Onakke

	The scattered notes strewn across the ruin floors surely made some kind of picture if all looked at from the right angle, not a picture per se but the contents must have held some kind of revelation. Though if they did, the blonde 20 something in dusty minimalist clothing couldn't see it. “Am I missing something?” She asked herself, rearranging the notes she had taken in her time at the Onakke ruins. By connecting each piece of paper to surrounding pages by the most tangential of common elements, she hoped that she would gain inspiration but no such relief came. She looked around the chamber itself, only to be reminded of the etchings that she had done when she had been running out of paper before the last delivery by Symon had come. Anna stepped outside of the room she was in to take in the scenery of the ruins, stone buildings once homes and businesses before whatever ruination had befallen the Onakke, and now she was here trying to find out about them for clues to the location of one of their artifacts.

	A few weeks back she had been in a rush to get out of a bad situation on Innistrad and found herself splayed on the floor of some ruins in Shandalar. It had taken going into a nearby town and pretending she was a traveler, not entirely false, to learn that they belong to an ancient race called Onakke. Initially the idea of poking around dust and monster filled ruins did not seem appealing to her, but rumors of artifacts that could summon up memories from forgotten recesses got her attention. Since then, Anna had been delving through ruins and going through the trouble of finding old scrolls detailing the Onakke. They seemed to be the vile sort of race, weaving their black magics in with their artifice, it wouldn't have surprised Anna to learn that their hubris was their undoing but she had not found any evidence to confirm or deny that assertion. One of the things she did learn however, was that there was some kind of riddle hidden in the Onakke ruins that led to what was supposed to be a trove of artifacts.

	Now riddles only worked within the context of the cultures, and it got much harder to decipher the riddles of dead cultures. But luckily for Anna, riddles worked much like summoning the platonic ideals of creatures whether they were Onakke or crow. That's where she was now, learning about their culture as best she could so she could strive to understand them and solve their riddle through that understanding. Anna looked up towards the sun, letting her skin soak in the heat after cloistering herself in the dark rooms she found for who knows how long. “Anna,” a voice called out, one she recognized and scanned the area for its owner, “there you are.” the man approached from the shadows carrying a bag on his back. She took him in, from his slicked back hair and signs of stubble to the brown clothes designed for long hikes.

	“Symon,” she walked towards him, “did you run into trouble? It took you longer for the delivery than normal.”

	He gave her a confused look “No, I mean yes, but the only real trouble is you running off without telling me beforehand.”

	“I left you a note.”

	“In the back of a building being nested in by baloths.” Symon added on.

	“I trust it wasn't a problem for you.”

	“Of course not,”  he said with a laugh and took off his backpack, fishing through it for her food.

	Anna took the food he handed her and cracked off a piece of the bread “Well, I'm glad you're here since I've got a puzzle for you.” She began heading back into the room when Symon cleared his throat. “Yes?”

	“Are you saying, that you can't figure something out?” He asked in a leading fashion.

	“No. It's just that I'm too close to it now, so an outsider's perspective could be helpful.” She excused and continued walking, if he wanted to follow her, he would.

	“Outsider's perspective,” he said following her in, “of course that's what it is.”

	“Like I wouldn't be able to figure it out.” She showed him her display of notes and he moved past her.

	“More like you wouldn't admit if you couldn't.” He responded while studying the notes she laid out, and he started rearranging some of the notes.

	“Maybe it's just part of an elaborate trap on my part,” She said, looking over his shoulder as he put the notes together in varied combinations, “for me to keep you here instead of hiking across the planes.” Anna wore a faint smile as she watched him work.

	“Then I'd say that I've been in worse cages,” He finally stood up and stepped back from the notes, prompting Anna to do the same, “besides I can't go hiking until this is done.”

	She looked at the notes, recognizing where he was going with his train of thought, but sure that she had already dismissed it. “Of course you can,” she told him, not looking away from the notes.

	“Not with you,” He grinned and Anna looked him in the face for a brief moment before looking away.

	“Anyway,” she said, eager to change the subject, “I recognize where you are going with this, but the only river that would fit that would have been around during the Onakke times is around Lesh, and that's too far outside of Onakke territory for a vault full of their precious artifacts.”

	“Yes, it's the only river that exists that fits the description.”Symon confirmed, Anna was about to say something then she stopped as the light went off in her head.

