“16? Why are you doing a 16 at level 10?”

“It was over the door to my favorite gym!” He said, “Was going there to meet a friend to try to tell him about what’s going on.”

Ah, that’s why he wanted to do it quickly. Maybe? Why did he carry an airhorn with him?

He hissed as his fingers trailed the talon marks on his face. He pulled a canteen off of his belt from beneath the tan cloak and unscrewed it.

“I took a deep, shuddering breath as I clutched my own wounds.

“Hail Mary, full of Grace, I beseech thee to seal my wounds, by the power of Christ thine Heavenly Son.”

I winced as my flesh mended and wove together. Meanwhile, Shawn poured the water over himself. His wounds began to seal themselves as the clear liquid washed the blood down his shirt. The strands of flesh hanging off the sides of the wounds wove together like the roots of an oak.

“What the hell…”

“It’s a part of my wish,” Shawn answered. “I will never suffer an injury again in my life. The water was Neit’s idea: a catalyst for the magic to take effect.”

“That’s OP…” I muttered.

He laughed.

“What was your wish?”

“...a new set of invincible teeth,” I muttered.

“That’s….that’s an awful wish. Why?”

“I didn’t really believe what was happening and I just blurted that out. How did you manage to make such a good wish?”

“Well, I was sleeping and had a dream…”

“A dream? My invitation came on my computer.”

“Really? That’s interesting. I talked to a guy whose invitation came on his heart monitor in a hospital.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

As we talked the door shook and rattled as the harpies tried to ram the door down. The sole window on the far wall was much too small for one of them to squeeze through. The stone spikes had begun to crack, and the wooden boards shattered, as the beaked head of one of the harpies peeked through. I pulled the javelin from the chest of the harpy in the middle of the room and jammed it into its face. The point of the spear punched through its eye and it screeched and yanked its head out.

BOOM. BOOM.

Two heavy things fall onto the roof. Dust filters down as the rafters groan. Through the spaces between the boards that covered the roof, the blue that had been shining through, sand began to trickle in. As the sand piled on the ground. Something landed on top of the roof again. This time softer, followed by another and another. Their movements caused the sands to shift and filter further through into the room.

“What’s going on?” Shawn asked.

“Burying us alive?”

I glanced at the cracked wall that Shawn had managed to. If worst comes to worst we could probably barrel through that I peeked out of the shattered door, and the harpies had retreated and formed a circle around the building. They alternated: one on the ground and one in the air, and I saw a struggling creature that resembled a small child with tan, scaly skin: a mixture between a lizard and a human. It was bald and had bright gray eyes. It struggled against the grasping claws of the harpies that carried it out of one of the larger buildings pressed against the far wall.

“Ui, Siua xomf uciz pa dunnepf…” The harpies began to chant in unison.

Those that held the struggling child flapped their wings and carried the child kicking and cursing.

“Xovj vji cmuuf ug vji oppudipv…”

“What’s going on?”

The sands piled up on the ground began to shift as more filtered in through the boards.

“I don’t know, but we sh—“

A loud screech pierced through the chanting, as a loud thunk resounded on the roof. The sand that came through was thicker now and had a hint of red. The thick sand trembled as it filtered through the cracks. The chanting continued: growing more forceful as the winds outside howled and picked up.

“At, vji tiswept ug Roki, fu howi zua uas usfis: Mowi!”

A rush of energy flowed through me, as the sand, still trembling, began to glow, and the chaos of it falling into small dunes in the room ceased and began to grow more orderly. The four individual peaked dunes began to form together, and a horrible thought came to my mind.

“We need to get out of here.” I urged Shawn who was peeking out of the small slit of a window at the harpies surrounding the back of the house.

“Huh?”

A tendril of sand shot out and slammed into the pit of my stomach with enough force to pick my 300-pound frame off of the ground momentarily. I slammed against the wall behind me and scrambled to pull up the hatch nearby on the floor as another tendril of sand spat forward, and slammed into Shawn’s raised shield.

“In here!” I called as another tendril of slam reached out for me.

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

A small dervish formed in front of me, and knocked aside the tendril of sand, as it reached out for me: scattering the sand in every direction. The sand moved once more from Shawn reached me, pulled up the hatch in my stead, and pulled me down into the cellar. The hatch closed behind us, and it rattled on its hinges as the sand battered against it. We were safe. I breathed a sigh of relief as I pushed myself off the solid ground, and looked around.

What I had though would be a cellar: a temporary reprieve. Instead, we found ourselves in a well-lit tunnel. The ceiling was a domed sandstone construct, with a yellow crystal embedded into the ceiling that casts a light that imitated the light of the setting sun. The floor was made of slabs of marble, segmented into large blocks. Holes were bored into this stone, I stared down into one of these holes and saw my reflection staring back up at me. The tunnel stretched and curved around.

“This is incredible…” I muttered as I ran my hand along the walls.

It was as if it were carved out of a single piece of stone. No seams or mason’s paste held it up. The stone itself was smooth and flawless: no chips or chisel marks. The tunnel stretched past the hatch and curved around on that side as well.

“Which way should we go?” I ask of Shawn, who looks as perplexed as I am.

The hatch shuttered as the living sand slammed against it. The old hinges groaned as the wood warped and bent inward.

“I made a mistake coming here,” I grumbled.