by David M Zahn
"Yeah, that's not a problem," Rondo replied.
"I'll be right up front with you," Elaria stated in a tone that brooked no arguments.
"I appreciate that," the rogue said, smiling at her.
The two of them slowly walked up and through the door and continued on. The steps of their boots echoed around the stone hallway, while the rest of us followed slowly behind.
"So far this hallway seems to be completely empty," Rondo said. "I think the long staircase and that door might have been it."
"Let's hope so," I muttered. "I am so done with traps."
"But they aren't done with you," Eldertits snapped, lunging sideways at me.
This caused me to jump and then to scowl at her. She burst into laughter which drew even more attention to my embarrassment.
"God damn it, Tits," I said, shaking my head. "I've been on edge since we woke up in that cage, and you are not helping."
"I don't know, it's helping me relax," she replied smiling. "I thought I would startle you, but I didn't think you'd practically jump up as high as that swimming pool. Good thing the gravity is normal here and there's no water."
"Oh, shut up," I muttered irritated. "Can you just wait to troll until we get out of these godforsaken ruins?"
"Ryland," she said with her most serious voice. "You most certainly know that I cannot. That would be like telling a rock not to be hard. It's just not going to happen."
The hallway only went on for a little bit longer until it dumped out into a rectangular room. A large square section of the floor was raised in the center with an altar built in the middle. What looked like a portal sat on top of the altar.
Near the edges of the raised floor were squared metal pillars with chains running from floor to ceiling. On the lower part of the floor were the round circular pillars full of water that had been in the previous chamber.
In front of the altar, four people stared at us. Jameson, Jackson, and Lillith stood in a row, but in front of them, Thomas the butler frowned down at us.
"I was wondering how long it would take you to get through that door," Thomas said calmly. "I must confess, I don't like to act quickly without thinking, and yet, here you are, forcing my hand."
"So, you're behind all of this?" I said, gesturing around the room. "Whatever this is?"
"I am," Thomas said. "As for what this is, I guess it's only fair that I tell you what good you are going to do before the end. You all have heard the story of Kuolema, yes?"
"The goddess of death that was banished by the other gods?" I asked, not quite understanding where he was going with this.
"Yes, that is her," Thomas said with a smile. "This is all to bring her back, to break the barrier, and allow her back into this world."
"How are you going to do that?" I asked while Rondo simultaneously asked, "Why would you do that?"
"My, you ask all the right questions," Thomas said sarcastically. "I can see how you caught onto us so quickly. The how is actually rather simple. We sacrifice hundreds of souls to the barrier between this plane and the one to which she was banished. Their deaths will weaken the barrier while strengthening Kuolema at the same time."
"You're going to kill hundreds of people to restore a banished god?" Eldertits asked, sounding almost interested.
"Yes, and because they are sacrificed to a barrier that straddles this plane and a plane where death exists, they will not respawn," Thomas said smiling. "This is the great purpose for which you all will be used."
"Fat chance of that," I replied.
Shaking his head, Thomas said, "Manners young man, manners. You, young people, have no manners. This actually gets to the why. Do you know that when Kuolema was banished and people stopped aging past adulthood, those of us that lived long, full lives stayed the age we were when she was banished? I was an old man when that happened, and I'm tired of living in this broken- and worn-down body. I'd kill myself, but of course, I'd just come back. Others have different reasons of course, but we all desire for the return of death. Someone with a body like yours could never understand this."
"You'd be surprised," I said in response. "I once lived in a body even more ravaged by the effects of time than yours."
"That's impossible," Thomas said.
"I'm from a different world. I came to this one because I didn't want to die," I said shrugging. "Your god is trapped in a different plane, how is this any different?"
"Maybe you are, it matters little to me," he said. "Regardless of where you're from, you'll die here, but you can take solace in the fact that you helped restore natural order to the world."
After finishing this sentence, he began casting while the other three took up defensive positions around him. Elaria tried to shoot an arrow at him to break his concentration, but the shot was quickly blocked as Jackson summoned a shield and swatted it away.
Shortly after Thomas unleashed his spell, a giant humanoid figure made entirely out of flame climbed up from the ground in front of him. It stood there, at least twice as tall as the next person in the room, staring down at us.
"Well, I wasn't expecting that," Eldertits said loudly. "I figured you'd be more about summoning the dead and all that considering this little cult you lead."
"This is hardly a cult," Thomas said laughing. "Sure, a couple of our younger members like Lilith and Rurir are devoted worshipers of Kuolema, but for me and some of the others, this is simply pragmatic. We want something and returning her to this world is how we'll get it."
"Worst necromancer ever," Eldertits replied, cracking her neck.
"I'm just your average summoner, though one who happens to be far more experienced than you, young people," Thomas said.
"I'll have you know, yesterday was my one hundred and eleventh birthday," Eldertits shot back. "I look fucking fantastic for my age."
"You're still far younger than me," Thomas said in a tone like he was speaking to a child. "And now you're going to die before me, too."
"Old titties never die," Eldertits said, summoning her axe. "They simply sag away."
"Kill them," Thomas ordered. "Make sure you deal the final blow at the barrier between this world and Kuolema's."
