by Ember Lane
The spider spun around, issuing strings of silk from its spinnerets that, though damaged, still covered Faulk, Mezzerain, and Sutech. They tried to continue their attack, but their actions were instantly labored, slowed by the clinging webs. Charlotte raced forward from the peripheries, smashing down with my staff, cracking a leg joint and then moving to the next. Billy burst onto the scene, hacking at Mezzerain’s bonds, freeing him of the binding silk.
Pog balanced on the spider’s thorax, soon kneeling once he’d located his favorite target. His knives began working on its eyes. I tried a severing ray of mixed magic, aiming for a leg patella, but my angle was impossible, and the magic just deflected off. The beast closed in on Sutech and Faulk, still trapped.
I made a choice, jumped onto it, ran along its back, and somersaulted over its head, landing, facing it. I quickly equipped my helmet, instantly knowing I’d made an error. From the front, it was clear to see the spider’s innards were pulsing faster and faster. Its guts cramped. Its mouth opened. I saw a ball of poison and fire belching toward me. I gathered my manas, screamed at the top of my voice, and pointed my Nexus Rod like I would my black knight's staff. My magic spewed out, straight down the beast’s open maw.
Knowing exactly what was coming my way, I spun, screaming, “Run!” as I darted off to one side, seeking refuge in the wrapped and mummified, hanging bodies. Flaming poison spouted from the funnel web’s maw as its guts simultaneously exploded. Pog landed beside me, cleaning his knives, ready for the next onslaught.
The flaming poison peppered both Mezzerain and the now free Sutech as they ran. It stuck to the web wall like tar, setting the whole nest on fire. The spider reared again, ready to fire another gout at Mezzerain and Sutech. Faulk charged it, his suit seemingly immune from the beast’s blistering issue, which had actually freed him. He had his halberd raised. He had no chance. The spider reared, ready to snatch him, and consume him.
I ran out, barging him away and bringing my Nexus Rod to bear. I sent another flash up it, straight into its mouth. This time I caught the ball of fire deep inside it. My blast felt infinitely more powerful, and I knew on instinct that I’d leveled the rod again. For a second, nothing happened, but then the spider pulsed, this time with my colors and not its. I gulped, knowing what was coming but somehow morbidly rooted to the spot.
It exploded, blasting me back, sending me skidding along the floor and crashing into the nest’s flaming walls. I thumped into the black rock of the Nexus Fault, gasping as my back folded to its sharp contours. Slumping, I sought out a breath, any breath. Hands grabbed my wrists, pulling me away and sliding me across the slick floor of the Nexus Fault. A blanket or something was thrown over me, and the last of the flames were patted out.
I still held my Nexus Rod like it was the most precious thing I had.
They dribbled water into my mouth, and I felt my health return. I inched up, enough for me to sit. “Faulk?” I asked.
The trapmaster was propped against the Fault’s wall. He looked dazed, a little confused, but on seeing me looking at him, he pointed to Pog’s halberd and said, “Mine, all mine, all mine.”
Sutech strode into view. As usual he hadn’t broken a sweat. “The scorch marks are quite fetching,” he told me, crouching close. “As plans go, it was as near to script as we could have hoped. Thanks for ending it.”
I shrugged. “I have the magic.”
“Any takeaways? Anything that might help?”
“Pog was right; they have adapted. The exoskeleton deflected magic. The abdomen, not so much.”
Sutech let slip a sneaky smile. “So it’s the mouth or ass for you?”
“What?” My jaw dropped open.
“The soft tissue, we position you front or rear. Maximum effect, Alexa, maximum effect, any beast, you either face it or sneak up.”
I inclined my head, wanting to say something but deciding against it. “Yeah, well, we won,” I uttered weakly.
“How about coming and looking at our prize?” he asked, offering me his hand.
“Sure.”
I pulled myself up. We brushed close, and neither of us pulled away. He led me back to the flaming nest, molten silk now dripping like fat blobs from a juicy spit. The spider lay ruined in its center, a great mass of burned guts. Its stench was overpowering. We skirted around it. The funnel was now charred rather than the silken way it had been, the fire having instantly raged up it, drawn upward like in a chimney. Sutech climbed it, refusing my help. I clambered up easily, soon at its top again. Pog was crouched by a small rock ridge. He waved me over.
