by Max Anthony
Viddo recovered quickly and dashed off, doing his best to load his crossbow as he went. Already twenty paces ahead, the lich lifted an arm over what might have been its shoulder, one bony finger pointing. A pencil-thin ray of black light flickered instantly across the space between the lich and Jera. Had it touched the intended target, which was her heart, she would have likely died at once. Instead the beam was warped as it came to her and pulled onto one of the rings that Jera wore upon her fingers. The death ray struck the ring through her gauntlet and was reflected back upon the lich. The creature was immune to this particular spell and on it sped, with three adventurers in pursuit.
Viddo was just about able to keep up, though Jera and Rasmus soon fell behind. He fired his crossbow at it twice, dismayed to find the bolts deflecting away from a magical barrier it had erected to defend itself. Viddo reached a junction between two corridors. He looked both ways, but there was no sign of the lich.
“Balls!” he exclaimed.
He heard footsteps and Jera arrived, shortly followed by Rasmus. “Where is it?” asked the wizard, breathing hard.
“Gone,” said Viddo, cursing once more.
It turned out that the lich was not gone. Along one corridor, they saw a familiar shimmering and the undead priest appeared, readying a spell. Before they could move, a globe of heavy darkness floated along the corridor, serenely yet rapidly. The death spell detonated in a silent flash of darkness. There was a loud ping from a source unknown and when the darkness had gone, all three adventurers remained standing.
Jera wasn’t sure what made her do it. As soon as she’d seen the lich’s outline, she’d raised her arm and thrown her hammer. The creature was a good forty yards away – much further than one might normally be capable of throwing a lump of metal without it coming into contact with the ceiling. This particular hammer spun rapidly through the air at a velocity much greater than the action of Jera’s arm. It struck the lich on the forehead with a dull crack, providing it with the second unpleasant surprise of the day. The hammer, rather than falling to the ground with a clonk, reappeared immediately in Jera’s hand as if it had always been there.
The lich reeled. Viddo was next to it in a flash. With one hand, he wrenched his pack away from the lich’s grasp. In his other hand was a dagger, which he plunged into the wreath surrounding the creature. The tip struck something hard and the lich disappeared, leaving the three of them alone and with the recovered pack which still contained the diamonds.
“Can I have my cheese sandwich now?” asked Rasmus.
“What was that all about?” asked Jera.
“A defensive spell,” said the wizard, taking a bite of his sandwich. “Viddo evidently struck the creature with enough force to convince the magic of the spell to teleport the creature back to a designated place of safety. It’s all fairly usual stuff for your higher-level spell casters.”
Jera nodded as if she’d just been reminded of something that she’d actually known all along. “Any beef and mustard sandwiches in there?” she asked hopefully.
“Ham?” asked Viddo, offering her the only alternative.
With semi-fresh bread, meat and dairy products gurgling in the depths of their stomachs, they resumed their journey towards the bridge where they’d last seen the dragon. They’d not been walking for long when Jera felt something sharp jabbing her in the chest. She reached beneath her armour and pulled out the shield-design locket. It was cracked across the middle and the silver of the metal had turned into the grey of cheap iron.
“My locket!” she exclaimed. “What has happened to it?”
Viddo reached over and took it from her. “That sound we heard when the death spell went off – it must have been this locket breaking.”
“You have been twice lucky today, young lady,” said Rasmus. “I would guess that the magic of the necklace consumed itself in your protection.”
“Does that mean I would have died without it?” she asked.
“Almost certainly,” said Rasmus. “I didn’t want to say anything earlier, but that death ray would have likely finished your life as well. That’s two deaths you’ve avoided in the space of a few minutes.”
It was a sobering thought and Jera kept quiet for a time as they walked towards the cavern. They reached it without incident and Rasmus was given his first glimpse of the destruction that the dragon’s collision with the bridge had wrought. Not that there was a great deal to see – where once there had been a narrow, arched bridge, now there was no arched bridge. There were a few scattered stones that had once formed part of the crossing and unmoving grey bodies were dotted liberally about.
“Did the dragon die?” asked Rasmus.
“No such luck,” came the reply. “It probably wasn’t best pleased to crash into the bridge, but it didn’t seem greatly injured. It flew off over that way.”
“Can you see it now?”
“There’s no sign of it. I’m sure we just got unlucky last time, though in the end it almost did us a favour.”
“If it’s not here, we should be good to get on with things. You’ll have to jump over while we wait here,” said Rasmus.
Viddo wasn’t stupid and had already known that the final destruction of the diamonds was going to fall to him.
“You stay right here until I return,” he said. “It’s too wide for me to get safely over where we are now. It looks like it narrows a bit further along and I’ll have to make the jump over there.”
“Don’t take too long, will you?” asked Rasmus. “I’m almost out of spells now and we don’t know what might be approaching.”
“I’m not going to piss about, don’t worry.”
