[IC] Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya sighed when Nemo told her she couldn't lay down a little longer. When he placed the rune on her she began to immediately warm up, though, which seemed to be a fair compromise. Raiya's expression changed when he lifted her up, "Don't remind me, I'll dwell on my actual mistakes later," She replied with an angry scowl as she slowly and weakly crossed her arms, "But, I didn't ask to be swept up by my two biggest weaknesses. And I also didn't ask you to carry me." Raiya pouted.

When Nemo began to speak about their enemies, Raiya's expression changed to a more serious one. Sure, perhaps at one point Raiya would have liked to see Nemo dismembered horribly and then burned alive. But she no longer held that overwhelming desire in her heart. When did her perspective begin to change? She hadn't put much thought into it, but more and more she began to realize that it was the pattern of Nemo's seemingly selfless acts towards her that changed her mind. She was honorbound to repay certain life debts, and Nemo had recently displayed certain actions that she absolutely had to repay. Although, with the amount of debt that was beginning to stack up, Raiya was beginning to feel more and more that she'd never actually be able to repay Nemo at the rate she was accruing her debts. "I need to get stronger..." She whispered to herself. That is the only way I can hope to pay my debts and return to my sworn duty of bringing justice to the one who killed my biological parents. She thought.

[ShiningSector]

Travis continued away at the literally weighing problem that had befallen him. In a matter of minutes, he had eventually carved through a section of the large metal debris that held him to the sand. His head recoiled into the warm tropical grains as he exhaled in fatigue after having conjured a continuous spell while only using a mustered portion of his available but diminished strength. Travis would've reached into his trench coat for a filled mana crystal in order to replenish his faltering and weakened reserves but the mass of the wreck consumed most of his body and made retrieving any of his items impossible.

Still, the uncertainty of the situation demanded Travis free himself as soon as possible lest danger were to discover his unfortunate and vulnerable state. With a grunt, Travis raised himself up as much as he could and began channeling mana once more into the same arte. Pressing his straitened left hand against the metal, sparks jumped into the air almost instantly as his spell loudly hissed and burned through the scrapped alloy.

Luckily, Nemo had apparently honed in on Travis' unintentional commotion and arrived and offered his assistance as soon as he deduced the Untalent's predicament. Travis himself was quite surprised how Nemo projected his voice past the rattling sound of his worked however having being been silenced by momentary fatigue, Travis, now feeling relieved, managed a passable 'yeah' followed by a more easily readable nod. With a simple display of telekinetic-like magic, Nemo effortlessly peeled away the battered hull Travis had been working on, finally freeing him from the wreck.

Travis crawled away from the debris as best he could before collapsing again for another breather. Travis, having looked over the condition of his lower body and legs, suddenly gave a tired chuckle, "Well, at least they're there still - too bad I can't feel them right now...thanks for the help, Nemo. Good to see you and Raiya didn't become fish food..."

[Cottonmouth]

Nemo let out a small chuckle. "I don't know if what we were at jeopardy of being eaten by can really be called a 'fish'" Nemo replied, wondering what exactly had happened to the squid creature, and if the water would be safe in case they had to return to it in the future. In distance he saw Zuri walked along the shoreline towards the group. "Looks like everybody survived the wreck at least." He commented, remembering Zoey's demise shortly before.

After they had all regrouped, Nemo looked to the thick jungle and let out a small sigh. "I hope everyone is ready, because from here on out we wont be fighting glorified fishermen anymore." He announced before walking forward towards the foliage and scoping out a path to take. "Can you walk on your own yet Raiya? Warm up enough?" He asked her.

After taking his first steps into the jungle and finding a decent enough path to tread on Nemo loosened back up enough for conversation. "You were a student of the Academia before, right Travis? What convinced you to tag along on this gig instead? I would of thought that wandering around that knowledge theme-park they call a institution would be much more favorable than what so far has been multiple near death experiences, inevitably followed by even more near death experiences. I suppose the Societas' treatment of 'untalents' didn't earn them any brownie points, but you still look like a masochist to me."

