Eight Era, cycle 1720 – cycle of the lost sheep, season of Unkh, day 289
‘Well, do you cede that we are in fact, lost?’ Anthony asked, brushing crumbs off his thighs.
‘Our next action should be to hold a festivity, to ward off evil and encourage benign powers watch us,’ Tayo said to Rui.
The others looked at Tayo with alarm, because the language between Tayo and Rui was little more than growls and aggressive stances.
Rui chewed for a while, swallowed and then responded, ‘These benign forces, just how benign are they?’
‘They can bestow blessing,’ confirmed Tayo.
‘Do we get anything to smoke? I do love a good hedonistic ritual,’ Rui stated.
‘Herbal tea; we shall wait for the scent to spread.’
Tayo traced a circle inside the firelight with his foot; when the many lazy lines connected, the light of the fire withdrew into the circle, closing them in. Tayo grunted and threw some powder into the fire, which switched colours. Tayo then placed a kettle onto the fire and waited for the water to boil before grabbing bits of the charcoal out of the fire, sprinkling it into the kettle, stirring it with his finger, pouring it into a two wooden bowls and adding a few herbs from a buckle belt Rui hadn’t noticed before.
‘The drink attunes us to the spirits?’ Rui asked taking a sip.
‘No,’ Tayo replied.
‘So the drink is…?’
‘The salts are expensive; a waste.’
‘Ah, fair enough,’ Rui said, taking a sip; it tasted of hibiscus and wasn’t all that pleasant.
There was a sudden solidity about the shadows; Rui squinted at it, but his identification skills failed him.
‘I am Amatharala,’ the shade announced, making the three youngsters of the group jump.
‘Well, well; I didn’t actually expect that to work,’ Rui blurted.
Rui got the impression that the shade – Amatharala – was looking into him; Rui coughed.
‘Delighted to make your acquaintance; are you a spectrum from the outer wylds?’ Joha asked jumping to his feet.
‘Spectre,’ Bethan corrected.
‘Do not pester me with your petty concerns; I do not care for circumlocution or idle prattle,’ Amatharala declared.
‘We seek passage through this maze, knowledge of what awaits us and how to best it,’ Rui said, cutting through the jibber-jabber.
It sounded like Amatharala inhaled through its teeth. ‘Regardless, I am not comfortable talking about such matters. The knowledge of this place is not my secret to reveal.’
‘Are you not duty-bound in some way to those who summoned you?’ Bethan enquired.
‘What is the cause of your reticence?’ Joha added.
‘I am duty-bound to hold my silence on many things. This is not something I feel comfortable with disclosing,’ responded Amatharala.
There was a long silence as the group looked at each other.
‘Why did you think this would be helpful?’ Bethan asked, Rui who just shrugged.
‘Would it be possible to take us there blindfolded?’ Rui suggested at last.
There was a short pause; Amatharala seemed to be discussing something with someone on a different plane of reality. ‘That will not be required; follow the wisps,’ Amatharala confirmed, and with that the spell was broken and the light of the fire flooded out of its confines.
‘It has gone,’ Tayo announced with a nod.
‘What was it?’ Rui asked.
‘I know not, for they are the past,’ explained Tayo.
‘Look!’ Anthony said, running forwards a few steps and pointing.
‘That must be the wisp,’ Joha cried excitedly. ‘Quick, it’s moving.’
*
‘Well, I find that to be cheating,’ Joha declared, looking up at a hole in the celling.
‘No wonder we couldn’t find the exit,’ Rui agreed.
‘There’s a rope up there; give me a boost as I think I can reach it,’ Bethan said.
Bethan climbed onto Joha’s thigh as Joha crouched, and then she knelt on his shoulders, holding on as he stood. Then Bethan used the walls of the hole in the celling to steady herself as she stood up on Joha’s shoulders and grabbed the rope. Tayo watched, stepped forwards and then lifted Joha by the thigh so that he could reach the rope.
‘Whoa! Oh… thanks, man – a little warning next time, though,’ Joha requested, grabbing the rope.