With that, Viddo left them. He was nimble and athletic, though not quite capable of leaping forty feet. He ventured a couple of hundred yards along the edge of the chasm until he reached the first suitable place – it was close to twenty-five feet wide here and with plenty of space to gather speed. There was no need to stand in silent contemplation of the jump. He sized it up once and then launched himself at it, sailing out across the endless depths. With nary a whisper, he landed on the other side and ran in the direction of the dungeon exit which Rasmus had so helpfully deconstructed.
He knew almost immediately that something was wrong. There were two figures already in the doorway, standing silently and watchfully, as if they waited for his arrival. Bold as brass, Viddo walked up to them.
“You sod,” he said to Rasmus, without rancour. “How did you get over here?”
“With the power of this staff I took from the lich,” said the wizard happily. “It has all manner of abilities which I am only just discovering.”
“It allows you to cast teleport spells?” asked Viddo hopefully.
“Unfortunately, the teleport spell is not within its capabilities. It does, however, allow use of the ping spell.”
“The ping spell?” asked Viddo. He’d seen most of the spells that wizards could use but had never heard of a ping spell.
“Watch,” said Rasmus. Without warning, he vanished, reappearing instantly fifty feet away. “See? I have pinged over here.” Again, he vanished, popping into view next to Viddo and Jera. “I call the return journey the pong spell. I plan to make a game from it.”
“Every other wizard in the whole world calls that a portal spell,” said Viddo. “Now enough of your nonsense. We have diamonds to crush.”
They entered the long corridor wherein they had recently been pursued by many hundreds of undead. It was empty now, apart from the remains of the creatures that had been destroyed by Rasmus’ wand of sunbeams. One of the creatures had evidently been hiding a dirty little secret, which it had been forced to spill in death.
“A gold piece!” said Viddo, lifting the heavy coin from the bones of a ribcage. “I’ll add it to the collection.”
They reached the room with the chest that they had been forced to abandon so rudely. All appeared to be as it had been, except for one important detail.
“The chest
- it’s empty!” wailed Rasmus. “I never thought I’d see it again when we ran from here earlier. Now that I’m back, I am trebly disappointed to find that some bastards have walked away with the contents.”
They were all saddened by the missing coins. Not because they had an excessively greedy nature, simply because the hard-won chest of coins should have been theirs to empty, rather than the contents going into the pockets of whatever creature had wandered by later.
Rather than torment themselves by standing around the empty chest, they left the room quickly. The short connecting passage took them into the trapped room which had been the grave for another group of hopeful adventurers. Already, there were distant pattering noises, heard first by Viddo.
“Why can’t they just leave us alone?” asked Jera, heartily sick of the persistent undead.
“Soon they’ll have no reason to follow us,” said Viddo. He casually threw his backpack into the centre of the room, where it landed amongst the mangled remains of the dead. Nothing happened.
“Damnit, the pack mustn’t be heavy enough!” he said.
“Did you leave any sandwiches in there?”
“We need another way of triggering the trap,” continued the thief.
“Can I press a foot on the pressure pad and jump out of the way?” asked Jera.
“A fine idea,” replied Viddo. “Except that the pressure pad is slap bang in the middle of the room. I can’t see any way that you could escape instant death.”
“What we need is a man known to be exceptionally fleet of foot. A man who can sprint faster than almost anyone,” said Rasmus.
“I don’t think I can do it,” said Viddo. “I’ve seen these traps before – that block will strike the ground in less than a second. I have no desire to be killed.”
Rasmus sighed a mock sigh. “Another task for the heroic wizard, it would appear.” He vanished, appearing for less than half a second next to the backpack before he vanished once more and popped back into existence next to the others. The trapped block waited dolefully above them, untriggered.
“Bah!” said the wizard. “I must not be heavy enough to set it off.”
“Either that or you needed to stand on it for longer,” said Viddo, his look making it clear that he expected Rasmus to give it another try.
It took a woman’s logic to save the wizard from likely death by crushing. “Why don’t you simply wait for the approaching undead to set off the trap?” she asked.
As if her words had been ones of introduction, the first of the grey figures emerged into the room, with half a dozen more hot on its heels. The volume of the footsteps continued to increase, as though the entire population of the obsidian pit was coming behind.
The pack with its diamonds may have been in plain sight, but the undead ignored it in order to throw themselves at Jera. In spite of her hopes that they’d go for the diamonds, she was ready for the alternatives. The first one met the steel bulwark of her shield and the forehead of the second met the blunt end of a hammer. Viddo stabbed another and Rasmus bludgeoned at the grasping arm of a fourth.
“You appear to have portalled Jera across that chasm. Please feel free to portal a few of these bodies onto the pressure plate,” said Viddo.
“I didn’t portal her, I’m afraid. I lent her my boots of speed and she was able to jump across. The ping spell only works on the caster,” said Rasmus, giving him the bad news.
