“No,” Illuna says. “Shaman rituals are different from other mind affecting spells. First of all, time flows differently in this place. A year spent in this world amounts to only one second in the real world. Secondly, the shaman is also trapped in here with us.”
“So, what’s the purpose, then?” Hadrik says. “Isn’t this like some sort of a dream? Aren’t we just going to wake up once we die?”
“You may not be familiar with these types of spells, since they aren’t all that common on the other continents,” Illuna says, “but this isn’t anything like a dream. You can feel pain, you can concentrate without waking up, and if you die in here, you die in the real world as well. What’s actually happening is that our souls from the ethereal plane are no longer directly connected to the earthen plane, but to another pocket universe from the ethereal plane. In order to reattach our souls to our bodies, we’d need to close our eyes, think about the last moments before we were transported here, get a clear image of those caverns into our heads and then focus on it, with the conviction that the image in our heads represents the real world, while the world we are standing in is only an illusion. The image in our heads would then slowly start to become more vivid, until it would eventually replace the world in front of our eyes.”
“And in order to get out of here, we would all need to do that?” Daren asks. “Including the shaman?”
“Exactly,” Illuna says. “Our problem is the shaman. Until we get rid of him, we won’t be able to return to the real world. That’s why he trapped himself in here with us.”
“How are we supposed to fight him if he’s got complete control of this world?” Hadrik says. “Wouldn’t it be like fighting some sort of god?”
“No,” Illuna says. “The shaman does not have any control over this world. He only created it. Once he trapped himself in here, he became forced to follow the same rules as the rest of us. That is the nature of these shaman rituals. He doesn’t have any magic either, except for the spells in his staff. And since he’s been gracious enough to let us finish our conversation, I would suspect that he has no intention of fighting us head on. He must be waiting for something.”
As the fog disappears completely, we see that there are several pairs of red eyes shining in the dark depths of the forest, and we start to hear several low continuous growls as the creatures are getting closer. When they come out of the woods, we learn that they are in fact wolves, though they are at least three times the size of normal ones, and their fur is as black as coal.
Five of them start running towards our group, while Daren and Hadrik step in front of us and assume their battle stances. Three of the wolves go right for them, but the other two circle around and go for Kate and Illuna instead. Daren defends himself with his shield from one wolf, while he slices the other’s head clean off. Hadrik punches the third wolf in its mouth and sends three of its fangs flying, as the animal squeals in pain.
Kate waits for the beast with her dagger in hand. The animal dashes towards her, but she manages to get behind it in the blink of an eye, and she slits its throat with a single motion, as her hands get drenched in the wolf’s blood. The look in her eyes changed completely when she started fighting the wolf. She’s always had a sort of feral look about her, but this is more than that. This isn’t her just being ruthless or efficient. Those are the eyes of a beast hunting its prey. This must be why she was able to survive alone in a jungle at the age of twelve, before she even had any magic. In order to avoid being hunted, she was forced to become the hunter instead.
Illuna, who does not have any weapons, begins to jump around using Flower’s acrobatic techniques, in order to confuse the wolf and avoid getting bitten. Once Daren and Hadrik finish dealing with their own wolves, they come and kill the one attacking Illuna as well.
“This is why the shaman didn’t take any actions,” Hadrik says. “He was too busy getting away from here, so that his own wolves wouldn’t attack him. Luckily for us, he left a trail of footsteps in the snow that we can easily follow.”
He then points towards the trail of footsteps left by the shaman, which leads into the only part of the forest which doesn’t seem to be crawling with wolves.
“If we all go after the shaman now, we’ll have to fight wolves every step of the way,” Daren says. “That would only make it easier for him to finish us off. Someone should go after the shaman alone, while the rest of us provide a distraction. Preferably someone who is confident that he can defeat the shaman in a duel and who can handle himself against a few wolves, in case they don’t all take the bait.”
“I volunteer for the job,” I say. “I should be able to handle the shaman by myself if he can only cast spells from his staff.”