‘What did they make it out of, barbs?’ Bethan called as she climbed.
‘Perhaps the uncomfortableness of the rope was a further defence?’ Anthony asked as he started the climb.
They climbed; time was an elusive mistress as they climbed the coarse, scratchy rope in complete darkness.
‘My hands are cut to ribbons. If that orc son was lying, I’ll hunt him down; by the seven gods of chaos, I will cut his face off and use it to absorb my next bleed cycle!’ Bethan cursed.
‘Out of breath?’ Joha questioned Anthony, who was panting loudly.
‘No, it is a pain management trick,’ explained Anthony.
‘Ah, vocalising your pain?’ suggested Joha.
‘Something like that,’ Anthony said, puffing on every outbreath.
‘I am finding it hard to grip; it is getting rather damp.’ Joha said after a moment, his voice was strained as the pain grew.
‘I’m so sorry; I’ll try to keep my flesh on my hands then,’ Bethan replied.
Even the sweat on Joha’s body felt like an extra weight; he reached up an arm, gripped, braced, pulled his legs up, gripped the rope with his feet, braced and pulled up. Again and again and again and again: reach, brace, pull. He blinked, his vision swam, and his eyes stung as the salty sweat ran freely. He was still not at the top, so it was reach and pull, again and again. He felt claustrophobic in the tunnel.
The air around him changed; somehow, it felt less invasive. After wiping his eyes over his left bicep, Joha blinked and peered around. The tunnel walls weren’t there; was he hallucinating? He reached over with shaking arms, and felt around, up and down, and felt the ground – the sweet, sweet ground! Slowly – oh so slowly, gradually, sluggishly and whatever other synonym you wish to use – Joha climbed out of the hole.
‘We made it; we made it!’ Anthony was saying kicking his feet and kissing the ground; he was also laughing, his voice choked and breaking.
Methodically, Bethan started to dress her wounds; she damped a cloth in a magicka potion to clean her cuts. (Infections were just as virulent on the Sphere as Earth or perhaps worse. Superbugs are nothing to joke about, but they have nothing on a semi-sentient plague.) Finally, Bethan placed a green jelly-like substance over her right hand and wrapped it in bandages, wrapping the middle and third finger together first before creating a kind of mitten finish from a vague idea that it was the correct thing to do. Her left hand was healed, but she hadn’t enough potion to heal both hands; the jelly was a few bronze, whereas the potion was a gold piece each!
The air was bracing; Joha closed his eyes to it and let the cold air soothe his growing headache.
The cold air felt like it was scrubbing his brain clean of the heavy, aching throb.
‘Rather dramatic scenery,’ Tayo said, breaking into Rui’s meditation.
Rui looked around blinking. ‘At some point, we have rejoined the outside; perhaps this wasn’t a temple but a castle, and this is the exterior wall? Without any balustrades? Curious.’
‘I bet there’s a cliff edge close by,’ Bethan posited.
Rui frowned; talking to Tayo in one language and someone butting in in a different tongue was a bit difficult to keep up with. ‘What?’
‘There’ll be a cliff edge nearby,’ reiterated Bethan.
‘What?’ Rui repeated.
‘It’ll have some roots growing out of it,’ Bethan continued confidently.
‘I’m not sure roots grow from cliff edges as a rule.’
‘They’ll grow spontaneously,’ Bethan said nodding, ‘as drama demands it.’
Rui looked up at the clear night sky; only Anoulios was visible, which was a bad omen. ‘Perhaps.’
‘What are you thinking?’ Bethan asked.
Rui rolled his eyes. ‘You can’t settle, can you? Why can’t young people be happy in their own silence? I was just thinking about how beautiful it is.’
‘The night?’
‘The universe, an infinitely possible place; do you think each of those stars has a planet like ours?’ Rui pointed. ‘Regarding Issalnar, the blue star, legend says that that a great mage started a school, and the mages there found a spell that would give them complete safety. Upon completion of the spell, they were transported to a new planet created by their magic. Rillenlon, which orbits the star Issalnar. That story, fascinated me as a child.’
