“I can’t believe you led us to believe we’d be fighting a live dragon for twenty minutes,” said Marina, while slapping Pheston’s arm furiously. “Why do you think that sort of thing is funny?”
“It is funny!” chortled Pheston. “But the guardian ghosts that dwell in the Undercity are very much real and very much dangerous.”
Friedrich twisted around, trying to accustom himself to his new steel armour that Bjorn had gifted him. “As much as I appreciate your son’s generous donation,” he said, “I’m not sure how effective it’ll be against ghosts.”
“And if a ghost throws a furious fireball your way?” asked Pheston, beating the armour with his fists. “Dislodges some rocks that would otherwise cave your chest in?”
Teleri spoke up. “Last time we fought ghosts in the forest shrine, only Marina could damage them. Now we all have magic of our own that we can use. I have my enchanted arrows, you have your shield, and Pheston has his hammer. We are in a much better fighting position this time.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Pheston, swinging Vigr around and thumping his chest with his free hand. “You just need to play your part without taking an arrow to the skull, Friedrich. Think you can do that?”
Pheston made it clear in no uncertain terms that visiting the Undercity was strictly prohibited to those who had permission from the king. Every so often, wizards or warriors would make their way underneath to keep the ghosts at bay or to search for rare and valuable ore or artefacts, but the time it would take to win the king’s favour was not worth it, so the party had come up with a plan in conjunction with Bjorn and it rested upon two of Friedrich’s masks.
“There will no problems,” Friedrich replied. He pulled the goblin mask out from underneath his red neckerchief. His steel armour didn’t permit hiding his goblin and spider masks underneath it as easily as his leather armour had, so he thought the next best way to hide the masks was a simply covering of cloth.
Having made their way to the edge of the city where two heavily armoured guards were watching a stone door built into the cliff, the quartet kept themselves concealed behind a nearby shrine to Baldir. Pheston got on his knees and prayed while the others hung back and feigned waiting for him.
“Good luck,” said Marina, standing on her tiptoes and kissing Friedrich on the cheek. “We’ll be waiting for you inside.”
The second her lips touched his face, Friedrich blushed. “Thanks.”
He cleared his throat and walked away to a location where no eyes could fall upon him. Once he checked his surroundings and ensured his solitude, he placed the green goblin mask to his face and transformed. His new armour vanished, as everything else did, leaving him standing much shorter as the green-skinned goblin.
After taking a deep breath, he ran into the open and down the street towards where the guards were. He suddenly let out a high-pitched screech and the guards took notice.
“A goblin?” cried one of them. “By the gods! What’s he doing in Lundstad.”
“Don’t just stand there,” said the other. “After it before it hurts someone.”
The guards chased Friedrich who leapt exaggeratedly into the air and then hurried away from the sword-wielding guards. He made sure they kept within eyesight of him as he ran, all while dodging the occasional citizen who dared to try and catch him. Thinking it best to get out of reach, he climbed on top of a market stall and then leapt onto the nearest roof.
“Get down here!” barked one of the guards.
Friedrich looked over the edge and stuck his tongue out while scratching his armpits. As one of the guards gave the other a leg up, Friedrich ran and leapt onto another one of the roofs, only to be smacked on the side of the head by a tomato and thrown off balance. The Mercian-turned-goblin stumbled off the edge of the building and landed in the alleyway with the guards still chasing him.
He surely had no more than two minutes left before his transformation wore off. The others would no doubt have gotten through the door, but he couldn’t be seen turning back into his human form or his friends would be left to seek the dragon bones alone.
Friedrich threw himself to his feet, ran towards a large temple, and dug his fingers into the crevices between the bricks. He started climbing as the guards closed in on him, pushing himself to escape their grasp. One of the guards brushed his foot with his fingers but couldn’t manage to catch a grip of the goblin, leaving Friedrich to pull himself higher and higher.
Once he reached a flat part of the roof, he danged his feet off the edger and waved to the guards before turning around and smacking his behind in mockery. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the livid faces of the guards who swore up a storm. While yelling their foul-mouthed tirade, he sought cover. Within ten seconds, the goblin mask fell from his face.
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“So far so good,” he said, moving the goblin mask behind the spider mask and placing the charged mask upon his face.
Once he adjusted to his additional eyes and limbs, Friedrich scurried over the roof and shot a small string of web that stuck to the bricks. He then released himself and hopped down the side of the building, keeping the web intact in case his sticky feet lost their grip on an especially smooth part of stone. When he was twenty feet above the ground, he detached the web and leapt onto a rooftop.
He ran across the rooves, keeping out of sight while the roused guards and people desperately searched for the goblin. He had considered using his fox form, but the bright orange fox in the city would attract more attention than the darker and discrete—although admittedly larger than usual—spider.
