by D. R. Rosier
A second stream of water passed her and covered the mace in a dome of ice at least three feet thick, they really didn’t want the demon getting his weapon back. The weapon was too dangerous.
Time for phase two.
Jerrold and Mina worked together with sword and water magic to keep the demon down, but it wasn’t easy since Mina’s spells couldn’t work directly on the demon except by his feet.
Her job was to harass the imps with air bolts, and keep them from attacking too much while she protected Suzy from getting hit and her spell from being interrupted. Luckily, there were no physical weapons on the imps today, and she had no problem knocking down fire balls, and simply standing in front of the dark magic attacks while she tried to hit them.
It wasn’t easy, they kept ducking down behind cover to avoid her air magic. Still, the explosions of air kept them disoriented for the most part, but she couldn’t just focus on one, there were five this time. It would have been frustrating, if she’d been trying to kill them. Really though that wasn’t her job in the fight, her job was to just keep them busy and off balance for a while.
She grinned and wondered if she was crazy, she was having a blast, as Suzy finally finished her spell, and the imps were banished to hell in bright flash of light, and the large demon screamed in pain and rage.
“Shit,” she winced as the demon backhanded Jerrold from his knees, and then stood up with a roar of anger and hate. She knew that roar should have been scary and intimidating, but really it just made her smile wider. Things were going to plan after all, mostly anyway.
Without support to worry about, all four of them now focused on the disarmed but still highly dangerous demon. Jerrold took some swings with his sword, but mainly just tried to keep its attention, and dodged its punches which were still damaging if they struck, but not nearly as bad as a heavily enchanted two-handed spiked mace would’ve been.
Her and Mina combined talents, and used the ice and air blade whirlwind to keep it off balance as much as possible. They had to constantly recast it, as the demon’s armor enchantment would only take a few seconds to counter and unravel their magic. It did cause a little damage, but the damned thing was ridiculously hard to kill. It was Suzy’s offensive light bolts that did the most damage, even over Jerrold’s sword. Despite its protective enchantments, light magic would always be the most damaging to a demon.
It took quite a long time, but eventually the demon was felled like a tree, dark red blood leaked out of the armor’s joints, and it was finally still. Jerrold cautiously slid his sword up and under the helmet to make sure of it.
Jerrold caught his breath and said, “That went well.”
She giggled, “I thought so.”
Suzy asked, “Are you alright?” as she moved over and healed him.
He shrugged, “Wasn’t too bad, but thanks. Should we try floor eight tomorrow?”
She said cautiously, “Maybe? Those wall collapsing traps and ambushes were nasty, I can’t imagine they’re any more fun now that the floor is adept level one. We’ll have to plan well for it.”
Mina didn’t say anything, she’d never seen that level, not yet anyway.
Suzy frowned, “Only two of us are near that rating, Mina and I are still mid Journeywoman. I’m not saying no, but it is risky.”
Jerrold wasn’t quite an adept yet, but he was close. And she was… odd. Her power and knowledge were above adept level one, her control was still coming along. It made it hard to rate her, usually all three grew at once. But since she was coddled growing up, and hadn’t practiced as much as most on her path, the lion’s share of her focus went into studying and knowledge. The power she’d inherited. She casted at adept level one yes, but her spells were more powerful than most on that level because of her master level sized aura of magic.
Mina said, “Let’s loot and talk about it over dinner, we’re holding up the next group.”
They all agreed to that, and got it done…
They were all at dinner, and she was sitting closer to Mina than usual. The water mage hadn’t seemed to mind when she’d done it either. She was tempted, and knew Mina was attracted to her too, she could just tell. She worried though, that she was starting down the same path as she had with Sienna, was that wise? She did feel a little guilty about it, but she knew Sienna would be okay with it, wherever she was. Sienna had been the type to wring every joy possible in every moment of her life. She was even pretty sure Sienna would be disgusted it had taken this long for her to consider moving on.
Life was short, and there were no guarantees. Why not extract all the joy and love out of it that she could? Her body was humming as well from the day in the dungeon, which admittedly was pushing her hard toward accepting her latest thoughts.
After they’d cleaned up, and they’d disposed of their loot for a lot of coin, she’d read the dungeon board and seen a new announcement. She decided to tease her cousin a bit.
“Hey Jerrold, that desire to go to level eight wouldn’t have anything to do with that new warrior death trap puzzle, would it?”
He spit up his ale, and tried to look innocent, very badly.
“No, of course not. But, as long as it’s there…” he finished disingenuously.
She snorted, “After you convinced Mina and me not to try the mage puzzle on level five? Something about it not being worth an all or nothing risk?”
He cleared his throat, “Well…” and then trailed off and said nothing.
She sighed, “Well, I am a little tired of those damned imps. What if we try it, if the first ambush is too hard, we retreat. But no puzzle for you, unless you want to stop by floor five first?”
Jerrold glared, “I suppose that’s fair, let me think about it. In the meantime, let’s plan for our first battle on eight.”
