Rosalyn was pretty sure that this was the most nervous and scared that she had ever been in her entire life. Sure, the attack on her home a few days ago had been objectively worse, but it happened all so fast that she did not have time to anticipate. That was what was eating her up now, the anticipation of the upcoming violence. So she sat there and waited, tensed and ready to defend herself while she listened to the explosions and crashes of whatever her little kobold companion was doing to delay and thin out their numbers.
Serena’s story had helped a lot and had taken her mind off the near future for a short while, but sadly she had retreated back into her prison to concentrate while she directed the power she had lent Rosalyn for the fight. She had mentioned something about the holes in the mesh of her cage not being big enough for her to excersise as much fine control over the power as she would have liked. The worst part of it was without her actively pressing on the walls of the shimmering cage with her power it had turned hazy and opaque again, meaning that she couldn’t even see the dragon and take comfort from her presence. So, she waited in silence with the hum of power coursing through her muscles, a borrowed power that knew instinctively was so much bigger than she was and that if Serena wasn’t there to actually control and direct it that she would probably have exploded from the sheer pressure of it. Of course, Rosalyn also knew that if Serena wasn’t there she wouldn’t have this power at all and her odds of survival would be even more depressingly low.
The strain of being clenched like she was and the power coursing through her was starting to take its toll and was starting to make Rosalyn’s teeth hurt. She was contemplating switching to a more relaxed stance when Birdie hastily rounded and turned to face the out of sight entrance way and started to swing something on the end of a rope. Curious, Rosalyn watched the item for a few moments before she realized that the something the little guy was getting ready to wing towards the door was a jar with a lit rag coming out of the top. She watched in mesmerized silence as the fire spun round and round and was mildly surprised when he let the rope go and tossed the jar toward the door where she could not see. Then she heard the anguished howls and the fear that had been momentarily forgotten as she watched the spinning pot returned in full force.
She watched as Birdie yelped and dodged a large rock that missed his tiny head by the grace of a higher power. Scrambling to his feet he ran into the room and past Rosalyn, where she heard him get his slightly oversized cudgel from the pile of bric-à-brac he had been preparing for the battle from during their stay in the chamber. Then he was there, standing by her side, shaking like a small dog with his tiny arms holding a weapon that was much too big for him. Something in her heart broke at that, and she suddenly wanted him to run away. This small creature that had decided they were friends even thought they had known for such a short time was standing here by her side to fight a lich and his army of dead. Rosalyn didn’t know if her heart could take him dying in her defense, but she knew that he wouldn’t go as long as she was in trouble.
That was when a single man dressed in a purple robe walked forward. He was nonchalantly strolling forward while using a gnarled black staff as a walking stick. Rosalyn was momentarily confused by the sight, and then she saw his face. It was a human face to be sure, but there was something off about it. His features were stretched somehow, like someone had taken his face off and then put it back on too tightly, and his eyes were pitch-black. She took a good look at this face and her blood ran cold as she realized what she was looking at. The lich had come for her and the small mysterious item that Mother Cham had entrusted to her safe keeping.
“Give me the artifact without any more of this nonsense and I won’t torture you before I kill you.” Rosalyn flinched at the voice, as it had a quality similar to his face. It was a human voice, but there was something wrong about it. “Well? I don’t have all day insect. I have individuals waiting for me and I have taken much too long cornering you.”
Rosalyn wanted to say something back to him, something heroic and brave. However, her voice had deserted her and the only thing in its place was pure terror. This was the creature that had killed her entire family. Instead, the only defiance she could muster was a simple shake of her head. “So be it then. Incapacitate her and bring her to me. Do not kill her, I have frustrations to vent.” With those words the lich turned and walked towards the side of the room with the same exact unhurried pace that he walked into the room with. That was when the ghouls struck.
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Cham had been running at a full tilt through the tunnels for almost a day by her reckoning. She had set a blistering pace that would have long ago destroyed any non-Divine infused person, but she still feared that she would be too late. Thankfully, the path through was relatively straight-forward to follow. Someone had obviously stymied the undead horde and collapsed a fair amount of the tunnels onto their heads, and there were places where the undead had clearly had to dig through rubble to advance. In the back of her mind there was a small curious voice that wondered who had fought with the lich and his forces and if they still lived, but she knew that it was a small concern best left for after she had saved her kid.
