Chapter 9: The Second Ritual

Divarus flew out of the shadows and found himself in a large temple. The temple was made of white brick and was embellished with pottery and large piles of gold. The Scalon wondered if this was the right place.

“A young one wanders into my domain.” spoke a voice from the center of the room. From the floor a bluish spirit arose that resembled a humanoid form. However, it was blurry and had no distinctive features and as such it did not resemble any Terran race.

“Are you the God of Time?” Divarus asked.

“I am, Divarus. Now I suppose you are here by the request of the Darkness.”

“Yes. He and I want the war to be unfrozen, and the Dimensional Mages to be stopped.”

“Unfortunately, you do not understand what you ask. This is no simple matter, for under the current laws of this world...all this can easily happen again once I fix it.”

“So there is no way to stop them?” Divarus asked surprised.

“There is. Soon the Gods will gather and perform a ritual. This will be the Second Ritual of Final Law. We will re-write the rules for this world and everyone’s power will be highly restricted.”

“How long will it be until this happens?”

“Not long. However, once these laws are made...you will not be safe from the Darkness. You will be bound to him. He will be your Master.” Time warned.

“That isn’t what we agreed to...”

“Under the laws of this world. As I said, laws will be re-written. And there is only one way to save yourself and everyone else.”

“And that would be?” Divarus asked warily. The first thought that came to his mind was death.

“To remove you from the equation. If you are not here when the rules are written you will have...bypassed them. They will not be avoided, but the laws will treat you as if you were just born.”

“How can you know all this?”

“Because I am Time. Therefore it is not linear for me. I already know all that will happen, all that has, and all that is happening. However due to that I rarely interfere. But in this case, while I still have power, I must assure you are saved.”

“So what will you do?”

Time moved closer to Divarus and reached out with a hand and touched the Scalon’s forehead. “To the future you go. Not terribly far, but far enough.”

***

Divarus opened his eyes and found himself in a dark room. In front of him was a large metal door. He stepped forward and tried to open it, but it would not budge. He turned around to find no other exit. He was sealed away somewhere.

The Scalon panicked at first, until he heard noises outside of the door. Suddenly there was a loud screeching as the door was forced open.

“What’s inside?” asked a familiar voice.

“Who is there?” Divarus called out as his eyes began to adjust to the flood of light.

“Divarus?” asked another voice. He stared out and saw it was Kaedra and next to her, was Thevor. “How did you wind up in here? Is there anything else with you?”

“I don’t know. That is my answer to both your questions.” he responded. Kaedra and Thevor stepped inside and searched, but could not find anything.

“What are you looking for?” Divarus asked.

“We are looking for a Keystone of Light.” Kaedra responded. “We were instructed by the Avatar of Light to find it.”

“What about Thevor’s training?” Divarus asked.

“It was put on hold when you had reality rewritten...in fact I can’t train him anymore. I have been stripped of my powers.”

“Wait, it wasn’t my idea! And how did you know about that?” Divarus questioned.

“Because I was a Dimensional Mage...I felt the change. Normally everyone would forget, but people like me...Heldum Warriors like Thevor...we were able to remember.” she explained.

“And now thanks to you, the history of Terra has completely changed too. It’s an entirely new world. The Keystones of Light? They didn’t exist before the change.” Kaedra explained.

“What are these Keystones you keep mentioning?”

Thevor jumped in at this point. “They are three magical gems that when gathered will point the way to the Sword of Light. The relic of the God of Light, Apollus. In this world the gods are no longer able to interfere and each has been allowed to create one relic as their contact with this world in addition to having an Avatar.”

“So why do you need this Sword of Light? What about the Heldum Blades?”

Thevor shook his head. “They don’t exist. They are simply Elderium Blades now. Powerful yes, but no longer weapons of destruction by light.”

Kaedra smiled. “You don’t even realize that the Great Fire War never occurred do you?”

“If the war isn’t occurring..” Divarus began. “Then why do you need this Sword? Who is our enemy?”

Kaedra smiled again. “Our? Going to join us now that I am not insanely powerful?”

Divarus chuckled at this. “Yes. I shall. So please explain the situation. This is all new to me.”

Kaedra nodded. “After the world was changed, so was history as I said. We were thrust into a new war against a dark being whose name was Norius. He discovered the evil device called the Dark Pendant. Using it, he infused himself with a great amount of dark energy and transformed. He was twisted into a dark being. This was all thanks to the God of Darkness, Noctorus. The Dark Pendant was his evil artifact.”

“After we learned of this we were visited by Apollus’ Avatar. He told us that we needed to come here into this forgotten temple to find the first Keystone of Light. Which brings us to right now.”

Divarus took in the information. He did not fully understand yet, but he accepted it. “This vault...it seemed to have been sealed for a long time. I don’t think anyone stole the Keystone.”

“Time put you in this vault, yes?” Thevor asked.

“He did. But he didn’t give me anything if that is what you wanted to know...”

Thevor looked at Kaedra. She then put her hand over her eyes in embarrassment. “How could we have forgotten?” she said and then smiled. “The Keystones are made of a weak material that can be absorbed. I think you have absorbed the Keystone, Divarus.”

“If I did....then how do we extract it from my body?”

“There are mages in this world who deal with the art of Souls. Perhaps we can see a Soul Binder.”

“Soul Binder?”

“They literally create souls and bestow them upon objects and beings for a variety of purposes...but that is the hardest work they do. They also manipulate souls and thus extracting a Keystone should be a simple task.”

Thevor then had an alarmed look upon his face. “Kaedra, do you sense that?”

“What? I....wait. They are here. Norius’ forces are entering the temple. We have to leave now!” she yelled.