Gunhild and I retreated to the staircase. There we studied our maps under the light of my fireball. Gunhild traced a quick finger along the corridor from where we sat, “There is no other path,” she whispered, “we’re trapped here.”
I pointed to the room which was presumably north of the one where I’d met Brace’s party, “Not necessarily. Not all passages may be marked on this map. We’ll have to see for ourselves. I’ve run into secret passages before.”
We left the fishbox in the room where I’d met Brace and crew. Gunhild was barely strong enough to move such an awkward shape, and I still wasn’t in condition to carry it at all. Both my hands were occupied with other things besides.
According to our maps, the far door opened into a series of dead-end hallways, whereas the doorway directly across from our new temporary base was the same room as the portcullis we’d passed on the way over here.
I sent a will-o-wisp through the wooden portcullis and danced it about the room. It appeared empty, just a dozen pillars lining each wall and a ladder leaning against the wall next to the portcullis. Perhaps a warlock had been about to do some interior decorating before my escape had interrupted him.
The first map indicated Brace’s party had gone through the door, not the portcullis, so that was what I opened.
Much to my surprise the door opened without a hitch. Perhaps the warlocks had switched builders by the third floor.
To my further surprise, the door was trapped.
*Thwip* *Thwip*
Two darts stuck out of my armour at the bottom of my ribcage on either side. So much for the marked path being safe.
“What is it? Is everything alright?” Gunhild called in a low whisper. She was standing back in our base, ready to run away or rush forward and help me if any hidden foes came out of the room before us.
I sent my fireball into the room and poked my head in after it. A quick glance around showed the room was empty.
I turned back to Gunhild, “The room is fine. The door was trapped though. I don’t think Conan found them all.”
I gestured to the twin needles sticking out of my armour.
Her eyes widened, “Are you alright?”
I strapped my cutlass to my belt and then pulled both the needles free. They gleamed wetly in the light of the fireball, though I’d felt no pain. I moved my fireball closer to check. The tips were red with blood.
“Thunderbolt at dawn!”
I dropped the needles and shoved my spellbook into the hands of a concerned Gunhild, then proceeded to remove my gambeson (ow).
A few moments of struggling later I let the armour slide to the floor and I lifted my tunic to inspect myself. No wounds were visible save for the still unhealed burns on my chest.
I brought the fireball as close as I dared. My hair had proven to be fireproof, but I couldn’t say the same for Gunhild’s, “Can you see anything?”
She crept closer and examined my chest, running a finger across the outline of my ribcage.
The sun rose.
“Nothing. Are you sure it hit you?”
I dropped my tunic, “I didn’t feel a thing, but the needle was red with blood.”
“Is your blood red?”
That gave me pause, “I’m... not sure. Let’s find out.”
Before I could stop myself and think about what I was doing I grabbed my dagger from my belt and ran the edge forcefully over my forearm. Thankfully it was sharp enough to cut my toughened skin, but not so sharp it caused a serious wound. I squeezed the small cut I’d made in my arm until a bead of blood formed; it was as red as any other’s.
“You’ll get an infection,” Gunhild reprimanded me.
“I heal fast,” I said, wiping the dagger on my arm and re-sheathing it. I began to pull my gambeson back on, “My skin is stronger than hardened leather. Perhaps the poison itself was red and the needle failed to penetrate.”
Gunhild’s eyes widened, “It isn’t!” she declared, she ran a finger under my tunic, then caught herself and pulled away, blushing, “It’s as soft as a maiden’s. And your dagger cut it just fine.”
“Soft as a maiden I may be, but I am far stronger. You might not be able to cut me with a simple swipe of even my cutlass.”
She stared up at me, doubt fighting wonder in her eyes, “You are a very strange man. One of the strangest I’ve met.”
I grinned back down at her, then tugged the gambeson back over my head, “You’ve known stranger?”
She smiled, “If you only you knew my sisters-” she stopped suddenly, smile fading, “but that is a story for another time.”
Alarm bells were ringing somewhere deep inside me, faintly, as though they’d been long ago clappered. Secrecy made a poor foundation for a relationship.
But trust was slow and painfully won. Not all secrets need be revealed, and those revealed not need be all at once. There was pain in reliving some tales besides.
I finished pulling on my armour and retrieved both book and cutlass.
“Come, I’ve another spell to write. You can search the room for secret exits while I do so. That statue looks promising.”
We crossed the hall into the room of pillars. Gunhild headed for the far side of the room where both a tattered tapestry and a large statue were displayed. The tapestry was shrouded by shadows, but even from here I could make out the statue. It was a macabre display; a corpse, withered and rotted, nearly a skeleton, propped upright by the long staff in its hand. Its head was slumped forward to reveal its barren skull. Atop the skull was affixed a crown.
The whole thing was a mockery of the Magi. A mockery of the Crown. Either conflating the Magi with a desire to rule, or a king with a false sense of wisdom. Their rotted body demonstrated the artists dismissal of such a marriage.
“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” Gunhild asked, running her hands along the tattered robes about its ankles. (The statue was nearly nine feet tall.)
