Chapter Twenty Nine: Lich, Please!
It wasn’t going great. The mobs of zombies were closing in from all sides, and now gargoyles were falling from the skies. The Lich was in the center of a black storm cloud above them, whipping the driving rain into a frenzy of sleet and hail that was treacherously slick and murderously cold. Zuglah waited until the gargoyle was nearly upon him, then he used Desperate Measures.
He was only encased in the Ice for a moment before the great stone and clay beast landed on him, detonating the spell’s explosion of hoarfrost. But it had served its purpose, taking the brunt of the force and sparing him what he suspected would have been one hell of a headache.
The gargoyle and he both climbed to their feet together, the hoarfrost having cleared a small space around the two. Zuglah, unimpeded by frost, was the first to rise. He unleashed a wrist-thick stream of orange and red fire towards the creature, but it ignored the beam. He could feel the heat reflected back directly in his face. “Hey, Blue!” One of the Orcs was calling to him in Goad. It was the Wizard. “No fire. Try cold or wet, then lightning. Since you don’t have Stone.” He demonstrated, by pointing a finger at the gargoyle with a bark. A skull-sized chunk of rock removed itself from the gargoyle’s shoulder, then formed into a spiked ball and crashed into the side of the creature’s head.
Zuglah brought the heel of his staff into the other side of the creature’s head, then jabbed it in the face over and over. It kept reeling, staggering backwards and trying to bat the staff away with thick, sluggish clay arms. Zuglah aimed a Bolt directly into the creature’s face, and cast.
The gargoyle lit up from the inside, screaming in rage and pain. When it was over, it collapsed to the ground in a heap. Zuglah opened his hand, dropping Dancing Mana bullets one after another until it stopped moving. In another moment, it was an indistinguishable pile of rubble.
There was pain and fear in his mind, and panic. It came from the background awareness that he had of his friends. Denton was directly behind him, his shield held casually to the side and behind him where it would not be in the way of his whistling blade. The sword created its own sort of shield, one of vicious razor sharpness that could only be passed at great personal cost. Warwick was swinging his huge maul, connecting with the other gargoyle. The massive hammer was very effective against the beast’s stone hide, smashing large chunks from the creature’s arms and chest, back and shoulders. He was trying earnestly to land a blow to the ugly head, or perhaps a wing.
Pliesson was also doing surprisingly well. There was a tall, black-haired Human in front of him wielding a sword and facing a small crowd of zombies. The man attacked with gusto, spinning and slashing his way through the mob, decapitating zombies as he went along. There was a ghost rapier floating behind the zombies, working in concert with the man.
Beyond that a large group of skeletons was gathered. Only, they weren’t moving forward, they seemed to be stopped. They were clustered around something small, something green and yellow, with glints of sunlight reflecting off of copper. Sunlight off of copper? In the dark, in the middle of a rainstorm? Chayah.
That was the last coherent thought he had for some time. The spears and axes were rising and falling. He put an immediate stop to it.
Always before Zuglah would construct spells, however briefly, outside of his mind-self. Then upon ignition he would let flow a certain amount of his mana. He had learned how to move a torrent of mana in a short amount of time. He had learned how to drain, or even dismiss his mana entirely. But none of that was enough. He blinked himself to stand directly over top of the unmoving High Elf, spreading arms and fingers splayed wide. He didn’t move mana, he moved himself. He cast the entire spell into his tarn. He let it have all his mana.
There was no light, there was no fire. He hadn’t upscaled it, because he didn’t want a beam. He wanted his Scorching Hands to sweep wide. There were almost a dozen skeletons around Chayah, until he arrived. Then, there were none. A wave, as if heat mirage swept across the group and stopped with razor-like precision. A flake of ash here, a mote drifting there. It was instant peace.
He tore off his sling and dropped it. As he knelt down in front of her, he pulled the bag open to retrieve one of his vials of Lady. But she made a soft noise and groaned. There was no movement, not even breathing that he could see, but he gratefully took out a Heal instead. He tried to ignore the blood as he turned her over, cradling her head and pouring the potion into her mouth without care. She didn’t even need to swallow, before her eyes opened. She gulped the blood-red potion gratefully, then looked up with tear-filled eyes.
