by Brian Simons
Daniel swung his sword up and blocked a tree branch from knocking him over. “Farah, what do you want to do? Go to Sybil, or stay here with Jack?”
“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” Farah asked, standing and staring at Jack while he fought alongside Daniel and Kronnar.
“Would you have said two words to me?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Farah said. “Maybe I would have, if you had just been honest.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “Your bitch sister poisoned you against me. I had to try to undo that first.”
“First?” she asked.
“Before telling you we’re moving in with your step-mother,” he said. “That’s right, I remarried. And we’re taking you out of Philadelphia. It’s not good for you.”
Farah took a step back as the words Root of Evil appeared again overhead. Then she ran toward her sister at full speed. Jack turned back to stop her, but the dryant smacked him in the head. He fell to the ground.
“Come back here,” Jack said. “I am your goddamn father!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. He hadn’t even activated his Barbarian skills yet, and already his face was red and a thick vein throbbed in his forehead.
Daniel sank his blade into a dense branch. “Damn you,” Kronnar yelled. It was clear the Lieutenant had wanted the XP for the kill, but Daniel got the last hit.
>> Mangled Dryant takes 569 Damage.
>> Mangled Dryant dies. You receive 5600 XP.
It was too late though. In the moments before Daniel killed the tree monster, it had snaked its roots up from the ground and grabbed Farah. It wound those brown cords up her ankle and tripped her, giving a ruined soul ample time to crash into her body and disappear.
“Farah!” Sybil yelled. She ran to her sister, but Farah was already climbing to her feet. Her eyes had the same frantic look as the other dwarf that had been possessed by a ruined soul. She turned and walked toward him while Sybil tried to bring Farah to her senses.
Daniel ran toward Onik, who kept rolling dice and casting faint spells at the natural spring that caused this mess. Balan was crouched by the water, his skin gray and his eyes drained of color.
“Balan?” Daniel asked. There was no reply. “Balan, can you hear me?”
“Hmm?” he asked. “Yes. But I can’t hold on much longer. I feel so weak.”
“Balan, Telea is gone,” Daniel said. Balan’s lip quivered. “The evil that comes from the water will destroy all of the dryads if you don’t do something. Tell me you have some magic that will seal the spring.”
“It hasn’t rained, though,” he said. “Not in ages. We’re so thirsty.”
“This water isn’t the solution. You need to do whatever you can.”
Balan crawled to the water’s edge and put his hand in the small pool. Daniel looked around at the trees, but still didn’t see any arackids. That worried him. If they were this loud from afar, there must be a terrifying number of them.
When Daniel turned back, Balan was standing in the middle of the water. He tilted his head back and extended his arms out. His skin started to thicken and crack like the bark of a tree as leaves sprouted from his fingers and his ears. He groaned as branches extended from his back and his chest. His bare feet dug into the water and into the ground below.
“Count this as a success,” Balan whispered.
Quest Complete: Purge the Forest of Evil (I)
The waters poisoned by the ruined souls have stopped running, returning the dryads and their host trees to relative safety.
Reward: 24,000 XP.
>> Congratulations! You have reached Level 36. To apply your 9 skill points now, open your Skills and Attributes screen.
Then Balan started to swell, a gray man becoming a grayer tree whose only purpose was to soak up the evil waters that had plagued his forest family. He closed his eyes and continued to extend his roots into the ground. His gray skin darkened as his new bark enveloped his facial features. Then it was done. He had scarified himself, diverting the blighted water into his own body.
“Daniel!” Sybil yelled. “I don’t know how to help her.”
“Who said she needs help?” came a woman’s voice unseen.
“Show yourself!” Sybil demanded.
The woman stepped forward between the trees. She had smooth golden skin and long platinum hair. “Now now, little elf,” she said. “That is no way to speak to your queen.”
36
“Sivona,” Kronnar said, spitting after saying her name. “I will chop off your head and bring it to the mayor. Then he’ll make me General instead of this stinkin’ human.”
