The Ringing of the Bells

Mage stared at Harry's back.

"You can understand that?" he managed to get out, ducking his head down so his horns didn't hit the vent for a third time.

"Yeah," said Harry, with a smile. "Once you live for as long as I have, you pick up quite a few languages, and when you have my job, you kinda have to learn all the languages."

Mage just kept staring.

"Animals have languages?" he asked, wincing as he accidentally put his knee down on his tail. He had been trying to keep it low, but it kept getting stuck underneath his legs while he was crawling. He was just grateful it didn't hurt as much as hitting his horns.

"Uh..duh?" said Harry, looking confused. "Of course they have languages. How do you think they communicate?"

Mage faltered.

"...I didn't think of it before," he muttered, face going red. He ducked his head even further down and decided now was a good time to stop talking.

"Don't worry about it," said Harry, "not many people do, after all, not many people spend their time learning how to talk to animals."

He squeaked in the direction of Vankous. There was more squeaking from up front.

"And it looks like we can jump into the central room very soon."

How could someone even learn to talk to animals-

Before Mage could finish his train of thought, Harry said they were almost at the central room. Mage took a deep breath and slowly let it back out. He had to be prepared for whatever they were going to face when they entered the room.

"Okay," Mage softly said. "I'm ready."

"Great," said Harry, we're gonna be dropping down and out into the room very, very soon. "Stean and I will run into grab this piece, Mage, you, James and Vankous, keep the guardian distracted, try not to make it mad."

And soon as finished that, Vankous was dropping through, transforming into a human as he did so. Stean and James went next and soon Harry landed on the floor with a soft thud. They were in a large circular room, lit in periodic intervals by torchlight. And in front of them stood the guardian.

Mage dropped into the room after the others.

When he saw the guardian, his first thought was how familiar it looked. He hadn't ever seen anything like it before, but it looked like the automatons he had seen in the past. It was easily twice his size and far more stocky than him. The orb in the center of its head glowed with an almost magical amber light.

Mage didn't snap out of his awe until the guardian tried smashing the entire group together with a clap of its hands. He darted back before it could catch him, but he could feel his heart pounding in his ears right afterwards.

Harry frowned and took a step back as the guardian attempt to smash them all together. He hadn't been to this part of the world in a while. He'd forgotten exactly what that thing was capable. On the bright side, it didn't appear to look terribly dangerous on first glance. Vankous, James and Mage should be able to distract the thing for long enough. Besides, he was going to need Stean if they were going to snatch that item, and he definitely couldn't stay behind. It would have to do. Harry turned towards the others as they dodged another attack.

"So, Stean and I are going to go get that item, both of us are going to be needed to grab that really quickly. You guys just stay in this general area and keep this thing distracted," said Harry, with a smile. "I hope you guys are with that."

With that, Harry gestured to Stean and the two of them dived behind the guardian and into the chamber where the thing they were after was kept.

Mage wasn't entirely okay with it.

The moment Harry and Stean divided behind the guardian, the guardian spun around to give them one last clap. Mage jumped out of the way before one of its outstretched arms could whack into him during the spin.

Then he remembered he was supposed to be a distraction.

After a moment of focusing, a thick strand of darkness appeared and wrapped itself around the guardian's leg. Mage gave it a tug. The guardian, sensing a new enemy, spun back around to face them—giving Harry and Stean enough time to sneak off as the guardian faced Mage's group.

"He just jumped right in there without actually waiting for us to agree, didn't he?" said Vankous.

"Well, I was kind of expecting that, by this point I think you should be used to him doing that," said James, as he dodged another attack.

"Well, fair enough," said Vankous, "although it is terribly rude of him to do that with this poor fellow, wouldn't you agree Mage?"

Vankous had created a glowing purple shield around him and he was calmly standing there as the monster attacked. Meanwhile James, following the orders to not hurt the creature couldn't draw any of his various weapons and was resorting to old fashioned dodging and swerving.

Mage paused, not expecting to suddenly hear his name. Why were they calling his name-

The rest of the conversation clicked right as the guardian tried clapping at him again. Like the other times, he barely managed to get out of the way before it would have caught him.

"Uh, sure," he managed to get out, not all that sure if they were talking about him or Harry.

Vankous frowned at Mage's reply as another attack by the guardian bounced off his protective dome. As long as the thing didn't pick up his entire bubble and yeet him in a random direction he wouldn't have to move and that was perfect.

James on the other hand was starting to get tired. He didn't quite know how long it would take for Stean and Harry to get the thing they were after, but considering what the two of them were capable, they had to be back by now.

James dodged another attack, almost slipping up on it. A rest was going to be needed very soon.

There was a sudden surge of energy from beneath the floor.

Mage faltered again when he felt something coming from underneath them. Keeping his distance from the guardian, he glanced over at Vankous and James.

"Did Harry and Stean just finish?" he asked, taking a big leap back when the guardian lunged at him.