Chapter 16 - Tower's Guardians

Chapter 16 - Tower's Guardians

The tower’s guardians who were watching him were confused about what he was doing. He looked like he was stealing some book but they were not worried about the act. Without their permission no one could take out any items from this tower. If he knew how to get inside the tower then he should know about this.

They were more curious about what he would do next. They had been stuck at the tower for thousands of years and anything that took them out from their boredom was a welcome thing for them.

This was what the hooded man was wagering for.

He swiftly passed a random looking shelf and took a glass figure in there without pausing. He finally arrived at the tables near the fountain and while he was crossing the last table, he swiped a necklace from it.

The guardians' gazes at him intensified when they saw what he had taken.

He knew he only had a few seconds of time.

He continued his momentum and arrived at the foot of the fountain. He took the bulging satchel on his side and dumped the prepared materials inside towards the fountain while he dumped the book, glass figure and the necklace next. Instantly, the water sucked all of the materials and the room immediately burst into commotion of sounds and alarms.

Immediately, a large booming sound sounded from the entrance of the hall, echoing inside the hall.

The hooded man swayed from exhaustion and fell to the floor.

He couldn’t remember when was the last time he had a rest or food. He had been working and preparing for almost a month and he deemed it worth it.

He bursted into a laugh then a second later his laugh turned into sobs. “Finally,” he mournfully whispered to himself.

Dozens of figures in different shapes and sizes burst into the room frantically. They were cloaked in various colors of robes hiding their faces to anyone who could see them. They immediately converge on the fountain trying to find out what the hooded man did to the rantiio.

Some of the figures went to the crouched man on the floor and the others immediately assessed the mess the man had made to the tower.

“How could this happen?!” One of the figures in reddish brown cloak exclaimed while his hand drenched inside the Rantiio’s water to communicate with the tower forcibly.

Another figure in a light blue cloak turned to him with a furious expression,“I told you to stop the man from entering. Look what happened now!”

The red figure turned to her frantically, “It’s not like I expected him to toggle with the rantioo right away, he had the key to the tower! Who would have thought he would do this?!”

“He’s right Nadana,” a fidgeting small figure in the back said in a thin voice, “He had the medallion key. We all thought he was the replacement. Besides, we did not expect him to use the rantiio right away, only we can use it! Even if the Head Priest comes here and uses it, they would not be able to. What is strange is the rantiio's reaction. Look at it, it’s following whatever he instructed. You know the tower would not do something it was not meant to do.”

Before their eyes, the rantiio fountain started to dissolve all of the materials the hooded man had dropped. It only means it was processing whatever instruction it was given. If some random thing were accidentally dropped inside, the rantiio would spit it out instantly.

The still furious Nadana turned towards the still crouching culprit and bellowed, “What did you do? What did you order to it?!” She yanked him upward and shook him like a leaf as if he did not weigh anything, “Who even are you?” she spit at the man.

The man did not answer nor uttered any words. He was letting her shake him there, above the air, his face empty of any expression, only a leftover tear’s stain on his face was a sign that he had just cried a while ago.

Before Nadana could do anything to the man, the rantiio flashed a blinding light. The silver water in it started to churn and the water was slowly being pulled from the eight main water channels that connected the rantiio to the moat outside. It was slow at first then it gradually took up speed.

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“What is it doing?” a very tall tower guardian in velvet robe screamed. “Why is it sucking the water? Don't tell me—” a realization appeared on his face. “From this rate, it will suck up all the water in the moat outside.”

Different degrees of horrors appeared in the faces of the tower’s guardians. The rantiio flashed a bright light again and then the medallions that were hanging in their neck also started shining. Seconds later, information flowed through their brains. They instantly understood what was happening.

“He’s trying to kill everyone in the kingdom!” Nadana exclaimed out loud.

“Make it stop!” someone said.

They all immediately buzzed around the room trying to stop the rantiio’s operation, even though they had no idea how to. They were only guardians of the tower, they were there to guard, and even that role was for formality sake. The tower would operate by itself and they would only assist if they were needed.

