The stairs to the fourth floor were as long as ever. Longer even. My swords and fireball both vanished before I reached bottom, leaving me with only my will-o’-wisps for light, and even they were replaced over the course of the descent. About an hour in length if I had to guess.
The map of the fourth floor was less complete than the third. Brace’s party had had a far hard time exploring the floor and had been met with a number of misfortunes including an incident which had left half of Conan’s papers covered in ink which had been why they’d only bargained for the one floor. He’d reconstructed what he could remember to the best of his ability with the help of the stone map, but a marked “safe path” had proven to be less useful than I’d hoped, given the traps and foes Gunhild and I had encountered already. It was clear they’d not only been lucky in avoiding traps, but that the denizens of the caverns had moved in since their initial exploration.
Still, the stone map was enough. It marked both sets of stairs and gave me a clear path to follow. It was a bit of journey compared to the third floor, enough so that I headed for the dead-end room straight ahead of me (due west) instead.
The corridor wasn’t straight, taking numerously long bends which had me nearly switching back and forth across my same path, but eventually the map proved true and the path ending in a door. A door which had been slid aside to reveal a large plumb bob hanging from the ceiling. A narrow incision showed the path it must have one time swung along; straight into the faces of anyone foolish enough to be standing next to the door when they opened it.
It was only by carefully studying this incision that I was able to avoid noticing to the two enormous shapes charging out of the darkness towards me.
“Get ‘em!” The one in the lead bellowed so loud the walls shook, “’e looks like ‘e’s got some meat on ‘im.”
My light—and theirs it soon turned out (how had I not noticed that?)—revealed two giants, nine feet tall and brandishing clubs. Both were grotesquely fat, emphasized by the fact neither was wearing more than a loincloth. Their heads were twice the size they should have been, both with cavernous mouths agape with hunger and delight as they bore down on me.
The observation took me only a fraction of a second, which was fortunate, because I didn’t have much more than that. But I did, and I had my spellbook in hand.
Swordferno II
The giants impacted my swords with enough force to drive the invisible blades back towards me. In fact, the swords hardly slowed them. The first giant—ogre seemed appropriate here—swung his club at me, completely ignoring the half-dozen mortal wounds across his body.
The club stuck true to the spot I’d just been occupying, but my reflexes saved me once again as I leapt backwards from his blow. His companion swung her club a moment too slow, completely missing me.
I didn’t slow my retreat. Instead I sent my fireballs forward while I continued to carefully back away from the pair, more concerned with stumbling than haste. I needed to put as much distance-
the sun rose-
between the three of us as fast as I could, but a single misstep would be lethal.
Fireball II
I didn’t need that hazard on my mind while trying to fight to monsters. I sent it to join the others.
They were doing good work, scorching flesh such that it bubbled and sizzled like pork on a spit and leaving black and yellow flesh behind.
It was too much for the female of the pair, who retreated with a cry of pain back into her lair.
The male, by comparison, was enraged. The walls shook with it as he let out a wordless roar and tore at the balls of fire swarming his body. He even went so far as to smother one in a meaty fist, killing it.
If I hadn’t been terrified and fighting for my own life, I’d have been impressed. Instead, I tore free the swords embedded in the ogress’s flesh and struck them as hard as I could into the ogre’s back and side.
The ogre was not the toad-dragon. His hide didn’t repel my swords, he didn’t leap faster than my blades could follow. He struggle forward directly through the swarm and he was impaled. Again and again and again. And he kept struggling forward, undeterred.
I started aiming for his neck, face, and eyes, desperate to fell him before he drew nearer. In response he raised his hands to his head and warded off both fire and sword. I continued my retreat, and the ogre continued his advance. Neither gained nor fell behind. Instead, we moved in lockstep, painting the corridor red with his blood. Buckets of blood. It poured from every wound in a tide, as though his plan was to drown us all. Sprays of it flew to decorate the walls and ceiling with every pass of my blades.
Part of it was his immense size. Nothing but an exact strike of my magic swords would pierce deep enough to cause a mortal wound. But that wasn’t the end of it. I’d already caused a dozen such wounds and it failed to fell him. The creature was tougher than he should be, supernaturally slow. No one beast could contain so much blood. Not one who could walk these corridors without stooping.
I’d win this contest of endurance in the end. As long as he couldn’t close the distance, every second brought me closer to victory. My concern was running out of corridor before that point. The stairs would be long enough, but he would gain where I would stumble if I tried to manuever them backwards.
My fingers flipped through my spellbook as we continued our slow retreat away from the ogres’ lair. Sword Storm would be welcome or even... the sun had risen. My spells had all returned. When had—Earlier in the fight. I’d recognized it subconsciously, but hadn’t had a moment to spare the thought heed.
Swordferno
The runes twisted under my fingers. Wax slide across parchment and rearranged itself, growing large, smaller, grander, more complex, spiralling outward, until the rune took up the entire page, and then spread across the to the second, wrapping up and around the edges of each and who knew how far beyond.
