by G. R. Cooper
Wulfgar watched as Snorri swung his great axe, severing a spinal cord and bellowing in laughter, and then beginning to stomp on the twitching remains that scattered over the floor.
His attention was then drawn to Lauren, her sword making great arcs through the air of the room, at once holding off and pushing back two of the skeletons. In awe, he saw as she seemingly effortlessly parried each attempt at attack, all the while managing to find some opening she could chip away from, her brow frowned in concentration.
Coming out of his daze, Wulfgar activated Stealth and moved in toward Lauren and the two skeletons between them. He swung his sword side-arm, aiming at the spinal column of the attacker on Lauren’s left, his right. Bone chips flew as his blade connected.
“9 points of damage!”
“14 points of damage, Hidden Stab!”
“Congratulations! You have gained a level in Hidden Stab!”
The skeleton broke in the middle, its torso and legs flying in different directions. Wulfgar stepped to the right and once again stomped hard, crushing the skull and sending teeth and shards flying. He looked back up just as Lauren finished off her opponent in a similar fashion.
She looked up at him and smiled, “Didn’t need,” she said jauntily, “but thanks for the help.” He just smiled in return.
“And you!” she growled turning on Snorri, “The next time you see some sort of blood magic all laid out before you, do me a favor and don’t complete the ritual!”
Wulfgar leaned back against the stone wall of the skeleton chamber, grimacing in pain. He looked into the soft, dark eyes of Doe as she bound his wounds. She concentrated, her small hands deftly administering to his sore jaw - she had already tended his ribs, and he could tell that her work had already made a difference.
“You have been healed of 2 points of damage!”
She stepped back and her eyes narrowed in thought, then she nodded, slightly, happy with her work.
“Thanks, Doe.”
She nodded again, a slight smile flickering across her face momentarily, before she returned to the center of the room.
Wulfgar looked to his friends as he stood, stretching the soreness out of his limbs. The rest were all gathered in the center of the room, in an inward facing circle around Snorri, who was pulling items out of his backpack. Wulfgar joined the circle.
“What’s up?”
“Dinner time,” said Snorri, smiling and handing Wulfgar a sausage.
Wulfgar snatched a bite then waggled the rest of it back toward Snorri, “Do we really have time for this? We still need to find Rydra, and we have no idea what kind of trouble he’s in.”
“Check your Stamina,” said Lauren in between bites. She took a swig from a wineskin and passed it to Wulfgar, who grabbed it while looking at a translucent copy of his character sheet. The entry next to STA read 08/13. As he looked at it, the number rose to 09/13.
“Hmm,” he mumbled, then swallowed and followed it up with a swig of what turned out to be cool water. He passed the skin to Snorri.
“How does it go down?” he asked Lauren.
“Getting hit. Using special moves, stuff like that. It’ll go back up on its own, given time, but eating and drinking will scoot the process along. You should be back up to max in a minute or so.”
Wulfgar nodded, the looked toward Bear, “Does it work the same for NPCs?”
Lauren shook her head, “Don’t think so, and if you ask them, they won’t know what you’re talking about.”
Wulfgar looked to the Aos Si and Rats and they seemed to not be following the conversation at all.
“As to Bear, though,” she continued, “I don’t know, though I assume you could know if you had the Bestia skill.” She smiled up at Wulfgar, then responded to his questioning look, “Animal taming, I guess is what you’d call it. It’s a skill that lets you tame and then control wild beasts,” she started scratching the dog’s head, “Not that you’re wild, sugar Bear!”
She continued, “If you had that skill, I bet you could get greater access to Bear’s information, and maybe even unlock some special abilities for him. Or even,” she smiled toward Doe, “find him a friend or two.”
Wulfgar laughed, “Yet another of the long list of skills I have to look into. When there’s time.”
“You have all the time in the universe,” laughed Lauren.
“But not the present,” said Snorri, putting his pack back on, “There’s some thing down here that needs killing, and a friend of ours who likely needs rescuing.”
As if to accentuate that point, the group heard a low, guttural laugh. It seemed to come from all directions at once. It went on for several seconds.
