by Tj Dixon
“I sacrificed an entire dome to summon him. All those dead dwarves floating lifeless in the water. It was the most fun I ever had. Of course everyone assumed it was just a tragic accident. I made sure of that.” He says sounding rather pleased with himself.
No, rather than reminding me of Seraph, he now reminds me of the Envoy and the Fallen Angels. From what he said earlier an awful lot of dwarves live in each dome. This man is not only a mass murderer, but one who obviously enjoys his ‘work’. I’m clearly on the wrong side in this war, but what choice do I have?
“Please! Let me go!” A high pitched dwarven voice cries out. I turn to face her with a wince. I wish I could let her go, but I can’t.
“I’m sorry.” I tell her, feeling ashamed of myself.
“But I’m only fifty! I shouldn’t even have been here!”
“Don’t worry, we’ll save you for last.” The traitor tells her with a laugh. “Perhaps if you are really lucky there might be a special treat for you before you die.”
Chapter 9 (Multiple)
(Peter)
“Names?” The dwarven girl asks sounding quite interested as she looks up from her desk in this little tunnel.
“Peter, Lucy, Elucia, Dairon and Kai.” I tell her.
“Bounty?”
“The bullfrog.” I tell her. She blinks.
“I’ll need to see tier three permits for all of you.”
“Here.” I say and show her our permits. She examines them each in detail.
“They appear genuine. Good luck, but I doubt I’ll ever see any of you again.” She says and waves us on. From Elucia’s aura I can tell she is panicking.
“Don’t worry, we can handle a bullfrog.” I assure the dwarven girl. She looks back dubiously.
“We’ll see.” She says with a shrug.
“Follow me.” Kai says and so we do. We pass a couple of bored looking dwarven girls and then reach the end where two dwarven guards are waiting.
“Ready?” One of the guards asks.
“Yes.” Kai replies and then the door disappears. We quickly leave through the gap and once we have done so the door reappears. It looks just like the rest of the wall.
“How will we ever find the door again?” I ask Kai a bit concerned now.
“Don’t worry, I’ll find it.” Kai says.
“But how?”
“I looked at a map of the whole area so I can find it using the shape of the tunnels in the Lower Maze.” Kai tells me.
“Perhaps we all should have done that. Oh well, I’m sure you’ll find it. So you do remember the way to the Deep Maze and the spot where the bullfrog was last seen, don’t you?”
“Yes, just follow me. Keep your guard up though, because there could be monsters anywhere from here on.” Kai says and again she leads the way.
“Elucia, don’t worry, everyone here with you knows what they’re doing. There’s no way we’ll let that frog eat you.” I say seeing she still seems to be scared.
“I’m not scared.” She says, but her voice is shaking a little. I pretend not to notice. We walk for about an hour and a half along winding tunnels. Each time there is a split Kai seems to know exactly which tunnel to choose.
“This is the entrance to the Deep Maze.” Kai says as we enter a large cavern with a gaping hole in the centre about twenty foot by twenty foot. The cavern itself is a dome that must be hundreds of feet wide. The cavern is freezing and there are silver grey stalactites and stalagmites reaching up from the floor and hanging down from the ceiling.
“So we go down that hole?” I ask just to be sure.
“Yes. It is rather deep and there’s no ladder, so we’ll need to use flight magic.” Kai says.
“I’ll handle that then.” I say.
“I can do that.” Elucia says surprising me.
“You’ve already mastered group flight?” I ask in shock.
“It isn’t that different to normal flight.” Elucia says. Whilst I agree with that, most of the students from our club would disagree. Actually I suspect most of the students from the academy would disagree. That’s not to say they can’t use it, but it seems normal to find it much harder.
“Then I’ll leave the flight magic to you.” I say with a smile. It means I can save my power for later. To my surprise Elucia picks us up with flight magic and hurtles us to the hole. I had expected to walk there and then use flight magic down it, but this is fine. It’s not like it will have had any impact on her vast reserves of power.
“Ready?” Elucia asks.
“Sure.” I say and everyone else agrees too.
“Then here we go.” Elucia says and then slowly lowers us down the hole. Kai wasn’t joking. It really is deep. We don’t dare go too fast though, or we may go splat on the ground at the bottom.
Eventually we do reach the bottom and land safely on the ground. The tunnel is much larger now. I’d say it is fifty foot tall and just as wide.
“Is it far?” I ask.
“No actually, it is very near here. That’s why nobody wanted to risk coming down to the Deep Maze.” Kai says.
“That helps.” I say.
“It does, but keep your senses open and your magic ready.” Kai warns.
