While they rested, Tahir took blood samples of the hellhounds at Theo’s request, while she drank a potion to speed up the healing of her burned hands. Afterward, the trio huddled close together while Neveroth inspected another platform, one that presumably led deeper into the ruin. Tahir took the opportunity to look around. He could see similar carvings on the wall to the first room. Words in a language he didn’t recognize, likely Vudran. Depictions of figures bowing down to a floating, skeletal figure with glowing eyes, with a massive horned shape behind them. Other figures with green flames drawn where their hearts would be, fighting against long-eared figures with different clothing than the rest; elves, maybe?
While they had the time, he glanced over to Neveroth, opening his mouth to speak, but thinking better of it. He turned to Metilia and whispered what he wanted her to say. After a raised eyebrow, she humored his request. “Neveroth, if you don’t mind answering, can you tell us more about the mark you’re seeking here?”
Neveroth said nothing for several seconds. Tahir thought she was ignoring them until she finally spoke. “Very well. The man I seek is named Zorhe Mirsk. He was one of many in Vudran who practiced forbidden soul magic, gained from vile archdemons.” She looked around at the depictions along the walls. “Soul magic, and the pursuit of immortality are not taboo, despite my lord’s distaste for them. What one does with their life is their own business. A long one is a curse as much as a blessing.” She turned, and her gaze finally settled on the three of them. “Zorhe involved the lives, and souls, of others in his machinations, using them as fuel to extend his own life and empower himself. For that, he shall face judgment.”
Tahir released a breath he didn’t know he held in until she finished speaking. He paled at the talk of soul magic, which his spirit summoning fell into. Thinking on it, he felt sure that no one would allow instructions to magic that the gods themselves deemed unholy would exist in a public library. At least, not enough for him to actually make use of it.
While he focused on that, Metilia gleaned something else from Neveroth’s words. “So you are saying that you’re searching for a lich?” She asked. The words hung in the air, and Neveroth’s only answer was a curt nod.
Out of our depth is an understatement. Tahir considered what he knew about liches. Immensely powerful, undead spellcasters who could not be killed by ordinary means. Typically a mithril level threat at minimum, but the ancient ones in records of the redclouds had to be dealt with by adamantine members, who are all legends in their own right. At this point, Tahir thought he barely qualified for gold; Theo and Metilia seemed better contenders for the same rank despite not being Redclouds themselves.
He looked to the erinyes. With that information in mind, she still allowed the trio to come down with her. So she had to be confident that she could kill a lich mostly by herself, and the three of them would focus on survival. “We have spent enough time here.” She announced, and started walking toward the platform to the next part of the ruin. “Let us proceed.”
At her words they wasted no time getting to their feet to follow behind. Tahir’s aura had mostly recovered, and Theo’s palms were free of burns. They stood up on the platform beside the erinyes, weapons at the ready, and braced themselves as she activated the teleportation circle to take them down.
Before they stepped off the platform, Metilia raised her staff up high, and a bright blue light at the tip of it illuminated the space. The room had the same dimensions, and similar carvings, but no cages. Instead, two massive piles of bones rested on either side of the room. “Ten gold on it being a small army of skeletons.” Tahir said to no one in particular, as he switched from the spirit of water to earth, leaving him with earth and fire. Neveroth snorted, and stepped off the platform.
Similar to what happened in the first chamber, torches flared to life and lit up the entire room. Bones started to quiver and shake, then pull together. Instead of individual skeletons rising up, the two massive piles of bones formed together into bastardized amalgamations of humanoid shapes. Fifteen feet tall at least. Neveroth seemed to realize that she couldn’t leave the group mostly to their own devices to deal with both of them, and so she took off toward one on the northern end of the room, leaving the other for the trio to deal with.
“Blunt force is the way to go here if you have any!” Tahir quickly informed his companions, and then ran toward the other one, wand and sword at the ready. He knew the best way of dealing with skeletal undead usually involved bludgeoning them to death, but he had no blunt weapons on him. He could conjure dirt and rocks with the knowledge the earth spirit granted him, but he’d drain his mana far faster than he would be able to kill these amalgamations by casting those spells. And so, he’d rely on the explosive force that his fire spells created. A loud crack echoed through the chamber as his spirit-enhanced fire bolt flew through the air and crashed against the amalgamation.
