by K. M. Bonde
“No!” Arddun and Bruce try to stop her while shouting at her, but it’s too late. As Elora's powers rushes through her body, the sword starts vibrating and glow purple, and the room starts to shake as the sword emits pulse waves. As the room caves in, the party throws themselves out of the room. Bruce drags Elora out with him, and as Elora falls on the ground, she drops the sword in front of her. They all get up and look at the devastation.
“What happened? There was so much power, I could not control it,” says Elora, tears welling in her eyes. “That was the scariest thing to happen since I got here. It was like I had no control of my own body.”
Bruce helps her up, and they all go back to the larger room. “Come, I'll tell you what happened.”
They sit down at the table, and Bruce tells the history behind the sword. “The sword Comet is an ancient artifact created by Cornelia as a gift for her father, the king. She infused the powers of the lands and the sky above into a single sword, or at least that is what the stories say. It is powerful and unbreakable. In the hands of a wizard, it can call upon the stars and literally call down comets.” Ryan and Elora gape at Bruce, and he shrugs. “Now, whether this is true or just a fairytale handed down from generation to generation is up for debate. The king used it in battles and was always victorious, but in the hands of a wizard, it was so powerful that it became dangerous. No wizard should ever use this sword.”
Bruce pauses and looks at Elora with troubled eyes. “You have to hide the sword and protect it.” He wraps it in some old cloth so Elora can hold it without touching the sword itself. Bruce helps Elora attach it to her back with a rope around her chest, holding it in place. “For now, you have to carry it with you, but one day, we will find a safe place to store it, preferably a chest hidden deep down in a mountain or dungeon where no one would ever venture.”
Chapter 20: The Beast
The party makes their way down the final tunnel, and soon, they find themselves at a new staircase which goes both up and down. It’s a spiral staircase made with old stones.
Arddun shines her light up the stairs. “Strange,” she murmurs. “I don't remember seeing this on the floor above.”
Elora frowns and rushes down the stairs. “Let’s go, we can look into that on the way back. I'm really getting tired of this dark place. It’s time we finish our quest so we can get out in the sun again.”
No one disagrees, and they all move slowly down the stairs.
The floor below is murkier and greener than the one above, and Ryan tenses at the bottom of the stairs. Elora turns around and, seeing him frozen by the staircase, puts her tiny hand on his arm.
“Are you okay?” she asks quietly. Bruce looks back, and she nods her head to show she’ll handle it.
“I’m… just thinking of a green monster that might be down here…” Ryan mutters and shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”
“You’ve been uneasy since we got down here,” Elora adds. She had noticed him turning even quieter than when they were on the surface. She knew losing his family was taking a toll on him, but Elora was sure something about the darkness was bothering him, too. “I mean, me too. I hate this place. Are you sure you’re ok?”
He nods without answering, then squares his shoulders and moves ahead into the suffocating, slimy darkness.
The tunnels down here seem narrower and more cramped, and while Elof has no problem at all, Bruce, Eadric, and Ryan struggle due to their heights and builds. They trudge through the tunnel until they reach another iron gate. Bruce and Eadric begin prying the gate open.
Arddun points to a sign on the wall next to the gate. “Did you see this sign?” she asks. “Does anyone know what it means?”
Elora leans closer to the sign. “Wyhrmein?” she asks.
“I have never heard about it before,” says Bruce.
“Hm,” she says, “I could have sworn I heard this name before.”
While she searches the inner most parts of her memory trying to pinpoint where this name last appeared, Bruce and Eadric have been able to pry the gate open with the help of Elof and his new axe.
Elof kisses his axe. “Not only does it kill beasts in thousands, but it opens doors, too!”
Bruce rolls his eyes. “So far, I have not seen you kill anything with it. You might cut yourself though, the way you kiss that thing like it is a woman.”
Elof ignores his remarks and continues into the new room before them.
