by Jez Cajiao
I looked around, finding that the room was empty of supplicants, but fully stocked with all the various armor and weapons it should have. I leaned forward, staggering when I put my right foot down, only to find the muscles wasted and atrophied. I grabbed the side of the sarcophagus, my grip slipping as I staggered again.
I looked at my body in shock. As always, I was naked when I arrived in a summoning hall, but instead of the powerful form I usually inhabited, this body was…weak.
I looked like a victim of a famine. I lifted my fingers and curled them slowly, feeling the muscles and tendons creak and pop.
I stared in shock, looking down at my body, seeing the bright blue current of mana flowing along channels usually hidden by skin, skin that seemed paper thin now.
I was still staring when a crash sounded from outside, the doorway at the end of the hall shaking, and a cloud of dust billowing through the cracks. I flinched and almost fell before I got ahold of myself, closing my eyes. When nothing happened after a few seconds, I drew in as deep a breath as I could manage, and reached out with my senses, pulling at the mana I expected to find in the air all around me.
My eyes shot open in shock when I found nothing; no mana at all.
I blinked, trying to understand what had happened, when a second crash echoed down to me, and I growled in frustration.
Clearly, something was going on, and I’d better go find out what it was.
I walked around the room slowly, stretching my arms and legs as I went, gathering up armor first. It was over a thousand years old, but whatever magic kept this body intact and ready, had preserved it as well. The leather jerkin felt soft and supple as I pulled it on: the thicker areas that would usually have supported the armor I’d wear over this, would have to make do as my only protection.
I just didn’t have the strength to carry more, not if I wanted to use a weapon, but I had an advantage I’d never managed to make use of before, if I could reach somewhere with mana…
I picked up the matched pair of Mage Gauntlets and pulled them on.
The interwoven links of steel and quicksilver that covered the gauntlets were inert, rather than humming with power as they should be, but unlike every other time I’d had access to these…I now knew how to use spells.
“Jax?” a faint voice called, and I spun around, almost falling over. There was nobody nearby, but… “Jax, can you hear me?”
“Oracle?” I whispered, and I felt something change as the sense of her grew stronger.
“Jax! Where are you?” She asked me, and I shrugged. Realizing she couldn’t see me; I spoke up a second later.
“I don’t know, I’m in a Mana Wight body, somewhere without mana, as near as I can tell. How can you reach me?”
“I’m bonded to you, Jax. I can’t sense much, just that you were pulled from your body. Lydia and Bane thought you were under attack; the entire ship is at battle stations…”
“Dammit, no, I’m all right, Oracle. Just relax and be ready to heal me, okay? Usually these dreams only end when I die, and I’ll have a lot of wounds usually. Better to not let anyone see…”
“When you what?! I’m not letting you die, Jax! Hell, no!” she screamed into my mind, and I worked to project a sense of calm to her.
“It’s not like that, Oracle. This form is a wight, remember? We’ve talked about them; once it’s destroyed, I’ll come back to my body.”
“I do not like this, Jax! Not at all!”
“Ha! Believe me, neither do I!” I said, and pulled a shortsword from the rack, belting it to my waist, with a dagger on the opposite hip.
I’d usually tool myself up a lot more, but right now I couldn’t carry it. I could barely carry what I had.
I slowly moved across the floor to the stone door. I’d seen this enough times to know that the supplicant usually had to give a donation of their blood on the other side. It wasn’t a large one; it was just meant to show humility, from what I’d been able to make out over the years of inspecting the glyphs on the walls.
Instead of a supplicant begging for aid, though, there was a sealed door, and it sounded like explosions outside somewhere.
I reached out and started to search the inside of the door for a latch when my fingers slipped into it.
I blinked and pulled back, shocked. After a second, I reached out again, my fingers sinking into the stone effortlessly. I reached in deeper, at first concerned that it was to do with the gloves, but my arms continued to pass through, and I took a deep breath, pushing myself into the stone and moving forward.
The deeper I moved into the stone, the more resistance built up, until, as my fingers waved in clear air on the far side of the passage, it felt like I was walking through quicksand.
I pushed myself free on the opposite side, but when I touched the stone again, the lustrous shimmer that had covered it had drained to a bare hint of glitter, and my fingers, instead of passing through, gouged patterns in rapidly solidifying stone.
I yanked them back, as my brain caught up, and I realized what was happening: the loss of mana was affecting the stone! If I’d waited any longer, or moved any slower, I’d have been trapped inside.
I stood looking at the stone, my eyes wide as I processed the thought of being trapped inside the stone for who knows how long, as the last dregs of mana drained, and I suffocated.
I started to shake, my artificial heart speeding up as I panicked. My one true terror from childhood reared its horrific head before me, until I heard Oracle’s voice.
“Jax, are you okay?”
“Ye…yeah...sorry, I’m okay…why?”
“You… your body, I guess… it just tensed up and started to shake…”
“I…I’m okay, just a bit of a bad experience…I…” An explosion from further down the hall interrupted me, and I spun around, crouching low as I fumbled my sword out of the sheath.
