Private Tales To Face The Statues

Patience was a virtue that the unseen servant made sentient had in infinite supply. Other mages had attempted to do what he had applied himself to perform, yet simply did not have the three day and night endurance to scribe what he was one vowel away from finishing now. And of course, the time required to deduce the goings on of what was truly being uttered by the stone faces that marked the opening to the cave. They chanted low and quietly, almost so quietly that the ear could not hear, but it was there. A humming of a single vowel, chanted for exactly an hour, before the next reinforced the incantation. And so it had gone on for years, protecting this place. A cave that protected itself with a field of static light that much like the intonation, could barely be perceived. That while the low tone could be confused for the wind, the bones that littered the passageway could not, and most adventurers thought better than to try their luck or be added to that pile.

And those who did, who grew curious from the stories told by the local village of an interminable treasure within the cave. Some said a abjurer had left their finest artefacts within it. Others said an ancient religion had made their final holy relic's resting place within the cave, to be undisturbed, yet fashioned of one piece of solid gold that would fund five noble's lifestyles for a hundred years.

Sam's body had not moved from underneath the tree that provided shade that had rotated numerous times as he had made his observations, his deductions, his scribing and his notations to the spell. He thought not on what was inside the cave. Indeed, this spell was a treasure all it's own, and much more to his taste. He had listened, paid attention, and made his scholarly pursuits a success. And with this final vowel being uttered and moving onto the first, the pattern recognised by Sam came to the beginning again.

With the mark of a final vowel upon his spellbook, it was done. The secret behind this barrier was written into one wizard's book, to perhaps become academia if he found the right library or coven or perhaps school to provide such knowledge towards.

“Thank you, statues,” he said, finally as he got up from his sitting position, where he had resembled a statue himself aside from the occasional noting of a single syllable from his gloved hand. He bowed deeply to the statues, and kept his hand on his hat to prevent it from falling.

Rising, he took the first step in days. There was no ligament to ache, no muscle to relieve of tension, just a body that worked, fair and plain, arcane and mysterious, unlife granted to one who had been a servant to an arch-mage. The robes he wore belonged to his former master, a regal thing full of pockets that still held various components for the wizard practice that Sam had taken up as best he could, from studying for lifetimes of the spells that had been littered around the tower. A tower he had escaped. A world anew from the hermetically sealed place he had called home.

“Well, I've been here long enough. Perhaps I should write a sign describing what fate awaits those who try to enter from this spell. A child might wander in. Yes. Yes I think I'll do what whoever made this spell should have done. A warning. Yes.”

Sam adjusted their hat and reached for their heavy pack, a complicated system of storage that contained all manner of wizardly tools and some mundane. With perfect memory he pulled out two small boards of wood, and a hammer, and set to setting up a sign. It was simple enough work, yet Sam found great satisfaction from the meagre construction. He gave a small hum.

“What to write, hm. Warning, this lattice of self realising points of power will scorch and burn? No, no that's too complicated. Maybe, no, no no no,” he hummed to himself, crouched by the sign, oblivious to who might approach behind him, so absorbed in his own work. He was a being of infinite patience, and could sometimes find himself locked into obsession over minor details which caused delay to his next moment of initiative.

An hour passed before Sam pressed their hands into their hips and came across the final decision.

“Maybe just, 'each statue means to harm you. Stay away.' Yes. I think that'll do.”

He set to work, painting the words slowly and with all the elegance of a professional sign maker, even if the sign's construction was crude, the words would be bold and cursive.

One had to take pride in the little things, Sam thought to himself.

The painting was finished with luxurious pace as Garrod made his inquiry known. Sam, brush in hand, took a step away from sign and gestured faintly at it with the other. Two pinpricks of white light for eyes did blink thrice as if summoning will for words.

Their words lilted and softly ran through the air as fingers passing through wheat might drift and sway.

"Painting cautions for newcomers such as yourself, these statues be dangerous in nature. They can't help it though. It's just the way they are."

They diligently placed brush back into case, and paint into backback, lumbering such a heavy thing without a trace of sweat nor hint of toil.

"Does the statue song bring you here? It is a recumbent thing. Or perhaps, you're..." Sam said, trailing off. A glove went to collar, as if clutching at invisible pearls.

"Oh dear. The statues won't take kindly if so..." Sam said matter of factly.

The caution made no effort to explain the nature of the statues, merely:

Each statue means to harm you. Stay away!

