by Bill Ricardi
The human called out from the far side of the cave, still using those annoying over-pronounced tones. “I’m afraid you’ve arrived a bit too late. The mages up above have been most productive. They’re waiting for a sign to evacuate the city before the end arrives… but I think that would be terribly boring. Besides, everyone needs to make sacrifices if we’re to move forward in this life. Believe me. I know.”
With that, he turned to his left and disappeared around a sharp bend at the far side of the cave.
Will, in a very heads up display, was already casting his first spell as Duke Harrington was finishing his taunt. He stepped in front of Rick and myself and held his ground. Twin crossbow bolts shattered against his Invisible Shield, giving us time to act.
Ames was squaring off, uncomfortably, against the pyramid headed abomination. Toby stepped up to the naked minotaur with confidence. I thought that he would be enraged or betrayed, and crying. But the paladin was smiling. This was a worthy foe.
I decided that since I had given up most of my offensive magic for utility, I would follow Will’s lead and summon a Shield. But unlike the small human, I then advanced on the two crossbow wielding Sacrifices. Their fire was split now, as the leftmost orc tried to shoot at me under my Invisible Shield, but only accomplished sticking a bolt through the leather of my boot, missing flesh altogether. The other pinged a shot off of Will’s Shield once again.
Rick’s spell went off, but it wasn’t one I had ever seen before… I guess I wasn’t the only one learning new tricks at the Arcane University. A cluster of huge hail stones shot out of a portal that appeared upon one of the cave walls, pummeling the face and chest of the orc on the right. He screamed. The projectiles were not only hard and fast, but unnaturally cold. At least we knew that these two could feel mortal pain.
Toby wasn’t faring as well. The first few testing strikes from each minotaur resulted in easy parries and blocks. But the first real blow from the Sacrificed beast tore a metal shard from Toby’s shield. The act of blocking it numbed the paladin’s arm from shoulder to wrist. The overhanded counterattack from the golden-brown bull was easily sidestepped. Following a moment of wary circling, the next attack from the black beast created a visible nick in Toby’s broadsword. Toby’s counter bounced off of that petrified ebony fur, kicking up a small cloud of dust much like crushed coal. My friend’s smile had faded.
Ames was having a different set of difficulties with the abomination that they were faced with. The movements from the weirdly shaped Sacrifice seemed mechanical, almost clockwork. The exaggerated swings and almost comically over-executed dodges of this creature opened up huge gaps in its defenses. But every time Ames tried to take advantage, it was a trap. There was a longsword swinging at the feline’s neck, or chopping towards their wrist. And when Ames dodged to one side or rolled, another pair of dead eyes was tracking the feline’s movements. Any minor blows that the cat managed to land were turned aside by the Sacrificed’s tough hide armor. White fur was already stained red with a couple of minor cuts that had slashed through the were-cat’s own leathers. Ames parried and dodged, trying desperately to solve this puzzle.
The orc that I was approaching let his hand crossbow hang from a leather strap around his shoulder, opting instead to draw his short sword. Immediately, I started backpedaling towards my friends. The red skinned orc stared at me in disbelief and anger as the Sacrifice realized I was simply wasting his time. He had to make a decision: Go back to the crossbow, or stay with the sword.
As my orc was frozen with indecision, the other red skinned humanoid was struggling to reload their weapon. He never got the chance. Rick’s Lightning Bolt stopped the creature, dead. Will dropped his Shield and started casting a quick spell. For the second time this afternoon, he caused Magic Missiles to rain in on a foe. The surviving Sacrificed orc howled in pain and outrage.
Toby’s mouth was bleeding from the axe-handle that struck him across the snout. None of the golden brown minotaur’s strikes had penetrated the strange fur armor of his opponent. At best he had bruised and winded the large Sacrifice, and even that was hopeful thinking. The next blow from the naked creature completely shattered Toby’s shield, sending metal shrapnel everywhere and cutting his hand in the process.
