“You sure seemed confident we could take the mountain wraithlord,” Maurice observed as they followed the light of the golden ball to the mouth of the cave.

“What else was I going to tell her? We came up to find our fourth, but it seems like we’re rescuing her as much as anything else,” Terry said.

“Yeah,” Gregor said. “I hope she’s as powerful as she says she is, with all her toys that the wraithlord stole.”

“Me too,” Terry said. “Anyway, it’s the right thing to do.”

“Do you think it’ll have three heads, like the forest wraith?” Gregor said.

“Probably,” Terry said. “If not more.”

“That thing was ugly,” Gregor said.

“Yep,” Terry said.

“Hard to kill.”

“You’ve got your sword—your wraith-destroyer now,” Terry said.

“This is a fine weapon,” Gregor agreed, giving his iron sword a couple of practice swishes through the air.

“Hey! Watch out with that thing,” Maurice said.

“You ready, Maurice?”

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Why do we seem so nervous?” Terry said.

“Probably a fear spell,” Maurice replied. “I feel it, too.”

Then, suddenly, there it was—at first they saw a tiny bit of real sunlight, then it was immediately blocked by the hideous visage of the mountain wraithlord.

“It’s eyes!” Gregor said. “It’s horrible eyes!”

“Don’t look at it!” Maurice cried out, then began his chanting of the old language. The golden orb grew around them, but it seemed like it was not as strong.

“This creature has some sort of visual power,” Terry said. “It’s keeping Maurice from being able to completely protect us.”

Maurice kept his chanting, but nodded at Terry in agreement.

“Go for the eyes!” Terry said, and Gregor came out swinging. Like the forest wraith, it did have three heads, but they were on long and muscular necks that made them more like individual snake-like monsters. Oh, they were horrid and dangerous, and fanged, with those red, burning coal-like eyes and red, burning skin.

“It’s more like a dragon than a wraithlord,” Gregor said, returning to the protective orb. He had stabbed his iron sword in one of the eyes of the creature, and it bled and dimmed, but the third head still had energy and power.”

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Unlike its forest cousin, there was nothing ethereal about this wraithlord—it was fully flesh. The forest wraiths and their wraithlord were mostly spectral, with bony hands and arms, but this was only too solid. Terry stepped out of the protective orb and threw her golden ball at one of the heads—it missed! And it missed on the return. Dodging the snapping heads, Terry pulled out her rapier in a desperate manner and stabbed, like Gregor, at an eye one of the heads. It was the same head that Gregor had attacked, and when she pierced its eye and removed her sword, the one head crumpled and was still, swinging pendulously as the creature still screamed and attacked.

“Do you feel the lifeforce drain?” Terry said.

“No,” Gregor responded. “You didn’t either?”

“No,” Terry said. “What’s its attack?”

In that moment, the creature reared back, and a wave of death emanated from it—penetrating the golden orb and weakening all three of them horribly.

“What was that?” Gregor moaned, picking himself up from the ground.

“The kiss of death—times one hundred,” Terry replied.

Maurice tossed them healing potions, and they quaffed them, then Gregor went out and hacked the back of the neck of the second head. A horrible viscous black substance oozed out of the wound, and the creature screamed, but the head kept moving.”

“Why didn’t you go for the eye?” Terry shouted.

“I don’t know,” Gregor said. “It’s too much like a beast. I feel like I’m fighting a beast.”

Terry decided to try her golden ball again. She threw the ball directly at the body of the creature, but it was scaled, and the ball bounced off without doing much damage. Again, she switched to her rapier, and manage to blind the second head in one eye.

“We’ve got to just go for the eyes,” Terry said, and then a second wave of death hit them, even more powerful than the first. Maurice tossed them their healing potions, and Terry could tell that his voice was getting weaker and weaker.

“Do it Gregor!” she cried, and Gregor rushed from the orb and blinded the second head. The creature screamed, and the head drooped down, leaving it with only one. Terry stepped out, her rapier at the ready, but the head would not come down. It bobbed and weaved, while she guarded herself with her rapier. Suddenly, she knew what she had to do. She dropped into a short crouch, then sprung up on the strength of her legs with all her might, her rapier in her right hand. She wrapped one arm around the creature’s scaly neck and stabbed with all her might into its angry red eye. It screamed, and the black substance spurted from the wound.”

“Jump!” Gregor shouted, and she managed to jump free of the creature, crawling into the relative safety of the orb, which was flickering both with Maurice’s draining energy and the vicious counterattack of the mountain wraith. Yet another wave of destruction throbbed through them, and Terry knew that after these healing potions, there were no more.

But the third head was drooping and did not have the energy of the previous heads, and Gregor was able to step out of the orb and deliver the killing blow, stabbing the creature in its final eye and sending it to hell. How it screamed and thrashed! Maurice did not dare to stop his utterings while the creature went through its death throes, but when it was finally over, the creature dissolved into fine red dust, and the mountain winds blew it away.

Terry, Gregor, and Maurice took some time catching their breath and trying to recover. A few moments passed.

“See?” Terry said. “Easy.”

“Ugh,” Gregor said.

“Shall we go get Arabelle?” Maurice said, speaking weakly.

The threw of them tried to stand up, and as they did, something astonishing happened to all three of them.

Terry grew—she just grew—taller by a foot. Her shoulders broadened by a few inches. Her thighs and calves grew larger, as did her arms, breasts, and glutes. It kind of hurt for a second.

“Ouch!” she said. Her natural voice was now a little louder.

Maurice grew taller, too, though not as broad. He forehead got a little wider, and the slight stoop in his shoulders disappeared. His hair grew by several inches.

And Gregor! He blew up until he was about the same size as the rock guardian.

“Look at me,” he said, his deep voice even deeper. He flexed his powerful biceps.

“You look great,” Arabelle said.

They turned around to stare at her. She was glowing.

“Let me show you my treasures,” she said. “With them, we may be able to save your kingdom.”