by Eric Vall
Morrigan hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “I shall not fail you, Master” the elf said with renewed confidence. Her eyes became consumed with blackness, and Fea and Macha cawed as though to offer their support.
“I can help too!” Carmedy said as she tossed one of her bundles into the throng of undead minions. The small pouch erupted into a cloud of yellow smoke that temporarily served to blind those that were trapped inside. The puppets moaned and rubbed at their eyes as they stumbled over one another.
“What have you got up your sleeve this time, Carmedy?” Annalíse said to the feline with a wry grin.
“You’ll just wait and see,” the cat said with a wink, and she knelt on the ground and proceeded to remove some of the bundles around her waist. “Keep them occupied while I cook up something extra special. He wants a masterpiece, I’ll show him a masterpiece!”
“You got it, pussycat,” Rana said as she, Annalíse, and I moved to shield the Carmedy from the ruthless patchwork beasts. The small alchemist got to work and began to mumble to herself as she always did while she brewed up one of her concoctions. Each time my fighters and I cut down one of our soulless adversaries, we hurled the bodies and parts to the side so that Morrigan could dispose of them. As soon as the puppets were tossed in Morrigan’s direction, the pale elf would raise her hand to the air and tighten her grip. The bodies would instantly begin to defragment and turn into ash that scattered into the air as she summoned the terrible power of death projection that I had taught her.
“Now what do you think of your little works of art? Your little cycle is falling apart.” Rana sneered at the deity as Morrigan turned one puppet after another into nothing more than grey dust.
“How dare you?” The god scowled, and his piercing yellow eyes filled with rage. “You will suffer for your impudence!” He waved his hands back and forth and guided his puppets with his wooden bars. By his command, a group of puppets flew toward Morrigan with alarming speed, but the elf showed no fear, only fury as she narrowed her wholly black eyes. The tattooed woman raised her hand to the corpses that sped toward her, and she clenched her fist. The puppets immediately exploded into a cloud of ash and rained down onto the cavern floor.
“Savor your pathetic life while you still can, for soon your worthless soul and your power shall be stripped from your body.” The pale elf glowered at the puppet master deity, but the sides of her mouth curved up into a slight grin.
She hadn’t believe she could kill the puppet corpses, but now she knew that she could. My minion was becoming more powerful.
The deity growled in frustration but said nothing as he continued to attack us with his so-called masterpieces.
“You know, I’m starting to love when she says stuff like that,” Rana said with a dry laugh as she tossed one of the two-headed stitched monsters to the elf.
“She almost never gets mad--” Annalíse huffed as she cut through a puppet-corpse’s torso and kicked away its lower half, “--but when she does, it’s great!”
“Done!” Carmedy suddenly shouted. The feline rose to her feet, and in her hands, she held several bulging bundles. From the way that they jiggled, I could tell that they were filled with some sort of liquid.
“Here, each of you take one,” the feline said as she handed the pouches to Rana, Annalíse, and me. “Everyone stand together. When I give the signal, throw these above the puppets’ heads, but don’t throw them until I tell you. And Morrigan, when we toss these little beauties, you do your death thingy, okay?” The cat gestured for Morrigan to join us as we began to take our places as per Carmedy’s instructions.
The elf nodded hurried over to us, and the five of us stood in a tight group with our backs to each other to leave no blind spots. The god maneuvered his invisible strings that bound his soulless slaves to him, and the puppets proceeded to surround us.
“You fools,” the deity cackled. “You allow yourselves to be trapped and you still resist me.” The puppets marched toward us and snarled and clawed at the air as they approached and tightened their circle around us.
“Carmedy, are you sure about this?” Annalíse said with a doubtful glance toward the feline. “What exactly did you put in these?”
“Just trust me,” Carmedy said confidently as the undead creatures drew closer. “Wait until I say so.”
“What courage,” the god said mockingly. “You truly think that you can stop me, little cat, how precious. There is nothing you can do, you only prolong your suffering.” The yellow-eyed puppet master chuckled menacingly.
The puppets drew closer and closer to us.
“Carmedy?” Rana asked nervously.
