by Lee Duckett
“What’d ya mean ‘no’!?” demanded the dwarf, glaring at the wizard.
“It’s a mimic, which means if you stab it you’ll go through to stab Aria!” the wizard yelled over the cleric’s muffled screams, throwing another Frost Ray. “Slice where you know she has armor, don’t slash!” he advised, “And when it runs, pin it if you can.”
As Rurik approached, the creature swung its body at the dwarf, trying to hit him or get him to strike back and injure its struggling prey. “‘Ow am I supposed ta do that when it won’t sit still!”
~And it ate her!~ Fayne sent, bow shaking but ready to fire. ~Why aren’t you worried!?~
Badger sent another ray at it, impacting where Aria’s head should be. More of the creature froze and cracked, pure white blood flung about as it twisted. “Because if it eats something whole, it digests it with acid,” he remarked.
~What!~ Fayne replied, shooting an arrow at the top of the creature, trying to only hit the part that had closed over Aria’s head, missing it by inches.
“Aasimars are minorly resistant to cold, acid, and electricity,” The wizard reassured them, hitting the Mimic again as the samurai took a few, cautious swipes at it.
One of Rurik’s blows struck too hard and there was a muffled scream, the pure white blood of the creature now intermixing with red. “Sorry!” the dwarf yelled, cringing.
“If it were one of us in there, this might be bad,” the wizard stated, a hint of strain in his voice, hitting the creature near where Aria’s head should be again. As the flesh froze and broke off in the creature’s struggles a gasp could be heard, along with Aria’s “Hel-mmf!” as the mimic shifted itself to cover her once more. Badger winced at the sound, visibly controlling his breathing as he fired off another blast of cold.
After a four more Rays of Frost, three carefully aimed arrows, and two careful sword swings the mimic unraveled from Aria and tried to run for the door, rolling itself up and flopping over sideways rapidly to try to gain momentum. It was riddled with arrows and eldritch fire as it tried to flee, Rurik charging up behind it to stab into it. It shuddered as his swords ripped into it until what little of it was left was shreds covered in white blood.
Aria was on her hands and knees, skin red and blotchy, breathing in deep gasps. As she moved to heal herself, the yellow-ish syrup that covered her dripped onto the floor, sizzling as it tried to eat away at the stone. “What. Was. That?” she demanded, spitting out a bit of acid and trying not to retch.
Her husband was by her side in an instant, moving to hold her before shaking his head. He cast his cantrip to clean her off with magic, starting with her face. “Mimic. They pretend to look like normal things, until they strike,” he explained, finding comfort in being able to instruct. “They like to pretend to be chests, but they can be anything. Heard a story where a mimic turned into a warehouse, and would eat intruders, as well as the occasional worker. Small ones chew, but they prefer to restrain and digest, so I knew you were fine.”
“Fine? Fine?” she demanded. “Do I look fine?”
“I always think you look fine,” he quipped, cutting off her angry retort with a, “Look at the floor.”
She did so, seeing the digestive goop that dripped off her with no more than mild irritation was eating away at the stone floor, and looked back at her husband, confused. “How?”
“Aasimars are resistant to acid, along with cold and electricity,” he told her, a bit confused himself. “You didn’t know that?”
“I. . . I forgot,” she admitted. “It didn’t come up in her life. But if that could eat stone then why. . .” she fingered her intact wooden holy symbol.
He continued to clean her off as Fayne took a seat on the bed and Rurik prodded the dead mimic pieces with his sword. “Because the resistance you have is magical, so it extends to everything you’re carrying. It only works for nonliving things though. I could explain why, but I’d need to explain a lot more for you to understand the explanation. Like how you need to know disk geometry to understand sector duplication.”
Aria blinked at that “Yes, of course,” she agreed, obviously not knowing what he was talking about. “So, if it had grabbed Rurik. . .”
Her husband nodded, “It would have been a lot worse.”
“Oh. . . okay,” she said to herself with a sigh, getting up, having finished healing herself. “So, if the carpet was a mimic, how can we be sure that the bed isn’t?”
“Already stabbed it lass,” Rurik told her. “That would do it, right wee-man?”
The wizard nodded, “They only mimic the surface. They can look like something, but smaller ones have the skin-strength of cured leather.”
The party looked around at the well-furnished bedroom with sudden suspicion. ~Frost hurts them, right?~ Fayne asked.
~It does,” Badger replied, understanding their concern. ~Any energy type will, but mimics are usually solitary.~
~Do it anyways,~ Aria advised. Badger opened his mouth to argue, but seeing the expressions of his party members nodded, hand misting with cold once more.