"Ryland, you like fire, right?" Eldertits asked. "Do something about that fire elemental."
"Like what?" I snapped back at her. "I don't think shooting fireballs at it is going to work."
At this point, the big elemental began lumbering forward toward our group, while Lilith began a summoning of her own, and Jackson took up a defensive position in front of her. Jameson simply folded her arms and scowled next to Thomas, who was looking a little haggard from the summoning he'd just cast.
"Just distract it while we deal with the rest of them," Eldertits called as she started running toward Lilith and Jackson.
She dodged under a swing of the elemental's arm, crossed several yards, and slashed her axe right at Jackson's head, only to be met by the same shield that blocked Elaria's arrow. Jackson summoned a sword and slashed at Eldertits. She barely jumped backward in time.
Realizing that the elemental was getting closer, I began to run sideways away from the rest of the group while summoning a fireball. I shot it at the elemental who turned its blank stare on me as if to ask, "Really? You think that is going to work?"
It changed direction and began running toward me, which had been my goal from the beginning. Though, how I was going to fight this thing was beyond me. All of my spells were either healing or fire-based, and neither was going to affect this thing at all.
Lilith chose this moment to finish her casting, and ghoul after ghoul began climbing out of the ground from seemingly nowhere. Even though in the previous fight these ghouls had been pretty easy, I didn't like the idea of flesh-eating monsters running around while we were trying to deal with the elemental and the people in this group.
I actually got a bit of luck, because one of the ghouls climbed up in front of me right as the elemental pawed at me. Its open hand struck the ghoul in the side a
nd sent it flying away while I jumped backward, dodging the attack.
Of course, that didn't stop it for long. After this, the elemental came at me with a renewed vigor, and I barely managed to avoid getting smacked across the room myself. For something so large, it was a lot faster than I expected.
I had to do something soon, or I was going to get pummeled or burned to death. While I had a resistance to fire, I was by no means immune, and this thing was a hell of a lot more fire than I was. How could I fight it? I had to have something that I could use against it. Water or Ice would be nice right about now.
Holy shit, that's it. I have a god damn dagger that deals frost damage. Summoning the Blade of Twilight into my left hand, I lunged forward toward the large fire elemental, determined to stab it in the skull.
I only made it about halfway to its head before it caught me in its arms and hurled me across the room. My clothes immediately caught fire where it touched me, and I felt my skin burning underneath. Worse than that, though, was the anticipation for the back-shattering impact I knew I was going to feel when I hit the ground.
On the way to the ground, I was stopped by one of the glass pillars full of water. My shoulder clipped it, dislocated, and I spun around before falling to the floor with a thud. The fall to the floor stung a little, but it actually wasn't that bad because almost all of my momentum had broken on the pillar.
Of course, this meant that my right shoulder took almost all of the damage. I tried moving it, but it was having none of it. All it wanted to do was hang limply down by my side, and like the agreeable person I was, I simply allowed it.
In addition to the substantial drop in my hit points, there was a new notification next to my health bar mentioning the dislocation. This fight was going just perfectly. In fact, looking around, everything seemed to be fan-fucking-tastic.
Tits was battling a surprisingly resilient Jackson Tuckett to a stalemate. Elaria and Rondo retreated to a corner, barely keeping the ghouls from eating them alive. Iasz was engaged in a battle of spells with Lilith, and her death magic seemed to be winning against his elemental attacks.
Graard and the guard were both taking on five ghouls a piece. To be fair, Graard looked like he might come out on top, but the guard was a goner for sure, and so were the rest of the surviving villagers who were simply trying to do their best to avoid being eaten alive by the undead.
At this moment, a ghoul lunged for my fallen body, and I casually resummoned the Blade of Twilight and stabbed it through its hideous mouth, killing it.
I might only have one arm, but then I only had one blade that would work against the elemental.
Standing up, I leaned back against the pillar. A small crack formed in the surface from my impact against it, but it wasn't nearly deep enough to allow any water to creep in.
I've only got the one shot at this, I thought, staring at the elemental as it began its slow charge toward me. I clutched the dagger tightly in my hand, wishing my palms weren't so sweaty. If I timed this just right, I should be able to get him, and if not, well, best case scenario was another dislocated shoulder.
When he was about a foot in front of me, I pushed forward off of the pillar and lunged forward with the blade. A split-second later I stopped and jumped diagonally backward. The elemental pawed down at me but missed. Its arm smashed into the pillar behind where I'd been only a second before.
At first, I thought that nothing was going to happen, that the pillar was even stronger than I'd thought, but then it cracked underneath the giant flaming paw. Water erupted out of the hole underneath its hand like it was coming out of a fire hose and pushed the elemental backward.
The flaming terror screamed and howled in pain and rage as water continued to erode away at the glass pillar until it was pouring into the room from the ceiling. I figured that a creature made of fire wouldn't like the water inside of one of the pillars, but what I hadn't counted on was just how much and how fast the water was pouring into the room. There was already a thin line of water up past the soles of my boots.
"What are you doing?" Thomas screamed. "You'll flood this whole place."
"Some sacrifices have to be made, right?" I shot back at him.