‘Is that true?’
‘Who knows, so much knowledge is lost. If we could but create a device more powerful than a telescope that the sailors use, we might be able to see. If we ever discover all the secrets locked away on the Sphere than I might find peace, but could one mind hold so much information? Perhaps that’s why we lose knowledge? Only so much information can ever be known at once?’
Bethan looked confused. ‘Well, how the devils would that work?’
Rui shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but we always seem to lose so much, almost like there’s an invisible set of scales.’
‘It’s just the monster attacks.’
‘It isn’t, though, is it? There’s always something – always suffering and strife; chaos rules above all other gods. An east wind blows, kid. It always does in this world; the world was forged in war and it always returns.’
‘Light can beat dark,’ Anthony said forcefully.
‘Light is new and foreign to this realm. Darkness was here first and will be here long after the light has gone out. Light must strive every day to shine, and it needs fuel – heroes. Whereas, darkness only ever needs light to waver to return, it is inherent,’ explained Rui.
‘You don’t believe that evil is natural?’
‘Evil, I’m not so sure about; evil is a way of looking at things from a specific viewpoint. But light is different. It is change, and that’s why it is so valuable and should be cherished, so light can grow and change; darkness is stagnant.’
*
Anthony had passed out and woke feeling bad. His thoughts were groggy, his limbs felt heavy, and pins and needles ran through his arms like an electric current. Anthony’s hands shook as he moved. He pulled a blood pack out of his backpack; the blood pack didn’t actually hold any blood, rather it was a potion that helped supplement lost blood. It needed to be packed quickly in a sealed container as it became inert after a few minutes’ exposure to the air. After drinking the pack and waiting for a moment to make sure he didn’t vomit it back up – a genuine concern with the blood pack – Anthony suppressed a burp, felt a little bile reach the back of his throat and then looked up. Rui offered him a bowl of steaming soup, which Anthony ate, washing it down with the entire contents of a water bottle.
‘What’s that noise?’ Bethan asked, looking around curiously.
Rui stood and pricked his ears intently. ‘Our next challenge, I suspect.’
They crept forwards, and the sound of a deep voice humming becoming clearer and clearer. As they reached the bottom of some stairs, they peered around the last corner and felt their breath catch.
‘It’s got a face!’ Joha whispered.
They moved out into the corridor and approached the door. A gnarled face, seemingly grown from the door, nodded its head as it hummed; if it noticed their arrival, it gave no sign.
‘Are you the guardian of the door?’ Bethan called, and her voice cracked a little.
‘What door?’ the face questioned.
‘Um, the door you’re attached too?’ Bethan replied, suppressing a giggle.
The face moved slightly, and its eyes flicked around, but it had no neck and was unable to see the door it was on.
‘I see no door,’ it responded finally.
‘What is your name?’ enquired Bethan.
‘Bemethias,’ it confirmed.
‘You’re in the middle of a doorway; is there a way past you?’ Joha asked.
‘Oh yes, but not all may pass,’ confirmed Bemethias.
‘So are you a guardian of something?’ Joha probed.
‘Yes, although I have never visited it,’ Bemethias told them.
‘Who was it that created you?’ Anthony asked.
‘The person who created me was called Ganelad; he never gave a name to those he served other than there was a king. King Aruta, I think,’ explained Bemethias.
‘Where did they go?’ Rui questioned.
Bemethias pondered, ‘Did they go anywhere? I heard some heavy sounds some time ago, but no one said to me they were leaving.’
‘Does it get lonely or boring?’ Bethan quizzed.
‘What is “boring”?’ Bemethias asked.
‘I would say starring at the same wall for countless ages, and eons with no company or any distractions as the sands of time slip away is a reasonable description,’ Rui replied with a laugh.
‘Is it? It never occurred to me that it should be,’ Bemethias mused.
‘Do you know where you are and what lands these are?’ Joha interrogated.
‘It never occurred to me to ask,’ Bemethias replied.
