A loud hiss let everyone just how upset the insect really was, and Cira knew its next move would be to charge. “Tawny, quick, use fire! And you too, cook the bastard!” She shouted at both mages capable of pyromancy.
Tawny was quicker on the draw and flames swirled around the bug’s feet before engulfing it. Its enraged hissing intimidated the group, but the other mage stopped it in its tracks by lobbing fireballs. They weren’t too heavy, though she thought he could almost give Triton a run for his money. Each one burst with an explosion of cinders and forced the bug to stumble back.
Meanwhile Cira watched its pitch-black shell begin to glow with the heat. Almost there… Just a few more seconds…
“Okay, now blast it with water!” She ordered the brothers into the fray and two streams of water gushed forth, snuffing out the flames and sizzling as steam encompassed the insect. Its mandibles clicked together furiously then there was a loud crack.
“Oh shit, it worked!” Jimbo waved the steam out of his face and paced over to the bug. It lay on the ground now, an oozing sack of meat resting on shattered pieces of its shell. “How’d you do that?”
“I didn’t think it would work on a bug, really.” Cira admired her secondhand handiwork for a moment. The pitiful bug still writhed about slightly as it leaked various fluids on the ground, but each twitch worked fast to expend the last dregs of life it held.
“Lord above…” Her paladins’ glow began to simmer down, “What a way to go.”
“Let’s hurry.” Kuja urged them along, “We’ve almost reached the dormitories. The bugs will come and go but be ready to fight once this hallway lets out.”
“More of these things?” Cira pointed at the deflated lump of flesh which had stopped moving.
“Possibly, but the main domiciles are infested by some manner of fiend.” She kept her ears peeled and looked restless. “They are weak but make up for it with numbers.”
She went on to explain that the doors they passed entering the floor were for permanent residents. There were more homes further in for those that only stayed to gather mana and moved back to the village once their soul was reforged.
If she had come down here before, Cira figured the woman had at least some magical prowess. She had half the mind to ask to see it but didn’t want to put any strain on her old bones. Kuja would surely show off when danger came close enough.
Looking behind, her crew’s spirits were up. The atmosphere was, well, dark—but if one counted the rat, they were two for two. Even the fearsome bisection beetle fell in short order when half of them didn’t have to do anything.
“Water mages,” Cira got their attention, “Can you make ice?”
She wasn’t sure if ice would work better or not. Sure, it was colder and would in theory cause a more rapid drop in temperature, but water got everywhere. There was no stopping it from pouring into every little nook and cranny. Maybe ice water is what I’m looking for. Why pick one?
“My name is Eros, and sadly I can only produce water, Lady Saint…” He hung his head in dejection and Cira realized every single one of Reverand Shores’ ringers had forgotten her one and only rule. “But my brother Lero can form ice.”
“Do you need some ice?” Lero and his brother both had long, black hair and their eyes were almost cerulean like the mana they wielded. A much richer blue. Nanri’s were more akin to mithril—a little more pleasant on the eyes.
Cira’s thoughts were interrupted as Lero held out a handful of ice cubes. “Um… Rictor, make me a cup.”
“Here.” He conjured one and handed it over swiftly, and without complaint, “It will only last ten minutes or so.”
“Thanks.” Her gratitude was extended to both of them as ice clinked into the iron mug. Her eyes then landed on Eros for a moment until he got the message and topped it off with water. Cira took a nice long drink as everybody watched her curiously. It was not only chilled and refreshing, but also the first water she’d drank all morning. She let out a satisfied, “Ahhh… Perfect. You two work together and make the coldest, fastest water you can if we have to crack another bug. That’s your mission for the day but be careful not to splash anyone when you do it.”
“Th-thank you, Lady Saint!” The two looked at each other with clenched fists.
“She’s given us a mission, brother.” Then he looked at Cira with indiscernible emotion on his face, “I promise we will not fail you!”
“Stop calling me a saint or your missions will only get harder.” Unnoticed by the sorcerer, a determined glint flared up in the mage’s eyes.
“Exalted Captain,” A paladin approached hiding a grin, “may we have a mission? We will complete any task, no matter the difficulty.”
