The Elven Guardians

"Are you alright down there?" Aynthia asked in a calm voice, but she grew a little worried. It took ten seconds before she heard a response.

"Everything is alright! Just some bruises and cuts, nothing serious!" the Half-Elf yelled as she inspected the others.

She had heard that low voice of Aynthia's.

Aynthia then went to the camp and got some thick rope. She tied it to a big rock and threw the rope down into the newly made opening. She jumped down into the hole and landed neatly on white marbled stairs, not even using the rope she had tied.

At the moment they're directly under the massive hole; white marbled stairs leading down hundreds of meters. If you went up the stairs there's a cave-in that blocks any further progress upwards. The only way in is through the massive hole.

As everyone is dusting themselves off, the Half-Elf began to speak:

"Everyone, we need to be extra careful now. I don't know what's lurking down those stairs, but what I do know is, that right at this moment the magic is terrifyingly high, and it's very strange… It’s so easy for me to cast magic, look."

Right when she said it, she thought of something...her palm began to form a ball of light. The ball of light just began to expand and expand, until she has to make it disappear, so it wouldn't suck too much of her magic pool. It took her rather much effort to make it disappear, because she has never felt this much magic in one place before.

As the ball of light vanished, the Half-Elf showed a slight strained face as she had overused her magic abilities.

"Azyna are you alright?" the female human asked in a concerned voice.

"Yes... I'm alright, it was just too much for me, I should be careful from now on, so I don't overextend," Azyna responded with a troubled face.

Careful doesn't cut it, this much magical power is amazing... Such raw magic", Azyna thought as she licked her lips excitingly, If I'm able to practice here... She gulped, I could really become powerful.

Everyone checked their equipment to see if anything broke when they fell, but it looked like none of the equipment they have has broken. But they’re only in their normal clothes, and not in their armor, because they couldn’t dig with their armor on, it would have just only weigh them down.

They climbed up the rope and went to the camp to gather their things to journey deep into the maw of darkness.

They’re now back on the white marbled stairs that led down into the abyss of blackness.

Jack is now in his blue, yellow-edged surfaced, and bordered plate armor, with the tigress’s head emblem on the chest-plate. He has a fastened shield on his back, that’s inlined with intricate carvings; the tigress’s head emblem is also on the shield.

A black-engraved sword is fastened on the inside of the shield.

Thren in his dark-reddened chainmail set. He too has a shield, but with an axe instead of a sword. He holds them in his hands, because he wants to be ready for anything.

The Dwarf woman has a dark-reddened chainmail set too, but with plate pauldrons, gauntlets and boots.

The color matched the Dwarven female perfectly. Both Thren and his Dwarven lady got dark-gray skin, but she didn’t have black hair like Thren, she has blood red hair, and eyes which are also in the color of blood. The dark-reddened chainmail set fit her nicely with her hair and eyes.

She got a double-edged battle-axe strapped onto her back.

Aynthia is in her black-leather armor, with one dark-yellow carapace pauldron that's got small spikes sticking out of it. The armor featured her lean body that pushed up her slightly large bosoms. Her black-leather boots has holes where her claws stuck out of. It’s a worn armor she’s got, she must have had it for a long period of time. She has two scabbards that are placed on her back, making it look like a cross mark.

Inside the scabbards are lying two dormant longswords that’s got two very weird hilts.

Diana is also in a leather armor, but it looked very ordinary and plain with that brown color. She has only one dagger that’s sitting on her left waist. She’s rather under-armed than the others.

Azyna is wearing a white-robe that has a brown-leather chest-piece. The chest-piece has leather sprouting out of the shoulders, making it look like shoulder pads. Her white-robed sleeves reached to her hands. She's got a single ring on her right middle finger that looks very expensive. The ring gives off a dim blue glow, one wouldn’t notice the glow, if one didn’t focus their gaze upon it.

Azyna herself has pure-brown hair, that’s tied in a ponytail that brought forth her long bangs. She has brown eyes. Her skin is in a fairly pale color. Her body is almost skinny, and she reach 176 cm in height. Her breasts are in a medium size, and her skin complexion is fair and beautiful, zero faults.

She has no weapons, only her magic is what she needed.

Jenny is almost identical to Jack.

Though she has let-out long blonde hair, instead of that slicked-back hair. She’s got light and fair skin tone. Those azure-blue eyes... Jenny got a vertical wrinkle line between her eyebrows, as if she has frowned way too much.

Jenny has a much more serious face then Jack. He has more of a caring, serious face to him. While she has a more cold, angry, serious look to her.

Jenny also has some kind of chest-plate armor like Jack, but much thinner in size, which gave her a lot more speed and mobility. The chest-plate showed two small dents outward where her breasts are, and that tigress’s head emblem.

