Eight Era, cycle 1721, season of Unkh, day 225
Eventually, the marshland gave way to a kind of peat that clung to the boots and made Ember feel like she was wearing 2-inch soles. The peat must have been fertile because, shortly thereafter, they walked down one of the most remarkable paths Ember had ever seen. There was tall grass or maize or something that Ember couldn’t recognise (there were thistle, purple loosestrife, roseleaf sage and purple bush-bean, to name a few), and they’d grown wild and covered a path in a towering arch, so that the sun was streaming though fine gaps. The plants also narrowed the path so they had to walk in single file, and the plants hid the path even as she walked down it, so that every twist and turn was a surprise. It was one of the most delightful walks she’d even been on; the flowers tickled her hair, and she laughed at the absurdity of the path.
‘The butterflies are beautiful,’ Ember said attempting to stroke one in mid-flight.
The path finished with a little wooden bridge over a stream. The sound of the running water was coupled with odd insect-like sounds and strange chittering insects. The stream seemed to be running rather low; watermarks were visible a good few inches above the current level. A large insect like a huge dragonfly flittered around and approached Ember, who held out her hand for it. It duly obliged, and Ember stood fascinated as it crawled up her hand. It reached her palm and shimmered as it passed her wrist, and Ember inhaled sharply as its form changed into that of a tiny woman with large, opal eyes and fourfold wings. The woman’s face was sharp and cruel; the tiny woman hissed, and as she did so long, curled teeth sprouted, and she leaped forwards biting into Ember’s arm.
‘What the…?’ exclaimed Ember.
‘It’s a sprite, not to be confused with a pixie, but the difference is easy to distinguish as the pixie doesn’t drink blood,’ Lyre elucidated, as Ember batted the creature away.
‘Nice one, guys; a bit of warning next time!’ Ember chided, shocked to see streams of blood oozing from her wrist and covering her hand in blood.
‘What did you expect? We’re underground – you get proper monsters down here.’
‘Typical male sentence,’ Ember muttered.
‘Well, you’ve seen it down here; the top side has nothing to compare to our vistas.’
‘Look, I’m not interested in who’s got the biggest what; I am quite happy to say that they are both amazing.’
They continued on, and their path took them to another colossal door. This one opened with a quotation from Duran, which said that knowledge was the right of the weak, and the prerogative of the strong.
‘We shall rest just inside the next path until it starts raining. Then we shall head to the crossing point,’ Lyre confirmed as they waited for the bolts on the door to corkscrew free and the door to swing open.
What the door revealed was a bright, sunny day; jagged and towering hills; twisting and branching olive trees; and the distant thrum of something far off, which Ember couldn’t guess at.
‘We can’t still be underground!’ Ember cried, her voice full of amazement.
‘No, we aren’t. Our highways are full of many wonders, but this is beyond even them; we are indeed outside. The Sealed Path is above ground. Here, we shall wait for the coming storm,’ Alban explained, setting off to what looked like a well-used camp site.
The dwarfs were masters at switching off. In the mornings, they were up and marching within minutes, but, once they decided to rest, they could find themselves at home in a snake pit.
When the rain came, it was a thunderstorm; the wind bent the trees like it wanted to snap them, the rain drove down like nails, and the claps of thunder left Ember’s ears ringing every time it struck.
‘When the clouds create a funnel expanding upwards so it feels like you’re looking into the eyes of Pandora, that’s when you know we’re in the eye,’ Lyre stated his voice feeble above the storm.
The clouds were a roiling mass, sparks of lightning arced between them and down to the ground, a thick branch – or maybe a small tree – was picked up and thrown, and the group had to scramble to avoid being in its erratic path. The rain was more like being hit by water thrown from a bucket than actual rain, and, as the storm raged, Ember found that if she faced the wind, she struggled to breathe.
‘Hit the dirt!’ Ember screamed above the stormed and dived to the floor; the dwarfs dropped and looked around confused, and then a few seconds later a fireball exploded overhead.
‘Mortar fire!’ Zyol yelled, taking out his axe and sprinting for cover.
Ember covered her head with her jacket and curled up as the fireballs exploded above. The fireballs must have been on timers rather than happening on impact, as they exploded before they landed on the ground, and some of them even bounced when thrown at a low trajectory. The wind changed, the explosions sounded more distant, and Ember risked looking up. The wind was catching the fireballs, and they were exploding harmlessly away from the group, but their attackers soon took the wind into consideration, and, as Ember sprinted for cover, the fireballs were curving around with the help of the wind and exposing Ember’s previous shelter.
