The tunnel they were walking down had a mildly interesting design to it. It had been smoothened into a perfect arch at the top, with straight down walls on both the left and the right. The width of the tunnel was around 1.5 meters, that is to say, neither particularly wide nor narrow. This must’ve been done with magic, Rum surmized, walking at the back of the group, as had rapidly become custom on this trip.
“Rum?” Amez spoke from ahead of the mage.
Rum took a second to detach his academic gaze from the tunnel’s smoothness. “Yes?”
“Back then, before Elrith blasted the walls, couldn’t you have just drained the mana out of the enchantment?”
Rum shook his head behind his little brother, who of course didn’t see the shaking. However, he added an explanation. “I might’ve been able to, in time, to figure out how. But Requisition Mana was made to work on people. I don’t know what would’ve happened if I tried to use it on the enchantment” he looked down at the floor in thought, “but likely nothing. And so, I think that your quick thinking solution was probably the better option in the end. I mean, if Elrith detonated on trying to discharge, then only she would’ve died. If I failed draining mana though, and she detoned... well, we both would’ve died.”
“Very heroic of you!” Elrith yelled sarcastically from ahead of them. Rum shrugged from the back the line, and of course like with Amez she didn’t see that, but this time he didn’t try to explain himself either. In truth, Rum had just been kinda tired after performing one miraculous feat of magic, and doing another one without as much as a moment’s breather? Sometimes I feel like the world may be asking a bit too much of me, even if I usually pull through, one of these days, I might not pull through. And when that happens, it may be my last day, also. Rum zoned out in dark ponderous thoughts. He thought about his life, his mortality. Then he shook his head. No! he commanded his own brain, No melancholy! That’s not for me.
Rum felt like he could do a lot of things. But even he had limits. He needed to be careful, at least a little bit careful, not to overextend those limits. Yet those limits had a tendency to shove themselves right up his beard – daring him, tempting him, telling him it’d all be fine because it usually was fine – in the end. He just needed to do that little experiment, just a little more. A little defiance of the metaphysical integrities of space? Why not... Just a little look under the celestial hood of magic? Fantastic! A tiny little near-death experience deep inside a dungeon? Sure why fuss. It’d all be fine in the end. Soon, he’d be home again. With another dungeon run completed. He’d be back in his big bed, figuring out how to fill up the very literally endless space in his brother’s closet, and training an apprentice in the unique person magic. Maybe he’d even have two apprentices, if he gave that gnome a revisit. Soon, very soon in the span of great things, life would not be so stressful.
Rum sighed. Why do I do this to myself? Is it really worth it? Maybe I should just set up a shop like my brother. Maybe sell healing spells for the rest of my life? He imagined that life as they walked. In the front of the line Darmon’s armor made that familiar clank, clank, clank sound with every step. The only noise through the tunnel now, besides Elrith clearing her throat once, and a couple of slightly loud intakes of breath from Rulli. Unless of course Doctor Sharam or any other medicinal figure comes after me for not charging enough money for my heals. Rum sighed once more. No, even if that didn’t happen, my heart couldn’t do that. My heart wants what it wants – adventure, curiousity, exploration. How could I do anything else, than to live out the vastness of this world and its immense possibilities? Not to disparage its impossibilities, either. Possibility after all is quite stingy when it comes to life. And the world needs someone like me, I’d think. Someone who does not care about the rules. Someone who when faced with the impossible, simply makes it happen anyways.
Rum pondered so long and so deeply, that he did not notice when the people in front of him stopped outside of the tunnel, or that the tunnel in front of him had just ended. He did not notice that all of them except Amez had lined up for something. And he continued not noticing any of this, before his body suddenly crashed ever so lightly into his little brothers’ back. Then, and only then, was he forcibly ejected from his own universe of ideas and existential deliberations, and abruptly made aware of how everyone in front of him seemed awkwardly tense right about this moment. “Hello?” Rum said, and looked to each of the people. Then he stepped around Amez’s blocking form, and got a glimpse of what was in front of all of them. Some 30 witches and wizards stood within a cavernous room ahead, their dark red robes and pointy dark red hats the unmistable signs of Jorteg’s apprentices. Every one of them carried a wand in hand, and every wand looked ready to be used, even if no wand was directly aimed at them – yet.