"Idiots," he said, not even looking at me. "Martha, take us up if you would, please."
In response to this, Martha went over behind the altar, knelt down, and began fiddling with something I couldn't see. Chains running down the squared pillars angrily scraped and slowly began moving. The higher floor in the room began to lift up ever so slowly, while at the same time the roof above this section split apart dropping a torrential amount of water on top of everything underneath it.
I lost sight of Tits, Jackson, Lilith, Thomas, and Jameson, who were all on the higher area of the room, but they soon reappeared soaking wet because as swiftly as the water dropped from the opening ceiling, it stopped, and the moonlight night sky appeared.
Unfortunately, unlike the ceiling, the water from the broken pillar didn't stop, and with the extra load, it was now all the way up to my shins. If anything, this made the elemental even angrier as I saw its health, which was still considerable, continue to drop.
"Everyone, we've got to get on that raised area of floor, or we're going to drown," I yelled, hoping everyone could hear me.
Ignoring the elemental for the moment as I figured it was preoccupied with the water, I high stepped across the room to where Rondo and Elaria were fighting for their lives. They were still surrounded by ghouls, but the ghouls seemed to be having trouble moving in the water. I even saw a couple of them slip and fall to the ground.
Quickly, I began summoning fireballs and blasting them into the ghouls' backs. Slowly but surely, this extra damage helped chip away at their health while the other two slashed them with their blades.
"Thanks," Rondo muttered, breathing heavily. "They aren't strong, but they just keep on coming and nothing seems to phase them."
"That's because they are dead," Elaria said, breathing heavily, but she smiled at him while she said it.
"Come on guys, we need to get on that platform before it gets too high," I said, turning around to look at the platform.
It was already at about the height of my head now and continuing to rise. If we didn't go soon, we wouldn't be able to reach it, and then we'd just slowly drown while trapped in this chamber.
Moving over to the platform, I reached up, attempting to grab it but then realized I only had one working arm. God damn it.
"I need some help over here," I yelled. "I've only got one good arm and can't get up on my own."
"You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours," Rondo said from behind me. "Come on, Elaria. Let's help Ryland up first."
The two of them began to grab a hold of me but were interrupted by a couple of ghouls breaking away from where they just finished off the guard. I let go of the ledge and summoned my Blade of Twilight.
I stabbed at one but missed, and it knocked me to the ground and into the water. Quickly, I pushed myself back to the surface and broke through where Elaria was holding back two ghouls, demanding that Rondo get on the platform. Reluctantly, he complied.
Standing up, I moved over and engaged one of the ghouls. This time I didn't miss, and I cut into its chest which did some damage to its hit points, but the damn thing didn't seem to care that I'd cut out a huge chunk of its flesh.
"Elaria, go," I yelled. "I'll finish these two, and then you two can pull me up."
"Be quick," the elf said, pushing back and leaping up, grabbing the edge of the platform before pulling herself up.
Moving inside of the ghouls reach, I stabbed up through the bottom of its jaw into its skull. It vanished a second later, leaving only the one left. To my left, for the first time, I saw Graard defeat the last of his ghouls and begin running toward the platform. Iasz was nowhere to be seen, so I assumed he was either dead or already up on the rising platform.
The remaining ghoul raked its arm across my already tender and burned chest. Instinc
tively, I pulled back in pain. If I could have used two hands I would have blasted it with a fireball, but as I only had the use of one arm, and it was currently holding a dagger, this wasn't going to happen. Instead, I lunged forward and stabbed it a couple of times in the stomach before quickly jumping out of its reach.
What I really needed to do was stab it through the head again, but currently, its flailing arms were blocking my ability to reach its head. I was just about to attack again when Graard came up behind it and smashed into the ground with his club.
"Thanks for that," I said to the big goblin and turning toward the rising platform. "We'd better jump on this before..."
I trailed off realizing that it was already past the point of us being able to jump to it. It was probably nine feet off the ground now, and there was no way I'd be able to reach it, even with Rondo or Elaria attempting to help me up. Graard was screwed too.
"Well, we put up a good fight, but I think it's respawn for us," I said to Graard, even though I knew he couldn't understand a word I said.
He looked at me thoughtfully before moving forward and wrapping his big hands around me.
"Hey, what are you doing?" I asked, starting to feel uncomfortable with where this was going.
"Phoenix fly," Graard grunted, before picking me up and throwing me up at the platform like I weighed nothing at all.
For a few terrifying seconds, I soared up and over the ledge before arcing down and slamming into the platform. Rolling onto my back, I stared up at the moon and thought, I'm really too old for this shit.
Chapter Eighteen: Death by Moonlight
Casting Cure on myself, I stood up and surveyed my surroundings. The platform was still partly within the chamber, but I could now see that it was rising up into the center of Roselake. The lake, not the town. Once it stopped, we'd have to swim to shore, but it was nice to be leaving the underground.
Remarkably, Tits was still fighting with Jackson who handled the sword and shield very well, especially for someone I'd thought was just a pawn in this whole thing. Lilith stood off to the side, not looking particularly interested in fighting, but then again, nobody else on the platform did.