“Of course.” I agree.
“And remember I can’t heal you if you’re dead, so don’t get killed.” Lucy warns. There is a mixture of humour and seriousness in her aura as she says it.
“You’re as bad as Elucia. Nobody is going to die.” I tell her. Lucy laughs but Elucia goes bright red with embarrassment. I am about to reassure Elucia again when I notice magic in the air very close to us. I turn to face it and realise it isn’t exactly magic. More like aura, but a very thin trail in the air a bit like a thread.
“What’s wrong?” Lucy asks me completely serious now.
“A thread of aura in the air. I’ve never seen anything like it.” I answer without looking away from it for even a moment.
“That definitely sounds demonic. Demons eat souls and use them in their magic, just like Dairon used his soul when we fought against the demons in the Black Forest. Of course demons use other people’s souls and not their own.” Lucy tells me but she sounds worried. “Normally only more powerful demons could spin a soul into a thread like that.”
“Is that what an aura is then? A soul?” I ask not having really realised until Lucy said it.
“More like the soul and mana combined.” Lucy explains.
“So, can that thread harm us?” I ask.
“I doubt it. Most likely it is just being used to spy on us.”
“Can we do anything about the thread?”
“No, but at least it should lead us to the demon.”
“Ok, everyone follow me then.” I say. Of course there are only two directions we can go right now so it helps ensure we take the right direction, but as long as we chose the correct direction I doubt we could really go wrong. As I lead the way the thread slowly retreats so the end is always watching us.
“There’s something or someone up ahead.” I say as I realise the thread joins a more normal aura not far from us now. It is still a weird aura. A swirling multi coloured aura that reminds me a little of Sor’s aura. This one has many more colours than Sor’s though.
All of a sudden the aura hurtles towards us and I realise it is a dwarven girl. She has a sword of black stone in each hand and is wearing black stone armour from her toes to the top of her head. If I didn’t know better I would think we were facing a golem, but there is definitely a flesh and blood dwarf inside that armour.
“Golem?” Elucia asks in shock as she sees what we are facing.
“No.” I say as I blast the dwarf away from us with wind magic. She quickly recovers though and launches herself at us.
“She’s possessed, but can still be saved, if we can capture her.” Lucy tells us. I buffet the dwarf away from us again and Lucy continues. “The demon must be powerful to possess her. We really are up against something dangerous.”
“How
do we capture her?” I ask. At least the dwarf is only using physical attacks so keeping her at bay is easy enough.
“Ice magic would be best.” Lucy says after a moment.
“Dairon, are you able to capture her with ice?” I ask as I blast her away from us again.
“I’ll do my best.” Dairon says, but as he says it I sense fire rushing towards us from behind. Ignoring the girl in front of us I throw back the flames with wind magic. It takes a lot of concentration to do so though, so I have none spare to defend against the girl. She almost reaches me but a fist of stone knocks her back. That must be Kai’s magic.
As the dwarf jumps at us again ice leaps up at her. This is clearly Dairon’s magic. The dwarf shatters the ice before it can encase her and Kai is forced to throw her back with another stone fist. I leave the dwarven girl to Kai and Dairon and return my full attention on the flames and their source. It only takes a moment to spot the dwarven girl that is throwing them at us. She is encased in flames like they are her armour and I don’t sense any stone armour on her. So we have two dwarven girls to capture and no demon in sight. Great!
I don’t know why these flames are so powerful but I can’t just keep holding them back, because despite taking power from Elucia I am going through my power quickly. I can knock her out if I steal her breath, but I’ll need to get closer to do so. In fact I’ll probably need to be in contact.
I increase my wind that is throwing the flames back and then walk towards her, but naturally she backs off. So I take a gamble and throw myself through the air with flight magic and pray I can keep the flames at bay. I seem to manage but only barely. The dwarven girl backs away quicker now but she can’t compete with the speed of my flight magic, even though it is slower than normal thanks to her flames.
The closer I get the harder it is to keep her flames at bay. I am close enough now to reach out and touch her. I am going to have to do so if I want to steal her breath, so I reach out to touch her forehead. As I touch her I am able to control the air in her lungs. I draw it out in an instant but as I do so her flames focus entirely on me now. In fact entirely on my hand and arm. Just as her eyes close and she starts to fall backwards I feel an instant of indescribable pain in my arm.
(Elucia)
I hear Peter scream and as I glance towards him I see both Peter and the dwarven girl he was fighting fall backwards away from each other. The girl’s flames are now gone and she is simply wearing a white loincloth and a small black leather top. The girl is obviously unconscious but so is Peter. I gasp as I see that Peter’s remaining arm is now gone and black ash is falling to the floor beside him.
