by Hugo Huesca
Nicolai didn’t watch them go; he focused his gaze on the woman. “Well, well. I don’t know about your gods, avian, but you have about three seconds to start praying to them.” At his signal, Marius snapped forward and nocked an arrow on his short bow. “Don’t kill her if you can,” Nicolai told him. They were in a hurry, yes, but maybe she’d live long enough that he could take another bite out of her. The corpse of the monster coursing through his veins had a taste for living meat.
His group reached the middle of the room.
“Now!” the avian exclaimed. Nicolai saw one drone next to her, pressing a throwing knife to a taut rope that connected to the ceiling. He followed the rope’s path, saw the net—bigger than the one in the tunnel, but instead of boulders or rocks it contained—
“Dust?” He raised an eyebrow, confused. “What?”
The drone cut the rope, just in time, because Marius had switched targets, and an instant later the arrow struck the creature and unsummoned it. Too late. The net fell right over the rebels, burying them under a cloud of densely packed dust…
“What in the wetlands—” Nicolai coughed, eyes watering, and loads of dust caking his throat and nose “—is wrong with you people?” He began hacking at the net.
A second drone ran out of its hiding spot behind the avian woman. It was carrying a small, smoldering torch in one hand. It locked eyes with Nicolai, and flashed the rebel a sadistic, bone-chilling smile.
Then it threw him the torch.
There came a deafening roar, followed by heat, whiteness, and a lot of pain.
“WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!” Alder reached Zachary’s chapel and found the man trying his best to bless a batch of knives.
“What?” the man fumbled the words of his ritual and stared at Alder in disbelief.
Alder quickly explained the situation as he grabbed the small handful of throwing knives the man had had time to bless. He dunked them in a holy water basin at the corner of the chapel for good measure.
“That won’t help anything,” Zachary warned him. The priest was in a sort of daze.
“Worth a try!” Alder filled his canteen with holy water, then tossed it into the wooden box full of potions that he had taken from Andreena, right next to Heorghe’s three silver-infused smoke-bombs.
“Wait!” Zachary yelled as the Bard headed for the exit. “What should I do?”
“The villagers are hiding with Heorghe,” Alder told him. “Go to them, we’ll handle the rest!” He left the priest there.
Next stop was Lavy’s Laboratory. The Witch was studying her book, checking on a hell chicken egg lying on the table, and taking notes.
“We are under attack!” Alder was getting very good at screaming those words. He glanced around the Laboratory, trying to fight back panic as he did so. Ed is always examining everything, no matter the danger. Was there anything in the Lab that Ed could use to fight a wraith? Besides Lavy herself, that is.
“Oh, not again!” Lavy’s book fell to the floor in a heap. “Mindbrood? No, what am I saying—it’s the wraith, isn’t it?”
He only saw useless glass vases, bottles with animal parts and organs floating in greenish liquid, and the hell chicken egg. Maybe we can gross out the undead and make it want to leave us alone. He barely stopped himself from laughing like a mad kaftar. If he lost his nerve now, he knew he wouldn’t regain it.
“The wraith isn’t our problem! Kes thinks there’s an attack coming. From that rebel guy who summoned the wraith in the first place—the one with the dead girlfriend?” Surely Master Fovaon would’ve been proud at his storytelling skills.
Back at the Bardic School, the most I had to deal with was homework and trying to get myself a girlfriend, Alder thought with despair. When I wished for an interesting life, I never meant this! How could he have known?
“Are you sure?” Lavy asked him. She was the third one asking him that—Heorghe and Andreena hadn’t believed him at first.
He stared at her with his panicked expression.
“Dunghill,” Lavy said. “Don’t panic, Alder—”
“A bit late for that!”
“Where’s Ed?”
“Facing the wraith alone, for all I know,” Alder said.
“Of course he is. Probably wants to keep all the experience points for himself!” Lavy tried to hide how scared she was, but Alder knew her well enough to notice the way her pale features had gone even paler, and had gained a shade of gray.