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This incredibly obvious path coupled with the fact that she could feel both the presence of Rosalyn and the lich assured her that she was going the right way. She could feel that Rosalyn was alive and that she was close. Turning up her senses once more to better pinpoint her destination, Cham was hit once again with alarm bells coming from behind her. Resisting the urge to stop and get into a fighting stance, Cham glanced behind her as she ran onward and once again saw nothing. Suspicious, but unable to do anything about it under her current time constraints, Cham decided instead to burn a little more Divine power and increase her speed further and the feeling was left behind.
After a few more minutes of running Cham came across a rapidly flowing river and found her first actual trace of Rosalyn’s presence. With her sight activated she could tell that her kid had lain here about a week or so ago for a long time before moving on and following the river. With phantom images of Rosalyn ahead of her, Cham ran as fast as she could. She ran past the site of a scuffle with an unknown creature and into a curious stone room where Rosalyn had shared stew with other unknown people. The same curious part of her brain wondered what her kid had been up to down here, but again she ignored it and ran on.
That was when she heard the first explosion. At least Cham thought it was an explosion. It was far off, but she had heard many of the whumping noises during her time on the front lines. Adjusting her course to head toward the noises, she saw her first signs of battle as she came into a tunnel littered with zombie parts and scattered bones. Cham didn’t know what exactly had gone on here, but she was happy. It looked like Rosalyn had found some help, as unlikely as that sounded down here. Burning even more power she ran down the tunnel, dodging fallen rocks, craters, and even a sprung trap where a legless ghoul was angrily flailing while impaled on a long wooden spike that had pinned it to the ground.
That was when she came into a clearly man-made room of white stone. Amazing murals adorned the walls and there was a curious tomb in the center, but still she ignored these details and ran on, passing through the most ornate door she had ever seen and coming into a tunnel of black stone. When she turned the corner Cham finally saw something that stopped her dead in her tracks.
Rosalyn was fighting four ghouls singlehandedly in a ring of at least a dozen destroyed zombies, and was winning. A fifth ghoul was chasing a small creature around but was being pelted with rocks and smashed in the knees with a comically oversized cudgel when it got too close, but she couldn’t really focus on that exchange. Rosalyn was mesmerizing to watch.
She flowed perfectly from one form to the other, utilizing the combat arts that Cham herself had taught her while a deep azure energy whipped from around her angrily. It was like watching two combatants at once, with the energy acting like it had a will of its own. Cham’s chest clenched as Rosalyn over extended herself on her right side and left herself open to attack. Three of the ghouls, sensing an opening jumped on her at once. A warning started to form on her lips, but it was silenced when the energy whipped around behind Rosalyn and decapitated the first ghoul before splitting into two long needles and pierced the brains of the other attacking ghouls. While this was taking place, Rosalyn herself pivoted and delivered a devastating roundhouse kick that literally broke the final ghoul's head clean off of its spine. Snapping her mouth shut, Cham was speechless, this was nothing that she had taught Rosalyn during their training. Even if she had given the basic lessons on Divine power control to all of her kids who wanted to learn, this blue energy was something else.
However, before she could run through that thought anymore Cham saw him. The lich, Geroth, was standing to the side of the chamber looking as bewildered and surprised as Cham had felt. Rage bubbled up in her heart and a primal scream echoed from deep within her small frame. She charged straight at him with one word on her lips.
“GEROTH!”
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Lucia was quite perturbed at her prey. Her troublesome senses had made it impossible to sneak up on her during the trip into the cave, and at one point the halfling had sped up to a quite frankly ludicrous degree and she had even lost sight of her. Thankfully, she had her scent and there was nowhere the tasty little morsel could hide.
Chasing the little creature had afforded her time to survey the losses that Geroth had taken during his entry into the cave. Lucia sighed at his incompetence, but knew that if they could get the Master’s artifact back then it would all be worth it. Still, she would have to think of a suitable punishment for his negligence and overconfidence. “Maybe I’ll rip out his soul and put it in the boo box?” she quietly mused.
Crossing into a large and hideously white space, she crossed into an oppositely black tunnel to see her prey watching a fight down below. Lucia winced as five more ghouls were destroyed by a young girl wreathed in blue energy. She could clearly feel the artifact at this distance, and noted that it was probably in the leather satchel the girl had tightly bound to her back. Still, even if she did owe the Master a lot retrieving the artifact had become a secondary objective for her. Deciding to let Geroth handle that, she readied her pounce.
That was when the little morsel screamed and ran toward her subordinate in a rage. “Perfect…” she hummed to herself as she shot down and slammed into her target’s back before the little ball of holy energy could reach the very flat-footed lich.
“You have something I want morsel! GIMME!” Lucia screeched as she reached down to slice open the surprised halfling’s throat.