The new room is wide, and the ceiling is now twice as high. But that doesn’t offer the group reprieve, as the scene is disgusting: green moss on walls and floor, on top of the stone foundation. Somewhere in the room, water sloshes as if someone was dragging a wet rag on the floor. It comes closer and closer, surrounding them and moving in from all directions.
Arddun casts a protective spell around the party as they ready their weapons. She throws a lightning orb above them to light up the room and as light explodes into the room, a green monster crawls closer to them.
“That’s… that’s the monster I saw in my mind!” Ryan exclaims, grabbing Elora’s shoulder. “I swear, that’s…”
But he stops when he sees more green monsters coming toward them. The oozy creatures are pouring out of all the open paths to this room except from where the party entered.
“Don't attack with your weapons!” Arddun yells. “It will not hurt them, but rather multiply them as they separate into more pieces. I’ve read about these beings; they dwell far beneath the ground in wet and damp places. They are the slime quishichs, usually green and small, and only fire can kill them.” She turns to Elora, her eyes wide. “Elora, can you concentrate and help shoot fire at them? I know we haven’t practiced this much, but I need your help. Everyone else needs to take cover.”
“I’ll try,” Elora says. How am I supposed to suddenly create fire? she wonders. I’m not good with that element yet.
“I’ll show you, quickly,” Arddun says. “Focus your energy on fire and use your staff like this to aim.” Arddun shows Elora the motion, and Elora mimics her, but nothing happens.
“I’m trying!” Elora shouts, her mind shifting between fire and the slime quishichs moving closer to the group.
Arddun sighs and sends fireballs toward the slime creatures. As the fire hits the slime, the green monsters explode with a plop, splattering their remains all over the ground. Soon, there are no more slime quishichs, but the ground is covered in green slime. Arddun walks around, finishing off stragglers, as the party regroups near Elora.
Elof stomps around in the slime. “I never had to experience this back in my beloved mountain tunnels,” he grumbles. “Nasty things aren’t they?”
“We have to be careful,” Arddun warns as she returns to the group. “We may not have seen the last of the quishichs.”
With the quishichs gone, the group examines the room more carefully. It has four exits, including the one they came through. They enter the one closest to where they entered and walk down a tunnel, smaller in size again and stinky. It soon ends in a small room filled with slime and moss on the ground.
“This is where the quishichs lived,” Arddun says.
“Well, nothing to be found here now,” Bruce replies.
Elora’s head hangs backward, and she fights the urge to cry. “I’m tired,” she says. “Can we split up for just a bit?”
“Sure,” says Eadric. “Arddun and I will go check out one of the other tunnels. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“And Elof and I will double-check the one we just came through,” Bruce said, nodding at Elora. She is glad he understood—she needs a moment alone with Ryan, so they can be just a boy and a girl, not two people on a deadly mission.
As the rest of the party leaves the tunnel, Ryan sits down next to Elora.
“I miss the smell of the big city sometimes,” says Elora, staring in front of her in a dreamy way. She peeks up at Ryan and continues. “My old room and bed… God, I miss my room! A clean room and bed to sleep in. It seems li
ke ages ago that I was there.”
Ryan takes her hand and puts an arm around her shoulders. “I know, I miss those things as well. We'll get through it. We are strong together.” Elora wraps her arms around his waist, and Ryan continues, “No matter how… charming these musky halls are or what lovely things brews beneath us, anticipating our every move, we will be together.”
Elora smiles and kisses him.
A little later, Arddun, Eadric, Bruce, and Elof rejoin Ryan and Elora.
“There is a wooden door that cannot be opened from this side,” Eadric says. “There is no lock on the door, it just seems to be barred from the other side.”
“And we definitely didn’t miss anything in this tunnel,” Elof adds.
Elora sighs and stands up. “Only one path left. It seems we’ve had some bad luck choosing paths down here.”
Elof shrugs, taking a moment to show off his axe. “Well, I don't mind.”
Elora smiles back at him. “True, I guess it’s not all bad if we found things to help us on the journey.”