“We can only hope they keep these displays in the dungeon because they are too vile for the castle. The other way around—that they lack the impact the warlock’s desire—is a disturbing thought.”
“I wonder who he was? The robes bear and insignia of some sor- ah, but I am distracting you. Please, return to your spell weaving.”
Marshlight
I sent the spell over to join in her search. The lights were dim, but they’d last for two hours, more than enough time to complete my spell.
Fireball II
The fireball was far brighter, but I summoned it primarily to clear it from my mind while I worked.
Lesser Heal II. Lesser Heal III. Lesser Heal V. Lesser Heal VI. Heal. Heal III. Heal IIII. Heal V. I healed as much in an hour as most over several months, though the measure wasn’t exact. Sleep was far more restful than wakefulness, but I couldn’t write while I slept. There were rumours of rare masters, wise even among the Magi who could achieve such feats, but the training was as difficult as the use case was niche.
Greater Heal: The caster’s body heals 1420 hours’ worth of injuries over the course of an hour.
The final stroke of the spell nearly caused me to drop my book in shock. The rune was glowing. It was the same glow as Lesser Heal VI. Identical, even. I closed my spellbook.
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I could still see the rune.
That was handy. I still had no idea which circumstances allowed me to properly transfer the more metaphysical aspects of my spells, but at the very least I knew it was possible. That also meant I was going to be avoiding using my Fireball II in spells for sure. I couldn’t risk the strange... whatever it was.
“Did you find anything?” I asked. I summoned a pair of Will-o’-Wisps to join the other two.
Gunhild was still standing by the statue of the dead mage-king. She might have moved while I was writing, but I’d been too focused to tell.
“Bring your wisps closer. I’ve nearly had this figured when the light went out.”
I did as she asked, “So there is something?”
Gunhild’s face was pressed firmly against the point where the statue’s back joined with the wall. Her fingers were sliding back and forth in front of her face, nails scrabbling at the stone.
“There’s a crack all the wall along the edge of the statue here. Too smooth to be damage, worn enough to make me think it’s frequently been moved.”
She shoved a finger back behind her, “Oh, and go check out behind that tapestry as well.”
I did as she suggested, bringing one of my jack-o’-lanterns with me. Even with my vision, I couldn’t make out the details of the tapestry until my light was pressed almost directly against it. It depicted... squiggles. Nonsense lines and imaginary runes, with no set purpose or patt-
Unless...
I had to be sure.
Fireball
When only able to see the individual runes they’d meant nothing. I’d never seen their forms and they were too scattered to be part of any language. It was only when taken in aggregate that the meaning became clear. I still didn’t recognize the runes, but then, I wouldn’t would I? Every Magi’s runes were unique to the Magus. But every Magus had a signature. A tell in their writing which touched every rune they wrote. A relationship between the forms.
No warlock could have woven this tapestry. The hand had been subtle, so subtle I’d barely noticed it myself, but it was there.
First the command chamber, and now this tapestry. The warlocks had closer ties with the Magi than I’d thought.
It was still possible these were relics. That a Magus or even the very Magus-King whose statue Gunhild was inspecting had owned Bleakfort at some point in the distant past. But if that were true, why had the warlocks kept them? Was that why they wanted me? Someone to help reveal their secrets?
It almost made more sense than my initial assessment, before I’d seen the power of Lightning Cascade. The warlocks didn’t need a Magus to fight for them, but to teach them? It was another theory, one I’d keep in mind, and yet neither explained the near-indestructible demonic faces I’d found carved into the walls.
I pushed the tapestry aside. It was the simplest form of concealment. A plain wooden door stood behind it, only slightly smaller in dimensions than the tapestry itself.
I tugged the tapestry aside and threw it to the ground. I wanted a clear run-up for my swords.
Sword Storm
Even though I didn’t expect traps from a secret door I was already backing up as I cast the spell. The habit had been beaten into me at this point. Besides, if a door which Conan had already examined and Brace had already been through could be trapped, anything could be trapped.
My first sword knocked the door open, swinging smoothly outward on its hinges. It hadn’t even been latched.
I didn’t like that.
Last time I’d opened two doors so easily in a row I’d run into the Mushroom-King. I sent my fireballs forward, first through the door than outwards, one left, one right. The left fireball didn’t make it very far. I’d opened a door out into a corridor heading to my right. I was beginning to have an idea about where it went.
I cautiously followed my fireballs through the door. Sure enough the corridor ended in a dead end after fifty or so feet. A second corridor branched off it around the middle, which I sent my fireballs down before investigating. The second corridor ran out after only twenty feet with a door to my left. Wooden, as I had remembered.
The corridor was simply back passage from the new fish box room to the pillar room. Which... It could mean the other dead end led to another secret passage.
I hurried down the corridor to check, conscious of the fact I’d left Gunhild alone and vulnerable to whatever creatures might wander by, or whatever traps her own secret door could conjure.
My fireballs revealed no new information as I drew closer. A few cursory swipes with my swords only elected an increased volume of moans from the other denizens of the dungeon.
