The ogress was dead, but I wasn’t done with her. I’d learned my lesson from her husband/brother/father.

Three of my swords kept her pinned while the fourth took her head. The fourth blade then rolled her severed head away from the rest of her body then stabbed down through her jaw. I’d be leaving my swords in place for as long as I could. Even now.

I turned back to the collapsed flagstone. Not only had it cut me off from the ogre and stairs, but also the corridor which I needed to follow to get down to the next floor.

I pulled my maps from my pouch. Though my teleport had cleared away most of the blood soaking into my clothes and gear, the stains remained. Both the map of the first 6 floors and the map of the third floor had been ruined. Only the map of the fourth floor—this floor—remained.

Worse—for Conan could redraw the other maps—my map of the eleventh floor was also ruined. There would be no salvaging that.

I brought one of my will-o’-wisps closer to study my remaining map. Even they hadn’t emerged unscathed. Will-o’-wisp didn’t properly describe the light anymore. Both of the marshlights from my spell were as steady as an oil lantern on a still summer’s eve. The light didn’t dim, flicker, wax or wane. They were dimmer now too. Perhaps half the strength they’d been. Whatever rules and laws of magic I’d known before fighting the ogre had drifted away in the autumn breeze.

But it was the fourth floor I’d opened my pouch to see, and I still had light to see it by. I’d take what victories I could get.

As I suspected, I was trapped down a dead end corridor. At least by the map’s, and therefore Conan’s) reckoning. I knew enough the dungeon to search for secret passages before giving up hope.

Still, even being trapped could be a positive thing. If the stone remained in place the room I’d met the ogres in would be a safe place to sleep. Provided it hadn’t been flooded with blood.

The decision now was to decide if I was willing to abandon the stone and the ogress to seek kinder environs, or if I feared their ambush to be able to take me unawares.

I swayed where I stood.

It had been a long day. A very, very, very long day. Poisonous gas, chained men, trollskap, and ogres. And that hadn’t been the half of it. If the ogres killed me when my back was turned, at least I might be able to get some sleep.

I sloshed around the ogress and around the bend, withdrawing my swords once she was out of sight. They could guard the doorway for me, at least for the next hour or so.

I came across my discarded bindle a moment later and bent to retrieve it. My spine popped as I tried to lift it. For a moment my whole back seized in pain, and then my still active healing spell overcame it.

I nudged the bundle with my foot. It didn’t move.

I suppose over a hundred feet of rope would be heavier wet than dry. Even with my enhanced strength I couldn’t lift it.

Levitate

The plan was to lessen the burden enough to drag my bindle to drier ground. That wasn’t what happened.

Instead, much like Marshlight and Swordferno before it, the runes began to writhe underneath my thumb. I shuddered and tore my thumb away. Casting spells was becoming more akin to shoving my hand in a bucket of worms than flipping through the pages of a book.

At the same time, my bindle began to glow. The light was not like my will-o’-wisps, or rather, not like they had been. It was a steady light, even, and this time far brighter than those which danced about freely in the air.

Drought and famine, what was going on?

The obvious answer was that the ogre was somehow responsible, though I had no idea how that could be. My best guess was some kind of corruption akin to the corruption brought about dark magic.

I forced myself to turn back to the page with my Levitate rune and ran my finger along its still writhing form. It was settling now. Becoming firming, more defined. In fact... it was legible. A new rune, written in the same style, with the same flourishes, as if I myself had written it. A moment later and the writhing stilled. I traced a trembling finger along the lines.

I could read this.

I could cast this.

Rapture: An object weighing up to 80lbs begins to glow with the strength of two candles. The object can be moved following the whims of the mage at the speed of a gentle run for up to an hour.

A spell had been written in my spellbook by other than my hand, and I could cast it. This was different from the changes brought about by dark magic. Those where I lost the spell entirely, or was able to cast it without properly sensing the rune. Thought it was not entirely without precedent. There had been other spell whose values had changed, hadn’t there? Spells who had doubled in strength without my input?

I flipped over to the page bearing my Marshlight spell.

The rune was gone.

It had been moving on its own a moment before. Would the new Rapture disappear just the same? I flipped back to where Swordferno had been. If I had lost it, at least I would know. I’d lost spells before, though not in such a strange manner.

Flames of Revenge: Flames which cut like swords fly off down the fastest route at twice the speed of a run to attack the caster’s greatest enemy in each community. One flame per community.

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The blood within my veins ran as cold as the blood running without. This was not a spell any mage could write. A spell any mage would write. It was far to complicated. Far to vague. Far to precise. Far too cruel. Indiscriminate. Impossible.

The flames hadn’t sought out either of the ogres. Nor had they harmed me. They’d...

They’d flown around me and up the stairs. Had it been a dozen flames? Half a dozen? Who had I condemned to die?

Though... At half the speed of a run, I still had time. The stairs were long, and though the flames would not grow tired nor (presumably) feel the weight of gravity, I should still have time. I ended the spell. Or rather, I gave the same mental command—the same psychic unhitching—I gave when ending other spells. I could only hope it worked. I didn’t trust any definition of enemy which didn’t include the ogre, and any definition of community which only produced a dozen flames.

I grabbed the bindle and pulled. It was still too heavy despite the Rapture. Strange name for a spell, it didn’t appear particularly happy to me. Perhaps it was I who was meant to be enraptured by the floating bindle. If it was floating.

Rapture

For some reason the spell was uncast, and so I layered it with itself. The bag grew brighter; a giant torch sat in a stream.

...

