The tension was palpable in the air as Yura drove the group in the direction of the temple. That, combined with the fact that their journey would be a short one resulted in no one deciding to speak up and break the silence while they were going.

The group simply looked around as their pseudo-vehicle crossed from the plains around the city to a rocky area sloping slightly downwards, quickly descending enough to lose sight of the city they had left behind. Then they went down a much sharper slope that had been excavated by the archaeological crew that rediscovered the temple after it had been buried and forgotten.

And when Yura moved the platform down a sharp curve to the right, the group was finally able to see the Erithos temple.

Set in the middle of a wide open area that had been slowly excavated over several years, the temple had a majesty that felt even more profound due to it being the only feature in the entire area. It was a rectangular building colored in mostly red and gold, with trios of delicately carved pillars on each of the two corners one could see from where the group stood.

Supported by the pillars were two ceiling layers, the lower one made of a strangely high-tech looking series of metallic cylinders, while the smaller, higher one seemed at a glance to be something in between glass and ceramic, with a sharp pyramid shape rising from the center.

The floor of the temple was raised slightly in comparison to the ground around, and was made of hundreds of square tiles colored in a light gradient that didn’t combine to form any particular pattern, but the overall effect was pleasing to the eye. Finally, the walls were decorated mostly in simple geometric designs, but some parts contained ancient writing stylized in a way to match the aesthetics of everything else.

The meaning of those ancient words was mostly pedestrian. The name of the temple, warnings against unauthorized entry and exultations of the great Laguna civilization, for example. But there was also a poem on the subject of the beauty of rushing water that didn’t seem to hold any meaning pertinent to the location. Such poems were often seem in ancient Laguna buildings and seemed to simply be a quirk of their architectural art.

Professor Whitmoore could have spoken about all of those things and more if someone decided to ask, however, the girls she was accompanied by were concerned about something else, so the first question directed at her was:

“How do we get in?” Voiced by Elise.

It was a fair question. From what they could see, there were no entrances on the building, neither doors nor windows.

“The main entrances were sealed because of the state of emergency.” The woman said “But there’s a service entrance on the right side that can be opened with this.” She pulled out a plastic envelope containing a broken off piece of plastic with an incredibly complex design imprinted on it “This is a low-level mechanic pass we can use to move around the shallower levels. I also have a bypass key to open the way to the deeper levels, but the usual procedure when someone uses it is supposed to be sending guards to confirm their identity.”

“And that won’t be possible, so we’ll be treated like intruders from there on out, right?” Nalia guessed.

“Yes.” Professor Whitmoore confirmed “You’ll need to take me down three levels to reach the emergency control panel in order to deal with the situation.”

“And I assume there’s a reason why Yura can’t just dig a tunnel straight to the right level.” Elise said, before blinking as Nina left her mindscape Room and did some brief stretches.

“The walls of the deeper levels are made of multiple layers of alchemically reinforced metal.” Yura said “It would take days to make an opening on one of them, even if the shrine didn’t send a bunch of guardians after me for trying it. The soil in this area is mostly heavy rock too, so even digging down far enough would take minutes.”

“Ah, I see. So that’s why you didn’t take us underground while we were traveling.” Nalia realized.

“Yeah. Going underground would be too slow.” The elf confirmed.

“Is that going to cause trouble while we’re fighting inside the temple?” Elise asked.

“Thankfully no.” Yura replied “The floors and ceilings inside the underground areas are composed of a layer of metal covered by a larger layer of processed earth which is itself covered in a variety of floorings, like wood and ceramic.”

“Yeah, I explained that when she asked me for help.” The professor confirmed.

Yura nodded “The processed earth is pretty easy for me to manipulate, and I can pull it up through the decorative flooring with no problem, so I’ll be able to fight without hindrance.”

“Pity there’s a layer of metal included, otherwise you could dig straight down three levels and make everything much easier.” Nina commented.

“Regardless of that, we’ll need to deal with the temple’s defenders to give the professor time to act.” Elise said “And I think we should split our roles before going in, so we have at least a basic plan of action.”

