by Jez Cajiao
I hunted through the bag, finding what I needed in my survival kit. Chemical lights. I’d either not needed them or had not had time to get them until now. I was glad I still had them. Pulling two chemical lights out, I snapped them both and threw them in, one after the other, counting how long it took until them hit the ground. When they both hit only seconds later, less than a bare second apart, I stared at the tiny area illuminated below. It was easily a dozen feet down, and the floor was covered in bones and debris.
I swallowed hard and before I could think about it, I had Bob grab onto me, lowering me down by my legs to head face first into the pit for a quick look around. As near as I could see, it was a corridor below. I fired off a ‘Firebolt’ each way, the spell finding a collapse blocking the tunnel to my right, while it widened out at the end of the tunnel to my left. The spell I’d fired in that direction was vanishing into the gloom.
I grabbed onto a section of stone that jutted out from one side and had Bob let go, swinging myself around and dropping the last few feet to the ground with a grunt. Bob of course, just jumped down, landing next to me with a clatter of bones, while Oracle buzzed around us. We crept along the corridor, or at least I did. After a few minutes, I started to feel really stupid, as I couldn’t hear anything besides the constant grate and clatter of Bob’s bones, so I gave up and started walking normally, deciding to trust in Seneschal’s senses. He had contacted me just before we had reached this point, saying he couldn’t sense anything living or moving in the area at all. If there was life (or undeath), it would have to be deeper in, where the final wisp well was located.
The tunnel opened out into a cavern at the end, where several floors had collapsed, creating a giant room. I threw the chemical lights in deeper, relying on their meager light to augment my DarkVision. Piles of rubble had been pushed aside to form rings and concentric circles, centered on a tall structure in the middle of the cavern that stood maybe twenty feet high.
“That’s it!” Oracle whispered into my ear. “That’s a Golem Genesis Chamber, or at least that’s one of them. The others were spread out around this floor, but they’re all gone….”
“Is it functional?” I asked quietly.
“How would I know from here?” she replied, sounding cross. “Honestly, Jax, you can see what I can see; can you tell from here?”
“Well, I thought you’d know more, that’s all, or maybe that you would be using some senses of magic or something. Oh, forget it. Let’s go.” I muttered, setting off down the side of the cavern. Bob clattered after me, while Oracle floated overhead.
“Look, Jax, I’m sorry, just... this place was my home. I saw such wonderful things done here. It was filled with hope for the future, pride in all that the Empire was and could be, and now… I’m just having a hard time looking around and making this match with what it used to be...” Oracle said quietly after a minute.
“It’s okay, Oracle. Really, it is. It’s… well, it’s hard to see something you love messed up like this, and for you, with the Tower literally being a part of you? I can’t imagine at times…” I replied, shaking my head as I looked around. “You can talk to me about it, if you want?”
“Maybe another time, Jax, but thank you…” She whispered back, landing on one shoulder to give me a peck on the cheek before taking off again.
We crossed the floor in a matter of minutes, moving cautiously from one pile of rubble to another. I wrinkled my nose in disgust as we neared the center. There were piles of bones, shattered and splintered, with obvious gnaw marks, as well as a floor that reminded me of a seedy bar I used to drink inside of in Newcastle. You stuck to the floor as you walked, wiping your feet on the way out. I tried not to think about the centuries of accumulated crap that I was walking over, and it was…sticking… to me. The smell was horrific, but as we approached the genesis chamber, I could see an opening on the far side facing away from us. As we circled it, we stopped in horror and disgust.
There were dozens of bodies hanging inside, bloated and rotting. Some were obviously alive recently, the freshest one maybe only a few weeks dead. It was the corpse of a man, hung from his arms and encased in some kind of semi-solid mesh that held him upright. His distended stomach was slowly writhing. There were other corpses that hung the same way, some old, some young, but similarly full. Something was alive in there, something that moved and grew, feeding slowly on the hosts as they rotted and putrefied.
