Chapter Text
The sounds of sandals lightly landing upon the stone ground echoed through the empty hall, bouncing back at them with the volume and energy of nine sets of footsteps instead of three. Nozel led his siblings with a deadpan that threatened with each passing moment to tip into a scowl. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Nebra on his right, keeping in check a smirk, and on his left, Solid, brimming with unbridled excitement. It wasn’t either of their faults that this dungeon was rubbing him the wrong way, but their ignorance to its cartoonish nature wasn’t helping along his impatience to get this over with.
He knew that, really, this was a blessing of sorts. This was Solid’s first mission, and he should absolutely not be irritated that it was going like this. He’d wanted something simple-- something safe --for his newest recruit and little brother. Because frankly, he didn’t trust Solid as far as he could throw him. The fifteen-year-old was impulsive and cocky, prone to throwing himself into challenges he had no business facing on his own. Nozel had racked his brain for a good excuse to delay his admittance into the Silver Eagles, but when the time had come, he couldn’t think of one that would hold up to the voracious tantrum that he knew his little brother would throw. So here he was, a live grenade, strutting around in a Silver Eagles robe. Nozel just hoped that the lessons he’d have to learn would only injure his ego.
Nebra was another story altogether. Her competence had nothing to do with his annoyance with her. She was having a great time. This was a game to her. She absolutely couldn’t wait for the next ridiculous thing that this dungeon threw at him. Solid be damned, she was having the time of her life.
Frankly, if Nozel had to watch another Indiana Jones trap go off, he was going to lose his mind. They had already dodged a rolling boulder, falling snakes, spikes shooting out of the walls, and a pit of crocodiles. Who designed a dungeon like this? It wasn’t old enough to claim novelty at the time of its creation. And these traps were too cliche, too by the book for this to be an accident. He had a sinking suspicion that the artifact that they would recover was going to be something just as irreverently cartoonish as the rest of this joke of a dungeon.
To his relief, the walls didn’t start closing in on them before they got to the main chamber. There was still time for that, Nozel reminded himself bitterly, as he examined the magic seal that locked it. The form of a glaring serpent's face stared down at them, its six whiskers branching out and widening to form narrow openings. Unsurprisingly, it required water mages to open. Liquid mercury was close enough; they’d planned to cheat.
“Alright, Solid,” he said, stepping back. Mercury materialized around him, forming long tendrils to match the width of the whisker openings. “You take the left. I’ll take the right.”
“Got it.” He took an animated step forward that was almost a hop. As he lifted his hands, his magic, jittery and bouncy from his excitement, rose around him.
Nozel gave him a beat more than he felt was necessary to steady his water magic. Then on his count, they filled the door’s tubes at the same time. His mercury certainly wasn’t what this door was designed for; it struggled through the narrowest parts of the canals, slowing to the point that Nozel had to force it to keep in sync with Solid. To his brother’s credit, he filled his side of the door perfectly, and as their magic met in the middle, the serpent's eyes lit up. The magic mechanism in the door released with a hiss of steam from the serpent's nostrils-- uneven due to his mercury’s stubbornness to turn gaseous --and the door creaked open.
Solid tittered as Nozel took the lead inside. The room was small for a dungeon of this size; hardly the size of their common room at the Silver Eagles base, with a low ceiling and poor lighting. Nebra pulled out her flashlight and shined it around the room. Gold and silver reflected the light back; to their satisfaction, the room was piled with treasure. Any form of currency seemed in short supply: Nozel saw jewelry, furnishings, statues, lamps, and tools. Had it not been for the brilliant shine of precious metals, this stuff could have been mistaken for storage for some sort of hoarder.
“Look at it all!” Solid cried, taking in the room with wide sweeps of his flashlight. “How will we know what in here is the artifact?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions, Solid,” Nebra teased, gliding past him. “The artifact will have a unique magic signature. Can’t you sense it?” She stuck out her chin and, for the pure pleasure of confusing her brother, moved in the opposite direction of the artifact’s billowing mana. Solid watched her cautiously, unsure whether he was being tricked or helped along.
With a soft sigh, Nozel strolled farther into the room, his eyes cast on an open jewelry box. Now that they were here, and had faced no serious danger, he could allow himself to have a little fun. There was no point in a treasure hunt where you didn’t take some time to enjoy the spoils. He knelt and examined the jewelry box’s contents. To his delight, these pieces were very stylish: earrings, small brooches, rings and bracelets, all made of silver, with Lapis Lazuli and Amethyst stones. These were things he would wear to a nice party; one at a time of course, he wasn’t tacky. He examined them one by one, and picked his favorite ones to stash away. The kingdom would claim most of this treasure, of course, but there was always some merit in staking claim on a few favorite pieces.
As he rifled through the jewelry, he sensed some weak magic. He cocked a brow and carefully unburied it. At the bottom of the box, shoved unceremoniously into a corner, was a dingy silver ring with a yellow jewel in it. It radiated a passive magic power.
This was interesting. He’d encountered magic items like this before, but usually they weren’t so haphazardly mixed into a collection of non-arcane bobbles. He picked it up and examined it. It channelled magic, he soon realized. Into something. Into what had yet to be seen; he’d have to use it to find out.
He slipped it into his bag and lifted his head as Nebra strolled over. She had several necklaces draped around her neck, and her fingers were lined with rings. As she caught his attention, she struck a pose. “What do you think? It’s a look, right?”
“Oh, yes. Clover Kingdom Chique,” he indulged, amused.
Nebra giggled, and in one smooth motion, dumped all of the rings into her satchel. “I’ll pick my favorites later.”
“Don’t pack more than you can carry,” he warned.
“I may jangle, but I won’t lag,” she said confidently, casting him a smirk.