	“Oh,”  she exclaimed and went to get her maps, “ a dried up river the runs through the ruins.” She took her pencil and and began to mark places on the map. “Unfortunately they don't show dried up rivers on maps.”

	“And forests grow over thousands of years,” Symon reminded her.

	“Do I look like an amateur?” She asked circling mountains on the map.

	“No, noooo, not at all,” he shook his head innocently before adding in quickly, “amateurs don't often miss dried up rivers.”

	“Anyway,” she huffed and showed him the map, “we find the most likely places based on the information.”

	“Then find the ruins that look like they would have been heavily guarded.”

	“Or just burst into the ruins and go through every room until we find the vault.” She responded looking at the map. “But your way is nice too.” She rolled up the map and put it under her arm before walking out of the room.

	“And the notes?” He asked her as he followed. “Are you just going to leave them behind?”

	“I don't have a use for them,” she looked back and conjured a flame to consume her research and a wind to swipe the ash away, “and I need to get rid of them somehow.”

	“And if you want other people to find the vault after you get what you want?”

	“Map,” She tapped the map, “I'll just circle it and done.”


	After an hour or two of walking through the woods, the pair came upon the ruins her notes and Symon's help had pointed to. “So clear every building?” Symon asked her rather smugly as the ruins they'd come to were expansive but had what appeared to be a temple further in at the center.

	“Of course,” Anna said and pointed at the temple, “of course we'll start with the building most likely to contain it.” With that, she walked forward towards the temple

	“Are you sure?” Symon asked while bringing up the rear, “I believe I see at least three buildings with more than one room uncollapsed, those seem like perfect candidates for ancient ogre treasure trove.” He pointed to overgrown structures as she just kept walking.

	“You can search them if you want, I'm not stopping you.” She waved her hand at him as she went into the temple. The inside of the temple was lined with iconography of the Onakke and what she assumed were their gods and the floors were littered with the bodies of what she assumed were ex-adventurers. “No need to panic,” she told herself as she stepped over some fresher bones, “they most likely stumbled upon this, I should be able to get through this.” She reached her magic to feel for any traps and a ball of fire began to turn in her hand. Scanning the room, her foot stepped down on a skeleton's arm. Anna took a deep breath to calm down and felt a cold hand touching her shoulder.

	A second or two later the screaming, mostly on Anna's part, stopped but Symon hadn't stopped laughing. He was slapping the skeleton's hand against his knee as he was working on regaining his breath. “Have you found anything yet?”

	“A massive asshole,” she said, punching Symon in the shoulder. She moved further into the temple, kicking a skeleton to the side. She couldn't sense any traps which disquieted her given the amount of skeletons on the ground. “I suppose there would be no one to reset the traps, or they could have been killed by a source outside of the temple.”

	“Like a baloth?” Symon asked her “Do you think someone left a note in the back of the temple?”

	“You said it wasn't a problem, but you seem sore,” she told him as the reached the back, a stone door blocked their way. She dusted off the runes on the door and began reading what she could understand. “It looks like it was locked by magic, needs a password.”

	“Do you know the password?” Symon asked her, keeping his distance.

	“I have a guess,” she said and began to draw red mana to herself. “Shatter,” she called out and her spell blew the ancient door off of its hinges. She pointed to the inside of the room and look at Symon with a satisfied expression. Dropping her arms, Anna turned around to enter the room.

	“....Defiler....”

	Anna turned back to Symon “Yes?” She asked with an annoyed tone.

	“Hey,” he held up his hands, “that was not me.”

	“....trespasser....” Anna looked back towards where she was heading as the voice seemed to decide one place it was coming from and an Onakke decided to manifest itself.

	“That's me,” Anna said, “want to talk about it?”

	“...you will be punished.” Anna threw up a counterspell to block a sudden attack. “Trespassers will be punished.”

	“Onakke ghosts will certainly try,” Anna said with a smile as she pulled on the memory of thaumaturges she met on Theros and manifested one near Symon to help her channel her spells. She took a blast to the chest though because she wasn't able to keep enough mana open and make her summon.

	“Are you alright?” Symon asked her, stepping up beside Anna to face the ghost.

	“I..I could be better,” she said with a cringe, the pain was sharp but wasn't going to keep her down. She saw Symon weaving a spell “Hold up, seems he likes being more hands off,” she said quietly and pointed to her thaumaturge “attack him!” It was somewhat goofy she had to admit to see the thaumaturge run past her in his robes and smack the Onakke across the face before running  to a position in front of her and sitting to regain his breath.

