Kaleb rounded the corner with his gleaming hammer, burning a path through the demonic vermin until they were halted by a heavy wooden door. The frame was a blackened metal that followed perfectly the curve of the tunnel's overhead arch. “A door, down here?” Kaleb looked back at Captain Gregor with a face half cast in the dazzling light that demanded answers.
“I’ve never seen that before.” The captain was struggling to stand and leaning against the side of the tunnel, his breathing was heavy and his voice was a raspy crackle. “I…” He collapsed, body giving way to the damage caused by the grenade and expulsion of the creature that had commandeered him.
Iridia nudged him with her toe. “I think he’s spent.” Her voice was low and held trepidation. “Should we continue?”
Kaleb placed his hand on the warm wood and ran his palm up and down, the lightest of pushes eased it open. “I think that is the only option, Iridia, There are some evils that cannot be allowed to remain,” he passed through, mace burning brightly.
Iridia gave Captain Gregor a last look before darkness closed in on the tunnel. She caught the door before it shut completely and walked through. Then she fell. She fell into an unending hole. She could feel her body dropping but no scream left her mouth, her heartbeat was slow and her eyes were fighting to remain open. Then she awoke. Her nose was filled with a familiar smell, she could feel a downy material against her cheek.
“Riddy! Breakfast’s ready, we need to get a start on the day.”
Iridia lifted her head from her soft white pillow and rubbed her eyes, the room was warm and bright. It was her bedroom. Sunlight crashed through the bay window and warmed her sheets, the glass was kissed with morning dew and she could hear the playful flirtations of the birds as they flitted amongst the trees.
“Iridia!”
Dad? “Coming,” she responded with an instinct to the strict call of her father and slid out of her bed to make her way out into the hall. The smell of porridge filled the house and it guided her to the back room where she and her father ate. Her red nighty was silky and hugged her body close, the warm wood on her bare feet felt amazing, and she knew every knot and groove in the floor planks. She pushed the door into the back room and nuzzled her head through the opening.
“Ah, there you are Riddy, You need to stop sleeping in so much, I was hoping we could go fishing this morning too.” He was sitting there with his bowl of porridge, reading through a letter of some sort, likely from a friend or a request from Angelspree. “Sit then.” He nodded at the chair across from him.
Iridia disobeyed the order and darted around the table to glomp on her unprepared father.
“Iridia!” He almost knocked his porridge over and some paper sheets scattered from the rush of air propelled by Iridia’s adoration. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I had the worst dream, Father, you, you died!” She squeezed tighter, tears streamed from her eyes and dashed down her cheeks. “Then, then I had to go join this horrible man, he hated me and he made me go on a quest where we were attacked by creatures and I was shot by a crossbow, and a grenade blew up in my face and my friend had his ears cut!”
Her father could feel the distress in his daughter, he hugged her back, still sitting. “Oh, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it sounds like a very vivid dream. I assure you I’m quite alive.”
Iridia sighed deeply and sniffed the snot that was fleeing her nose.
“Sit down, dear, have some porridge.”
Iridia with great effort released her father and timidly sat down across from her father. Her cheeks were flushed brightly and her eyes glittered from the tears.
“Perhaps I have been a little hard on you these past weeks with our training, how about we go fishing for the day?”
Iridia laughed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve before tucking into her porridge. It was honeyed just as she loved it, the taste was incredible. “At the end of my dream, I was falling into a hole that felt like it never ended.”
“I think I have heard enough about this dream, Iridia.” Her father was reading through his letter again. “Perhaps a day off will calm your spirits, don't you think?”
“Yes, yes.” She gobbled her porridge happily and sat back with a satisfied burp.
“Iridia, manners.”
She chuckled and wiped her mouth. “Of course, Father.” She had done that on purpose just so she could hear his voice again, it was bliss to her ears.
A loud knocking at the door spoiled the quiet breakfast-time moment and her father rose slowly. “I’ll get it.”
Iridia absorbed the house while she let her breakfast settle. She closed her eyes and listened to her father speak to the visitor at the door, It was hard to make out what was being said but, to her alarm, the voices were getting angrier and there was discontent. Her father was loud enough to make out soon.
“No, you will not have her!”
“Release her to me!” Another voice roared, Iridia recognised it but it felt like a distant memory.
The door slammed and her father returned a moment later.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Who was at the door?”
“Nobody of concern.” He looked at her and smiled warmly. “How about–” he was interrupted by a chattering clap at the window.
Iridia could see a large man banging frantically on the window. “Who is that?”
“Bloody fool!” said her dad.
The man outside lifted a great hammer and swung it at the window, Iridia held her arms up to protect her face from the shards of glass that would surely rain down upon her. Yet there was no shatter, no smash, just a dull thud. Again a thud, a third thud. “Iridia!” the voice muffled but she could make out her name. “Iridia get out!”
She stood quickly and her father held his hand out to her. “Don’t move.”
“What’s going on?”
“Iridia, get out now!”
“Nothing, he is a madman, crazed, here to take you away from me.”
“What’s his name?”
The window rattled again from another hammer strike by the figure outside. “Iridia! Call upon the light.”
“His name is no one.”
“Call upon the light, Iridia, reveal the truth, you have it within you!”
