Death is a luxury I will not grant. I am your master. You are my slave.
I blinked. Hadn’t I...? The rune had destroyed my brain. Why was I still here? Was I a ghost?
You live at my will. Your pathetic attempt failed.
It is my being you sense. A part of me dwells within you. Your spell left a hole. I filled it.
I should have panicked at that revelation, but instead I felt calm. Too calm.
“What have you done to me?” I made the effort to speak out loud. To open my eyes and use them, not the creature’s senses. To stare it in the eyes.
Our mind were linked when your rune failed. A gaping hole in your mind, a tiny speck amidst the cosmos. The damage was shared. Thus it was made irrelevant for as long as I will it. My network lives within you.
I swallowed, assessing the situation. “What now?”
Your weakness is clear, and will not be tolerated. Your spells are expunged from your mind. They are mine now, and no others shall replace them.
Pain split my head. The runes began to fade into darkness, one by one, as black tendrils grew over them.
“Wait! Please... Leave me with my teleport at least. A servant who cannot be captured is far more valuable than one who can.”
A slave.
I trembled, “A slave then. Please.”
The Mushroom-King twisted. His eyes stared beyond me; thinking.
Such shall be granted to my slave, but no more. Never again shall your mind be capable of holding a spell.
The rune flared into my mind once more. Teleport. It was changed. No longer a flaming blue, but a mossy green, tinged slightly yellow. Where the other runes had been there was nothing. Where BiteIII had been there was less than nothing. A slippery spot in my mind, one my attention skipped over or skated pass. I couldn’t grasp it. That part of my mind was not my own.
Your first task will be to destroy this wretched keep. It is a blight on nature. End the rift and retake the surface.
I blinked, stunned. My first task was to destroy a warlock stronghold? I was still surprised I’d manage to get the jump on a single warlock. True, he could have been the only one, but as word of his death spread that would change. I voiced my complaint as diplomatically as I could.
“I fear I am unworthy of this task. Perhaps another...” I forced the word out, “slave would be more suited for your task?”
I have given you your task, and you will complete it.
“How then, may I serve you? I’m dying of hunger, I have no spells with which to defend myself, and my leg will probably be the death of me if nothing else is.”
I care not for excuses. You are my slave. Do not forget this. You are mine. Body and soul. You are my tool and my plaything, to shape as I wish.
Tendrils rose from the ground where I lay, penetrating my stomach, chest, legs, and head. They entered my eyes, filled my nose and mouth. Gradually, I was enveloped. Enveloped and suffused. My very nerves were bound, until I could not even control my heart and lungs. My breathing stopped. Sound faded. Even the rush of blood in my ears slowed and stopped. And the whole while it felt as if I was being compressed. Hammered. Like my whole body was in a corset and the corset was being drawn. Like I was iron, being forced into a mould. Bones creaked, ligaments shifted, my teeth jostled for position in my mouth.
I tried to cast—but there was no rune. My mind was his surely as my body.
Surely it couldn’t last. Surely one moment more and I’d be crushed like that poor guardsman. And yet he continued to tighten his grip. Hours passed. Each second his hold tightened a little more, then a little more. The sun rose and he released me.
Do not mistake my largess for weakness. Fail again, and I will not be so lenient.
I rose shakily to my feet. That was new. I could stand. I looked down at my leg. It looked strange, mottled and brown, with green bands wrapped around it. Much like staves bound in cloth, I realized.
I bent my knee. It felt stiff, but not unusually so. Just the stiffness of a limb which hadn’t been used in a while. Even moving it back and forth quickly restored enough circulation that the stiffness vanished. There was another thing. My heart was beating. I was breathing. The green Teleport rune swam in my mind. My faculties had been restored to me.
My hunger and thirst had both dissipated, as had the pain in my limbs from my bound position and the cuts on my back. Even the scar on my palm from when I was a child was gone.
The final change was to my arms and chest. Runes, tattooed in dirty green ink, marked my body: one on each arm, two on my chest. Bite was gone. It was probably for the best.
“I-Thank you. I do-”
Leave me. Do not return to this place.
I looked around the room. Two closed doors and a portcullis lay beyond the Mushroom-King. The way behind me was still sealed.
“Which way do I go? How do I destroy the keep?” Even in asking the Mushroom-King for direction, it did not escape my bitter notice that he’d successfully done to me what the warlock had failed to do. My only hope was that the binding was not as thorough as a warlock’s.
The Mushroom-King leaned over me.
I have no use for mindless servants. Your thoughts are your own, till such point you disobey me.
That was far from reassuring, and failed to answer my question. I wondered if I should ask agai-
The Mushroom-King leaned over me.
Leave me.
I swallowed my pride for what felt like the dozenth time since I last slept. I was not a man to submit to others, but the Mushroom-King’s domination was absolute.
“Of course.”
I hastened to comply. The door directly opposite me was latched, but the bar slid free with little effort. As I passed from the Mushroom-King’s domain my vision faded. The lamps had gone out, I realized. It was only the Mushroom-King’s presence which had lent me enough vision to navigate his chamber.