The chest-plate is also sleeveless, making her arms show her fair, light skin. There’re no plate pauldrons, gauntlets, greaves or boots. Only the chest-plate that’s identical to Jacks' in materials and colors.

She instead got blue-leather gloves and boots, which looked tattered out. Her brown-tight leggings that showed her perfectly trained underbody. She also have one pad that’s strapped onto her left inner forearm.

She has undone her bow-quarterstaff that was tied with the string of the bow. Now it’s only a bow and a quarterstaff that’s hanging on her back; she has a quiver of arrows that’s strapped on her back too.

She carrying a heavy bag… She never walks without her bag; it’s simply not possible for her...it has become such a habit that she even sleeps next to it.

She carried all of those things on her back with ease, not even breaking a sweat.

The Group then began to descend the white marbled stairs.

Some of them holds lit torches that they had fixed when they went up to the camp. The lower they got, the more anxious they became. The group then reached the bottom floor after some time of descending. It’s a rather large bottom floor, and there are big double doors that're engraved with emerald-runes.

The runes are still shining in its emerald glow, even after time has set itself on this place.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Jack said with a concerned voice.

"Indeed Jack...this doesn't seem right at all, maybe we should leave?" Thren said as he’s ready with his weapons, while looking around suspiciously.

"Enough! I have put in a lot of money in this expedition, so don't just chicken out at the last moment, and Thren! You have done your job, you can gladly go up the stairs again, and get above ground, but as a Dwarf you should feel right at home here!" Jenny yelled with an irritated voice while frowning.

Easy there sister, Jack thought.

"Bah! Girl you can't talk to m—*slap*." Just as Thren was about to finish his sentence, he got a slap on the back of his head. He looks behind him and sees that it's his stone maiden that gave the slap.

"Be quiet you," the female dwarf said.

He’ll only make things worse if he continues to scream at her, Rulma thought.

"Thank you Rulma," Jenny said in victory.

Rulma just gives a faint nod as she respond, but Thren got such an angry look to him, but he buried his Dwarven pride and calmed down.

Azyna walked up to the emerald rune door and studied it. It took a couple of minutes before she started to make a facial expression that looked like as if she's having problems with the double doors.

"Problem with the doors?" Jenny asked with a questioning voice.

"Give me a moment, I need more time," Azyna said with an annoyed voice as she's angry at herself for not being able to open it, even though such little time had passed.

"Okay let's take a break here!" Jenny yelled as she clapped her hands together.

The minutes flew by. The minutes turned to half an hour and then one hour. In the meanwhile the group just sat by the stairs, while Azyna did her thing.

Azyna stands there studying the runes, while grumbling on what to do. She looked towards her sides...there isn't only the double doors that're down here.

Two Elven statues stands on each side of the door, standing in a guarding stance, which have faint rune-markings on them, but they're not glowing in that emerald color, like the door. Azyna studied the Elven statues, but she couldn't find anything remotely interesting about them.

She's about to have a breakdown for not finding anything that could help them open the door. She's very displeased with herself.

Finding some mechanism...pushing the door...the statues. They even tried to break it open with their weapons, but nothing had worked. As she's standing there in front of the door, Thren asked with a shout:

"Have you tried magic?!"

Right when Thren shouted that, she's dumbstruck, how couldn't she have thought about magic...? She's the only one that could even use magic in the group. She felt the stupidity growing inside of her.

Everyone looked at how she's behaving, she's giving off faint laugh sounds. Azyna then turned to them and said with a forced smile:

"Hehe, of course magic, how stupid of me."

Azyna gives out a big sigh.

She then turned towards the double doors and stretched out her arm to touch it. She began to pour her pool of magic into the door, and as the magic flowed into it, it started to shake. Slow, but steady the door started to open up automatically.

When she removed her hand, she showed yet again a strained face, because she used her powers to recklessly...again.

When the door started to open up, the magical emerald runes that're on the door...started to move downwards. The runes moves like water. It's like they have a life of their own, but as the runes started to move they went towards the Elven statues...

As the doors slid open, the statues on the sides started to glow as the flowing runes reached them. The runes swirled around the statues like snakes, and those runes that didn’t glow were replaced by the newly glowing emerald runes.

The statues looked like armored Elven soldiers, but a lot bigger. They started to shake violently, but they stopped after a couple of seconds, and as they ceased, there is now only silence in this rather large bottom floor.

The group looked at each other with worried looks, and one of the group members suddenly said with an extremely worried voice:

"These statues...aren't normal, we must be caref—."

Jack was about to finish his sentence, but the statue's eyes started glow in an emerald color. As they glowed they started to move.

They stand on a forty centimeter high pillar. The statues took two steps off of it in a flawless coordinated fashion. The statues are holding a spear and shield on either hands. They reached two and a half meters in height, and at the same time their heads turned to their sides to look at Azyna.