“You know what? Yeah. Everybody give me a second.” They all stopped and watched her pull a small notepad out of a pouch hung from the ribbon which held her robes together. She spent three or four seconds scribbling on it and ripped the page out. “This is a spell that will help us out a lot. You should have little trouble picking it up.”
“Whoa, what are these letters…?” The first one took it in his hand and stared at it mystified, “And why can I read them?”
“Lamplight.” The next paladin leaned over his shoulder. When he read it out loud, wisps of pure light started coalescing. They swirled in the air and tried to form the spell, but the caster was having trouble bringing it together. “N-no way! What do I do?”
“Just pretend it’s holy mana. You’re not pulling them inward so as to smash them together, you need them to find a rhythm as they rotate around the center. Each mote should form a patterntogether, and you’ll notice they naturally into place.”
This was an operation that happened instantaneously when Cira did it. After all, it was one of her most developed spells. The profound simplicity and absurd levels of refinement put into this sorcery were not to be understated, exhibited by the paladin casting it unwittingly.
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The balls of light left trails as they rotated around the center and eventually, he got them spaced out just right. They got brighter as the formation was locked in and increased in speed while light started to fill out the middle with each passing rotation.
“I did it!” He beamed a wide smile at Cira as the light reflected on everyone’s faces, pushing the shadows even further down the hall. His eyes were transfixed on the conjuration with awe, “I can’t believe it… Do I get a new mission now?”
“Of course not. Master this one first. You should be able to change its size and position at will. Even send it down the hallway and back. Until you can do that, I won’t give you another spell, but this isn’t the time for games. Just keep it aloft.
“Hey, let me try!” The third paladin pushed his way in.
“No.” Cira shut him down. “One of you at a time. Don’t forget where we are.”
“I was wondering when you would finish.” Kuja said tiredly as they started walking again, “Though I must admit, this is quite helpful.”
They were past all the doors by now and someone long ago had carved alcoves into the walls surrounding them. Large stone vases that came up to Cira’s hip sat nestled in every few feet. Now covered in dust, she wondered what flowers they once held.
“Prepare yourself, everyone.” Kuja reiterated, “They will know we have come if they aren’t watching us already.”
An eerie silence fell over the group and their brief moment of peace was over. Everyone’s footsteps got instinctively quieter, and they slowed down as the end of the hall came into view. The white Lamplight illuminated the floor beyond, but their surroundings seemed to be an open expanse of shadows.
Taking careful strides, they made it past the threshold, and it was like they were outside again. Nothing but black all around them and the hard stone under their feet. She heard rats and more bugs scamper away, but there was something else. Cira was sure of it.
It’s like whatever’s in there is silencing their footsteps too, they’re just doing a better job of it. Her skin crawled as she put a face to the fiends in her mind. She imagined them like humans but much more vicious and bearing horns like some kind of devil. What am I getting us into? There’s already more than one of them.
“Hey…” Cira whispered in Tawny’s ear, who nervously clung onto Jimbo’s sleeve. “I need a fastball, two o’clock.”
She also pointed because it wasn’t clear if the young mage knew how clocks worked—they had just never talked about it.
Tawny quickly extended her palm and a fireball hurled through the shadows, burning them up as it found its target.
“GYEHH—” A shrill cry was cut of in an instant as the creature producing its head was burnt to a crisp. Ash wisped into the air as it fell to its knees and eventually slumped over.
In response, more of them shrieked from the dark and their frantic footsteps could be heard encircling them.
“I didn’t think they’d be so short.” Cira wasn’t one to jump straight to cranial incineration, though she couldn’t argue the efficacy.
“We have to move!” Kuja startled everyone back into motion, “This is their home now. We will never see the end of them if we don’t leave this floor.”
That was enough to spur them on as the fiends behind them were got louder. They passed over the first one’s corpse and Cira tried to identify it from the neck down.
Dexterous hands ended in sharp claws, and their bodies were lean, about the same height as the ancient flowerpots. For some reason it wore clothes too, but they were closer to weathered rags wrapped around its body which seemed to serve little purpose. If it weren’t for claws with presumable rat blood caked under the fingernails, she may have mistaken it for a lost child. It can’t be those, can it? Here?