"The first question I might answer. The second, well. I'm no philosopher. The statues issue syllables of protective magicks. It's difficult to hear at first. But if you focus, you might hear it too. Right now it is on the third syllable of one hundred and fifty two. Each takes an hour to utter. I can show you how it works if you like. I scribed the nature of the defences so in a book. Quite fascinating really."

Sam left the second question firmly alone, for they felt grossly inadequate to provide answers of such existential enormities. Such concerned not only that of the stone faces, but of Sam's own.

No thought of asking for the reason for the curiosity. Ulterior motives were still new to Sam, as was the concept that not everyone pursued knowledge to appeal an endless curiosity without goal. To pursue ambition from fate's lockjaw, this line of behaviour had not been indulged so much. Sam's world was one of infinite well wishers and benevolent, well meaning questions.

Sam retrieved a simple book from the backpack, their movements careful about the storage as they set it on the ground to sift through. Each item placed within perfectly, ergonomically.

The book itself was opened to near the start. Naked leaves of paper were abundant beyond the scribed details of statue spell, the latest addition.

Sam turned the spellbook towards Garrod so they might read it.

There were three ways to describe the content showed, spanning near twenty pages.

Utterly comprehensive. Utterly exhaustive. And to one not versed in several academic subfields of energy magics, might seem utterly impenetrable at first.

The swathes of geometric shapes with singular vowels for Cartesian points were artistic in a borrowed hand, flourishing loops and slides of ink for dots above the i's. A style emulated from Sam's former master, who had them toil as scribes more often than not.

But lurking within the borders were several helpful annotations. Helpful, that is, if one were to scour the tight clusters of near unreadable text for elucidation.

"This book is for my eyes, so you may need this," Sam said, and produced from satchel a magnifying glass and held it out helpfully.

Through magnification yielded by glass, the minuscule annotations provided far more accessible information, pertaining to the nature of the statues that uttered the drawn out vowels. Each statue, numbered twenty in total, held the capacity of producing great gout of mana fire from their mouths if the perimeter be breached. Their vowels did draw in power from the laylines so that they might have response to those who crossed. Their eyes but ornamental trappings of faces, their mouthpieces for issuing such vowels and belching forth in unison a chorus of death. Their ears did sense much however, sensing the footfall through eardrum that were connected to the ground so that intruders might be felt more than seen.

Flight or levitation, the annotations revealed, as well as generous silence, were to be the best and perhaps the intended way to circumventing a grisly end should one wish to pass the statues. Another solution was detailed, silence the mouths through symmetrical mana tone cancellation. This solution, Sam details as impractical, and the very reason there are twenty statues to prevent such an approach. One would need twenty mages in flawless execution to perform such a deed.

It was clear that the academic detail in the spell description body was written less of a guide on how to overcome such a thing than to simply marvel at the power draw of the statue array. Only the annotations provided such useful information to Garrod. The geometric detail provided permutations and postulations on how the nature of the statues might be transposed to other devices. It seemed that whoever crafted such a defence had some high mastery of energy redirection and wellsprings, and Sam's writing paid much deference and respect to the nameless individual.

One particular sentence might catch Garrod's attention, the final annotation.

'Alas, I regret not knowing the author and inventor of such an array. Such is a lapse in citation on my part.'

Beyond the two pages open, there were no annotations, being purely focused on the statue mana array, and leaving much space for future writings of a similar size about the borders. The lines were extraordinarily precise and uniform, as if etched with cartographers tools.

Sam remained motionless as they looked to the statues as Garrod studied.

"You flatter me," Sam eventually said quietly, unsure on how to take the observation that their work might be considered a relic, more remarking at novelty of the occurrence of a compliment than to offer gratitude for it.

Garrod Arlette

Sam's eyes brightened in shape and in illumination at the suggestion of such a title. A hand waving small protestations, as if a faux pas would be committed by Sam if they did not offer humble explanation.

"Oh, I'm no Master. My creator was a Master. A great one at that. I'm just Sam. Sam Fairbridge."

Eyes blinked in rapid succession. The hat cocked to one side slightly, as if to perhaps suggest an eyebrow being raised or a lilting of the head quizzical.

"My suggestion? Aside from reading the sign again?"

A pause between the words delivered utterly deadpan. There was a gulf of interpretation to be had of the neutral tone in the space given.

"My suggestion would be to use the true solution. Which has been calculated to have the same syllables in the common tongue. Rather generous of the enchanter of these statues, I must say. But I appreciate now that it might not be apparent to those not entrenched and in the arcane language as I am. It was my first language, so to speak. I've found that while most people can read arcane scripts, indeed speak it to create spells, the meaning is understood by most as a sort of..." Sam said, and waved their gloved hand in a spiral nebulous motion, "insinuation. Not as a language to be conversed in proper. I'm different in that respect I suppose. I didn't write the direct translation of what's actually being said in the arcane script, because well," Sam said and shrugged.

