Chapter 6
I finally stopped to catch my breath about an hour later, having left the wildfire sufficiently far behind me. The sky was filled with a broad pillar of black smoke across nearly half the sky, the bottoms of the clouds reflecting the ruddy red glow of the flames below. I took a moment to skim over my notifications, wincing slightly as I saw a handful of them.
[Human slain. Bonus EXP granted.]
Title Gained: [First Blood] You have shown yourself to be a ruthless competitor, showing no hesitation in being the first to slay your fellow man. The universe is built on strife, and your conqueror’s spirit will take you far.
+5 to all attributes.
[Human slain. Bonus EXP granted.]
[Human slain. Bonus EXP granted.]
[Human slain. Bonus EXP granted.]
[Human slain. Bonus EXP granted.]
[Level up! You are now level 9. +5 Free points gained from Race.]
Oh, damn, I thought to myself. That’s not a title I was really aiming for, but the bonus is nice. The fire had unintentionally herded me in the direction of one of the numerous towers that dotted the horizon, this one an unassuming grey brick, overgrown here and there with tracts of ivy, the bright green a vivid contrast to the dull stone. Another half an hour took me to the base of the tower, where a pair of large wooden doors barred my path, their surface covered in ironwork made to look like the ivy that ensnared the tower. Some of the metal was worked so finely it almost seemed a filigree, curling in on itself here and there. None of the iron vines, however, quite made it to the crack of the doors. I looked around for a handle, and, finding none, decided to push instead. I struggled against the weight of the doors for a couple of seconds, and they grudgingly gave way, swinging open with a low groan of old hinges. The light trickled into the dim interior, lit only by small, fitfully burning torches that cast pools of orange light on the boring grey brick floors. I looked around the inside for several seconds before carefully stepping inside, and calling out, “Hello? Is there anyone in here?”
For a moment, I was sure that I heard movement; something scraping against the stone, a rustling sound, perhaps something brushing against the invasive ivy that hung, here and there, from the walls. Annoyed with how long it was taking my eyes to adjust to the darkness, I willed a firebolt into my palm, trying to fight its’ unstable urge to launch off, and held it high. I could feel the flames lapping against my palm, but it didn’t seem to cause any actual harm, the heat pleasant instead of scorching. I peered around again, taking another step inside, and was just about to call out when the doors whooshed shut behind me, slamming with a ringing finality. I whipped around, only to see that there were no handles on the doors themselves, only that same ironwork.
What I didn’t expect, however, was for those ivy-like tendrils of iron to actually stretch to the center of the door, binding together into a delicate lattice of knots; delicate-looking, anyway, because even when I pulled at it, the iron refused to yield even slightly to me. My temper flared, and the firebolt launched off of my palm, startling me as it slammed into the door, scorching the wood and making the iron creepers writhe for a moment before solidifying again.
“Oh, come on,” I complained as I pushed against the doors futilely, frowning at their bulk. “Well, the hell with you, then.” I turned around, surveying the interior, and laying eyes on the small stairway that wound along the outside wall, just a bit wider than me. I shifted over to it, peering up into the darkness, and carefully conjured another little ball of flame to light my way.
My first inkling of danger came when I reached the first landing, and heard a rasping snarl, followed by the grinding of metal, and turned to find an overgrown pile of ivy writhing to its’ feet, wrapped around greying bones inside of rusted metal armor. The sound was a hiss, like water sizzling across a searing hot pan, edges dragging against rusty, dented iron, drawing itself upward into the vague shape of a man, a helmet writhing with verdant serpents taking the place of a head, the long, dully shining shape of a chipped greatsword rising up in the grip of more vines, an incongruous black flower blooming from the vambrace’s weathered, cracked leather.