Ghonuy, the tall tower’s guardian covered in a velvet cloak deck with symbols of various animal hooves, went towards the crouched man.

“It won’t matter now,” he said to the other guardians. “The tower is following this man’s order. It won’t do it in the first place if it is deemed not the proper step to do. There is something more to this.”

Ghonuy immediately raised his hands—or what looks like an equivalent of it—towards the forehead of the man. His hands shone in a bright green hue and a sliver of bright green clouds of renisas flowed towards the man. The renisas wrapped the man invasively as it slithers all over his body.

The hooded man screamed as pain enveloped all over his body.

“Don’t resist it, you’ll only feel more pain if you do,” Ghonuy warned him.

“Gho-nuy s-stop!” the hooded man pleaded while holding his throat. He felt like a thousand ants were crawling inside his body. What made it worse was that it brought a tingling chilling cold that he had never felt before.

Ghonuy on the other hand was shocked that the man knew his name. Despite this, he still did not stop his rentom scan. He even increased the intensity of the renisas to search faster.

After a few seconds, Ghonuy withdraw his renisas. He could not help staggering back from what he had discovered.

“Mariela what have you done?!” he muttered to himself.

Nadana turned to him, “What about Mariela?”

Rashrei, the small fidgeting tower guardian, closed her single eye. She opened it again a moment later and it was now tainted with confusion. “It’s strange but I can’t sense her soul here in the tower.”

Rashrei’s body flashed in a yellow light and one second later she was beside the wall on the right side of the room. She raised her two little hands and touched both of them towards the wall. She closed her single eye again and searched thoroughly the tower for Mariela’s soul. Seconds later, her single eye opened with more confusion in it.

“She’s gone. She’s really gone.” she uttered.

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Nadana asked her, puzzled by her words.

“Yes, she’s gone.” Ghonuy replied instead. “She sacrificed her soul to send this kid back through time.” he pointed at the now unconscious man sprawled on the floor. “This is the future head priest of this tower.”

A cacophony of exclamations sounded from the guardians.

“Sacrificed her soul?”

“Traveling through time?”

“Is that even possible?”

“A male head priest?”

A silent figure in black cloak who was still standing in front of the rantiio touched his medallion and a crackle of electricity flowed through the medallions of the other guardians. They stopped talking and looked at him.

Finally getting their attention, the figure ordered them with his raspy deep authoritative voice in their minds, “Let’s talk about the details later on. Let’s fix this first.”

They all collectively agreed and bodies of different colored robes flashed all around the room. Countless instructions were given by the silent figure through their medallions. A huge amount of materials and gadgets has been taken from around the surroundings and dunked to the rantiio in special sequences in hopes that it would interfere with the rantiio’s process, but whenever they dropped it into the fountain, it would spat it all out. As if deaf to their effort, it still continued to sucked more water from the moat outside and the more time passed the more its sucking rate increased.

Then the silent black robed figure fished out a stone from inside his robe. It was the size of a fist and dozens of colorful symbols were embossed on it.

Countless shocked gazes turned to him, baffled by his actions. But they did not stop him from sacrificing it into the fountain, even if it broke their heart seeing a powerful item getting wasted by a problem it was never meant to solve. But desperate times need desperate measures.

They watched breathlessly as the item was dropped to the rantiio hoping it would disrupt the process. But to their disappointment, the rantiio only spat it out again.

An hour later, the tower’s guardian just stood there, with a pile of materials and gadgets around them, doing nothing. They had tried to do everything they could think of but they were not able to disrupt the rantiio’s process.

The hall was now lit with lights of green and blue. Symbols and lines had appeared in the floor of the hall creating elaborate diagrams of shapes and images. A rentom diagram was starting to form on the floor of the hall, countless intersecting lines now lined the whole area filling the blank spaces of the floors. There was still a huge area empty with anything, but the rantiio was slowly filling it out. In less than an hour, it will probably be completed.