As she watched, she saw two knights, fully covered in black platemail, step forward from the city men’s ranks. The darkness that clung to their armor seemed to lash out at the undead, devouring them and leaving nothing but bones and residue in their wake. The living experiments they met with blade and spell, killing many through skill and audacity. Eventually one of the knights was taken down to a knee. Dog-piled by dozens of monsters.
Other knights and several elderly men in white or black robes stepped forward to help. They could rescue one of the two black warriors, but the other was taken down and buried under mindless grotesqueries. Pina had left that sight, shivering slightly at the thought of the battle under way. I’ll take advantage of it and slip free, she thought as she opened the door to yet another set of stairs.
The sound of metal and leather boots scraping on stone met her as she opened the door. She waited for just a moment, and they seemed to grow closer. Forcing herself to stay calm, she quietly closed the door and ordered her rat-kin friend to ready himself to attack who or whatever was coming up from the fighting below.
A few heartbeats later, the door opened. A tall, broad-shouldered, lightly bearded man in black robes with strange silver runes inlaid in them appeared in front of her. The stench of dark magic and something else, something alien, clung to him. A cultist, a disciple of this depraved child!
She swung her weapon and connected, shattering the man’s nose in a spurt of blood. The dark spell caster collapsed. Her rat jumped into attack, biting deep into the spell caster’s shoulder before pulling him out of the doorway where she could more easily swing again. With a cry of rage, she lifted her club with deadly purpose.
Chapter 25: A Dangerous Reunion
"Life is but a series of misunderstandings" - Unknown
The Sorcerer's Tower, Outskirts of the City of Sowers Vale, 9th Novos, 2989 AoR
Pina
Pina moved to repeat what she had done to the slave. Only this time, as she widened her stance and raised the weapon overhead, a powerful hand gripped it, stopping the club cold. She tried to wrench the weapon away from the powerful grip, but another hand wrapped around her shoulder and forced her to face away from the soon to be dead cultist.
A voice familiar, kind, filled with emotion hit her ears. It was a voice she so, so painfully yearned to hear, but knew she probably never would again. Not now, not that she had been caught in one of the sorcerer’s illusions. Despair sprung to life in her heart.
No! she would not allow a false illusion to break her! She would break this spell, escape, and see the real Tol’geth again. This facsimile, this lie would not stop her!
Pina kicked at the illusions groin, and to her and the illusions apparent surprise the man grunted and bent double. He never let go of her, never wavered in his painless, almost gentle iron grip. But she had connected, and the illusion had responded. No. Tol’geth, Tol’geth had responded!
“AAAAH!” she yelled in surprise and glee. She tried to pull her hands away to help him stand, but fighting his physical strength was like trying to convince a mountain to get up and skip away while singing a jaunty drinking tune. “Tol’geth, Tolly is that you?! Are you real?!”
A man sheathed in metal brushed past Tol’geth and through the door. He raised his sword to warn off the rat-kin, who still was biting deep into the shoulder of the cultist. “Tol’geth, he’s a cultist. There are others that wear black robes, just like him fighting against the men of the city outside. He’s with the sorcerer, kill him!” Pina said in near hysterics as she tried and again failed to brain the helpless man.
A rumbling laugh filled the hallway, shaking dirt from the ceiling in a light rain. Tol’geth stood tall and laughter rolled out of him as tears streaked his face. “What? Why? Why are you laughing, kill him!” The titanic mans laughter doubled.
“I take it this is Pina, then? Right. Well perhaps, lady you should call off your rat dog? Our friend might need attending too.” The knight said. Fighting back laughter of his own.
“Rayid is our friend! He is a wizard. Despite his spooky appearance, he is quite nice. Please, do not let the rat thing eat him.” Tol’geth said, wiping away the rivulets of tears from off his cheeks with a sleeved arm. She pulled herself closer to his purple sheathed arm and studied it closely.
“This is a curse break. Who did this? And what do you mean he is not a cultist?” She asked, still confused.
