You enter cautiously, struggling to see in the dimness after the light of outside. This cave has signs of the same type of restoration, but only half complete, the new marble slabs shine beside their aged counterparts. It looks like someone has gone to a lot of trouble to begin building a temple here.

Suddenly a stone rolls over the entrance, plunging the cave into darkness. You freeze in place instinctually, but you can feel Kael and Opal move into readiness. Then lights click on and the space is illuminated from above.

Apollo sits grinning on a marble throne far in the back of the cave. Several Succumbed Oracles prowl around the edges of the room. You approach cautiously.

“You know Kael,” he says, spinning a ring around his finger, “In all our years, I’ve never seen you take this off”

You don’t need to feel the heat of Kael’s anger to guess that it’s her ring that sits on his finger.

“Give it back,” she growls through clenched teeth.

Apollo merely smiles and pushes it farther down his finger.

“Do you like the new place?” he continues, lounging on his throne like a housecat. “I’ve decided to upgrade.”

“Die in hell Apollo,” Kael answers, approaching slowly, head scanning from side to side.

“Ah, not Apollo anymore,” he says, stretching his arms magnanimously. “Apollo was the god of oracles, but I’m the god of gods. Call me Zeus.”

That’s a stretch, even for someone with as big of an ego as Apollo. You don’t know what Kael and Opal are thinking, but you are never calling him that, even if it gets you killed.

Kael is halfway to Apollo with Opal hot on her heels when he seems to think she has gone far enough. He waves his hands and wisps of green light begin to collect at the tips of his fingers. You scan the cave for cover.

A curious thing happens. The magic flows down his fingers into the ring on his hand where it glows brighter and brighter until it goes out without warning.

Then it explodes.

There is a crack like a gunshot and Apollo is hurled backwards, smashing through his marble throne and falling down to the floor in a smoking heap.

Everyone in the room freezes in shock, trying to comprehend what just happened.

It’s Kael who breaks the silence. “I’ve been wearing that ring for twenty years,” Kael says with a fiery grin, “to kill me if I ever succumbed.”

There is no time to consider how maudlin wearing a suicide ring daily is as a dozen Oracles approach from the edges of the room. Half of their eyes glow with green light, placid smiles on their faces. The rest look angry that Apollo didn’t grace them with such power. You swallow nervously, remembering last time you fought just one of those Oracles.

But last time, you didn't have Kael.

She tears through their ranks like a comet, dodging clawing hands faster than an MMA fighter, delivers crushing counter attacks. Her fists break jaws and crack ribs. Opal follows in her wake with brutal finishers, hitting with enough force to knock out a rhinoceros.

The regular Oracles stay down, but the charged ones get up with barely a shake of their head and rush after the two, supernaturally resilient to what should be almost killing blows. Soon they ring the two women who wisely place their backs to the wall.

One picks himself off the floor and stumbles toward you. You react quickly, reaching out and pulling the energy from him. He collapses silently, like you cut off his oxygen, but the energy boils in your veins forcing you to release it rapidly into the ground. Even so, you burn your fingers and you know that if you pull too much of their energy, you will become one of them.

It feels like a corrupted form of the Wisdom Ley, changing its host into something else.

You want to rush over and pull the Oracles off your friends, but what hope does an old man have against magically enhanced beings. Besides, more are pouring in from behind the throne.

You take a deep breath and reach for the Wisdom Ley, searching the air around for any trace of power. You find nothing, having no more practice than when you attacked Kael and you haven't had time to unpack that whole mess.

The Oracles have reached the tops of the stairs and are starting down toward where you stand. None of them have the tell-tale glowing green eyes, but the ten of them are still more than a match for you.

You reach out desperately and actually feel something, a chord of icy cold anger in the air. It's not the Wisdom Ley, but something darker and colder. Like what you grabbed to fight Kael, like what was in the Madrasah Gate.

Like what you felt from the Trident in the cave.

You grab on, wringing the power from the air and into your body. The magic jolts through you like an arc of electricity. This time you are aware of the power pushing your emotions to an eleven and ride out the tide of rage with calming breaths. Even so, you find yourself grinding your teeth with the strain.

The air deadens around you as the energy builds in your gut, tearing at you from the inside like a leopard seal. You throw it out desperately and unstructured power washes through the cave in a wave of force. The Oracles go down like bowling pins, scattering out and away from you.

You take several wracking coughs and fall to your knees, body suddenly devoid of energy. You feel like a jockey after riding the Kentucky Derby on a bad-spirited horse. Parts of your body ache that have never ached before.

