“Look at those fangs!” Mack noted with appreciation. He swung his axe through the air. “I wonder if we’ll find some of those baddies in this forest.”
“They aren’t bad. Sometimes in harsh winters, I’ve heard of wolves attacking humans because they are starving as the extreme cold has killed their natural prey,” Christopher explained. “They’re desperate to simply stay alive, and so they forget their fear of humans.”
“And it’s not just wolves. Look at all the spiders in this panel.” Cassie’s shoulders twitched. She didn’t like spiders any more than Luke did.
Luke glanced over at the left side of the door where the Huntress was once again shown in battle, though this time she appeared to be hunting them through stealth rather than all-out combat as she had with the wolves. She was crouched down behind a tree trunk and picking off the spiders with her bow as they clustered in their nests.
“This is not simple hunger or a natural explosion of their population. Their expressions show only malevolence,” Alicia muttered as she ran a thick, green finger along one of the wolves’ snouts.
“Nature isn’t malevolent or benevolent. She is just what she is,” Christopher disagreed.
“But this isn’t nature, Christopher. All of this is my father,” Luke pointed out.
There was a beat of silence as everyone contemplated that.
“There is much beauty here, Luke, even in this.” Christopher gestured towards the carvings. “Nature, red in tooth and claw.”
“Hey, check this out,” Cassie said. She was staring up at the lintel where there was another hunting scene.
Luke frowned though when he saw who the Huntress was aiming her arrows at. She was firing at a dragon that flew far overhead. Was that Asharoth? Not that a puny bow could hurt the massive dragon, but still, he didn’t like the thought of his protector being attacked by anyone.
“Did she really think she had a chance against a dragon?” Mack scoffed, echoing Luke’s thoughts.
“She seems pretty assured,” Cassie pointed out.
“You saw Asharoth. Do you think he could be hurt by arrows?” Luke asked, a little miffed that she honestly was questioning this.
Cassie’s green eyes widened. “Oh, no, not Asharoth. But a little dragon, you know. A mini one.”
“Do they come in mini sizes?” Mack shook his head, grinning, as he asked that.
“Let us hope we have no need of dragons again,” Alicia said, her gaze on Luke. “I do not wish to die for you to use your Special Ability to call him once more.”
“We are in complete agreement on that,” Luke told her.
“Let’s get in there and see if the Huntress is waiting for us,” Cassie said.
She skirted past him and through the open threshold into the temple. He followed after her with the others trailing him. The light inside the temple came from a missing section of roof. The light was a soft green from the sunlight streaming through the canopy of trees. Like Cassie had said, there were dozens of unlit candles around the room. Clearly, someone or something came here during the night and lit them. Was it to worship the Huntress? And, if so, why? While the temple was clearly a ruin, it still felt sacred. Luke marveled that his father--or the other devs, really--had been able to create the sensation of sacredness.
There were dried leaves and other debris from the forest on the temple’s floor. Their footsteps crunched as they walked over the dead, papery leaves. Cassie cast a suppressive look back at them. Mack grimaced as he tried to avoid the leaves, but he had large feet and crunched a few of them nonetheless. Alicia just ground one orcish foot into a pile of leaves. Luke suppressed a laugh. The truth was if anything was in the temple, it already knew that they were there.
“It looks empty,” Luke remarked as he gazed around the room.
The room itself was simple with no hidey-holes for a creature to conceal its presence from them. It was a rectangular space about 50-feet deep and 30-feet wide. The remains of wooden pews could be seen, but they were broken, mostly rotted and turned to dust like the doors had been.
There were more carvings of the Huntress on the walls. One showed the people of the village on their knees before her, but she was urging them up to their feet. She didn’t want their worship. Perhaps she’d done what she did because it was right, or because hunting was in her blood. Either way, she’d saved them, but didn’t want anything from them.
On the other wall was another scene, but not of battle. The Huntress was facing towards a huge bat-winged thing with horns curling back from its head. It looked like there were five orbs surrounding the flying thing. The Huntress had her bow out, but she was not aiming an arrow at the terrible creature. They seemed to be talking, perhaps coming to some pact. It unnerved Luke slightly.
