The Phoenix of Altria

by David M Zahn

Cooldown: 5 minutes

  Mp cost: 70

  Level: 1

  A level and a new spell made the pain we suffered at the hands of the nectules almost worth it. I'd have smiled, but then I remembered how many people they managed to kill before we were able to stop them.

  Reaching down, I pulled Rondo and Elaria to their feet, and the three of us exited the building walking back into the streets of Rurilae.

  Chapter Sixteen: Stairway to Hell

  We took about half an hour to regroup after the battle with the nectules. The surviving villagers were pretty shell-shocked, and it was the second time in an hour that my party fought a battle. I had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't be the last.

  "Shall we get moving?" Eldertits asked while stretching. "I'd like to get out of these underground ruins."

  She wasn't the only one. Most of our curiosity and fascination with the place wore off after the nectule attack. Now, most of us just wanted to return to the surface where, hopefully, undead man-eating monsters wouldn't follow.

  "Elaria, are you ready?" I asked the elf who was leaning up against a wall next to Rondo.

  "Oh, she's ready," Eldertits replied and then added in a loud whisper, "for dat big black dick."

  Elaria pushed herself away from the wall and said, "Yes, let's move. It's suddenly feeling very cramped down here."

  She pointedly stared at Tits while she said this, but Tits just quipped in response, "That's what Rondo's going to say the first time he takes you."

  In typical Eldertits fashion, she knew how to get under Elaria's skin, and in typical Elaria fashion, the ranger scoffed and began marching away. Rondo sped up to walk next to the elf who didn't push him away, and the rest of us fell in behind.

  The zigzagging through the ruins of Rurilae continued, and I asked, "What do you think these cultists are doing anyway?"

  "Well, I don't think they are a sex cult," Eldertits replied. "Sex cults usually like to get up close and personal with their prisoners, and these people left their prisoners locked up for months."

  "I'll defer to you as the expert on that," I replied, smirking over at Tits.

  She laughed and said, "They might not even be a cult, they might just be some bored ass hicks. I think if I spent enough time in this backwater town I might start throwing people in cages, too, just to pass the time."

  "Are we sharing our secret dreams now?" I responded, glad to see Tits seemed to have recovered from her breakdown earlier.

  "Yep, I've always wanted to terrorize a small video game town," Eldertits responded sarcastically. "Don't tell anyone, but I'm actually the final boss of this game."

  "Your secret is safe with me," I replied. "I'm just a serial arsonist. Years from now people will talk about the Great Fire of Altria, but no one will remember that it used to be a town called Roselake."

  "Guess it's a good thing I kidnapped all the people and locked them in cages below the town then, or you'd also be a mass murderer."

  "I thought my people were morbid," Iasz said a couple of paces behind us, "but you take it to another level, Phoenix."

  Eldertits laughed. "It all comes down to his upbringing. He's from an awful place called Minnesota where the people are so hardcore they play a sport in the winter wearing blades on their feet while on top of a thin sheet of ice over a lake. Points are scored by beating the shit out of players on the other team while avoiding falling through the ice and drowning."

  "And people call us goblins crazy," Iasz muttered, shaking his head. "Now I see how you set yourself on fire. I suppose that's just a summer game to you Minnesotans."

  At this point, I was laughing so hard I was almost crying. If the people back home could hear this conversation, they'd be losing it too.

  "Yeah," Eldertits replied, "and they are always gracious to those that light them on fire. Ryland's been in Altria too long, or he would have thanked you for burning him at the stake. His family would be ashamed of his manners."

  "Oh my god, Tits. Stop," I said, wiping away tears from eyes. "I don't know if I can take any more of this. That description of hockey is going to have me laughing for days."

  "What is this hockey?" Iasz asked curiously.

  "It's the game played on ice with blades on your feet," Eldertits replied smiling. "It's the reason our Phoenix of Altria is so damned tough."

  Iasz looked thoughtful and said, "Maybe I should introduce this game to my people. Some of them could use a toughening up, and it would weed out the weaker ones. Perhaps you people aren't so crazy after all."