‘Between this and the room of riddles, this is more than I dared hope for!’ Rui exclaimed, mostly to himself.
‘How may we get past?’ Joha asked.
‘You must speak the word to pass; that is, the password.’ Bemethias said.
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‘What is it?’ Anthony asked.
Bethan rolled her eyes.
Bemethias confirmed, ‘That is what you must tell me.’
‘Nice try,’ Bethan muttered under her breath.
‘How can we know? This place has been lost for countless years,’ Joha said out loud.
Bemethias nodded but didn’t respond.
‘There is no other way?’ Bethan questioned, approaching Bemethias slowly.
‘None that I know of; that’s why I guard this entrance,’ he replied.
‘You seem to be made of wood,’ Bethan noted, stroking the door. Taking her hand back, she held it in front of Bemethias and moved her hand quickly; fire sprang around it. ‘It would be a shame if you burned.’
‘Fire, fire, get it away!’ Bemethias cried, blowing at Bethan’s hand.
‘Quick, get away from it!’ Bethan said in mock concern.
There was a click and the door swung open; Bethan waved the group through and they passed through the doorway. As the door closed Bethan let the fire go out and burst out laughing.
‘That should not have worked; that door is as hard as metal, so it would not burn,’ declared Joha.
‘He is rather a poor guardian,’ Bethan said, nodding.
‘Perhaps the magic has faded through the aeons,’ Rui replied sadly.
‘Bugger, I almost tripped over something; they need to make torches that fit to a hat,’ Joha suggested.
‘By the gods, that’s cold!’ Anthony said in a high-pitched squeal.
‘What?’ Rui and Joha asked simultaneously, both concerned.
‘I stepped into a river; it is freezing,’ explained Anthony.
‘Is it deep?’ Joha enquired.
Anthony answered, ‘It’s around ankle height and as cold as a corpse; it’s a good job I wear boots.’
‘Strange that I can’t hear anything.’
‘It must be standing water then.’
‘It doesn’t have the smell of stale water about it.’
‘Great, now my foot is squelching; I hate a wet foot!’
They moved on, mostly in silence, until the light was bright enough for them to cancel their spells.
‘It’s the plants,’ Joha declared, pointing.
They moved over to investigate the luminescent plants.
‘They’re some sort of fungus,’ Rui said touching one with the hilt of a knife.
They arrived at a large, circular room with three corridors, plus a collapsed bridge, leading away. The walls were covered in irregular shapes, which, in turn, were all covered in a thick layer of mud, as though the chamber had once been flooded.
‘Was this built by the King Aruta’s people do you think?’ Anthony asked.
‘Maybe; is this metal?’ Joha questioned, brushing dried mud off a glinting light to reveal a faded gold pipe. ‘Bronze?’
‘Well, it isn’t gold,’ Bethan commented, scratching it with a finger.
‘What did they need the pipes for?’ Anthony wondered.
‘What kind of gods did they worship? These are not statues of gnomes,’ Joha said, studying a statue and scraping the mud off it.
Rui beamed; if there was one thing he liked nearly as much as finding secrets, it was watching other people enjoying the same wonder.
‘Is it me, or do they look sort of short?’ Bethan quizzed, stepping back and studying the lengths of the limbs compared to the torsos and heads of the series of statues. ‘They’re rather dumpy around the gut, and their hands and limbs are thin enough, but they aren’t gnomes or dwarfs either.’
‘They’ve got ratty faces – they’re very pinched and protruding forwards, like rats’,’ Anthony described.
‘They aren’t exactly noble looking either; more callous and captious, in fact,’ Bethan said, unimpressed with the more-than-1,000-year-old statues.
‘They are complicit in illicit affairs,’ Joha declared with a laugh.
‘How can you tell they look captious? It sounds more like an action than a look,’ Anthony suggested.
‘Don’t you think they look like they’re judging you?’ Bethan replied.
Anthony deliberated, ‘That isn’t what captious means is it?’
‘I always thought it meant that they’re haughty, and nothing you do is good enough,’ confirmed Bethan.