“What do you propose?” Yura asked.

“Nothing too complicated. Nalia, you should act as mid-range support, keeping enemies at bay with attack spells while being ready to help protect the professor if necessary. I’ll stay close to her, so you can protect both of us at once, and in case it becomes necessary, you can boost me so I can carry her out of danger.”

“Okay. I won’t disappoint you.” The fairy replied.

“Yura, you should handle the mobility and close defense, carrying me and the professor on your platform and making barriers in case it proves necessary.” Elise continued.

“Okay, that sounds good. I’ll do my best.”

“Nina, you’ll be our vanguard. Your job is to rush ahead and smash through anything that stands in our way.”

The rabbit grinned in response “Leave it to me!”

Then Elise turned to the woman and asked “Do you have anything else to bring up?”

“No, I’m fine. I’ll be counting on you girls.” Professor Whitmoore replied, seeming impressed by Elise’s ease at taking charge.

“Then let’s go.”

+0+

The service entrance was a hatch that had a rectangular crystal to its side that worked as a “scanner”, reading the mechanic pass that was pressed up against it, resulting in the hatch opening vertically.

It opened into a short descending staircase that led into a very bare corridor, which ended into a heavy featureless door. But once they were past that, the group finally got to one of the main areas.

It was an area worthy of the detailed exterior of the temple. The floor was covered in beautiful light blue ceramic tiles while the walls were mostly pure white, looking oddly bare in comparison to the overall feel of the area. The walls that weren’t pure white either had illustrations painted on top or a decorative golden stripe connected to the floor.

The ceiling was a slightly different tone of blue to the floor and had circular glass “lamps”, which provided the illumination for the entire floor. Finally, the place was divided into large rooms, the walls of which only extended a small amount on either side, thus leaving large gaps in between that connected said rooms together. The one they were currently in had a space on its corner surrounded by a wooden counter, with several machines and a small door behind the counter, and a series of large tables with chairs around them.

“That’s… A cafeteria?” Elise asked.

“Yes.” Whitmoore replied “This is the main living area of the people who served as the staff of this temple. There’s a cafeteria, recreation room and other such spaces. It used to have all sorts of paintings and sculptures decorating it, but they were taken away a while ago. The floor below it contains the dormitories, below that are the armories and beyond that we get to the heavy magical mechanisms that serve as the heart of this temple.

“The emergency systems administration room can be found there, and that’s our destination.” She reached into her back and pulled out a hand drawn map showing four floors of the temple “This is the map of a temple of the same type, or rather, a recreation of it. According to the adventurers who explored here before the incident, it is accurate.”

“I see. Yura mentioned that the shallower levels were explored without issue. Where was that hidden passage to the deeper levels found?” Elise asked.

“On the dormitories, one floor below here.” The professor replied before pointing at two spots on the map in succession “We are here, and the stairs down are here. The passage into the stairs got sealed when the shrine entered a state of emergency, so we’ll need to use the bypass key to get through. We’ll come out here and have to move all the way here to reach the hatch we can use to go further down.” She pointed at a spot on a different floor and dragged her finger along to show that.

She did the same thing to indicate the route through the armory and the one to the emergency room on the following floor. The other four girls committed the details of the map to heart, and then the group walked together to the stairs passage, knowing that things were going to get loud soon enough.

They reached a point where an emergency hatch had clearly been triggered, sealing off passage, The professor pulled out something that looked like a strange, antiquated key and inserted it on a small hole on the wall close to the hatch.

There was a series of mechanical sounds and then the hatch opened up, revealing a flight of stairs with symbols on the walls that probably denoted which floors were connected by it. There was also a strangely artificial sound that brought to mind an intercom turning on, but it was followed by nothing but silence.

‘And that’s when the people on surveillance are supposed to be giving instructions.’ Elise thought “Yura, it’s time to get our transport. Everyone else, go to your positions.”

The elf pulled up a large amount of earth from beneath the tiles and made a platform under herself, Elise and the professor, then Nina jumped down the first half of the stairs, soon followed by Yura securing her passengers to the platform with earth bindings and rushing after her while Nalia flew above them.