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An elderly woman of maybe 40 years, that Rum thought looked vaguely familiar, stepped in front of the group of witches with rapid determined steps. The woman had soft silvery bejeweled shoes, and a few precious rings on her fingers. “You ruin our undead armies, you kidnap our sister, and now you have the guts – the dare – to show your face here again!” The tone was contained hatred, an accusation of the highest order. “Did you not learn that you and yours aren’t welcome here in our home, university mage?” The woman stared greviously over at the row of adventurers, her eyes focusing in on one big one in particular.
“Are you talking to me?” Rum spoke from behind the backs of Darmon, Rulli, Gilda, Elrith, and now also Amez, as his little brother had finally lined up with the rest. His little brother turned his head to stare at Rum, a mix of surprise radiating from his eyes at his big brother being so directly adressed. The others meanwhile seemed less focused on Rum, and more focused on their weapons, and more than that: on the enemy’s great plurality of weapons.
“Do you see any other mage here?” The elderly woman replied, and glanced about in mock searching, as if he was being stupid. Which he in all fairness sometimes was. The wizard’s genius didn’t exactly distribute evenly over time.
“I would just like to point out that I’ve never actually graduated” Rum spoke matter-of-factly. “I suppose technically, the accurate thing would be to call me a dropout.” Rum raised his finger to animatedly relay his thoughts. “The university would probably not like it if you went around calling me a university mage, since, well, I didn’t complete the Master of Magic final exams. Not that I personally care what you call me” Rum generously offered, “it’s just that, to be clear, I’m not claiming that I did complete my education. I would rather refer to myself as a part schooled, part self-taught wizard. The Flipped University could only bring me so far on my path to wizardry, the rest of the kilometer I had to walk myself.”
The elderly witch scrumped up her nose at him, as if disgusted by his mere presence there at the back of the party and at the far other end of the cavernous room.
Rum suddenly heard steps. Many steps. A marching set of steps that felt eerily familiar. He turned around. Through the tunnel, at whose end he was standing, there came lines upon lines of undead, their feet going clack, clack, clack against the mountain floor as their spears waved back and forth rhythmically. Their skulls, a dozen or two or more, were coming into view quickly, one row after the other, and in pairs, each row filling up the width of the tunnel.
“You’ve bested Jorteg’s Dungeon twice, mage. But there won’t be a thrice. Not after what you did to Veish.”
Now, finally, the experienced dungeoneers of their party turned to look at Rum. This name was new to them, and to Amez for that sake. As he turned back from the skeletons to look at the leading witch, he saw all the faces of his party, everyone sharing a raised eyebrow. Except for Darmon, who presumably hid a raised eyebrow under his helmet.
“Who is Veish?” Elrith whispered in a harsh and accusational tone, though given the stares and glances of the others it was clear that she was asking what was on all of their minds.
“Uuuh” Rum opened his mouth. “Okay, first I’d like to say that VEISH IS FINE.” He said the last bit out loud for the witch at the other side of the room to hear him. Then he went quiet, unsure of what his second set of words should be.
“Well?” Elrith insisted after a very brief pause.
“Okay, so. There is this witch, that is living in Ermos City, and I did, it is true, take her from this dungeon, to bring her there.” Rum explained fast and with wildly animated hands. “But the witch is fine. She probably likes it there.” He froze to look up into the blue and think for the briefest of moments. “Yeah, no, I’m positive that she does prefer it there.”
Elrith’s eyes stood wide. “Not-the-issue” she let out through half-clenched teeth, before turning back to face the little army of mages.
“Yeah” Rum said, not having actually understood Elrith’s reply, “I see what is the issue. There are decidedly more wands aimed at us than a good healthy challenge should require. I’m sorry, but I have this vague feeling that I know that witch over there who appears to have it in for me, and I feel like this encounter might, inadvertently, have been my doing.”
Nobody commented, nobody looked at him, all eyes were on the unfriendly magic users at the other end.
The elderly witch shook her head. “Kill them.” She spoke it like a harsh on-the-spot death penalty. “Each one. Except for that new young man, we’ll take him prisoner.” And she didn’t wait for her minions to do it. No, the evil witch pulled out her own wand from her belt, and aimed it straight at Rum’s upper chest and head, as he towered up from behind the dwarven couple in front, like a peeking target waiting to be struck.
“Rithir–” The sounds of spellcasting went up in the room like the most ominous choir.