Finally, on the far wall was a statue of the Huntress that stood approximately ten feet high. Her expression was serene. She was standing straight and tall. Her arms were outstretched. In them was a long length of polished white stone, almost like she was offering something to the people in the long-lost pews. Luke thought he caught sight of a faint blue glow on top of the stone in her arms. His tattoos burned some more.
“I don’t see any traps,” Cassie said. She was about five steps ahead of them, and carefully observing the stone blocks that made up the floor and walls.
“My Perception Perk doesn’t show any monsters in this place either,” Mack informed them.
“I still smell stone and ozone,” Alicia said.
It was the latter scent that worried Luke. Was she smelling some kind of electrical magic? Maybe whatever was in this place was invisible and would shoot them with electricity the moment they came too quickly inside.
“I sense no evil here,” Christopher remarked. He was peering around carefully. “There seems to be some kind of podium in front of the statue. Oh, there’s a book on top!”
Drawn like a moth to a flame, Christopher hurried over to the podium without a thought about traps or danger. The book clearly called out to his cleric’s nature. The urge to yell “stop” and “be careful” was huge in Luke’s mind, but he stopped himself and repeated his mantra. Luke brought his flaming hand close to the parchment to give Christopher more light to see it clearly.
“Thank you, I have enough light now and I can read this!” Christopher said as the pointer finger of his right hand hovered over the clearly aged text. “I’ll summarize what it says. The language is archaic, and very formal, but the general gist is what you would expect. This temple is dedicated to a guardian of this forest. She was known simply as the Huntress. She protected the people in the village from an over-infestation of dark things.”
Luke thought about the images on the outside of the temple. “Yeah, that seems to track with the graven images.”
“Once the evil was cast out, she disappeared, but promised to return in spirit to protect the people again. So she left her bow behind for her spiritual successor,” Christopher said.
“Bow?” Cassie perked up and reminded Luke of a gopher poking its head out of its hole.
“I thought I saw something glowing on top of the stone plank the statue’s holding,” Luke told her, pointing to it.
Cassie took two huge steps, then leaped up to catch the Huntress’ right arm and gracefully drew herself up so that she was straddling the Huntress’ stone arm. Her eyes reflected a blue glow very similar to, if not the same as, the glow of the path. Her expression was rapt, and a little rapacious. She extended her right hand forward--she was shaking--over whatever it was on the stone slab.
“It’s a longbow and sheaf of arrows. God, it’s more than a bow. The workmanship! I can practically feel the magic radiating off of it! It’s beautiful!” she gasped.
“Cassie, please do not touch that bow!” Christopher’s voice rang out. He was still reading the book, turning pages and mouthing the words silently. “The book is saying something about a test for anyone who tries to take the bow, which will--”
“Lead to death if we fail?
Sounds about right.” Mack nodded.
“But I have to touch it! It has to be mine,” she murmured. “It’s meant to be mine.”
Unnerved a little by the sheer lust for loot in her eyes, Luke stepped towards her. “Touching that is definitely going to set off some kind of battle. Let us get ready at least, Cass.”
But she had already reached down and grasped the magical weapon. That was when an earth-shattering shriek rended the air in the room. The test had begun!
9
THE TEST OF THE TEMPLE OF THE HUNTRESS
WINDSTALKER
------
Monster Type: Fiend
Level: 7
Hit Points: 400
Habitat: Forest Shrines
Strengths: Immune to Wind
Weaknesses: Weak to Earth
Special Attack: Wind Blast, Turn Invisible
Experience Points: 500
STRIKER
------
Monster Type: Orb
Level: 2
Hit Points: 50
Habitat: All
Strengths: Immune to Plasma
Weaknesses: None
Special Attack: Plasma Bolt
Experience Points: 25
The shriek came from the center of the room, but not from the ground, from the air. It was the creature that the Huntress had not been battling in the engraving, but while it might have been her friend, it most definitely wasn’t theirs. The rough, leathery skin was a dark crimson. It had bat-like wings that stretched out eight feet to each side. Its face was that of a demon with slitted nostrils, glowing red eyes, no lips, and countless pointed fangs overlapping one another. A black, forked tongue slithered out and licked the air as the thing let out another shriek. Surrounding it were five glowing orbs that Luke had glimpsed in the forest. The scent of ozone that Alicia had told him about earlier Luke could finally smell, too.