‘Ambush!’ Lyre called as bandits emerged from cover behind them.
They were large and slow, and looked to be blocking off the dwarfs’ retreat, but didn’t they charge, instead letting the fireballs do the damage.
‘We need to get closer!’ Zyol shouted, rolling out of cover and behind a statue.
‘There isn’t enough cover,’ Alban replied.
‘For Levard!’ Ennolk yelled, and he sprinted out of cover towards the fireballs. He activated one of his abilities, a red haze outlined him before his speed increased, and he sprinted over rocks and through bushes, leaving an Ennolk-shaped path. His run took him into a large boulder where the fireballs were seemingly coming from. He swung his axe, which took on the same red haze, and the boulder exploded with the impact and left Ennolk panting over a small pit, with their attackers diving for cover or crying out in pain around him.
‘Charge!’ Zyol cried.
The rest sprinted towards Ennolk.
Ennolk’s ability must have come with a crippling stamina cost, as his movements were now sluggish. A human male in simple robes and with blood streaming down his face was close to Ennolk. Ennolk raised his axe and brought it down onto the man’s neck, yet Ennolk’s laborious movements were easily dodged. Ennolk raised his axe again and struck down, but the man slipped past the strike once again. The man summoned a fireball as Ennolk charged forwards, and, as Ennolk’s shoulder met the man’s gut, the fireball was released. It exploded against Ennolk’s thigh, and sent both dwarf and human sprawling.
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Ember had pulled out a khukuri, which was a blade with a high level of slash damage, as the dwarfs spun their pickaxes and axes, and charged.
‘No surrender!’ Zyol screamed, and he engaged a mage who’d staggered to one knee. The mage unleashed a stream of fire from her hands, and Zyol was almost completely engulfed, yet his axe burst from the fire, with the pickaxe head glowing from the heat, and struck the mage in the shoulder. Blood sprayed, bone snapped, the mage screamed, and Zyol hair and beard smoked and burned. The flames cut out, and the image of the mage shimmered and rippled like it was a reflection as she raised a barrier and looked to create space.
‘Horace!’ the mage called, and a third mage stopped fighting Lyre to cast at Zyol.
A jet of water erupted from Horace’s hands and slammed into Zyol; the cold water connected with Zyol’s steaming body, tossing Zyol through the air.
‘Zyol!’ Ember cried as the dwarf rag-dolled off a tree, then a boulder and, finally, hit the ground.
‘He’ll be fine; he should have activated his dense skin. You can tell because he’ll be uglier than normal,’ Lyre commented, laughing; he pulled a smaller axe from his belt and tossed it at the water mage.
The axe struck the mage but it bounced off a barrier, moments before a second throwing axe struck the barrier. The mage turned, but only in time for Lyre’s axe to slam into the mage’s knee. The mage staggered, but the barrier remained.
‘What’s with this armour?’ Lyre called.
‘It’s a barrier; it requires constant casting, but provides complete defence,’ Alban replied.
Ember activated her bounty-of-the-snowdrop ability, but after Pidarp’s hammer-shot ability,
Ember’s ability had permanently mutated, and Iisjomfruen activated. A second Ember made from ice appeared and started to mimic her movements.
Ember pulled a kunai from a pouch and threw it at a fire mage; her ice clone also pulled out a knife made from ice, and threw it.
Ember jumped and kicked the fire mage, who shrugged off the hit immediately and threw two punches with flames wrapped around his fists, which Ember dodged. Then the mage activated his fire-breath ability, and Ember had to spring backwards, summersault over a boulder and crouch behind it to avoid the flames. Ember’s ice formation threw a knee at the ribs of the fire mage, who staggered and burned himself on magicka feedback. He turned and cast a flame, but Ember’s ice formation had dissolved into the floor.
The mage stalked over to Ember’s boulder and rounded it; Ember pulled out Peregrine and launched upwards, striking the mage under the chin with her knife, whilst her ice formation – recalled by Ember – slid out from Ember’s body like a snowboarder travelling at speed, and a wave of ice sprayed over the mage’s legs. The mage staggered back, moving slower due a frozen icon over his head. He used an ability that brought fire to his leg, and he kicked out; a stream of fire remained in the wake of his kick, and the ice formation staggered back and was absorbed back into Ember. The mage then delivered a roundhouse kick to Ember, with fire still trailing behind his leg. Ember ducked, then the mage threw a fire punch, and Ember’s ice formation blocked it. Next, the mage created a form of fire whip and lashed out, which burned through the ice formation and broke Ember’s spell, before the mage let forth a gout of fire from his mouth. Ember threw herself backwards and rolled to increase the distance.