	“Trespassers.” The Onakke lumbered towards them but Anna was able to stop him with another smack from her thaumaturge. “Trespassers!” A red bolt of energy flew out at both Anna and Symon, Anna was the first two throw a counter spell at it but the Onakke cast a spell which caused the counter spell to split in half and then hit itself. With the energy still hurtling towards them, Symon launched his own counterspell but a ball of fire from the Onakke intercepted his spell and countered it. The energy wrapped around both of their necks. Anna began to draw on mana and resisted crying out in pain as the energy began to dig into her skin, blood seeping from the cuts.

	“Do you have a way to deal with this?” She asked Symon, she kept making mana bonds but wanted to save her energy to counterspells until Symon could help out.

	“Maybe.” he said and some blood dripped from his arms as two wolves came into existance. “The magic's affecting it too,” he told her and pointed to the lines of mana coursing across the Onakke's bodies, “so it'll probably hold off on spells and be more physical.” Symon sent both of his wolves at the ogre which shot a bolt of lightning from its finger tips which forked off to his both of the creatures. Anna could see the lines visibly digging into the Onakke, causing it to flicker.

	“Seems like it doesn't care too much,” she said, she could feel the mana at her finger tips and the power lurking in her mind from what she learned on Zendikar. That said, Anna didn't know if she could access it and survive what ever assault the Onakke launched against her once the barbs digging into her neck weakened her.

	“We could always run,” Symon suggested, “maybe get far enough away and the enchantment will end.”

	“Or we could re-kill it, enchantments usually end when you kill their controller, right?” She said and reflected another blast from the Onakke using her counter magic. “Symon if you can deal with this, do it!” she yelled “I don't plan on being a skeleton anytime soon.”

	“I don't know if I'll be in a position to fight after this,” he told her as he gathered mana, blood being produced by the exertion dripped from his hands. He let out a shout and green mana pulsed through the room, shattering the enchantments dissuading the two planeswalkers from casting spells. “Anna, do whatever you're going to do.”

	Right, now time to tap into the eldritch power she encountered on Zendikar. She had gone there on rumors of its wild mana to see what it could do for her, and she found it being ravaged by a bunch of monsters called the Eldrazi. She had gone underground briefly to try and avoid the worst of them but she encountered some rather nasty ones underground including one that seemed fond of changing the rules to better suit its needs. She had tried to fight it only to find her spells not even casting as she willed them. It was that power she was drawing on now as she grabbed whatever mana she could to will the platonic ideal of that Eldrazi into existance. Ruins of the door began to float up around them.

	“Anna,” Symon asked as the space around them was contorting with the summoning, “what are you doing?”

	“Concentrating.” She responded as the monster came into existence. She barely escaped her first encounter with the Void Winnower with her sanity and didn't wish to take her chances with the Eldrazi, but she didn't want to die even more.

	“Anna stop.” He said but she ignored her as the Eldrazi put itself between the Onakke and two planeswalkers at Anna's command.

	“No can do,” She sort of apologized , the Onakke's efforts to cast a spell were thwarted as her summon warped reality around them and the ghost decided to attack physically but was repelled. She willed the Void Winnower to slam its tentacles into the Onakke along with the thaumaturge and the ghost faded out of existence. Anna let her concentration on her summons lapse so they ceased to exist and looked to Symon “See, we had it under control.”

	“Was that an, eldrazi?” Symon asked as she examined the contents of the room.

	“Pretty much.”

	“Why do you know how to do that?”

	“Long story,” she told him and picked up a large jar she found. “Looks like the descriptions, I guess I found my treasure.” She said with a smile before taking the lid off and looking inside.

	Falling through an empty space, only islands of deformed land to mark the passage of time. Fear and regret rushed through her mind as the islands became images of memories foreign to her. Anna tried to pull out but she couldn't bring herself upright and kept falling until she heard a crashing and she was leaning against Symon, with the man holding her. “Are you alright?” He asked jokingly though the concern was clear in his voice.

	“Better than the jar,” she said looking at the artifact's remains splayed across the floor. She steadied herself with Symon's help as she tried to move away. “Thanks for your help, Symon. Anywhere you want to go in particular?”