“Not yet,” Carmedy said.
“My goodness, what lovely eyes,” the yellow-eyed deity crooned to Carmedy in his revolting gravely tone. “Such a striking shade of green. I know exactly what to do with those. And those pretty little fuzzy ears, oh what works of genius I’ll create with those.”
The puppets were nearly upon us, if we didn’t act soon, we would miss our chance.
“Now!” Carmedy yelled. We immediately hurled our pouches into the air above the mob of monsters that surrounded us. As our bundles sailed overhead, they burst, and a green gooey substance rained down onto the heads of the puppets. The horrid beasts shrieked as their dreadful bodies were coated in the thick liquid. Steam rose from their bodies as the substance ate into their skin. Their flesh was quickly dissolved to expose cartilage, and then cartilage disappeared to reveal bone. The deity gaped as his terrible creations melted before his very eyes.
The deadly green liquid didn’t stop there. Whatever it touched, it destroyed, and it continued to tear through some of the bones that it had splattered upon until they disappeared altogether.
“No!” the puppet master god roared as his soulless deceased clawed at the air desperately before they dissolved into piles of sinewy goop. The smell of putrid corpses that already hung in the air was joined by the smell of burning flesh.
“What is that stuff? And what in the world did you put in it?” Rana asked Carmedy with a raised eyebrow.
“Just a little acid I came up with,” Carmedy beamed. “I used sulfuric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sodium--”
“Ah, maybe we can discuss the inner workings of your acid later, Carmedy,” I said to the feline. “Do you have any more of this substance?”
“Of course, I made extra.” The cat nodded her head, and she untied more of the bundles from around her waist.
“Good. The rest of you take care of the remaining puppets,” I instructed them. “I’ll handle the puppet master.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Carmedy said with a grin. The alchemist proceeded to hand Annalíse and Rana more of the acid-filled pouches, and along with Morrigan, they readied themselves for their next attack. Between Carmedy’s toxic mixture and Morrigan’s necromantic skills, I knew that my minions would be able to deal with the undead creatures without issue now, and the best part was that they had figured out how to overcome the challenge by themselves.
I was very proud of them.
But now it was time for me to fulfill my duty as their master and god, so I focused my attention on the shrouded deity that floated above me. His yellow eyes shone with rage, and his gruesome jaws formed a scowl as he moved his hands this way and that to maneuver what puppets he had left.
“My beloved creations,” he cried out. “You’ve destroyed them, you insolent wretches!”
“That is the least of the things you need to worry about,” I said as I rose to my full height. With a single pull, I threw off my cloak to reveal my majestic dark armor. Then I snapped my finger, and my demonic helmet materialized over my face. My rival’s eyes opened wide with surprise when he saw another small demonstration of my dark power, but soon he would be screaming.
I stretched my arm out in front of me with my palm facing upward. Carmedy’s acid had given me an idea about how I could put this vile deity down. While I could have used death projection as Morrigan had, or
I could have used a simple hellfire blast, or a cone of ice-barren cold, or hundreds of other powerful attacks I could conjure with a small release of my power, I decided that the puppet master should suffer a similar fate to his stitched-up minions. I slowly raised my hand, and as I did so, I summoned the powers that I had taken from the lava deity. Two great columns of lava geysered upward to either side of me, and the scorching pillars of fluid rose till they were nearly ten feet tall. Beads of lava occasionally escaped and plummeted to the cavern floor scorching it in the process.
The god’s eyes widened as the fiery orange liquid bubbled and oscillated, threatening him with its pitiless scathing rage. I curled my fingers upward, and the two columns immediately bent and rushed toward the god. They curved and twirled around each other as they sped toward him with unimaginable speed. The puppet master quickly yanked one of his hands, and just as before, the last of his followers leapt into the air and formed a shield in front of him. This time, they would not help him. Just like Carmedy’s acid, the lava relentlessly devoured their flesh and rendered them nothing more than human mush.
The puppet master cried out as his so-called masterpieces dissolved and his yellow eyes shone with fear. The terror in his eyes made the darkness within me stir. I lived for these moments when my victims realized that their time in this world was fleeting and that their lives would soon be snuffed out by my hand.
