Fan Fiction ❯ The Soul Reaver and The Spirit Shield ❯ The Wandering Soul ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter Four

The peculiar soul had led Raziel into a dark cave. Using the properties of the light element within the reaver, Raziel was able to illuminate his immediate surroundings. The soul quickly made its way through the cave, leaving Raziel struggling to keep up. The cave suddenly opened up into a large cavern, slightly illuminated by crystal formations, giving Raziel warning that the path he was on had led to a ninety degree drop off. The soul continued on its way into the next cave on the other side of the chasm Raziel now faced.

Raziel then barely made out the shape of a shadow glyph on the ground at his feet. Knowing that by placing a shadow imbued reaver into the glyph would allow access to the other side, Raziel began his search for a shadow forge. It did not take long for the former vampire to spot the forge, despite the poor lighting. Raziel jumped down to the bottom of the chasm where the forge resided. Allowing the reaver to act on its own, Raziel placed his symbiotic weapon over the forge. As before, the reaver consumed every last drop of the shadow energy before releasing its dominance over Raziel.

With that task accomplished, Raziel then came to the realization that he could not climb back up to the shadow glyph. The walls of the chasm were too steep and there were no footholds to grab onto. Hoping for the best, Raziel shifted into the spectral realm, thus causing the reaver to lose its elemental property. Luckily, this caused a ledge to appear for Raziel to climb upon, allowing him access to the ledge he had previously dropped down from. Shifting back into the material realm, Raziel concentrated on the shadow element and the reaver happily shifted to meet its master's needs. Placing the wraith blade within the shadow glyph, a dark path stretched across the chasm, allowing Raziel to proceed in his quest.

Continuing into the next cave, Raziel found it was much narrower than the previous one, which made it a little more difficult to navigate. The lighting was no problem, as the strange crystal formations continued to make their presence known through the rest of the cave. Sooner than expected, Raziel came upon a second cavern, this one opening up much wider and much higher than the first. Raziel noticed the soul escape through a passageway high up in the cavern wall.

Studying the room, the former vampire noticed a small ledge about halfway up the cavern wall. If only he could reach it. Looking closer, he noticed an earth glyph. Not sure what it would do, Raziel took his chances and summoned the earth element within the reaver. Plunging his weapon into the glyph, the ground beneath Raziel's feet began to tremble. After a few moments, a small section of ground around Raziel began to shift upwards, bring Raziel within leaping distance of the small ledge he had spotted earlier.

Jumping over to the ledge, Raziel noticed an air glyph. After calling forth the air element, Raziel created an air current for which to glide upwards upon his outspread wings. He safely landed upon the high ledge leading to the cave he witnessed the soul escape through moments before. Without hesitating, and eager to catch up to the soul, Raziel quickly entered the third passageway of the cave.

This third section was the most difficult to navigate, with many twists and turns and almost no light at all for which to see with. Finally, Raziel could make out a small light up ahead, and sure enough, he had reached the other side of the cave. He had begun to think he would never breathe the outside air again.

As Raziel emerged from the cave, he was surprised to see a large run down structure in the center of a canyon. Looking around he could tell that there were no other entrances to the canyon besides the one he had just entered from. Pulling him out of his stupor, the soul flitted across Raziel's vision and entered through a doorway high up in the decomposing edifice. That was when Raziel noticed the height of the structure and that there were no ground level entrances. It was obvious this building was designed by the ancient race of vampires.

Raziel approached the building; Raziel inspected its architecture and surroundings for a possible entrance. Noticing a narrow crack in the corner of the structure, Raziel shifted to the spectral realm and sure enough, the crack opened up into a hole large enough for the former vampire to fit through. Raziel found himself in the center of a long corridor. Locating a spectral rift at one end of the corridor, he shifted back to the material world. Above him was the entrance the soul had used to enter the building. At the opposite end was a large set of doors.

Knowing his destination, Raziel ran down the corridor to the door, easily shoving them open. What he found took him completely by surprise. Though in ruin, there were many large contraptions in various locations within an extremely large chamber. The uses of these devices were a mystery to Raziel. The age of time had destroyed the machines beyond use.

What really took Raziel by surprise was the age and technology behind the machines. In all his centuries of existence as a vampire, he had not seen anything quite so technologically developed such as these. The ancient vampires must have had knowledge beyond their years. As in other structures of the lost race of vampires, the walls of this chamber also contained the images of their once magnificent race.

Scanning the chamber, Raziel's eyes came across a smaller chamber set off to the side of the larger one. And entering said chamber was the soul he had been pursuing. Quickly forgetting any ideas of investigating the contents of the larger room, Raziel followed the soul into the small chamber. As Raziel entered the room, the door behind him slid shut, catching the former vampire by surprise. Raziel was left in the darkness no more than a few seconds as torches along the walls lit with fire simultaneously, and without explanation.

This smaller room seemed much more cramped for space, especially after leaving the much larger chamber. The room reeked of death. In the shadowed corner of the room, was a corpse in the later stages of decomposition. Other than the skeleton was the armor and weapon of the warrior, which Raziel concluded to have been a Sarafan. Losing interest in the corpse, Raziel noticed that the soul he had been chasing was nowhere to be found.

Unfortunately for Raziel, his search would have to be put on hold. With flames shooting up from the ground, a large, horned demon rose from the fire, chuckling evilly at his prey.

"The master said there would be more toys for me to play with," sneered the beast. "It's been so long since I've had company, I began to wonder if my master had been deceiving me," the demon growled, gesturing at the corpse in the corner. Raziel narrowed his eyes.

"And who is this master you speak of beast?" interrogated the reaver of souls. "Is it Mobius? Come to tell you of my arrival? Or is it the greater God, sent you to punish me for my disobedience?"

"The master is none of those things of which you speak. Though Mobius is one of the master's pawns. The master is a powerful one. More powerful than the greater God," taunted the demon.

"Ha! You are either lying or delusional. Nothing is that powerful. It matters not though, for I shall have your soul," Raziel threatened the demon. The former vampire drew out the wraith blade, lifting it in preparation for battle.