My were-cat companion looked tired, bleeding from multiple shallow cuts, and no closer to besting this vexing foe. Ames stumbled after a desperate dodge, creating the opening that the pyramid-headed Sacrifice needed. That longsword flashed forward in a vicious stab. But the stumble was a trap, and the cat was already spinning to their right. Sadly, the stab was a feint, and quickly became an upward slash that threatened to tear into Ames’ leg. Brilliantly, the were-cat predicted the feint into the trap. Planting their pivot foot, Ames committed. The feline stepped inside the effective arc of the Sacrificed creature’s blade, and its wrist impacted ineffectually against the cat’s kneecap. The pyramid headed abomination was low and overextended. With a feral snarl, Ames used both handpaws to drive the sword point down at their foe’s exposed back. The spine was severed, and the Sacrifice moved no more.
The remaining orc saw two unshielded, unarmored mages and came to a decision. The Sacrifice charged, sword point leading. I quickly ran at the red skinned orc’s side with my Invisible Shield raised. We impacted just two strides from Toby and Will, and fell to the cave’s stone floor in a heap. I was dazed. It took me a few moments to realize what was going on. In a most un-magelike display, Will and Toby had piled onto the fallen orc. They were punching and kicking him as he tried to recover from our impact. Soon I was joining my friends, little dagger flashing as the three of us pinned and dispatched our enemy the old fashioned way.
The black furred minotaur must have realized that it was the last one standing. But if Toby was defeated, it was quite possible that the rest of us wouldn’t be able to withstand the Sacrifice’s furious assault. With a demonic bellow, the mutated creature swung its heavily enchanted axe at Toby’s chest, looking to chop through blade, fur, flesh, and bone. The paladin’s sword shattered, sending shards of steel through the air that sliced his face and neck. The golden brown furred minotaur stepped to the left as the impact happened, and the axe barely missed his right shoulder. With a bellow of his own, Toby thrusted with the jagged foot of steel that still remained attached to his sword’s hilt. It pierced mutated fur and leathery flesh to find the Sacrificed minotaur’s dark heart.
Runed axe fell from numb hands. The final Sacrifice slowly toppled over, dying with a puzzled look on its face.
Almost by instinct, Toby bent to replace his broken weapon with the implement of his fallen foe. The minotaur’s eyes widened as he got a good look at the axe’s blade for the first time. “This is-”
The paladin’s words were cut off by the sudden earthquake that shook the chamber so violently, nobody remained on their feet.
“This way!” I yelled after the tremor had passed. I scrambled to my feet and charged towards the corner where the Duke had made his exit, trusting my friends to follow.
The final two chambers of the cave network were surprisingly small, relative to the one that we just came from. The cavern farthest from me contained what we were seeking: A tight stack of Arcane Syphons, ten strong. There was a circular opening that led from that final chamber into the larger cave that I had just stepped into.
The problem was, of course, the giant earth elemental that was rolling a boulder over the entryway. It was twice the size of Toby, with a crude granite head that nearly scraped the top of the cave. I didn’t have a single spell that could affect that thing. Well, maybe one, but that scenario was wishful thinking.
I should say, the elemental was the big problem. The two smaller problems were the Bishop of Koroth in all of his demi-demonic glory, and Duke Harrington standing in an Abjuration circle.
The Bishop of Koroth was purple. There’s really no other way to describe him. His deep purple skin was likely the result of rituals similar to what the Sacrificed had to endure. However
there was no evident defects on Koroth’s high priest. He held his ornate golden staff firmly, watching me. Waiting.
The Duke was completely ignoring everything else in the room. He simply stood in his Magic Circle and prayed aloud to Koroth for a meaningful and beneficial bargain. It wouldn’t be a real barrier to any of us. But in the case of celestials and demons, it would act as a brick wall.
Of course the truly massive problem, which I think might be worth mentioning, was the hole that Duke Harrington was standing in front of. It was six paces in diameter, and the noise coming from it was unlike anything I had ever heard. It was as in if a thousand miners were working themselves to death, madly swinging pick axes at the stone until it shattered.
The rest of the party arrived just as the elemental sealed the Arcane Syphons in their own little chamber. I shouted to be heard over the din of rock being ground to powder. “They aren’t collapsing the city, they’re digging!”
