by Justin Wayne
***
Even as they left the ancient cavern behind and departed the gulley in favor of the rising slope they now ascended, the howling wind’s wail continued to grow and grow in intensity until it drowned out their voices. Using only rudimentary hand signs and pointing they motioned to stay to the right of the hill in a line, with Outsider taking the rear should Cuke fall.
Bracing themselves as they peaked the rise, they watched in nervous anticipation as the climax of the slope disintegrated slowly to the constant wind that buffeted it relentlessly. A stream of dust smoked from it like a pipe and was whisked away by the churning vortex that surrounded it.
The pair stopped and with jaws dropped beheld the spectacle that was the eternally spinning wall of air like a mountain-wide tornado that was longer across than it was tall. A solid barrier of wind passing before them like a current of water completely flush with the stone; matching the rounded shape of the mountain perfectly. The rushing torrent spun round and round endlessly with a deafening roar comparable to a thousand waterfalls exploding against the rocks below.
At least now we know why it can’t just fly here.
Outsider grit his teeth against the immense noise and covered his ears within his hood. He looked to Cuke for a solution to get across and pointed to his pack questioningly. The cleric shrugged and slipped it from his shoulder to rummage through. He reached his entire arm into the little bag followed by his whole upper half then emerged with a silent cry of triumph.
In his palm sat a perfectly square stone. Outsider moved closer and stared at it. As he did, it seemed to grow minutely and flared brightly for an instant before flashing back to its original black.
He flicked his eyes up to Cuke who was already laughing then back to the stone. With a chuckle and roll of his eyes he sat the stone on the ground between them and the vortex and pulled Outsider back halfway down the slope.
“It’s a Weight Stone!” the cleric hollered over the constant drone. “That’s a boulder the size of a house compacted under constant magical pressure! Once I hit it,” he held up another small rock, “it’ll expand back to its previous size and weight that’ll crush through the ground up there and block the wind!”
Outsider’s dead stare relayed his doubts wordlessly and cut Cuke’s smug grin in half.
“And if it doesn’t work then I just use this bundle of dynamite to blow a crater we can walk through! You know, easy stuff.” He came forward then and chunked the stone in his hand which magically veered for the weight stone and hit it squarely. The rock bounced off and rolled down the slope past them.
They both watched the stone eagerly and backed away slightly as they awaited its sudden and exponential growth. Outsider imagined it sprouting like a tree in all directions in the blink of an eye and took another step back.
But it sat there completely motionless for several minutes without the slightest change. Cuke scratched his balding head and approached it curiously. Outsider called out for him to stop but the dwarf couldn’t hear him as he neared it.
He stared down at the rock for a moment with his hands in his pockets, and then with the toe of his boot gave it a nudge.
The weight stone exploded to a diameter at least twenty feet across with a sharp retort and blasted Cuke off his feet. The little dwarf flew back like a ragdoll and landed heavily on his back where he rolled down the slope a way before Outsider could stop his momentum.
Despite his eccentricities and unusual lifestyle for his kind, he was a dwarf nonetheless and tough as the stone they hailed from. Cuke shook his head blankly and stuttered a few words before deciding he couldn’t make one out. He was pulled to his feet and wobbled unsteadily before crumpling to the side against the wall.
Outsider held him up against the wall and slapped him a few times to get his attention. He saw he wasn’t severely wounded with no breaks or bleeding and decided it was just a hard knock to the head; something dwarves specialized in recovering from.
Then a loud crunch that broke through even the roar of the wind echoed from behind like a pinch of his special powder. Slowly, the elf turned his head around and saw the immense boulder tilt forward slightly then pause precariously on its edge.
“Cuke,” he looked from the boulder to the dwarf and back to the boulder. “I hate you.”
Then the stone rolled forward completely and barreled down the slope straight for them with a cacophony of small explosions of sound.