Chapter 13

Wicked winds battered our ascent. The four of us trudged through lashing winds and sleet. The burial cairns were lit in multicolored flames. We envied them, for they burned untouched by the storm.

It was cold enough to leech at our health, but the bonfire’s that enwreathed the cairns radiated enough heat to ward off the damage. Single file, we followed the cairns. It was no use shouting above the din of the storm. Our volume could not compete with the wind being bound to our path and its tortured howling. It screeched and wailed like a ghost, freshly dead and newly haunting.

Lep had lit a torch. Keebe had been leading us forward and now he stopped. We’d arrived at the last lit burial cairn. We rounded the mound to find that the dungeon descended into another tunnel. A tunnel that offered us shelter from the brutal weather.

The mouth of the tunnel burned with a ring of mauve and blue and yellow. Lep was the first to step through. The persistent sleet and the insane wind did not follow us. Instead it howled with heartbreak as we left it.

“My ears,” Lep said, with a finger in each one.

“Yea my head is ringing from the storm,” Keebe said, clapping his palms against his ears.

It was true. The silence was now deafening as we moved along the tunnel. A tunnel that was the largest one I’d crawled so far. A copse of trees could fit the width and height, and it bore endlessly ahead of us. Perhaps it was the lichen and dripping moss along the walls that reminded me of forests.

“Son of Felke!” Arris said and came to a quick halt.

His alarm put the 4 of us into a defensive formation. Keebe brandished his longsword with it’s tip dipped to the dungeon floor. Arris leapt to the side and flowed his mana to it’s ring.

“Garden Spider!” he said.

Lep laid the torch down and flowed his mana into its bar. He stepped through it and raised his hands with enough force to fling back the wide sleeves of his tunic.

I swept my flagstaff around. The Five of Gryf trailed through the air. From my bag, I exhumed two healing potions and held the necks between fingers of my left hand.

A swarm of giant maggots were slithering this way. Their clicking mouths hovered at head height. By far the largest I’ve seen so far.

CHTHKTHKTHK! CHKTHKTHKTHK!

A corner of Lep’s mana bar dissipated as he called out, “Fire Spear!”

A thin thread of flame burned in mid air above him. A gap formed the handle, and an ember forged of deep magma glowed molten at the tip. It dripped a single drop of lava. The staff of the spear leapt in speeding flames.

Lep stepped forward and threw the spear with all his might over our companion’s heads with a hefty: “UNH!”

The Fire Spear roared through the air, crackling as though burning through dried wood in mere seconds. Each of our faces were briefly lit as it passed us by. The molten tip of the Fire Spear coasted through three Maggots as though they were made of butter. They stiffened in shock. Flames billowed out from the hole left in their bodies. Then they screeched.

MEEEEEEEEEE!

They thrashed and writhed as they burst into flames. The dungeon was suddenly thrust into brilliant detail. A detail of horror. At least 2 dozen of the grubs were coming our way. Behind them were two Disciples of Bekbah. Parchment skin was stretched over graveyard robbed bones. Their eyes were sheeps eyes and they shone an insidious yellow. Small rams horns had grown from cracks in their skulls. These weren’t mere level 1 Disciples of Bekbah. One of them lifted a shepherd's cane so that the hook loomed over the herd of maggots. Then the Disciple chanted.

“Haunting hunger, hanging flesh.”

His cane shook with a terrible vibration. A pool of yellow light imploded in the center of the hook like a dying planet. Then it rang like a bell and the Disciple finished his chant.

“Taunt no longer, give them rest!”

The light in the shepherd's cane blinked and blinded us. We threw a hand against the visual assault. In the dwindling light of the Disciple’s magic, and the dimming flames of the burning maggots, we were struck with terror.

The maggots put on a burst of speed and size. They charged in with haste. I lost sight of Keebe as the maggots surrounded him. Arris flowed open his mana ring, then said, “Oak Beard!”

His mana dwindled to near nothing and a transparent green gel encased him. The green was lively and shimmered as though grass stirred under water. The neck of it elongated to earn the features of a massive ancient tree face with a beard of rusting leaves. It had ghostly green bark for wrinkles. The hands were thrice the size of Arris’s and clenched into fists. Then Arris was forced against the wall by the incoming maggots. His translucent green fists raged in defense. I could see them come up over the backs of the maggots, then slam back down to smash unseen.

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“Hand of Flames!” Lep said, and his spell—his burning hand of ember and quick fire—flew forward, puppeted by his open hand. The hand clasped onto a maggot and lifted the thing as it screeched and burned.

Keebe’s battle cry echoed in the tunnel. “Rahhhhhhh!”

At the bottom left of my mana bar, I watched my companion’s health start to take damage. We were up to our necks in a sea of maggots. The Disciple’s spell of speed and size abated, and the maggots slowed and shrunk back down. I took that moment to use Life-steal for the first time.

“Fist of Wind!”

The rune marking the spell glowed a brilliant white and grey. The gold veins that marbled my flagstaff shimmered from tip to base. I lifted the flagstaff. I aimed for the maggots pinning Arris to the wall.

I brought the flagstaff straight down. It clacked on the stone ground. Air rippled out from beneath the impact. The Five of Gryf shook and wavered over my head. The Fist of Wind rune blinked. My mana ring drained 5 points.