“Are you sure?” Daren says.
“We don’t know how many wolves are going to come out of that forest,” I say. “You and Hadrik should both stay here in case things get really bad. I’ll try to end this as quickly as possible. Wish me luck.”
I then begin running towards the woods, in the direction of the shaman’s footsteps. As I enter the forest, I slow down my pace, making sure that there are no traps or ambushes set up ahead of me.
The footsteps have been leading me in the same direction since I started following them, and there have been no obstacles of any kind in my path since I walked into the woods. Could it be that the shaman was too busy getting as far away as possible from the wolves to lay down any kind of traps?
I start to pick up my pace, while at the same time trying to remain as vigilant as possible. When it looks as if I am finally beginning to catch up with the shaman, I hide behind a tree, and then I take a good long look ahead of me. The trail of footsteps ends abruptly, in the middle of the snow, and there is no one in sight. He must still be invisible. But why isn’t he moving? Did he see me before I hid behind the tree?
It doesn’t matter. If he saw me, then I’ll just have to make sure to dodge whatever spell he decides to throw at me. If he didn’t, then it means I still have the element of surprise. I move quickly and silently from tree to tree, until I get close enough to the shaman, and then I rush towards him, with my knife in front of me. To my surprise, there was no one waiting for me at the end of the trail of footsteps, and all I got to stab was empty air. Does this mean that he teleported away? No, that can’t be it! He wouldn’t have walked such a long distance if he could have just teleported right away. That only leaves one possibility. He must have covered his last set of footprints and hidden himself somewhere close, waiting for the right moment to strike.
I turn around and see the shaman standing several feet behind me, with his staff fully charged and a wicked grin on his face. A bright blue magical projectile shoots out of his staff and straight for my face. I barely have the time to react, but luckily my fast reflexes help me get out of its way just in time. The shaman frowns, and he starts charging up his staff yet again, in order to cast another spell. I grab my dagger firmly in both hands, and I begin to rush towards the ogre.
Luckily for me, his staff takes too long to charge up, and I manage to stick my knife in his chest before he gets to cast another spell. The shaman spits out blood, and as I prepare to land the finishing blow, the world suddenly starts spinning around me, and then I soon find myself standing in the middle of a cave again, with all of my friends beside me. They also seem to have just woken up, because they are now looking around themselves to confirm that we are indeed back in the abandoned mines below the ogre fort.
Before I get the time to fully regain my senses, a bright green light envelops Illuna, and then it disappears almost as quickly as it appeared. The shaman then starts laughing hoarsely, before coughing some blood on the cave’s floor.
“This is the end, banshee,” the shaman says, as he coughs some more. “For both of us. That spell I just cast on you was a curse of death. A shamanic spell that kills both the caster and its target. You likely have less than an hour left to live. My life was forfeited the moment I managed to get myself corne
red within my own shaman ritual, but at least now I’ll get the satisfaction of dragging the traitor who started all of this mess to the underworld with me!”
He then laughs hoarsely again, and he begins to turn into ashes.
“Damn it!” Hadrik shouts, as he jumps towards the shaman, but all he gets to punch are his ashes, which are now slowly piling up on the floor of the caverns.
Illuna was in a brief state of shock after the shaman’s reveal, but now her expression is slowly darkening. After a few more seconds, she decides to go to sit down on the floor, with her back leaning against one of the cave’s walls.
“What are you waiting for?” she asks, when she sees us looking at her. “Get going. I’ll hold the ogres off here. It’s not like there’s much else I can do in the little time I have left.”
“It’s true, then?” Rose asks. “What the ogre said?”
“Yes,” Illuna says. “The curse is much too powerful for me to break with any of the spells I know. The shaman was being generous when he said that I’d get to live for another hour. From what I can tell, the curse will likely kill me in the next fifteen minutes.”