The mage flew forwards on jets of flame and grabbed Ember’s arm, with fire pouring from his skin. Ember’s knife was in the hand the mage grabbed, so she gritted her teeth, summoned an ice blade and stabbed it into the mage’s neck, who staggered to the side. Ember’s health had dropped, but – more alarmingly – her magicka had plummeted from just this one fight. She had sunk attribute points into becoming a one-hit killer, not a brawler. The mage struck out again with a whip of fire, and Ember ducked and cartwheeled, bringing a foot up, and kicked the ice knife that was still embedded in the mage’s neck.
Ember pulled a salted lioncarp steak from her pocket and ate it quickly; her magicka increased, but Ember was hit by a fireball to the gut a moment later and was thrown to the ground several feet away. The mage walked over slowly and stood above her; his hands moved as he double cast a fireball, but, instead of realising it, he held it to force both spells into one attack; this was a move that, if he was successful, would more than double the power of the fireball. The mage’s hands moved together so that his wrists touched and both palms faced Ember.
Ember forced her mind onto one image, and, as the mage fired the spell, the world seemed to slow. Ember ignored the cliché, felt the coolness in her palms that signalled ice hilts, and burst from the floor, coming up swinging – literally. She held dual samurai-esque swords and swung them with the intent to cut the mage in half, but she was too slow, her swords struck the fireball, and the swords started to cut through it. The fireball exploded, flinging the mage and Ember more than 20 feet, and Ember struck her head, dropping her life into a dangerous 10%. The world spun around her and lacked any focus, her limbs shook, and the only reason Ember was alive at all was because the swords absorbed part of her damage. But the mage wasn’t nearly as lucky, as the explosion had torn both his arms off.
You have been badly concussed.
All spirit attributes lose 10%
Warning:
Falling asleep whilst concussed is extremely dangerous; seek help immediately.
Ember shook as she stood; she really, really hated a fair fight.
‘The storm’s eye, it nears!’ Alban called as he looked off at the distance.
‘Let’s get to the waterfall; I want to get out of here as soon as possible,’ Zyol said.
In front of the waterfall was a wide basin, which fed a narrow river. In the basin was a flat rock where a figure dressed in a soft, green-and-silver robe stood with arms apart, and bangles, hair and dress dancing in the storm.
‘You weren’t supposed to survive,’ the figure called, and Ember recognised the voice as Fatemeh.
‘We dealt with them; you’ll be but a momentary distraction!’ Zyol shouted stepping forwards.
‘It won’t be as easy as that!’ Fatemeh exclaimed, raising her hands above her head and clapping theatrically. A group of melee-ability-wielding bandits stepped out of the bushes and from behind rocks.
‘Fine, we’ll pay you with blood!’ Zyol yelled.
The bandits charged, the dwarfs charged, and Ember adjusted the grip on her ice swords and sprinted forwards. The dwarfs and Ember were fuelled by potions that had restored part of their health, stamina and magicka bars, but none of them had full stats, whereas the bandits were all perfectly healthy and rested. As the two groups grew nearer to each other, the world seemed to acknowledge the impending action and stopped to watch. Sounds outside the battle quietened, movement stilled, and the two groups clashed.
‘We’re in the eye!’ Lyre hollered, and indeed it wasn’t the fight that had silenced the world but the eye of the storm, which had stilled the storm. The storm clouds parted in the middle and swirled around, funnelling upwards out of range of the eye; lightning cracked and arced inside the cloud funnel; and the grey storm clouds roiled and circled. If Pandora did indeed have eyes like this, then Ember never wanted to meet her.
‘Get to the glade!’ Zyol commanded.
Ember spotted the figure of Alban sprint for the waterfall and pass through it. She took up a fight with a bandit and held him off Lyre’s back, but Zyol shouted again and Lyre told Ember to leave. Ember’s ice-formation ability ended and Ember was left clutching at her empty fists. With infinite guilt, Ember was running and didn’t stop to look back as she sprinted through the waterfall.