“Mack, what the Hell are these things, and what are they weak and strong to?” Luke asked even as he stretched out his left hand and sent flames towards the flying thing.
Firestream took off five hit points per second, but it only had a range of 25 feet, and the damned thing kept flying well out of range. He saw a red five here and there rising off of it, but he’d wasted over 40 mana points for a total of 15 hit points taken off the thing. He stopped sending flames its way. Yet it was too high up for Dragon’s Claw to even clip its clawed feet.
“The big boy is a Windstalker. Oh, a fiend! First one we saw of those! Immune to wind. Weak to earth. So we’ve got nothing that will work well, right? You just have fire and ice?” Mack asked as he used the Perception Perk to analyze their enemies.
“Yeah, this definitely isn’t working!” Luke let out a sharp laugh. This really difficult foe would, of course, be their first after Manon.
“It’s Level 7 with 400 hit points,” Mack continued.
“Actually, it now has 385!” Luke pointed out. “Though, really, with that little damage, who’s counting?”
“Every little bit counts!” Mack pointed out.
That they both sounded a little hysterical was understandable. Luke guessed that Mack thought they were in a little over their heads. Alicia literally was. She was chasing the Windstalker around the room, trying to corner it and bash it to death, but the powerful swings of her cudgel--while they whistled impressively through the air--didn’t hit the Windstalker even once.
“Cassie, put that bow to good use!” Luke called out.
She already was. Cassie had pulled out one arrow and was nocking it in the glowing bow. She pulled the string back against her face. He thought she looked a bit like Katniss Everdeen in that moment. At least she did for about two seconds until she released the arrow and it went wide, striking the wall nowhere near the Windstalker.
“Cassie, you need to breathe into the shot!” Christopher urged her.
“Christopher, forget that damned book. Stop reading! Start casting!” Cassie cried as she nocked another arrowed.
Christopher was spinning his staff and the golden light of Shield came around them just before the five orbs suddenly sent bolts of bright, white light at each of them. The bolts shattered the Shields, but they were left unharmed. Luke’s right hand rose to cover his eyes as the bolts blinded him. He was still seeing black spots before his eyes long after the bolts were gone. He realized then that the orbs were slightly less bright now, but were starting to rev up again. They likely had to power up that attack.
“What are those?” Cassie cried.
“Oh, those are Strikers,” Mack told them almost merrily. “They shoot plasma bolts.”
“Really? How nice! It looks like they’re about to shoot us again. Christopher, Shields now!” Cassie shouted at her twin.
“Cool down time, Cassie. I can’t cast again for a little bit,” Christopher said, his dark eyes wide. “These creatures are just here to guard the Bow of the Huntress. If you put it down--”
“Hell, no!” Cassie snapped. “We’re here for loot and the experience we get from killing these suckers! We need to get stronger, remember?”
“Less talking! More fighting!” Alicia growled as she swung at the Windstalker’s feet.
“We can’t reach it. I mean, other than the bow, which Cassie doesn’t seem too hot with. None of our attacks will work unless we get it down on the ground,” Mack pointed out. “Cutter here can’t do her job if I can’t bloody reach the monsters.”
“Cutter is a girl?” Luke’s eyebrows rose even as a smile twitched on his lips.
Mack stroked his axe. “Of course, she is. All weapons are women. Now, what is the plan? Or should we just try to run?”
He gestured towards the still-open doors, but just then Luke saw something flash across the open space. It was some sort of force field, keeping them in the temple until they defeated these things.
“We’re trapped in here,” Luke told him.