“No, my dearest Pina, he is a friend. Let us save him, then get all of us out of here.” She smiled abashedly for a moment before banishing her embarrassment and locking eyes with the big oaf. This man-child she had practically raised in her youth. He gave her his own abashed smile and promptly released her, still whipping tears of laughter and relief away.
Once released, Pina turned and ordered the rat-kin to stop eating the man. He did so reluctantly, hissing at the trio of men as Pina turned the fake cultist over. Broken nose, not too bad. I’ll have to set it and— A purple light engulfed the wounded man, and the broken nose was healed almost instantly. Leaving behind only the dried remnants of the wound. Who?
“Yo, Tol’geth. I take it this is your lady?” The large man could barely speak, so he only nodded. “Got it, Hi’ya Pina. I’m Ailsa. You, oh wow. You brained him good. Yeah, this will take me a minute. Tol’geth can you carry him so I can heal on the go?” The fairy landed on the armored knight’s shoulder, and Pina let out a little gasp.
“A fae, here? After so long I had thought your folk extinct.” The fairy waved a hand, as if brushing the comment aside.
“Yeah, well. That’s a long story for another time. Let’s get to work on getting the crap out of here. What do you say?” Pina nodded, sobering quickly. There was work to be done.
“Pull yourself together tolly. We need to get out of here. Save the water works for later.” The large barbarian sniffed, sobering a bit as he picked up the wounded wizard.
“Tolly, huh? I like that nickname. Sounds like Trolly. Makes sense if you ask me, seeing as he hits like a freight train.” Ailsa said. Her words made no sense. But then the fae were known to speak in riddles. Tol’geth deflated slightly at the use of the nickname. “What, you don’t like it?” Ailsa asked as they began descending the stairs.
“It is fine, just. It is a name from my youth.”
“His mother called him that. I guess I picked it up as a teenager. When I was asked to watch him while his parents were out hunting or on missions for the clan. Don’t tease him too harshly. We Varidian’s live long, long lives. That gives us many things to be embarrassed about.”
“And neither of us has reached the halfway mark.” Tol’geth said. “We are of the same generation.” Pina let out a sigh of frustration. As if this were a topic of much consternation between the two of them.
“That might be true, but you are only what? Forty?” Tol’geth’s shoulders tensed.
“Fifty five, and nearly level thirty six.” Pina nearly skipped a step when she heard that. He was nearly on her level. “Much more important for our people then our age.” It was Pina’s turn to get tense and silent. After a quiet, tense moment where Ailsa and Dale stayed pointedly out of the conversation, Pina spoke.
“It is a topic we should discuss when we are not in danger of becoming slaves to the bastard who owns this place.” Tol’geth nodded in silent agreement. They all picked up the pace. The team made their way down to the cellar unmolested and found the rubble of their previous entrance.
“You did this?” Pina asked, pointing towards the hole in the tower's side. It was blocked by rubble, but Tol’geth was sure he could make another exit. Tol’geth grinned and lifted the hammer he had turned his sword into.
“Yes! Now watch a man work.” Tol’geth lifted the hammer and swung at another part of the wall. It took three mighty blows, with only one activated aura before the wall crumbled. Tol’geth held the hole open and motioned for everyone to go through. Pina was first followed by Ailsa, then a still dazed Rayid, and finally Dale. Who had to ste
er the confused wizard through the rubble.
Chapter 26: Retaliation
"Learn to hate the vile, despise evil for what it is. For that is the only way to protect yourself against the malevolent things of the world" - Unknown
The Sorcerer's Tower, Outskirts of the City of Sowers Vale, 9th Novos, 2989 AoR
I stood there like a moron; my bell still solidly rung as my friends tried to figure out what to do next. The tower behind us was blocked off, as Tol’geth had collapsed the second ‘entrance’ he had created at its base. The woods were filled with dangerous looking creatures, the least of which were the other horned rats that squeaked with joy when they reunited with Pina’s pet.