Who was doing all that moaning and rattling those chains? I hadn’t seen anyone. Living, at least. The prisoner’s bodies had been chained. Perhaps they tugged and moaned when no one was looking. Once the thought entered my mind it wouldn’t leave. The horror was twofold. Both the thought of corpses moving in secret, and the endless torches of the perished prisoners. I’d continue burning any bodies I came across. For their own sake.
I couldn’t afford to waste more time studying the wall. Most secret passages had been fairly obvious once I’d known where to look, but there wasn’t even a rug to look under here. If the Magus-King didn’t bear fruit we’d return here.
I returned to the pillar room at a light jog. I arrived just in time to see Gunhild go flying past me as her run turned into a stumble in the dark. She crashed into the floor less than three feet from one of my invisible blades. Any closer and it might have skewered her.
I raised them to the ceiling and sent them forward in the direction she’d run from, followed by one of my fireballs, the other I moved to the ceiling directly above her. The moment she saw me coming she struggled into a sitting position, a look of panic in her eyes.
“Gas!” she yelled, “We need to get out of here.”
My fireball illuminated the gas at the same moment. It was dark red in colour, a small billowing orb expanding from the Magus’s staff. There was no immediate effect on its surroundings I could determine, but there was no time to find out.
I tugged Gunhild to her feet and sent my other fireball ahead of us to the door. The pain in my chest would just have to be ignored until we were both safely away. Gunhild didn’t need any further direction. She’d already recovered her balance and was hurrying ahead as fast as the light from the fireball would allow her. I followed soon after, increasing the speed of the fireball so we could escape at a run rather than a jog.
We didn’t stop until we’d made it back to the stairs, and up a dozen stairs to boot. Only then did I send the fireball behind us to see if the gas had followed. Thankfully, it hadn’t.
It was only then I realized the sun had risen once more. Sometime around the moment when Gunhild had first fell. I hadn’t noticed in my panic. The frequency seemed to have increased since we’d set off together. Perhaps her presence was a lucky charm. One I’d have to take advantage of immediately, especially now that we were stranded by the gas.
Fireball II
Gunhild waited under the light of my fireball while I wrote, keeping an eye out for encroaching gas. I, in turn, focused on my healing once more. Lesser Heal II. Lesser Heal III. Lesser Heal V. Lesser Heal VI. Heal. Heal III. Heal IIII. Heal V. Greater Heal. It was a miracle in of itself that I didn’t lose any spells in the process of recording this new one. My luck with the dungeon had been variable, but since I’d lost the druid stone, it seemed to have turned. As ever, my chest ruin remained stubbornly unhealed while the rest of me trended ever closer to the smooth, unblemished appearance of a newborn child.
Greater Heal II: The caster’s body heals 2840 hours’ worth of injuries over the course of an hour.
My fireball winked out. Gunhild shifted beside me, but didn’t speak for fear of interrupting.
Will-o’-Wisp
I smiled at her, “I’m ready. Thank you for waiting.”
She rose to her feet with a groan, “I couldn’t decide whether I should go out of my mind from fear or boredom. I couldn’t even escape to daydreams for fear of those people coming through the far door, or the gas rising up the stairs.
“How do you stand it?”
“Magic, true magic, is far more engaging than it appears. Dark magic is the opposite I suppose, though neither is boring.”
“Is that the difference between them? I’ve heard the terms before, but it’s all magic to me.”
“It... nearly. The wonder of true magic is its creation, and dark magic its effect. Journey versus destination, if you will. True magic is believed to follow natural processes and hold nature in highest regard, dark magic circumvents it. At least, that is what I was taught.”
“You sound doubtful.”
Had I? I’d not meant to, “I’ve had such conversations with at least one warlock who disagreed. I don’t know what he believed of the engagement of true magic, but I’m sure he’d have argued the feeling was subjective; that you could derive equal pleasure from either step of both dark and true magic.”
Her eyes widened, “You’ve spoken with the warlocks? Where is he now?”
“Dead, along with his poisonous words.”
Gunhild had clearly dealt with or heard stories of warlocks before, “What oaths did he have you break?”
“None. I overcame all influences on my mind.”
Gunhild looked suddenly scared, perhaps doubtful I was speaking the truth, “How?”
And now it was my turn to ask for her trust, as I’d made my vow to Tom, and a vow to a hobgoblin was not one lightly abandoned, “That’s a Magus secret, I’m afraid. It is not mine to share.”
Gunhild glanced at the doorway where the many voices, or creature with many voices, had threatened the truth. I could almost see her weighing the odds.
Whatever her secret, my own weren’t enough to tip the scales.
“Is it safe now?” she asked, quick to change the subject.
I sent my jack-o’-lanterns down to the bottom of the steps to bob and weave between the landing and the room opposite. There was no gas to be seen, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t changed colour or otherwise dissipated enough to be invisible but not effective.
I handed Gunhild my dagger, “Tap the pommel against the wall until I tell you it is safe, as loud as you can manage without breaking the dagger.”
She took the dagger and looked at me with raised eyebrows, “Whatever for?”
“The limit of my spells is the limit of my senses. If the gas proves harmful I can teleport to the sound before it also proves deadly.”
The eyebrows didn’t lower, but she did I as said, and began to rhythmically bang metal against stone.