She looked frantically between the figure outside and her father. He marched over to the window and drew the curtain closed. “Ignore him.”
Iridia closed her eyes and searched within herself, she prayed to the divine heart and asked permission in all its glory to let her see through the light. Her eyes warmed to an uncomfortable level. With her eyelids closed she was still overwhelmed with brightness, it did not burn, it didn’t make her wince in discomfort, instead it called her to open her eyes and look into it. She could hear a voice like a thousand whispers, irresistible and terrifying at the same time.
“Iridia!”
Her father's words melted away and the hammering on the window became a soft patter like a drop of water on a tin roof. She opened her eyes and could see the heart, for the first time and after all her prayers, there it was. The golden palace that beat at the core of the lands, trillions of arteries that shot out in all directions to meet the feet of those blessed to be in commune with her, pumping the lifeblood of truth into their souls and she was one of them. Only a moment to gaze upon the divine heart's majesty and then it was gone.
“Iridia, your eyes.” Her father smiled and backed away slowly, he reached behind the bookshelf and took her spear out. “Now, don’t you move.”
Iridia's eyes were blazing gold and she saw everything. The house was an infested hole, the table made of rotten wood, the window that Kaleb struck was a magical field of some sort and to her disgust, the porridge she ate was a bowl of yellowing blood, she would normally wretch but instead was filled with elation from the divine heart's revelations. Her body would resist contamination for she was of the divine and if she remained on the path of light her connection could never be severed. “You.”
The creature that portrayed her father licked its lips. Skin flayed and reddened eyes, all bone and sinew that creaked as it moved around the table, spear in hand. Dangling by its side was a jagged obsidian dagger that hung from a belt loosely gripping his bony waist.
Kaleb tried once more in vain to break the field and struck it so hard that he fell backwards. “Get out of there, Iridia!”
“Nowhere for you to run little, Paladin, I’m going to enjoy gorging on your flesh!” The skeletal features snapped at her.
“The light is with me, it forbids you,” Iridia spoke words she had never thought of, puppeteered by something greater than her.
He raised his hand and Iridia instinctively turned her face and back to him, she didn’t know why but she expected something as if she was being guided by the divine heart. She felt a cold wind on her back which rapidly became icy. The frosty gust bit into her and flayed the skin from her spine and scalp, she fell forward onto all fours and moaned in agony.
“Black winds of death will carry you away!” The Necromancer approached but to his surprise, Iridia crawled away on all fours out of the room. “You can run little one, but you cannot hide!”
Irida crawled around the corner into another chamber, what was probably her bedroom in the mirage. A mass of festering bodies was pilled up in the centre and flies buzzed incessantly. She moved around the pile of corpses, expecting to find something but instead, it was a dead end, she was trapped. She found a sword in the pile of flesh and broke it free of the rigor mortis riddled fingers that clasped it.
“Nowhere to run, oh I can’t wait to taste your purity, to defile it.”
Iridia shuddered but shook away the sickly feeling, no fear filled her, she could do anything. What would Kaleb do? She charged up the hill of victims and dived off it towards the Necromancer, sword ready. “Ah!”
“Silly, Paladin.”
Iridia cried as her mouth filled with blood, she had been spiked on her spear through the belly. The Necromancer held her aloft with great strength and laughed as he turned with her. She tried to swing her sword at him but couldn’t keep hold. “Oh, the fun I shall have with you!”
Iridia held onto the spears’ haft with both hands and spat at him.
“Thank you for your kindly donation, my dear.”
Iridia pulled herself into the spear, pushing the tip through herself and out of her back. “Ahhh!” Her cry rang through the catacombs as she slid towards him and grabbed his throat with her right hand. “I see you for what you are!” Her voice was wracked with pain.
“I am your death!” His voice was playful and unaffected by Iridia’s weak grip.
With a swift motion, she slid his dagger from his belt and jammed it into his neck. He released the spear and Iridia dropped to her knees.
“Ahhh you bitch!”
Iridia with calmness pulled the spear into her and pushed it through until she could pull it out completely from behind. She felt no pain but a dull ache and her wound sealed instantly, She lifted her spear and stood slowly, the Necromancer wriggled on the floor.
“H-how are you alive? I burned you with death, I put you on a spit like a pig!”
Iridia wiped her mouth. “I’m a Paladin of Zale, you can’t kill me.”
His eyes widened. “You’re nothing!”
She thrust her spear into his face and he melted into a pool of blood, screeching venomously as he dissolved. “I’ll haunt your bones, Paladin!” Her body was overtaken by an overwhelming fatigue, energy drained from her feet and she collapsed on the spot. Laying on her side she could hear Kaleb’s voice with more clarity.
“Iridia!”
“In here…”
Flencer was surrounded by four disgruntled soldiers one moment, and the next they were lying on the floor motionless. “Well, that showed you lot.” He kept his crossbow aloft still, expecting to be set upon any moment.
“Let me out!” Morgan called from the trunk.
“One moment, lad.”
He backed away slowly and unlocked the trunk. Morgan sprang free like a jack-in-the-box and gasped for fresh air.
“Welcome back, lad.”
“Where is Iridia?”
“In a hole.”