And it sounded nothing like any of the previous noises they’d heard in this place.
“I take it,” said Snorri into the silence that followed, “that wasn’t a leprechaun.” The Aos Si shook their heads. Everyone seemed to nod at once, steeling themselves. Wulfgar looked to the door that he’d been inspecting before the skeletons rose, then back into the room.
“Before we see if we can go forward,” he began, “it might be a good idea to check and see if we can go back.” He nodded toward the door they’d come through.
As he inspected the new door, Lauren went back and opened the first. Wulfgar didn’t know if he would be able to detect any traps - he didn’t know if Rydra had used a skill earlier or if he’d just looked for anything that looked ominous. It looked, Wulfgar thought, like a door. If there was a trap on it, he couldn’t tell. He moved the handle, slowly, and it didn’t resist his efforts - whatever had locked it before had released its hold. He let the handle return to its previous position, then Wulfgar returned to the his friends. He paused as he reached them - a low hum, musical and evil, began to pulse through the chamber.
“Whatever that is,” he began, “I have a feeling that it’s bad news for Rydra.” The rest looked at him, waiting, “And I think we need to get our asses moving.”
Turning, he pulled his sword free of its sheath, and strode forcefully to the door. As he reached for the handle, he could feel his friends move in behind him. Grasping the wrought iron softly in his left hand, he pushed down on the latch, then slowly forward against the door. It swung silently on its hinges, opening into a short hallway.
Wulfgar crept forward, treading as lightly as he could. As he took his first step into the room, the floor creaked beneath his feet. Unlike the rest of the complex, this room had boarded floors - not smooth stone. He bent and examined the floor, but could discern nothing special about them, so he made his way to the next door and readied his fingers on the latch. He looked back to the group behind him.
“Ready?” he mouthed.
They nodded and he dropped the latch.
The floor fell away beneath them.
As he fell, Wulfgar caught a glimpse of the room they were falling into.
It was round, torches circled the walls. In the center was yet another stone altar, and on this one, Rydra lay naked and asleep - at least, Wulfgar hoped he was asleep. A figure stood over him, one arm raised high, the other holding a staff that it was pressing down on Rydra’s chest. Just above his heart. In the raised arm was a cruel, evil looking dagger - bent, wavy bladed - its shape alone was ominous, terrifying. The figure looked up, startled, and hissed, snarling through a nightmare of fangs.
Its face looked like nothing more than a skull tightly wrapped in leathern, parchment colored skin. Thin, almost non-existent, lips framed the horror that was its mouth - a gaping maw of pointed incisors. The nose was nothing more than a upside down heart shaped hole, and its large, oblong eyes showed only a flickering, fiery red. Black, raven hair was pulled back tightly onto its scalp, and gathered into three long tails - one each in front of two long, pointed ears, and one that draped down the creature’s back. The tall, thin body was wrapped, mummy-like, in faded, discolored muslin, that covered everything from the neck to its feet except for the two, claw-like hands.
It spun, impossibly
fast, and crouched, holding the staff sideways before its face while crooking its right arm, ready to thrust.
Wulfgar took all of that in the time it had taken him to fall to the floor. As he hit the stone, he rolled off, to his right, toward the wall. Snorri hit harder, and fell to his knees then forward onto all fours. Lauren, clad head to toe in heavy steel, hit hardest of all, and fell backward prone.
Bear and the rats, already on four feet, faired better. They landed ready to run, which they did. Doe moved back, behind the protection of Lauren, while the dog and Prince, without hesitating and fangs bared, rushed the creature in the center of the circular room. They covered the space, no more than a few meters, between themselves and their prey in a flash and leapt, seemingly in formation, Bear’s growling howl filling the room.
The creature, snarling like its attackers, snapped its left arm down, moving the staff in a great circle while it hissed.
“Bshaw!” it screeched, spittle flying from its fangs.
Prince and Bear seemed to go limp, in mid-air, and the creature turned sideways as the two flew past and dropped, skidding, to the floor where they stopped in two silent, unmoving heaps.