  Oh god, I thought, trying to contain my laughter. I failed as the image of goblins with knives strapped to the bottom of their boots fighting over the world's thinnest sheet of ice popped into my mind.

  "Could you keep it down back there?" Elaria snapped, turning around. "We are still trying to get away from an unknown number of enemies in an underground location we know nothing about."

  "Sorry, mom," Eldertits called up to her. "The Phoenix has decided to laugh in the face of our enemies."

  "He's not going to be laughing when they ambush us," Elaria shot back.

  Forcing myself to stop laughing, I walked quietly after our ranger. She was right, we really should be watching our noise level. The last thing we wanted was to draw attention to ourselves and alert the mean innkeeper and whatever friends were with her.

  We spent the next twenty minutes walking in silence after Elaria until we reached the stone staircase with the burning torches. I had to give the elf credit, she somehow navigated this maze of a city without getting us lost.

  "Where do you think this will come out in Roselake?" I asked, stopping next to Rondo as we all stared at the staircase.

  "Probably in that damn inn," Rondo muttered in response.

  "That's assuming it even takes us back into town," Eldertits said.

  "Let's get going," Elaria said, beginning her ascent up the staircase.

  She only made it up a few steps before Rondo yelled, "Wait. Stop," and bounded after her.

  I wasn't quite sure what the hell was going on, but then I heard the sound of rushing air and crackling ice. Icy mist rose up from the floor, and the staircase began freezing. Rondo didn't reach Elaria in time, and the ice began traveling up both of their legs until it stopped just above the knee.

  A high-pitch wailing shriek suddenly sounded while the rest of us stared at our two frozen companions. I could see Elaria trying to jerk herself free, but the ice held firm. Rondo didn't even bother trying to escape. He just stood there with a resigned look on his face.

  "There was a trap," he said with a sigh once the wailing finally stopped. "I tried to stop you, Elaria, but it was too late."

  "It's fine," Elaria replied with a scowl. "It's my own fault for not checking first."

  "Ryland, we could use a little help getting out of this," Rondo said as the sound of metal sliding against metal rang out from higher up in the darkness.

  Eldertits ran past me in a blur, threw herself in front of the other two, and caught an enormous spinning blade with her axe right before it would have sliced Rondo and Elaria in half. The force of the blade pushed her back across the frozen steps, but she steadied herself by grabbing the now-still blade with her open hand.

  "Jesus Christ," Rondo yelled. "These people aren't fucking around."

  "Let's get you both out of there," I said, timidly climbing the stairs to where they were frozen.

  At first, I tried Ignite a couple of times on the ice that crept up Rondo's legs, but the ice wouldn't catch, so I ended up summoning a fireball and slowly moving back and forth over the ice. It was slow going, but it melted.

  Elaria, meanwhile, began using her torch in a similar fashion on her legs to a similar effect. About halfway through, her torch burned out, and she pulled another one out and had me light it.

  Once both of them were free, the three of us retreated to the bottom of the staircase while Eldertits stood still holding the blade. Once we were all safely out of harm's way, she sl
owly moved down the staircase with the blade until she reached the end and released it. It slid into a cleverly hidden break in the wall and disappeared.

  "Well, that could have gone better," Eldertits said, sucking at the cut across her palm.

  "Here, Tits," I said moving up next to her and casting Cure. "We need to think about this before we go up those stairs. If they didn't know we were coming before, they do now."

  "Yeah, that scream was definitely an alarm," Rondo said.

  Over the next ten minutes, we debated and formulated our plan of attack. Most of it was pretty simple. As the most likely to detect and neutralize traps, Rondo would go first. Elaria, Iasz, and Graard would follow closely behind in case we ran into any enemies. The non-combatants would go next, and then the guard, Eldertits, and I would bring up the rear in case of an attack from behind.

  "Is everybody good with what we've discussed?" I asked loudly. "Everyone understands what they are doing?"

  They all nodded their ascent, and I motioned for Rondo to lead us up the staircase.

