Lightstep Again. A weight lifted off my shoulders. And my back. And my legs. Everywhere, really. That was the point of the spell. I’d already lost it once, but this time I was going to-
Whispers rose in my mind. Insistent. All consuming. I was alone in the void. Only the sussurations of dark magic bound me. There was nothing outside.
Transporting Disc
When I came to nobody had moved from where I’d left them. I hadn’t lost any time, but my hand had stopped moving. More importantly, my mind no longer held the forms of the rune I needed to write. I could try again, but it would have to be with a different.
My stomach rumbled.
I sighed and looked over my spellbook. I had a single sword spell left to cast before sunrise. I could try to duplicate it, or I could use it to protect me for a quick excursion.
I’d had it in my mind to find my fish cache again for a while. Tom’s larder was surprisingly well stocked, but there was ten of us and I didn’t trust elf food. Even Attart had warned off of eating it because she wasn’t sure of the consequences.
On the flip side it was warm and cheery in Attart’s home. The lamps were lit and the fire was roaring. Tom had enough cloths and fabrics for us all to have soft beds for the first time in months. Years in the case of the huldra. There was even five large beds for those who didn’t mind sharing.
I moved to the south door before I could talk myself out of it, “Attart, could you open the door. I need to head out for a bit.”
“Gentle Attart cannot let you go unattended. Where are we going?”
I shook my head and rested my hand on her shoulder, “Eric and the Huldra need someone to protect them until they’ve fully recovered. I’m going to find us some food. I know of a place, and I know a safe path to get there.”
At least, I hoped I did. It had been a little while.
***
South first, where the smashed door led to the remnants of the dark altar. But it wasn’t that path I wanted to follow. The portcullis had been the safer path. I’d nearly died to that icy mist entering the altar room. I hadn’t set the trap off this time, and I didn’t want to anytime soon.
Push IIII
The force was more than enough to raise the portcullis. My own strength had been more than enough when I was less strong than I was now, and the spell was twice that. Shame it only lasted an hour, especially because the spell left my spell book as I cast it.
I needed to get some spikes to keep the doors in place like Brace and Erin had. Maybe I could trade Eric for them.
The corridor took me over twenty minutes to walk down. First south, than west, than south again. Had it really been this long before? I guess I’d walked them with less caution the more I’d gotten used to them.
I was on full alert now. My ring could detect most traps and my spellbook was running low on spells, both available and in total. It would be better to avoid any roving mercenaries and other troubles before they happened.
The hallway ended in an archway leading into a room I didn’t recognize. That alone was fine, all the rooms looked fairly similar here.
To my right were words written in orc runes. To my left the floor were scattered three iron spikes.
That was awfully convenient.
I readied my spellbook and my ring, but crept toward the spikes nonetheless.
Seeing as nothing leapt out to grab me, I grabbed the spikes in turn. Nothing.
Spikes in hand I hurried back the way I’d came, creeping forward at a blistering foot per second. I almost exhausted myself after that sprint, but I made it back in time to hammer the spikes home in the portcullis.
Not even the perpetual moaners deep below paid attention to my hammering. I’d fallen into a rhythm with one of the clanking chains echoing about the corridor and I guess it had disguised my actions.
I even had one iron spike left after everything was ripe and gathered.
Back down the path and across the room to the orcneas’s runes.
The runes shifted under my finger, becoming pictograms: An orcneas viewing an empty plint, an amorphous shadow in the distance carrying a heavy set skull. The skull had a long dirty beard.
Who took my dwarf skull?
Really?
It might have taken over an hour to carve those runes. Why did the orc have a dwarf skull to begin with, and if he did have one, why did he think a message carved on a single out of the way wall would convince the thief to return it?
Maybe this was an expression of the strange humour orcs were rumoured to have.
***
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There was a wooden door opposite the archway I’d entered by. I didn’t want to be left defenceless, but I wasn’t about to open one of these doors by hand, not when I didn’t have to. It was time to try recording again.
I hunkered down behind the lip of the archway so I was mostly in cover but could still make out the door, then I brought wax to parchment.
Magic Swords III. Something was different about this cast. My lights and swords controlled strangely. They didn’t move as if I was wielding them, and yet, when I ordered them to destroy the door, they obeyed. The door held firm against their blows, scratching and chipping rather than breaking.