“What do you think?” he asked.
There wasn’t much to think.
The clouds above us roiled black, gray, and orange, exactly like you’d imagine the end of the world. As I glimpsed before, the surrounding rock resembled black steppes. They were huge, great plateaus interrupted by jagged climbs, twenty, thirty feet high. They formed a great slope, a serrated escarpment, which led up to a sharp ridge that cut into the angry clouds themselves. Perhaps there was more life here—there had to be for the spider to survive—but if there was, I could see no evidence of it.
“Barren,” I said.
“Not quite,” Pog whispered and pointed straight over to edge of one the drops.
There, standing proud and silhouetted against the gray of the shadowmana-filled air stood a rider, like a herald, proud, defiant and alone. He sat atop a huge, shaggy horse and was upright, rigid, and looked like he was surveying his land. In one hand he held a pole, a banner fluttering in the steady breeze. The banner was black, with a white wolf’s head depicted on it. He turned to me and caught my gaze. I may well have been imagining it, the distance so great, but I felt his cold power. Then he wheeled his horse around, vanishing into the gloom.
“Who?” I asked.
“A Cer,” Pog said. “They know we’re here.”
We regrouped below, Quartermaster Faulk cooking up the last of the scorpion stew. Pog and I set about stripping the spider of its meat but could only find decent pickings from its legs. Pog cut down a few of the carcasses. The bodies now charred, the meat burned. We had to discard it as we had no clue if the meat was good or bad. Besides, it was definitely ewww, as Charlotte would say.
“So how far to Slaughtower?” Sutech asked Billy.
“Days, nights, hours? They are all the same here. We make a line for the Marroo Margins. It’s a tributary that will lead us to the main river that flows from Slaughtower. It’ll take us as long as it does, not a moment more or less.”
Sutech didn’t press. It was clear we’d get nothing more from Billy, if indeed, he had any more to give. We headed out, clambering up the funnel and along the soulless land until we came to the first of the steppes. Mezzerain appeared to relax the minute we were back out in the open as if the absence of sun was in someway compensated by a sky overhead even if it was one from the apocalypse. Billy led our file way, Charlotte ranging forward but sticking much closer. Pog, as usual, went next, then Sutech, Faulk, and Mezzerain. I had free rein, marching with whom I wanted, a freer form so as not to provide an easy hit. Sutech had decided that I would be the primary target. He wanted to use my natural restlessness to randomize my movements.
Wind curled around us, teasing us with its sterility, whipping up the dust into black ghouls that glided along until collapsing. Billy picked his way through a gulley, the steppes either side soon shoulder height and then above. Coals crunched underfoot, black as the cuboid underground, but weathered, dulled, and eroded. The gulley narrowed and steepened as we neared its apex, and Billy climbed up, eking out a treacherous, curling trail.
Pog bent low, picking at the scree before he continued up. We soon topped the gulley and had scaled our first steppe. We spilled onto its vast, exposed shelf, immediately feeling the kiss of its biting wind. Ahead, more rose: daunting, impossible.
“Keep your eye out, Alexa,” Pog whispered to me, tossing me what looked like a stone.
I held up the fist-sized gem
to the dull, gray light and saw it was an emerald, a pure, precious emerald.
“We’re supposed to collect these for Billy?” I asked.
Pog lent me a devious smile. “No, we’re supposed to collect pocketfuls of them. They’re his, all that fit. No one said anything about our bags of holding. They’re all ours. Should pay for his services and more.”
“Eyes down, then,” I replied, no longer surprised by his deviousness.
He shrugged. “Safety first, though, wouldn’t want to fall all the way back down.” And then he clambered up, standing atop our conquered steppe as proud as the Cer had.
Another ten hours saw us reach the top of the ridge. By that time, Pog had collected more than a dozen gemstones. They lay there without rhyme or reason: sapphires, amethysts, diamonds, and more, just littering the black of the steppes like Ruse had discarded their beauty, been repulsed by it, and ejected them from its soul.