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya could feel her limbs returning to normal functionality. She shifted her weight to roll out of Nemo's grasp, landing on her feet with less grace than she would have had normally. She stood up and took inventory of herself, looking down at her outfit. Her jacket was gone, probably ripped off of her body by the rushing water. Luckily for her, though, her jacket was enchanted to fall back into her mana inventory if it got too far away from her. Raiya reached out to retrieve her jacket from her mana inventory, the wet mess of a jacket falling into her hand that she had reached out. She spread the jacket and examined the damage. The jacket was still wet and soaked in salt water. Raiya let out a sigh of irritation. Raiya knew once the jacket dried it would be stiff and crusted from the salt, which meant that her jacket was as good as ruined if it wasn't treated as soon as possible. She took a mental note to enchant her next jacket with a barrier enchantment. She dropped the jacket back into her inventory. Unfortunately enough for Raiya, that wasn't the only thing ruined about her outfit. Her hoodie was completely missing, one of her tanktop straps was ripped in half which left her top revealing a little bit more cleavage than normal. Her jeans were even more torn than normal, with a giant gash of a hole down the right side of the jeans that went from just below the underwear line to just above where the boot shafts stopped. Her boots were enchanted which made them impervious to water damage and heat damage up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. The boots were great for dredging through marshlands or slightly volcanic areas but not so good for speed of movement or athletic flexibility.

Raiya let out a large irritated sigh, "Yeah, I can walk on my own, but not in this outfit." She replied. Her hair was also a bit of a mess. Instead of being orderly spiky in the front, the hair was spiky in some areas but flat in areas where it wasn't normally which basically gave the effect of bedhead. Her hair normally seemed as though it was short, and normally the spikiness in bangs and on the top of the head looked a bit like an extreme tomboy cut. However, her hair did have quite some length, the hair in the back trailed down to her neck where it was tied in a pony tail and further trailed down to just below the mid section of her back. Now that her jacket and hoodie were gone, her actual hair was now in full display to everyone. Normally the length of her hair was tucked underneath her jacket and hoodie. Raiya thought about what she would do with her wardrobe malfunction. She remembered she had an extra fishnet shirt and a tank top in her mana inventory. However, she did not have an extra jacket, hoodie, or pair of pants with her. She extended her right arm and flicked her wrist, in an instant her tattered long sleeved fishnet shirt and her tank top were replaced on her body with a pristine set of replacements. It would look to the naked eye like she repaired the ones she was wearing, but the pink electricity flash of her mana inventory magic would tip off a trained eye that she merely replaced them.

As for her jeans, she charged her forefinger with mana and traced a straight line around the leg just above the gash. When she finished she snapped her fingers and the pant leg fell freely severed cleanly at the place where Raiya traced her finger. She did the same thing to the other pant leg, creating a makeshift set of hotpants/booty shorts. Raiya put her finger up to her lips as if in thought, and then traced her finger around two inches from the bottom of her new tank top and snapped her fingers. A new cut was formed around the bottom of her tank top, revealing her fishnetted midriff up to her navel. Raiya stretched her arms above her head, "That ought to work for now," Raiya stated satisfied with her handiwork, "and it looks like my mana is recharging pretty quickly too. I should be completely back to normal in an hour or so." Raiya finished.

[ShiningSector]

Travis collapsed in the sand with a sigh, "You know what I meant,"

Awhile longer and eventually Travis regained his strength in his legs, allowing him to finally stand and walk again after a short rest. Zuri eventually returned in their fold, prompting Nemo to declare that everyone here had survived the wreck. However, the way it was worded caused Travis' gut to turn again. There was no sign of Zoey still and the last time he even saw here was while they were fighting Seidon. Further more, he lost sight of her the moment she transitioned him through one of her shadowy portals all the way to the opposite side of the ship. He soon began to expect the worse as he silently delved more on the subject.

Eventually, as they finally began trekking into the jungle, it was then Nemo ambushed him with an unexpectedly personal question. The query certainly caught him off guard but it was nevertheless a needed distraction to keep his mind off of gloomy facts and circumstances, "Technically, I still am a 'student'. I may have mentioned earlier that I'm a Scholar which is one of a few aspects I was required to select from. Given my majors, it was the perfect fit."