“Stone smother and grass die! Leaves rot and life turn to slime!”

A giant torch and little else. I still couldn’t drag it.

My back healed for the second time a moment later.

Push II

I oriented the spell such that it sent the bindle toward the ceiling. My plan was to grab the bindle and divest the rope of blood with a teleport, but even now I couldn’t quite lift the bag. Perhaps if I wasn’t already carrying so much, and trying to hold on to a spellbook with one hand.

But at last I could drag it, and so drag it I did, sloshing down the corridor toward the room at the end. I could only hope there weren’t more ogres waiting for mom and dad to come home. Or worse, grandpa and grandma.

***

The floor must have held a minute depression around the door to the ogre’s room, for the stream ended there in a pool of blood. By the time I arrived the pool was up past my ankles, and the stream showed no signs of slowing. Come the new day the whole corridor was going to reek. Already the smell of copper and iron was getting to me. And worse. I was pretty sure some of the blood had gotten up my nose. I could taste it on the back of my tongue. Ogre didn’t taste good.

Past the door my boots squelched up onto dry stone. I was able to tug my bindle just shy of the pool’s edge but no further. By the bindle’s light I studied the ogres’ room.

It was, unsurprisingly, filthy. Scattered bits of stained fabric, rotten timbres, mats of straw, empty bottles, discarded “clothes” (loin cloths mostly), nail clippings, hair, and more decorated the room. In a pile in the corner were what could only be what affects of their victims they viewed as worth keeping. Gold coins, shiny necklaces, and whatever samples of fabric they hadn’t already destroyed.

The only entrance and exit (save perhaps the depths of the well) was the door I’d just entered through. Just like my map had said. Given the circumstances, I’d have appreciated another way out over the near guarantee of safety.

I dropped my pack over in the corner with the rest of the valuables then returned to my bindle. Against my better judgment I placed my spellbook on the floor and out of the way. I’d need both hands for this, though I kept it within easy reach.

With both hands now grasping both the fabric of the bindle and the scabbard itself, I pulled as hard as I could. Slowly, painfully, the bindle slid up the small slope and out of the pond. Blood ran from it in rivulets as the rope slowly divested itself of liquid.

I helped it along by stepping up onto the bindle itself, squishing free a torrent of blood which flowed down to join the rest in the slowly growing pool.

After hopping in place a number of times, I judge the bindle light enough to carry. I gathered the whole thing up in both my arms, then waded back into the pool. Then I activated my tattoo.

Safe Teleport

Bindle and I, both free of blood, reappeared a moment later next to the rest of my gear. I set the bindle down and hurriedly went over to retrieve my spellbook. It didn’t have many spells left which could defend me at this point, but I didn’t feel comfortable having it leave my grasp for an instant all the same.

Besides, it was well past time I recorded a new spell. My first thought was a spell to overcome the ogre’s defences, or perhaps one which could tunnel through rock. A quick review of my spellbook put an end to that. I’d used up most my spells, and the ones I hadn’t used had been warped in unrecognizable ways. The only exception were my healing spells which for the most part remained. Unlike many other spells, there was no limit to the useful strength of a healing spell. It would make a good second choice.

I dug through my pouch for my wax, and was disgusted to see that a loamy, pinkish, gritty foam had spread evenly throughout my pouch. My chalk. I emptied the pouch and brushed off the rest of its contents. None of the chalk was retrievable. At least it hadn’t somehow ruined my wax or potions. I returned the surviving contents to my pouch, and then took up my freshly cleaned bar of wax.

Lesser Heal II. Lesser Heal III. Lesser Heal VI. Heal. Heal III. Heal IIII. Heal V. Greater Heal. Greater Heal II. Greater Heal III. Greater Heal IIII. Finally, after over a dozen efforts spent solely on repairing a single pair of injuries, the wounds in my chest closed, inflammation shrunk, scars faded, and they were no more.

Regenerate: The caster’s body heals 23,040 hours’ worth of injuries over the course of an hour.

I frowned at the rune I had written. The number was too high, the effect was too strong. I flipped through my spellbook, mentally adding up the value—Heal IIII had changed. Changed mid-cast, for I hadn’t forgotten what I’d read only an hour. Where once the spell had healed 355 hours worth of injuries over the course of an hour, it now healed 710. Exactly doubled in strength.

I’d seen this before, hadn’t I? Back when I fought the first swarm of rats? I wasn’t sure. It had only been a month, but it felt like a lifetime. I could barely recall my life before the dungeon at this point. It was a faded thing, a fairy story whose contemplation put my sanity at risk. Only the present mattered. And the future. If the future ever came.

Back to the present. Now was a time for celebration. Not only had two of my spells become stronger than anticipated, I hadn’t been eaten by ogres nor interrupted by dark whispering. Luck, at least for the moment, was on my side.

I was not one to deny luck when it came. Instead I embraced it. Revelled in it. It was the same principle as dreaming. If you realized you were dreaming, the best way to stay asleep, paradoxically, was to tell yourself you were dreaming. The truth was rewarded and it was obvious why.

If you knew where you were, whether atop a mountain, within a dream, or in a state of positive luck, you knew where you wanted to stay. It was when you were lost you drifted away from such things. Or never found them.

“Wind and rain, praise you, praise me.”

It was a short prayer of thankfulness my master had taught me. Though far removed from both wind and rain, the memory such things still existed somewhere high above was a second blessing in of itself.

My eyes grew heavy as I rested my arm bearing my spellbook beside me. My fingers were still threaded through the pages. It had been a very, very, long day.

I slept.