‘That’s not really what it means,’ Rui said waggling a finger.
‘Now you are simply being pedantic,’ grumbled Anthony.
‘That’s just about what it means!’ Rui said beaming, and he laughed at Bethan’s expression.
‘Where do these pipes go? And what are they used for?’ Anthony asked idly.
They looked up. There was a recess in the celling with pipes disappearing into its depths, and then the pipes wound around the room and down the different corridors; it looked like a drawing from H R Giger.
‘There’s a cog here; so these pipes were pressured then?’ queried Anthony.
There was a grinding noise: the sound of stone being dragged along stone.
‘What was that?’ Joha said, spinning around.
They looked around curiously; nothing obvious seemed to be happening until their lights shone back along the path they had taken. A large shield-shaped object was assembling itself; it was made from stone and hanging a few inches off the ground. Once it had grown to more than 5 feet tall, it pivoted to reveal an enormous face. It spoke a tongue that sounded like air passing through a gorge.
‘Did you make any of that out?’ Joha asked around.
‘Do you speak other languages? Can you learn new tongues?’ Rui called to the creature; he was struggling enough in communicating with Tayo, and he didn’t stand a chance of speaking a stone tongue.
Its reply was just as unintelligible; more rumbles and clinking of stones sounded as the creature grew, with thick pillars starting to rise from the ground like a Frankenstein creation made from rocks.
‘I don’t think this is going to be a welcome party,’ Bethan declared, looking around.
A massive boulder was dragged across the floor by some unseen force; it wasn’t moving fast, but something that heavy didn’t need to. The sharp corner of a stone cracked into Anthony’s thigh; swearing loudly, Anthony stumbled back, clasping a hand to his thigh. A stone cracked against Tayo, but he didn’t notice the massive stone bounce off him.
‘Should we… run?’ Bethan asked as something cracked against her shin. She cursed, started hopping, rubbed her shin and looked down at what had hit her. A rectangle of stone was at her feet, which was standing on end and reaching up to mid-shin level. She frowned; it hadn’t been there before. As she looked at it, something struck her as odd about it. Amidst the natural grain of the stone, it had something close to facial features. The small hole near the top could be a mouth, and just below that the stone swept back a little to make a chin. What she had thought of as purely random patterns near the top could be the swirls of stony eyes.
Squatting down, Bethan reached out a hand and touched the stone; it wobbled like it was unstable, although if an animal had done that, she’d have said it had stepped back shyly. And now that she looked closely, there was a long crack that could be the gap to make a pair of legs. Bethan reached out a hand slowly, and the stone skittered back to keep out of reach; Bethan’s jaw dropped. Suddenly, she realised that the room had fallen silent and, looking around, she noticed a sea of creatures standing motionless.
Bethan turned her outstretched hand so the palm faced towards the little creature and twitched her fingers in a gentle “come hither” gesture. The creature moved forwards slowly and stretched out an arm, which Bethan took, feeling the weight and warmth in it. There was the noise of several tons of stone moving simultaneously, and Bethan looked up to see the creatures had taken a step closer.
‘I think it would be best to take tremendous care with that creature,’ Rui said, hardly moving his lips.
‘We could use it as a hostage?’ Bethan suggested, not cruelly but just as a practical suggestion.
‘That would be extremely foolhardy,’ Joha declared, and even his voice was sweating at the idea.
The little creature stepped into Bethan’s reach and touched the cloth that covered Bethan’s arms, tugging at it, biting it and spitting it back out with a sound similar to waves washing over a stony beach. It touched her hand and bit on her fingers, not hard, but it still made Bethan draw her hand back with a gasp of pain. The creature skittered backwards, and there was another sound of the other stone creatures moving in unison, but the creature moved towards Bethan once more, and the creatures stopped. It tugged at her trousers and bit on the corner of her boot before losing interest and waddling away.
‘Trolls?’ Anthony asked softly.
‘They’re unlike any troll I have ever seen or met; more like the trolls of legend, which I took for myth.’ Rui elaborated, and then he studied the creatures.
