"Securing this place turned out to be a really smart decision." Calen said.
"It wasn’t much of a decision, we had to do it." Cassian pointed out. "But it is a very useful location which can provide shelter for many people and a very good vantage point."
Calen nodded absentmindedly and looked at Nickolas who was quietly sharpening his sword in a corner.
"How does it feel to be free again?"
"Well, I went from a prisoner to a runaway so it’s not much of an upgrade." He smiled faintly. "At least I got to stretch these old bones."
"Poor old man." Leon approached Nickolas. "I think it’s finally time to use it."
Nickolas’ eyes widened slightly.
"More like Friedrick gave it to me, but yeah." He took out the dark metal coin.
On one side it had a profile of a man with no face, while the other depicted a broken sword. Both faces were wrapped with the same words written in a neat, blocky font: even when the world falls, we persevere.
"If there ever was a time to use it, it’s now" He handed it to Nickolas. "The Order is in danger, and we have no way of dealing with it ourselves – there won’t be a better opportunity to use it, not when everything might end in a few months."
"I..." Nickolas toyed with the coin in his palm. "You’re right, I already regret not using it back then – I won’t make the same mistake again."
"That was very inspiring..." Isara interjected. "But what are we even talking about?"
Nickolas held up the coin.
"This is the last gift we received from Tharion. He said it is something that will allow us to call him when the Order is in peril, but only once."
"And you held onto it for almost five centuries?"
"I didn’t want to waste it."
"So the plan is to summon a Guardian and let him clean up the mess." Calen summed up. "Sounds good to me – how do we use this coin?"
Leon and Nickolas looked at each other.
"... actually we have no clue."
"I mean, Tharion didn’t leave a manual for it, he just said to use it to summon him, as if everyone knew how to do that."
Calen took the coin from Nickolas, and inspected it in every way he could.
There were no traces of magic, but it contained a large amount of divine energy, especially for its size. He tried to get a reaction from the power by prodding it with his own, but his attempts were fruitless.
Not that he expected it to work, the method of using it must be something the knights could do.
"Could you try injecting some of your aura inside?"
Nickolas sent a small whisp of aura to the coin while Calen was carefully observing the divine power inside for any reaction – but there wasn’t any.
"Hmmm, not magic, not divine power and not aura... what else could we do with it?"
"Maybe an offering." Elira suggested. "If it has to be something the knights can do then making an offering would be the next logical option."
"Like make an offering to the coin?"
"Or of the coin, yeah."
It was true that the knights of the Order survived all these years because they constantly made offerings to the dragon statue – if nothing else, it was worth a shot.
"Do we have anything to make an offering?"
Leon held up the magic canteen.
"We have a few Grayfangs and some rations packed by Friedrick."
"I thought the Greyfangs were used for the statue."
"They were, but thanks to the larg amount we actually filled the statue and couldn’t offer any more, so we have a few left."
"Alright then – give one of them here."
Leon uncorked the canteen and a second later a large chatted body appeared on the ground.
Calen placed the coin on the corpse and made a hand motion and said the words standard to making an offering – then waited.
Minutes passed and nothing happened, so he turned to Nickolas.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No, something like that would’ve worked on the statue."
"Alright, so it’s probably not this way – you can put the body back Leon."
"This leaves us only with an option to offer the coin." Isara commented.
"Yeah, but offer it to what? It’s not like we have the dragon statue with us, and the scales don’t accept offerings either."
"Not to state the obvious." Cassian raised an eyebrow. "But we’re in a temple dedicated to Tharion, there should be no better place to make an offering to him."
"That’s... an excellent point." Calen nodded slowly, not knowing how to react to this simple fact that somehow slipped his mind. "The statue in the back should be a perfect target for an offering – I bet that’s what it was used for while the temple still functioned."
"A statue of Tharion? Now that sounds interesting." Nickolas hummed. "Let’s go see it."
"The resemblance is striking." Nickolas stated.
Leon nodded in agreement and Calen narrowed his eyes at the pair.
"This statue doesn’t have a face, how can you two claim it’s so much like him?"
Leon started but was cut off by Nickolas.
"You’ll see. Once you meet him you will understand that his presence is... unlike anything else."
"We’ve met Sylara though, how much one Guardian can differ from another?"
"In terms of raw power, Tharion has significantly more of it, although it’s mostly because Sylara is using most of hers to protect thirty thousand people from becoming corrupted – overall she’s probably stronger, but she simply can’t exercise that strength at the moment, so Tharion is stronger on a technicality."
"Alright then, let’s see if this works and we get your supers special Guardian."
Instead of offering the coin with a prayer like before, this time Calen simply flicked it at the statue – the moment the metal touched the stone, the coin disappeared, and suddenly everything around got a bit darker.