"While as a Scholar," he continued, "I would have higher clearance to some of the more ancient and advanced tomes, my main job however is to seek out newer knowledge the Academia does have recorded yet and to research and fabricate new spells or techniques. I'm sure you've already seen some of my personal handiwork in action,"

"You'd think Scholars would have it good, being as we're usually writing reports and not looking for trouble unlike our Ruin or Knight Mages friends; unfortunately, trouble tends to find us. I've been on several expeditions and had to deal with a handful of threats though the most amount of trouble I seem to get in with the most are those Disciples of Salem jerks or the Cultist nutjobs.

Travis paused briefly before picking back up with Nemo's main asking point, “Anyway, the solo expedition I was on was more or less a bust. Too many sacrificial-happy denizens occupying many of my lead research sites and I was reduced to making spells in the middle of nowhere. As you can imagine, Felix showed up and recruited me after that.”

It was not a moment later did Nemo's final comment finally registered with the Untalent, “And what do you mean by looking like a masochist? You mean the hairdo, right? Having a full side of hair practically shaved off wasn’t my idea.”

[Cottonmouth]

Nemo looked to Raiya, seeing her modify her outfit. That poor selvage denim, it's really done for now. Cut to pieces. Massacred. I fear to imagine what's happened to her jacket too. Nemo thought, visibly distressed when she retrieved it and Nemo got a good look for himself. Nemo's own outfit seemed to have survived quite well, since their time on the shore any damage to the garments seemed to have magically repaired itself, to the point where the only standing defects was a slight dampness or surface dirt from the unwanted wash he received.

Nemo looked back to Travis and he explained his story. While he spoke Nemo spawned a small silk pouch from his inventory. It looked like a more gilded version of those small brown sacks people used to keep gold coins in in medieval times, but instead of gold Nemo held something a bit more peculiar. He loosened the string on the pouch and dipped his hand inside, pulling out what looked like a glowing blue gumball. Anyone using manalysis of some type would see it as a small crystal ball of pure mana. In the middle of Travis' exposition, Nemo opened his maw and placed the ball on his tongue, he then proceeded to casually swallow the entire thing whole. After returning the pouch, Nemo seemed to feel the effects shortly after. Nemo contorted his entire head and body in opposite directions until they stretched out into a snap. His neck popped first, shortly followed by his shoulders and back. After the apex of his stretch, Nemo let out a pleasant shudder and returned his posture back to normal.

"Yes, I've seen your handiwork, it's quite impressive. For an untalent you're rather talented." Was the first thing Nemo spoke after his ordeal. "Even if my first option is to smash through everything with brute force. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate seeing a skilled hand at work. Sometimes even I prefer that way." Nemo replied.

As they continued walking through the jungle, Nemo started to see remnants of stone buildings among the foliage. Clearly this island wasn't going to be entirely remote. He figured that the paragon wasn't going to be just sitting on the jungle floor out in the open anyways. As he thought he began to hear the sounds of heavy water, something not very welcoming for the group given what they've just been through.

Soon the thick jungle seemed to give way to an opening, displaying that the all around the middle of the island there was a vast trench filled with running water that separated the two. Small waterfalls flowed off from the 'inner island' to fill the trench, constantly replenishing the supply. Even then the water was quite a painful drop down, leading to god knows where. At best it was out to the ocean so they could start all over again.

Nemo looked to the trees, finding the tallest one he could closest to the edge. He charged a spell and shot it at the base, chopping out a decent chunk of it's foundation, enough to make it unstable. He then used a gust of kinetic force from his opposite hand to cause it to finally fall in the direction of the moat. The tree crashed down, creating a usable but perilous bridge to the other side.

"That should do it, as long as everybody is extra careful." Nemo said, walking over and stepping on the log. He checked it's stability, figuring it was good enough and started on his way down. For someone like Nemo it wasn't surprising to see that he had excellent balance. "Do you have any weapons on you, Travis?" He asked once he was one third of the way across. "I could lend you a firearm if you want, it's probably going to come in handy real soon." Afterwards Nemo continued on to finish his trek across the ravine without a hitch.