Viddo had already calculated the likelihood of his being able to throw one of the bodies far enough. It was a good few feet and he was certain that he wasn’t strong enough. More of the undead piled into the room, pushing and struggling to reach the trio. Jera was clever and she backed away around the perimeter of the room, blocking and dodging the attacks aimed at her. After some shuffling and repositioning, she got herself into a place where the direct route from the opposite door would carry any new attackers right across the pressure pad. The door to the room where they’d killed the wights was still open and Jera stood a single pace through the doorway, to ensure that she could only be attacked by two or three undead at once. Viddo and Rasmus stayed behind her – this was Jera’s role.
Confronted with the opportunity to run straight across the room, the undead duly obliged. Jera had been expecting it, yet was still surprised by the suddenness. One of the grey-skins had done enough to set things in motion and a great, wide block of stone fell from the ceiling. It came silently and smoothly, landing with a heavy thud which shook the floor and almost dashed Jera from her feet. Beneath the block, thirty or forty of the undead were caught, and Viddo saw one or two arms and legs protruding from beneath.
“Do you think we’ve done it?” asked Jera, continuing to fend off her attackers.
“I can’t imagine there’s anything beneath that block which hasn’t been utterly smashed,” said Viddo.
“The undead don’t seem too concerned,” she replied, thumping her hammer into a hideously grinning mouth.
“They won’t be,” said Rasmus. “They know we’re here now and they’ll keep attacking until they kill us.”
“Is that it? We have to fight until we die?” she asked, not yet in desperation.
“You’re performing splendidly well,” Rasmus assured her. “I do have a single spell that might assist. A teleport spell that I found in the undead wizard’s spell book.”
Jera wasn’t able to see Viddo shaking his head at what he knew was coming.
“Can’t you just cast it and get us out of here?” she asked, blocking a punch which nearly got past her guard.
“It’s not that simple, you see. This was obviously a male dominated world and the spell only works on men.”
“Eh?” asked Jera, dumbfounded and too inexperienced to realise she was being played for a fool.
“I’m sure you won’t mind if me and Viddo take our leave from you now. I recommend you try and hide. We’ll meet you in the Five Hounds tavern in a week. Best of luck to you.”
“That seems really rather unsporting given…”
23
“…everything we’ve been through,” said Jera. It took her a moment to realise that the undead had vanished and that she was standing in the middle of a tavern floor looking as menacing as could be. She heard the sound of seats scraping as the patrons of the Five Hounds shuffled away.
“You shit bag!” came the most unladylike words from the mouth of this apparently seemly young woman. Jera opened her mouth again to release another stream of imprecations and then closed it with the words unspoken.
Rasmus and Viddo were more familiar with magical teleportation and they were already at the bar ordering three mugs of ale and a plate of chicken sandwiches. The owner of the tavern was pleased to see that these two of his most valued customers had returned. Jera joined her companions and helped herself to the nearest of the mugs when it arrived. She met their gazes and drained it in one go.
“It’s a bit sharp, isn’t it?” she asked with a shudder. “And you like this stuff?”
“It’s an acquired taste,” said Viddo, sipping more genteelly at his own ale.
“What do we do now?” asked Jera.
“I think it would be for the best if you went to see your mother and father. To let them know that you’re safe.”
“I’m sure Goosty the Placid would be interested in how her pupil fared on her first adventure,” added Rasmus.
“Tell her that Rasmus and Viddo say hello,” said the thief.
“And after that?” asked Jera, feeling a surge of disappointment.
“I don’t think we have anything planned beyond a trip to Trilbus. It’s a long walk. Boring, one might say,” said Rasmus.
“I see,” said Jera.
“There may be room for a third, if you’d be interested in seeing the world?” Viddo told her, ending the teasing.
“I think I might enjoy seeing these famed sights of Triblus,” she said.
“Trilbus,” corrected Rasmus. “That ale must be a strong one.”
“
By the way – I might have some good news,” said Viddo, reaching within his tunic and withdrawing a cloth pouch.
Rasmus looked at the pouch. “Where’d you get that?” he asked.
“My wayward hand appears to have picked it from within the robes of the lich when we met it on the stairs.”
Jera giggled. “You’ve picked a lich’s pocket?”
“I couldn’t help it and really, I feel it owed us recompense for the diamonds we were forced to destroy.” He tipped the contents of the pouch onto the bar – it contained a small mound of glittering gems in a multitude of colours. “I think we should raise a drink to the death god’s high priest – to thank it for such unfettered generosity.”
“I think I may have a more appropriate toast,” said Rasmus with a chuckle. “Let us drink to friendship and the rescue of a fine warrior called Jera, as if her rescue were ever needed.”
Three more ales were ordered and the chicken sandwiches arrived. Jera stayed for five ales and suffered no hangover whatsoever, whilst Rasmus and Viddo drank nine and suffered accordingly. With no plans beyond a long walk to a distant town, they were all content with the possibilities that lay ahead.
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