by Logan Jacobs
“Thank you,” I said as I turned Goliath’s head toward the house she’d indicated.
“What are you thinking, Great One?” Mahini asked from her seat astride Warrior’s back.
“In order to break a curse,” I explained, “I need to figure out how it started. The leader is the best place to go for that kind of knowledge.”
“Wise choice, Great One,” the desert goddess murmured.
Once we’d reached the big house in the center of town, we dismounted and tied our horses and mule to the post outside. I made a new save point, and then I climbed up the stairs, opened the door without knocking, and strode in with my shoulders back and my chest puffed out.
“Fear not!” I declared as soon as I saw the older man sitting in an armchair in the room just inside the front door. “I am Sebastian, the God of Time, and I am here to break the curse.”
“You’re… What?” The older man shook his head of auburn hair like he was waking himself up from a dream, and he fixed his dark eyes on my face with an earnest expression of hope. “Can it be true?”
“It is true.” I nodded to emphasize my words. “All your troubles will soon be over, but first, tell me the tale of the curse. Start at the beginning.”
“Very well,” the leader said. “My name is Atticus, but I’m sure you already knew that since you came here to find me.”
“Yes, you are the leader of Lake Balerno, correct?” I raised an eyebrow as I peered around at the richly decorated room. “Your home is lovely.”
“Thank you very much,” Atticus said, and he stood up and tugged his red overcoat straight over his rotund stomach. “Lake Balerno used to be a bustling hub for traveling merchants, but lately it has fallen into despair.”
“That will be over soon.” I gave Atticus a sympathetic smile. “How long has the lake been cursed?”
“About a moon,” Atticus sighed. “It was during the last full moon when eight of our young men went to complete the Trial of Time. They never returned.”
Something gnawed at the back of my mind, but a clear thought never materialized, so I shook my head to dispel the unnerving feeling that the timing of the curse was no coincidence.
“What is the Trial of Time?” I asked in a curious tone.
“It’s something of a rite of passage,” Atticus explained. “Lake Balerno was built many, many years ago near a burial sanctum. It lies on the northern boundary of the town, and the catacombs beneath are expansive. No one knows how deep they go.”
“And this is where the eight men went?” I was beginning to get the idea of what had happened. Some rambunctious teenagers had disturbed some buried king or something, and the lake level had suffered from their misbehavior.
“Yes, and the very next day after they disappeared, the lake began to drop.” Atticus shook his head, and a sad look crossed his face. “It is the end of Lake Balerno, I am afraid.”
“Nonsense.” I waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll have your lake fixed up in a jiffy.”
“What is a ‘jiffy’?” Atticus tilted his head to the side and gave me a look of confusion. “And how will it fix the lake?”
“It means fast.” I grinned.
“It is hard to believe it is even possible,” Atticus persisted. “How can one man break a curse?”
“I am more than one man,” I reminded the leader. “I am the God of Time.”
“I am hesitant to allow anyone else to enter the sanctum,” Atticus argued in a hesitant voice. “The last thing this town needs is more missing people.”
“All I need is some torches and a map,” I said with a shrug.
“Alas, no maps exist.” Atticus shook his head. “I knew it was impossible.”
“Fine, there’s no maps.” I was quickly losing my patience with the hopeless leader. “Anyone been inside who lived to tell the tale?”
“No one who remains alive,” the leader sighed. “The last man who entered the sanctum died young exactly one year after he first entered the depths.”
“How long ago was that?” I wondered how long the burial sanctum had troubled the town.
“Five years now,” Atticus replied in a grief-stricken voice. “He was my brother.”
“Your worries are over now that I am on the job,” I assured him. “Soon, your town will be added to the list of places I’ve saved during my travels.”
“If you survive the sanctum,” Atticus said with disbelief dripping from his words, “then you shall hold a place of honor in Lake Balerno until the end of your days.”