[Accurian]

Zuri followed the group through the jungle, treading carefully with each step as they walked past the remains of what looks like stone buildings. The sound of water grew louder as they got closer. With a little bit of magic, Nemo cut down the tree to create a path to safely get across. After all that has happened today, the fear of falling off this log was the least of her worries as she steps on and tries to keep her balance. The crackling noises in the bark wasn't reassuring though.

[Prodigal Son]

With the temperature of the island, Raiya was glad that she had made modifications to her outfit. While her core temperature was normally cold and she required a warmer environment to operate normally, she still could get uncomfortable in hot environments, especially with that large leather coat. Raiya could tell she would be pretty uncomfortable in this humid island jungle.

Raiya walked closely behind and listened as Nemo and Travis spoke about the Academia and Travis's role as a scholar. Raiya had to admit that while Travis certainly was weaker than the two, she could not deny he could hold his own, and that there were more than a few situations they could not have got around without Travis's help. And, Raiya figured, if things were to continue to keep going as they have, they would certainly need Travis in the future as well.

Raiya watched as the tree fell to cover the ravine; as Nemo asked Travis if he'd like to borrow any of his guns, Raiya began to cross the ravine ahead of Travis and Nemo.

[ShiningSector]

"I appreciate the compliment," replied Travis before following up after Nemo’s reasoning, "I'll try not to boast, though Untalents do have to compensate for something at least since many of the performance tests aren't segregated. Therefore, it is expected we compete with other students, including Talents."

As they moved deeper down the island, Travis figured why stop given how everyone weren’t bringing up any other topics aside the one initiated by Nemo, "yes, there is a social food chain though I suppose it can't helped as the Untalent population is pretty small in comparison so some tension is expected to arise."

"However, I feel the impression of the Societas Academia being an elitist school that brings down the incapable and unfit is really undeserving. I won't deny the few cases that pop up but it’s certainly not that bad. Many of my close colleges back there are Talents too," concluded Travis.

After presenting his part of the topic, Travis and everyone else soon arrived into a wide-open space within the what was likely the center of the island. Between them and a notably a taller land mass was a series of deep canals and trenches, as flowing with rushing water supplied by the waterfalls that spilled from the center island. It was even more likely that was there main objective.

However, a problem that briefly presented itself was the obvious case of traversing the active lanes of water that stood before them. Unless one would be able to fly or walk on water, there weren’t too many options to be had when dealing with the aggressive currents without being swept away. Even Travis’ cryo-rune wasn’t as effective when dealing with such an active stream and the best he could hope for were merely the creation of a few isolated Icey surfaces behaving as stepping stones.

Nemo on the other hand provided the seemingly more efficient action of knocking down one of the local trees and repurposing it as a makeshift bridge. While not as colorful nor subtle as Travis’s would have put it. After a word of caution, everyone began making their way over the trunk of the fallen tree without too much difficulty. It was then that Nemo summoned another subject, one that initially stumped even Travis initially.

"...I thought it would be obvious that I don't carry any weapons," Travis bluntly replied, almost sounding unamused even.

After he cleared the tree and stepped on to the other side, he then faced Nemo and continued, "nevertheless, I lost that intricate rifle back there and considering whom we may eventually run in to... I guess I won't say no to having one just in case."

[Cottonmouth]

After reaching the other side of the ravine, Nemo dug a weapon out from his manainventory. He extended both arms out to softly catch a ornate double barreled side-by-side style shotgun once it spawned. Except for two gold triggers and damascus barrels, the metal parts of the gun all seemed to be made out of heavily engraved silver. The stock and fore-end both were made out of some sort of white ivory to match the gaudiness of the floral engravings. The stock had a embossed tan leather shell holder strapped to it with six extra shells. Four of them were forest green, and the last two were dark burgundy. Finally, the firearm had a matching leather sling attached to the stock and fore-end.

"This should do the trick, just promise you wont lose it." Nemo commented. "Despite what some believe, a long barreled shotgun like this has more than enough range and accuracy. It's simple to use as well, each trigger fires one of the barrels, pull both if you need double the power. Counting the two already loaded, you've got eight shots total. The green shells are buckshot mixed with small manacrystal pellets, the special powder inside will charge them when fired, giving the pellets the ability to shatter a magic shield. The two red ones are for special occasions. They're aethermetal slugs tipped with anti-magic runes. Instead of just shattering a shield, these puppies will pierce right through it like butter." He explained before presenting Travis with his creation, clearly it was something that Nemo had himself designed and crafted, including the ammunition.