Race: goji
Genus: gargoyle
Class: D
The goji have been mostly forgotten as a race; due to their high physical resistance and low experience payout, most adventurers started to avoid locations where goji were known to be. Eventually, these locations became forgotten, and the goji were left to myth and legend.
Affiliation: Kulla
Harvestable items: unknown
State: uncertain
Level: 18
Health 3,600/3,600, stamina 900/900, magicka 900/900
Three gates open.
Endowments: impact resistance, immune to slash damage, earth magicka resistance
Curses: none
Bestiary increased
‘Fascinating! A forgotten race in a forgotten city; quite appropriate,’ Rui said, smiling.
‘Well, as unexpected as all this was, we should be getting on,’ Bethan stated, getting to her feet.
‘But, but, but, but the creatures!’ Rui cried, slightly manically.
‘But, but, but you sound like a chicken,’ Bethan declared with her hands on her feet.
‘Chickens don’t talk,’ Rui replied petulantly.
‘That’s the last door,’ Bethan announced, looking at a large, circular door with a large latch.
‘How do you know it’s the last?’ Rui queried, his interest rekindling.
Bethan used both hands to throw the latch, and the door must have been weighted as it rolled to the side.
‘This is why I travel alone; there’s no time to explore!’ exclaimed Rui, dragging his hands through his hair. Reluctantly, Rui followed the others into the room, casting many a look back but reassuring himself that, once the young interlopers were gone, he could explore at his leisure.
‘How do you know this is the last room? Anthony asked.
‘I have the dungeon-raider specialisation, and I used it to unlock the completionism skill; it lets me know how far through our exploration we are, and this is marked as the last room. There might be secret rooms and things, but unless there’s something seriously powerful using a stealth skill, I can guarantee this room holds the last fiends. Once they’re dealt with, I’ll get the cleared achievement and around 10,000 experience points. It’s a sweet skill!’
‘So, a boss fight,’ Joha pronounced.
‘Usually.’ Bethan nodded.
Rui caught sight of the far wall, covetous intent filled his eyes, and his mouth salivated in rapacious desire.
‘Eww, why’s he drooling?’ Bethan questioned, catching sight of Rui.
What had caught Rui’s desire was a wall covered in script: a 12-by-20-foot space covered with the final testimony of the precursors to the three gnome tribes, and collapsed in a corner were the remains of three gnomes, which clearly had been dead for millennia, as the steps of Tayo caused the bones of the gnomes to disintegrate.
‘Hey, check this out,’ Anthony said, picking up a sceptre covered with jewels.
‘It’s a bit garish,’ Bethan uttered with a sniff.
‘With this vessel, I become king of the gnomes!’ Anthony declared, swinging the sceptre like a sword.
A piercing radiant light punctured the room and blinded the group; they called out in pain and even Tayo let forth a keening howl of anguish. It was impossible to tell when the light ended, as they all suffered a blinded debuff. It didn’t, however, affect their hearing, so they all heard the screams of fear and cries of pain from Anthony as his soul was wrenched from his body and tortured by something that took possession of his body.
You have been blinded.
100% of vision is lost for the next 10 minutes, 1% of vision will return every 6 seconds
‘Cleanse!’ Rui shouted, clearing everyone’s blind debuff and even clearing up Joha’s acne.
‘Anthony!’ Joha yelled, running over to his friend.
Blue light tore through Anthony’s body, and shot out of his pores and orifices, as Anthony’s voice – distorted by abuse – set everyone’s teeth on edge and raised the hairs on their bodies.