“I’m going to try to get him this,” Alder pointed at the box. “I don’t know if it’ll make any difference, but I don’t know what else to do! Lavy, I’m useless!” He wanted to scream in frustration. The only spell he knew was minor illusion, and he had learned it with the express purpose of impressing tavern wenches. His only bardic utterance was geared for running away from danger as fast as possible.
All the experience points he had, he’d obtained by being in the general vicinity of braver people—Ed, Kes, even Lavy sometimes—fighting creatures that would’ve eaten him for breakfast without batting an eye. Hell, during Ed’s first day in Ivalis he was already killing horned spiders. I can’t still look at one without trembling!
“Alder!” Lavy’s shriek made him focus again, made him realize his fear was getting the best of him. “Get it together. We aren’t going the way of Kael’s dungeon! Not this time, we aren’t.” She made her hands into fists. “Find Ed, will you? You can get to him faster. I’ll try to summon spirits to aid the Haunt, then I’ll find Kes.”
“Spirits? Lavy, you aren’t ready for that ritual—”
“Don’t question my arcane might! Go, asshole, run!” She threw her book at him. He barely dodged in time, swearing under his breath.
He lifted the tray and headed for the door.
“And Alder?” Lavy called from behind him.
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
THERE WAS a group of red-cloaked strangers armed to the teeth coming his way, past Kes’ Training Center. Alder saw them approach before they caught sight of him. He ducked into a small tunnel that led to the Mess Hall.
The cultists—for what else could they be?—passed him by. He wished that he had bothered to train a couple ranks in stealth. He counted six of them, all dangerous-looking, a rough sort, some sporting some nasty scars that branded them as veterans of multiple battles.
They’ll see me, he thought. No way they pass me by. He knew he should be running for the Mess Hall, where he could hide better, but he dared not move—he was sure they’d spot him if he did.
“Secure that tunnel!” the man at the lead said. He was an ox of a man, all muscles bulging through his mail-shirt. He was armed with an ax that could’ve decapitated a centaur in a single strike.
Here we go. I hope I don’t scream that much while I’m dying. At least, that way, his friends back at Elaitra would have something nice to say about his passing. If they ever find out.
Along came many screeching noises, followed by chattering steps from somewhere past Alder’s range of vision. One of the cultists was the first to react to the noise. A scream died in his throat, because a thick strand of web violently glued his head to the wall. He flailed in mad desperation and began suffocating.
A group of three horned spider warriors clashed against the cultists before they had time to react. Black chitin flashed against red capes, and screams echoed through the stone walls—Alder couldn’t distinguish screams of rage from screams of pain or fear. It all sounded the same to him. A woman tried to lift a rune, then mandibles open and closed in her direction, and rune and hand and arm all disappeared in a mist of blood and torn skin. Another cultist collapsed under the weight of the other two spiders, and he screamed and screamed as the poisoned fangs turned his face to shreds.
Alder watched it all, paralyzed by horror and disgust. At least they’re winning, he found himself thinking, and immediately felt nauseated and disgusted with himself. Scarlet red marred the walls and the tapestry. Then the leader of the cultists, that huge muscled m
an, reached the melee. His axe smashed against a horned spider—the weapon tore through chitin and muscle in a shower of gore. In an instant, what had been a living, furious spider had turned into two separate, barely recognizable chunks of blue ichor, gray meat, and twitching black legs.
Without stopping, the man dropped his axe and reached for the nearest spider, who tried to eat his hand away like it had done with the spellcaster an instant ago. Instead, the man caught the mandibles, then pulled away, muscles rippling like steel cords through his neck and back. There was a sickening explosion, followed by a wet impact as innards fell on the ground.
Alder turned away and ran for the Haunt’s exit. He stumbled against the tables of the Mess Hall—now abandoned, still filled with forgotten food. The box of potions clattered in his grip, threatened to fall over. He managed to hold on despite the fear. He couldn’t even remember what he was supposed to do with it, and his only desire was to get away from that man and those terrible hands. Had someone seen him run away?
The Bard found a crumpled shape at the end of the tunnel out of the Mess Hall—a woman with her back against the wall and a small puddle of blood expanding under her. Kes!