They believed themselves immortal. They were not.
I raised my hands to the air on either side of me and once again summoned forth the molten lava. As I lifted my hands, a wall of the flaming liquid rose from the ground and towered above me. I quickly clenched my fingers, and the wall separated into two halves and flew toward the god. Just as before, the deity tugged at his wooden implements and attempted to form a barrier between us. This time, however, the shield only consisted of a handful of the human puppets. Carmedy, Rana, Annalíse, and Morrigan were tearing through the undead army, and the deity was running out of puppets. The two sheets of lava sped toward either side of the floating god and began to curve inward. Then the puppet master frantically looked back and forth between the two deadly waves. He knew he was trapped.
He attempted to float away to escape, but it was too late. His fate had been sealed. The two waves of lava stretched around both he and his puppets and surrounded them to form a solid sphere of the sinister molten rock. The deity shrieked as drops of the lava dripped onto his body, and as the glowing orb began to close and swallow him up, the god bellowed in both rage and terror. There was nowhere for him to turn. The sphere completed its formation, and I could no longer see the god or his puppets.
A smile came to my lips as I closed my grip, and the sphere began to shrink. I could still hear the deity’s terrible raspy screams as the lava consumed him. He begged and pleaded for his life, but his cries did little more than increase the size of my smile. I could feel the life drain from his body, and it made my skin tingle with pleasure. Before long, the god’s wails were quieted, and I felt his presence no more. I turned to see that my minions had dealt with the last of the puppets and around them were countless piles of bones, melted flesh, and ash.
“Well this has been an eventful day,” Rana huffed as she ran a paw through her messy curls. “When I woke up this morning, I didn’t expect that I’d be spending my afternoon throwing sacks of acid at human meat puppets. Then again, who am I kidding? It’s just another day in the lives of the dungeon conquerors.”
“That it is,” I said with a dark chuckle. “You all handled this quite well, I am proud of you.”
“Yeah, we are pretty amazing, aren’t we?” Rana said with a grin. “Carmedy’s death goop, Morrigan’s magic, not to mention Annalíse’s and my own superior combat skills, those puppets didn’t stand a chance.” Rana folded her arms across her chest and shook her head condescendingly at a pile of puppet glop near her feet.
“That’s for sure.” Annalíse smiled with satisfaction as she sheathed her swords.
“I too am pleased with our battle prowess,” Morrigan nodded. “We displayed great adeptness.”
“You did indeed, I’m proud of you all,” I repeated to my minions.
“Carmedy, what’s the matter?” Rana asked the feline alchemist. Carmedy didn’t seem so thrilled now that the battle had ended, her expression one of sadness.
“I just… I feel bad for all those poor people.” The cat gestured to the piles of puppet goo that littered the cavern floor.
“We had to dispose of them, Carmedy,” Annalíse said. “They would have killed us otherwise.”
“That’s not why I feel bad.” Carmedy shook her head. “It’s because of what that god did to them. He disturbed the dead and robbed them of their limbs and killed people to make his… art. There were so many of them, who knows how long he’s been doing this? It’s so... evil. To rip apart bodies for his own gain, it goes against everything that I believe in.”
“I understand your feelings,” I said gently, “but take comfort in the fact that we’ve put an end to him. He won’t be making any more puppets. Think of all the people whose lives have been spared and whose loved ones can rest in peace.” I patted the feline’s shoulder to comfort her.
Carmedy was silent for a moment. She seemed to be mulling this over in her head. “You’re right,” the cat finally said with a soft smile. “No one else will be hurt now. Thank you, Master.”
“There, see? All’s well that ends well.” Rana playfully tugged at Carmedy’s fuzzy ears and licked her lips. “Now, let’s see what golden goodies this dungeon got stored away.”
Chapter 10
As we emerged from the dungeon, the smells of death and burning flesh began to drift away as the hot winds welcomed us back to the desert sands. Morrigan, Carmedy, Annalíse and I ventured outside while Rana had decided to stay inside with my shadow slaves to seek out the dungeon’s treasure.
