The Crimson Prince Awakening - v3 Chapter 101

Climbing without the use of their aura proved to be a challenge by early evening when it became increasingly difficult to see the markers. At first, it was a slight issue of catching the silhouette of the marker past the sun, but after it set behind the mountain, Will had to navigate the area solely by the feeling his aura gave when he got too close to one of the sticks. He navigated by the feeling he had gotten when he went through the first set of markers. If his aura moved in one direction or the other, he was too close. If his aura closed in on him, he was dead center between the markers, exactly where he needed to be.

Maya and Roy remained directly behind Will at all times, using the light of the stars to make out his silhouette as he made his way through each obstacle. Sometimes they stopped for five minutes, other times it was closer to twenty. Always they waited until Will felt out the way without any doubt. They challenged him to make sure that he knew he was taking the right way. Eventually though, Will begged them to leave him alone so he could concentrate.

Seeing as though he could fly, Will wasn’t worried about the fall enough to keep his eyes forward. He looked down periodically just to get his bearing and saw only darkness below, except for a single light that came from the guard’s torch. Considering he could still see the light, he knew they had a long way to go yet. Feeling his adrenaline spike in a way it hadn’t since his training with Jonathan before all of this started, Will took a breath to calm his nerves before setting back out.

A few hours later, Will decided to try something new. If he was able to gauge his location correctly, he was half way between the last markers and the first. His aura was normalized around him. he pushed it out slightly, and was able to sense where the traps would be by looking for the markers and feeling the warmth of the elemental magic from within the trap. He could feel that the traps lay above the wall of the mountain, which only made sense. He could surmise that there were traps that went above as well as to the sides of them, which made the space in which they could move even more narrow. Will could feel that if he kept his senses to the sky long enough, even just the awareness would be enough to spark a trap.

Instead of focusing on the sky, Will forced his attention back on the mountain underfoot. He pressed his aura to the wall itself and was surprised to see a light green glow covering the ground around him. As he paid closer attention, he could see shadows of spheres on all sides. He looked at the markers and noticed two spheres of shadow on either side, leaving the narrow passageway.

“So that’s why it’s so difficult.” Will said to himself as he kept climbing, though he picked up the pace. “People are always so worried about the explosives above, they never cast their awareness to the stone itself.” He smiled as he continued to climb, step after step. Roy and Maya picked up their pace as well, noticing that their prince had figured something out.

Will used the shadows to weave through each marker. As he did so, he noticed that the path would have been significantly harder if he tried without using this ability. The shadows above weaved left and right, the path seeming to barely go up an incline at all as they scaled the wall. There were times they went past a certain marker, just to see the next one directly above facing just a little off from the last.

As they climbed, Will tried to teach the others what he had done, yet they couldn’t grasp the concept of pushing their aura against the mountain and sweated nervously at the thought of setting one of the explosives off. In the end, Will stopped trying and went back to weaving their way up.

It wasn’t until the sky turned gray above with the looming day that they reached the very top of the mountain. Will marveled as he looked around and saw that it was mostly flat on top, as if they had just went up a huge elevation just to be on land again, and not in the mountains. He used his new ability to search the air for more elemental traps, yet he found none. “What does everyone say to a little bit of rest?” He looked back at Roy. The man seemed to be at his wits end after climbing the whole day.

“I could use a little.” Maya smiled as she took a bed out of her storage crystal. She then took out a stand with a crystal above and then a curtain to cover herself and moved further downhill. “If anyone peaks, I’ll kill them.” She promised as she took off her clothes and activated the water elemental crystal. She used her fire element to heat the water and washed off all the dirt and grime from the mountain. Taking a new set of clothing out of a crystal, she got dressed and went to the bed. By that time, Roy had already taken his own bed out of a crystal and was talking to Will as they waited.

“The shower is free.” She smiled as she sat and took some food out and ate. It had been a long and nerve-wracking night and she was asleep before Will even got into bed with her.

Before Will set off to bed, he looked at the surrounding area. If they weren’t careful, they could be ambushed while resting.

“I’ve got first watch.” Roy said as if reading his mind. “I’ll wake you up in a few hours to take over.”

Will nodded his thanks. He was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.