“I’ve got to go,” I told her, and I set off down the corridor. I was used to being out in the middle of nowhere, but here, it looked like a city, an old one.
The floor I crept along was slanted slightly; it took a few seconds to realize it, but I had to work to walk in the middle, and as I went on, another faint crash sounded in the distance, followed by a scream of rage.
I sped up, coming to a ‘T’ junction at the end of the corridor. To my left was blackness, and a feeling of cold seeping into my bones, but to the right, in the distance, was a light, and I realized I’d nearly left the light that came from two glowing bronze bowls outside of my sanctuary.
Wherever I was, I didn’t even have the mana available to use my DarkVision, and I moved toward the light cautiously.
I sniffed as I walked, a scent filling the air strong enough to get through even the weak senses of the Mana Wight. These creations I usually rode had fantastic vision and hearing, but smell, taste and touch were always off, so if I could smell it, I knew it was bad.
It was coppery and tangy, like salt…sea salt, I realized a few seconds later. As I turned the next corner, passing a single room that was filled with debris, the back wall collapsed in, and grey shale covered most of the interior.
I couldn’t see much inside, but I could see the white of bones sticking out from under a large slab as I staggered past. I took another turn, going to the left this time, and the light grew much brighter, bright enough that I had to cover my eyes to look at it, and I came to a wobbly stop.
The room before me was broken; huge rents ran across the floor and walls, and the mosaic-covered ceiling had cracks running across it. One crack had water flowing through it, running down across the sharply tilted floor. I squinted at the silvery-white light that illuminated the space, reflecting from the collected seawater that lapped at the sides of a circular pool filling the center of the room.
I stood transfixed as I looked into the room, the floor sloping away from me at a low angle. Debris had been piled against the far side of the room, and I realized what I was seeing, why the air tasted so strongly of the sea a
nd blood that I could taste it through the sense of a manawight.
I was in a sunken city, a city from who knew when, and the creatures that battled around the pool at the center, their blood staining the blue of the ocean, were its terrible residents.
I saw at least three species battling it out: a huge serpentine merrow stood on one side, a half dozen smaller variations of its species surrounding it and battling tall blue skinned humanoids with jet black eyes. The second group held scavenged clubs and stone daggers as their only weapons in webbed fingers tipped with onyx claws. They were being slowly driven back, battling against the merrow on one side, and heavily armored crustaceans on the other. Their bodies littered the ground for each step they took backwards from the pool.
The creatures in the third group were short but wide, covered with thick armor plates that moved as they did, reflecting the light. Glittering spikes covered the crustaceans’ armored pincers. They looked like lobsters, grown to horrific size, and possessing terrifying sentience. I gritted my teeth, looking the groups over, until I saw one of the blue-skinned second group try to cast a spell. It wove its fingers through a pattern I thought I almost recognized, until the large merrow lifted a huge pearl into the air, and the blue-skinned creature screamed in agony as the mana was ripped from it.
I saw the pearl pulse with dark energy, and I gritted my teeth. The fact that that thing, which every instinct screamed at me was evil, had clearly brought such a device here to steal the mana of what was left of the city was enough for me. The minor detail that the only ones it looked like I’d be able to speak to without my balls curling up into my stomach in fear were also apparently the inhabitants of the city, also helped. I stepped forward, my feet passing slowly across a deep crack in the floor that bordered the entrance to the room, and I felt the slant of the floor beneath me increase.
With every step I took, I felt weaker, my hands beginning to shake as I snuck along, trying to keep to the shadows.
I watched the merrow leader, noticing some of the city’s inhabitants rush out of a doorway on the far side of the room, carrying heavy slabs of rock and facing off against the crustaceans… even as I examined her, my body weakened as I used mana I needed to animate it for the ability.
Critical success! Your opponent is unaware of being observed and has no defense against your ability.
Deepwater Merrow Chieftainess
You have found a creature hated and reviled by the surface world. A merrow chieftainess is a creature so thoroughly steeped in dark magic that it can create, use, and alter artifacts from the great void that her master resides in.
Merrow Chieftainesses are well aware of how hated they are, and tie the life-force of their minions into themselves, gaining their abilities and immunities for themselves. This ability weakens their minions and creates a festering hatred that would consume their nests… if only they could break free…
Weaknesses: Fire, Earth, and Life magics are all doubly effective against creatures of the Deepwater.
Resistances: Water, Darkness or Death magics used against this creature suffer a 75% damage penalty.
Critical Weaknesses: Neck, Eyes, Liver, Lungs.
Level:37
HP: 410
Mana: 16/70
I blinked as I read the details, and focused in on the creature, my meridian-aided vision helpfully highlighting the creatures’ weak spots. I reached out in the silence of my mind, a desperate plan coming to me.
I had no mana to speak of, and with none in the air or anywhere about, anywhere… except…
“Oracle! I’m going to need mana!” I called out to her within my mind, and a second later, I felt her suddenly closer, the awareness of her filling my mind as she somehow reinforced our link even further.
I staggered forwards, my determination and sheer stubbornness overcoming the weaknesses of my flesh.