They planned, talked, and joked around as they heartily ate a large meal, and drank. It was only as they started to split up on the second floor of the inn that she truly made her decision.
“Mina, would that offer to share a room still be open?”
Mina smiled, “I always have room for you Catalina.”
She shivered pleasantly at her full name coming from Mina’s lips, and took her hand as they retired for the night.
I felt a bit like a voyeur, as I realized adventurers were quite a randy lot. I thought I was bad with always wanting to use my fantasy spell on Lila and Ebony, but they were worse after a day fighting in my dungeon. I didn’t really understand why sex was so intricately linked with risk of death, but then hadn’t I been eager to be with Lila after the incident with Salvatore?
It wasn’t something I focused on, but I’d discovered with my power boost, the range of my sight had gone up exponentially, and I could easily monitor the inn now too. Though, I still refrained from changing or summoning anything above the surface. I wondered if that was why they loved fighting so much. Faster growth of power, and then they let lose at night, drinking ale, getting rowdy, and then retiring to their beds with their loved ones. Sleep usually came much later on in the night.
It also gave me a few new ideas to try out with Lila and Ebony, humans were creative and seemed to invent endless new and sometimes odd ways to share pleasure. The point was, my reach was my reach, I didn’t focus on it but I still couldn’t fail to see it. Plus, nights were slow in the dungeon, especially with Ebony at the library and Lila still off in Jennesar. I tried to focus on my experiments instead.
I’d considered studying them to get a better handle on humans, but the truth was the adventurers seemed to be a law unto themselves. Unfortunately, I couldn’t yet reach the marketplace which was further away, and observe normal humans in action. It seemed like an important thing to get to know humans, if I ever intended to make plans and go out there to hurt my enemies.
Until then, I’d have to depend on Lila’s experience with the short-lived race.
For now, I focused on the magic experiments, the gnomes, the dungeon itself as I started my nightly rearranging, and all t
he knowledge Ebony had been supplying from books. Hmm, that was an idea, maybe I could read books about human nature and history to get a better handle on them. I’d have to ask Ebony when she got back in the morning, I could tell she was in deep concentration reading right now…
Chapter Ten
Carlton sighed and looked around their newest temporary home. He’d been sure it would only take a couple of days for things to cool down so they could slip out of the city, but so far, they’d been dodging paladins and city guardsman for a whole month. The gates and walls had twice the guards on them, and there were also paladins hanging around a lot more obviously than usual. Getting past them with simple illusion would be impossible.
Verin seemed desperate to not let him escape the city with his knowledge. He just wished he knew what Verin had said to the king about him to get the man onboard with a month-long manhunt.
It was frustrating as hell, that the king was working against himself in ignorance.
He never should have come to the capitol, where Verin was most powerful and had his fingertips in everything. It was foolish, desperate, and horribly naïve. They’d been trying to plan in the interim while they waited for a chance to escape, but he still wasn’t sure what they would do, or where they would go, once they got out of the city.
Selwyn said, “That was too close sir. We should stay in hiding.”
He grunted, “I know, but we still need to gather food and drink.”
Diana said, “Sir, I think it’s time to stop playing nice. The king will never listen to you, and we aren’t doing anyone any good being stuck in hiding. I say we leave tonight, over the wall.”
He frowned, but he knew she was right. The reason they were having so much trouble was he didn’t want to harm anyone, although honestly that was more for the city guards’ benefit than the paladins. He was convinced now anyone in the church of light who wasn’t a traitor had been killed or sent from this city long ago.
Apparently, Selwyn knew the direction of his thoughts.
Selwyn said, “I can put the guards to sleep easily with a light spell, and you, Diana, and Cory can handle taking down the paladins that resist my spells.”
Cory asked, “Then what? Where do we go?”
He cursed, “I’m sorry I’ve wasted so much time, and put us in even more danger. We leave tonight, and we return to Tenemin.”
Diana cleared her throat, “Tenemin sir? Where Ennis and the inquisitor are?”
He nodded, “I’ve been thinking there’s a reason the inquisitor was sent there, and it may not have been me.”
Selwyn asked, “Then why?”
He blew out a breath, “To question and recruit for the upcoming betrayal, perhaps there are still paladins and clerics loyal to our gods there. Unfortunately, they’ve got a five-week head start, and it’s going to be another week before we get back.”
Diana asked, “The plan?”
He said, “Don’t worry, it’s not a frontal assault.”
Mostly because that would be suicide, there were quite a few paladins and clerics in the ducal city of Tenemin.
“I’m going to work on a new spell, to detect the presence of a loyalty spell. We’ll watch the paladins and clerics come and go from the church buildings, at a safe distance from them in Tenemin. Once we determine who isn’t spelled with loyalty yet, we’ll work out how to pull them out quickly and brief them without causing an alarm. We need to save as many as we can, and then pull out of the city and lay low until Verin and his followers prove their betrayal of Nysten, only then can we act.”
Cory said, “What about the Duke? Wouldn’t he help, he hates Ennis, and trusts you.”
