Into the Hells

by Christopher Johns

  We reached the bottom to find the dark cellar full of shelves stacked with bottles of some sort. They were filled that I could see, and the bottles themselves were a deep green like some beer bottles I knew from home. Ghostly light shimmered from floating lights that seemed to wander about in specific areas, casting eerie shadows along the walls and rows of shelves and bottles.

  Roaming some of the aisles between shelves were savage-looking dogs the size of ponies.

  That’s no good, I growled to the others telepathically, but none of them seemed to notice. Not this bullshit again.

  I tapped Bokaj to get his attention, and when he turned, I tapped my earring lightly and mouthed, You hear me?

  Nope. Probably blocked like in the jungle, he mouthed back exaggeratedly.

  The dogs looked like wolfhounds. Large slabs of muscle moved as they paced and hunted for a scent. They didn’t look very strong, nor did they seem very well put together, their rotting flesh shifting and sloughing off at times. I counted at least seven of them though, and numbers without a dedicated healer could be a huge factor in an ass whooping.

  I saw Muu turn to look at Bokaj; he motioned as if he were firing an arrow and pointed to the right. Then he motioned to himself and his short spear and motioned left. He pointed to me and Yohsuke into the center.

  He pointed to Bokaj, then himself, turned, and held up three fingers and a thumb up. Then three. Two fingers. One.

  I watched, almost in awe, as four arrows shot into the wolf to our right, then Muu hiked his spear straight through the wolf in a center aisle off to our left that almost speared it to the wall.

  Yohsuke and I quietly fell on the wolf in the center and hacked it to pieces with it only having time to get out a small whimper.

  We went through the same tactics with the other wolves, and then finally, found what we were looking for in the rafters in the corner of the room. James—eyes closed and completely motionless—high above us. While Coal burned the corpses of the wolves and watched the door, we tried to get to James.

  Climbing up the side of a shelf, Yohsuke was able to swing himself up into the rafters and tapped him. The monk came to alertness in a flurry of curses and motion.

  “Hey, relax—it’s us, man,” Yohsuke grunted at him, deftly ducking under a fist. “Quit tryin’ to hit me, you bastard.”

  James blinked a couple times, then sagged in relief as he realized it was us.

  “What happened, James?” I asked from below as they maneuvered down from the hiding place.

  “After Willem and Jaken did everything they could for you with that angel’s help, Jaken was pissed off.” James rubbed his face and stretched. “He took off toward the ruins, and I followed him to just make sure he was cool. When we got here, though, he started to act really weird. Intense. We found a bunch of undead. Rather than wait, Jaken went all uber-Paladin and started tearing into them with his greatsword. He looked like he was going to get fucked up, so I joined in. We fought our way to the courtyard, and after taking out some of the duke’s guards, the lich ambushed us. That lich we fought before is the duke; this lich and that one are one and the same.”

  Bokaj piped up next, “I had T’ follow along just in case. She saw that they had been attacked by the lich and rushed back to me, and then we are current to now.”

  James bumped Bokaj on the fist appreciatively and continued, “After he attacked, he took us somewhere, and I was able to escape. His damn dogs have been hunting for me for more than a day since. I found this little cubby and was finally able to get some rest.”

  “More than a day?” Bokaj was shaking his head. “It’s only been a couple hours at most, man.”

  “Like I said, this is his realm. Everything is new. Everything is different. And he’s so much more powerful than before. Astronomically so—I wouldn’t put a minor time dilation outside his realm of influence.”

  So, that would put him as un-fucking-believably strong. This was going to suck.

  “So we’re going to need to bring the full group down on this asshole and big time. Holy spells—whatever we got—the whole shebang,” Yohsuke muttered to us. “There’s no telling what the hell is out there, so we need to be careful.”

  James eyed me for a moment, staring pointedly at my missing appendage. “You gonna be okay? Can you keep up?”

  I nodded as the others watched me carefully. “I should be okay. I can still cast and whatnot. I’ll manage.”