“To be fair,” the elf queen responded, “humans and dwarves do not stink all that differently from each other.” She walked gracefully through the underbrush and stood between Daniel’s group and Kronnar’s. “Do they, my dear?”
She turned back and a massive spider stalked through the trees to join her. The spider’s body was easily three times the elf’s height, with the bends of its leg joints jutting higher than that. It stared at them with six yellow eyes. Daniel’s gaze lingered on the gory monster.
>> Level 72 Aracqueen.
She was the royal mother of all spiders.
“You,” Kronnar said, never taking his eyes off Sivona, “have slain your last dwarf.”
“I should hope not,” the elf queen said. “A dead dwarf is the only kind with value. Your bones are so sturdy.” She grazed her fingers against the armor on her chest. It looked like the ribs of five or six dwarves fused together into a solid rippling sheet of bone. The ribs were tightly packed, except for a small gap near the center of Sivona’s chest just below her neck. Under that bone breastplate she wore a flowing blue dress with delicate silver threading.
“What have you done to Farah?” Sybil demanded.
“You seem to care for this rotten creature.” Sivona gestured toward Farah, whose shoulders slumped forward. The young girl stood there like she was asleep, though her eyes held a frantic energy. Two ruined souls continued to dance overhead after their last encounter. “She belongs to me now.”
Sivona held out her arm and Farah walked toward her, as did the other dwarf that was possessed. “The rest of you will make a fine meal.” She turned toward the Aracqueen and placed a hand on her hind leg, stroking her coating of thick, russet brown bristles. “Didn’t I promise you better meals than goblins?”
The Aracqueen lifted her front two legs to her face and issued a chittering sound so loud it sent chills down Daniel’s spine. Then the giant spider cocked her head to the side, pointing half of her six eyes toward the sky. Sivona and the others glanced up as well.
A small black shape appeared in the sky, growing larger by the second. At first Daniel thought it was the largest ruined soul he had ever seen, but then he made out the shape of a long thick tail and two broad wings. As it touched down, Daniel saw the beast for what it was. A sleek black dragon. It’s Coral. She did it!
“Leave, ancient,” Sivona said. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Little concerns me, louse,” the dragon said as Coral, Sal, and a small goblin climbed down from her back. “Though I must confess, you do interest me. How does this situation arise?”
Sivona ignored the dragon’s question. “I promised my new ally I would merge her with a power she had never known. You’ll do nicely!” She raised her arms and the two ruined souls that had been circling dived toward the dragon. Embra tipped her head toward the sky and breathed a torrent of fire into the air that filled the forest with scorching heat and destroyed the ruined souls in an instant.
“Bad move, pissing off a dragon, your majesty,” Sybil said. “Embra, will you help us kill this evil queen?”
The dragon began to laugh, lightly at first, then heartily. It was a breathy, sardonic laugh. “How ignorant the lice always are,” she said. “You cannot kill her. She is already dead.”
Daniel looked at Sivona, then at Embra, then back at Sivona. Something didn’t add up.
�
�I have more life with each second that passes,” Sivona said.
“You forget dragons have truesight, louse,” Embra said.
Sybil gasped. She opened her songbook and sang.
Daniel and Sal both took a place in front of Sybil to protect her. Coral grabbed an arrow, but didn’t take aim. Neither Sivona, nor the Aracqueen, nor Embra made any move toward attacking.
The word Shadowshatter appeared above Sybil. She let out a long low note, then a higher note, and a higher one. Each note was shorter than the one before it until Sybil was racing up the scale to a high-pitched shriek. She had used this song before. It did more than chase away the darkness, it revealed the truth. Last time it was powerful enough to deactivate Daniel’s Sneak skill.