She just looks at one of the statues in surprise, and with fear. She started to run towards the group as she was right by the door, right next to the statues.

She yelled: "I should have known! These are the ancient Elven guardians of The Great Elven Rebellion!"

"Ready your weapons!" Jack yelled with a roar as his sword and shield is at the ready.

Just as Jack yelled, the statues gave off a battle stance, shields forward; spears pointing towards their enemy. Then both statues pushed their legs into the ground and sprinted forward. Their stone footsteps echoed throughout the bottom floor.

Azyna ran, and ran, as fast as she could. Jack suddenly ran past her so he's stationed behind her, awaiting the statues of emerald.

"Watch out!" Jenny screamed as she saw both statues started to sprint forward, towards their first enemy.

That enemy is Jack, but he's already ready with his shield and his engraved blackened sword. So he also charged forward with stomping plate boots.

Tap, tap, tap, both of the factions ran towards each other.

They clashed. The statues stopped two meters in front of him, and thrusted their long spears towards him. The statues stood far apart from each other, so he could only block one spear with his shield, and the other with his sword.

The two spears thrusted! One spear hit Jack’s shield which gave off a big tremor, and the other he parried. As he parried, it gave off small sparks as his sword slid on the upper part of the spear.

Two arrows flew by him that Jenny fired off, but when the arrows hit their target not a single scratch is seen on the statues.

"Tch, they’re too weak," Jenny said with an angry voice.

She looked at her backpack that’s below her, then looked towards Azyna who’s got a worried look.

"Give support to him! I need to prepare my other arrow!" Jenny yelled.

"Right, on it!" Azyna shouted in agreement.

Azyna raised her hands, and began chanting in incomprehensible Elven memorized words. When she finished her chant, a strong light shot out towards Jack. When the light hit him, he began to feel light on his feet and felt slightly stronger. But he didn’t notice, because he got bombarded by thrusting spears.

Thrust, parry; thrust, block; double trusts, he blocked both spears with his shield making him slide on the floor, dust seeped out from below his sliding feet.

He’s dodging, parrying, and blocking the thrusting spears that the statues are relentlessly putting out. The spears are doing a lot of damage to Jack's shield, but luckily it's made of expensive materials, otherwise this battle would have ended very quickly.

As he kept on fighting them alone, he dodged a thrusting spear in the nick of time, it came right next to his head, giving him a small cut on his cheek.

"Dammit! I could use a little help here!" Jack shouted as it grazed him.

Aynthia and Rulma came into the fray as they jumped into the air—in this rather large bottom floor—towards two different statues to split them up.

Aynthia in her hands is gripping on to her dormant dual longswords that she had drawn out, and Rulma carrying her huge battle-axe.

They came down upon the two different statues.

Rulma's battle-axe came swinging, but the statue noticed the incoming flying Dwarf, and jumped three meters backwards. Rulma’s axe hit the white marbled floor. She put all of her strength in that swing, so she couldn’t really stop it midway.

As the statue jumped and landed on the white marbled floor, it thrusted its spear forward, towards Rulma with all its speed and might.

Rulma sees that incoming spear, and she got such a startled face; it’s coming too fast for her to dodge. But her hero Thren came crashing down in front of her, his shield and one-handed axe at the ready. The statue's spear connected to Thren's shield, and it gave off a tremor, while also leaving a big dent on his shield.

That was close, Thren thought.

He then looks behind him and gives a broad smile towards his lovely lady. She just smiled back. Then they continued to fight the statue. Making the statues fight further and further away from one another.

When Aynthia came to the other statue, which Jack is currently fighting. She strikes with her dual longswords, but when she tried to strike the statue's side, it automatically blocked her longswords with its shield.

"Wha-what?!" Aynthia yelled out in surprise. Jack also noticed the abnormal movement it made.

Hopefully the others are doing better. Jack thought as he glanced towards the other statue.

Aynthia jumped back a couple of meters, and thought about what to do.

She then charged in again while frowning. Her longswords are yet again got blocked by the statue’s shield, she even did zigzag movements to trick the statue, but it still blocked her. That made her pissed. Her fangs starting to show as she got angrier, faster, stronger.

Each block fed to her anger, which made her want to try even harder to rip this statue to pieces.

The fighting raged on, Jack and Aynthia fighting on one side, Thren and Rulma fighting on the other side. Azyna giving them support in her range of magical abilities, but you could see that it had already drained most of her magical pool, because she's panting heavily.

Diana just stands behind Azyna, looking worried as she isn't a fighter, she’s more of a mender of the aftermath.

Suddenly Jenny yelled out: "Thren, Rulma, jump away when I say jump, got it!?"