"I didn't want to waste space I suppose."

The book in Garrod's hand, after all, was a journal and spellbook, designed to be read by the owner alone.

Sam beckoned a hand to have the book returned.

"Why would you want to go in there to begin with? Flight? Invisibility? Rather risky." Sam said, a cordial politeness to their words as if they themselves were ignorant of the stories of various treasures lurking within. Sam was not the guardian of this place. They were just someone who had listened patiently to that which did indeed defend it.

((If Garrod can read arcane script's literal translation, or has means to translate it to common language, read below))

Garrod Arlette

"I hadn't heard such, but then, I haven't lingered about the people to pick up such things. I like books. And slow songs. At least I liked this slow statue song. I've found that people...people can be oft too quick. I'm not quite used to the pace of the world of non-academics. Well, outside of one academic's dominion."

Sam looked to their own book, left a finger within the pertinent entry concerning the statues. Closed it as weighing up the options. Sam drifted their gaze and posture towards the mouth of the cave.

Sam, almost as a child slowly being persuaded by gentle suggestions, did wonder what treasure might be inside.

"Treasures? Books perhaps? Some treasures of knowledge or arcane research? Might stand to reason. The statue maker is rather talented in the Art. And the lyrics do suggest there is something to fix in there. Some amends to make. Intriguing."

Sam did the better part of work of constructing motivation within themselves, but it was Garrod who had laid to the first stone.

"Herr Arlette," Sam said softly, eyes to the cave, dragged now away from them to Garrod himself, "Let's not test our luck with these statues with practise of invisibility or flying. Let's trust in the solution as presented, and see what luck holds within the cave, yes? I might find something to add to my pack. And my understandings."

The book opened.

"The words spoken by the statues are both spell lock and spell key. Speak the spell back to it in the common tongue, and it nullifies. It's a sort of palindrome of magical language and common thinking. I can begin whenever you think yourself ready."

Sam seemed to enjoy performing as educator and like some kind of tour guide to the world of the arcane, indeed, as a merchant of arcane goods, it loaned well to their livelihood and their feeling of vocational satisfaction.

Garrod Arlette

Sam nodded, and made small approach towards the statues that lodged themselves about the landscape. The statues eyes empty, yet ready to emit a torrent of force against those that might encroach. Their song thrumming in the air, vibrations that secured this place.

With book in hand, read from the arcane script, Sam translated directly into common. As the words fell into the space, the statues all became rapt in attention, each one turning within their mantle to look upon Sam.

"Through transduction of prime motion intent,
Via layline of ancient actuation through vibration born of air born sound,
Coursing through artifact given speech and given will to protect
Does the layline annihilation technique yield lethal ends to those who tread

Through second juncture of third state soul matter,
Viaduct of mana through land universal glamour courses true,
This place is denied to fools

Through passage of time
Sequestered deeds of the arcane remain
No lock or key
Just pledge to make amends

Cordiality to our function
Sealing transjunction

Speak these words back and we shall yield to you
Patient friends."

Upon the final words securing the way, the statues seem almost to smile. Creeping joviality in stone faced guardians, their eyes empty, their curling lips of mineral the only sign that passage had been secured.

The mouth of the cave seemed clearer to the eye as protections became permissions. Well carved by exacting tools, staircase that clean descended into murky ocean like darkness, blueish hues of the rock indicating something arcane lurking resonate. Deep into the earth and rock was this cavern, shaped by intent and driving force to sequester something.

Sam replaced their journal into their backback, hefted it upon their shoulders, and made to lead the way. No fear in the statues attempting to hoodwink was brokered within Sam.

Before the staircase that descended into darkness, Sam flickered light into being from index finger pointed, pale lights emanating from cantrip gesture.

"A world of treasures you say?" Sam said, resuming the conversation as if he were regarding a menu in a distant restaurant. Their eyes that examined the carved ceiling that bore cuts that were exacting and mathematically pleasing in it's geometrical symmetry.

"This be a place of some skills applied," Sam offered in admiration.

A rush of sweet air did flow deliberate, as if rewarding such a comment, from the depths of the staircase. Air that was cool and akin to the ocean breeze, refreshing and clean. A single door awaited at the corridor that was generous in it's dimensions, the door bound in brass fixtures and made of solid oaks, a sigil of some wizarding world that did begin to awaken in soft hues of blues that offered illumination all it's own.

Garrod Arlette