  What James had said explained a lot, but why had Jaken been so pissed off? I lowered my gaze to a bottle that had rolled on to the floor in Yohsuke’s scramble up the side of the shelf and examined the interior. It looked liquid, so I opened it and heard a moan as a spirit filtered from it. I tried to put the little brown stopper back in, but it was too late, and the spirit was gone.

  “Hey, Zeke—what was that?” Bokaj asked nervously.

  “I don’t know, a spirit?”

  Yohsuke took a bottle into his hands after I spoke, and a diabolical grin split his face. “These are souls. Remember the threat to the villagers? ‘All those fresh souls to feed on.’ This is what he meant. What if he stores these tortured souls and feeds from them?”

  “That could be the case. Maybe if we free them, he will be weakened?” Muu suggested with his arms crossed.

  “Worth a shot,” James shrugged.

  I took a couple steps back from the shelf on my immediate right. It was free standing in the center and didn’t look to be secured to the ground in any way. I recast Aspect of the Ursolon and rushed forward, tipping the shelf into the others opposite where I stood. I crashed over with it and tipped the next. The cellar itself wasn’t the smallest room, but the sound was deafening as the clatter of wood on wood and smashing bottles surrounded us.

  “Think this is the only one?!” Muu hollered over the din.

  Yohsuke shook his head, and I agreed with him. There would be other places.

  As we made our way out of the cellar, I turned to cast a charged Fireball at the mess to ensure that the bottles were all truly smashed. I spent 200 MP as it careened toward the bottom of the stairs while we made a hasty retreat up the stairwell. The burst of flame shook the walls around me, but the place held as I thought it would.

  Once we were back up the stairs, we quickly filed out into the hallway. This hall was empty so far as we could see.

  “Anyone else getting vertigo looking into the distance of these halls?” James asked, and it surprised me.

  I was seeing things just fine. Sure, it looked long, but that was just a distance thing. There was no logical way for the hall to be this big in a small castle like this. Guess that means space dilation as well. Damn it.

  The others were staring at me now, and I smiled nervously. “Looks like I’m the only one unaffected.”

  “Zeke’s in lead then.” Bokaj waved me forward, and we began to move down the hallway to our right.

  I found several empty doorways with rooms inside that held little more significance seemingly than a servant’s room. The further we moved, the more and more spartan they became until we came to a room with a single rocking chair in it. There was blood everywhere. The room stank so deeply of iron and violence that it was all I could do to keep looking. Behind the chair was a circle of dark bricks a couple feet tall that creeped me the fuck out.

  “What do you see, man?” Yoh asked behind me, and I jumped.

  After I slowed my breathing enough to speak more than curse words that would salt the earth and burn the village down, I related the scene.

  “Sacrificial room?” James shrugged. “They kill someone, put the body in the well?”

  “Or they pull someone in the room, and there’s something that comes out of the well at you.” I groaned. This was starting to look like a straight-up horror movie. The only thing missing was a fucking clown.

  I hate clowns.

  We have to go in there, don’t we? I whined to myself. Of course we do, man—that’s the business end of the damn monster nest here
.

  “You know what?” I shook my head and backed up. “If we’re going in there, I need an ace up my sleeve. Give me a couple minutes.”

  “Gotta work up your courage?” Muu asked quietly. I raised my eyes to see him genuinely scared as well. “Me too. Take your time.”

  I sat down on the opposite side of the hall, looking into the terrifying portal to hell for inspiration. Holy magic. I didn’t have anything. The closest thing I had? Purify. How could I make that work for me?

  I had to forge my own path, make my own way, and I would be doing that however I could with some of the new spells and abilities at my disposal.

  “I’m going to use my abilities to try and make some new spells,” I told the others quietly. They eyed me wearily, Bokaj shifting down the hall a little in response.

  “Not gonna blow yourself up,” Yohsuke stated more than asked. He stood where he had been resolute.

  “Nope. Not gonna blow myself up.”

  Elemental Tinkering and a little love from Fire. Fire always fucked up the dead. Or undead. Or anything in between. Fuck that scary-ass room.