Curious, I took my attention away from my spells. The racket continued, the swords were still in motion. Come back down the hall and if there is a right turn follow it to the end, I commanded of one of my lights. It obeyed. It had made a decision based on a pre-set order. If there is a left turn spin in a circle, if there is no turn bob up and down, otherwise return to the door, I tried.
Nothing happened. A few more experiments more or less confirmed the idea. Basic commands only. Not even basic. Rudimentary. Even so, it was a very powerful tool. Bob up and down when I pass through the doorway. The light did so as I approached my ineffectually flailing swords. Oh yes, I could use this.
Soldiers’ Swords: Four invisible blades act with the base force of 484 lbs. One for half an hour, two for 45 minutes, and the final for an hour. Two lights, bright as candles, join them, rising into existence just before the blade appears for the first time and dying an hour after it vanishes. Two more lights join in at the end of the first hour, and end an hour after the first lights fade, providing 3 hours of light total. All act following the rudimentary orders of their master.
My swords vanished without breaking through the door which was apparently made of ironwood—steelwood—adamantinewood. A door crafted by the cyclops themselves. How had I gotten through this door before?
I was answered a moment later when, freed from the assault, the door swung open on its own accord. It hadn’t even been latched.
Light trickled through me. It was a faint memory of what had been. The suns had risen. The suns had been swallowed by darkness, one by one. But the memory was enough. I could write once more.
***
I found myself walking rather than writing. I could use another spell, I was sure of it. What spell that might be, I couldn’t say. Any spell I wanted to be immediately effective I’d have to wait for the true sunrise to refresh my spells, but I’d seen the cost of waiting. Thrice I hadn’t recorded spells when I could, and the suns themselves had been lost.
Anything in any direction was better than nothing. I found my evil sense tugging me here and there at random spots and stains in the hallway. I avoided them all. I’d had my fill of twisted violence.
I stopped before the new door at the end of the hallway.
Or... I could get a new set of swords every time the passage cost me the old ones.
***
Soldier’s Swords. The new door was as strong as its compatriot. These swords were weaker than some, sure, but the sudden leap in quality was surprising. Perhaps I’d entered a separate realm of superior craftmanship rather than gone back in time.
Acting on a hunch, I first pushed, then hooked the door handle and gently pulled on the door. It swung open. The architect had heard my thoughts and was now toying with me. It had to be—my sword vanished when it passed through the doorway. I could still sense it, in a way. Still give it orders, but I had no idea what it was doing with them.
I’d found the teleportation door outside the corner of screaming. I used my will-o’-wisp to guide one of my swords to pry out the ru—the sword vanished. As did my second (third) sword. My final sword succeeded where the others had failed. The stone fell clattering to the ground and my blade passed through the doorway unmolested.
Soldier’s Swords II: Four invisible blades act with the base force of 484 lbs. One for half an hour, two for 45 minutes, and the final for an hour. Two lights, bright as candles, join them, rising into existence just before the blade appears for the first time and dying an hour after it vanishes. Two more lights join in at the end of the first hour, and end an hour after the first lights fade, providing 3 hours of light total. All act following the rudimentary orders of their master, regardless of separation from their master.
I stretched my jaw and rocked my neck from side to side. Didn’t want to pull anything passing through the corner.
“Red leather, yellow leather. Red leather, yellow leather.”
I waggled my tongue back and forth a few more times, took a deep breath, and stepped into the room.
It wasn’t my best performance, but I think I gave the creatures on the lower floors a run for their money.
The howls set off a chain reaction which got an entire second choir of the damned going and which persisted even after I slipped through the pre-smashed door to my right and down the corridor.
I was pretty sure one of the other doorways was more direct, but the threat of getting crushed from a ceiling block remained. I’d already travelled this path in relative safety.
Ten minutes later I was back in the Mushroom-King’s chamber. He hadn’t come back. I wasn’t sure if he would or could. They mycelium of most mushrooms held their true intelligence, but each king I’d met had their own personality.
The pull of evil was overwhelming here. Every inch of the room was filled with some sin or another. Where I stood I was treated with a particularly vivid memory of mycilial tendrils crawling into a pair of men’s eyes.
I eyed the sooty ground.
Couldn’t mushrooms spring from ashes overnight? I hoped there was a size limit.
I stepped around the bones of the skeleton and passed through the door he had opened.
ϟϟϟ
“Hello Oswic,” purred the mirror, “you’re early this time.”