"Right!" they shouted in acknowledgement.

Jenny drew her bow to the max. On the tip of the arrow is some kind of small container with a button in front of it, which activates the mechanism of the container.

Hopefully this bottom floor won't cave-in on us, Jenny thought worriedly.

Just as she has her aim, she yelled with her highest voice:

"JUMP!"

Both Rulma and Thren jumped back at the same time with all their might. As they got five meters away from the Elven statue, an arrow flew right passed them, hitting the statue's head, and as the arrow made contact, the arrow gave out a spark as the mechanism lighted something inside the container; a huge *Boom* came forth.

The explosion is huge, but not huge enough for the roof to collapse down upon them, it just shakes a little bit from the blast.

Thren needed to shield both him and Rulma. The others that's standing a bit further away also had to cover themselves. Aynthia stood behind the statue to block any fragments that came flying from the explosion, and Jack crouched with his shield.

Jenny and Diana stood behind Azyna, as she put out a rather weak barrier. Debris pieces hit the barrier, but as it hit it, the debris slowed down as if the time had stopped the rubble from reaching its goal. Then it just fell to the ground when she released the shield.

Azyna yet again got such a troubled, strained face.

The statue that's fighting Jack and Aynthia automatically raised its shield to block off a piece of rubble that came flying towards it.

As the smoke started to disappear they could see that the statue had broken apart, the pieces lie in a small white marbled crater.

When Jenny saw the statue in bits, she gave a successful cheer, then turned her attention towards the last Elven statue that’s currently in the midst of attacking Jack with powerful thrusts.

Jack has had a hard time to even get a hit on the statue because of its shield, but Aynthia had gotten in some strong strikes in the back of the statue, when she tried her hardest.

But not enough to weaken it.

Jack and Aynthia tried to damage it, but it's just too strong, they noticed that the other statue had gotten destroyed when the large explosion dealt its damage. They had given an inwardly cheer as they kept their guard up against the statue.

Aynthia got a chance when she's on the right side of the statue, because the shield is on its left side.

She struck forward, but as she's going to thrust her longswords into the statue, the upper body of the statue turned to its left, spinning its body in a 360 degree spin. Its shield blocked Aynthia's forward thrust, which pushed her away. The push made her slid six meters backwards, making her claws dig into the white marbled floor.

It left ten scrape marks on the surface and two lines, which her dual longswords had left.

Jack and Aynthia got so surprised by its sudden movement, they would have never thought that its upper-body could’ve moved with such a spin. Aynthia shook her head, then she charged in yet again with her fangs baring.

Thren and Rulma came charging towards the statue, weapons at the ready. Everyone then attacked it with a flurry of strikes. The statue tried to defend itself from their endless attacks, but then the statue’s upper-body started to spin, spin, spin, and attacked randomly as it whirled.

It’s a whirlwind, but Jack then took a running start, and slid on the ground, avoiding the spinning attacks.

As he slid on the ground, he struck the statues leg with all his might and glory; the leg cracked. The statue lost its balance, and stopped spinning; it toppled backwards.

Everyone else took that chance to attack it relentlessly, and as the blows kept on coming, the statue started to get more cracks upon its body, when assault after assault just kept on coming. It then gave out, and started to crumble apart, until there's nothing but its spear and shield left among its rubble.

They gave out cheers that roared for their victorious win.

"If there was one more of those statues... I don't know how we could have managed it... But thankfully... There were only two... Oh and nice shot dear sister," Jack said while he breathed heavily.

She just gave a taunting happy nod while smiling, “You too brother, I learned from the best. Your sliding move saved us a lot of trouble.”

He just laughed back.

Everyone caught their breath from this life and death encounter.

When Azyna got her breath back she started to move towards the opened double doors, sluggishly. And as she stepped inside the white marbled room, what she saw is a huge chamber that's around twenty meters high and forty meters on both lengths.

"Wait! Don't go Azyna, we don't know if there're more traps!" Jenny yelled as she saw Azyna started to go into the chamber.

Azyna looked around the chamber, and she noticed hundreds of dust piles that's lying all around the chamber. Cracks on the walls that let the nature in, the vegetation filling the chamber, and in the middle of the chamber stands a sarcophagus, that's shining in a dim light.

The others also walked inside with torches in hand, they're awestruck when the torches lit up the entire chamber. They have never seen a place like this in their entire lives.

"Take it easy now, let's be carefu-" Jenny said, but she got cut off by the walking Azyna that’s not even paying attention to her.

Azyna started to make her way towards the sarcophagus. She walked up the few stairs that led up to it. Then she just stands there beside it, strangely enough tears began to flow down her cheeks, and as the group arrived beside her, Jenny called out to her in a surprised and worried voice:

"Azyna what's the matter?"

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