Despite the onset darkness I sighed in relief. It was not healthy to think such submissive thoughts. Think a thing enough and you might even start to believe it. The Mushroom-King would need to die. For now, I turned my attention to finding my way through whatever place I now found myself in.
The first thing I noticed, besides the darkness, was the smell. The room stunk. As though something dead was rotting here. Worse even. Like sulphur and stomach acid. It was unbearable.
I dropped to my hands and knees once more. I had to be wary of pitfalls, stones, and perhaps even intentional traps. Who knew what these darkened halls of antiquity contained? Crawling was far from the strong stride I’d envisioned upon being healed, but at least it was much easier with two legs rather than one. Perversely, I was glad for the dark so that none could see me in my ridiculous state.
I followed the right hand wall to a second door, which opened with a simple push. Beyond it, the smell dropped considerably, though did not fade entirely. It was equally as dark here, so I continued, once again meeting a door of wood.
This one was stuck. Push as I might (there was no handle) the door would not budge. My wandering fingers could find no latch nor handle. It was stuck, wood twisted by countless years in the damp earth. As I hammered, leaned, and shoved it soon became clear my strength alone would not suffice.
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I felt along my arm, tracing the runes the Mushroom-King had etched in my skin. Many thought mages needed to see their runes to work their magic, but this was not true. We merely needed to be able to sense them.
PushIII
The door flew open with a crash. Whoops. Perhaps a bit too much force. Still, better than using to weak a spell and wasting both.
The sound of grinding stone on stone filled the air, which was strange. Hadn’t the door been made of wood?
I dropped back down to hands and knees and crawled into the room. Finally! This one contained several torches whose light had not entirely dimmed. I could use those.
I dismissed my spell. The grinding stopped, but was immediately replaced by a mournful wailing. It reminded me of the sounds I’d heard from my cell. The only difference was, this was much closer. In fact, it sounded like it was right beside me.
I scrambled to my feet and dash blindly through the room, impacting on the wall set with the torches. I quickly pressed my back into the corner and began frantically scanning the darkness for what little movement I could make out. There was none.
The wailing had also stopped.
Storms that shatter the sky, what was that? A predator in the dark? Why then had it given away it’s position with the wails? In fact, as the mournful echoes faded from the room I realized they sounded familiar. They sounded like... me.
Cautiously, I crept back to source of the wailing. I was paying attention this time, but even then, I barely noticed it. As I drew closer my mouth slowly yawned open. A tickle rose in my chest; a mournful wail so wretched it nearly broke my heart. Unbidden, the sound slipped from my lips and filled the air. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to.
Waves of the ceaseless sea, that was more disturbing than a predator. Some things were best left untouched. Some things best left undiscovered. Once more I retreated to the corner
I gathered those torches whose glowing embers who still remained and sat, back set against the wall.
I breathed life into the torches, stoking their flames. They did not ignite, but the charred wood flared producing a dim light. Altogether, the four torches produced perhaps light as a single candle, but it would be enough. I sat and blew, and sat and blew as the hour passed.
At the hour’s end I raised my forearm to my mouth.
Here we go.
I bit into it. And then I bit it again. And again. Blood trickled down my arm as I nipped at it, carving the rune into my arm. I spat skin and little bits of flesh from my mouth. Disgusting. Truth be told, I felt a little faint after the experience. Only the fear being lost in the dark egged me on.
Candlelight: A large glowing mass with the brightness of a candle slowly fades away over the course of an hour. It moves following the whims of its master.
I needed a spell book.
I resisted calling up the spell immediately. If I timed it right I could use it to immediately empower and even greater version of itself.
Instead, I continued to crawl in the dark following the right hand wall. Perhaps I’d find greater light elsewhere. I left the torches. They were so dim as to be useless.
The first door I came across was thick stone, stuck as so many others had been. I left it for the time being. The next door was stuck as well, but made of sturdy wood rather than stone. I completed two loops of the room before deciding those were my only options. Even the door I’d come in through seemed to have vanished, replaced with some sort of giant stone face carved in the wall. Perhaps it was a secret door of some sort, but the wailing was too unsettling to stand there and find out.
I decided I would try my luck with the wooden door. Push, PushII and myself in parallel easily got the door open. I dismissed the spells as I stumbled through the archway.
Once more my nostrils were assaulted. The smell was unpleasant, though not nearly so vile as the previous smell had been. Sweet and musky, like rotting fruit. And indeed that it what it. The room contained several barrels filled with the stuff. I spent some time picking through them hopefully, but they were completely inedible. Not that I was hungry. Whatever the Mushroom-King had done wasn’t wearing off and I hadn’t felt the slightest bit hungry in the hour or two since I’d left. I probably didn’t want to know what he’d done. Another thing best left unexplored.
Maneuvering around the barrels led me to yet another stuck wooden door. How had the warlocks gotten around this place? Perhaps whatever settling had occurred after they’d cut the dungeons off from the rest of the castle had shifted all the door frames.
I put my shoulder to the door and shoved. Thankfully, that was enough. I only had BiteII and Candlelight left, neither of which would be knocking down doors.
