoping he didn’t impress upon too many people with his donkey brained yokel routine.

Once they’d made it about halfway through the main floor, Eleazar caught sight of the other children that had been in the line with him. They were all sitting at a round table against one of the walls with a smiling Trovian in a toga. Everyone at the table was happily eating milk and cookies. Eleazar was instantly jealous. No wonder no one ever comes back, Eleazar thought with a wry smile. It was a good sign that something nefarious probably wasn’t going to happen. At least, not immediately.

Sudden panic broke him out of his good humor when he remembered the reason he was there. Frantically, he started looking around for Lilion. How could he forget, even for a second? Sadly, after a quick search he determined that there was no one else to be seen on the main floor of the temple.

Building up his courage, Eleazar picked up speed to match the guard that was leading him.

“Excuse me, sir. Can you tell me if some of the children who were brought in a couple of weeks ago are still here?” he asked.

The guard gave a sad shake of his head and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t. You’ll have to ask the Lady for those kinds of answers.”

“Thanks,” Eleazar said detachedly. His mind was already whirling with hope and jubilation. Someone knew where she was, that was all that mattered.

After a brisk echoey walk across the otherwise silent temple floor, then up a flight of stairs, they entered an enigmatic room. Bizarre metal contraptions that almost looked like quills, or maybe exotic torture devices, were neatly arranged along shelves lining the walls. More of the blue glowing patterns adorned the ceiling, but Eleazar felt a much stronger pressure emanating from the configuration in this room than he did from the main floor. In the center of the room, one of the children was laid back in a chair and strapped down with a metal mask over the top half of his face. A thick bundle of cords connected the device to the center of the ceiling spiral. Pulses of the blue energy were rhythmically sent from the glowing spiral to the mask.

Eleazar felt his stomach drop at the scene. Whatever was occurring here looked unquestionably sinister. Before he could process his emotions, a striking woman caught his attention.

She looked like the tall pale women he’d seen outside earlier, but with a healthy dose of goddess thrown in. Eleazar guessed that she was at least seven feet tall. Thin willowy arms crossed over her chest in a somewhat considering posture. Her hair was a vibrant silver that cascaded around her shoulders and her skin was an alabaster white embossed with a pinstripe thin intricate blue runic tattoo network over every part of her exposed skin. A flowy cream-colored toga wrapped snugly to her chest, but loose everywhere else, in the Trovian way. Across the top half of her face was a dark metal masquerade mask from which bright emerald eyes peered at him; none of which did anything to hide her remarkable beauty. He could feel something radiating from her, just like the ceiling.

“What have we here, Rix? I am not ready for the next child.” the woman said with a vibrant airy voice.

The guard that had been leading him kneeled and said, “Pardon Lady. Opsia ordered me to bring this one to you directly. He… He tested for resonance during registration.”

“Oh?” The Lady questioned, suddenly focusing on him with a burning intensity. “We have not had a one with the gift yet, in this… hinterland kingdom,” she concluded diplomatically.

An awkward moment passed where she watched him carefully. Then, she did the last thing he expected. She strode over to him and gave him a tight hug.

“Simply marvelous!” she exclaimed, pulling Eleazar’s head into her stomach with a tight grasp. Whatever perfume she had was intoxicating, but the spell was shattered nearly as fast as it had come when his broken nose jammed into her torso.

“Ow!” he yelped, causing her to step back.

“Oh dear! Your nose is broken,” she observed. Without warning or fanfare, she reached out with her long fingers and snapped the broken extremity back into place. Intense pain lanced through his face so sharply that he fainted for a second. However, she easily held him upright with one of her long arms.

“There! There! All better,” she smiled down at him with perfect white teeth. Eleazar couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a kind smile or a sadistic one.

Whimsically, she waltzed to the other side of the room, swinging him about like a limp dance partner. Gracefully, he was dumped into a rather comfortable padded chair.

“Now stay put!” she ordered, painfully taping his still sore nose with a finger, before walking back to the center of the room where the other child was still strapped into a chair. Tears blinked in Eleazar’s eyes.

