Snippet #1425592

His anger was far from slaked but it had abated after torturing the dragon several hours until the spell on it broke and it crumbled to dust. The prince stood there over the pile of white dust, breathing heavily, sweat running down his body and mixing with the black ichor still running from his shoulder. The crown was glowing hot on his head and steam billowed forth from where it touched his skin. His ancient muscles ached and his vision was still covered in a red haze. But his mind was telling him he had wasted enough time with this endeavour now. Zhao would take the fight to Allister. He was needed in the mines now.

He turned on a heel and stalked back to the castle at a quick pace. Arriving at the edge of a massive hole in the ground a hundred armspan across. Along the rim of this borehole was a spiralling ramp where hundreds of slaves laboured under constant lash to haul up the massive boulders and carts of smaller rubble that the diggers down below were generating. Tier'Zial walked down this ramp. The slaves ignored his presence else they receive another beating for slowing down progress. Down into the earth the hole went, to where the air was heated by the very magma of the planet. A league down into the earth the vertical shaft met a horizontal one only a few armspan in. Here, more slaves toiled with pickax and shovel to clear away the last of the rock and earth to reveal a massive set of silver gates. The gates stood five time the height of a man, and were perfectly squared off. The double doors were bonded together with three massive intricate, arcane locks.

He approached the gates and regarded these three locks. Each of them would need to be circumvented in turn to open the doors and gain him access to the artifacts behind it. As the last of the rock was dragged away the remaining slaves suddenly found themselves without a clear goal and stood there confused. Even the task masters now looked to the Prince to find out what was next. The cavern was filled only with the sound of rocks scraping up the ramp in the distance. The Prince calmed himself. Forced himself to slow his thoughts and drew the first locks runs in his mind. Slowly they turned in his minds eye, recombining in intricate patterns, telling him lies and mysteries. Only faint glints of truth revealed at a time. The secrets of this locks key would only be won by a careful and calculating mind. Then, as if someone had torn through the veil of darkness. It was revealed to him in a flash of inspiration.

With a sudden wave of his hands, a shockwave tore through the small cavern and threw slave and taskmaster alike violently against the door where their bodies burst in a red mass against the unforgiving metal. As the blood and tissue slowly sloshed to the ground and then settled into a slow drip. The runes on the first lock glowed through the blood.

Tier'Zial smiled to himself and spoke to a now empty cave.

"That was the easy one down. Now for a harder mystery."

Again he put his ancient demon mind to work on the second even more complex rune. This one revealed less than the first. With a hand held thoughtfully to his chin, he contemplated the mysteries and put the rest of existence out of his mind. He was getting closer. Soon, nothing would stop him.