Chapter 14

“Kefvolo!” Keebe said.

The boss was massive. Thrice our size in height. His bulk was caked in rotting wool that undulated with buried trails of maggots. It stepped forward and stomped one hoof after the other. Each one came up to our waist. Its ram’s horns were curled back and the tips dug into it’s skull, long ago having burrowed beneath skin and blood and meat and skull. Maggots frenzied at the site and pulsed as they fed.

The Kefvolo’s chest filled with a quick and long intake of air. My tunic pulled at me and I leaned away from this sucking wind. The storm paused around us, letting only a light hail crinkle against the rock of the plateau. The dozen of mashed sheep’s eyes that formed each whole eye of the boss, blinked and flickered. Two long plumes of fetid breath gushed out from its ripped open nostrils. It gave a mighty snort followed by a discordant war cry:

BANNNHHH NH NH NH NHHHHH!

Keebe leaned into a run and brandished his longsword. The steel rang clear and brittle. As the warrior quickly covered ground, the three of us flew open our mana rings. The blue circles of wavering mana hovered before each of us, large enough to step through. The health bars of my companions materialized in red.

“Hand of Flames!” Lep said.

His mana dissolved clockwise a fraction, and an ignition of fire sparked before his right hand. The fire ignited into a collection of floating embers that multiplied to form the shape of a giant hand. The embers flickered with hundreds of flames that covered it like scales. With a flick of his wrist, Lep sent the hand soaring towards the Kefvolo.

The Kefvolo swung an arm across his chest as a shield, and Keebe’s strike sheared into the wool coating that arm. Lep’s Hand of Flames arrived simultaneously, grasping the boss’s shoulder. The wool at his shoulder ignited like trails of lightning strikes, and a thousand fuse-like threads of fire burned the material away.

Writhing maggots were exposed in the septic flesh beneath. They burned and charred, lifting their heads in soundless pain. They fell from their feast of flesh, and the flames that once licked them, extinguished as they dropped in splats to the rocky plateau. The fall did not kill them, and they wiggled towards Keebe.

“Garden Spider!” said Arris. From a nether of mana, inverted the form of the conjured garden spider. It stepped into our world with a flash of glossy black, and jagged yellow stripes. With ferocious speed, it met the maggots in a clash of mandibles.

With meaty fingers, the Kefvolo snuffed his burning wool. Black smoke trailed in thin filaments. His fingers were split at the ends and bloated. Grub and likened horrors swarmed where fingernails would be.

He huffed a sharp snort and lowered his head. From nose to crown, it was as large as Keebe. With a ground shaking roar, the Kefvolo shook his head back and forth. His ram’s horns brutally bashed against Keebe’s attempt to parry and the warrior was thrown to the side. The longsword slid away, scraping to a stop.

I lifted my flagstaff up and away, then brought it down to crack against a length of rock. Both Five of Gryf and Fist of Wind had activated at once. A tumbling ball of filaments of wind flew toward the boss, clenched in a blocky fist. A flutter of small silver wings briefly hovered above Keebe. The boss stumbled against the bashing Fist of Wind, and Keebe’s health bar filled counter clockwise. The gold veins in my flagstaff glowed as though scanned by a distant rising sun.

BANH! BANH! BANHNH!

The boss snorted, and sprinted to Keebe who lunged for his sword. Though Keebe recovered his sword, he now lay prone beneath the descending hoof of the Kefvolo. The hoof descended horribly fast and I threw a potion preemptively.

“Potion incoming!”

“Oak Beard!” Arris said and he charged in to Keebe’s defense, encased in translucent green gel. The familiar old tree face screamed without volume. A battle cry. A battle cry too late.

The hoof smashed down with enough force to jolt the plateau beneath the whole party. We stumbled and fell. The maggots bounced and rolled with the slope. Arris’s spider had flipped upside down and it’s legs struck at air to right itself.

I floated my mana bar near me after shooting back up to my feet. Keebe’s health came up empty with a cross of bone-ish marks forming an X over it.

“Son of Felke,” I cursed in a whisper of fear. As though it were a secret, and my secret alone that we were doomed.

The boss gave a self satisfied snort and raised its arms to pound at its woolen chest. Flakes of burnt wool and smatters of maggots sprinkled down. His mouth opened as though for the first time since birth, and the top of his mouth pulled off from his gums and canines in stretching decomposition. Then he spoke in a voice assembled from ancient buried evil.

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“Farmer’s Scythe, and Disciples plight! I lashed with licks of sickle and wind, to cut my foe and feed my kin!”

He stomped forward with a following shout and aimed his mouth and horns and horror of eyes at Lep. His spell was cast from the depths of his trembling throat. Over the panting of his tongue came a rushing wind towards our mage.

“Fire Spear!” Lep cast, and launched the molten tipped spear at the boss. The Fire Spear extinguished in the tunnel of wind and it cooled to obsidian, shattering on impact when it hit the plateau. The tunnel of wind continued on and invisible curved edges of blades glinted within it. Lep braced himself with a shield of tunic and arm. The tunnel enveloped him and I saw him contort in agony. His form was a mere shadow in the blur of the Kefvolo’s spell.