“The forest is dead,” Pina said sadly. Looking on at the desiccated corpses of trees for as far as the eye could see.
“That’s the least of our troubles. It looks like most of that bastard’s experiments got loose, there’s no telling what could be in there. We can’t go the way we left.” Dale said as he surveyed the area. To our north was the dead tree forest. To our west was the tower, south had virtually nothing but gently sloping hills, crops of trees, and shallow valleys, while the east held much the same, save for a well-paved road that didn’t collect snow as easily as the rest of the landscape.
“Almost got this concussion under control,” Ailsa said from my shoulder. My head throbbed, but with each pulse of pain accompanied by a light blue and purple light, the fogginess eased. “Then we can just let Rayid here blast our way out from behind enemy lines.” Tol’geth grunted his agreement. Pina sighed, but nodded her assent to the plan. Dale just gave me an odd look, like I was some kind of cannon, made of glass, with a face and a pulse.
Did I mention I had a concussion? I thought I mentioned that. Regardless, that didn’t sound like a good idea to me. But then again, I was mentally impaired. At least until Ailsa finished healing me. I had a concussion; I told you that I think.
“We just need to stay here, hunker down, and wait until mister fire-happy here can burn us a way through.” Ailsa said as the last pulse of blue and purple light faded. The spell she had just cast would finish reducing the swelling in my brain and ease the pain in the rest of my body so I could properly function. But it took its sweet time to work as most healing magic beyond simple ‘cure light wounds’ usually did.
“She means that literally.” Tol’geth said in answer to Pina’s whispered question. The druid’s eyes narrowed at me in suspicion again, and somewhere in the back of my still slightly addled mind I registered that as potentially a bad thing. “He is a pyromancer.” She sniffed, like actually sniffed my clothes before straightening and spitting. I fought to keep my giggling quiet. What she had just done was the funniest dang thing I think I had ever seen. Again, concussion.
“He has the stench of darkness about him. And something, stranger.” A tingle went up my spine. I wondered if Pina and those like her were what my Mysterious Stranger trait warned me about. Those who wouldn’t take kindly to my outsider nature. That club twitched in her hand as she clearly considered renewing my concussion.
“He is a good one Pina; do not make the same mistake you did with that Dark Mage elf.” Tol’geth chided. It was a tone I had not yet heard him use. He had been disappointed before, usually in me. He had been angry, frustrated, heartsick, and sad. But I had never heard him chide someone, other than me, of course, like that. Pina whirled on him and locked eyes with the giant man. After a long, tense moment, she deflated and shrugged her shoulders.
“Yes, very well. Is the mage useful yet?” Ailsa snorted, and I opened my mouth to retort when a scream of primal rage filled the air. “I think the sorcerer knows of my escape.” A heartbeat later, something fell out of the sky.
The ground shook slightly as dust and dirt were kicked up from the landing. A man in red stained leather armor, a shaved head save for a long ponytail mohawk combo, stood a few feet off from our little group. As I pulled my staff around interposing it between me and the new threat, another woman dressed in all black and hooded stepped out of the red clad man’s shadow.
I pulled mana from my pool and slammed it down into a shield between our groups. My head throbbed painfully for a moment, but it subsided. These were the other two besides the alchemist assassin who we had seen with Jekkel at the ecclesiastical court.
“You have upset my charge.” The armored man said as he drew a long blade off his hip. He fell into a crouched warrior’s stance, gripping the weapon in both hands. “And you have been party to the deaths of my men.”
“I take it the people with the scorpions are yours then?” I asked. My head finally cleared as adrenaline mixed with fear and pumped through my veins. He nodded. “Mercenary, or lackey?” I asked, and the man smirked.
“We have been paid to protect him, but the payment was not in base coin. My honor would not allow it.”
“Enough blathering Shoto. Kill them and let us be on our way. Jekkel has much work to do to repay the Circle. And he needs to be about it,” the woman said. Her voice was soft but filled with purpose.