The second half of the stairs was crossed and the group arrived at the dormitory floor, which had similar decor as the one above and was equally full of bare spots, but instead of wide open areas, it was composed of narrow crisscrossing corridors filled with doors that led into individual rooms. It would have been confusing to navigate had they not seen the map beforehand, but as it was Nina simply made a beeline to the hatch that would be their way down, running slow enough not to outpace Yura’s platform.

Because of that, they were only halfway there when they met their first bit of resistance. A hole opened up on the ceiling and from there a small crystal fell down right in front of the rabbit girl, who reacted by batting it down a corridor to the side, where it then exploded, emitting such a loud noise and bright light that it caused Elise to wince despite the distance.

‘Some sort of non-lethal countermeasure to disable invaders.’ Elise thought ‘But I doubt they will be so lenient when we’re closer to the critical stuff.’

That initial attack barely slowed them down, but it was soon followed by a section of the wall opening up and blowing out a violet gas. Elise ordered Nina to stop in place before reaching the gas, and Nalia quickly froze shut that wall section before using a whirlwind spell to draw in all the gas and trap it in a magic bubble.

Orange lights had lit up on the walls as soon as the first attack was launched, and they turned red once the group got through the gas trap, along with a continuous shrill noise beginning to resound, which served as a very obvious sign that the shrine defense systems were going to step it up a notch.

“Ghrhhh!” Nina let out a strangled grunt as the floor below her became electrified, shocking the girl with enough power to hurt even through her defenses.

Still, it wasn’t enough to disable her, and the rabbit girl responded by raising one of her feet off the ground for a moment before stomping down with explosive force, tearing down walls and leaving a large crater around the girl.

That succeeded in stopping the electric shock.

“Whoa…” The professor spoke in shock, as that was her first time seeing Nina’s strength.

The shrill sound got even louder, but the group ignored it as they went through the rest of the floor, reaching a closed hatch locked in with large metal bolts that Nina broke through with punches before pulling open the hatch to reveal a ladder, which the rabbit ignored in favor of simply jumping down to the floor below.

Nalia accelerated her flight to stay close to her, and a series of loud noises began to resound before Yura’s platform even reached close to the ladder.

“Just drop down.” Elise said when she noticed Yura hesitating over how to bring them down ‘We’re dropping down, so catch us.’ She quickly ordered Nalia.

The elf let the platform fall down, trusting Elise’s request, and Nalia manifested a large water sphere that broke their fall before turning back to look at the threat in front.

Said threat was not one, but two magical guardians, one of them coincidentally being the sword and shield one that they had fought at the city, while the other one was completely new. Those guardians wouldn’t have fit on the narrow corridors of the previous floor, but the current one was composed of much bigger, wide open corridors flanked by many lockers on one side and separated rooms on the other that seemed to be shooting ranges and such.

The new magical guardian had the same general appearance as the rest of the guardians, its individual characteristics were a yellow mantle and an expression that could only be described as “mocking”, and as expected, its capabilities were different from the others as well. It was creating constructs made of yellow energy that were more general shapes rather than distinct objects, but they were certainly very real and very tough, as Nalia was having to launch big fireballs in order to destroy the ones that were formed into the shape of spikes and launched at her, while the fairy’s own heavy stone bullets were blocked by square barrier constructs, rendering their fight a temporary deadlock.

Meanwhile, Nina was fighting the other guardian, but true to Rafael’s words, it seemed to be far more powerful while inside the temple, managing to keep up even as the rabbit girl unleashed continuous instant movements, bouncing between walls and ceiling in a mad acceleration punctuated by brutal impacts as she threw herself into the enemy like the world’s angriest cannonball. Yet that wasn’t enough as the opponent’s shield moved fast enough to block hits from any side, while its occasional sword slashes forced her to slow down in order to avoid losing body parts.

Yura stopped the movement of the platform as she took in the scene, but that only lasted for a moment before Elise told her to “Move!” while also giving her partners a mental order to ‘Switch targets!’