Nozel stood and dusted himself off. “There isn’t much that is magic in here,” he mused, examining the room.
“That fares well for us getting to keep what we find,” Nebra chirped. “I don’t see the problem.”
“That wasn’t my concern, but… Solid!”
Nebra whirled around and bristled. Their younger brother stood before a pedestal bathed in unnatural light, at the top of which sat-- of all fucking things --a crystal skull, radiating powerful magic. His fingers were nearly around it, and Nozel’s cry didn’t reach him soon enough to stop him from clutching the thing, pulling it off the pedestal, and stumbling back.
The room shook as if offended. The walls rumbled, and everything in the room rattled with the growing tremors radiating through the entire building.
“Solid!” Nebra cried, her voice shrill. “What are you doing!?”
The boy’s bewildered blue eyes went wide. “It-It’s the artifact!”
His rebuttal was swallowed up by the wall closest to him forming a fissure that sent massive stones crashing to the ground. Solid cried out and shrank as stone collapsed all around him, throwing up dust and a cacophony of noise.
Nozel’s heart leapt into his throat. A mercury disk formed under him and Nebra, and he shot forward on it, zigzagging between falling boulders and columns. Solid didn’t see him coming, and Nozel didn’t have time to warn him. He sped past him, grabbing him by the back of his Silver Eagles robe and dashing toward the door. His little brother let out a strangled cry as he was dragged along, but Nozel couldn’t afford to make him more comfortable. The door to the room was closing.
They shot out of the room as the doors slammed closed, Solid dangling from Nozel’s hand as Nebra scrambled for him. Nozel couldn’t afford to give them any of his attention: the walls of the corridor were narrowing, and the ceiling was collapsing. He had to push them faster even as he dodged falling stones, so all he could do was pray that Solid hadn’t lost a leg in the closing door, and keep his grip on him.
He extended the metal platform as he sensed Solid’s weight shift out of his hand. Solid and Nebra huddled behind him as he maneuvered through the dungeon falling apart around them. Nozel’s eyes watered through a cloud of dust. He narrowed them against the grit. The exit was in sight, but growing smaller by the moment. Rocks had collapsed in front of the opening. A narrow sliver of light was all the connection they had to the outside world.
They wouldn’t make it through together. Nozel’s platform shifted, putting Nebra and Solid ahead of him. Through dust and grit, he tried to do the mental calculations to get this right. If his aim was off, there would be no difference between letting his siblings die and killing them himself.
Mercury swirled around them, pulling them apart as the magic within it coiled like a spring under pressure. He sent Nebra first. She shot from the mercury slingshot like a bullet, shrieking in terror as she flew through the air and through the narrow opening in the wall of stone. When Nozel was sure that she’d made it through, his magic curled around Solid next. The boy struggled and screamed, but he went silent as he shot through the air, the wind knocked from his lungs. Nozel didn’t see him disappear through the sliver of light, but he didn’t see him hit the stone, either.
He risked a moment to wipe his eyes; the grit and dust was so thick on his lashes that he couldn’t see. His vision cleared enough to pick up the light among the stones, getting smaller as the boulders shifted, and he pushed himself as fast as he could go. His knees bent. His shoulders slacked. He brought his hands in front of him. And he dove through the opening, eyes shut, following the warmth of sunlight on his face.
Stone closed around his stomach and back, slamming the air from his lungs. With a pained grunt, he came to a violent halt, wedged between the collapsing wall of stone. He struggled frantically to free himself from the rocks, sandaled feet scrambling for a hold as he clawed for leverage with his hands.
Two sets of hands caught his wrists. Nebra and Solid yanked and pulled with all their might as Nozel kicked from the other side. The stone wall shifted and crumbled, and as the rocks below him gave, he came loose. The Silvas barely rolled clear of the rock slide that dammed up the dungeon’s entrance for good. Dust coated the air, and the three laid on the ground, panting and coughing.
The dust settled before they did. Nozel felt like something had taken a bite out of his stomach, and the aching pain in his back didn’t make him eager to try to move. He laid, eyes shut and watering, sucking in gritty breaths, while his younger siblings coughed and panted around him.
Nebra was the first to recover. She shifted toward him, her hand on his shoulder and her voice pitched with worry. “Are you okay?”
His voice came out hard in an effort to force the quake out of it. “I’m fine.” Moving slowly, he pushed himself onto his hands and knees. Half of his Silver Eagles robe hadn’t made it out with him; the tattered ends fell to his hips and just barely covered his bleeding stomach from his siblings. He took care to keep it that way as he eased onto his haunches. “Solid?”
“I’m okay.” He sat up with an ease that assured Nozel that he wasn’t injured, and in an effort to save face, dusted off his dirty robe.
“I should kick you out for this,” Nozel growled.
“You have to learn to think, Solid!” Nebra snapped. “You could have gotten us all killed! If Nozel hadn’t pitched us through the hole…!”
Solid shrank. “I didn’t realize that everything would be boobytrapped!”
“Then you weren’t paying attention,” Nozel said.
Solid looked away, any protests beaten out of him.
“Did you keep a hold on the artifact?”
His gaze shifted back to Nozel, submissive but cautiously optimistic. From under his robe, he pulled out the crystal skull.
Nebra let out a sigh. “Well, at least this wasn’t entirely a waste then.”
Solid allowed himself a moment of hope. His gaze shifted to his brother.
Nozel wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of this victory. He rose, slowly as to not falter, and plucked the skull from Solid’s hand. “We’re leaving.”
All the optimism drained out of Solid’s face. He stood, head bowed, and joined Nebra at Nozel’s side. His signature silver eagle formed around them, and in abject silence, they flew back to the capital.