by Dixon, TJ
“Less than five minutes even if we walk slowly.” Kai says sounding as frustrated as I am.
“What are they doing out there?” I ask.
“Just standing around like they are waiting for something. I’ll show them to you, but don’t push on this door or it will open and we’ll have to fight right away.” Kai says nervously. She puts a hand against the wall and suddenly we can see through it. The enemy on the other side don’t seem able to though. They really are just standing around the huge chamber that has been revealed.
The chamber is perhaps a thousand foot by a thousand foot and about a hundred foot high. The door comes out in one corner. There are two obvious exits, both in the furthest corner from us. One is in the wall and the other in the ceiling. There could be one in the floor or a smaller exit hidden from view but I can’t sense it if there is. Either of the exits I can see could easily allow a drake to pass through and clearly many have.
The drakes are fearsome beasts. They have thick, red, scaly metallic armour and wings formed of flowing red metal. On each drake is a human mage with black skin and hair, wearing red robes. They have a lot of muscles for mages and could probably fight well as soldiers too. There are lots more black human mages behind the drake, wearing the same red robes. All of the mages seem to be men. I count fifty drakes and at least three hundred mages behind them, so at least three hundred and fifty mages in total. No matter how you look at it that is an army.
“Do they know that the tunnel comes out here?” I ask. It seems strange that they would be sitting here exactly where we want to go by sheer coincidence.
“Only if a dwarf told them, but most dwarves would rather die than betray their secrets.” Kai says.
We wait for ages. Eventually we decide to get some sleep again but to maintain a guard just in case. I take first watch and Dairon second. We don’t sleep well thanks to the uncomfortable stone floor, but we all get some more sleep. The enemy are still waiting outside.
“If it should only take five minutes perhaps we could…” I start to say.
“If we reveal this passage we have to kill or capture the enemy. We can’t let a single foe escape. Porting is impossible here, because that’s how the dwarves built this place.” Kai says shaking her head before I even finish my words.
“Is there a different route we could take?” I ask.
“Any other routes would either need to come back here and go through that tunnel, which would involve defeating that army anyway, or would mean going up into the temple and back down again. The army up in the temple is elven, so even worse than the one down here.” Kai tells me.
“Look!” Ara Kii says urgently pointing through the door. On the other side is a black elven boy. He is wearing only shorts and an open shirt, without even a pair of shoes. Both are naturally red but also completely soaked with blood. His short hair like his skin is black, and so are his eyes. I cannot see his aura. “He’s one of the two elves in charge.”
Then the boy, standing right in front of Ara Kii now, waves to us with a big grin on his face. Obviously he knows we are here. It is as if he can see through the door just as clearly as we can. Then twelve red robed mages port behind him, carrying three young women. Each mage is holding a wrist or ankle. The young women, perhaps in their late teens or early twenties, are wearing red and white patterned magical clothes. Their hair is long and white, their eyes bright green and their skin is pale.
“I know you can hear me.” The boy says and his words are the first sound we have heard from the other side of that door. “Either come out and fight, or watch as I torture these lovely young women in front of you. You have two minutes to decide. Assuming I am patient enough to wait that long. I’m not the patient type though.”
“Fighting that army is suicide.” Kai says shaking her head as the boy walks away from us towards the miko on the other side of the huge chamber, in the corner opposite us.
“So we just watch as he tortures them again?” Ara Kii asks sounding furious. There is great pain in his aura.
“They know the tunnel is here already and surely know about the other one too, so it doesn’t matter if we reveal them.” I say firmly. “We’ll fight enough to rescue those women, and then we’ll go through the next tunnel and complete our mission.”
Kai looks like she wants to argue for a moment but stays silent and Hinata looks terrified, but nobody protests. To be honest I am scared too but I am not just going to stand here and watch as he tortures his prisoners. Lucy grins and says, “That sounds more like it.” Then her grin fades. “You’ll need to kill. Holding back will get us killed.”