The Bishop of Koroth laughed, the otherworldly sound easily carrying above the noise generated by the invisible miners. “Collapsing the city? There will be time for that. First we must call Koroth and his Court to witness our sacrifice and draw up a new covenant!”
The insane priest’s words turned my guts to ice. Suddenly it all fell into place. This was the loophole.
It was Toby who voiced my suspicion. “You’re digging a path to the Nine Hells? An actual, physical tunnel? Are you insane?!”
Koroth’s Bishop just grinned. I noticed that his teeth were purple as well.
Despite being battered, bleeding, and spent, Toby and Ames started to charge the Bishop’s position. Rick began an incantation, while Will and myself started to run towards the Duke.
The Bishop of Koroth slammed the butt of his ornate staff to the ground. It sent a shockwave through the earth that knocked us all from our feet. Duke Harrington fell to his knees, but continued praying. Even the earth elemental stumbled. Rick’s spell was spoiled. Only the evil clergyman remained standing.
As we were regaining our bearings, the Bishop pointed at the ceiling in front of the now-blocked Syphon chamber. “Bring it down.” he said.
The elemental cocked its boulder-sized fist and slammed it into the ceiling. The sound of fracturing stone could be heard echoing throughout the cavern, even over the din of manic arcane mining.
Toby had a new target. Once the minotaur regained his feet he charged towards the elemental, brandishing his recently acquired war axe. Everyone thought that he would just be a distraction to the stone beast, but the first double-handed swing took a sizable chunk of rock out of the huge elemental’s leg. The next swing from the conjured giant wasn’t towards the ceiling, it was at Toby’s head.
Ames stalked up to the Bishop himself, hoping that disrupting the elemental’s puppetmaster would cause it to fall apart. The feline’s swing, one that normally might have taken the Bishop’s head off, connected with some kind of physical barrier. Ames’ blow rebounded, and the were-cat was thrown back half a dozen paces. The feline shook their head, trying to get the cobwebs out.
Will shouted, “Overload the barrier!” The three of us started to throw everything we had at the Bishop. For my part, that was an Acid Bolt, which seemed to make some sort of impact before dripping to the ground. Rick’s Force Bolt caused the shield to glow brightly for a moment, then fade. Will’s Fireball, carefully aimed so as to explode behind the mad cleric and not catch Ames in the radius, seemed to surround the Bishop like an aura of chaotic flame before fading away.
All the while, the Bishop of Koroth was chanting. Whatever divine favor he was calling down, it was massively complex. He had been casting his clerical spell since before my Acid Bolt hit, and was continuing the incantation well after Will’s flames had died out. I grit my teeth. If that shell he was standing in didn’t have anti-magic properties, I could have shut him down in an instant.
My brain was swimming. I only had three spells left, and casting them would cripple my mind. Already I felt the tug of lethargy inside of my head. It wanted to let go of the burden of knowledge. It wanted to rest. I fought down that urge, as it was tantamount to surrender. I drew my dagger and started to move to a position between the Bishop and the Duke, intentionally leaving some uncertainty as to who my true target was.
Meanwhile, the minotaur was… winning. Somehow, he was not only able to dodge the relatively slow blows of the elemental, but he also landed telling blows up and down the creature’s legs. The notches and cracks in the elemental’s stone limbs were making it unstable. It started to wobble as it moved to pursue the mobile minotaur.
Ames was back in the fight. The fire in the cat’s eyes told the Bishop, in no uncertain terms, that this was not over. A testing thrust impacted the shield… but this time there was no knockback. Abandoning their usual graceful style, the were-cat screamed in fury and started to hammer on the weakening shield with all of their might, over and over again.
When the Bishop of Koroth finished his long incantation, nothing seemed to happen for a moment. Then, a vortex of wind and gravity manifested just behind Toby. The purple eldritch portal howled and started to suck in everyone and everything around it. The paladin chopped the cave floor in front of him. The axe bit into the stone and held, for the moment. But it took all of the minotaur’s strength to simply hold his ground. Nearby, Will and Rick were forced to flatten themselves against the stone floor to avoid being sucked in. “Pandemonium portal!” Rick shouted, the most succinct warning he could give under the circumstances. Ames and I were outside of the radius of the vortex, for better or for worse.