“No!” Rose shouts. “You can’t give up! You can’t give up like this! There has to be a way to—”
Rose stops mid-sentence, because she sees Daren starting to move towards Illuna. When he reaches her, he lifts his sword and looks at the banshee, without uttering a word. Illuna looks back at him and she laughs.
“My apologies,” she says. “I nearly forgot that you wanted to have me purified. Well, here I am. Give it your best shot. With a little luck, after you kill me, you might be able to wake Flower up from her stasis so that she can say her goodbyes.”
“Shut up,” Daren says, as he readies his sword.
“Daren, no!” Rose shouts, as Daren sticks his sword into Illuna’s right leg.
A bright white light surrounds the banshee for a few seconds, and then a green smoke starts to come out of her, which evaporates into thin air soon afterwards.
“You…” Illuna says, in a state of complete shock. “What did you…”
“I broke the curse,” Daren says. “I am both a white mage and an enchanter, remember? It’s only natural that my sword can do something as trivial as dispelling an ordinary death curse, without requiring me to use magic. This makes us even. You saved my life and I saved yours. Now we can move on with our lives and never speak of these events ever again.”
“…Agreed,” Illuna says, after a while, and she uses her healing magic to patch up her wound.
“Illuna, thank the gods!” Rose says, as she comes to give her a big hug. “You’re going to be okay now, right? There are no other curses?”
“No…” Illuna says, looking a little flustered. “No other curses as far as I can tell. There’s still the matter of the hordes of ogres approaching us, though…”
“No need to worry about that!” Hadrik says, with a grin. “I’ve got a plan. But first, we all need to get out of the caves. Come on! Move, move, move!”
As we all get out of the abandoned mines, Hadrik jumps high into the air, and he punches the rocks above the cave’s entrance. The whole rocky wall crumbles and completely blocks the path that leads to the caverns.
“That’s it?” Daren asks. “That’s your plan?”
“Simple, but effective, don’t you think?” Hadrik says, with a wide grin.
“Did it cross your mind that they might have warriors within their ranks that are capable of moving a few rocks out of their way?” Daren says. “Not to mention all the mages that can just blow the rocks up.”
“If they try to use explosions, they’ll just bury themselves in,” Illuna says. “And from what I’ve seen while I was walking around the fort, the captain was their only warrior that had strength comparable to the dwarf’s. They can still use air magic to move the rocks out of the way, but it will take them a while. That gives us more than enough time to make ourselves scarce.”
“There you have it!” Hadrik says. “Come on, let’s go get our backpacks!”
“Wait,” Arraka says. “I’m sensing two ogres hiding invisibly near the base of the hill.”
“Are they in our way?” Daren asks.
“No, but they might try to ambush us later,” Arraka says.
“I think it’s better to get rid of them,” I say. “If we let them live, they’ll see which way we went and tell the other ogres when they get out of the mines.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Daren says. “One can never be too careful. Let’s get this done as quickly as possible and then head for our backpacks.”
We follow Arraka’s directions and reach the two ogres in less than a minute. When they see that we discovered them, the ogres dismiss their invisibility spell and try to attack us with their clubs, but Illuna beheads them both with a single motion of her water whip, and then we all go back and head towards the place where we buried our backpacks.
Once we dig up all of our belongings, we waste no time and we begin our long journey back to the sacred woods ruins. We keep going at a relatively fast pace for the first hour, in order to make sure that we put enough distance between ourselves and the ogres, but after confirming several times that we we’re not being followed, we start to slow down a bit. The sun had already set when we left the stronghold, but there are many stars in the sky tonight, and the moon is almost full, so we decide to keep going until we are comfortable enough with the distance between ourselves and the ogres’ territory.
“Healer,” Illuna says, as we walk through the woods, “after I released you from your cell, you promised that you wouldn’t attack me until we escaped the fort. Now that we’re at a safe enough distance from the ogres, you are no longer bound by that promise. Should I begin to prepare my defenses?”
“No, I…” Daren starts to say, but he pauses. “I don’t really feel like fighting anymore today…”
“I see,” Illuna says, eying him suspiciously.