“I’m not holding back.” I say and I mean it. “I don’t want to kill, but it is better to kill than to be killed, especially when the enemy is about to torture their prisoners.” Then I look at everyone and ask simply. “Ready?”
“Yes.” Ara Kii says darkly and everyone else nods.
Except Lucy who grins even more and says, “I’ve been ready since we got here, so let’s hurry up and send our enemies to hell!”
“Kai, open the door and everyone follow me.” I say grimly but a little more confident thanks to Lucy’s words. Not that I can really be confident against such a powerful army.
Kai throws the door open and the elf boy reacts first, even before we can. His magic is a thunderous blast of lightning, which I shield, but I really notice the magic that shielding uses. We need to be quick or we will soon be dead. I throw us into the air and we hurtle towards the elf and three miko, dodging hundreds of fireballs, many drake bites and swipes, as well as the elf’s second blast of lightning. My comrades save their power as wild attacks now would just be a waste.
“Don’t try to drain him!” Lucy shouts in my ear. I wasn’t planning to, but her words distract me and I almost fail to dodge his third blast of lightning. It is so powerful that I hear the tunnel collapse behind us. I am glad I did manage to dodge even if it was only just.
We have almost reached him when he strikes a fourth time. I throw us in a wide arc to his side and just manage to dodge his blast. Then a huge wall of flames appears in front of him, reaching from floor to roof. I quickly reverse our flight but the wall races towards us. I reverse our flight again to race at him but this time I throw a massive wind surge ahead of us. It knocks back the flames, forming a small gap that I race us through.
Rock lances appear in front of us, reaching out of the floor but I easily dodge them. I land us directly in front of the elf boy and throw my own lightning at him. He strikes with his own blast at the same time and our lightning strikes collide, forming a deafening, echoing thunder that far surpasses the thunder his lightning alone produced.
I notice Kai, Ara Kii and Dairon form an earth shield that holds back the wall of flames as well as the many fireballs racing towards us from behind. There are about twenty red robed mages in front of us, though thankfully no drakes. If I can kill them and the elf we will have the wall to our back and can hopefully free the three miko. Then we have to find the other tunnel. I can only pray it is nearby.
As we both strike with lightning again, twenty or so fireballs shoot towards us. I barely manage to throw up a wind shield in time. My third lightning strike is again countered. I can’t keep this up for long and the elf doesn’t seem concerned by the magic he is using. I fear his magical reserves far exceed my own. I can’t just keep on throwing my power against his, but just as Lucy said, I cannot risk attempting to drain him. He would surely resist.
Just as my fourth strike hits his next attack, filling the chamber again with that deafening roar, a second roar joins it. The aura is overpowering and, although I have no time to look, I sense drakes thrown through the air like rags in a storm. I can hear them smash against walls and I smell their blood as it is spilt. That aura is unmistakable. It is the Kuroneko.
For the first time I sense the boy’s aura. I sense pure joy, which is matched by the evil grin on his face. His distraction is almost his undoing, but he blocks my next attack with
a magical shield and then jumps at me forming two huge lightning blasts, one from each hand. I form a single blast in front of me, but counter both of his just as they were about to hit me. Then his hand is on my chest and there is nothing I can do to block his next blast, but it never comes.
Instead he jolts backwards, a bloody hole in his chest, and falls lifeless to the ground. I look down and a blood covered dagger is floating in front of me at chest level. I can sense magic from it and it obviously blasted him from inside as the hole in his chest is far bigger than the dagger would otherwise have created. I didn’t sense the blast though.
“Always look before you jump.” Lucy says with a grin, sitting until now unnoticed on my shoulder. “Not that it helps when a dagger is invisible of course.” As she says it the dagger fades from sight.
The mages behind us seem much more focused on the Kuroneko, who is tearing through their ranks and has thrown them into utter chaos. Drakes are not weak beasts but against her power they are little more than sheep to the slaughter. I do not have the time or power to be merciful, so I send twenty blasts of lightning at the mages in front of us. Some probably survive, but I doubt all are that lucky.