They continue walking through the last tunnel on heavy legs, really hoping that this is the last tunnel. Elora’s exhausted, wanting nothing more than a nice meal and a warm bed to sleep in. I imagine everyone else feels the same, she thinks. It’s hard to know how much time they have spent down here in the tunnels. Has it been hours? Days? Not days, surely, it can’t be... can it? What is happening in the world above? Have the Dark Forces closed in on them? Are we wasting time here? And for what? Elora has so many questions in her mind, and she needs answers. She needs to feel peace, to feel complete. Will I be the same person as my powers continue to grow? What will I become?
Later, deep within the new tunnel, it turns and goes back parallel to the other tunnel.
“Wait…” says Bruce. “Do you see that?” He points at the walls, and it looks like they’re a different color.
Arddun brings her light close to the walls, and everyone crowds around her.
“Are those claw marks?” asks Eadric, a hint of fear in his voice.
The claw marks stretch along the length of the walls, but the way the marks look, more than two hands made them. Wild thoughts must be suppressed, and easily scared minds need to be at ease, but Elora knows that everyone in the party is thinking the same thing right now: four hands.
Suddenly, the tunnel gives out, and the floor beneath them fails to support them. They fall and roll over each other as they finally land in a cave below. Arddun’s magic light flickers, and it’s pitch black here. A terrible noise rings out, a piercing, screeching noise, not like the bat they fought earlier, but a mix between a bat and the singing of a cricket.
“It almost sounds like something is trying to speak to us,” whispers Ryan.
When Arddun finally gets her magical light to work again, a vicious monster rushes toward them. The light must have scared it… or was it waiting for us? Elora wonders.
They roll, duck, and scatter as best they can.
“It’s a Wyhrmein!” shouts Arddun.
Elora and Ryan, far away from the monster, take it in. It’s a green monster, a large cricket with wings. It holds a spear in two hands and daggers in the other two hands. Eadric, Elof, and Bruce do what they can to block the attacks at the same time as they try to hit any part of it they can reach. The monster stands tall in the cave, almost twice the size of a human.
Arddun yells at Elora and Ryan. “Elora, take cover and use a protective ward. Ryan, protect Elora and keep out of harm’s way!”
Doing her best to protect them all, Arddun raises magical barriers around the party that is fighting. She also fires some usually-devastating lightning bolts, but her magic doesn’t even make the Wyhrmein flinch.
After some intense fighting, Elof's axe finds its way deep inside the monster’s right leg. The monster screams, swinging its leg so hard that Elof is lifted from the ground and thrown across the cave. Elof gets up on his feet with his axe still in his hand, now dripping a mix of red blood and green slime. Bruce and Eadric move for its arms, attacking the monster on both sides. It cries out as two of its arms fall off and land on the ground.
“I have to go help them! Stay here,” Ryan says to Elora before running out from their spot on the far edge of the cave. He tries and pick up one of the daggers that one of the dead arms still holds, and he barely dodges the spear coming toward him.
“Ryan!” Elora screams, watching as he tumbles to the ground.
Elof, seeing the monster distracted, climbs a nearby rock formation and jumps, his axe poised above his head. The axe sinks deep into the monster’s back, and it falls down next to Ryan, missing him by just a few inches. As the monster takes its final breath, it slashes out with its claws and rips into Ryan's arm. He screams and falls to the ground, cradling his arm. Elora rushes to him, Arddun close behind her.
“Get him out of here,” Bruce bellows as he thrusts his sword through the Wyhrmein’s head, ensuring its death.
Arddun and Elora help Ryan move away from the monster’s corpse, then Arddun puts some healing salve on Ryan's wound. Elora patches it with a bandage, her small fingers working quickly to get pressure on the gash. As Ryan is being tended to, Bruce and Eadric explore the cave to make sure there are no other surprises.
Elof picks up the two daggers the monster had and gives them to Ryan. “I believe you wanted these.”
Ryan sits up and accepts the daggers, wincing as he moves his injured arm. “Thank you. I just wanted to try to help, though.”