“Whoo-wee, look what we found!” Rana called out to us from the passageway. The fox emerged from the dungeon’s entrance with a large wooden chest in her arms, and six more treasure chests floated behind her carried by my invisible underlings.
“Gee, that’s a lot!” Carmedy’s eyes bulged as the containers were stacked into the backs of the sand sleds.
“It sure is,” Rana said with a wide grin as she set down her load. “It’s our biggest haul yet. There’s just gotta be a sacred object in one of these babies, I can feel it.” The fox rubbed her paws together excitedly. The five of us moved to each sand sleds, and together, we began to look through the treasure.
“Ooh, this is pretty,” Carmedy said as she fished a crown from one of the chests. The headpiece was crafted from pure gold and small rubies and diamonds circled around it. The cat placed the crown on her head, but it was too big for her so it slid down over her eyes.
“Uh, Carmedy, that’s not exactly the traditional way to wear a crown,” Rana quipped as she sifted through the items of another box.
“Aw, it’s too big for me,” the feline said as she took off the crown. Then she glanced over at Annalíse, and a smile came to her lips. “Hey Annalíse, I think this might fit you.” Carmedy held the crown out to the swordswoman.
“No thanks,” Annalíse said with a frown. “I don’t really like gaudy pieces like that.”
“But it’ll look great on you,” Carmedy said in a sing-song voice.
“I don’t want--” Annalíse started to say, but Carmedy was already placing the crown on the freckled woman’s braided head.
“There now, perfect fit,” the small cat said as she smiled with happiness. Carmedy moved back a bit to get a full view of Annalíse, and she nodded with satisfaction. “It suits you, and the jewels complement your complexion and your hair so well.” Annalíse shifted uncomfortably and snatched the crown from her head only seconds after Carmedy had placed it there, and she tossed back into the treasure chest.
“What’s your problem?” Rana raised an eyebrow at the swordswoman. “It’s just a crown.”
&nbs
p; “I told you, I don’t like gaudy things,” the female warrior grumbled.
“Okay,” Rana said slowly, and she and Carmedy exchanged dubious glances. We all knew that Annalíse didn’t care much for extravagance. While her appearance was always pristine, the manner in which she dressed indicated that she preferred function over frills.
“I have found something of interest,” Morrigan suddenly said, and we turned to see what the elf had discovered. What the elf held in her hand was a small slingshot. Both the handle, and the prongs that curved upwards were crafted from gold. Attached to each of the ends was a thick band of green silk with gold markings embroidered onto the fabric.
“A gold slingshot?” Annalíse said with a dry chuckle. “Why would someone make such a thing? First off, gold is a horrible metal for weapons, it’s far too soft. Second, slingshots aren’t exactly the most fearsome weapons known to man. A sword or spear of some sort would have been a far more impressive creation.”
“Some king probably had it made for his spoiled brats,” Rana said with a wry grin. “You know how those rich types are, they always have useless stuff like that made for them.”
“Yes,” Annalíse murmured as she frowned at the fox for a moment before she turned her attention back to the slingshot.
“This is no mere child’s plaything,” Morrigan said flatly as she held the device up to the light. The weapon’s golden surfaces gleamed with radiance as the sun’s rays bounced off them.
“What is it then?” I asked the pale elf.
“It is an enchanted weapon,” the white-haired woman said with her usual lack of enthusiasm.
“How do you know this?” I said as my eyes roamed over the small item. It took me but a moment to shift the perspective of my vision, but then I could see the magical energy coursing through the material. My lover had been correct, but most mortals were unable to see the magical energies like I could.
“Because, like Rana’s daggers, this too was crafted by the high elves,” Morrigan said with a note of pride in her voice. “Centuries ago, this slingshot was stolen from the realm of the high elves during the third great war between ourselves and the lower elves of Alavesh. While we were able to defend our home, many of our foes escaped, and with them, they took some of our most prized weapons. This slingshot is one of them. It was highly coveted because of its magical properties. It is said that whoever uses it will never miss their mark and that the user can communicate with the weapon, in a manner of speaking.”