Editing Kanimaeli - Spirit of Air (section)

==Elements and the Path to Death==

We passed the junction that led to Artemus’ tomb, which was noticeably devoid of life. It wasn’t like the sense of Death from the corridor we intended to follow; there was just nothing there. We returned to the room with the multiple sarcophagi and Xlotl called out from the entrance, although I didn’t know what he said as it was in the tongue of Elemental Water. He received a reply, though, and apparently the water spirit knew of Xlotl through its old spirit, but it was a new spirit as the “spirit that was no longer flows”. Randomly, Xlotl asked me if I had any live fish! It seemed that the spirit was hungry, seeking food for energy, but I hadn’t packed any fish and they wouldn’t have survived this long if I had!

The water spirit knew patience, though, and would wait. The Air spirit was quite different – it was impatient and wanted to kill and feed! It thought nothing of me, but I explained that Xlotl was a powerful member of Lord Aergarnion’s court and convinced it to be wary of us. Xlotl helpfully suggested that I could lure the Earth spirit out, and that the Air spirit could perhaps feed on that when it inevitably attacked us. I went through the correct movements to shape the Air in the form of Protection of the East, using it as a barrier to deflect attacks as I walked into the room. Once I was about ten feet in, I noticed the stone rippling as one of the worms approached. It opened its maw below me, as expected, but it was much faster than I had anticipated, and it ripped at my leg as I just about managed to jump free before the jaws closed.

Xlotl moved up to support me, biting down into its still-visible jaws in a weird snake-to-worm mouth-on-mouth thing. His fangs jarred against the hard stone but did seem to have an impact. He then attacked with his mind, and that definitely did something because the worm froze, its jaws still visible just out of the stone but no longer moving. I watched warily as Xlotl moved farther into the room, exploring the far end where we couldn't see before. There were another couple of sarcophagi that were buckled in, one of the mostly intact sarcophagi had the Water resting within it, one was empty, and the last had faint traces of energy, dark in nature, with ash inside. There was an opening to the left that seemed to transition from dressed stone to hewn stone.

I looked at one of the buckled sarcophagi that was near me, asking the Air spirit about it, and it said that the great nothingness had taken from it – a void or vacuum of some sort? Was that when we released Artemus? Xlotl found a tendril of mud snapping at him from a sarcophagus that still had traces of energy, but stayed out of its reach. He also saw a deep nothing in the wall on his right, circular but set slightly within the floor. I joined him, and found that he was staring at it without moving, and when I looked to see what was so fascinating I found myself mesmerised, losing any sense of time or place. I was snapped out of it when I felt something drawing life from me from behind me – it was the Air spirit whipping at me hungrily. I instinctively send a thunderburst out, pushing the spirit back slightly, but also pushing Xlotl hard towards the void circle! It did at least bring him back to his senses.

In my defensive reaction, I shouted “leave us the fuck alone! Back away”! The spirit did back off, but said “but you were gone”. As I fully regained my senses, I apologised - the spirit was right to wake us. Xlotl was not too happy about the rough treatment my thunderburst had given him, though. We were both happy to move away from the black circle, though, noting that it wasn’t the first we had seen – in fact there had been one in the temple we first arrived in when we left Lord Aergarnion. As my lantern light played over the empty sarcophagus, we noticed that there was an eight-pointed star lightly engraved within the base, although we didn’t know what the significance of that was.

We approached the opening on the left, seeing that it opened up fairly quickly into a hewn cave with pillars of rock still within. A miasma of Death still pervaded the place, but otherwise the air seemed normal. The rock within the pillars seemed different, darker than the rest, but to be honest I don't know much about rock so I couldn’t say more than that. Xlotl did take a look and concluded that it would have been harder to carve because it harder than other rock. I moved forwards into the room and started to flow around to the left, avoiding the irregular columns, but Xlotl noticed a bright spot of energy in the floor in the entrance to a passage beyond the room to our right.

I kept flowing around the wall until I neared the other exit, bringing some light to the passage. It was clear that what Xlotl had seen was a symbol within the floor – it was the symbol of Death! It was shaped from a flawless single piece of black diamond, some ten feet large – Xlotl found it incredible! Yeah, incredibly dangerous, I thought. Xlotl flicked his tongue over it, sensing power within the flawless gem, and noticed some small points of moving energy within it. Thankfully he was able to retract his head and return to the room – I thought Tingus was going to take him when he stuck his head into the darkness! My light did not penetrate beyond the symbol. I was definitely not keen on going to Death, so we returned to the room where we fought the Saloroc and then back into the corridor beyond that.