After handing the shotgun over, Nemo continued on into the jungle, which seemed to slowly begin to clear out more and more after they crossed the ravine. As the thick jungle lessened, the remnants of stone buildings began to increase, until some of them could actually be entered unlike the rubble from before. Soon an opening in the foliage revealed strange sight, a giant stone palace was erected in the middle of the island. Unlike the remnants, this building didn't seem to be very old. Despite the extremely dated design, the building practically looked new, as if it hadn't aged at all. The only other notable thing in the area was a shrine in the shape of a giant hand placed in front of the pristine temple.

"Well I think we made it, I just hope we were the first." Nemo commented as he walked up to the stone shrine to inspect it further. The entire thing seemed to be encrusted with crystals. Upon closer inspection Nemo realized they were uncharged manacrystals. Nemo placed his hand one of the oversized fingers of the statue and began to pour his energy into it. The multicolored crystals on the statue slowly started to light up in a spiral as they filled up with energy, and in turn the doors to the temple started to part slightly.

"Raiya, mind giving me a hand with this." Nemo requested. "Zuri and Travis, as soon as the doors are open you two should head inside and see if there is any way keep it open for us from within."

---

After hearing Nemo's request, Raiya surveyed the area a bit more before walking up to the statue. "Yeah yeah, I got it." She commented before putting her hand on another one of the fingers and pouring some of her mana inside.

With that all the gems on the idol had fully lit up, soon after the twin doors parted fully allowing access to the inside for Travis and Zuri.

[Accurian]

Zuri heard Nemo's order loud and clear, "Okay!" she replies as Zuri slowly approaches the door as it opened, giving a little peek inside but she could barely see anything. She looks straight at Travis and tilts her head a little bit, waiting for him to take the lead as she didn't know how to create a light source, or maybe that's just an excuse for not waiting to go in first. She was just a little bit scared, not because of the darkness, but what lies within.

[ShiningSector]

While Travis did accept Nemo's offer in lending a firearm to him, he wasn't expecting to receive a long-barreled shotgun. Travis' eyes widened with his expression shifting to a surprised, near jaw-dropping look; if anything, he was anticipating something much smaller such as Nemo's revolvers. Although, Travis certainly wasn't against using such a weapon, having already utilized Lori's rifle hours ago, the familiarity of the weapon in his hands lingered still.

Upon closer inspection of the shotgun, it was apparent to Travis how much care and decorative effort Nemo had put into the weapon. Not only was the weapon elegant, Nemo had even gone into detail about its destructive capabilities, ranging from shattering magical barriers to flat caving right through them based on the cartridge used. While eight shots seemed limited, it seemed fair given its role for busing open defenses.

"Thanks, I'll be sure to look after it. I reckon this'll come quite in handy," replied Travis as he took hold of the shotgun and its ammunition.

While they travelled deeper into the jungle that seemingly became less dense with each meter elapsing, Travis and everyone else would’ve began seeing an increase in the number of ruins and older structures as they converged on the center of this ancient civilization. The mere thought of where they were nagged at him, had their manadials been free of whatever interference they were encountering, Travis believes he could possibly narrow down a few likely old civilizations that should have inhabited the region. Eventually, they arrived before a larger building that stood at the center of the decayed village. However, the sanctum-like structure appeared as if it had been built and completed just recently without any sign of wear or tear. Given the state of the smaller buildings that surrounded it, its seemed nearly alien in comparison.

“Strange,” Travis thought aloud but expected no reply, “no indication of aging or temporal decay whatsoever and yet there is no one around to be able to manage it. Given the interference on our manadials, could this too be the work of a Paragon…?”