“Oh, I’ll survive,” I insisted. “Maps would be nice, but they aren’t needed. I’ll clear out your dungeon and get the treasure once I undo the curse. Easy peasy.”
“You have a strange manner of speech, Great One,” Atticus observed with furrowed eyebrows. “You must be from someplace far away from here.”
“That I am,” I laughed. “So, do we have a deal?”
“A deal?” Atticus shook his head. “What is this deal you speak of?”
“If I break the curse, I get a place of honor in your town,” I stated in a steady voice. “Plus, I get to keep whatever I find in the sanctum.”
“Very well.” Atticus nodded his consent. “We have a deal. Please, do not die.”
“I’m a god,” I said with total confidence. “I’m immortal, so you have nothing to worry about.”
I didn’t want the leader to know of my ignorance to his situation, though, so I decided to reset to my save point. I’d meet up with the leader once I cleared the sanctum and undid the curse, and he’d have no choice but to believe in me then.
Chime.
“On second thought,” I said to my women as they started to hitch the horses and mule to the tie post outside the leader’s house. “I don’t need to speak to the leader, I have all the information I need to get started.”
“Oh?” Mahini froze with her reins half tied around the wooden post. “What is our next move, then, Great One?”
“Settle the horses in for the night,” I directed with a grin, “then we’re going to go scout out a burial sanctum. It’s on the north side of town, and that’s the source of the curse on the lake, so we should start there.”
“A burial sanctum?” Elissa gulped, and her emerald eyes widened with excitement. “I hear the dead come back to life in places like that. I’ve always wanted to see something so magical, but it’s much too dangerous for a girl like me to go alone.”
“You won’t be coming with us,” Mahini argued. “It will be much too dangerous.”
“But Mahini…” Elissa sighed. “I killed a kobold all by myself.”
“That you did,” I allowed with an apologetic smile, “but one kobold is far from the kind of crazy things we could encounter inside the sanctum. It’s best if you stay behind, Elissa.”
“At least let me go with you to scout it out,” she persisted.
I sighed. “Alright, you can come with us today, but you have to stay in Lake Balerno tomorrow.”
“We shall see,” Elissa countered with a coy smile, and I could tell the argument was far from over.
The fiery little goddess didn’t easily take no for an answer, and I kinda liked that.
We took our horses and the mule to the stables and got them settled in for the night. Goliath nickered happily and tossed his head when he noticed the bucket of grain hanging in his stall, and I chuckled to myself at his antics. Then we made our way to the inn. The Lake Balerno Bed House was covered in chipping blue paint with white trim around the windows, and it looked like something you’d find on the northeast coast of the United States in my old world, someplace where people wore cardigans and ate lobster regularly.
Once we were all situated, we walked to the north side of town. The stench of dead fish clung to the air, and the stale water slapped at the shore like a beggar asking for change. The faces of everyone we encountered were downcast and depressed, and I could only imagine how horrible it must have been to live next to the swampy excuse for a lake dur
ing the last month.
It didn’t take us long to reach the entrance to the sanctum. Stone pillars created a path up to the entrance, which was half built into the hill and probably went much deeper underground than I could see from the surface. The thick double doors were made of iron and had two huge circles as handles.
Suddenly, I heard a strange clacking sound from the woods behind the sanctum, and I quickly ushered my two women back away from the entrance. We reached the cover of some brush just in time to see a real-life skeleton walk past carrying a crude iron sword. It had red glowing eyes inside its empty skull, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how the pieces of bones were held together. I could see air through some of the joints, but they seemed to function just as well as when the thing had been alive.
If it had ever truly been alive.
I wasn’t sure how skeletons came to life, but in a lot of video games I played there was some sort of necromancer involved. Usually, an evil sorcerer would exploit the dead as his minions and wage war against the living with endless hordes of the undead. I didn’t think an evil magician was to blame for Lake Balerno’s curse, though, so I’d have to figure out how to handle it.
In the meantime, we’d also have to find out how to kill something that was already dead.
