Chapter 64: Revelation

Alabaster

As it turned out, fighting free of a swarm of Undead on all sides whilst being forced to hold one's breath was a tricky proposition. The boys tried to effect a retreat of sorts as the room filled with spores but in the confusion of swirling enemies, root-covered ground, and eyes watering from the noxiously thick spore cloud. The pair found themselves backed into a corner.

On the upside, Alley was glad the poisonous spore cloud didn’t extend quite to where they were. It allowed for a little island of sanity and breath where they could make a stand. A flash of blue light ignited within the poisonous cloud and Alley knew the tree-woman had Manifested something new.

Still coughing and wiping running eyes the boys made ready to turn back what was likely going to be an onslaught. Alley’s black eye didn’t appreciate the hasty way he cleaned it with the sleeve of his cloak but he rushed through it anyway.

A weird thing had occurred to the boy but as always he didn’t have time to contemplate it. He had been cut several times today and his cloak had made no effort to drink his blood. From all reports the Artifact had leaped at the chance last time, but now remained just a cloak.

His first guess was that it had something to do with being in a Challenge, It was yet another thing he would need to add to his journal and test in the future.

The first creatures to reach the pair of boys were the spear and shield-wielding skeletons. These were genuine monsters, not Manifested Cards but their nature still protected them from inhaling the spores. Well from inhaling anything at all, but the spores were what mattered here. It was an advantage that allowed the skeletons to attack from within the noxious cloud while remaining mostly obscured. It made counter-attacking a pain and more often than not both boys felt their own strikes bounce off shields.

Keeping his chain whipping out constantly Alley let his mind race as he tried to think his way out of this. In theory, the spore spell would dissipate sooner rather than later, but if they were forced to stay trapped here in the corner more Undead and more spells would probably be forthcoming.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“You got anything?” Alley said to Darius without looking at him.

“I can Harpoon Rain, but I can’t see to throw it and the melee version will probably turn you into minced meat.”

Alley had to concede those were good reasons not to use the Card. Still, there had to be a way to deal with this. Every obstacle Alley had ever faced was really just one kind of puzzle or another, and there had only ever been one that didn’t have a solution. What Alley needed was just a little time to observe and consider.

The Bone-Golem came charging out of the cloud, which was of course the opposite of ‘time to observe and consider’.

“Alright, that is quite enough of that.” Came a familiar gravelly voice. It wasn’t inside Alley’s head this time though, it was coming from behind him. “The Dead Man’s Hand!” declared the voice in such a way that Alley knew it had to be the name of a Card or Linked Item.

The huge skeletal hand that had so often accompanied that voice swept out from above Alley. With contemptuous ease, the huge limb swatted the golem back into the spore cloud, before continuing its arc far enough to collide with and shatter one of the root-covered glass walls.

“We should have thought of that.” Grunted Darius with a shake of his head.

“Yeah,” Alley agreed as cool air poured into the glass structure and began displacing the spores. It was true, they really should have considered breaking the glass behind them. Alley wasn’t going to be too hard on himself about it though, ‘smash down the walls around you’ wasn’t the sort of tactic that readily occurred to human beings.

Darius stormed through the thinning cloud and was out the newly made gap in the wall without a second thought. A little more cautious Alley had taken a second to plan his route, but was about to join his friend in flight when he heard the scream.

It began as the same whiskey-soaked deep voice, but while the cry of agony never wavered the deep tone and raspyness were somehow stripped out of it after a half second. Leaving it a high-pitched and distinctly feminine scream of pain. Halting his escape, Alley sidestepped a zombie and began looking around for the source of the scream.

Following the sound Alley didn’t know what he was expecting but the sight that greeted him certainly wasn’t it. Overhead the branches of the huge tree had shifted slightly, just enough that the crystals of Undeath Resonance had converged a little. The combined beams of purple light had formed into something that looked not solid exactly, but more tangible than mere beans of light.

The ‘thickened’ Undeath Resonance was pinning a struggling figure to the wall about halfway up the glass structure. The figure was clearly in more than distress, they were in pain. They were also a semi-ethereal teen girl with white hair and white clothes of an archaic style.