I cast Coalesce once more and watched the blue lights form into a ball of water.

“Are those lights Undines?” I asked of the Shard.

They are.

“Would I be able to make a contract with them?”

Not with these, no. These are little more than motes of dust. They have no minds of their own. If you get out of here, I will tell you how to make contact with the elementals.

“Deal?”

Deal.

Before I did anything else, I needed some armor so I wouldn’t get pushed like that again, and so I would be able to fight with less fear of a fatal wound. I walked over to the large dogman’s corpse, grabbed hold of the long chainmail tunic by the shoulders, and began to pull.

I planted my feet on the top of its neck and pulled until it snagged. I rolled the body over expecting to find a buckle or something similar. Instead, I found that the rings of the chain had melded together with parts of the large creature’s flesh. I gagged as I used the blade of the wavy knife to part the armor from the flesh. The burnt skin fell off in seared black flakes. After that section was done I began pulling again, until it snagged on a different section of the dogman’s body. I repeated the process of cutting the burnt flesh, separating it from the chain, and pulling three other times until the chain was over its neck. I carried it down to the basement.

Blood dripped down through the floorboards and pooled on the stone floor of the basement. I stepped around it and pulled up a bucket full of water. I drank a little and scrubbed the gore and matted fur off the chain mail. After it was all clean, I pulled off my hoodie and slid on the armor. It was larger than me. I had to use my belt to tie it up in the middle so that it wouldn’t tussle whenever I walked. It was at least 20 pounds, but compared to my weight, it was nothing. I took a quick drink of water, pulled myself up to the stairs, picked up a spear from one of the dead on the road, and pulled its shield off of its arm.

The fire had begun to die down in the two houses, though the heavy, billowing smoke was still as heavy as it was when it first started. The chain mail clinked and clanked as I walked down the street and stepped into the plaza. There was a single ratman there: guarding the entrance into the large building in the center of the plaza. It had bright white fur and gray eyes. It wore a white robe with the symbol of a dagger with a skull pierced through the top, and carried a long staff, with a crooked top.

It didn’t budge as I approached. I glanced about the plaza: the fountainhead — a king on top of a throne with water pouring out of the top of its head, filled a bowl surrounded by a variety of animals: giant eagles, curled serpents, and brilliant butterflies. Once this bowl was filled, it fell down to the bottom base with animalistic and insectoid figures surrounding the rim. I recognize a few of them; dog people and rat people, joined hand in hand with the cat people.

The rat’s nose twitched, and it tapped its head before uttering The staff glowed a bit, and it cleared its throat and spoke. Its voice was rough and coarse, and its words croaked and cracked.

“Earthen. Allow us to speak before we engage in conflict.”

I gripped my spear. Had it cast a translation spell?

“What do you want?”

“I am the curator of this Temple of Divine Learning, and it is my calling to learn and chronicle the histories of the Conflicts. I wish to know more about your world before you die.”

“I’m not going to die, so let’s save our breath,” I answered, as I pointed the spear forward.

“Ah. It’s a shame. I guess we'll learn more when we take over." The Ratman chuckled as he tapped his staff once on the ground, and steadied himself in a stance.

He raised his staff to the sky and chanted something that I couldn’t understand, and a pillar of wind rushed out toward me. I held up my shield, and the pillar of wind slammed into it and tore my guard away from my body. The pillar of wind picked up underneath my feet and burst upward like a geyser of storm wind. My feet left the earth temporarily, as a pillar of wind formed above me and slammed me back down into the ground. Once the gale died down, I sprang to my feet and charged forward: two howling gales formed on either side of me and slammed into both my back and my front at the same time.

Stolen story; please report.

I flipped my spear over and threw it forward the wind downed down, and another wind picked up around the ratman to deflect the spear. I pulled my wand from my pocket and aimed it at the ratman, who was now in the process of chanting his next spell.

“Oh thou servants of Gob the magnomious, I beseech thee to impale my enemies.”

A sharp intake of air came from the ratman as an arm-length spike jutted out of the ground, and pushed up through its thigh. It howled in pain and tried to pull itself off of the spike.

“Oh thou servants of Gob the magnomious, I beseech thee to bombard my enemies.”

A stone about half the size of my head ripped up from the ground and smashed into the head of the creature. Blood trickled out of its cracked skull as it slumped to the ground. Its white fur turned pink and then dark red.

23/23

Earthen Spike was a much better spell than I thought it would be. Next is...two altars, and this, ‘god-beast.’ I cast Lesser Healing on myself and approached the body of the ratman. I bent down and picked up the staff off the ground. I turned it over in my arm to let the pale light of the moon bleed through the fog ceiling. The varnish on the wood shone. Similar markings to the one on my wand, but much bigger. As I curled my fingers around its round shaft, I felt the wind rustling by a little clearer and could feel a kind of pull toward everything around me. At the same time, two messages flashed through my mind as the Shard in my pocket glowed.