As much as it frustrated her, Cira drew the image of Estelle in her mind and positioned her hands on the black staff in the same way. They pressed onward quickly but couldn’t go too fast with such low visibility. Even the Lamplight only bought them another ten feet or so.
The mages in the back started shouting and she heard more fiends’ death screams from behind them. Meanwhile, two more came from the front and squinted their eyes like the light burned them. It was honestly more of a surprise that they could see at all, but maybe they needed a few millennia to adapt.
Kuja reflexively held out her palm and a thin black beam trailed out from it. Just like the one Cira used to disintegrate Jimbo’s button, but this one pierced right through the beast’s chest.
As one lost strength in its legs and the other continued to charge with a sharpened rock held above its head, Cira finally got a good look. Long, pointed noses hung down from their face and they had wide ears that stuck out to the side. Their eyes slanted inward for an almost perpetual anger etched into their faces, but Cira wondered if that’s how she looked to them.
“It’s really them. They’re goblins!” These were something of a mythological creature for Cira. She had seen some strange beasts in her travels, but these were the kind found in story books that her father would read to her before bed long ago. Well, not exactly the same kind. Their skin was darker than night and the same color as her onyx. They almost looked like some kind of spirit with only their dirty yellow eyes and jagged teeth shining in against the oppressive backdrop of shadows.
“Focus!” The old woman didn’t have to tell Cira. The sorcerer flicked the staff around to her side and twirled it forward with her hands while making a lunge for the woeful shadow goblin. Her staff came down whistling and impacted right on its collarbone. With surprisingly little resistance, she tore right through it to the cracking of bones and unsettling squelch of rent flesh.
The goblin followed her onyx helplessly to the ground and flopped apart into two lifeless halves. “They really are weak…” She shook her head and pulled her eyes away from the viscera.
“But their death throes will attract the rest.” Kuja replied as two buildings came into view. Unlike the hallway earlier, the doors on this one were spaced as close together as possible and there were stairs that led up to the next floor just above their heads with even more rooms. These were bare bones living spaces even smaller than those in the New Shores District, and half the doors were wide open. The shutters over the windows were no more than broken hinges but she couldn’t see inside.
When they passed the first, there was another such structure on either side, and they were cut off by another small group of goblins. This time one threw a rock at Cira and one of her paladins deflected it with his sword.
“You vile creature, die!” He charged up and stabbed it through the chest when the next one over tried to stab at his ankles from behind. Luckily Kuja shot it through and yelled at him to get back.
“Why are there so many of them?!” Jimbo cried out as he sent a head flying through the air. Each set of buildings they passed would come with a new ambush from the alley on both sides and Cira could hear the doors behind them bang around and slap open, despite there being no wind down here.
Multicolored flashes of light came from behind as the mages constantly held them back. Water surged into the pathway and lightning crackled. Rictor threw metal balls at them not dissimilar to a musket round but a fair deal slower. The goblins squawked as each one pelted them, sometimes crippling them or opening someone else up for a finisher. Even her founding crew had their blades drawn and constantly moving to hold them off from all around as dismembered goblins piled up in their wake.
“And some o’ this!” Cira spun her hands past each other and the butt end of her staff rose up through a goblin’s chin. Teeth and black blood were thrown into the air as she let the staff follow through, spinning it around her side and to bring it back around in wide arc, “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you.”
Its neck folded to the side as an audible snap was drowned out by sparks of holy light white her paladins cut through the beasts effortlessly.
“How much further?!” James called out from behind them, his face splattered in what looked like tar.
“We are…” Kuja was jogging beside Cira and spoke between breaths, “Getting closer… Just a little further.”
Cira trusted her words and gained a little distance to try and take some of the load off. The staff was getting heavy in her hands, but she couldn’t stop yet. It became easier as she found ways to let the momentum carry the staff to where she wanted it, but fighting this way was like an intricate dance. Combine it with the mob of goblins biting at their heels, and Cira too was almost out of breath.