C14 THE OBELISK’S TEST

While Cartelle was deliberating his choices, Sara scanned the stone tablet and found it to be like a keyboard with a thousand alphabets.

There were energy circuits that ran from the Obelisk to the tablet, and after some analysis of the circuitry, Sara discovered that most of the alphabets were linked to a common pathway but there was one alphabet that was connected to a different path.

By logical deduction, the single phased alphabet should be the correct answer, so I pointed at the “Ꝣ” on the Tablet which had the unique circuitry among the lot, and said, “Press that”.

Cartelle considered for a while and frankly I believed he had no clue what to choose and although he considered the alphabet that I pointed out to him, he hesitated.

He may trust me in other aspects, but the deciphering of runes wasn’t my specialty, and there was truth to that because I really had no idea what the alphabet or runes were.

In his mind, it was not reasonable or prudent to trust the guesses of a Barbarian to answer a problem even learned Magus couldn't answer, especially if a wrong guess would cost his life.

Ultimately, it was natural that he chose to believe in his own guess, rather than to listen to the guesses of his native companions.

Before he chose and pressed on the rune of his choice, Cartelle gave me his magic amulet, which accessed his space locker.

If he failed the test and turned to stone, I could have the amulet and everything in it, but he wished for me to return his body to his family in Magisandria.

After he made his last will, Cartelle pressed on his chosen rune and the Obelisk changed its color and turned to flash red. Sara observed an energy-like current coming out of the Obelisk which went into Cartelle’s body as he was immediately stunned, and his entire body slowly hardened, petrified by the magic of the Obelisk.

I pushed Cartelle away from the pedestal but the effects on him didn’t diminish as he was turned to stone like the other corpse statues before him.

I tried everything to revive Cartelle but there was nothing I could do, and I couldn’t believe our companion for the past weeks was gone in an instant.

I wanted to question the people who built the Obelisk and set the test.

“Was it necessary to kill people for failure to choose the right alphabet?”, I asked the Obelisk, but the tall building didn’t answer me.

Perhaps this was the hazards of adventure, and this was a dangerous world, and If I was not careful, I’ll meet the same end as Cartelle, swiftly and without warning.

It also didn’t help at all that we followed a rather bold but inexperienced leader to a deadly quest without proper planning and briefing of the quest.

Ignorance was equivalent to suicide in this perilous world of Ouamua and I learned a deadly lesson from the mission.

I took Cartelle’s amulet and tried my hands on using it. Using it was easy, as all I needed to do was press on the gem on the amulet and concentrate on an item, and it was immediately teleported into the space locker.

Sara observed the whole process and believed when I touched the amulet and focused on an item my brainwaves directed the amulet to create a mini portal where the item was and beamed it into the magical space.

As I focused on the amulet the space inside the locker was projected into my mind as I looked through Cartelle’s stash.

I felt a little embarrassed to look through someone’s trash but those weren’t Cartelle’ stuff anymore, they were my inheritance now.

The space locker was large, almost as large as a small warehouse and the space wasn’t limited by gravity so stuff could be placed around and stacked in the air and as I imagined it the stuff inside could be moved around on my whim.

I remembered Cartelle’s final wish, so I teleported Cartelle’s stoned corpse into the space locker.

As I stored the statue, I felt pity for the others who failed the Obelisk and I had a feeling if they were alive, they would have wanted what Cartelle wished for, to return to their families, so I teleported all the corpse statues into the space locker and placed them together with Cartelle.

Once I emptied the area of the statues, I wanted to leave but couldn’t for two reasons. Firstly, the rope bridge leading back to the entrance portal was broken by the Dragon so unless I could fly, I won’t make it to the other side.

Secondly, without Cartelle I couldn’t re-open the portal that brought us into this space.

I scouted the space for a long time and found no exit except to jump into the deep valley beneath the mountains which was suicidal, so we were stuck here.

And I was left with no choice but to try the test of the Obelisk.