  I focused on the Purify spell, what it did, the intent behind it; then I began to try and add fire to it using the tinkering ability. The extra blessing from the Primordial Flame had better help with this, or I’d be up shit creek. Paddle or not—that room would need a motorboat.

  I envisioned Purify as a rubber ball, then began to wrap flame around it like rubber bands. I focused on what I wanted the spell to do and was rewarded with a notification after spending 674 MP trying to craft something—anything.

  Phoenix Burst – Caster summons a ball of purifying radiant flame that explodes on contact causing damage and destructive purification in a 50-foot radius. Cost: 250 MP. Range: 200 feet. Cooldown: None.

  That was amazing! But that wasn’t going to be good enough for what was likely going to be coming. And with that? I had two shots; then I’d be out of mana until it recovered. Sure, every five seconds I’d be back up by 56 MP, and that’s a good amount. That meant I’d be topped off a little over a minute, but in combat, a minute can feel like a lifetime. With one paw and who knows what kind of situations and environments we could be fighting in, I might not be at my best in my Ursolon form.

  No, I’d need something to smack the shit out of people with.

  Repeating the process with Filgus’ Flame Blade. I threw the mental image of the weapon into the flames of my intent like a forge and treated Purify like the fuel for that flame. I fashioned my will into a hammer and beat a new spell into life.

  Falfyre – Forged with unbending will and heated by the Heart Flame, this holy blade will cut through almost anything. Answerable to the caster’s will wholly. Cost: 235 MP. Duration: Until dismissed. Cooldown: 5 minutes.

  I was so going to have to play with this some other time. Having these two new spells in my tool bag went a long way toward making me feel better.

  “Looks like you’re done and no one died yet,” James teased nervously. “You good?”

  “Yeah, bud. Before we do this, what do you guys see when you look in there?” I looked at the others as they glanced inside the room.

  “A chair and an empty room,” Muu answered nervously.

  “But it’s wrong.” I looked at James as he shivered and waited for him to clarify. “It feels… grimy. Like if we go in there, we’ll be somehow less than if we just stay out here.”

  “Cold,” Yohsuke grunted. The rest of us looked at him, and he just stared at the room and repeated, “Cold.”

  “Alright, time to get to it then.” I pointed at Muu. “Time to tank. Yoh, James, on me. Bokaj, you enter just after me while Coal and T’ cover our asses. Let’s see what’s so interesting in there.”

  James and Yoh seemed to fall back on their training in times of high stress, like me. It was how we reacted to most things outside our wheelhouse as Marines. The others didn’t have that training and ability to fall back on, so we took lead here.

  Bokaj nodded and listened because he trusted me to know my shit, and Muu trusted me period because we were family. My orders, given in slight stress and a need to get the job done, had been obeyed swiftly. I just hoped this wasn’t something that screwed us over.

  Muu entered first, and as soon as he did, the temperature in the room dropped, his breath becoming visible in the small bursts of mist.

  “Go!” I spat, and we hustled inside.

  Spectral light appeared where the blood was, and I knew the others could see it because they all gasped. James threw up violently against a wall, and Yoh cursed so loudly that it almost mixed with the otherworldly wail resonating from the well.

  Rather than letting whatever the hell was coming get to us, I cast Phoenix Burst, tossed it over the lip of the structure, and bolted to the side of the room near my friends. I shoved James to the wall, Bokaj and the animals ducked outside the room, Yohsuke bolted to my side, and I jerked Muu in front of us.

  His brain finally engaged, and he raised his shield with a shout. Finally, there was a deafening detonation. We all braced for impact, the silence and surprising stillness lulling us into a false sense of security. Then a stone shifted somewhere below.

  And the floor dropped out from beneath us.

  Chapter Seven

  The fall, thankfully, wasn’t all that long. Just enough that landing on the rubble did about 50 HP worth of damage. A decent chunk in the grand scheme of things, but I could heal us all quickly with Mass Regrowth. Everyone else could heal themselves relatively quickly with items though, but rather than letting them, I just cast Regrowth on myself and the others swiftly. Mass was more expensive mana-wise, and their injuries minor.