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It staggered back a couple of steps, but didn’t look too terribly injured just yet. As it reached Tahir, it sent an arm full of many types of bones his way, and he dodged and rolled away as it slammed into the ground where he stood a moment before. Theo reached it at that point and pulled another set of materials out of her bag and crushed them together. She then tossed the resulting mix at the bones, and Tahir heard a clap and rumble like that of thunder that sent the pile of bones stumbling further back. He took the opportunity to slash at the legs, to minimal effect, and then stepped away as it regained its balance.
He nearly fell over when something flew past his head from behind. Risking a glance back, the other amalgamation fired razor sharp bones just from swinging its massive arms. Neveroth dodged around them in the air with no great difficulty, and Metilia conjured a wide panel between the group that many of the following bone shard bounced off of or shattered against. The creature Theo and Tahir fought lumbered forward, and once again he rushed toward it to keep it focused on him. Things could get out of hand rapidly if both of them started flinging those bones around.
Fortunately, he found dodging around it fairly easy even without the Traveler or the wind spirit active to improve his speed. It slammed bone-made fists into the ground to try to crush him, and he dodged away while trying to stay within the space of Metilia’s conjured panel. He still had to stay wary of a stray, sharp bone piercing or cutting him, and he holstered his wand to focus on swinging. Aura and earth increasing his weight gave him sizable and surprising strength to his strikes, and the single edged blade Metilia made for him allowed it to be leveraged into a lot more cutting power than he first realized.
Enough that his repeated swings bothered the amalgamation and drove it to keep trying to kill him, despite more concussive blasts from Theo’s alchemy and magic bolts from Metilia. After a while, it did something none of them expected. It jumped, spreading its weight out among the large pile of bones, and Tahir barely registered what happened until it was about to bear down on him. A call from Theo snapped him out of his disbelief, and he quickly cast a spell while rolling, teleporting next to Metilia and all but slamming into her panel as the pile of bones hit the ground and caused heavy tremors.
Without the Traveler active or his wand in hand, the spell cost him a hefty chunk of mana, but he’d take it over losing all of his aura and possibly dying out right if he stayed under that pile. Metilia strode forward, raising her staff as the bones began to reassemble into their amalgamated form once again. From the tip of her staff, a massive blue, glowing shape resembling the end of a warhammer emerged, and she wasted no time bringing it down on the pile before it could fully reform.
Another swing followed, and another concussive burst from Theo as it continued to reform. When it stood its full height once more, Tahir pulled out his wand and fired another enhanced fire bolt directly on what looked to be a head. It staggered back, and a final swing from Metilia shattered one of the legs and caused the entire thing to collapse, unmoving.
On the opposite side of the room, an explosion drew the trio’s attention seconds later. The other amalgamation hit the wall after flying through the air, and charred bones scattered into pieces. Neveroth floated down, letting a black maul in hand fall and disappear in a puff of smoke. She turned to face them, and Tahir thought he could see multiple scratches across her skin and armor.
“Hey, did we kill ours before she did?” Theo said between panting, as they all gathered together to rest.
“I believe we did, but it put itself into a position for us to do so.” Metilia answered, and then leaned forward. “So don’t mention it to her. If it had more minute control over the bones then it would have made for a much harder fight.”
“Did Zorhe make these, then?” Tahir wondered aloud, and kicked the neared femur away from one of the sole areas in the room free of bones.
“These were far from the greatest of creations that I have seen from Vudrana.” Neveroth spoke. Now that she herself had injuries, she seemed much more amenable to the idea of them resting. “That speaks to either shoddines or desperation. Whatever the case, Zorhe never specialized in this sort of magic, so we likely will not deal with anything more of this caliber.”
They waited for nearly an hour. They didn’t have the presence of the sun or moon to tell, but Tahir guessed it was fairly late into the night or early into the morning. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was sleep in the closed chamber of a lich with bones all around them. When they were ready, Neveroth led them to another platform. “Steel yourselves, mortals. I can sense Zorhe’s presence nearby. It is likely we will find him in the next chamber.”
No turning back now. The group looked between themselves, confirming readiness despite their shared apprehension, and the erinyes activated the circle to teleport them further into the ruin.