I threw up. Not a little bit, either; it was a spectacular projectile vomit, spattering across the floor to my right as I turned away from the vileness. When the SporeMother had been threatening to make me into an incubator for more of her young, this is what she’d been planning. If the fight upstairs had gone even a little differently, I’d be here now, screaming. Fuck.
“What do we do?” Oracle asked quietly.
“Burn it.” I forced out, between heaves. “We burn it all. Make sure that fucking thing doesn’t spread itself any further!”
Oracle flew directly over the corpses and began to cast. I turned away, getting myself under control, and tried to look anywhere else as she cast ‘Cleansing Fire.’ Screaming rose immediately from the corpses. They were torn apart as immature Sporelings forced their way out, trying to escape. They perished in seconds, and I turned back to be sure none survived, stamping down hard on one as it tried to drag itself out of the flames. I felt the tiny bones crunch underfoot and saw…fluids…spurt out. I’d be burning these shoes, given the chance, or at least cleaning them really, really well later.
“Ummm, Jax?” I heard Oracle call to me. I turned and saw her hovering off to one side, where a cleared area held a series of stones piled haphazardly.
“Yeah, Oracle?” I asked wearily, slowly walking over to join her. “God that was nasty!”
“Do you know what these are?” she asked hesitantly, pointing at the stones. Most were dull, square, and maybe an inch on each side, but here and there were some that glimmered with a trace of mana.
“They look like…”
“Memory stones.” Oracle whispered. “They’re memory stones. Like the ones I have in the Hall of Memories, but these are smaller. They’re often called HeartStones. Usually lovers give them to each other to share memories if they have to part.”
“Someone loved that thing?” I asked, disgusted.
“No, Jax.” Oracle replied, her voice flat. “Someone was sending memories to it, though, and judging from the pile of blank stones over there, they’d been getting replies.” I followed her gesture to see a small package. The top had been ripped open and dirty paper was strewn about. Inside were half a dozen HeartStones, the remains of a larger collection, judging from the space in the package.
“Why the hell would you do that?” I asked. “What would you want to talk to a creature like this for?”
“It’s a way to guarantee it doesn’t kill you, and if you send someone you don’t mind losing, I suppose the risk is worth it.” she replied.
“Yeah, I can see why it’s safer than meeting it face to face, but still, why bother? And how would you convince it to start using the stones, or explain how to in the first place?”
“I don’t know. The majority are dead. When the mana is used up, the memory is gone, but there are a couple left with traces. Maybe try one?”
“I thought you said they could fuck with my mind?” I said, looking at her askance.
“Skill memory or spellbooks would, Jax. They can contain months or years of knowledge. This couldn’t hold more than a few minutes, at most. You’re safe, and it’s the only way we can find out what happened here.” she said, shaking her head in dismay. “Honestly, Jax, you’re like a child. You can’t have the shiny books and memories upstairs, so stop thinking about them. I’ll tell you when you’ve healed enough. Until then, just trust that everything I’m doing is for you.”
I looked at her guiltily. Yeah, I’d been thinking about it, I had to admit, even if it was just to myself. Fuck it.
I picked up th
e topmost stone and rotated it in my hands. The flickering flames from the ‘Cleansing Fire’ spell dying out behind me were reflected in its smooth surfaces.
“So, how...”
“Close your eyes and channel a spark of mana into it.” She cut me off with a long-suffering sigh. One minute, she was finding any excuse to strip naked and tease me, and the next, she was treating me like an idiot child. Acting all superior was a new one for her, but as irritating as it was, I followed her advice as she landed on my shoulder and pressed one hand to my temple.
When I opened my eyes, I was sitting with one leg crossed over the other in a comfortable armchair. A city sprawled out before me, with rain lashing the window an arm’s reach ahead of me. Torches flickered in the darkness, and the occasional flash of lightening illuminated the night-drenched streets. My hand lifted, holding a brandy snifter, and it swirled the alcohol around leisurely as I spoke.