Anthony’s head snapped down, his hand reached out, and pale-blue flames shot out and engulfed Joha, who screamed in pain. Bethan turned and sprinted at Joha, jumped at him shoulder first, and knocked him out of the path of the burning flames. Bethan screamed and writhed around in agony as her skin blistered and burned. Tayo rushed forwards, holding his hand out and standing in front of the flames; he grunted as the flames swept over his hand and seared his body, but he resisted the pain and charged forwards, protecting his face from the fire as he neared the possessed Anthony. As Tayo closed the gap, Anthony ceased the fire and levitated upwards, swiping his arms and twisting his head upwards to face the celling. Static built up, and Tayo leaped forwards, grabbing Anthony by the leg and throwing him into the floor. Anthony looked up from the floor and at Tayo, sparks leaped from his eyes, and he unleashed a fork of lightning, striking Tayo in his chest and throwing him across the room to impact the far side with enough force to crack the walls, and cause the room to shake and dust to descend from the ceiling.
Rui reached Joha and cast a healing spell. Joha’s skin was covered with pus-filled blisters, and to stabilise Joha’s condition Rui wrapped the exposed muscle in cloth to avoid infection. Rui turned to Bethan and paused. Joha had lost most of the skin on his left arm and most of his hair, had major burns over his face, and his right shoulder was badly blistered, but Bethan was terrible to see. Her skin was blackened, it split and oozed at Bethan’s smallest movement. At that point, Rui wasn’t sure Bethan was lucky to be alive; it would have been luckier if she had died.
Rui had a bag full of powerful healing potions, yet they’d take months to heal Bethan properly, or weeks if she didn’t mind scarring. To even stabilise Bethan, then Rui would need hours; he looked up as the room shook and spotted Tayo in a cloud of dust. Rui cursed; this was why he went slowly and set up plans, traps, and traps within traps. He really didn’t like reacting on the fly, even before losing his leg he’d been slow and methodical, and this was the worst case: a powerful enemy and no time to heal anyone. On the other hand, Rui did have a creature so powerful it was practically immortal, so Rui devised his strategy around Tayo and letting him get beat upon, and so he cast his taunt spell.
Taunt had two main parts: the taunted target and the nominated taunter. The taunted target would focus on the taunter for the most part, but the target’s senses were still present, and if it noticed any danger, the spell would break. So you couldn’t use taunt to attack the target and expect it to ignore the damage, and you couldn’t use taunt to charge up a mega-powerful spell and expect the target to ignore you. But Tayo was the biggest beast in town, so that would make the spell more successful, and so, hopefully, the possessed Anthony would ignore the injured Bethan and Joha.
Rui grabbed a handful of soil and, as he stood, he spun, threw the dirt out and twirled his wrist; the dirt spread out and acted like a curtain, hiding Rui from view. Despite the fact that the spirit possessing Anthony was facing off against Tayo, the action still caused Anthony’s head to turn and inspect the dirt curtain; his body moved and twisted lithely away from Tayo’s hands. A moment later, five Ruis ran out from behind the curtain; Rui hadn’t needed the curtain for protection, but to disguise which one was the real Rui.
The spirit cast a blue flame at one of the Ruis, which spun to the ground, burning and shouting in pain. Anthony’s face split in a smile, with the spirit thinking it had guessed right on its first casting, then it frowned as Tayo stepped out of yet another cloud of blue flames. The spirit didn’t know what this four-armed creature was, but it wasn’t going down easily. Whilst it was true that the spirit wasn’t at its full strength, the spells it had cast so far had taken down witchfinder generals.
Tayo grunted at the heat; his skin was blistering and it was stopping his health from regenerating, yet he wasn’t afraid. It wasn’t a male thing – it was a personal thing; he just didn’t find humans frightening. Even though this human had shown powerful magicka that would be capable of killing him, Tayo just wasn’t scared of it. So, once more, Tayo stepped forwards, with his health near critical and without any idea of how to kill this annoyingly agile human.
The spirit opened its hand; Tayo was struck by a powerful bolt of lightning, a flash of blinding light followed and a clap of thunder a moment after. Tayo staggered back; a large gash had opened on his forehead from the impact of the lightning and Tayo took another debuff, which further stifled his regeneration. The spirit frowned as it noticed Rui’s duplication spell was still in effect, yet he’d clearly struck Rui. The duplication spell was just an illusion; his flames would have passed right through any duplicate and yet it had struck, which meant it must have struck the real Rui. Also, the duplication spell was an active spell that would fail once the caster took damage or cast a different spell. So either this was a passive spell lasting for a set time or…
Rui’s fingers splayed open and a shimmering net flew from his hands – from the hands of each Rui, in fact – and, as agile as the spirit was, it couldn’t dodge eight simultaneously cast spells, and three of the nets trapped it in place.