“We are all done,” she said with a strange finality to the kid in the chair. The lady’s hands deftly unstrapped the device from the child’s head and the kid sat up.

“Ixy-a lis to nowg wha!” The kid spoke excitedly in a foreign language.

“Shalvut, tik tik!” the Lady responded in the same tongue.

“Rix be a dear and return young Marshall here to the others,” the Lady ordered. As an afterthought she added, “I will be a while with the young lordling here,” pointing at Eleazar.

Eleazar observed that the kid, Marshall, now had the same runic tattoos on his face (above and below the left eye) that all the Trovians had. Curiosity got the better of Eleazar, and he leaned forward in the chair to watch the kid leave. The boy continued to speak in that strange tongue to Rix.

After they’d left, he looked for the Lady, only to find her on her knees staring face to face with him.

“Wha-!” Eleazar said jumping out of the chair in surprise. He hadn’t seen or heard her move into position.

“The little lordling should pay more attention!” she admonished.

“Why are you calling me that?” Eleazar asked.

“Now is not the time for asking questions,” she said with a tsk. “It is the time for answering them!”

From behind her back, she pulled out a large metal ring that had an open clasp. She clamped it around his left arm, then forced him to sit back down in the comfortable chair with a hand.

“What will it be little one? Arcanist, or dare I say a Runist?” she asked him rhetorically, exaggerating the vowels the last few words comically (Roooo-nsst). He briefly considered giving a smart-ass response, but he was kind of afraid of her. Okay, he was very afraid of her.

Pressure began building up around the arm ring, much like the “soul signature” device that he’d touched outside. The pressure dispersed via a pulsing wave through his body, down to the base of his spine and then back up to the top of his head. Once it reached the top of his head, it flowed back down through his arm and into the ring, spun around its circumference then entered his body again. With each pulse, the pressure built back up in the ring quicker than before. As it continued its revolutions, a rune lit up on the arm device.

Pulse, Pulse, Pulse, the pressure grew stronger in his body. It started to become painful. Aches started to form all throughout his upper body.

“Ah,” he gasped. The second rune lit up. He looked up at her to see if that meant anything, but her eyes were open wide, focused on the device.

Pulse, Pulse, Pulse, it was beating quickly at nearly the same speed of a heart. Eleazar could feel the pressure all through his body now, expanding outward. It felt like he were about to burst. His nerves were on fire, and his skin electrified. All the hair on his arms and head was standing up.

Pulse, Pulse, Pulse, it was rapidly completing its revolutions, like a beating drum. Something in his body felt like it was starting to break. Was it his mind or bones? He couldn’t be sure. He slumped in the chair.

Pulse, Pulse, Pulse, it was moving so quickly now that he couldn’t feel the rhythm. There was no space in between; it was all just fiery pain. He opened his mouth to scream but was interrupted.

A third and final rune lit up on the ring. With a “pop” the clasp opened, and the ring fell of off his arm. The built-up pressure released out of him in a euphoric wave.

She was the one that gasped this time.

“Y-you are a wild strain!” she shouted.

Eleazar breathed heavily for a second, catching his breath as though he’d just sprinted for a mile. Questions swarmed his thoughts, but he couldn’t field any of them. He had no idea where to even begin, even if he had been capable of speech.

Silently she stood up, then rushed over to the other side of the room in her ethereal way. Warily, he watched her attack the items on the shelves there, frantically searching for some other new torturous doo dad or another. Whatever it was she was looking for was bound to cause him more agony. She'd done nothing but cause him pain in the short time they'd known each other.

“Ah-ha!” she triumphantly shouted, holding a small box in the air.

A blur occurred where she was standing, then she practically teleported back to his side. Eleazar’s mind couldn’t believe that a human could move that fast. Maybe she was a goddess after all.

“I haven’t had to use this thing in a few decades, let’s hope it still works!” she said cheerily.

A little door opened on the side of the box, and she motioned for him to stick his hand in.

Reluctantly, he stuck his hand in.