  It looked like we were in a small cavern with a larger opening south of where we were grouped. Whatever had been coming for us had either gotten the hell out of dodge or was destroyed. Bricks and muddy mortar littered the ground around us, and there was so much blood. The dirt was slick with it, and I had no doubts these clothes and this gear would need to be deep cleaned.

  The air was frigid down here, but there wouldn’t be any escaping it unless we wanted to ignore going deeper into the depths and trying to destroy what we could. I looked up, the eerie light from the blood on the walls and floor of the room above giving us a little light to see by. Bokaj poked his head over the edge of the well mouth.

  “You guys dead?” he called.

  “Yeah,” Muu called back sarcastically. “My tombstone has to say something like, ‘Here lies Muu Ankiman—his spear was short, but it got the job done. ‘Til it didn’t.’”

  “You got it, man.” Bokaj laughed, his voice sounded relieved. “Something cool down there?”

  “Big cave mouth, come on down, man.” I waved to him.

  I heard him mutter something to Tmont, and the panther yowled angrily. “You’re a cat! You’ll land on your feet!”

  I snorted and pulled the small handaxe into my left hand, felt for Coal, and called him back into my body, his warmth and presence filling me comfortingly. I summoned him once more. The flash of flame was bright enough to illuminate the cavern for the barest second—and I wished that it hadn’t.

  “Get ready for a brawl!” I roared and slashed a blackened skeleton across its chest with my hand axe.

  It crumbled, but there were hundreds of them separating from the walls. This wasn’t a cavern as much as it was a mass grave—the perfect trap for dungeon divers like us.

  If it was any more of a perfect time for this, I’d never know it. I summoned Falfyre. The mana drain was instantaneous, but I felt almost as in tune with this weapon as I did my great axes.

  “Coal, turn up the heat, buddy,” I ordered, and the flame wolf’s fur bristled and roared into a large flame that illuminated the area.

  My friends were doing their best. Tmont had dropped on to a half dozen of the undead, and her paws slashed and mowed down boney person after boney person. The skeletons did little more at first than try to grapple us, their bone fingers grasp
ing at cloth and tissue alike. Their clattering and clacking jaws were filled with yellowed and gross teeth that had gone unused for gods knew how long, reaching and chomping at us. I smacked one of their heads off and watched another take its place.

  I saw a blur of black next to Coal; James was damned near flying through enemies, and Yohsuke’s Astral Blade flashed in a wave of death that felled anything it touched. He shot a few Astral bolts here and there, but it seemed like he was aiming for creatures that threatened to overrun Muu.

  Muu stood with his back to us, swinging the counter balance portion of his spear like a club, “There’s too many of them!”

  Bokaj was trying to use his arrows, but the piercing weapons had little effect. I thought I saw him put his bow away, but I had to keep fending the boney bastards away myself.

  Falfyre was beautiful in the light of Coal’s flames. The platinum blade was three and a half feet long from the base to tip, and the hilt was a foot long itself. Each swing brought a different lighting effect, casting the golden flames along the cutting edge in shimmering beauty. Runes carved in the flat of the blade were inlaid in varying colors that I took to be the varying degrees of heat it could reach. The lowest was white, then purple, blue, orange, yellow, and finally red.

  As soon as I cut through the first couple skeletons, I abandoned all reason. The weapon was killing them as soon as it even came close to them. I avoided getting too close to my friends—just to be safe—until I began to hear a sound that I had assumed I would never hear unless I was home.

  Rock. Sweet, glorious, throat stomping, face melting, delicious chords from a riff so tasty I felt my mouth begin to water rang out around us.

  “Those skeletons, they ain’t so bad—not when there’s an ass whoopin’ to be had! So take your sword and swing it fast, make your mark and KICK SOME ASS!”

  My blood, already pumping from the fight, began to boil and race through my veins in a wave of fury that I didn’t think possible. I cast Aspect of the Ursolon and began to wade into the skeletons around me with a gleeful roar.