Nina was the first to react to the order, turning a flanking movement into a leapt away from the sword and shield guardian, and Nalia responded immediately afterwards, launching a blue magical sphere that exploded into a torrent of water right in front of her new opponent, preventing it from following the rabbit, who thanked her by launching herself at the construct guardian, forcing it to abort an attack on Nalia in favor of creating five barriers in a row to block Nina’s attack.

The fairy flew straight at the sword and shield guardian as it broke through the water torrent, then spread her wings and spent an entire second casting a new spell, manifesting a powerful lightning bolt and shooting it at the enemy. While that was happening, Nina had jumped off the barrier that stopped her movement and began another series of instant movements, dodging around spikes and other obstacles her opponent kept manifesting in her path, circling around it while getting closer and closer, until finally throwing herself into the enemy again, breaking through the one barrier it managed to erect in time and delivering a powerful punch that cracked the wooden mask.

On the other side, Nalia’s lightning strike had discharged itself into the enemy’s sword and shield, causing them to briefly seize up in midair, giving the fairy enough time to cast two of her stone cannonballs and hit that enemy’s mask.

All of that had taken place while the platform carrying the other three was still moving closer to the battle area, but when it passed by the magical guardians, that seemed to trigger something.

Nina had followed up her initial punch with a second one that cracked the wooden mask even further, but then the guardian manifested a circular barrier around itself that expanded violently, throwing the rabbitkin back. At the same time, a hole opened up on the ceiling close to Nalia’s position, and from there a series of energy bullets were shot straight at her, forcing the fairy to stop attacking her own target.

‘Come here!’ Elise ordered her partners as the platform headed forward on the way to the next floor, but at that point another magical guardian teleported into the room in front of them. It was one of the ones that had been fought by the city’s defense force, specifically the one that specialized in ranged attacks.

It immediately launched two fireballs in the direction of the trio, and Elise didn’t need to tell Yura what to do in that situation, the elf immediately stopped the platform and raised an earth barrier to block the attacks, only grunting slightly from the magical feedback of the explosive impact.

By that point Nalia and Nina had arrived, and the fairy prevented another attack by throwing a fireball of her own at the guardian, who shot it down with a lightning bolt spell, but while that was happening the rabbit girl was rushing in from the other side, dodging the wind blade spells that the guardian shot at her and leaping up to deliver a punch to the mask, which was blocked at the last moment by a new addition to the battle.

It was the barrier specialized magical guardian, who teleported in behind the ranged one and immediately created a two-layered barrier in Nina’s path. The rabbit’s punch managed to get through the first layer, but the second one caused her to bounce off. The ranged guardian tried to take advantage by unleashing a barrage of fireballs at Nina, but Nalia countered it with a series of targeted stone bullets.

Yura had started to move the platform forward again, but a noise from the back caused Elise to turn to look, and she saw that another new magical guardian had appeared besides the two damaged ones. This one had a kind expression along with a green mantle, and it immediately started fixing up the damage on the others with some kind of manifested green fluid.

Wary of the danger of a pincer attack, Elise immediately made a decision.

“Turn this into a ram, Nalia will help speed us up.” She told Yura while giving the fairy an order to that effect.

“Okay. Brace yourselves, then.” The elf replied before making an earth ram at the front of their platform and accelerating.

“Can those guys teleport into the emergency room?” Elise turned to ask Whitmoore.

“No, that room has a mechanism to prevent that.” Was the reply “Since one of the possible emergencies is the guardians going out of control.”

“Good. That certainly helps.” Elise said before turning her attention back to the situation.

Nalia had cast a variation of her wind boost spell that caused Yura’s platform to accelerate even further, then Nina jumped onto it, followed by the fairy. The ranged guardian shot several spells at them, but they were either intercepted by Nalia’s own magic or simply endured by the resilience of the earth ram. The barrier guardian set a series of blockades to try and stop them, but the ram powered through its magical barriers with no problem.