“Are you okay?” He spoke softly, so nobody would see how concerned he really was. She wrestled an uncooperative smile onto her face and nodded. Without looking, Zuglah reached behind himself and unleashed an upcast Scorching Hands with just his left hand. The three skeletons that had been approaching collapsed, and the Wight with them fled in flames. Pliesson told him later that it had been nearly cut in half. “I’m sorry, Chayah. I’ll make sure they never touch you again, I promise. Can you stand?” She laid there, with her eyes wide, and nodded. “Good. Stay with me, okay?” She nodded again.
He rose with her in his arms, and delicately put her onto her feet. She tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but he pulled her up to stand beside him. He pointed. “Kill that Ghoul.” His voice was cold, he felt devoid of emotion. Every emotion except wrath. He was still floating, still inside a tarn full of mana. Looking up, there was no light from the surface. Down, there was no bottom. He saw Denton and Basho fighting the gargoyle, so he left them to it. The Lich was above them still, directing the storm and continuing to summon more undead.
Zuglah did not draw his knife, but summoned The Ice Blade directly to his hand. He had known that it would be large, an entire spear that crackled and popped with a white, burning coldness that smoked in the warm air. With a flick of his wrist, Zuglah sent the spear streaking skywards to explode in the creature’s chest. She shrieked with wrath, but had little time for anything more. Spear after spear struck her, and even the ones that missed delivered savage chunks of ice when they exploded nearby.
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After the spears, she still could not react. Zuglah spread his arms out wide, unconsciously mimicking his mind floating deep inside his mana. From each of his hands alternated bullets of Dancing Mana, coming in such rapid succession that they were impossible to count. They hammered relentlessly at her, pummeling her over and over while she shrank and became less. Her glowing aura began to falter.
“Chayah. The Spectre.” He continued to point out targets for her, and she methodically took them down, one after another. With his right hand, he was able to keep up a near constant stream of Dancing Mana that harried the Lich through the skies. With his left, he burned a hole straight through any creature that so much as turned in Chayah’s direction.
The first sign that the onslaught was ending was when the rain and sleet stopped falling. The groups of zombies became much less focused, less close-knit. The Undead became less fierce, seemed to be less driven. Other spells, Sacred Fire and Lightning, began striking the Lich more and more frequently, until it seemed like her hold over the Undead failed completely. With a screech of purest wrath, she fled into the sky and a ferocious wind whisked her away or killed her. Zuglah did not care which.
The Ghouls and Banshee faded away, and the Wraiths were targeted and finished off. Nobody saw exactly what ever became of the Spectres, but they weren’t around any more. The zombies became slow-moving, angerless lumps of flesh that only concerned themselves with munching on brains. At this point, they were dim-witted enough for the owner of the Inn, Mistress Jentrugh, to order her workers and patrons out into the fields to finish off any stragglers.
The proprietress herself came to the top of the flagstone steps and addressed both parties simultaneously. “I don’t know whether to thank you for defending my establishment, or curse you for drawing them to my door. But they are gone, and we remain. So I suppose for now, it shall be my thanks.” She inclined her head by way of a bow. “If you still wish to consult me regarding this map of yours, you may enter.” With this, she went back inside and headed straight to the bar. A constitutional-sized shot of liquor was waiting there to fortify her.
During the battle, Basho and Denton had worked together with a near clockwork precision. But upon entering the Inn, they once again became like two strange cats who had been locked into the same room together. Their hackles were up, and they kept each other constantly in the corner of their view.
They pushed two large tables together, and sat warming themselves near the hearth. The yard boys had not been allowed to go out pursuing stray zombies, and as such they had been tending the fire and the room in anticipation of cold patrons returning.
Basho and his Wizard, Gor Thenz, sat down next to Zuglah. They unfolded a large, hand-drawn map on Vellum. The Stanish Crypt was marked, and he could see where the Manor was from here also. The lane they had taken was marked as some sort of a tunnel. “Is this where you came from?” He pointed to the tunnel. Basho nodded.
When Landie came and sat with them, Gor Thenz showed her the map. “There are said to be vital ingredients around here. Unlike your Troll friend, I don’t just sling potions. You see, I make them.”