“And who might you be?” I asked, trying to give my friends time to prepare whatever they had up their sleeves. I reinforced the shield spell between us with more mana. Expanding the spell a few inches in each direction as I made it more resilient and dense.
“Me? I am the circle’s representative. Me and my servants are here to do two things. Ensure our investment in Jekkel is not lost.” She pulled out a long black dagger from under her robes. “And second, to avenge the spirit of our leader. The eighth circle’s chief priest, whom you murdered in cold blood in her own home as she struggled to regain her strength.” She circled around behind the wannabe samurai, locking eyes with me. “Did you ravage her flesh before you butchered her? Was she even awake before you burned her alive?”
“Wait, wait a minute you’re not talking about that crazy necromancer lady, are you?” I asked, baffled. “She was kidnapping kids and murdering them for her own power. Sacrificing them to some dark god just so she could get more of those daggers.” I motioned towards the one she held. She clutched it close to her chest for a moment, as if it were a precious family heirloom made of porcelain.
“Lier!” the woman screamed, pulling back the hood. Her raven black hair fell around her head, cut short to the ear. “My family had been waiting nearly a thousand years for her return. The ancient bloodline is still strong, has been since she laid the seeds of its power generations ago.” Memories flooded to mind, memories the necromancer had put into the trap she had built to ensnare people just like me. Memories of birth, many, many births.
“You’re, you’re one of her descendants?” I asked, flabbergasted. The false memories implanted in my mind called out, desperate to be remembered. But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t quite make them out in clear detail. All I knew was that the necromancer had children over the course of her seemingly endless life. Most with beings of Dark, Infernal, or Hellish origins. The Fallen were a particularly ‘fun’ experience for her, though what exactly the Fallen were I wasn’t entirely sure. Most of those children had been used in rituals to revive a fallen demon, resurrect or reincarnate a banished infernal, or create a servant of supreme power easily manipulated.
The last option was one she had grown good at in the last decades of her life, before the stasis spell. Raising an apprentice to near master rank, giving them power, prestige, beauty and strength before crushing them into nothing under her will. Then, using them in, something. What exactly it was she had used those poor disciples for, most usually her own flesh and blood, was a mystery to me. It was the last piece of the puzzle just outside my ability to remember.
“She, she planted you. You and the others. If, no when, she comes for you, don’t take her offer. Don’t tie your fate to hers. Let her die. I don’t know what you all believe happened in those ruins, but she is a monster.” That did not go over well. The cultist lashed out, testing my shield as her daggers dinged off their hardened surface. Soto joined in
the attack and slashed straight for my belly. His attack cut through the hardened manner, but my spell slowed it. Allowing me to jump back just in time to avoid being sliced.
I dropped the shield as Tol’geth stepped in front of me, swinging for the fences with his two-handed sword. The two blades met, and the air practically hummed with the violence of the strike. A purple and blue spell streaked forward, hitting the cultist and throwing her back. I couldn’t see much with the mountain of a man in my way, so I stepped to the side and brought up my staff. I touched Tol’geth on the shoulder, giving him Fire Shield 1. That immediately went off as Soto got in a quick strike at my friend’s shoulder. The spell lit up like a firework, blocking the attack and sending a flaming spike of energy directly at the samurai’s chest.
The leather armor absorbed the blow, dissipating the fire as if it were nothing more than a gentle breeze.
“Stone armor!” Pina shouted, as she smacked Tol’geth on the back. A rock hard film that was malleable to Tol’geth’s movements covered the man from head to toe. “Bark skin!” She shouted as she touched Ailsa whose skin took on a slight brownish coloring and bark like texture. It didn’t seem to weigh her down at all as she zipped through the air and launched another lightning ball at the cultist.
As the two spell casters duel were taking place, I kept trying to find ways of helping. But every time I did Pina was there with some more advanced version of a spell, or something completely outclassing the little abjuration magic I knew. We were practically stepping on each other’s toes a few times as we delivered heals, or buffs, to our friends.
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