The group overtook the two guardians in front with their dangerous speed and Nalia kept on blocking attacks from the ranged guardian as they went forth, until the group reached the passage to their target floor, which was another closed hatch similar to

the one they had broken through in the previous floor, so Nina jumped off the platform (which also lost the ram, since it was no longer needed) in order to break through the locking bolts again.

But things wouldn’t be as easy this time, as the guardians began to teleport closer to the group in order to attack them. The first of which was the sword and shield guardian, which had already been fully repaired. It swung down its sword onto the platform, only to be stopped by Yura rising an earth barrier to block it, followed by Nalia shooting a few fireballs in order to force it to block.

Then she had to begin intercepting spells from the ranged guardian, allowing the melee one to attack again, along with the manifestation guardian, one coming from the left and the other from the right. Yura brought up a large amount of earth from the ground and sent it forth like a landslide, overwhelming the dozens of energy spikes one of them had manifested and delaying the sword swing of the other long enough for Nalia to send a large fireball its way.

The barrier guardian appeared at this point and blocked Nalia’s spell, but they had bought enough time for Nina to open up the path to the floor below. Elise warned Yura of that with an exclamation of “Let’s go!” and the elf abandoned the extra features from the platform as she made it go forth towards the hole.

Nina jumped in right before they got there, fulfilling her role as the vanguard, while Nalia cast a spell to soften the group’s landing at the same time as she kept the pursuing guardians at bay with quick barriers and intercepting spells. Then they fell down the hatch, landing a second later on the final floor of their mission.

“Oof…” Whitmoore let out as they hit the ground “Even with a spell to make the fall softer, that was still a bit rough…”

“The fall was longer than the previous one, too.” Elise said “But we’re almost there, so get ready.”

“Of course.” The woman replied while looking around.

The current floor was the strangest one so far. The floor had no flooring and the walls had no decoration of any kind, giving a very unwelcoming feeling, and while there were a few walls demarcating specific rooms, most of the area was wide open and covered in hundreds of “towers” that went floor to ceiling. Some of those towers were made of purple crystal, while others looked like bamboos too wide for one to wrap their arms around, with circles of leaves appearing at regular intervals at different heights.

And the group wasn’t even able to fully take in the new environment before they were under attack once more, with gaps opening on three different areas of the floor and shooting energy blasts at the invaders, one at Nina who was a bit further ahead of the rest while the other two targeted the main group.

The rabbit girl dodged with an instant movement while the other two blasts were blocked by Yura and Nalia’s hasty barriers. The elf made the platform begin moving again as soon as that was done, but the sword and shield guardian teleported in front of them to try and stop the group.

Nina wasn’t having any of that. She launched herself at the guardian, forcing it to block her body with a shield and causing it to change focus to her, allowing the main group to go past. The ranged guardian teleported behind and began to shoot, but once again Nalia intercepted its spells.

And that was all they needed. The emergency room was quite close to the point where they emerged, and it didn’t have a door of any sort, only a relatively wide opening that the platform could go through. Yura stopped as soon as they were inside and removed the bindings from Elise and the professor, allowing the latter to jump off and run to a large mechanical apparatus that had a screen and a keyboard, which she immediately began pressing buttons on, causing the inactive screen to light up.

“How long do you need?” Elise asked her.

“Not sure, I’d guess around five minutes, but…” The professor replied without looking away from the screen, which had begun to fill with symbols.

“Then we’ll just buy you as much time as we can.” Elise said “Yura, block off the room.”

The girl ran outside as she was saying that, ready to continue giving instructions to her partners. Yura moved herself out of the room with her earth platform and began making an earth barrier rise to fulfill Elise’s request, while looking at the fairy and rabbit that were attacking the closest guardians (all but the healing one were already down there), anxious to finish quickly in order to help them, but unwilling to rush and potentially leave the professor in danger.

But she needn’t have worried. Nalia and Nina were tough and skilled, not to mention Elise was there to watch out for any unexpected situations. They were still holding on fairly well when the elf finished closing off access to the emergency room and rushed in to assist them.

Now all they had to do was hope the professor managed to do the job while they were keeping danger away from her. The mission had just reached the most critical point.