As Sybil hit the last note of her song, the shadows beneath the trees in a 400-foot radius broke into a million pieces like shattered glass and then disappeared. Before them stood Sivona, queen of the elves, but gone was the illusion of her radiant skin. Instead, she was the sickly gray of a body long devoid of life. One of her cheeks had a small hole in it, though she didn’t bleed. The skin beneath her eyes hung low, sagging far enough to reveal the tender skin inside her eyelids. She wasn’t just dead; she was undead.
It was also clear now what had happened to Farah. She and another dwarf stood motionless, with long spindly spider legs embedded in their shoulder blades like puppet strings. Above them perched an arackid, fused to their bodies and in complete control.
Other invisible spiders had become visible now that Sybil’s song had broken the enchantments that hid them from view. They crowded the trees and watched from the perimeter, likely awaiting permission from their queen to attack and feast on the adventurers.
“She’s a zombie?” Coral asked, looking up at Embra for clarification.
“Quite,” the dragon said. “I suspect the drow had a hand in this.” Embra laughed again. “Of course! Regent Harold’s little bottle of Thanaker’s Mark. I knew he traded it away. And now I see where it ended up.”
Sivona turned her head and put her hands on her hips, but didn’t reply.
“What’s that?” Sal asked. “Do you see the hole in her armor, just below her neck? There’s a face there.”
“Fall back!” Kronnar said to his few remaining soldiers. “This is more than we can handle.”
“Kronnar!” Daniel yelled. “You can’t leave me now.”
Kronnar looked over his shoulder before disappearing into the underbrush. “I’ll make sure to tell the mayor you died a failure. Jack, you’re with me. I’ll need a new Lieutenant when I get promoted.”
“But my daughter,” Jack said, gesturing toward Farah.
“Would not be the first dwarf to die in this war,” Kronnar said. “May Januar return her to the mountain when this ends. Come on.”
“This isn’t over,” Jack said, locking eyes with Sybil before joining Kronnar on a retreat through the trees.
Just then an arrow whizzed through the air and lodged in Sivona’s neck. An open jar of white paste sat on the ground next to Coral.
“Clever girl,” Sivona said, yanking the arrow from her flesh. “Once upon a time even a small dose from this rare little herb would have brought me back to life. Respawned me where I stood, undoing my zombification in an instant. I couldn’t stand to let anyone erase all of my hard work though. I thought I made clear that every last sprig of this weed should be destroyed. Had you gotten here sooner that embalmed arrow might have worked. It’s no matter now though. I’m more than an undead queen. I’m a goddess on the rise.”
“So,” Sal said, “juvensprig’s no good, huh?”
>> Sage Tawn’s army clashes with Sivona in: 2 hours.
Sivona scoffed. “I don’t have time for this. I must prepare for a homecoming of sorts. Children, take care of them and do be home in time for dinner. We’re having dwarf again tonight.”
Sivona and the Aracqueen swept through the trees and left a dozen arackids behind to dispose of the adventurers. “We can’t let her get away!” Sybil yelled. “She has Farah!”
“We need to survive this,” Daniel said. “Then we can go after Farah.”
Spiders hissed and clicked their front arms together as they crept forward. A few dropped down from the trees and scuttled toward Daniel and the others while still more spiders began to dart around the ground without striking at the adventurers.
“What are they doing?” Coral asked.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “Some kind of diversion or intimidation tactic. Embra?”
“What?” the dragon asked. She sat with her legs folded beneath her, making it clear she had no intention of getting involved.
“A little help would be nice,” Daniel said. “I’d like to live long enough to introduce you to Hiber.”
“No,” Embra said. “Our reunion will be in private. I don’t need lice intervening.”
“Intervening?” Daniel asked.
“Hiber is a cowardly lion. I need to have… words with him.” The spiders continued to pace along a perimeter just outside striking distance. They seemed afraid to come too close to Embra. “At any rate, I would not help you exterminate the arackids. The arackids have never tried to kill my kind for sport or profit. In fact, I rather hope they prevail.” She stood, then leapt into the air, flapping her massive wings and blowing leaves from the trees as she burst a hole through the forest’s canopy and disappeared among the clouds.