It was brutal atop the ridge, the wind at a frenzy, chilly where it had been cool. It gave us a good look at Ruse, though what we saw was black. Ahead, the steppes led down, similar, vast, slatelike shelves to the ones we’d just climbed, carved, and, in a way, quite beautiful. At their bottom, they curved to the whims of a river that looked like black glass, like flowing oil, and had to be the Marroo Margins that Billy had said we were aiming for. The river was nestled between two steppes and hemmed in on either side by luminous curves of all colors imaginable. The colors cycled, shimmered, making the river look like it cut through swirls of glowing clouds, but I thought that unlikely.
This was truly a peculiar land.
Billy jumped down first, hugging shelter where he could find it. Charlotte followed, but we all lingered, taking in the view.
I double-checked my Nexus Rod before I took a leap down.
Nexus Rod
Charging in progress
Shadowmana 55.6% charged
Light mana 20.3% charged
Rod Harmony – Level 3
Magnification equates to 3 times current charge.
I wondered at its power as I progressed the levels, but there was little I could do to force the pace. At least its constant presence in my hands forced me to endlessly cycle my manas. I said the secret words and topped up my light mana to 50 percent again and set out after the others.
We dropped slowly toward the Margins, but the constant climbing and crouching took its toll on our stamina, and we all soon needed a rest. Billy found us a small alcove on a particularly large steppe. The farther we descended, the greater distance they stretched.
Faulk broke out his stove. I flicked him a concentrated glowsphere, and he set about cooking: passion mushroom and spider meat, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“What do you think that is down there?” I asked Pog, pointing to the Marroo Margins and its strange, iridescent lining.
“More mushrooms, fungus, toadstools, and the like. There has to be an ecosystem, even here. That’ll be the start. My guess is that it starts with the shadowmana a little like a normal land starts with the sun. Things adapt.”
“Where are the predators?”
He laughed at that. “Always slightly removed from the melee, places like this, really.”
“Much as I thought.”
I spread my awareness in a bubble around us, extending it fifty yards in each direction. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. Fortunately, nothing came, and we ate in peace. There was no doubt in my mind that our luck wouldn’t hold out.
It didn’t.
We continued down, the climb as sapping as its upward counterpart. It felt like it should be night. We desperately needed a proper rest, but where? The steppes were now so wide that we’d travel for an hour before we came to the next drop, and those drops became steeper and more treacherous as we closed in on the river. And closed in, we did. Billy guided us to a rare ravine, a split in the rock that led right to the river, and we all looked at him like he was some kind of savior. The ravine carved its way through the two remaining steppes, its slope mercifully slight but filled with scree and tumbled rock and so perilous, to say the least. But at least it gave us respite from the steep drops, and the river at its end gave us hope we’d rest some time soon.
It was clearly a rain spill, a storm gully, but a welcome change after the cycle of flatness and sheer drops we had endured. We entered it eagerly, shaking off our tiredness and knowing our trial was nearly at an end. Conversation picked up again, talk of lookouts, camps, and sleeps. But something wasn’t quite right about the place. It was like it held the air over us, excluding the wind and trapping us. My hackles rose, though my awareness told me all was fine.
I studied the slopes, the gulley sides, and I spied cracks, swirls, and divots that shouldn’t be there. A sudden thought struck me. What if this gulley, this valley, wasn’t natural? Before I had a chance to alert Sutech, the scree vibrated, rock began tumbling, and then the valley side exploded out, strafing us and scattering us like windblown leaves.
Dread Rock Worm
No further information available
The thing erupted from the rock, reaching high before arcing down, swooping with its entire maw open and engulfing Charlotte before she could even move a muscle. If it was truly a worm, it was the largest I’d ever seen, its tube at least three feet wide, it length as yet not revealed.
Billy burst into action, hacking at the worm as it burrowed back into the rock. Mezzerain angled his sword, tearing a vast rent along its side. I dithered, not sure if my magic was the answer. Would it blow Charlotte up? Before I could make up my mind, another blast of rock came from behind me. I spun around, an even bigger worm rising. I waited, letting it arc down. It’s dry maw opened revealing a host of cilia, rings of teeth, and a gaping, Alexa-Drey-sized hole.