I wandered for some time in the dark, still following the right hand wall. The path bent repeatedly, suggesting I was travelling down a corridor or through a series of smaller rooms. Or that the rooms I now crawled through were no longer rectangular like the others. It was impossible to tell. For a while I worried I might be heading in circles, but the bends were never the same, the stone always different under my knees.
It was a shame I couldn’t record spells in just any mark, because I was going to have one hell of a scar on my knees.
Finally, I came to yet another door. I gave it a firm shove. It swung open easily, nearly dropping me on my face. I’d forgotten they could do that.
There was a click. A hiss. Cool air rushed in around my toes. Then ankles. Then it slowly began to climb up my legs. It grew colder as it rose. First a welcome relief, then a bitter chill. Sharp pain erupted in my feet.
The temperature continued to drop as the gas continued to rise. I ran through the newly open door, heedless of the dark. I crashed into a large metallic structure almost immediately, adding even more scratches to my collection. I disentangled myself, receiving a cut along my forehead as some hooked bit of the structure nearly took out my eye.
My feet were beginning to go numb. Desperately, I climbed up the structure, hoping to escape the rising gas. It hadn’t risen more than a foot off the ground, but I wasn’t going to stop there. Fumbling about in the dark I found my holds, climbing higher and higher -the structure had enough protrusions and sharp edges I figured it must be a statue- until finally I reached the top.
Strangely, there was a large bowl set atop the structure, about as wide across as I was. I crouched in it, fingers at the edges, waiting for the first tickle of the freezing gas.
A minute passed. An hour. Still the gas did not reach me. I sat, hanging my legs over the edge of the bowl. The skin on my shins and feet had peeled, but feeling had been restored.
I gave it another hour before I cautiously descended, one toe probing beneath me as I went.
“Heavens above!”
I’d found the gas. It hadn’t risen, as far as I could tell, but it was now so cold it felt like fire. I retreated back up to my bowl. I was moderately concerned my involuntary cry would attract something, but only moderately. Let them deal with the gas.
I settled back into the bowl. The gas couldn’t last forever. Even if it did, it would be trivial to deal with it with a spell or two. I just needed to wait for sunrise.
The gas did concern me though. The dungeon was trapped, much as I had expected, but I had underestimated the scale. I would need to be more cautious in the future. I might even need to find a source of water and camp by there for several days while I recorded some spells. I kicked myself for not doing that while I had the chance. Even if I knew the way back to the stream, the Mushroom-King had blocked the passage.
My hunger and thirst steadily grew as I waited confirming my guess that the Mushroom-King had merely satiated my needs, rather than eliminated them. I might have thought it unfortunate, had the cost not been a further loss of my humanity.
I time, I managed to doze off. My dreams were strange. I dreamed dreams of what could have been. I dreamed of the warlock, whispering in my ear. I dreamed of twisting flesh and fire. I dreamed of power and righteous anger.
Still you resist? Still you cling to your black and white notions of good and evil? Even now? Trapped and enslaved, you refuse to do anything about it? You could be free.
What is worse, to expand your knowledge of the natural world, to explore frightening new possibilities, or to be under the control of a malevolent being? Are you truly a saint, or merely a coward?
That is not an answer and you know it. It is a talisman, a child’s charm, a blindfold to keep you safe from the wolves. Are you so arrogant as to say your knowledge of every path is complete?
How many have you met, truly? How many of these warlocks are merely stories, told to you by your elders, who in are merely repeating what they heard when they were neophytes?
Why? Have you not already seen much in the last few days that you had never heard of before? Can you dismiss all of it with the label of dark magic?
Laughter rang out in my dreams.
You think the natural world lives in your books, or perhaps parades about your forest in neat lines for you to see? You’ve yet to encounter a single case of dark magic in these dungeons. Save, of course, this altar where you sleep.
What of it? Does that weaken my argument? Or will you stop dancing away from the truth and admit to your arrogance.
Why would you drown if you tried to walk through water? Why can you not swim on land? There is many ways to approach the same thing. Even though they exist parallel, they can appear in opposition. “Dark” magic is merely another path. A broader one, more powerful, less precise. An axe instead of a knife.
Sometimes you need to skin a rabbit, sometimes you need to fell a tree. It is not about preference. It is about using the right tool.
Then become the first who is not. Use your magic only to save children’s lives and put out fires. Unless you think it is better to watch them burn?
A tool is not good or evil. That is the choice of its wielder. The blade itself does not demand violence.
A fair trial is all I as-
He is mine. Leave this place warlock! You are already dead. Your words have no meaning here.
The new voice belonged to the Mushroom-King, there was no doubt about it. He sounded different though. Louder, but at the same time diminished. Like a child yelling as contrasted with the low rumble of an adult’s voice. The warlock did not seem flustered by this new intrusion.
You cannot keep a wise man a slave. For in his mind he is free
I care not for his mind. His actions are my own.
If you do not have a man’s mind, you do not have his actions. He will undermine you, consciously or not.
The warlock sighed, Consider for a moment that I didn’t. What then happens to-
Silence, shade. The sun is about to rise.
I felt the Mushroom-King’s attention shift to me fully.
Wake now. Trust not yourself.
I woke.