When he saw the shrine Pheston had been praying it, he hopped back onto the road and scuttled his way towards the now-open door, relieved to see that no other guards had shown up to replace the ones chasing him. He could see the faint gold of Teleri’s hair a little way into the doorway and she beckoned him to hurry. Once he was safely inside, Pheston pushed the stone door to a grinding close.
“Good job, lad,” said the smith, holding out a hand and then shaking one of Friedrich’s spindly legs. “How much longer you got in this form?”
Friedrich had no idea and he shook from side to side to try and communicate that, but his friends all looked to each other in confusion as they tried to decipher his message.
“However long it is,” said Marina, flicking the amethyst in her staff so that it glowed with fizzling electricity, “please stay away from me until you’re back to normal. I hate spider-you, Friedrich.”
“That’s a bit harsh, no?” chuckled Pheston before Teleri shushed him. “Sorry, I forget my volume sometimes.”
“Yes, you do,” she scolded him while looking around in the darkness. “We should move away from the doorway in case the guards decide to check.”
The inside of the Undercity looked no different from any run-of-the-mill cave entrance, consisting largely of stone walls, stalagmites, stalactites, and no shortage of rocks and boulders littering the ground. What set it apart, however, was the carved dragon heads that looked upon the large passageway leading further inside.
“Come on,” said Marina, leading the way forward with her staff held out.
The four walked onwards with Friedrich enjoying his spider form’s ability to see in the dark. Although it was still unusual for him to see with eight eyes, he found that his vision here was clearer than it as a fox in darkness. In fact, it was clearer now than it had been in the outside world of the city. As soon a she started to relax and enjoy the illuminated darkness of the Undercity, he transformed back into a human and was rendered near-blind with only Marina’s lightning to guide the way.
“The guards give you much trouble?” Pheston asked.
“Precious little,” said Friedrich. “They’re probably still trying to get the goblin down from the roof of one of the temples.”
“Heh, that’s what I like to hear. Not to disrespect the fine work my countrymen do, but they were in our way. At least we could shift them without causing them any harm.”
The four emerged into a larger, multi-planed chamber with a pond sitting in the centre. It was surrounded by small runestones that Pheston walked between and read aloud.
“Food,” he said. “Gold. Dragon. Gem. Priest. Ash. Life. Breath.”
“What does that mean?” asked Marina.
“Nothing that matters with, Tierfyr, the dragon of the mountain long dead,” said Pheston, shaking his head. “He was once worshipped by the people of the region before madness took him and he turned on his own followers. Only the most devoted of his cultists remained and upon being killed by Henrik the Dragonslayer—guess how he got his name—the dragon’s priests performed all manner of necromancy to keep both himself and themselves alive.”
“The dragon’s still down here as a skeleton?” asked Friedrich.
“We call a skeletal dragon a dracolich,” said Pheston. “And no, Tierfyr’s dracolich form was also slain by Henrik the Dragonslayer. Would you believe he was seventy-three years old when he did that? The king immediately abdicated the throne and appointed him as King of Lundstad for the last two decades of his life. Quite the man, I have to say. An aspirational figure that’s hard to top in Corobathian history.”
There came a sudden chill that swept through the cave and sent a shiver down everyone’s spine. Even Pheston who was near-immune to cold conditions, shook uncontrollably for a moment.
“What was that?” squeaked Marina.
Teleri quickly drew her bow and looked through the darkness. “I suspect we will know soon enough.”
Friedrich left his sword in its sheath and kept his Shockwave Shield braced on his arm. Should anything come for him, he would be ready.
A sudden wind swelled up and a cackle of glowing, ghostly apparitions materialised from nothing and stood beside the eight runestones. They were all draped in flowing robes and upon their faces, they wore terrifying draconic masks. They drew spectral blades from underneath their robes and rushed towards the party.
Marina unleashed a lightning bolt, striking one of the ghost priests, but he recovered quickly and hurried towards her. She hade a look of terror on her face upon realising that her magic was not strong enough to fell these apparitions with a single strike; this was not something she was used to. With a flick of her staff, she conjured forth the elemental, Shockwave, to aid her.
Teleri’s flaming arrows shot straight through the ghosts, setting them briefly alight before they shook off the fire. She showed not an ounce of fear as she continued to target her enemies while running backwards both quickly and delicately to avoid the thrusting ghostly blades.
Pheston swung Vigr mightily, slamming the hammer into one of the ghosts, sending it whizzing through the air. It slowed itself, recovered, and then made for the burly warrior once again, knowing that he would tire faster than it would. That, of course, did not stop Pheston, who magically extended his hammer and bashed the two encroaching ghosts across the head.
Friedrich kept his shield close and his two pursuers striking, he blocked their strikes and shoved them backwards. With their arms in the air, thrown up by the magic of his shield, Friedrich lunged forward and swung the side of his defender across the ghosts, striking them and eliciting a screeching wail from his foes. Tough foes as they may be, he would see them returned to their graves very soon.