  "Go slow. Step where I step, and don't touch anything I don't touch," Rondo said firmly before turning around and beginning a careful ascent up the staircase.

  A thin layer of ice was still present on the stairs, which made walking up it even trickier, but Rondo didn't seem to have much of a problem. He started off going up the far-right side of the stairs until he reached the eighth step where he sidestepped across that step and continued up while hugging the left wall.

  One by one, we began making our way up after Rondo. I went second to last, after the guard, and Eldertits brought up the rear. The footing was slick but copying the guard's movements in front of me wasn't that hard.

  At the eighth step, I started thinking this was going to be easy. I walked across it and hugged the left wall just like Rondo had done and just like the guard was doing now. After about seven more steps, the guard jumped up over two steps and continued along in a straight line.

  "Fuck, you've got to be kidding me," I said frustrated while I stopped and prepared myself.

  I had some points in acrobatics, but my dexterity wasn't the best for something like this, and I didn't really want to find out what would happen if I missed the jump.

  "Hurry up, Ryland. I don't want to lose the group in front of us," Eldertits said behind me.

  "Here goes nothing," I muttered, swinging my arms down and launching myself up and forward through the air.

  I sailed up and over the first step easily, but the next one came up quickly, and I thought I would clip it with my foot. The bottom of my boots must have cleared it by a centimeter, because I cleared it and landed the front half of my feet on the correct step. Somehow, I made it, but I definitely didn't want to do it again.

  That's when it happened. I lost my balance and instinctively took a step back with my left leg. My boot hit the stone on the step below, and the top of the step sank down about an inch or so with an audible click.

  I froze standing motionless and waited for something to happen. Seconds passed, and nothing happened. More seconds passed and still nothing. Maybe this trap was broken?

  "Ryland, don't move," Eldertits said loudly. "As soon as you move hell is going to be unleashed."

  "What's wrong back there?" I heard Rondo yell from somewhere up ahead, but I couldn't see him.

  "Ryland stepped on a trap," Eldertits yelled up the staircase. "As soon as he moves something bad is going to happen. You keep going and get everyone else out this staircase. We'll wait a few minutes and make a mad dash for it."

  "Roger that," Rondo replied. "Good luck, and Godspeed."

  "This is not going to be fun," Tits said from behind me. "Try to memorize where they are stepping, because we are going to be running, and the fewer traps we set off the more likely we get out of here alive."

  "I'm sorry, Tits," I said, trying to ignore the irritation in my legs. "I'm always letting you all down with my piss poor physical stats."

  "Don't worry about it," Eldertits replied. "Your class isn't built for things like this. Just be prepared for some pain, because this is going to hurt. You're almost assuredly going to get hit by something."

  "I just love this town," I muttered back to Tits. "Go to Roselake she said. It's a great town she said. You'll have a relaxing time by the picturesque lake she said. Well, she didn't mention the god-damned ruins underneath the town with a bunch of cultist crazies and man-eating bats running around."

  "Actually, to be fair, Katarina did send us here to figure out what was going on," Eldertits responded. "The cultists were kind of implied."

  "I know," I said. "I'm just trying to distract myself from wanting to move my leg and from the impending sense of doom."

  "Cheer up," Eldertits said. "This is way more interesting than sitting by that picturesque lake anyway."

  "I think I'd prefer doing that," I shot back. "I'm way less likely to suffer decapitation just sitting by the lake."

  "Yeah, but if you are decapitated it will make you so much more attractive," Eldertits quipped. "Try to think of those of us that have to spend all that time looking at you. Really, that's very selfish of you."

  "Oh yeah," I replied flatly. "My bad for wanting to keep my head attached to my body. I'm so damn selfish."

  "Alright, can you still see anyone?" Eldertits asked.

  "No, I haven't been able to see any of them for a couple of minutes now," I answered.

  "Alright, I'm going to count to three and then you start running," Eldertits said. "I'll be right behind you. Here's to not dying."

  "Wait," I said. "Give me ten seconds."

  "Fine," Eldertits said, "but you're really just making it worse on yourself."

  "We'll see about that," I replied starting my spell.