Glowing flames appeared in front of me, perhaps a dozen of them. They were not the balls of fire I was used to. These crackled with a silver light, which burnt the air around it like lightning. The light was sharp somehow, it held the wariness of staring down the edge of an approaching blade.
Shock took me, both from the flames and writhing wax rune. My bindle slipped from my fingers though I managed to keep my grasp on my spellbook. The silver flames tore at my attention. Deadly. Alien. I forced myself to look away, forced my legs to keep retreating backward, but not before the ogre gained half a step of ground.
He paid little heed to the strange flames, for which he was rewarded; just as he would have run into them the flames retreated. They flew past me not a hair’s breath away, shearing away a hank of it as they did so and tossing the rest back in a great fluttering green storm. Had my hair not been fireproof my head might have caught fire as well.
I tore my finger from the still writhing spell and flipped through—the rune was spreading—my spellbook until I found my second chance.
Swordferno II
This time the spell cast as normal. Fourteen more blades slammed into the ogre, point first. The force was enough to make him stagger.
I didn’t celebrate yet, I’d already seen the creature’s incredible resilience. Instead, I continued my retreat, sending the new will-o’-wisps backwards to cover my tail while the fireballs soared forward and into the ogre’s maw.
Angry eyes watched my retreat between protective fingers. The ogre roared in anger as he saw me slipping from his grasp. And then... everything fell apart.
The ogre’s left hand snatched out and grabbed a fireball, repeating his trick from earlier. The flame was extinguished, though the flesh of his hand was beginning to smoke.
He roared again, this time in triumph, and this time my legs shook as much as the walls. It wasn’t the same stunning blast the toad-dragon had used, that had been more physical. Instead, I was struck with a sudden knee-wavering fear, far beyond what I was already feeling. Had I not already faced greater fears in this dungeon it might have paralyzed me, been enough for me to give up right then and there.
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Shadows grew around the ogre’s form, making his features dark and indistinct. They seemed to flow into him, causing him to grow, looming up above me until his head scraped the ceiling.
I resisted the urge to turn and flee entirely. I couldn’t have that at my back.
The flow of blood had stopped. In fact...
It was hard to tell now that his skin was as shadowed as the new moon, but in the flashes afforded by my fireballs impacting on its surface, I could see that the wounds had completely closed over.
He was healing faster than I did, after I cast my spell.
The ogre thrust out a leg, like a man fording a stream. The ground shook with the impact of his footfall, and my swords were pushed back. Then he took another. And another.
He wasn’t gaining on me, he wasn’t even keeping even with me, but the combined weight and strength of all my swords—five tons of force by my estimate—wasn’t enough to stop him.
I was fast approaching the stairs. When I reached them I’d have to turn and flee. If it was only a matter of retreat I’d do it in a heartbeat, but the ogre had shown himself to be persistent. If I didn’t deal with him while I could see him and had him pinned, he would hunt me. Ogres were known for dragging people off in the night.
That left the corridor I’d not explored and would soon be past, or doubling down against the onslaught.
The ogre roared again, and that same crushing feeling, the feeling of a mouse in the hawk’s sights, swept over me. I nearly bolted down the corridor right then and there, but the suddenness of the feeling was enough to resist it. It wasn’t natural. Nothing about the ogre was.
Sword Storm II
I thought I’d past the point where I’d need more than Swordferno, but I still had other spell at my command. Six more blades and a singular fireball joined the fray.
The ogre didn’t even slow.
His footfalls continued to press forward: implacable, inevitable.
I knew from my own experience that I too could appear invincible to my foes, but that my patience, stamina, and spellbook were limited. I could only hope I was wearing him down.
But now time was running thin and I need to come to a decision: the corridor or the stairs.
It wasn’t even a choice. I might stumble on the stairs, I’d be forced to have my back to the ogre, the path was treacherous and long.
And yet...
The first “explored” room I’d entered on this floor had housed two ogres. I’d run into worse in the dungeon, and stumbled into traps along Conan’s path. If I fled down the corridor I might run into another group of ogres, or a pair of toad-dragons, or perhaps simply an actual dragon.
Stumbling was a risk, but it was far from the worst one I could take. I turned and fled up the first few dozen steps, then turned back to make sure the ogre was following. At this point I couldn’t afford to let him draw nearer, nor loose sight of his shadowed form.
I’d gotten the rhythm of it wrong this first time, and upon turning back I was greeted with the sight of the ogre’s face, level with my own. His greater height had allowed him to close the distance using the vertical distance of the stairs. The only reason he had not completely overcome me was the ten foot ceiling. If he wanted to stand next to me he’d need to hunch forward or crawl, at which point either his face would be unprotected or his free hand would be occupied supporting his weight.
I spun about to reclaim the distance between us and—look, hoopstone champion I may be, but I’m no acrobat. The toe of my left foot failed to clear the next step while the toes of my right foot—already precariously placed at the very edge of the stair—slipped free and I fell forward onto my face.