+10 Magic

Skill Granted: Wind Affinity

Huh. I suppose it’s enchanted. I tossed away the spear, took up the staff instead, and stepped up to the large double doors of wood bound in iron.

I pushed through the doors and stepped into a well-lit foyer. A red carpet stretched from the entrance to the door across from me. The red carpet split into two other directions leading to doors on either side of the room, where an empty threshold opened up into a staircase leading upward. I had no desire to climb any more stairs, so I pushed straight into the main room.

Tall shelves stretched up to the high vaulted ceilings. It was difficult to notice from the outside, but behind the massive square roof, was a glass skylight that let in the dim light of the moon; filtering through the glass panes as if caught in a crystal, and shining it down brighter than when it entered. Shelves of books lined the walls of this story, while the two doors on either side of the foyer seemed to lead to the second story of the library. A veritable treasure trove of knowledge.

The thing that caught my eye, however, was just beyond the line of shelves. Curled up on a pall, at the top of a podium, was a feathered serpent, with scales as black as onyx. A pink tongue darted out of its head, hidden beneath its folded, feathered wings. Was this the godbeast? I was expecting something more imposing for a name like that. Instead, it was no bigger than a gopher snake; something my grandfather’s chihuahua used to kill and bring in to scare my grandparents. Was I disappointed? No. It would only mean I was getting out of here earlier. I pointed the staff forward.

“Oh thou servants of Gob the mag—“

Something slammed into my shoulder. In the moment it took me to utter the first phrase of the spell, and now, the black serpent had unfurled its wings and darted through the air. Its long, white fangs were inches away from my throat, held at bay by Repel. I punched upward with the shield, and the serpent wrapped its body around my throat. I grabbed hold of it and began to pull to lessen its hold on my neck. I stuffed my fingers between its rigid, sharp scales, and my throat to stop it from choking the life out of me.

“From the domain of Paimon, I call for you, thou daughters of the wind, dance around me.”

I managed to sputter through the scant breaths I managed to sneak in through the grasp of the serpent's squeeze. As I incanted, it once more bit forward with its jaws. Its teeth sank into the invisible shell, as a spiderweb of cracks began to form around the puncture point just as the floes of air picked up around me. The dome of wind licked at the tips of its black feathered wings and yanked them hard to the side. The serpent reeled up its head in a hiss, and I used that opportunity to grab it by the neck and push its body into the wind. The force of the wind ripped it off of me and flung it around until the wind finally died. It lay on the ground: its wings bent out of shape and broken, trying to flop over onto its back.

I hoisted the staff over my head and smashed the serpent’s head against the ground. I was done...right?

“I can go home now, right?”

No. You have two altars.

“Fuck.” I turned around and kicked one of the shelves. “Why couldn’t they be out in the open?”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. 1:34. Fuck. I searched the first floor over: again wishing that I had a bag. Should I search the nearby houses for another one? No. That would just be a waste of time. For now, I’ll find the altars and get out. If I ever find a way to travel through the fogwall, I will definitely come back here.

As I stepped forward, a sharp burning began to rise from my shoulder. I grasped it and pressed down. A hole had been burned through the chain and was now beginning to be burned through the flesh of my shoulder. My fingers brushed against the burnt, rotting flesh, and they, too, began to burn.

“Shit. What is happening?”

I glanced around the room until my eyes fell upon the serpent’s corpse. Clear liquid dripped from its fangs, and down to the red carpet. The liquid ate a hole through the carpet and scorched the stone underneath. Venom? Fuck. A wave of pain throbbed through my body as the venom began burning through a cluster of nerves.

I pulled out my wand and pointed it at the wound. I had to wash the venom out before it ate any further and seeped into my bloodstream. I spoke through gritted teeth.

“Oh you that dwell within the waters, form for me a bead.”

I cast the spell into the wound, and the cold stung like a thousand knives as it brushed against the nerve. It was almost soothing, compared to the burning venom.

“Oh you that dwell within the waters, form for me a bead.”

The bead of water flushed a bit of the venom out. It wasn’t long, however, until my fingers began to burn as well. Shit. I held my hand in front of my face and watched as the fingerprints on pointer and middle finger of my right hand began to melt away as layer after layer of epidermis was eaten down by the poison. I tried to wrap my hand around the wand, but it fell from my grasp. I hissed in pain. Water. I need water to wash both off. Where...

I rushed outside, and dunked my hand inside of the fountain, before submerging my upper body in it as well. Clear bubbles formed as the venom was carried away beneath the surface. One such bubble brushed against my submerged cheek and seared its way across before coming to rest at the surface in a near green bubble. Once the burning in my body faded, I pulled myself out of the fountain and sank to the ground. This was, perhaps, the closest I’ve come to dying, yet.