The mercenary was covered in blood. Her eyes were closed, but she was nursing a long gash on her abdomen, a nasty-looking wound that had split open her armor like it was nothing.
Alder ran to her. About five strides away from the mercenary, he saw a cloud of dust extending past the end of the tunnel. Kes raised what little remained of her shield and threw herself prone, covering her head as well as she could. Then she noticed his presence and stared at him in horror. She screamed at him to get down.
What are you—?
A wave of heat and noise smashed against him, too fast for him to be confused about it. The box was torn from his hands, and his feet left the ground. He smashed against the hard ground; deafening, overwhelming silence extending around him, and then darkness.
The wraith stood above a ring of dead vegetation, a cloud of smoke rising around him, its gleaming green eyes fixed on a woman clad in leather armor standing at the tip of a jagged outcrop overlooking the valley.
“Katalyn!” Ed realized. There was no mistaking her. Who else would be crazy enough to try and solo the wraith?
The undead swooped like a bird of prey toward the Thief, who reacted instantly by jumping down the slope. Ed stared, frozen, sure that he had just seen Katalyn commit suicide. Instead of slipping and rolling all the way down, Katalyn jumped and darted and vaulted like an Olympic gymnast as the wraith roared above her.
Katalyn reached the valley, jumped past a boulder, and ran for her life.
“Over here!” Ed called. The Thief saw him and headed his way. The wraith saw her, then headed Ed’s way too.
“Well, here we go,” said Kaga. He drank a dirty-looking potion from a clear flask hidden in his armor. “What’s the plan?”
Ed took out Lavy’s rune from his belt, took aim above Katalyn’s head, and opened fire. The witch spray projectiles left purple lines of light in their passing. Direct hit! But instead of smashing against the wraith, the magical orbs flickered and died a few feet away from the undead, like an invisible god had snuffed them out with his fingertips.
Well, fuck, Ed thought. The creature’s aura was strong enough to resist magical attacks. They couldn’t bypass it—they couldn’t even get close to it without going mad with fear.
“Ed, run!” Katalyn exclaimed, gesturing back at the trees where Ed and his group had come from. “We can’t touch the bastard!”
“Specters are that way!” Ed told her.
“Oh, come on!” Above her, the wraith extended its arms toward its daughter.
A cold, calculating part of Ed’s mind knew that if Torst reached her and drained her, it’d become a sentient wraith, and then there’d be no way to stop it. A wraith with human intelligence surely would be smart enough to realize it could easily dive underground and hunt them that way.
Fuck it. He activated his improved reflexes. At once, the world slowed down. He could see the flight-path of the wraith crossing the air as if it were honey, greedy pinpricks of green light fixated upon Katalyn’s head. Let’s see.
He couldn’t hurt the wraith, he couldn’t get anywhere near it, he couldn’t even use his drones—they’d die instantly from the aura drain. What do you do against a Boss with defenses so high you can’t touch it?
It was hard to concentrate. Katalyn waded slowly in his direction, and the helplessness of knowing he couldn’t help her was unbearable. The effort of keeping his reflexes active began to wear on him and eat at the vitality potion’s magic.
If we can’t touch you, we at least have to make sure you can’t touch us either, Ed decided. The wraith wasn’t that fast. Many times, while playing Ivalis Online, he had faced monsters too tough for his level. Those creatures, generally, had little in the way of offense. That was a videogame! In the real world, battles aren’t nicely balanced so a party of four to five characters can defeat them.
But that videogame was a magical construct, with real consequences for the real Ivalis. When Ed and his friends had killed Kael Arpadel, Kael really had died—Lavy and Alder could attest to that.
So all those fights had really happened. Which meant…
All its experience points are geared to making it untouchable. Besides the endurance-drain and the specters, it has nothing to hit us with.
The world returned to its normal speed, which gave Ed’s overheated muscles some measure of respite. Something else was different. His terror had been replaced by frantic adrenaline. His mind raced. He knew what he had to do, but had no idea if he and his friends could manage it.
“Everyone, listen up! Separate and pull aggro away from Katalyn!” he exclaimed. “Kaga, head left—” he pointed at the shrubbery about three hundred feet away from them “—and spiders, right way, opposite him!”