He then watched as Nemo closely inspected one of two shrines that each hosted a large crystalline statue of an unrecognizable figure. It soon became evident that the statues were made up of manacrystals just as Nemo touched the artificial hand of the statue before him, causing the entire figure to light as a response to his mana flow. With one of the statues now glowing, the doors to the ancient structure reacted and partially retracted into the walls. It was now clear what they had to do.
With Raiya walking up to the second shrine and powering its statue, the doors finally separated and revealed the entrance inwards. Beyond the entrance was notable pathway shrouded in darkness seemingly uninterrupted by the sunlight that beamed inward. Even before Nemo had ordered Travis and Zuri to investigate the inner hallway of the structure, Travis was already able to deduce that there as method of ensuring the doors outside remained retracted without Nemo or Raiya’s involvement,

"I suspect the mechanism inside shouldn't be too different like the setup out here. This should take too long,” declared Travis as he armed himself with Nemo’s loaned weapon before proceeding inward, "let’s go Zuri."

Already a few steps in and Travis could quickly tell they were running out of supporting light. Figuring that it was inevitable, he soon pooled a portion of his mana into his left hand and tossed a newly created ball of light that floated above them while illuminating the entire passageway, “that should get us going for a bit.”

After walking a few meters into the ancient establishment, did they finally come across a set of similarly build statues that mirrored the one outside. With the quick use of his advanced light projection spell, he soon confirmed the statues here provided the same functions as the ones outside after the spell pointed out the mana pathways and the mechanical components that controller how the doors opened and closed. He then turned to Zuri.

"It’s the same principle as the setup like we saw at the entrance," said Travis has he placed his left hand on to the statue’s right palm, causing the manacrystal figure to light up as he began channeling mana, “think you can charge that statue over there? That should keep the doors open and allow Raiya and Nemo to come in.”

[Accurian]

Zuri walks over to the statue and places her hand on the palm, taking a few seconds to get the mana flowing through her body before channeling mana into it as it started to light up. "I think I got it..?" she replies to Travis with a bit of uncertainty. It felt a bit weird since it was her first time, but she slowly got the hang of it.

[Cottonmouth]

Nemo let out a pleased sigh when he saw Zuri and Travis take car of the statue inside. However just before Nemo let go of the statue a peculiar sound graced his ears. A sort of faint metallic jingle, followed by a high pitched whistle. The whistle grew louder and louder at a speedy pace, something was coming and it was coming fast.

Nemo's years of experience made locating the threat easy enough, after turning his head a large spiked golden flail head attached to a gleaming golden chain was furiously barreling down at him from overhead. Nemo was barely able to dodge out of the way in time, without his advanced reflexes and speed, escape would have been impossible. The mace slammed into the ground with incredible speed and power, causing an explosive like reaction when it his the side of the statue and stone floor. Uprooting a large part of the pavement in a kinetic explosion as it pulverized the stone into dust.

Nemo watched the mace slowly get reeled back to it's owner by the chain. The spikes creating sparks as it slowly scraped across the floor. Finally the chain led to a golden ornate staff, retracting back into a opening at the end and locking the spiked head back into place. The weapon was held by a golden yellow haired figure, Father John Galvadon, the man Nemo had told Raiya about earlier. A malicious looking smirk crossed his face as he eyed down Nemo and Raiya. "You have no idea how much I've been looking forward to this." He commented.

After the statue sustained heavy damage, the twin doors of the temple slowly began to lose power and close. The attack seemed to destroy the connection between the two artifacts, causing the entire system to begin to fail. Nemo quickly shuffled back to the construct and placed his hand back on it, pouring much more energy in it than before and effectively slowing down the closure of the doors with the overcharge.

Thoughts quickly began to run through Nemo's head as he wondered what to do. They must have planned this ambush to split them up, they reached here first no doubt, but if Stockton isn't here too, he's probably already inside looking for the paragon. He can't get to it first, but Travis and Zuri will never be able to defeat him on their own.

After a short pause Nemo finally spoke. The usual humorous cadence in his voice was lost on him now. "Raiya, I need you to get inside before the doors close. Stockton is likely already in there somewhere, Travis and Zuri will need your help against him. I'll just have to fight Johhny-boy alone." He explained. Considering that Nemo had said Galvadon was sent to assassinate him earlier, it was a rather grim proposal.