“It is strange for such dark magic to be present in the light of day,” Mahini observed in a low voice.
Elissa had both hands clamped over her mouth, and her emerald eyes were wide open with fear. She nodded wordlessly in agreement with the desert goddess and turned her eyes back to the skeleton warrior wandering through the woods a few yards away from our hiding place.
“What’s the battle plan?” Mahini asked, and I could see the light of bloodlust in her piercing blue eyes.
“Tomorrow, we go in guns blazing.” I grinned. “Kill anything that gets in our way and clear the entire sanctum.”
“What do you mean ‘guns blazing?’” Elissa asked. “What’s a ‘gun?’”
“Never mind that,” I said quietly so as not to get the attention of the skeleton dude.
We waited in silence for a short while before the skeleton guy finally moved onward, and once I could no longer hear the clacking of his bones as he moved, we inched our way out of the brush and headed back to town. I didn’t think there was much chance of the skeletal dude wandering into town, but if he did, I would handle it. For tonight, I needed to remember everything I’d ever learned about the living dead and how to kill them.
“I’m going with you tomorrow,” Elissa persisted again after we’d walked in silence for a moment. “You’ll need all the help you can get. I can help, I swear I can.”
“Lissy…” Mahini said.
“No!” Elissa argued in a loud voice that turned a few heads of people passing us out on the street. “I’m going! Bash, tell her I can go!”
“It will be dangerous and scary,” I reminded her, but the fight was quickly leaving me. She was so adorable with her fiery temper and the stubborn jut of her dainty chin.
“I’m not afraid.” She lifted her chin even higher and met my gaze with a firm look. “I will be helpful, I promise. I want… I want to be a good wife to you. I want to be by your side… always. Do you understand how much I love you? It will be terrifying, I know, but what will be even scarier will be staying alone in my room while I worry about you.”
I held her emerald eyes in mine for a long moment, but she didn’t relent, and I finally gave in.
Damn. I loved this woman, and she was turning out to be even more amazing than I had expected.
“You can come,” I sighed.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Elissa squealed as she jumped into my arms, and she planted kisses all over my face and squeezed her arms around my neck.
I laughed into the fiery hair that blanketed my face, and I held her perfect body tightly against me until her grip loosened.
Mahini gave me an amused glance and shook her head in awe. “She has a strong attitude, but I fear her skills are not up to par.”
“Well, you’ll just have to fix that, then, won’t you?” I teased with a wink.
Mahini sighed her defeat and nodded. “Yes, I shall teach her some techniques.”
“Let’s find someplace to spar,” I suggested as excitement began to course through my veins. I was ready to get this dungeon crawl started, and visions of unknown riches floated through my brain.
Burial grounds always had the best loot in video games, after all.
We went to the southern outskirts of Lake Balerno to avoid the random skeletons near the sanctum for Elissa’s sword fighting lessons. The redhead was an apt student, and she took corrections with grace, but Mahini was a tough tutor.
The desert goddess circled Elissa while the younger woman held her stance, and she moved her legs slightly and then raised her arm up a few inches. We ran all sorts of drills and exercises as the sun crept toward the western horizon, but after a while, my wife stopped and placed her hands on her hips.
“When are you going to teach me how to fight against a real person and not just the air around me?” Her emerald eyes flicked between Mahini and me and were full of defiance. “I want to learn to fight the skeletons!”
“Stance and form must come first,” Mahini said in a stern voice. “You have to be able move instinctively when the heat of battle is high. Your brain will shut off, but your body will remember the movements. Now, do it again.”
Elissa sighed and flung her fiery mane over her shoulder before once again taking the directed stance. Mahini ran Lissy through the drills until sweat dripped down my wife’s freckled face, and then the desert goddess turned to me and declared the red-haired beauty was ready.
“Now, it’s time for some parrying and thrusting.” I stepped forward with my feather sword and grinned at the tiny goddess.