I pushed myself, rushing forward from cover to cover, ducking behind fallen pillars and piles of rock until I was close to the battle, then hurried to put my back to a large rock just within running distance.
I rested for an all-too-short time, my body shaking with the exertion, and the faint blue glow of the veins tracing my limbs grew steadily dimmer as I grew closer to the artifact.
I edged my eye around the corner of the rock and looked, seeing the battle slowly pushing back from my location as more and more of the blue skinned humanoids fell.
The merrow chieftainess had risen up on her coiled tail, looking over the battle and screaming something in a language I didn’t understand. She had a hood that flared out and covered the back of her head, but from where I stood, the line of spines flaring from the tip of her head and running down between her shoulders looked perfect for my plan. Two of her six arms gripped the artifact high overhead, while another two pointed and gestured to her subordinates.
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, then pulled in another sharply and sent Oracle a last message, setting off running.
“Now!”
I kicked off another rock nearby, forcing myself to go faster, my sword already growing heavy in my rapidly weakening hand, but I pushed myself to go on. My boots, made of supple leather undamaged by the ages, kept my approach quiet, and the battle served to cover any last noises that I made.
I was less than two dozen steps away, but as weak as my body was, I nearly didn’t make it… until a sudden infusion of mana hit me.
It was like getting a double espresso, made with Redbull instead of water, and injected straight into the heart. Everything changed as my body flared to life, limbs strengthening, muscles bulging. My flesh grew thicker and my skin lost the texture of old parchment. I covered the last few steps just as one of the rearmost merrow turned, the now-brightly gleaming mana in my veins drawing his attention before the skin thickened enough to hide them.
It had time to hiss a warning in shock before my sword, short and heavy bladed as I liked it, lashed out, cutting halfway through its neck. It fell back, blood fountaining out of the severed arteries, and the second one tried to bring its trident around.
I grinned as the trident moved slowly, too slowly, and I leapt over it, landing and kicking off in the same maneuver to leap for the chieftainesses’ back.
She must have been over eight meters in length easily, with her upper body raised over the coils of her tail.
She twisted around, turning to her right, even as I went to her left, reaching out and grabbing a thick spine where it jutted from her lower back.
I held on tight, using the spine to brace myself, my feet slamming into her back and I twisted, using not only my arms and back, but all the momentum of my waist as well to drive the sword upwards.
The chisel-thick tip of the blade, designed for punching through thick lamellar plates of armor, had no issue with her scales. It drove in and up, as I angled the hilt down and rammed it as far as I could.
She screamed in shock and pain, thrashing wildly as the battle paused, the combatants all stunned by the appearance in the middle of the room of a fourth party, one that was riding the most feared creature there.
“Yippie-Ki-ay Mother…” I growled out as she spun and thrashed, frantically trying to throw me off, her arms flapping wildly, trying to get enough of an angle to reach me. I held on, bitterly determined to kill this bitch, and I twisted the blade, yanking it back and forth, imagining an egg scrambler inside her lower chest.
She screamed in pain and finally managed to grab my wrist in one huge clawed hand. She yanked, breaking my grip and throwing me free easily, my sword still embedded in her gut, and I cartwheeled across the room to smack into a fallen section of stonework, my bones shattering with the force of the impact...
I collapsed to the floor, the stabbing feeling of dozens of fragments of broken ribs piercing my lungs enough to let me know I was out of the fight.
I barely had the strength to raise my head, but when the world stopped spinning long enough to focus, I saw the blue skinned creatures had counter attacked. They
were driving the crustaceans back on one side; dozens of cracked and shattered corpses covered the ground near them, and on the other, they were beating back the merrow.
I grinned at the chieftainess as she collapsed, the floor shaking with the impact of her enormous bulk. She managed to look at me, her all too human face staring at me across the room, as blood ran from her mouth.
I lifted one shaking hand, slowly extending a single digit. the fury that flashed across her face made it clear that, whatever else was different between the realms, this insult at least seemed to have transferred well.
She collapsed fully, life going out of her and blood pouring across the floor as the merrow bound to her screamed in rage and fell on each other. I saw the blue people back up, slabs of rock and stone knives held ready as they waited for the merrow to kill each other. The crustaceans were fleeing, now the tide of battle had turned.
I laid there, bones shattered and life leaking out as they fought, the local inhabitants falling on the weakened survivors of the merrow, I could feel Oracle in my mind, her panicked focus as she tried to heal the wounds that were showing on my real body even now.
I slowly slumped to one side, losing the strength to hold myself upright, blood pooling around me, and I felt a presence nearby. I managed to lift my head, my arms weakly flopping, and I looked up at one of the locals.
He, as it was clearly a he, crouched before me, his head tilted to one side quizzically.
He had a ridge of fur that arched back from just above his jet-black eyes, growing from a point to a thick band that disappeared over the back of his head. The blue skin I could see now was made up of thousands of tiny iridescent blue scales, and his teeth were a mix of sharp points and thicker molars.
He opened his mouth and made a sound at me, a series of clicks that made me think of a dolphin, before nodding in satisfaction…then his right hand flashed out, the sharp claws ripping out my throat…