“… delivery was short, and we both know it. Our agreement was for bodies. I provide you with healthy live ones, and you do the same for me. I gave you sixteen to feed on and impregnate, but I got fourteen Sporelings in return. If the next delivery is short, there will be no more coming. You agreed not to try to grow your nest, and I agreed to give you the bodies you needed to survive and recover. I will send one more shipment, and with it, I’ll be sending some of my men by Airship. You will not harm them, and you’ll let them examine the Tower. If they find things I can use, then maybe I will send you more of fresh bodies you continue to demand. If you harm my men, I will send nothing else. Fifty cycles of the daystar from when you receive this message, they will…” The memory cut off there, and I was suddenly back in my body, blinking in confusion while Oracle hissed angrily and took off, buzzing around in agitation.
“What was that?” I asked, trying to sort the memory out in my mind. It sounded like they were making deals. Some rich guy I didn’t get to see was actually making a deal with the SporeMother, and… he’d been buying her offspring?!
“Some idiot; no, some shit sucking scumbag, was selling her people to feed on!” Oracle snarled at me. “I’d read about how greedy some creatures were, but to give people to that thing? Why, Jax, WHY!?”
“I…I’ve no idea, Oracle.” I said, watching my companion flitting from one pile of debris to another, until she suddenly paused, and then landed abruptly. Choking off a sob and covering her face with her hands, she turned away from something on the floor.
I rushed over and found some splinters of bone, cloth, and a few bits of twine, and then I looked closer. The cloth had a pattern of dancing flowers along the hem, and it was tiny. A stone resting next to the cloth resolved into a section of a skull. A small child. It must have been too small to have been any use to the SporeMother. It’d been eaten instead, the skull cracked open and teeth marks scoring the few intact sections of bone.
Some fucker had sold people to this creature, children! She had eaten the bairns and impregnated the adults, leaving them to be eaten alive as the brood inside them grew. Even as the hosts died and rotted, still their corpses were fed upon.
I felt white hot rage consume me. Kneeling before this unknown child, I swore I’d make this right, and avenge the poor little thing. I screamed, straightening up, my rage flowing out of me as I channeled my mana into my voice unconsciously, needing an outlet. The air around me vibrated, causing dust and debris to cascade from the walls and ceiling. The ground was blown clear as a great burst of air flew out in all directions, with me as its center. When my mana was spent, I collapsed to the floor, gasping, with tears flooding my cheeks. I wept for this unknown child, and for the other bones I could see strewn about the room, the dust blasted free of them. There were hundreds of splintered bones, bits and pieces laid everywhere.
“Why?” I asked Oracle numbly. “Why were there so few Sporelings, and such weak ones we faced? Where were the rest? I thought she was half starved, but this? She had food, she had bodies…I even fought a few when I first arrived, but they were tiny compared to that thing.”
“It must have been nearly dead, Jax. Someone found it and started to feed it, letting it grow stronger, but taking its young and any guards it made. It must have been hiding the ones you first fought, trying to build up its strength, maybe by using corpses that were old and useless, ones that’d never be missed.”
“Seriously, Oracle, why do that? Why would anyone want these creatures?” I asked in despair, looking at the bones around me. “What would have to be wrong with you to think that feeding this thing was acceptable?”
“I don’t know. But if they could tame the Sporelings, they could eventually make an enslaved SporeMother... then use it to create an army,” she whispered, looking horrified. “Imagine the army you could create, if you didn’t care about the people you sacrificed to it. You could use DarkSpore to raise the dead from the graveyards; every defender you killed would be another slave you could raise to replace your own losses. It’d be the Armies of the Night all over again!”
“The what?” I asked leadenly.
“The Armies of the Night!” she snapped at me distractedly, still lost in the horror of her vision. “It’s the name given to the Necromancer Wars, when a group of Vampyr Necromancers began raising armies. They flooded the Amir Basin with the dead. The breadbasket of the Empire became a graveyard that remained contaminated with the dead even hundreds of years later. It took direct intervention from the gods; Jenai Herself strode the battlefield to finish it, and even then, millions died, from the war itself and the famine that followed.”
“What the hell is wrong with these people! All they had to do was let the damn thing die. Why wouldn’t they do that?! And as for feeding it, trying to tame its bloody kids? Seriously, what the fuck?”