Mack must have seen the force field then, too, as he said, “Damn, what do we do?”
Luke exchanged fire for ice. Ripples of white smoke, like that given off by dry ice, flowed around his fingers. He narrowed his eyes. “We need to get it down then.”
Luke stretched his left hand out in front of him. He willed his magic to create ice daggers above the Windstalker. Four foot-long, two-inch thick daggers of ice with wickedly sharp ends formed above the creature. He willed them to fly down onto the Windstalker. It looked up just at the last second as he let the Ice Daggers fall. They streaked downwards towards the fiend. It flapped out of the way so that only two of the Ice Daggers sliced through the membrane of its right wing. Two red 15s rose up from it.
“That’s good! Now a lot more of those!” Alicia roared.
“Takes 50 mana points for each casting. I’m already down 90 and my mana is only slowly replenishing,” he told her even as he conjured Ice Daggers again.
The golden light of Shield covered him once more, which was lucky, because the Strikers were all powered up. This time, they didn’t strike at each of them equally. Instead, three of the Strikers sent plasma bolts Luke’s way while the other two went after Cassie. He had time to see her backflip from the statue’s arms just as two bolts blasted those arms off of the Huntress, but then Luke saw nothing more than bright, white, blinding light. He dove to the side, but still two of the bolts struck him. He flew into the podium, shattering it. The blasts, and subsequent damage, shattered the Shield that Christopher had cast on him and the one that naturally occurred from wearing all the pieces of the Dragon’s Blood Armor.
He lay there, dazed on the ground, blind, with ears ringing. Suddenly, Christopher was by his side, helping him up. He saw Alicia and Mack wildly waving their weapons, trying to distract the Strikers and the Windstalker from him. Luke shook his head and the ringing subsided. The ringing was familiar. It was what he had heard in that fight with Manon. Rage and terror in equal measures filled Luke. The burning in his tattoos intensified, as did the glow of Dragon’s Claw’s flames. His mouth was filled with blo
od.
“Are you all right, Luke?” Christopher asked, and somehow Luke knew that the cleric wasn’t just asking about the damage caused by the Windstalker.
He feels something happening in me. My anger? My fear? My desire to destroy everything that’s coming after us?
But Luke didn’t acknowledge what was between the lines of Christopher’s question. Instead, he nodded before scrambling to his feet. At that moment, an arrow struck the Windstalker dead center. A red 25 bloomed out of the creature. It let out a shriek and its wings frantically flapped. Luke felt a sense of satisfaction when he saw that the right wing he’d injured was struggling in comparison to the left.
“Go, Cassie! Feather this birdie!” Mack encouraged her.
Luke’s gaze swung towards Cassie. She was at the side of the Huntress. Blood coursed down her cheek. She brought the bow’s string back to her injured cheek. Her green eyes were intense as she focused all her might on aiming true, even as the Windstalker moved wildly in the space of the temple. But Alicia and Mack had herded it into a corner by the door. She let the arrow fly. She’d struck its throat. It let out a strangled shriek. Blood poured down its leathery chest and another 25 hit points were lost.
Luke was about to cast Ice Daggers again when he saw the Windstalker’s powerful wings draw back behind it until the tips touched. It opened its mouth to let out an ear-piercing scream. Luke recognized a Special Attack.
“Guys, get down!” Luke screamed a warning.
He then grabbed Christopher, and had the two of them dive behind the statue of the Huntress just before a mighty gust of wind shattered the Huntress’ head with its power.
“Cassie? Mack? Alicia?” Luke called out, after he’d shaken off the shards of stone from the statue.
There was no response.
The bitter taste of fear flooded Luke’s mouth. His heart hammered, and sweat poured down his face He scrambled around the statue. Christopher followed closely behind. For one moment, time seemed to slow, and Luke thought they were all back in the temple after the attack by Marty. Mack, Alicia, and Cassie were all lying prone on the ground. They did not move. They did not even seem to breathe.
Neverfall: The Dark Path (Book 2): A Gamelit Lit RPG Series Page 9