“NO!” screamed Wulfgar as he ran forward, now on the flank of the wight, who spun to face him. As he approached the monster, a wave of nausea flowed through him - this creature was a much higher level than Wulfgar. The creature held its blade up between them and Wulfgar dropped and slid on his knees across the smooth stone floor. As he slipped underneath the dagger, Wulfgar activated Blade Wind. His momentum from the slide seemingly turned into a spin on the floor and his arm flew out as the creatures knife hand dropped in a missed strike.
“5 points of damage!”
Wulfgar’s blade connected with the creature’s left knee, which buckled. It dropped to one knee, which brought it face to face with Wulfgar, who looked away, avoiding making eye contact. The stench of death enveloped Wulfgar as the monster exhaled in pain.
Wulfgar had taken first blood for the adventurers, but before he could react, the wight brought its left arm down on Wulfgar’s head, clubbing him across the temple with the staff’s head.
“You have taken 4 points of damage!”
“You are stunned!”
Wulfgar fell backward, sprawled at the monster’s feet.
The lich used the leverage from the strike to raise back onto its feet. After dropping its blade on Rydra’s chest, it gripped the staff in both hands and, pointing the head at Wulfgar’s head, spoke.
“Meschlaw fantalang!”
Fire erupted from the staff’s head, enveloping Wulfgar’s entire body. He could feel the heat surrounding him, but no pain.
“The Baen Si’s Cloak protects you!”
As his brain swirled, Wulfgar remembered what Lauren had said about the cloak - once per day, it had a chance of negating a magical attack. It seemed that it had saved him from the wall of fire that surrounded him. Before he could exult, though, the lich snarled and raised the staff again, and Wulfgar’s brain repeated - once per day.
The creature’s lips snarled as it formed its next spell, the evil in its wholly red eyes bore through him. Before it could exhale, though, a blond blur moved into Wulfgar’s vision as Snorri attacked, his axe biting through the air before it connected with the beast’s back.
The lich screamed, a high pitched wail, in both pain and anger as it turned on the viking. Snorri snarled as he lifted his axe high above his head, preparing for another attack. He dropped to one knee as the blade came down - but the lich side-stepped and the blade thundered against the floor. Sparks flew and the room shuddered as waves of energy seemed to erupt from where the axe hit. Wulfgar didn’t know what skill Snorri had used, but was sure that it would have been devastating to be on the receiving end of it.
Snorri looked up in horror as the lich spun, the head of its staff connecting to Snorri’s jaw. The big man flew backward, sliding across the floor - out of all proportion with the physics of the hit, Wulfgar thought. Blood flew from his friend’s face as he spun to stop, before rolling over and rising back to his knees.
Wulfgar heard mumblings, in stereo, from either side of the room. The Aos Si, it seemed, faired a bit better than the rest - instead of falling to the floor, they had floated and spent the intervening moments moving to either side of the lich and preparing their spells. Wulfgar turned his still stunned head as far as he could to watch.
Floating near the ceiling, the faerie brothers each held in front of themselves one of the hearts of the Revenant - they grasped the baseball sized lumps of red meat in their small hands.
Tane finished first, his hand glowed as a bright blue beam of light streaked from him to the lich. The light hit the monster and hissed, dissipating into a fizzle.
The lich laughed, a low haunting evil growl, as it raised the staff toward the princeling.
“Meschalaw fong!”
It struck down with the staff and Tane exploded in a fireball. The Aos Si screamed as it dropped to the floor, then lay silent. Doe ran from behind Lauren, just regaining her feet, toward the fallen Tane - the lich’s staff turned to the small rat.
“Meschalaw fong!” it said again, and she was blown back against the wall where she lay unmoving.
“Fuck you!” screamed Lauren as she charged. She raised her sword arm just as a blue light erupted from Bael’s arm. This time, the light exploded around the lich and it again dropped to one knee as Lauren reached it and began frantically pounding on its head and body. The lich reeled from the blows, and fell to both knees as Lauren continued her frenzied attack. From what Wulfgar could tell, she used no skill - relying instead solely on her blind fury to pummel the creature.