I paced back and forth, waving my hands as I ranted about the madness of the rich, thinking they could control something like this. After a few minutes, Oracle interrupted me.
“It’s here, Jax!” she called out, gesturing at a pile of fecal matter and bone fragments.
“… what is?” I asked, cut off mid-rant by her declaration.
“The last wisp pedestal; it’s buried in there somewhere. I can feel it!”
“Well I’m not fucking digging through that, I’ll tell you that right now! Bob! Get your bony arse in there and do some good!” I snarled, gesturing at the pile. I was furious, not with Oracle or Bob, but with everything. No matter where I was, people were the same. Fucking idiots! Back home, it was nukes and bioweapons. Here, it was…well…bioweapons, I guessed, and magic. Only good thing was that at least this place wouldn’t have global warming. I hoped.
“Hey, Oracle, you ever hear of pollution, or global warming?” I asked suddenly and got a frown in return.
“Pollution, like the bodies of the dead in the Amir Basin? Those broke down into the ground so completely, they’re probably still trying to cleanse the land of disease. Is that what you mean?”
“Nope!” I said, a little of the depression lifting from my soul. “Don’t you worry about it!”
“Seneschal, you there, buddy?”
“Yes, Jax, I am here. Now what?”
“Just curious, can you sense all of the tower now?”
“Most of it. I can sense some of the room you’re in. Once you have freed and activated the wisp pedestal there, I will be able to see all of it. Why?”
“Looks like the SporeMother was working with someone else. She was selling her Sporelings and getting fresh bodies to breed in. I guess the ones I fought upstairs were all she could hide away. Somewhere out there is a crazy motherfucker with a load of Sporelings he’s trying to tame. We need the Golems, mate. Sorry.”
“…”
“Go on, use your words…”
“Why would anyone try to deal with a SporeMother? They’re an ancient scourge of all life, evil beyond measure and… and why?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much my take on it, too. Some shitbiscuit out there is batshit crazy, and they’re going to be sending m
ore people here soon to trade for Sporelings we don’t have, and to search the Tower for loot. Something tells me they won’t take it well when they find out we killed their project.”
“How long do we have?”
“No idea. The bit of the message I saw said fifty days, but I have no idea if it’s been here a day or a month or what. We need to get things moving, and fast. No time for playing it safe. Oracle says there’s a Golem Genesis Chamber here; can you reach it?”
“No, that is not my skill set either. You need to awaken the wisp pedestal for that area. It used to manage the Golems and will be far better suited to using it.”
“Shit. Okay. Bob is digging the pedestal out now, but it will take me hours to route enough mana to it to reawaken it. Can you speed it up?”
“The mana pathways aren’t regrown that far down yet. I was concentrating on higher levels, as you ordered.”
“Shit sh…Okay. Start work on the entire tower. Get the most vital repairs done as fast as you can. I’m going to concentrate on the Golem section. Once I’ve got it up and running, then we can start working out our next step. You just… you just fix shit, okay?”
“Yes, Jax. I’ll keep doing what you keep interrupting me from doing. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Smartass.”
I shook my head and considered Oracle as she floated over the debris pile that Bob was powering through. “Seneschal’s a real asshole, you know that?” I muttered.
“Probably why you two get on so well, Jax!” she replied tiredly.
“Hah! Thanks for that, love you too. So, can we move the pedestal from here?” I asked.
“You… you love me?” I twisted around at the stunned tone in her voice and replayed the conversation in my mind. Damn.
“Ah, no. Sorry, Oracle, it’s just a turn of phrase, you see…”
“You don’t love me?!” she wailed, the burgeoning smile dropping from her face and a look of horror and heartbreak replacing it.
“No! I mean, yes, I do, I mean… oh, for fuck’s sake!” I took my head in my hands and stopped for a long second, drawing a deep breath before looking at Oracle again. “You see, I care ab…you little shit!” I cut myself off, realizing I was being played. The edges of a grin tugged at her lips as she tried to keep a straight face. “Goddamn wisps and your fucked-up sense of humor!” I muttered as she burst into silvery peals of laughter.