Lucy who was hovering beside me is now hurtling towards Peter. I am about to follow her when I hear a thump to my left. I look and see Kai fall to the floor unconscious, but I have no idea why. Dairon is wincing as if he has been hit by something and the dwarven girl in stone armour is hurtling towards him. I focus on summoning a stone fist similar to Kai’s and try to punch the dwarven girl. Although I form the fist it is slow and clumsy. The dwarven girl easily dodges it and turns her attention on me now.
Panicking I abandon subtlety and form a wall of stone in front of me, which I throw at her. It easily knocks her back and I have an idea. I have the stone surround her up to the neck. I feel her try to wrestle for control of the stone, but her efforts seem weak, almost pathetic.
“Turn the stone to ice!” Dairon tells me urgently. It is something I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing back at the academy when I was a student, but then most of what I am able to do now I wouldn’t have even dreamt of doing. I remember my training with Dairon and Kai and slowly the stone turns to ice. Eventually the girl is encased in ice up to her neck.
“Will that hold her?” I ask Dairon.
“Yes, but we also have an elf and a demon to deal with.” Dairon tells me still wincing as if in pain. Then he stops wincing as if the pain is gone. I hear Kai groan and looking down see she is slowly picking herself up off the ground. “The elf retreated. I sense the demon approaching.”
“Where’s Peter?” Kai asks sounding as if she is still in a lot of pain. I turn and see Peter is still unconscious and Lucy is lying on him, also unconscious now. Peter’s shoulder looks like it has completely healed but his arm is still gone. Kai following my gaze simply says. “Oh…”
“The demon will be here any moment.” Dairon says and I can now hear hooves in the distance. The sound of the hooves gets louder quickly and soon I can see the bullfrog.
Originally I suppose I thought it would look like a frog, but after hearing the hooves I thought it was probably more like a bull. Nothing however could prepare me for the grotesque sight now in front of me. Its legs are twenty foot tall and it has eight of them, each with a massive hoof about a foot tall and three foot wide. It has black fur with two large streaks of red on its front. Its main body is similar to a bull, if bulls had four legs.
From the shoulder however it is a red mass of slimy skin with green spots. Although it is where the head would be, the red mass looks nothing like a head. There are no eyes or nose. Not even a mouth. At least none that I can see.
“Elucia, hit it with ice magic.” Dairon tells me urgently.
“Ok.” I say. I close my eyes and in front of me I form a huge ice shard, about thirty foot long and five foot wide at my end. I open my eyes and hurtle the ice shard at the demon, which has now almost reached us. I am sure my shard is going to miss, but it seems to hone in on the enemy without my doing anything.
There is an unearthly screech as my ice shard hits the demon. It stands there obviously hurt but not seeming to be really injured. It seems the demon does have a mouth after all though. The entire mass of red opens up as one huge mouth. Inside is a huge green forked tongue, but it is the vile green goo that has me worried as the demon spits it towards me.
A wall of stone rises in front of it but the green goo just eats straight through the stone without even slowing. I feel flight magic pick me up and throw me out of the path of the goo, but the goo changes direction and now it has almost reached me. Desperate and certain I am going to die I focus as much power as I can and form ice around the goo. The ice shatters but after a moment the goo has frozen and shattered too. It falls to the floor and lies there motionless.
There is an almighty roar and the demon charges at us again. Desperate I form ice around the demon and try to freeze it just like I froze the goo. The ice shatters again but I continue to freeze the demon. It slows and suddenly a huge ball of fire races towards me. I blow it aside with wind magic and it hits the wall of the tunnel, exploding and melting the stone wall. I don’t stop trying to freeze the demon though.
All of a sudden the demon disappears and where it was a dwarven girl appears. The girl is wearing black stone armour, but it has holes all over. She is about twenty feet above the ground and plummeting downwards. Then flight magic picks her up and slowly lowers her to the ground.
“Someone summoned that demon.” Dairon says as the girl touches the floor.
“That was dwarven magic.” Kai says with a frown.
“So a dwarf was controlling that awful demon?” I ask Kai in shock.
“Yes. The question though is who and why?” Kai answers.
“More importantly though.” Dairon interrupts us. “We need to wake Peter and Lucy. We also need to get these dwarves unpossessed.”
“Are they still possessed?” I ask dubiously as I look at the dwarven girl who I encased in ice. She doesn’t look possessed, just upset now. Understandable given that she is up to her neck in ice and was just possessed by a demon.