Landie stared at the Wizard for a long while. She waved towards the bartender, and signaled with her finger. She turned back to the wizened old Orc. “I am sorry to inform you, but I have no idea what you are talking about. If we went into the field beyond the corn, I couldn’t tell you a flower from a weed. And I never go that far from the road, or better yet my Inn. I cannot help you.” She shrugged, and waved to the barmaid as she approached hesitantly. Landie took the tray of shots from the girl, and placed them down on the table. “Now, if that’s all you want, I’ve a bunch of farmers who need to feel like heroes, so they can go home and make sweet love to their wives and girlfriends. Excuse me.” She took one of the shots, downed it, and put it back on the tray with a smack. Then she was off.
Basho leaned in and asked, “Did she seem a little abrupt to you? She ran off like she had something to hide. I wonder if getting her drunk might help.” He took one of the small glasses, and drank.
Zuglah ignored the alcohol. He wanted to be clear-headed for this. He turned to the Wizard, Gor Thenz. “What ingredients are you looking for, exactly?”
The Orc was much older than Zuglah, his hair wispy and his beard white and long. Zuglah had been far too busy to see him in action against the Undead, but he doubted that he would be here if he weren’t competent. He couldn’t see Basho putting up with it.
Gor Thenz said, “It is a very rare emulsification fluid, and we need a lot of it. We call them Eagle’s Toes. Only one Hag is said to sell them, and she does not have nearly enough. She had two and we require seven more. If they cost half of what she charged us, we can only afford a few. So you see, our only hope is to find them for ourselves. Our Diviner told us that finding this Jentraugh woman could solve this problem for us.”
Zuglah was nodding. “I see. What else do you need? Potions require ingredients, not just suspension liquids.” He had a hunch about one of the ingredients, because it stretched coincidence, and Caldwell had never heard of it. That made him think that the Widow’s Diadem that he had collected was most likely going to play a part in his quest. He unfolded one of the cloth packages containing the delicate, brittle shards of lichen.
“Gods Below. How did you even know? This is more than I require.” His hands folded the cloth carefully. “Thank you. It is true that I also require other ingredients. As well as a specialized potion called Jump that I don’t even know how to make. And none of those undead outside have coin on them, believe me I looked. I never realized that this would be an accounting quest.”
The old man was becoming stressed out over money. Zuglah opened his sling again and rifled through his ingredients. His chicken pistules were separated into small, sealed jars containing five dried stalks each. He withdrew two jars, and gave them to the Wizard.
Warwick, sitting farther down the table, was already grinning. “You have any of that Jump left, Zuglah?”
He only had one jar of it, but it was large. He placed it on the table in front of Gor Thenz. “How much do you need? I should warn you; don’t reduce or suspend it out of order. You will either get Leap, which is a lot of fun but hardly what you’re after, or it will spoil. Follow your instructions. Pistules are very reactive and bond at literally any temperature.”
The Orc stared at him for a long moment. “Our village Witch Doctor will make the actual potion. I do not have the experience necessary. But I wonder if you do. I wish I could bring you along, honestly. Perhaps Mother Makute could make sense of you.” His fingers traveled from the Jump to the pistules to the cloth-wrapped lichen. “This is worth a lot of coin.”
“I don’t care about that. Consider it a gift. So I don’t have to tell you where they come from. A bribe so I don’t have to feel guilty. The only other person who knows where it is, is not even on Malgros right now.” The old Orc nodded.
“Mother Makute guards her secrets jealously as well. She has shown me how to brew tonics, but never once taken me gleaning. She said that I don’t have the fingers for it.” He made a wry face. Zuglah took a small wooden box out of his sling and opened it. Inside, two vibrant green pods sat nestled in a bedding of torn cloth and cotton. He showed them to Gor Thenz, then carefully closed the lid.
“Maybe these will change her mind. If you can get these to her unbroken, she may think you’re ready for greater challenges. Be careful though, because they’re very toxic.” He didn’t warn him that it could put him into the sky. He would have, if he thought the man would believe him.
The Orc’s horses had been found, mostly because they came back for food and a warm shelter to spend the night in. The owner insisted that the Orcs have rooms also, and they all agreed to save departure for the morning.