I sense death feathers forming as a few of the enemy have now had time to almost complete the spell that forms them. I strike the mages with lighting, overpowering the shields of their allies and instantly killing them. In my haste I used too much power and am almost out. I turn my attention to the miko. Hinata has now freed them and I consider taking power from them.
“Don’t.” Lucy says urgently, seeing my gaze and understanding my intention. “The Kuroneko will kill you if you do. Some of the enemy over there are still alive. Take power from them instead.”
I hate the idea of kissing them, but I don’t have time to waste with slower methods, so I grimace and quickly take power from the lips of six enemies. It isn’t much but it is better than none and it seems the others here were killed by my lightning.
I turn and to my shock the Kuroneko has already finished killing the rest of the enemy. The room is a grotesque litter of scattered blood, bone and flesh. Thanks to the Kuroneko we actually won. I breathe a sigh of relief. Then the Kuroneko speaks.
“It seems you are not able to use your true power, Sky Lord. You have fulfilled the deal we made though, so I will honour my part of it.” The Kuroneko says and her black whiskered face lunges down at me. I take a step back in shock but she stops just in front of me. With one paw she lazily slashes the surviving enemies that I just drained. They are now dead. Every enemy in this room is dead now.
The Kuroneko is about a hundred foot long and twenty foot wide. I sense though, that her true form is much larger than this. I can see her sharp white teeth dripping with blood, and the smell of drake blood is now much worse as it drips to the floor in front of me. She has a puzzled expression as she looks at me.
“We are not far from the Heart of the Mountain. It will not take long to pass through the tunnel of the dwarves as you clearly planned to. I will accompany you from here. First though…” She says with a smile and turns her gaze on the miko. “You have proven your worth, but you are still mere humans and that will never change. Do not forget your place or your duty, or you will still die.”
Then the miko are gone. It is like a port but different somehow. I sense their auras mixed into the Kuroneko’s aura as if she just ate them. The Kuroneko notices my puzzled look.
“They are within me for now. When I return to my people they will come with me and be returned to their true form. I will not waste power sending them back ahead of me. Now we should proceed before more enemies arrive to interfere.” The Kuroneko says staring into my eyes.
The Kuroneko’s body disappears and then reappears in front of me. Her aura remains there the whole time, but it shrinks instantly as she forms the smaller body. She is now in a catgirl form similar to Neko’s, but the same height as me and her fur is still a glistening black. Her clothing looks the same as the clothes worn by the miko, but the power of hers is of course incomparably stronger. Of course the red and white pattern looks very different on the Kuroneko.
“Great Kuroneko, when we have done what we need to and you leave with the miko, would it be possible to send us back too?” I ask.
“I will take the monk if he survives. I can take one more, but that is all.” The Kuroneko says with an amused grin.
“Lucy, can we send Hinata back when we have defeated David?” I ask.
“Yes.” Lucy says with a nod. I can sense relief in Hinata’s aura. The Kuroneko laughs.
“To think the great Sky Lord is asking for permission! You have fallen far indeed.” The Kuroneko exclaims with a laugh.
“You seem to know me.” I say with a frown.
“As the mountain knows the sky. It seems you have forgotten me though.” The Kuroneko laughs, but then her smile fades. “We do not have time to waste. More powerful enemies will be here soon, and they will not be caught off guard like these foolish humans were.”
“Kai, open the door.” I say.
“Ok.” Kai says with a sad look at the collapsed tunnel behind us. Then she turns her gaze on a section of the wall at the corner where we are standing. She walks up to it and places a hand on it. I sense magic and the wall simply disappears in a small section about wide enough for any of us to walk through but there is no room to walk side by side. Kai and Ara Kii have to crouch though, because they are far taller than the even the tallest of dwarves would have been. “Everyone through here quickly, before it closes again.”
We are all close by as everyone had the sense to follow Kai to the entrance before she opened it. We are all through a few seconds before the wall reappears. Hinata lights her stone and so we walk through the dark tunnel bathed in gentle purple light.