After her third or fourth strike, the blue glow from the lich vanished - whatever the effect of Baen’s spell, it was over. The lich thrust upward and out with its staff and Lauren fell backward, dropping her sword. The lich reversed his hold on the staff and, with a downward stabbing motion, thrust it toward the prone blacksmith as it began to speak.
“Mescha …”
“ODIN!” Snorri roared as he entered the fight again. His axe began to rain down on the lich. Snorri screamed incoherently, spittle flying from his Berserkergang maddened lips. He began to laugh and cry at once as his blade flew. The lich was visibly shaken as it dropped to all fours on the floor. It raised its right fist, staff held crosswise between the two combatants, and it whispered.
“Nondalay beleeg ‘EH!”
Snorri flew backward, an orange shield-shaped light shot from the staff throwing him violently against the wall, where he crumpled and sighed, dropping to the floor.
Again, a blue light struck from Bael, exploding on the lich’s head. The wight froze, unable to move except to snarl at the faerie prince.
“Wulfgar!” Bael screamed, “Hurry!”
Wulfgar tried to move, but felt as though an elephantine weight held him immobile. No matter how hard he struggled, no matter how much he willed it, he could not move.
Then he could.
“You are no longer stunned!”
Wulfgar rose, crouched, behind the lich. He picked up his blade and snarled.
Keeping low, Wulfgar moved in and activated Stealth.
Reaching the lich, he reached up and grabbed it by its left collarbone for leverage, then thrust upward with all of his strength, directly into the monster’s back.
“10 points of damage!”
“Critical hit!”
“14 points of damage, Hidden Stab!”
The lich screamed, shaking the room, as it twisted, coming out of Bael’s spell. Wulfgar’s blade, still embedded in the wight’s ribcage, ripped out of Wulfgar’s hand as the creature turned, falling back against the pedestal for support. It looked weary, hurt and wounded - but not defeated.
Helpless, Wulfgar could only watch as the lich raised its staff, pointing it directly at Wulfgar’s head.
“Meschalaw foNNaahhhgh,” it grunted as a knife blade emerged from its mouth. Its eyebrows
furrowed in confusion, then the red light in its eyes extinguished. It fell, in a heap, at the foot of the plinth. The body, no longer moving, began to smoke, to sizzle. Smoke enveloped the corpse as it rapidly reduced to ashes. Soon, there was nothing left of the lich but a black stain on the stone floor.
“You have gained Reputation! You are now considered Dangerous!”
“Your Reputation grants you +1 Personality! Folk are wary of you and treat you with added respect!”
Wulfgar looked up as Rydra, looking nothing worse than weary, sat up and swung his legs off of the pedestal. The thief took in the scene, the carnage, surrounding him. He didn’t say anything, just looked to Wulfgar and nodded.
Wulfgar rose, walked to Lauren. She was shaken and bleeding. He bent to help her, but she shook him off, pointing toward the far side of the room.
“Doe,” she grunted, “Tane. Check them.”
He stood back up and went to the two motionless bodies, but he could tell that there was nothing he could do - not at his current level, anyway. Tane was sprawled almost comically like a thrown doll, his body bent into an unnatural pose. Smoke still rose from his darkened body. Wulfgar sighed, then felt a cold muzzle press into his left hand. He looked down at Bear and sighed again, in relief. The dog and Prince, bound by whatever spell that the lich had used to put them to sleep, seemed to have been released upon the creature’s death. Wulfgar scratched the dog, nodded at the rat, then moved to Doe’s body.
The little heroine looked almost peaceful, as though she dropped into a nap along the curved wall. Bear pushed his snout into her, sniffed, then licked her once, before dropping onto his belly, laying and looking at her. He seemed unsure of what to do, but just dropped his head onto his crossed paws and sighed, staring forlornly.
“You have been healed of 4 points of damage!”
Wulfgar looked up, to Bael, finishing his magical ministrations. He nodded his thanks to the faerie, then moved back toward Lauren who again shook him away and pointed toward Snorri, laying against the wall on the far side of the room. He walked quickly across the room and bent over the man’s prostrate form, feeling for a pulse. Snorri groaned as he regained consciousness, then rolled onto his side, looking up at Wulfgar with one eye, the other bloodied and swollen shut.