An angry knot of wind tumbled before my flagstaff. From its ball of air and fury and knots of wind: a fist was formed. The tangled currents of wind were thick and shadowed. I stepped forward and leaned into the spell. The Fist of Wind streaked forward and smashed into the back of a maggot.

As my spell dealt its blow, the Life-steal rune appeared mirage-like above the heads of my comrades. Their health bars jumped 5 points each. I fired off another Fist of Wind to the same maggot. Our party was healed once more by 5 points. We were nearly all recovered.

Another Hand of Flames was flying by me, searing through air, leaving vapor in its wake, grabbing up a maggot, squeezing it through its fingers, and letting the guts and gore drip from it’s clasp.

Keebe was now visible to us. Arris was free to move to the center. His green form was laughing without volume, shouting without volume, but bashing and punching with great volume.

The Disciple who’d cast the spell stood back umoving. He was leant back with his head lolling as though broken and only sleep could restore it. The other Disciple raised his shepherd's staff.

“Haunting hunger, hanging flesh!”

Then Keebe’s health drained clockwise to half way. I heard him scream. His agony turned into a battlecry and he cast the first warrior spell I’d seen. “Alive and Well!”

His health bar shivered and pumped like a heart. His longsword swings swooped faster, slicing maggots in half. The tops of the grubby monsters sluiced off of their bottom halves and left a pool of white gloop to run off.

“Fire Spear!” Lep said and javelined the molten tipped spear of flames over the remaining maggots. It spun as it flew, sending drips of fire raining down on friend and foe. The chanting Disciple was struck in the chest and it wheezed and swayed.

“Five of Gryf!” I said and lifted the flagstaff once more, aiming for Keebe. The ribbon shone like a glinting blade, and lashed in unseen turbulence. 5 more mana points drained. The silver ribbon rebelled against it’s chain, and the chain pulled at the eyelet of the flagstaff. A pair of small silver bird’s wings flickered above Keebe. The wings glinted firelight as they fluttered to oblivion. Keebe’s health rose 5 more points.

“Potion incoming!” I said and hurled a Pyrrhon’s potion. It tumbled as it soared. The liquid searched for escape and splashed against the glass as it flipped, and flipped, and flipped, until smashing right into Keebe’s swinging forearms. The glass burst into glints of light. The red liquid splashed against him. He remained dry and I watched his health bar fill counterclockwise. He was now close to full health.

The rest of the maggots died under Keebe’s sword, beneath Arris’s massive green hands, and in the fiery palm of Led’s spell. The Disciples were unbothered and both were coming at us with broken gaits.

They limped forward and their sheep’s eyes showed no emotion. The one Lep had struck was charred on one side. He came at us with great difficulty, nearly tumbling to the side several times. One side of his face was melted, and when he finally tumbled against the dungeon wall he died there from residual fire damage. We attacked the remaining Disciple with a fury. He collapsed in pieces, bashed to a pulp. His remains were charred and smoldering.

“Everyone alright?” Arris said. The green translucent gel still encased him. The figure that it formed laughed without volume, spoke without volume, and cast a green glow in the darkness. All the flames had dwindled and Lep re-lit his torch. Just in time, as Arris’s spell ended and the green form melted away like a cleaved spider’s web.

We all checked in and took enough sips of Pyrrhon’s potions to bring our health bars back to full. This had been one of the most difficult fights so far, and my companions gave a nod in agreement.

“Good job taking out the Disciple of Bekbah back there Lep!” Keebe said, patting the mage on the back. “Also thanks for the healing Tosin.”

“No problem. I went all the way down to 6 mana. I’m worried about the boss. Your health went pretty low Keebe.” He grunted in response.

“I’m out of mana,” Arris said.

A few mana potions cured that deficit. We went on silently but companionably. It was clear this dungeon was a close call. A poor choice on our part. It was so easy to underestimate dungeon power. Rookie mistake.

We followed the tunnel and ran into manageable maggots a handful of times. The tunnel continued on and then sloped up sharply to spit us out at the base of a burial cairn. We were outside on a plateau of bare rock that stretched infinitely. Burial cairns dotted the landscape at further intervals than before, and low storms tumbled in the distance.

Lep cast Hand of Flames once more to light the cairns. They erupted in blue fire, one at a time, and lit our way forward. These cairns burned without heat.

Those storms came rolling in. Gales billowed around us, shrieking their howling laments. We struggled onward against the inclement weather. There was no turning back, though our health bars were slowly suffering.

The plateau stretched onward at a tilted slope, and we had no choice but to go through 4 more healing potions. Our health bars now had a purple half moon, and a blue snowflake on each of them. We were suffering from cold damage—I couldn’t recognize the purple mark.

At last we arrived with exhausted bones and weathered gear to a circle of cairns. The cairns burned higher and brighter as we stepped in.

“A small village could fit here,” Lep said.

Then the fires of the cairns shrieked and turned purple. Every stone on every cairn tumbled down and smoldered a dark malachite green beneath the flames.

“Has to be the boss,” Keebe said solemnly.

A gargantuan, shadowed form, stepped over the cairns and into the circle. It entered ram horns first, then parchment stretched face, then twisted snout. At last we saw its eyes. Each eye was made of gathered sheep’s eyes, long fermented with sickness and infection. It ripped open its mouth of horror.

BANHHHHHH! BANNNHHHH! BANNNHHH NH NH NH NHHHHH!