Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [7]
Blimm’s greatest triumph, according to Clagg, was the creation of a large mystic gemstone, infused with arcane energy. The stone was called the Golem’s Eye, and apparently was lost along with Blimm’s knowledge and the location of the asura’s tomb.
Until now. Clagg had uncovered that knowledge, and rounded up a krewe in the asura fashion: talents gathered together with a specific goal. For this goal, that meant spellcaster, muscle, trapspringer, and leadership, the leadership supposedly provided by Clagg and unquestioned by the rest, entered the crypts in search of the Golem’s Eye.
“Why have we stopped?” Clagg shouted from the back of the marching order.
“We’re stuck,” said Dougal, trying to keep the relief out of his voice.
He was faced with a simple thing, a door bound in bands of iron. Clagg piloted his golem forward and shook his head at the human’s reluctance.
“Open it,” said Clagg.
“Can’t,” said Dougal. “It’s not locked, it’s stuck. Swollen in the frame. The lock doesn’t matter. It might as well be a wall.”
“I know how to handle walls,” said Clagg. “Gyda?”
The norn stepped up and motioned for the human and asura to step aside. Dougal pulled back, half hoping for some trap he hadn’t seen to suddenly reveal itself.
Gyda stood in front of the door, staring at it, and for a moment Dougal thought the norn was trying to wither the door with her glare. Then she growled a deep, feline growl. White fur began to sprout from her exposed flesh, and for a moment it was as if her armored form were overlaid with another, ghostly image of a great beast. Then the image solidified, and Gyda was transformed into a hulking two-legged feline, her pelt snow white with black spots, her armor and weapons subsumed into the new creation.
Gyda had summoned her totem, the snow leopard. She sprang forward, her heavy paws slamming into the door.
The door held, but the hinges did not, and the entire door flew off its frame and back into the room. Even Dougal was impressed with the norn’s strength and prowess, and he started to say, “That was very …”
His praise died in his throat as Gyda snorted and said, “That is why your people are dying out and better races are taking your place.”
Dougal reddened with anger but just pressed past Gyda, holding his torch high, into another passage with more bones lining the wall. Dougal was convinced that Divinity’s Reach, the shining human city, was built on a mountain of bones.
“One thing I never understood about Blimm …” Dougal called back over his shoulder to Clagg.
Clagg cackled. “I would guess a bookah like you could fill Blimm’s tomb with the things you don’t understand,” he said.
Dougal ignored the crack. “Bookah” was an asuran term for humans, and not a very complimentary one. “I always heard that asura traditionally burn their dead. But not Blimm. Why did he build a tomb in the first place?”
“At the end of his life, he didn’t believe in the Eternal Alchemy: that we are all part of a greater equation,” said Clagg. “Blimm considered himself a function apart. That’s likely why he made so much progress with necromantic constructs, using bone and dead flesh in his golemtric creations. He was willing to test ideas no lesser asura would consider.”
“And since he didn’t fit in with other asura, he didn’t want any of them to enjoy the results of his research,” said Dougal.
“Close, but that’s not quite all of it,” said Clagg. “He kept strange company in his later years. Humans. Necromancers. No offense, sapling,” he added over his shoulder. Killeen responded with a grunted moan.
“Sounds full of himself,” said Gyda. The norn’s interjection surprised Dougal, who had guessed she wouldn’t bother listening to Clagg and him blather on. “But then, what asura isn’t?”
Clagg barked a cold laugh at that. “Many of my fellows have outsized egos, I agree,