‘Now!’ Rui shouted.
And Tayo slammed his balled fists down. Even though he was caught in a net, the spirit twisted Anthony’s body so that Tayo’s massive fists caught him only a glancing blow; yet even that glancing blow brought the unmistakeable and sickening sound of bone snapping.
Anthony’s mouth opened and issued a scream of pain; Anthony’s only working arm was brought up and a roiling, sickly coloured mist – more like a laser than smoke – burst out of his palm; it struck Tayo, who finally let forth a bellow of pain as he was struck by the pain spell.
Spell: pain
Share your pain by inflicting 50% of your received damage back on your enemy; your health will not be restored, but at least your foe will know pain.
The spirit used the moment to thrust its hand up high, chant and cast; a slew of flames soon cascaded down and around him like a fountain of flames, which grew outwards and burned the netting away. The flames subsided, and Anthony was revealed from behind the firewall. His left arm was crippled and bones jutted out, yet no blood flowed; instead, pallid, blue light shone from under his skin. The light pulsed, and static sparks shimmered and spat in the air around Anthony, and his hand shot out and one of the Ruis was thrown back into a wall at the same time as a thunderclap sounded. The other Ruis turned to look and disappeared one by one.
‘Unlucky shot,’ Rui said, standing and patting down his robes, which were singed at the impact site.
Battle log:
Hit by bolt for 4,000 damage points, resist 25%
Hit blunt object (wall) for 2,000 damage points
Chain strike, 10% additional damage received 600 (10% of 4,000 + 2,000)
‘It is annoying that my identification only highlights Anthony, so we have no idea what this creature’s levels are,’ Rui complained, holding out a hand and summoning his staff, which he tapped on the floor. At strategic points around the spirit, the air rippled and folded to create four mirrors, which continued to distort until five Ruis (including the real one) stood there.
Tayo was attacking, but now – having been freed – the spirit was able to dodge and counter, and Tayo looked to be flagging, as the accumulated damage was taking its toll on the juggernaut.
‘Shuffle,’ Rui commanded, but nothing seemed to happen.
Tayo kneeled and then sprang, shooting forwards like a bullet, and missing the spirit narrowly but tossing it through the air from the turbulence. The spirit hit a wall hard, but recovered quickly and darted towards Rui, ignoring the duplicates and washing Rui in flames. The tide of flames bulged, and, suddenly, Anthony’s body was on fire; he dropped to the floor screaming and rolling around in the dirt. The mirrored version of Rui was blackened by the flames and distorted from the heat, so he dispelled it. There was no point having a mirror version that wasn’t identical, it would defeat the point of the trap. If Rui could learn to cast the shuffle spell silently, then his trap would be perfect; as it was, very few people outside his monastery spoke his tongue, so the trap was near perfect enough for most occasions.
Tayo stalked up to the spirit slowly; it got to its feet gingerly, held out a burned and oozing hand, and winced as it cast its flames. Yet the spell was weakened; the flames were no longer blue, but were a deep red, fading to yellow; and Tayo walked through them without pause. The spirit stepped back, and Tayo grabbed the arm and squeezed. The sound of flesh and bone snapping, and muscle squelching turned Rui’s stomach over. Then Tayo brought his fist back and threw a punch, which took off the top half of Anthony’s body and plastered it over the far wall.
Rui wiped his brow, staggered over to the unconscious Joha and Bethan, and placed them close together before encircling them in a magicka circle.
‘Good team work, Tayo; you have my thanks. I think we make a good pair, if you wish to travel together? But, right now, I must heal the wounded. Forgive me, as I won’t be able to speak for a while,’ Rui said before starting the long process of healing the two fallen fighters.