He nodded, “Perhaps, but he’s also a true follower of the king. If the king issues arrest orders throughout the kingdom on all of us, he won’t have a choice, but perhaps we can try after our other mission is done. It might also be wise to initially contact the princess, along with second heir Jerrold.”
He wanted to curse himself, he’d wasted too much time. But, the army from Jennesar, and thus the betrayal, wasn’t for another month to a month and a half, so they had time.
Diana said, “That’s the most workable plan you’ve come up since we started this thing sir.”
He laughed, “Glad you think so, and you’re right. Let’s get ready to head out, I want to go as soon as the sun sinks below the horizon. Plus, if this doesn’t work we can always become farmers.”
Diana snickered, “Bite your tongue, sir. That sounds too much like honest work.”
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, Diana and the other two were treating him more like an equal these days, even to the point they teased him, but they still deferred to his decisions otherwise. Honestly, it was kind of nice, he just hoped it wouldn’t cause problems at some point.
They packed up, and got ready for a week-long ride. Hopefully, the farmer they’d left their horses with hadn’t sold them. They hadn’t expected to be gone a whole month. When night fell, they took to the streets and headed to the west wall. The patrol was lightest in the poor section. He’d considered that could just be a trap, but he kind of doubted it.
Diana was in the lead with her sword out, and they only stumbled across one pair of paladins which she put down quickly and silently. When they got close to the wall, they watched for almost a half an hour to get the timing of the walking guards, as well as figure out where all the standing guards were.
Selwyn waited for the passing guard to get there, and then cast a sleep spell. All the guards got knocked out, and they had at least three minutes before the next walking guard arrived. That was more than enough time.
If he’d known it would be this easy, he’d have done it sooner.
Of course, as soon as he’d had that thought, there was an outcry by another paladin group stationed on a building across from the wall, they hadn’t seen them at all.
He frowned as he cast a pair of master level light bolts, which silenced the two idiots, permanently.
“Run for it.”
They ran over to the wall and climbed up, it was easy from the city side of the wall with just a rope and hook. There were more guards coming from both directions at a run, Selwyn cast a sleep spell one way, and he got the other. He cringed as two of the guards fell from the wall, and made a loud crunching noise on the cobblestones below.
So much for not killing any guards.
“Time to go,” he said as he pulled up the rope, and sent it down the other side. The four of them made it down in seconds, and then took off at a jog for the farm a little over two miles away.
“Keep a look out for pursuit, I doubt they’ll simply give up.”
Diana smirked, “Perhaps, but they’ll have to find someone high enough up to give out the orders. Anyone that high in rank will have to be woken up first, which should buy us some time.”
He grunted in agreement as they ran into the night, even if they did chase them he wasn’t going to hold back anymore. Holding back was naïve, this was war for his beliefs, his gods, and his kingdom. Verin was unassailable, and the king too blinded to listen. He’d have to go it on his own and just do the best he could. He doubted it would be enough, but it would be something at least..
I’ve learned a lot the last month, both about human interaction, and of course from the Library. Lila also seemed to have come through for me as well, finally.
Lila said, “Sorry it took so long, these clerics are damned paranoid, and expect to be stabbed in the back almost constantly by their supposed allies. I found a drunk passed out earlier this morning though, when I went to bring breakfast to his rooms. His mind is a cesspool, but I’ve seen worse.”
I replied, “That’s great Lila, what did you find out?”
Lila said, “Sorry, but they have no clue what you are, only that it’s imperative for Jennesar’s future that you die. If I had to guess, the gods want you dead and fear you for some reason, and only they know your true nature. That said, our problems are twofold.”
She continued, “There’s really only one way to harm the gods of Jennesar from the mortal plane, and that’s to take away their power, which means taking away their worshippers. So, we need to figure out a way to do that.”
Killing them all was an easy solution, but probably not the best one if I didn’t want the world at my doorstep wanting my death, so I’d have to think about it. Honestly, I wasn’t that thrilled with the killing them all option either, and not just because it would make me enemies. I couldn’t say why I felt that way, but I did.
Lila said, “And our second problem is that in about six weeks Jennesar is going to invade with twenty thousand church soldiers, not to mention mages, warriors, clerics, and paladins. He didn’t know everything, but he believes they will be helped by betrayal within Nysten somehow. Apparently the highest keeps secrets even from his inner circle.”
I wasn’t sure why that was my problem. I mean, I kind of liked that princess person that invaded my dungeon daily, and her party, but what do the kingdoms above really have to do with me? That’s when I realized the obvious, I wanted to cut down on the number of people that worshiped the gods of Jennesar, and ultimately sabotage their power base, make them weak. If they annexed Nysten they’d forcibly convert almost half a million peasants. That would be an issue, and them doubling in power was definitely counterproductive to my goals. Not to mention, the current Nysten kingdom wasn’t trying to kill me, and even tried to protect me once. I’d be in more danger, and my enemies would get stronger, so that wasn’t a good option. I still didn’t see how I could help, not without revealing myself and possibly making matters worse.
“I see, suggestions?”