“Potion Incoming!” I said and tossed a sloshing flask at the tunnel. “Five of Gryf!” I followed and aimed at Lep. Either he screamed, or spirits haunted the tunnel of wind because the sound entered the marrow of my bones and frightened me.

Lep’s health bar plummeted to near zero. Then it was empty and crossed over with an X of bone-ish marks.

“Arris!” I said as the tunnel of wind died. Lep’s body was gone. Nothing was left but stretching plateau. “We have to retreat!”

Nothing I could say or do would reach Arris now. His spider’s health bar was empty, crossed with a skeletal X. Arris and I were the only one’s left, and he battled on in a rage.

“Those were my friends!” he said and his glowing tree fists punched and battered at the boss’s torso. The Kefvolo was recuperating from its spell, down on one knee. It kept a bent arm up to block against Arris’s onslaught.

“Fist of Wind!” I said and slammed the flagstaff down. It cracked against stone, splintering the air with the sound of splitting wood, though the staff remained intact. Wind coalesced in a violent hush to form a ball, textured like yarn, and adopting the clench of a fist. I leaned my flagstaff forward and sent the Fist of Wind hurtling to Arris’s aid.

The Kefvolo rose to his feet and staggered. My Fist of Wind slammed into him, forcing him back to one knee. Arris leapt at the opportunity, raging beneath the silently shouting green form above him.

Again the Kefvolo brought up a bent arm to block Arri’s attacks. We had him on the defense, and I would be a fool to let up now.

“Fist of Wind!” I said again and slammed the flagstaff down. The gold veins in the staff shimmered. The runic spell glowed a divine light of white and grey. Wind coalesced once more and punched forward, rocketing to my target.

The boss abandoned his shield against Arris and blocked my incoming spell. The Fist of Wind crashed against his forearm and invisibly splashed away.

Arris lunged in, dealing blow after blow to the boss’s gut. Critters writhed beneath the skin in a frenzy after each blow, fleeing the site of the impacts.

What the boss had lost in damage, he made up for in advantage. My spell would have forced him back. Blocking it allowed him to rise up against Arris’s slowing assault. The ancienne was clearly tiring.

A hoof scraped back and the Kefvolo bent in a lunge. He was head down, ram horns up, and his sheep mashed eyes locked onto Arris. A single kick powered the boss forward and he rammed straight into Arris. The ancienne tumbled back on his butt, dazed and deeply damaged. His health bar plummeted to near zero.

I lobbed a potion his way, but the boss was faster. He lunged forward again, smacking his ram’s horns down to the plateau where Arris was sat.

There was no residue of Arris. No sign of a body or gear. What remained was a sticky mess of sloughed off flesh from the Kefvolo’s now raw face, and shards of horn matter.

It was me and the Kefvolo. He laughed into a gathering storm, brewing overhead. His laughter echoed through the land with tumbling thunder. Maggots polluted the plateau, and though they were small, they slowly came at me. The Kefvolo leaned forward and bared his canines before reciting his earlier spell.

“Farmer’s Scythe, and Disciples plight--”

“Fist of Wind!” I countered and sent another tumble of wind currents straight for him. He brought up an arm and blocked the spell. He roared into the gathering storm.

BANH! BANHNHNHNHNH!

“Farmer’s Scythe, and Disciples plight!” he began again. “I lashed with licks of sickle and wind, to cut my foe and feed my kin!”

I was caught in a sudden wind tunnel. Teeth and decaying tongue bordered the end of the tunnel. Unseen sickles spun with the pummeling wind, slicing me. I struggled to lift my hand against the power of the wind. I only needed to drop a single potion to save me from death.

The tunnel died down and I smashed a potion to the ground but it bounced on soft grass. Silence enveloped me. I was disoriented and shouting with fury. Garmar and the rest of my party were in front of me. We were all at the dungeon entrance. Sun was casting a late gold light over ourselves and huddles of other adventurers and trainers nearby.

Garmar bent to pick up my potion and it sloshed with a tinkling, whooshing sound. He offered it and I took it, dumbfounded and slowly coming to the realization that I would have died if not rescued.

“You failed,” Garmar said.

He wasn’t disappointed. He wasn’t belittling. He was simply stating the facts.

It turns out that the guild could afford one Dungeon Rescue rune for each student. In the event of death, the rune would trigger and we would instantly exit the dungeon through a short wind tunnel. We only got one.

Other adventurers began to fly out of the dungeon, swinging from the middle of battle. They came screaming, shouting, and just as confused as I was.

“Welp,” Keebe said and shrugged at our efforts.

“You all know what you did wrong?” Garmar asked?

We did. We were overzealous for the dungeon runs and we picked a level above our experience. Altogether, we put that in words.

“I hope this will be the most important lesson of your lives. So that you may go on living. Death, means death. There will be no more Dungeon Rescue runes. At least until you’ve amassed the wealth to invest in some. Even so, they don’t work after level 5, so they’ll be worthless with experience.”

He was right, and we couldn’t help but feel disappointed in ourselves. Garmar explained that the guild was expecting this outcome and encouraged the exercise.

“There is nothing like experience,” he said with a sly grin.

“No loot?” Jeuhm said, bringing our ultimate curiosity to the fore.

“You didn’t defeat the boss. So, no. No loot,” Garmar said.