Elissa nodded and held her sword in the ready position. “I like the sound of that!”
“I bet you do,” I chuckled.
I swung my sword slowly, and Elissa’s blade came up to block it in a clumsy fashion, but the metal still struck mine with a resounding ring. I corrected her stance and then repeated the same motion. I continued this process until the redhead could bring her sword up to parry my blow with ease, and then I added a second strike to the mix.
We practiced for hours until the sun had started to slide below the horizon across the murky waters of the lake, and then we called it a day and headed back to our room.
I slept peacefully after all the exercise I’d gotten from our sparring session, and I woke up as the first light of dawn began to peek in through the window.
It was the day I’d planned to clear out the burial sanctum, and I was beyond ready to get started. I went over my mental checklist of what we would need to bring with us while I let the girls sleep in for a while. We’d need several torches, some rope, and some way to mark our path so we didn’t get lost inside the maze-like tunnels. It would also be smart to bring enough food for an entire day, since I didn’t know how deep the burial grounds went, and it could take me longer than I expected to clear the entire thing out. We’d need to bring something to haul treasure back with, too, some empty flour sacks would work, and of course I’d want to have all of my weapons and armor with me.
I felt Mahini stir at my side, and she lifted herself up onto her elbow to give me a beautiful smile.
“Good morning, Great One,” she greeted.
“Good morning, beautiful.” I ran my fingers through her jet-black hair, and then I tucked it behind her ear with a gentle touch. “Are you ready for a dungeon crawl?”
“I do not believe any prisoners were held inside the burial sanctum, and I hope we will not be doing this quest on our hands and knees,” Mahini said with furrowed eyebrows. “Why do you refer to it as a dungeon crawl?”
“Just a saying from my world,” I explained. “Basically, are you ready to kill some skeletons and find a bunch of treasure?”
“I will follow you anyw
here you go,” Mahini declared. “I am your woman.”
“Me, too,” Elissa said as she yawned and stretched her arms over her head. “You two better not even think about leaving me behind. I’m going, and that’s final. You already agreed.”
“Of course, you are,” I laughed. “I was just saying it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
“I cannot wait to see you, how do you say it? Kick some ass.” Elissa gave me a proud grin. “I love watching you use your incredible power.”
“I love it when you watch me,” I quipped. Then I wiggled my eyebrows to convey just how excited I was. “We should get ready to go.”
“Yes, Great One,” Mahini replied, and she quickly got dressed in her typical white shirt, brown breeches, and knee-high boots.
“What should I wear?” Elissa asked as she rummaged inside her bag for an outfit. She flung dress after dress over her shoulder into a rejection pile, and I marveled at how many clothes she’d managed to fit into the small bag.
“Something comfortable that you can move in,” I suggested. “And warm. It could be chilly once we are inside the sanctum.”
I pulled on my leather pants, a white lace up shirt, and my boots. Then I began to strap on my armor and weapons. I grabbed one of our saddle bags and dumped out the contents onto the bed before I flung it over my shoulder. I’d figure out how to get everything to fit again when we got back, but in the meantime, I wasn’t about to leave treasure behind just because I had no way to carry it.
I left my shield behind since I would be operating in tight quarters inside the burial sanctum, plus it would mean having less weight to carry once we were on our way out again with all the loot. I put my feather sword and the two daggers Jax had made on my belt, and then I tucked the sorcerer’s dagger into my boot.
Mahini dressed in her full armor, slung her bow over her shoulders, and then attached her quiver and short sword to her hips, and she finished off her ensemble with a dagger in her boot. The desert goddess remembered to grab some rope, too.
Elissa wore green pants, knee high leather boots, and a leather vest that exposed her freckled arms. The smallest curve of cleavage peaked out from her pale-skinned neckline, and a copper circlet on a gold chain dangled in the crevice. The tiny redhead also packed us up some food and filled a water skin, and then she wove her fiery tendrils into a thick braid.