Galvadon suddenly retracted the spikes on his mace and let the psuedo-wrecking ball loose from it's shaft again, causing the head to drop to the floor with a heavy metallic thud, followed by the chain spilling out from behind it and piling up on the floor. He grabbed the chain and began to twirl the mace around above his head. It slowly began to pick up speed, the chain magically lengthening as well to give it more reach. Soon the golden mace-head began to glow with yellow magic energy and let off a humming sound each time it cycled above his head.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya let go of her statue and dodged out of the way as the giant golden enchanted mace smashed close enough and with a force strong enough to inflict some damage on Raiya if she had not dodged. Raiya landed back about ten feet from where she bailed and then she snapped her gaze towards their enemy. The golden figure in front of them sparked a few memories to flash past Raiya's eyes. Raiya actually did not know John Galvadon in person, but she had seen him in passing at the Vatican. He was one of the older magi that helped Felix attack Nemo all those years ago. Leaving his aura exposed, it was Raiya could see two things, one was that Galvadon was much stronger than what he used to be, and the last one was that Galvadon was vehemently enraged. The bloodlust was so palpable that it shocked Raiya momentarily. So, I am not the only one who has grown in these past few years, Raiya shook her head, If this mission has taught me anything, it's that I need to break my own limits. I need to train. She concluded internally.

Raiya summoned her katana without the sheathe, her face was impassive as she began to formulate a plan of attack. However, before she could finish her thought process, Nemo issued a command to assist the other two members further on and leave him trapped with Galvadon. Raiya wanted to second guess Nemo's decision and stay to help him. But after a moment of thought she shook her head and ran off through the closing doors. They could not afford to waste time arguing and Raiya was beginning to trust Nemo's judgement as a leader. As she ran up to the remaining two members of the group, Travis and Zuri, the doors finished closing behind them, sealing them off. Raiya summoned her scabbard, and sheathed her blade as she finished walking up to the group.

"Well, we're on our own," Raiya stated, "We have no time to waste lets move." Raiya commanded. She began to sprint further inside the palace, but she didn't stray too far ahead of the group.

[Cottonmouth]

John began to spin the mace faster and faster, the intermittent hums of the weapon as it passed by slowly become one continuous droll buzzing. Keeping track of the weapon as it spun was now impossible as well, at the speed it was going the path which it took was totally obscured by the yellow energy trail it left behind.

By this point Raiya had left for the entrance. "If you spin that thing any more I might start thinking you're a helicopter." Nemo called out to him humorously. On cue, the roaring humming and trail abruptly disappeared as soon as the doors to the temple closed. The mace head head suddenly reappeared as the young Father Galvadon swung it at him overhead at a blinding speed. It crashed down into the floor, discharging all the energy it had built up into a massive explosion that dwarfed the first.

The explosion rung out into the inside of the temple, shaking the entire structure significantly. The sound it made was incredible as well, even with all that solid stone to insulate them, the detonation could be heard with ear-ringing strength. It was followed by an eerie, total silence. Whatever the attack was, it was meant to wipe out everything in sight. It was hard to believe that anything could have survived.

As it stood, the inside of the temple was lit well enough from Travis' spell to see even with the doors closed, removing any outside light. What they were currently standing in was just a wide open hallway leading to an opening to another large room. A room where various golden and jeweled treasure strewn about it willy nilly. Considering pirates were embedded deep in this paragon's history, it's likely the items were pillaged loot from long ago. There were three doors within, leading to places unknown. As well as one great stone spiral staircase leading straight down in the middle of the room.

[Accurian]

Zuri heard a destructive blow outside the doors before it started to slowly close. Not long later, Raiya ran through the gates and told both of us to get moving. She could only assume that Nemo had company since he's nowhere to be seen. Zuri looked at the gates one last time before turning around and started to run towards Raiya to catch up with her.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya took a cursory glance around the room. The room appeared to hold valuable treasures of sorts but it also seemed to be a transitory chamber, existing only as a hub of potential directions. There were three directions to proceed laterally, aside from the way they came in from which was now sealed, and one way to travel vertically down. "Well," Raiya put her right hand up to her chin and placed her forefinger under her bottom lip, "This is clearly not a storage room, and yet there are a variety of treasures. Which leads me to three potential explanations. One is that whoever owns this place has so much treasure that they do not mind some of it lying about in the lobby. Another explanation is that all of it is fake, although these seem to be pretty convincing fakes," Raiya paused as she lifted a gold coin and sniffed it, "In which case, this is one elaborate fake. There are no trademark signs of illusions being cast here. Fake gold has a scent, and illusions generally have shoddy craftsmanship when it comes to sensory experiences. In which case, the last explanation is that this whole palace and possibly island is a storage area for treasure and the owner relies on the might of the paragon to keep would be intruders out," Raiya finished.