Already the Oracles are already regaining their feet, the wave of force only enough to knock them down for a little. You don’t know enough to do any real damage to anyone besides yourself.

You never really stood a chance.

Kael and Opal are all but overwhelmed. They fight like cornered animals, but the charged Oracles are immune to the pain of their blows, fighting with broken wrists and fractured noses.

The Oracles are upon you before you can get to your feet, clawing at your face and ripping the case from your hands. The quiet voice whispers in your mind, telling you how to hurt them as they have hurt you. You finally recognize the voice of the Feather, still guiding you from thousands of miles away.

Or maybe it has become a part of you now.

You grab for your case desperately, but it is out of reach in an instant. The Oracles throw it on the stone several times, trying to break the lock.

“Enough,” rasps a voice from the back of the cave. Everyone freezes and looks to see Apollo drag himself out from behind the broken remains of his throne.

Several of his fingers are missing and the explosion has blackened part of his face, but his eyes still shine fanatically at you. Lines of green run over his body, slowly mending the damage there. He takes a ragged breath, then another and another, until the air comes in a deep, even pull.

“Almost,” Apollo concedes, “You are quite the handful, Kael.”

“Is that why you never made more of me?” Kael replies, teeth bared.

“No,” he says almost wistfully. “I never made more of you because everyone else died.”

Kael is taken aback by this. A complex array of emotions washes over her face.

“You are perfect in every way,” Apollo continues, making his way back up the stairs toward his broken throne. “But you refused to succumb. It’s a shame really, I could have used you.”

“I’m not interested in being used.”

Apollo snaps his fingers and the Oracle holding your case comes forward and hands it to him as he settles into the remains of his throne. Apollo touches his heart and creates a ball of green energy in his hand then punches it into the Oracle’s chest. His head snaps up to the sky as he breathes the energy deep inside of himself.

There is no vacuum of power where Apollo drew on the ambient energy in the room.

Seeing him touch his heart again suddenly clicks the puzzle pieces into place.

“You aren’t an Enchanter,” you say, partly out of shock, but mostly to distract him from opening the case. He cannot open the case no matter what. The repercussions are too terrible to think about.

Apollo rears back. “Yes I am,” he says quickly and rapidly removes the disturbed look from his face. “You’ve seen my power.”

You just shake your head. Laughter bubbles up and you can’t suppress it. You let out a long hard laugh in the face of the tyrant in front of you. “Here I was thinking I was the Artificer and you were the Enchanter but it was actually reversed.” You laugh again. “That’s why you have them find magic items for you. So you can keep using their power to pretend to be an Enchanter.”

Apollo isn’t smiling now. “Liar.”

“Fine,” you say, shrugging your shoulders. “I’m a man of science. Prove it. Levitate a rock. Unless you don’t have an artifact that does that.” You take out his journal and hold it out tauntingly. “Oh wait, I know for a fact that you don’t.”

Everyone, including all of the Oracles are staring at him now. He looks uncomfortable.

“Fine,” he sighs, “It doesn’t matter either way. It is as you say.”

The Oracles don’t show much reaction to any of this, but Kael and Opal look thunderstruck.

“I can’t believe the old man figured it out before you Kael,'' Apollo says, the look on her face giving him some of his energy back. “How else could I create my Oracles?”

“You turned us into Artifacts,” She says slowly. “Artifacts for finding other artifacts.”

Apollo nods then breaks off the lock on the case with a twist of his hand. The three of you cringe and begin praying that he isn’t close by.

Apollo looks inside then frowns in disappointment, moving the several Artifacts around like there is something behind them.

“This is it?” He asks, askance. “Half of these aren’t even artifacts.” He casts the hourglass, the bottled wooden figure, and the jar of grave dirt to the ground. The jar shatters on impact sending dirt spewing onto the gleaming marble like a stain of dried blood.

The air thickens, but you seem to be the only one that feels it. Goosebumps run down your arms and you find yourself glancing at the opening to the cave.

Apollo runs a hand through his golden hair and sighs. “I’m going to have to make more Oracles,” he says, then his eyes fasten on Opal, “Starting with this one right here.”

A cry of agony comes from outside the mouth of the cave. Apollo pauses and looks toward the circular stone rolled in front of the door. You duck your head, cringing as far away from the door as you can manage, sheltering behind the Oracles around you.

Without warning, the stone explodes outward, showering you with chunks of rough gravel and sending daylight streaming from the ragged hole. A single man stands silhouetted in the doorway, hands in his suit pockets as if he is going for a morning stroll.

Dr. Caville. The Eater.