Eadric looks at him on the floor. “Noble,” he says. “But until you’re more adept with weapons, please be mindful, especially for these kinds of monsters.”
They gather their strength and depart for the other end of the cave. Bruce points to a small entryway. “There. I think that’s the way out.”
They enter and find themselves at yet another staircase. They slowly walk upstairs and soon enter a room with a lone skeleton in a corner. The room has a locked door, barred on this side with a large wooden beam. Arddun points and says, “This must be the other side of the locked door we found earlier.”
Bruce investigates the skeleton and finds a coin pressed into its hand. He breaks the hand open, crushing the bones so they fall down on the ground, and takes the coin, “I guess this is what Drake needs. The poor bastard stole the coin and found his judgment down here.”
“Please, can we leave now? We should go back,” says Elora as she watches Ryan warily. “I can't wait to leave this place.”
They remove the wooden beam and walk back toward the entrance.
When entering the spiral staircase, they now find themselves walking upwards for quite some time until they finally arrive at a door. They open it and enter the room beyond. It looks like a lab, set up to be away from any prying eyes. It’s filled with dead animals, strange equipment, and bottles with various potions.
“This is disgusting,” Arddun spits. “Whoever was here was performing vile experiments, trying to mutate these poor animals. No wizard should ever dabble in these dark doings.” She charges a fireball and launches it at the equipment.
Aside from this, the room is empty and looks like a dead end.
Elora sighs. “Now we have to walk all the way back down and then up the other way we came in.”
Arddun shakes her head. “I think there is more to this mysterious wizard than what we see. I don't think someone would go through all those tunnels to come here.” She waves her hands, a spell bubble forming in front of her. When it reaches the walls, a little nob becomes visible on one. She touches it, and the wall slowly opens, revealing a tunnel on the other side.
“Back to the sewers,” Elof says with a sigh.
Chapter 21: The News
When they get back to Drake’s hideout, Elora can’t help but smile. To think that I’m happy being back in this depressing place, she thinks as she follows Bruce toward the master thief.
Bruce gives Drake the coin. “We’ve done our part. It’s time for you to
fulfill yours.”
Drake holds up the coin and smiles. “Of course,” he says. “But please, give me a moment.” He walks out the door and shouts something unintelligible to the people outside. Elora peeks out the door to see Drake holding the coin up, and everyone in the cavern chants his name.
Drake walks back in and looks at Elora. “You have fulfilled your part of our bargain. I will now join you on this journey and protect you with my life.” He takes Elora's hand and kisses it.
Ryan frowns and moves to interject, but as he steps forward, his legs give out. Elora withdraws her hand quickly and glares at Drake before running to Ryan. “Are you okay?” she asks.
“I feel groggy, sick, like when you have the flu,” he says.
Despite his answer, Elora can see the pain on Ryan's face and the way he twitches in her arms; it’s almost like he’s trying not to puke.
“I just need a few minutes.” His voice is quiet, but Elora nods and helps him into a chair.
“If you’re done,” Drake drawls, bored, “the stone is yours.” The thief motions to the glowing chest.
I nearly forgot, Elora thinks as she approaches the chest. She flips the lid open, and inside is a shiny green stone. The closer she gets to it, the stronger it glows, and when she takes it in her hand, its power surges through her. Just like with the blue gem, she thinks.
Elora sees visions of Cornelia using the power of earth to open a rift in the ground that engulfs a horde of monsters on a battlefield. When the vision fades, Elora is exhausted. She wipes sweat from her forehead, then puts away the gem in her pocket.
I feel like I’m going crazy when I touch those stones, she thinks. Like every molecule in my body is being dragged in different directions. At first, it’s mind boggling, but then... it almost soothes her. But, every time it leaves her exhausted. Her hand tingles, but not as bad as it did with the first gem. She feels weak and almost falls, landing on her knees with her hands on the ground. As she does this, the ground starts to shake, and everyone holds on to something.