“Aggro?” asked Kaga, a hint of desperation in his voice.
Shit. Ed frantically searched for words. “Distract the monster, get it to attack you instead!”
“We are to sacrifice ourselves, my Lord?” asked one of the spiders. The question sent chills down Ed’s spine.
“No, as soon as it targets you, the others are to get its attention. Now go!” Ed roared that last part, leaving no space for doubt.
To his surprise, the kaftar and the spiders did as he asked—no, as he had ordered—and ran in opposite directions, shooting strings of web and throwing knives at the wraith.
The undead’s aura protected it from the web, but Kaga’s knives were enchanted to fight monsters—they bypassed the aura, reached the creature’s ribs… and did absolutely nothing.
But it was enough to get Torst’s attention. It chased after Kaga’s running silhouette. So far, nothing else had managed to even scratch it.
An intelligent attacker would’ve ignored the kaftar and focused on its win condition—draining Katalyn. That’s what Ed would’ve done in Torst’s place. But the wraith wasn’t alive. It was smart enough to recognize danger and react to it. So, it diverted its path and headed to Kaga, roaring as it went, its aura melting the snow under it as it moved. It was a small blessing, since Ed could gauge the wraith’s aura area of influence by the surrounding steam.
“I’m pulling aggro!” Kaga cackled madly as he ran for his life. “I’m pulling aggro!” The fear aura reached him, and the cackle went away. “Wetlands, I’m pulling aggro! Help!”
Katalyn reached Ed, out of breath, sweat and dirt mixing on her face. There was no time for greetings. “What now?” she asked.
Ed clenched his hands into fists. The spiders were still trying to get the wraith’s attention, with no success. Without their help, Kaga would get run down, and he was the only one who could get the creature’s attention—besides, that is, Katalyn and Ed…
“We get Torst to attack us,” Ed told her, and ran frantically toward the wraith, trying his best to stay out of the reach of the fear aura.
“And after?” Katalyn said, following him. “There’s a plan past that, right? Because I find it a bit hard to see the good in this strategy, and I’m really trying!”
Ed shrugged. “We keep going until it tires itself out… or until sunrise.” He drew one of his throwing knives. “Eldritch edge!” That left him with a single spell—which didn’t bode well for his plan’s long-term success.
“Until sunrise? Fuck!” Katalyn said.
“Yeah, I know!”
Since the Thief had better aim, Ed handed Katalyn the flaming knife, and she threw it without hesitation—straight at the wraith’s back. Green fire caught on its tattered shroud.
That got its attention all right.
KLEK PEEKED out of the corner of the small tunnel that led to the batblins’ quarters. Five caped men were headed his way, led by an elf armed with a long needle-like blade. The elf gestured at the tunnel, and Klek went back in a hurry, unsure if he had been seen.
“They’re coming our way,” Klek told the waiting group of batblins, about a dozen of them, quivering in the shadowy corners of the quarters. A couple were hidden under a straw bunk; Klek could see the pile trembling. The horned spider, Tulip, was by a corner of the room. Although her stat sheet proclaimed she was a princess, she was about the size of a normal warrior, and didn’t seem eager to fight.
“We need to hide!” said Drusb, who looked eager to join Tulip in her corner.
“We need to fight!” Klek shot back. If the rebels passed them by, they’d soon arrive at Heorghe’s forge, where the villagers were hiding. What would happen then? Where’s Lord Edward? He’d never allow this!
But Lord Edward was nowhere to be seen. Klek dared not think of the obvious reasons—that he was dead, or had abandoned them. Whatever the case, the Haunt was in danger.
“Have you gone mad, Klek?” asked Drusb. The cloudmaster held Klek by the sleeves of his tunic. “Those men out there are killers! They’re armed! With magic! Didn’t you feel that explosion a minute ago?”
“Yes, but we have traps and magic of our own. It could’ve been our explosion—”
Drusb shook him frantically. “We’re batblins, Klek! When the dungeons start burning, we die first! By Hogbus, you’ll kill us all!”