With the assault on its legs ended, the huge earth elemental went back to the task at hand. Massive fists pounded the cave ceiling until an ominous ‘crack’ reverberated throughout the chamber.
That’s when half the cave disappeared in a hail of rock.
Toby reviewed his options, and opted for the unknown. Tugging his axe free, the paladin slid into the purple portal and disappeared. Rick and Will made split second calculations, and came to the same conclusion. With ragged yells they got to their feet and leapt towards the gateway to Pandemonium. The gravity well and wind vortex sucked them in just before tons of stone buried the gateway, the elemental, and the boulder covering the entryway to the next chamber.
When the deafening sound of the cave-in had ended, the chamber was less than half of its original size. Only a single Light spell remained that was focused on an unburied area, and it struggled to illuminate everyone who was left.
The Bishop of Koroth cackled at the spectacular results of his spell. That is of course, until Ames finally broke through the field of force, and split his skull open like a melon. The lifeless body of the Bishop slid to the ground, golden staff clattering impotently as it fell from his dead hands.
“It doesn’t matter, you know.”
I turned to face Duke Harrington. I’m certain that he could see the rage in my eyes, but his voice was as calm as a mountain lake in the fall. I noticed that the volume of those invisible mining picks digging their way to the underworld was significantly less in that moment. They must have been far, far away.
The Duke murmured, “The deal will be struck, no matter what happens today. Koroth will march upon the world, and Royal Moffit will be the first Sacrifice made in his glory. Dead or alive, I will become the General of his armies. So it is written.”
I nodded, and then uttered the brief incantation that started all of this.
The Duke seemed somewhat surprised to be struck by my Force Bolt. His confusion was so profound that he didn’t make a sound, even when he plummeted into the pit of his own making. He was so distant when he died that I couldn’t hear whether or not he screamed when he smashed into the stone, and dozens of invisible pickaxes decimated his broken body.
“Guess me sees you in Hell.” I muttered, gutturally.
Ames called out, “Sorch, let’s go!” The feline was standing next to the passage that we used to enter the cavern, just at the edge of where
the Light spell gave up and allowed the shadow to win. I knew that deep down, the were-cat must have figured out that there was no escape from this. It was pure instinct that drove them to run somewhere, anywhere.
I shook my head, then poked my own chest with a calloused green thumb. “Sorch Stonebender.”
I walked over to where the rubble of the cave in gave way to the smooth stone wall separating us from the Arcane Syphons. Even in my current state, I knew what had to be done. I reached into my component pouch and took out the little block of clay. My finger poked a hole right through it, and then I laid my palm against the wall and murmured the incantation.
As I said before, I’m not a religious man. I don’t worship these gods and goddesses, and I don’t play their games. However… when the goddess of magic gives you a hint, I think it’s in one’s best interest to take it. Besides. It was my name.
My Stone Shape spell silently melted a hole in the wall. I reached through and stretched out my hand until my fingertips touched that warm, thrumming metal.
Even with my mind mostly unravelled, I knew what to tell them.
Stop.
The Syphons ceased their digging.
Go up.
In the chamber beyond, thousands of phantom hands appeared. Some took up phantom picks and started to dig a passage to the surface. Others picked up the Arcane Syphons and started to carry them away, transporting them up the freshly dug tunnel. They wouldn’t stop until they reached the surface and felt the setting sun bathe them in the day’s dying light. I felt the last of the artifacts slowly drift away, until my fingers were touching nothing at all.
“Stop him!”
I turned towards those voices. Clerics and soldiers of Koroth had abandoned the battle above to investigate the earthquake and subsequent cave in. At this point, my brain was soft, like a preserved peach. The drain had taken me all the way back to when I first discovered the enhancement. It didn’t matter, I only had a single spell left, and it wouldn’t help against a dozen enraged cultists.