“Has she been holding a grudge against Hiber for centuries?” Sybil asked. “She sounds like she wants to murder him.”
“I hope not,” Daniel said. “That was our last hope of enlisting support against Sivona.”
The spiders started closing in the second Embra left the ground. They stared at the adventurers, who stared back with weapons readied. Daniel expected Onik to roll for Initiative, but everyone seemed too tense to make the first strike.
It was Blat who moved first. The small goblin charged at the front arackid and Headbutted it. The second he broke into a run, the spiders picked out targets and moved toward them. The spider Blat attacked was thrust five feet back, and Blat bounded backward from the impact, landing flat on the ground.
“Blat!” Coral yelled, readying an arrow. Two other spiders charged toward him but she shot arrows in rapid succession, beating them back.
Sybil rushed forward with her scythe, slicing half of a spider’s leg off with the long, sharp blade. Sal ran closely behind and sank his mallet into the injured spider’s back, ending its life.
Daniel had his own spider menace to worry about. Arackids converged on him from either side. He put two fingers into his mouth and whistled, hoping his rockmander mount would give him an advantage.
>> The sound of battle frightened off your mount. Improve your Mount skill to ride mounts into battle!
Daniel didn’t have time to be disappointed. He thrust his sword at one encroaching spider, then spun toward the other. They stepped back to avoid his weapon. He didn’t land a hit, but at least he was keeping them at bay.
“I like the cape,” Coral said, pulling back her bowstring.
“Thanks,” Daniel replied. “It’s too long for a cape though. It’s a full-on cloak. Say, who’s the goblin?”
“Blat,” Coral said, releasing her bowstring. “Sal thinks he’ll become a follower at some point.”
“That’s great,” Daniel said. “And that’s Onik. He’s a minotaur.” Daniel sank his sword into the side of one spider as the other one scraped a long claw down his arm.
>> Arackid takes 490 Damage.
>> You’ve been hit! 61 Damage.
“Hey, this Steelskin debuff isn’t all bad,” Daniel said.
“What?” Coral asked.
“I’m blighted now,” Daniel confessed. “My armor melted into my skin.”
“I’m blighted too!” Sal exclaimed. “I ate a ruined soul.”
“I’m not blighted,” Coral said, “but my armor is. I can’t remove it.”
“You lot are falli
ng apart,” Sybil said, sinking her blade into another spider.
Blat charged at a spider again, but this time the spider was ready for him. It stretched out its arms as he approached and gripped the small goblin, tumbling with the inertia of his Headbutt. When the duo came to a stop, the spider had Blat in its clutches and began to squeeze the life out of him.
Coral ran toward him, but something stopped her. In her haste, she ran right into a few threads of spider webbing that had been strung between tree trunks. She reached up and brushed a few strands from her arms when a spider approached from the front and grabbed her by the ankle.
She yelled as the spider dragged her to the ground. The arackid worked quickly, flipping her onto her face and spinning a web around her feet, then moving upward, continuing to flip and jostle her body as it encased her in webbing. She struggled with her bow, but didn’t land an arrow in the mob.
Daniel wanted to run to her and stab his sword into that spider’s back, but when he got there his sword didn’t come up high enough. It was like his shoulder got stuck for a moment, and made a metallic grinding sound when it finally came down. By then it was too late. His target had moved, and he sank his sword into the ground.
>> You missed!
He took a second to dig his blade from the dirt. When he looked up, he saw two spiders crisscrossing the battlefield. Daniel saw now why. They were weaving a net between them, a cat’s cradle of spider secretions. He raised his sword to slice through their handiwork, but they rushed him, wrapping his body in webs so quickly that his sword had nothing to slice through by the time he brought it down. One spider sank its fangs into his arm. The damage was minimal, but it hurt badly and stopped Daniel from slashing his sword out.