Travelling inside the Other Side felt peaceful. Not like the planes where everything pulled and pushed at you. Nature was not like at home though. It was more quiet almost like it waited on something. She could feel how with every step she took, she woke her surroundings up. Nothing she had ever experienced before.
The low buzz of mechanical legs made Ariel aware of other things besides her surroundings. She scurried to her left. The spider made its way past her, slow but steady.
“It doesn’t hurt you”, Stone said once more amused. He clapped the big spider as it were a pet and adjusted some imaginary lose rope. “It can’t”.
“I know”, she mumbled a bit embarrassed. Ever since Stone had assembled and woken the giant to life, Ariel had kept her distance from it. She was not scared of it. More scared of what could happen if she was not careful. She eyed her bag resting between their other equipment on the spiders back. Okay, who was she kidding. Who would not be afraid of an over two meter high spider that looked like it could crush you just by stepping on you? “I’ll better hurry up in front”.
She heard Stone chuckle behind her. It was not like it they had had this conversation twice already. She was grateful she did not have to carry anything but herself though.
Abalone who was in front still carried her weapons. She showed no signs of tiring. In fact everybody carried some kind of weapon, except the shadow priest, Kaluna and herself. Of course Sir Roane was a weapon in himself. The soldiers carried both long range projectile and melee weapons while the clerics favoured the more traditional melee weapons. Kessler was gliding along on his skateboard, which Ariel had witnessed enough to recognise as his focus and thus also his weapon.
They had left the base camp hours ago, but the sun was still at its highest. Ariel closed her eyes and soaked it in…and almost bumped into Sir Roane.
“Watch where you are going”, he said annoyed.
In her eagerness to put distance from the giant mechanical spider she had walked into the other persons she would rather not touch. She didn’t dislike the shadow priest or his minion. After all they had shared a glass of hard liquor to quell her shock. She just really liked her ingredients intact. She found a forced smile.
“Can I bill you for my ruined ingredients?”
He did not answer.
“And why do you always wear those sunglasses? We all know you are a badass”. An annoying one.
“Why are you so interested, witch?” Yup, an annoying one. “Are you afraid of what you might see behind those glasses. A reflection of yourself?”
Ariel was taken aback. That was not the answer she had expected.
“Why, are you a demon?”
“Are you implying you are one? As far as I remember you claimed not to be one the first time we met”. His tone was challenging.
“Well, I showed you mine. Are you not gonna show me yours?” She could rise to a challenge.
“Don’t bait him, miss Sanara. I’m not really sure you want to see what is behind those glasses. Remember he is undead”. Tane held his hands up. “I know, Roane, not undead. Not alive. People just seem to understand it better when I use the term undead”.
“People are stupid then”, Sir Roane said.
“Merely uneducated, my friend”.
“Which is why we are here in the first place. I still think it’s stupid to go to the temple. Humans have no business on the Other Side”.
“Yet, here we are. As we have always been”.
As much as Ariel wanted to push for more information about the minion, she was even more curious about where they were going.
“What is so special about this temple?”
“To be honest, we don’t know. Sister Freya had a vision about it. Said it was important that we go there. His Holiness listened. It’s so close by the Church’s main portals one can’t help but wonder why it hasn’t been discovered before. I agree, though with his Holiness. It is dangerous to let things like that stay hidden or forgotten. If it is a treasure then we are lucky – “
“And if it’s a threat -“ continued Sir Roane. “We eliminate it”.