I look at the Kuroneko with a frown. She is walking directly in front of me and immediately behind Kai. Everyone else is behind us. I consider my words carefully before asking. “So how do you know me, and why do you call me a Sky Lord?”
“Because that is what you are. Not a Sky Lord though, the Sky Lord. Like I said though, you have fallen far indeed. I pity Hades if you have forgotten her as well.” The Kuroneko says and I stop as soon as she says the name Hades, but I hastily start walking again before Hinata can walk into me.
“How do you know Hades?” I ask in shock.
“So you haven’t forgotten her then. I would be jealous, but there is little reason for you to remember me.” The Kuroneko laughs.
“How could I forget Hades?” I say with a smile, but then I frown. “So how do you know her?”
“How could I not know the name Hades?” The Kuroneko laughs.
Before I can answer we have reached the exit. On the other side of the transparent door is a room perhaps fifty foot wide, long and high. In the centre of the room is a glowing white stone circle a foot high and five foot across, floating about a foot above the ground. The light is pale but it is bright enough to see the whole room. The walls, floor and roof are all covered by the same grey bricks that we are now very familiar with. There is a ladder on the far side of the room leading to a door in the centre of the opposite wall. Below that door is an altar with three large black statues in front of it. The one in the centre is of a cat sitting elegantly. The one on the right is a catman standing glaring with his hands clenched into fists and the one on the left is a catwoman standing with a smile on her face and hands held out palm up in front of her. None of that is what I notice first though.
In that room just the other side of the door is Elucia standing smiling sweetly at us. She is wearing black shorts that reach less than halfway down to her knees and a matching black top that covers her breasts but not much more. Her cool blue hair that almost reaches her shoulders is unmistakable. Her pale skin and blue eyes though less distinctive, are no less familiar. Her face looks as kind as ever but her cruel aura shows the deception.
Beside Elucia is an elf girl wearing a short black skirt and a red leather top tha
t covers her from just below her shoulders to an inch or so above her belly button. Her dark brown hair hangs down to her shoulders and her bright green eyes are like daggers in the dark. Her skin is pale and she seems about thirteen or fourteen, though being an elf she is surely much older.
Their auras were until now almost completely hidden, but as they look at us in amusement they unveil them. The darkness of their auras makes the tunnel seem like the brightness of the sun, but it is truly only lit by the pale light of Hinata’s stone. Elucia drops her smile and her face now wears a predator’s grin.
“It seems the kitten and boy, are ready to die. Perhaps you would have expected to see me here, if the fairy girl hadn’t taken my powers lightly. I knew your plans the moment she told you.” Elucia says through the door and we hear her cruel voice perfectly.
“I cannot beat the Envoy.” The Kuroneko hisses.
“Don’t worry, just buy us time and let us get to the ring in the middle of the room.” Lucy says sounding very confident. Elucia frowns at her words.
“That I can do. Open the door.” The Kuroneko says and the shine of her aura blinds me for a moment. Once I can see again the door is open and the Kuroneko is pushing back Elucia and the elf with her claws and earthen lances shooting out of the ground. The enemy are throwing black lances that shoot out from the palms of their hands. The black lances feel a bit like dimensional magic, but not exactly. I can feel the damage they cause and we do not have time to waste.
I pick everyone other than the Kuroneko up with magic and throw us through the air, avoiding a dozen black lances from the elf girl’s hands before the Kuroneko manages to get the elf girl’s attention again. I land us right next to the stone ring. Lucy then takes charge.
“Hinata, get in the centre of that ring and lay face down, legs and arms stretched towards the four lines in the ring. Hurry! Dairon, stand between her legs facing her!” Lucy shouts from my shoulder and they move to obey.
Suddenly Elucia is standing in front of me, having ported. The Kuroneko is busy dealing with the elf and is unable to help. My power is weak so there is little I can do against Elucia’s overwhelming power. Stone hands reach up from the floor and down from the roof to grab Elucia but with a single wave of her hand they are all shattered. In that moment a blast of magical power shoots at her chest and a dagger appears in front of me. Elucia laughs as the blast bounces off and hits me in the forehead.