"In any case, it is important we unanimously choose a path to go forward. If I were a better mage this is the part where I would use manalysis to try and scout a path ahead, but I'm not, so I'll use my nose to scout ahead," Raiya explained. She then stuck her nose out and began to sniff the air current circulating throughout the palace. Theoretically she should be able to smell anything particularly pungent like decay or the trademark burnt ozone smell of a destruction spell being recently cast from deep within any of the passageways and even from below them.

[ShiningSector]

"There ya go!" Travis said in acclaim of Zuri's effort, "now just maintain that flow. Nemo and Raiya should be-"

Before Travis could finish his sentence, a loud explosive sound coming from outside rang out through the hallway, cut him off and nearly shook him to the ground. The Untalent however managed with little effort to remain standing and turned to face the entrance, now clouded with dust and debris particles. Travis wanted to go back and investigate, but he knew he and Zuri couldn't leave their statues unpowered without the doors ceiling up due to their would-be absence. Annoyingly still was their that manadials were still being interfered with and therefor couldn't be used in anyway to communicate with their teammates outside. Feeling the hopelessness washing over him, Travis gave an irritated grunt and kick the statue before turning to face the entrance once more, now witnessing the doors beginning to slowly close

"Nemo? Raiya? What's going on out there?!" Travis called out.

No one answered immediately but after less than a minute of silence, Travis could then vaguely hear the voice of Nemo from outside. Travis couldn't make out Nemo's words to well but after seeing Raiya rush into the hallway before the doors closed behind her, he came to the assumed conclusion she was ordered to enter the temple, possibly to back he and Zuri up before they were separated from the outside. It was likely now that Nemo was currently engaged the aggressing members of the Church, hopefully just one of them.

Travis then backed away from his statue after feeling its aura vanish, signifying that the construct was no longer responding to his mana circulation. At Raiya's commanding remark, Travis hurried behind her just to keep his candlelight spell with them has they traversed the dark hallway. They eventually arrived into large room littered with trinkets of jewels and gold, fitting for a royal palace. While a pleasant sight, he concurred with Raiya's deductions on what this room's true purpose was. The gold pieces seem real enough and Travis couldn't detect any trace of any visual foul play cause by any illusions. Whoever owned the gold though was beyond him; considering Nemo's earlier history lesson, there was a chance that the treasure strewn about was not owned by the original owners of the temple but by pirates long ago. Whether the case might by, Travis was hesitant of touching any of the rich fortune before him fearing there was a likelihood of it being booby-trapped.

However, their main problem presently was where to go. There were three closed entryways before them and a spiraling staircase leading to another room before them. Raiya then opted a rather unorthodox method of finding their desired path by, literally, sniffing it out. It technically wasn't a bad idea. Certainly a weird one; albeit inefficient too, though the concept of identifying the scent of decayed or burnt surfaces and even residual mana traces was a doable method of locating their path. Travis meanwhile scanned the lit room for any other hints while he aimed down Nemo's shotgun in anticipation for any more threatening surprises.

"I hope that nose of yours is a good one then," Travis replied, sounding somewhat doubtful but nevertheless going along her technique.

[Cottonmouth]

The smell in the air were rather dull, sterile in fact. Nothing smelled musty or old, as if the interior was perfectly maintained. There was no coating of dust covering any of the treasure. As for the routes, the same metallic smell of gold and silver seemed to flow from all of the paths except for the stairwell down. Smells of fresh water seemed to draft up from the depths. It's possible the other routes only led to more of a livable fortune laden castle.

Upon closer inspection of the spiral staircase, it seemed that there were crumbles of stone all around it, as well as coating the steps themselves. It was the same stone as the floor was made out of. It looked as if the entire staircase had been hidden under the floor before, but was freshly uprooted by something. The dust of the rock being smashed was still lingering in the air.