Chapter 62: Roland, the Stone Knight I
The moment the three vampires crossed the threshold of the library, Lyra shivered as she felt a strange aura wash over her body. It felt like they had just passed through a magical curtain, and Lyra could sense multiple eyes turn in her direction! Lyra looked down, and she saw that there were many ghosts looking up at them curiously. The ghosts were mostly little children who had been reading or playing, with a few older ghosts floating around, and Lyra narrowed her eyes at them for a moment before she told the others to ignore them.
’They’re ghosts, so they can’t do anything to us. Get past them and head to the elevator.’
The three bats quickly headed straight past the ghosts and towards the ground floor! As Lyra passed, she noticed all the ghosts watching them closely, but none of them did anything to even try to stop them! It almost seemed like the ghosts were happily letting them through, but it wasn’t enough to stop Lyra, and she turned and continued going down! The moment they got to the ground, they all transformed back to their regular form, and Lyra quickly told Galen to lead the way. As vampires, all three of them walked with very light steps, so they made no sound at all as they moved. Galen headed for the elevator, and she closed her eyes and spread her senses out to feel for the medallion’s energy again, and Galen nodded once she sensed it.
"This is it."
Lyra looked into the elevator, and she touched the pendant around her neck. The pendant vibrated softly, and Lyra nodded as she entered the elevator with the other two. Lyra put her hand on the magic ball beside her, and the elevator began to move down to a lower floor. The pendant around Lyra’s neck began to vibrate even faster the lower they went, and Lyra suddenly stopped when they got to a well-lit corridor that made the pendant vibrate the fastest.
Bwooh~!
A low sound came from somewhere below them, and all three vampires looked down in shock when they felt an existential dread pass through their bodies! But the sound vanished in the next second, and the vampires took deep breaths while wondering what in the world that was.
"Let’s get the medallion and leave. We’ll go back to the future once we have it."
Lyra shook her head to get back her focus, and she quickly began to head through the tunnel! The other two vampires followed behind her, and once they crossed the door at the end of the tunnel, they arrived at a massive research room that was larger than any room that they had ever seen before. The entire room was a massive cube, and there were shelves stretching all the way up to the ceiling on every side of the room.
The floors and ceiling were made from polished concrete, and even though the vampires walked very silently, their footsteps still echoed lightly through the room.
"Wow. I wonder which researcher left this behind. It’s majestic."
Galen couldn’t hide her awe at seeing the room. Even though Galen was a soldier, she was also a researcher, and she knew just how difficult it must’ve been to conduct enough research to fill this room with artefacts and potions.
But Lyra immediately told the other two vampires to stop gawking and focus!
"We have to find the medallion. Spread out and search."
The vampires all transformed into bats as they flew up to search for the second half of the medallion, and Lyra followed the vibrations of her pendant as she made her way towards a certain spot on a high shelf where it felt like the pendant was leading her. But once Lyra got to the spot, she was surprised when she realized that there was nothing there.
’What?’
Lyra was stunned. The pendant around her neck was still vibrating strongly, and there was a strong concentration of the medallion’s magic in this place, so Lyra was sure that the pendant had to have been here.
’Did they move the medallion? That has to be it. They realized that we would come for it, and they moved it. If that’s the case, then it has to be somewhere else in this room. I just have to –’
CLANG!
A loud metallic sound suddenly echoed through the research lab, and all three vampires turned their attention towards the corner of the room where a figure had suddenly appeared. The vampires were all shocked. The figure looked like a man standing at more than ten feet tall. He was wearing a complete knight’s armor set made from stone, and in his hand was a long claymore stone sword that had been stabbed into the ground! Behind the man, there was a man-shaped hole in the wall, and the vampires realized that the man had just walked out of there!
The stone man raised his sword tip off the ground before bringing it back down hard, and another loud metallic ’clang!’ echoed through the room.
DOON!
A wave of magic suddenly flew from the stone man and washed over all three vampires, and in the next moment, the vampires felt their transformation fail as they changed back to their normal form and crashed to the ground!
BOOM!
Lyra grunted as she slammed into the ground hard, and she quickly got up and tried to transform again, but there was no change, and Lyra realized that her magic had been deactivated. What the hell was going on!?
None of the vampires knew it, but they had just walked into the domain of one of the most dangerous magical homunculi Percy had ever created.
The knight standing before them turned his sword around and held it vertically with the tip pointing to the roof, like a knight preparing to enter into battle, and then he spoke in a rough, mechanical voice.
"I am Roland, the Stone Knight. Protector of the Fountain of Knowledge and Servant of Verati. State thy name."
"Ugh, what was that skill?"
Galen spoke up as she also got off the ground along with the third man, and they wondered what skill just made them transform back to their regular form! They both tried to transform back to bats, but they felt dread settling into their hearts when they realized they couldn’t sense their magic!
"I am Roland, the Stone Knight. Protector of the Fountain of Knowledge and Servant of Verati. State thy name."
The stone knight spoke up again, and the three vampires all looked towards it cautiously as they began taking steps back! Lyra looked towards the exit on the other side of the library, and she calculated that it would take a few seconds to run through it. Lyra didn’t know how fast or strong that knight was, so she couldn’t risk it yet!
’I’ll wait for it to attack before I move. It’s made of stone, so it can’t be that fast.’
"State thy name."
Lyra heard the knight speak up again in a harder tone, but Lyra knew better than to answer it! Vocal magic was very rare, but some mages were known to place spells in questions or statements like this, and answering the question could make the spell activate! There was a high chance that answering the Stone Knight would activate another spell! But even though Lyra knew better, that didn’t mean that the other two vampires did!
Galen’s eyes hardened as she stepped forward and answered with a glare!
"My name is Galen, and we came to take what is rightfully ours."
Lyra’s eyes widened, and she quickly grabbed Galen and asked her what the hell she was doing! Galen sensed the anger in Lyra, but Galen didn’t care! After what happened with Rita earlier today, Galen felt a strong desire to prove herself, and that was why Galen had stepped up like this. Galen didn’t feel like cowering in front of anyone!
"There are three of us here, and we are all strong! We can take care of one stone golem without any problem!"