Chapter 248: Stigweard Graggs Legacy (2/2)
The tile depressed a couple inches as they did, but the very next second, a column sprung up, pushing his lead leg handling his weight up and back. The earthquake and the sudden change of standing platform threw Quinn off balance.
Quinn's mouth twitched as his expression turned sour. A pillar of ice rose above the tile that jerked up and threw him off balance. He threw his arms forward, and two cords of empyrean snapped out of his palms, and the hardened tips at the end of the cords dug into the ice pillar. Quinn grabbed the cord tightly and came to a jerking stop, leaning at a dangerous angle with the floor with his feet firmly planted on the earthquake tile.
He pulled himself up amidst all the shaking. The ice pillar melted away, and Quinn carefully jumped over the rising tile onto the next one so that he could stop the room from shaking. Quinn became vigilant the second the shaking stopped and began looking around.
Quinn frowned. Nothing happened.
He looked at his feet and blinked — the tile hadn't depressed — there wasn't a tile beneath his feet at all. He looked up, and the door was a few feet ahead of him. The realization struck him. Quinn turned back and saw the tiled area behind him. It was done; he had passed the trap zone.
The purple from his eyes faded away to stone grey, and the heavy heaving began. The primal emotion of fear, anger, and urgency that bubble up to survive the stone quicksand waned away.
”Holy magic,” Quinn said between breathes, ”I freaking flew! I can fly!” He ignored his pumping heart and throbbing head and immersed himself in the memory of his first unaided flight.
He leaned against the exit tunnel wall and slipped down to the ground.
”Come on, me. You.. . you know better.”
Time after time, he had reminded himself that balance between emotions, but in the heat of the moment, those thoughts of balance were pushed to the back seat. As he had sunk into the liquid stone — everything went black, and he couldn't even take in a breath — there was nothing but survival mode taking over.
”I'm tired,” he voiced as his state went back to normal, and he stood back up. He teetered towards the dim light on the other side of the tunnel, his walk unhurried and weary, all the while bending his knees and keeping his head down to avoid banging his head to the top of the tunnel — the people of that time were much shorter.
Quinn exited the tunnel, and immediately he knew that the vault had ended.
The previous three rooms had been rough, undecorated, purely functional, but in front of him was anything but. His feet stood on an ornate polished marble floor with intricate designs and patterns, showing off the geometrical art form.
The walls themselves into sculptures of the Ancient Roman era — people dressed in togas, naked people, babies, sex.. . centaurs, goblins, warriors with swords on horses, magicals working with cauldrons, architectural backgrounds reminiscent of that era. It had all the underlying characteristics — sculpting immortality, shining a light on divinity and magic, and propaganda reflecting in every individual piece.
The ceiling was a dome and the most bright thing in the room — the only colorful thing in the Architect's Vault. Murals on every single inch of the roof painted in stunning vibrancy — remarkable considering a millennium had passed since they were painted.
But what caught Quinn's attention was the enormous bronze statue of Stigweard Gragg standing on a shallow pedestal, standing tall in the middle of the room.
Quinn walked to the statue and noticed two things on the pedestal base that stood out to him. Written in Latin were the Architect's name and short prose on him about who he was and what he had accomplished in his life.
”.. . You who have shown aptitude are worthy to receive my legacy,” Quinn finished with the last line aloud.
He looked up, and a wry smile marred his face. Just with one line, he could tell how Architect was looking at him right now. It said aptitude instead of skill — it screamed, 'Whatever you went through was not an impressive feat, 'twas just a measure of the basic requirement to receive my much greater legacy.'
It screamed hubris. It screamed, 'I'm better than you.'
”Oh, get off your high horse,” Quinn spat. ”I'm taller than you.”
The second thing on the pedestal was a familiar etched square, strikingly similar to the trap tiles he had just walked through. A sigh escaped him seeing the tile — he was feeling mentally fatigued, and if this was going to be sprung a final boss, he wanted no part of it.
He stared up and wondered aloud, ”If I press this and you turn into a robot, then I'm going to blast your head off.. .”
Quinn pressed the square with his palm, and it indeed depressed an inch. He hurriedly looked up, but the statue didn't move; instead, the sculptures along the walls came to life and started to move. Quinn amped up his magic in preparation for a blitz, but the sculptures simply cleared up a portion of the wall, revealing a tunnel.
Quinn sighed. He was sick of tunnels leading to different rooms. /With no other options, he walked through the tunnel, and when he exited, it was pitch black.
Quinn raised one of his hands to release a bubble beam of light orbs while his other hand rubbed both of his eyes, hoping that it would alleviate some fatigue. When he opened his eyes, all the tiredness went away like someone had slapped him without notice.
Spread in front of him were mountains!-mountains! of GOLD. Wherever his eyes went, he was greeted with shining gold, reflecting golden light onto his entire body. He squatted down and picked up a gold coin — it was a galleon, that much was clear from the GRINGOTTS written on the coin, but the design on the minted coin was much different from the current version.
There were statues, jewellery, ornate frames gilded in gold, a treasure chest with more gold, and precious stones and gems. If there was something that could be molded from gold, then it could be found in the mountains.
”Finally,” he said, ”finally,” he repeated, ”a Vault is actually a vault.” Time after time, he got into vaults, and at the ends, there would be something, but there was never a treasure — he had long become desensitized to the word vault.
”My dream can finally come true,” Quinn said and ran into the mountain of gold and started.. . swimming. His dreams of swimming in a pool of gold had been blown up, and now was he was swimming in a mountain of gold.
”I am rich!” he shouted. ”I don't have to work another day of my life! Wastrel life, here I come!” It was truly an amount that Quinn wouldn't need to work in a day in his life, and he would still have enough. It was an amount sizeable enough for even a West.
After getting his fill of sliding down on the mountains, Quinn started to wander around in the sizeable room and came upon a row of bookshelves with old tomes preserved with magic. He took out a book and cracked open the spine.
His eyes read across the Latin writing; soon, he had sat down on a golden chair in the gold flooded vault, reading through the pages.
”Genius! Genius!” Quinn shouted, his voice echoing in the vault. It had taken a single book for Quinn to label Stigweard Gragg a genius. ”Transmutation and transfiguration properties of so many metal and non-metal, even alchemic-materials.. . this is a treasure!”
He couldn't put it into words, but having extensive notes on how different materials reacted with magic was an asset whose value in some circles would be greater than the mountain of gold sitting behind him, and Quinn would gladly be part of those circles.
Quinn had encyclopaedias of similar information; it had been a thousand years after all — but none of the books were as extensive and as depthful as the one in his hands.
”Stigweard Gragg isn't an architect,” Quinn shook his head, no that was underplaying the man's work. ”Stigweard Gragg is a Master of magic!”
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Quinn West - MC - Now, very-very rich.. . seriously rich. A sizeable amount richer than before, even with the numerous royalties pilling up in a bank vault in Basel, Switzerland.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - I wanted to do this for such a long time. A vault that's actually a vault.
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