The next day Zaiden got up early and headed into the jungle. He avoided the temple ruins at first just to make sure that no one had followed him. Determining that no one had, he set out to try and follow the maps and clues that were in Avirelle Adamson’s tablets. He hoped that with his experience in the area already, he might be able to figure out whatever was missing on his own…hopefully with no one following him or spying on his progress.
There were four temples in total. The tablets indicated that the pieces of the relic were scattered amongst them. He decided to go for the east temple first. Getting to the temple was easy. The upper floors, which he had explored in the past, were also easy to get to. He spent time exploring them, hoping that somewhere there might be a clue to the labyrinth within.
Unfortunately, there were no clues that Zadien could tell. He did, however, find a hidden chest that had been overlooked on previous excursions. Inside he found a gold plate that he estimated would cover a good portion of his current travel expenses. At least he wasn’t going to go broke on this hunt!
With little hope, Zaiden headed to the temple’s lower levels. The tablets Avirelle had found indicated that the traps that would allow him to travel further down could be disarmed by one of two mechanisms. There were symbols on the tablets that Zaiden had seen on previous trips into the ruins. He hoped that something about the way they were arranged on the tablet would help him figure out which mechanism to use and how to use it.
First he examined a room that had four posts in it. Each had one symbol and a bowl on top. From what he could gather from the clues, activating the symbol in a specific way would allow access into the lower level. However, the tablet wasn’t clear that this was the right set of symbols to activate or what exactly to put in the bowls (he assumed that was how they worked) to activate them.
The other room had only one post on it, but that post had similar symbols that you could rotate to create a pattern. It was possible that the first room was just a decoy mechanism and the actual symbol pattern had to be set up in the second room.
Zaiden wasn’t sure which device he wanted to try. And even if he picked one, he wasn’t sure which combination of symbols would be correct.
“I guess I could just take my chances,” he muttered to himself.
“Take your chances at what, Bradshaw?”
Zaiden whipped around to confront the person asking the question. It was Blaze. Damn it, Zaiden must have missed him. He’d forgotten that for such a large person, Blaze could be quite stealthy.
“What business is it of yours what I try?” he asked, trying to brazen this out.
“The boss won’t like it if you find his relics before he does.”
“Like I care? If he isn’t out here looking, he doesn’t deserve to find them.”
Blaze shrugged his meaty shoulders and then cracked his neck. “He sent me down here to check up on you. Find out your progress.”
“You found me. Clearly I haven’t made much progress as you can see.”
“But you figured out something, I think,” Blaze said, scoping out the trap mechanism. “You think this is the right room, don’t you?”
Zaiden shrugged, trying to act nonchalant about it. “I’m honestly not sure.” In truth, he thought that he might be right. The tablet mentioned a combination. This single pedestal seemed like it would make a combination more than the set of four did. But he still wasn’t sure of the exact order of symbols to use. But Blaze didn’t need to know that.
“I think you are sure,” Blaze said, narrowing his eyes. “Why don’t you test your theory.”
Testing anything out in front of Blaze was the last thing Zaiden wanted to do. He needed to stall.
“I still have more research to do,” Zaiden said. “I was thinking of heading back to my base camp and looking at images of those tablets to see if there are more clues. You should go tell Wulf to do the same. Maybe he’ll find it faster than I will…probably not, but then doesn’t he usually make you guys do his dirty work for him?” He opened his eyes in mocking innocence and then grinned at Blaze. “I guess he’ll just blame you if I find it first.”
Blaze’s eye twitched at Zaiden’s mocking tone. Zaiden could tell the man was getting irritated.
“Try out one of those combinations,” Blaze ordered, indicating the pillar. “We’ll see if you can guess right.”
“Nope, I’m heading out,” Zaiden said. “If you want to try it go ahead, but I heard that some of the traps use fire and others use electricity to punish those who get the combinations wrong.”
Zaiden waved a hand at the mechanism as if inviting the guy to attempt to solve it. When Blaze made no move to do so, Zaiden attempted to walk out of the room past him. “See ya ‘round. Tell Wulfstein hi for me, will you?”
“Not so fast.” Blaze put his hand on Zaiden’s shoulder and tried to shove him back toward the mechanism.
Realizing that he wasn’t going to get out of there so easily, Zaiden figured this was probably the best opening he was going to get. If he could get the drop on Blaze now, he might be able to get away. And who knows, if he could put Blaze out of commission, it might slow Wulfstein down.
Zaiden grabbed Blaze’s wrist, bent his knees and shifted, using the bigger man’s momentum against him to try and flip him.
Unfortunately, the guy’s bulk gave him a natural advantage. Blaze barely stumbled, managed to pull his wrist out of Zaiden’s hold and then use his other hand to land a painful cross jab to Zaiden’s nose.
At that point, the fight was on. Zaiden had no hope of winning, and likely wouldn’t be able to get away either…Blaze was quicker than he looked, unfortunately. So Zaiden’s only hope was to fight back enough that Blaze had to retreat or do serious damage. Zaiden was gambling that Wulfric wanted Zaiden unharmed…at least enough so that Zaiden would keep going after the relics. Probably even this fight was something Wulf wouldn’t be happy about.
As they fought, Zaiden kept up a string of taunts hoping that they’d either throw Blaze off his game (they didn’t) or cause the asshole to back off (he didn’t).
Zaiden was on the ground, bleeding, his right eye completely closed already. Blaze continued to pound him, and Zaiden was trying desperately to protect himself and stay conscious. It was a losing battle. Finally, Blaze aimed a kick at Zaiden’s side which hurt like a motherfucker.
He blacked out.
Author’s Note
I used some fight poses there at the end. Several are from Izack Simer 2.2 who posts his on Youtube. I used two of his fight animations. Others I got from Joannebernice on Tumblr.
From A to Z 
They missed each other! Life’s like that though. At least Avi seems to be doing fine. Zaiden was until he wasn’t. I wonder who Wulf’s working for this time. Is Zaiden working for anyone or is it purely self-interest?
LikeLike
Zaiden is on his own. He doesn’t see this as a profit but as an adventure. And yeah, he missed her while he was world traveling. Don’t worry, though, they’re back together in the next update.
LikeLike