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I released the firebolt at it, watching the bright light and flame smash into the breastplate, turning the metal a cherry red. The vines sizzled a little inside, but otherwise ignored the attack. It lurched toward me, one arm extending unnaturally long to swing the greatsword one-handed, ivy entwining the bones and the hilt of the weapon, their reach and power far greater than the mere muscle that had once animated these bones. I threw myself out of the way of the strike, back slamming flat to the floor next to the stairway. I nearly rolled over the edge, reflexes far sharper than I was accustomed to helping me catch myself on the edge of the step instead of tumbling down back into the darkness below. The sword clanged off of the bricks beside me, casting a brief spray of sparks, before the blade retreated into the darkness, dragged back across the floor with a spine-aching screech. I summoned up another firebolt and lobbed it, this time catching the joint of the cuirass and spaulders, burning through several of the strands of ivy exposed beneath. That lucky hit slowed the return of the greatsword, briefly pausing its’ movement, before more strands pushed through to replace those that had burned off.
I began to feel panic crowding my thoughts as I loosed another firebolt, this one reflecting my inner turmoil with its’ fitful sputtering. It struck the cuirass again, leaving another red-hot patch glowing in the dim interior. I pushed the wand out before me, and focused on it, throwing forth a sizzling surge of flames that physically pushed the armor back, burning at the edges of it where the vines were exposed. I jumped aside as it took another cleaving swing at me, this one clearly slowed by the flames eating at the corded bundles of vines keeping it aloft. As the arm extended, exposing ivy-wrapped bone, I struck, throwing an unstable firebolt into it. The armor seemed to hiss as the sea of vines roiled within it, the forearm bones and vambrace falling to the ground, coils of smoke pouring forth as the vines immolated. The sword struck the ground beside me, and I hopped over it, moving deeper into the room and away from the stairs. I wound up for another firebolt, this one steadier, my will responding to my state of mind, panic being suppressed by the surge of finding its’ weakness.
The bolt sputtered out, however, as a mace whistled through the air, slamming into my extended right arm with the crack of bone. I screamed from the rush of agony that struck from my wrist to my shoulder like lightning, my body briefly going slack from the pain. I stumbled aside, narrowly avoiding another swing, a second writhing soldier now exposed by torchlight and movement. It whipped the mace around at the end of a length of vines, launching it toward me with enough force that the near-miss cracked the stone where it struck. “What the hell is wrong with this place?” I screamed at them, and raised my wand with my left hand. The torrent of flames was probably overkill, far larger than it needed to be, but the darkness and pain ate at my self-restraint even more greedily than the fire ate up the vines holding the mace to the second suit of armor. It raised a shield in front of itself, absorbing much of the heat and deflecting the rest around itself, even as it was brutally disarmed by the roiling flames.
The first writhing soldier wasn’t as lucky, however; the breastplate clanged to the floor, unsupported, as the vines withered. The rest of the armor clattered down around it, bones and metal rattling dizzyingly loud in the confined space, the racket distracting enough with my heightened perception that I nearly didn’t see the cherry-red shield coming my way.
Fearing the heat, the vines clasping the shield had launched it toward me. I deftly side-stepped the glowing metal, and it clanged down the stairs behind me with a stunning racket. This time, however, I was prepared. The shield had concealed a huge, rusted hole in its’ cuirass, right over where the heart would’ve been. While my accuracy wasn’t the best, and the firebolt mostly splashed over the cuirass itself, enough of it poured into the wound that it sent the vine-wrapped skeleton reeling, the hiss of water turning to steam almost louder than the fearful writhing of the vines. The armor launched itself toward me in an attempted body slam, and I caught it with my right shoulder. While it pushed me back a couple of steps and hurt my injured arm like bloody hell, it gave me the opening to shove the tip of the wand inside of the armor and release another torrent of flames.
[Writhing Footsoldier defeated. EXP gained.]
[Writhing Guardsman defeated. EXP gained.]
I dug into the pouch at my waist with my left hand, pulling out one of the little crimson vials, and drank down the earthy potion greedily, hoping it would heal the cracked bones of my right arm.
Boy was I right, but if I’d known how much it would hurt I might’ve hesitated a little more. I could feel more than hear the pop of bones snicking back into place and binding, the muscles wriggling for a moment as it set everything to rights.
I’m not ashamed to admit it: I screamed.