Lina idly ran her hand across the wall, letting her fingertips brush over the smoothly etched runes thereon as she read. The rest watched anxiously, glancing at the same object sitting in the middle of the room. "It says, who-so-ever lays beneath the arch shall gain the power of the - " Here Lina stopped and stepped away, walking over to the device in the middle of the room and studying it carefully.
Amelia blinked. "Gain the power of what? What did it say afterwards?"
"Nothing." Lina's answer was rather to the point, although vague.
"What do you mean?" Zel asked, crossing his arms. If Lina was hiding something....
"I mean just what I said!" Lina's temper was beginning to flare. Did they not believe her? Stomping over, she read aloud, pointing to each rune she read as she went. "Who-so-ever lays beneath the arch shall gain the power of the - " Where the last rune and word should be, her finger hovered over a gap caused by a missing part.
Gourry walked over and studied the wall a moment. "There's a peice missing."
"Thank you mister obvious." was the sarcastic huff from Lina as she walked back over to the table-like contraption resting silently in the middle of the room. It somewhat resembled a stone bed..almost like a table. At one end there was a slight indent, like someone could rest their head in it. Above that, sprouting from either side of the indent, was an arch of an unknown material. There were also two round, sealed holes on either side of the surface of the "bed", located somewhere around the basic middle. After a few more minutes of observing, Lina climbed up and began to lay down,
"What are you doing?" Zel, previously reading some different runes on another wall, had turne dback just in time to see Lina leaning back to rest her head in the niche in the table.
"I'm putting my head under the arch, what does it look like?" Came the grumpy but destracted reply.
Then Amelia's worried voice popped up, "Miss Lina, are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Of course. You heard the wall. If I do this then I get more power!" the red-headed sorceress's voice was more cheerful this time. She couldn't help but get giddy with excitement. More power meant bigger explosions; which meant that more bandits would get burnt and more cash would flow her way!
"Why do you want power to so badly? And high powered spells and money for that matter?" Zel asked, crossing his arms stubbornly. He was curious as to her motivation.
"Why do you want your cure so badly?" Lina countered snappishly, unusually somber after such wonderful thoughts. Mood lasted about two seconds however. "How do you turn this thing on?" Ruby-coloured eyes flittered about, looking for a switch of some sort.
"Maybe it's broken?" Gourry suggested, scratching the back of his head.
"It's not broken. Artifacts of this caliber, especially ones involving this much power, never just 'break'." Lina snoerted. "You just have to find how to turn it - hey!!" While she was talking, the arch above her head had snapped down on her neck, pinning her head to the table so she couldn't move it. It wasn't tight or constricting her breathing any...she just couldn't move.
Moving her hands to pull at the restraint, they were soon stopped and pinned to the table as well. Two cables had shot out of the two once-sealed holes and had grabbed her wrists. The table help it's prisoner, allowing little movement from the shoulders up.
"Miss Lina!" The princess scrambled over to a furious Lina's side; before she could do anything, a huge platform fell from the ceiling and onto Lina's head and shoulders.
"AHHHH!!!" Amelia and Gourry both screamed in surprise; Zel gasped and stepped back in shock.
Lina cursed. And a lot too. The platform hadn't crushed her. Obviously it had a space so that Lina was safe and snuggly covered. "What th...get this thing offa me! I can't see a @#^$ thing!" Lina's legs were kicking and her whole body was wriggling in struggle. Everyone, including Zelgadiss, started to snicker. Eventually, Amelia started laughing hard. "I don't see anything funny about this!" a muffled voice full of anger exploded from under the lowered platform. This just made Amelia and Gourry laugh harder.
"You look like a squirming worm trying to get out of a chicken's beak!" Gourry muttered between laughs. Zel couldn't help but smile. The similarities were there.
This didn't help Lina's attitude any. "Gourry you #@$^&!! I'm gonna kick you and beat the ever-lovin' ^@#*% outta - ..what the heck is THAT??" Lina stopped struggling for a moment and then started struggling even harder thatn before. "What the heck is that!? Get it away! AHH!! Get it away!!!!" Lina's voice started getting more and more frantic. "AH!! OW!!! Get that off me! Ah...AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
Amelia and Gourry had stopped laughing and everyone stared on in horror. Lina's scream was filled with pain and her body was wrenched upwards like thousands of volts of lightning were being sent through her whole body. Soon, everything stopped. Lina's body flopped back down on the table and layed still, silent. Everyone was in shock until the platform released some steam from some valves. Slowly, it lifted back up to the ceiling and promptly disappeared. Soon after, the arch released it's grip and raised back to it's original position, leaving Lina's head to roll limply to the side.
"Miss Lina? Miss Lina are you all right?" Amelia stammered; her arms and legs and..heck...her whole body was shaking out of fear. What had just happened?
"Lina? Are you asleep?" Gourry, despite asking such a question, sounded genuinely worried.
Zel stood a moment, unsure of what to do, before walking over and checking her pulse. "She's alive." he breathed, sound a little relieved himself. Amelia and Gourry brightened visible and looked back down at Lina's sleeping form.
Then Amelia noticed something. Lina's black headband was laying on either side of her head...as if someone had cut right through it at her forehead and laid it down on either side. Moving her hand forward, she brushed aside Lina's long, red bangs and gasped at what she found underneath.
It was almost like an intricately jeweled circlet - minus the band that wraps around the head - was fused with her forehead. Weaving patterns intertwined with one large and four smaller jewels of shifint colours. It was a beautiful head-peice, but startling that it was melded with skin and bone and not just laying there. Lina's two forehead marks, usually covered by her headband, now showed apparent...almost accented by the circlet. Indeed, the marks seemed to be part of the circlet's design.
"What is it?" Gourry asked, leaning forward slightly. He seemed to recall that not being there before.
Amelia turned, worried. "I don't know."
None of them did.