“I’m so glad that we didn’t run into any mages since we left the ruins!” Rose says, trying to change the subject. “It would have taken us a lot longer to complete our mission if we’d kept encountering people who attacked Kate out of the blue.”
“Why are they attacking you, specifically?” Illuna asks Kate. “Aren’t most people in this group part of the same tournament?”
“Yes, but I’m the only one here who gets mistaken for a banshee,” Kate says. “Flower tried to teach me how to suppress my aura well enough to pass as a normal human, but I just couldn’t keep up with her.”
“That girl has extraordinary talent when it comes to learning these things herself, but she is a very poor teacher,” Illuna says. “The technique in itself isn’t that difficult to master. You only need a little guidance to learn the basics. For instance, a good starting point would be to practice calming the flow of your aura first. Here, let me show you how it’s done.”
Illuna spent the next two hours teaching Kate how to suppress her aura, step by step, while we kept marching towards the ruins. By the time she was done, I could see that they’d made enormous progress. Kate’s magical aura was barely noticeable when she suppressed it now, and you could very well confuse her with a normal human if you didn’t examine her closely. The lessons Illuna provided were interesting enough that even Hadrik and I joined in mid-way, and we both spent more than half an hour doing various exercises suggested by her to help us hide our auras from enemies.
Once we found a good camping spot, we began to set up our tents. Hadrik said that two of his spare tents needed to be fixed before they could be used again, so Rose offered to share her tent with Kate and Illuna for the night. When we started discussing about how to divide guard duty between ourselves, Kate, Rose and Hadrik unanimously voted for me and Daren to take the first shift. Their flawless synchronization when they voted for us was suspicious to say the least, but I decided not to call them out on it for the time being.
Before we went to sleep, Hadrik insisted that we hold
a toast to celebrate our victory, but nobody seemed to be in the mood for drinking, given how tired they were after today’s events. Since nobody else offered, I told Hadrik that I’d share one drink with him before taking my shift. He pulled out two bottles of dwarven ale from his backpack, and then we went to sit ourselves down on two rocks that were facing each other, away from the tents.
“When giants make a toast, they first spill a bit of ale on the ground, to also give the warriors fallen in battle something to drink,” Hadrik says, as he opens our two bottles. “I always get in trouble when I do this in dwarven taverns, so it’s refreshing to do it outside for a change.”
He raises his bottle.
“A toast!” he says. “For retrieving the chalice and coming one step closer to removing these blasted contraptions from our necks!”
We clink the two bottles and then we both spill a bit of ale on the ground, before starting to drink. This is the first time I’ve tasted anything like this. I felt a strong burning sensation as the ale went down my throat, and I’m already beginning to feel a little dizzy. This doesn’t even compare to the strongest drinks available in taverns from the Western Continent.
“First time drinking dwarven ale?” Hadrik asks with a grin, as he sees the expression on my face.
“Yeah,” I say. “I knew this was supposed to be strong, but I guess I didn’t expect it to be this much stronger than anything else I’ve drunk before.”
“Aye,” Hadrik says. “This is why I spend so much of my time in the dwarven lands. Plus, the locals are really nice. Most of the tavern owners know that I’m a giant in disguise, but they welcome me with open arms, regardless. Part of that is probably because they’d be losing a quarter of their monthly profit if they’d stop receiving me, but still!”
“Are giants not usually welcome in dwarven lands?” I say.
“Well, it’s nothing official, but many of the dwarves don’t really love us giants very much,” Hadrik says. “There’s a pretty bloody history between our two peoples, and even though we are at peace now, old grudges still remain. It also doesn’t help when some smartass giant decides to go on a rampage in the middle of dwarven territory, just to satisfy his inferiority complex. Most of these troublemakers have been dealt with by our own warriors, but they usually get to do a lot of damage before they’re caught, and it’s not like the lives they’ve taken can just be brought back again.”
Magium: The Mage Tournament: Book 1 Page 26