  After the ten seconds, I unleashed Armor of the Firebird and immediately saw the ethereal flames surrounding my body. It was an odd experience seeing them but not feeling any heat. Trying to touch them caused the flames to move around my hand just like water or air would.

  "Damn," Eldertits exclaimed. "Where have you been hiding that?"

  "I just unlocked it after the last battle," I said sheepishly. "I figured it might help me survive this. I'm ready now."

  "Alright," Eldertits said. "Three, two, one, go, go, GO."

  I launched myself forward and felt the step lift up with my foot. Two steps later, I was met in the chest by a metal bar swinging down. Falling forward, I flipped over the bar and landed across two steps on my back.

  Wheezing for breath, I pushed myself to my feet as Tits jumped over the bar and me.

  "Get up, Ryland, and run," she yelled, taking the staircase two steps at a time. "If you just lay there you're dead."

  This spurred me into motion, and I ran. That's when the first arrow hit me in the shoulder. I looked up just in time to see a shower of them dropping from the darkness above straight for me. Covering my head with my arms, I threw myself sideways into the wall.

  This probably saved my life as the vast majority of arrows hit the ground to my left, but I was still hit by four more all down the left side of my body. Fuck, that hurts, I thought, pushing off the wall and scrambling forward. Don't stop or you're dead.

  Up ahead, I could see Tits triggered something that shot pillars of flame up from a grate in the steps. The barbarian took a full blast of it from underneath her, but to her credit, she kept running even with half of her clothes on fire.

  I saw no way around it and just hoped that between my Armor of the Firebird and my resistance to fire it, wouldn't hurt that bad. Instinctually, I covered my face as I charged blindly forward.

  The flames licked at my body and stung a little, but they weren't nearly as bad as I thought they'd be. Everything seemed to be fine with this trap until I got through the flames and took a knife straight to the stomach.

  It hurt like a bitch, but thankfully, it didn't have an arm behind it. This must have been shot from somewhere. Seriously, what kind of sick, sadistic fuck sits around
thinking of things like this?

  Cradling my stomach with my injured left arm, I ran forward in an odd sort of shoulder charge. My shirt was on fire, and the bottom part of my pants burned away, but somehow, I was still on my feet.

  In the distance, I saw Eldertits deflect a blade with her axe and spin out of the way of another before continuing on. How does she make everything look so goddamn easy?

  I followed after her, and by some miracle, actually managed to catch a blade with my daggers as it spun vertically out of the floor. The next blade missed me by chance, because I didn't even see it.

  I also didn't see the metal spikes shoot a couple of feet out of the wall four steps later. Their sharp tips tore into the right side of my body and ripped flesh from me as my momentum carried me forward.

  Screaming out in pain and determination, I glanced at my health bar. It was down to less than one third. I picked up a bleeding status effect and another one dealing with my left arm. That made sense, because that arm wasn't nearly as responsive as it should have been. I may have been full of arrows, had a knife in the stomach, had my shirt burned away, and was bleeding out, but I was still alive.

  I finally saw the top of the staircase only eight steps away, and I pushed myself forward focusing only on making it to the top. I could deal with all of my pain and injuries after I made it out of this damn staircase.

  Nearing the top, two black necrotic bolts of energy shot down the staircase, and I turned sideways just getting out of their way. They sped past and hit the ceiling behind me. A large chunk of it crumbled to dust and blew away.

  At the second to last step, I threw myself forward and dove out of the stairwell rolling and landing on my right shoulder. I hit the ground and let loose a grunt. Pain swarmed my body as I lay there panting.

  "So nice of you two to join the rest of us," the innkeeper's voice came from somewhere ahead of me. "We were just discussing how you all got out of your cages."

  Pushing myself to my feet, I looked around and saw that we were in a simple chamber. My group was all gathered on a lower level while the innkeeper and two other people were standing up at the top of a short staircase about ten feet in front of us. Above them near the ceiling, a large raven was carved into the stone overhang. Behind them, clear circular pillars full of water ran from floor to ceiling in two neat rows.