At least I had the presence of mind to avoid catching myself with the hand holding my sabre, but the end result was that I slid backward down the stone steps on my chest and pelvis like a sled on Mother’s Night.
By the curve of my chest or the lift of my legs I continued to pick up speed as a slid and my thoughts turned from stopping myself in time to sliding right past the ogre. If I was lucky I’d slide right between his legs.
I was not lucky.
The ogre was large and primitive in appearance, but he was not slow. He caught me with the same hand which had been supporting his passage up the stair, causing him to fall forward and lean against the steps, me pinned between them both.
A normal man might have broken then and there. Bones cracked and ribs popped. What mortal had the strength to survive the weight of such a creature?
But by the blessing of the dwarf goddess and the curse of the warlocks’ altar I was no normal man. My ribs creaked in protest as over a thousand pounds of cannibal slammed me against the stone steps and a sharp eye-watering pain blossomed in my nose—halfway between a sneeze and knifewound—but the rest of me held. Held long enough to hear the reverb from the ogre’s impact, even if my vision had gone black with stars.
And what I could sense, I could act on.
True Teleport II
The ogre noticed me the moment I reappeared, his head upside down to peer beneath his armpit and behind him.
He let out a roar like the quaking of the earth began to spin around.
I was now between the ogre and his wife. Or sister. Or daughter. Mother. Maybe all four. He was an ogre after all.
Point being, I was surrounded, though she’d not been looking well last time I’d seen her. Whatever supernatural stamina compelled the ogre in front of me didn’t appear to be available to the ogress.
Sword Storm
I met his charge with a fresh set of swords, and the previous blades hadn’t stopped either. That was forty in all now, each with the full force of my strength behind it.
I took my opportunity where I could get it. With the blades temporarily holding the ogre in place I took the opportunity to reach up to my face (ow ow ow ow ow) with my free hand and pull. I didn’t know much about setting a nose, but the spell could do the rest.
Greater Heal IIII
The sensation of my nose realigning itself was more distracting than the pain itself had been, but in a matter of seconds the sensation faded.
Seconds could count for a lot in combat, but not when you were a twelve foot ogre stuck in a stairwell. He still had managed to fully turn around by the time my noise had healed, and I didn’t let up with my blades or fireballs the whole while, keeping one hand fully occupied as he sought to protect his face.
His wounds continued to mount from my ministrations and subsequently heal from his own. Surely the pain alone if nothing else was getting to him.
Fireball III
I was careful to summon this fireball—twice as hot as the others—on the ogre rather than anywhere near myself. Even looking at it was uncomfortable, let alone standing near it. Or having it pressed against your eyes.
The ogre howled in pain which shook the walls and for a moment I feared the tiles from the ceiling would bury us both like the trap outside the wailing room. His hand snatched out to try his same trick of extinguishing the fire, but this flame was not so gentle.
I could hear the flesh crack and fat spit from here.
The ogres howls redoubled and he fell back onto his rear, now facing me, with a crash that caused me to stumble. He brought both hands to bear against the flame, but two were little more effective than one.
I had his measure now. Something which could frighten him, hurt him—if only for a moment; his wounds continued to vanish almost as fast as they were caused.
With both his hands dedicated to warding off my flame—he could still push it about like a basket on a lake—his face became free game for the rest of my spells. Swords sought his eyes, fireballs did their best to stuff themselves down his throat, in his ears, and up his nose.
Desperation and honour could not share the same place in my heart.
On my third wave of attacks he charged me.
I had been expecting it. In fact, I’d been expecting the attack much sooner; the moment it became clear he couldn’t extinguish my flame, in fact, but it must have been hard to think under the circumstances. Understandably so.
The ogre’s charge impaled him on my blades and gave even my newest fireball free range as he forced himself forward, hands pressed to either side of the wall for leverage.
A small stream flowed beneath the ogre’s feet and cascaded down the stairs; blood. A man might have slipped in it, a lesser creature been swept away, but the ogre’s weight kept him as steady as on a level dirt plane. In fact, his weight nearly worked against him. On the last step the ogre’s foot crushed the final stair and slid down through the rubble to crash into the landing, cracking the flagstone. His hands on either side prevent his fall, but I swore I could see the walls bulge outward under the strain.
The ogre’s weight had increased, it must have. The steps were in no danger on his way up.
The ogre straightened and let out another roar. He hadn’t spoken a single coherent word since I’d impaled him on my swords. It did little to avail him. I had no fear left in me. I’d seen death and felt pain beyond what should have been knowable. I doubted the ogre could provide anything even approaching having my heart crushed by my lungs.
Still, pain was pain, and pain was best avoided. And when the ogre suddenly straightened under my blows, and my blades began to slide off his skin without piercing it, I felt a coil of dread work its way up my spine.
Only my hottest of fireballs still harmed him, and my lesser still caused his lips and eyelids to flinch away from the heat. Even then the damage was more akin to a coin left out in the sun than a hot skillet grabbed with bare fingers.
The ogre grinned at me and a single great hand snatched out at lightning speed and extinguished my greatest weapon against him.