I didn’t hesitate this time, sending a flash of magic right into its neck then sending another as the first merely blasted a rent through it. Adjusting, I dispatched smaller blasts, spreading them to incinerate the cilia, to scorch its innards and vaporize it as it plunged down on me.
The worm flipped back, rearing high and letting out a guttural screech, a bellow from the depths of its giant tube. It was daunting, a beast among beasts. But I was in my groove now, and I sent a fan of crackling, gray magic at it, severing its tube, ending the bastard thing.
Behind me, more chaos abounded. It was a tangle of writhing knots punctuated by a sword arm here, a stabbing knife there, even a falling halberd. I hesitated for a mere moment and then dove in, seeking out any open maw, blasting it automatically, and then moving on to the next. I stabbed the Nexus Rod into every gaping wound, loosing crackling magic to destroy their innards. I tumbled, rolled, became trapped in the writhing bodies. A slice from a stray blade caught my cheek. A stab from the halberd was deflected by my armor.
It was chaos in its most erratic form. Sutech’s calm order was gone. Then a gaping circle of fangs and cilia bore down on me, and I cracked a ball of concentrated magic down its gut, exploding it once it was far enough down. It was a killing blow. The worm died, its body immediately static. Another tightened around it, reaching up to the black sky as it tried to escape the knot it found itself trapped in. Slowly, the battle turned.
I saw my chance and ran for it but fell, my foot snagging between two of the beasts. I stashed my Nexus Rod and pulled and pulled, finally slipping the boot off as my urgency grew. The worm bellowed, its maw upturned as if it were calling for help. I ran and then climbed its neck, clawing at its dry, welted skin and using its folds as purchase. Equipping my scarletite axes, pulling my way up, I snagged its mouth’s dry rim with my ax heads. It began to writhe, to shake me off. I dropped one ax, hanging by the other, and reequipped the Nexus Rod, slamming into the worm’s open mouth and sending a sphere of magic into it.
The ball exploded. The worm exploded. I somersaulted away, losing my other ax and my Nexus Rod in the process. The force of the blast sent me flying, crashing into the valley’s bank, a bone-shattering collision forcing the
very air from my lungs. I slid a yard or two down before grinding to a halt. XP and damage notifications flashed in my mind.
Thankfully, all the worms appeared to be dead. How well our party fared was another matter. Sutech was busy extracting himself from a fold between two of them. Mezzerain was halfway out from under another. I searched for Faulk and found him almost deadly opposite me, splayed like I probably was. A comedy stance if I’d ever seen one. Then the image of Charlotte being ingested came back to me. I pushed myself up. Could she die a bit more? I didn’t want to lose her. She’d grown on me.
I slipped down the scree, soon aware I only had one boot on. I’d lost my Nexus Rod but felt it calling for me, drawing me down.
Nexus Rod
Charging in progress
Shadowmana 22.4% charged
Light mana 10.9% charged
Rod Harmony – Level 4
Magnification equates to 4 times current charge.
By the time I reached Mezzerain, he was out from under the dead beast’s carcass. Sutech was sitting on one, calling for Pog. Pog shouted back, his answer fairly muffled. Sutech grinned at me, pointing down and away a little. Billy was kneeling by a large skin ring, talking to the carcass like it was alive.
I stumbled over to him, picking my boot up on the way and slipping it on. I crouched next to him.
Charlotte’s muffled voice mumbled out.
“I’m telling you, William Long Thumb, if you don’t get me out of here in an instant, you’re dead meat.”
“And I have news for you, my petal; I am dead meat. Can you move away a little so that I can cut its hide?”
He turned to me. “Now’s our chance. We could leave her here.”
My mouth gaped open.
He laughed, pressing his lips up against the worm skin. “Please move a little, sweetheart.”
A god-awful scream rang out. “If I could move—”
The rest was inaudible; at least, I left it as that.
I punched my way along the coil. Charlotte kept complaining to Billy about it. Eventually, the skin gave way, and I knew I’d reached her end. I called on my magic, focusing on concentrating it to a laserlike focus. As soon as my magic spewed, my Nexus Rod appeared by my side. I grabbed it with my free hand and noted the immediate increase in my power. “Handy!” I exclaimed, and I carved a flap in the worm’s side.