A few tense minutes passed as the gnome tagged every piece of furniture in the room with a Ray of Frost. The party only relaxed when the last item, a sturdy looking chair, was unmoved by the blue-white beam. The cold hadn’t been so extreme as to damage wood but would’ve been more than enough to freeze disguised flesh, and the wizard was quick to explain how the records he’d read stated that mimics never got smaller than a breadbox.
Cleared of obvious dangers, the group began to search, except for Fayne, who was instructed to get under the covers to get warm by a very insistent Aria. The elf tried to object, but the fact that she had to do so telepathically because she was shivering so badly it was hard for her to talk undercut that quite a bit.
“Found the key!” Rurik called, having discovered a secret drawer in the stone dresser.
“What key?” Badger, looking through the papers in the desk asked.
~The key for the other door in the church,~ Fayne told him, mentally comparing the key with the composition of the lock she’d try to pick. ~And I can help search, what if there’s traps?~
Rurik grunted in disagreement, “Then Aria’ll patch us back up lassie. Undead be nasty, and if ya don’t get on top of what they do ta ya right quick,” he shook his head. “Are the blankets helpin’?”
~. . . yes,~ The archer sent sullenly.
“Then stay there. We need ya ready to dance about with that bow of yours fer whatever comes next!” he told her, Aria nodding in agreement. The elf huffed, but stayed where she was until the party had finished.
Spreading out their findings there were a couple of coin-purses, a potion of Bark-Skin, two minor healing potions, and a gold holy symbol of Andruft, dwarven god of smithing and magic. Additionally, there was a good deal of paperwork, which ranged from inventory statements. to sermons, to copies of letters.
“Rurik, take the potions, but put them in your belt,” Badger instructed, gathering up the gold.
The dwarf looked back at the gnome with a raised eyebrow. “If one of us be needin’ extra protection, it be you wee man.”
The wizard shook his head in negation, “Which is why I wouldn’t be in place to get hit in the first place. If you have enough time to drink a potion, you have enough time to get away. No, if this is anything like the last Lair then there’s gonna be something nasty here, something like that walking tree, and this will help you get in its face.”
“I do like gettin’ in thing’s faces,” the dwarf agreed thoughtfully, stroking his beard, “Assumin’ they have faces. Well, if it be missin one, I could make one.”
~Ewww!~ Fayne interjected.
Aria just looked confused as Rurik shot back, “Oi, I just meant I’d cut a mouth in it, stab fer eyes, ya know, mess it up!” He grabbed the potions, carefully sliding them into a pouch on his belt. “Fine, but what’re ya gonna do with the gold?”
Badger shrugged, “Put it in the Bag of Holding, what else?”
<
br /> “How much money do we have?” Aria asked intently.
The gnome just shrugged again, “More? Unless we find a shop down here, it’s not going to matter. So, I need to get my spells back, which means we need to rest for a bit. It’s not so many that I’ll need a full rest, but I will need a more than a few minutes.”
“Didn’t we just rest an ‘our or two ago?” Rurik asked. “I’m good ta go!”
“Just an hour or two to re-memorize my spells,” the wizard contended. “Not sure how long it will take for Fayne to get better, though at least Aria still has all her spells.”
The cleric in question winced, “Um, actually. . .” she made a face as the party turned to look at her, even Fayne sitting up in the bed. “I’m almost tapped out,” she admitted, “But it’s okay!”
“We’re almost out o’ healing and it’s okay? I’d like to ‘ear how that works, lassie!” Rurik thundered. “Especially with y’all tuggin’ on my beard ‘bout workin’ with the rest of ya.”
“Don’t take that tone of voice with me young man!” she snapped. He just stood, arms folded, and stared at her, face stony.
She stared back, and opened her mouth when Badger put a hand on her side, unable to reach her shoulder. She frowned and disclosed, “When I heal, it uses the same magic I can use for spells. A little bit doesn’t change anything, but more than that. . . I lose spells.”
“Lose spells?” Badger asked confusedly, “How do you ‘lose spells’?”
“My magic isn’t like yours,” she explained, frowning as she tried to put the concept into words he’d understand. “You have formulas and patterns, but I receive mine from a god. My power is his and just as he can affect the world through me, I can help people through him. It’s why any spell I have, I can turn into a healing spell, because my god’s power is the power of life itself.”
“Because of that, when I tap it to heal others bit by bit, I’m still turning my spells into healing. It’s slower, but by being careful with it I can use it to heal more over time than I can in a burst.” she shrugged. “It’s. . . it’s hard to describe. Aria never did that before, well, before we got here, so she never talked to anyone about it. I only noticed it yesterday because I was trying to keep track what I could cast, since I wasn’t distracted like I was when we first got here. But it’s okay! Because in about an hour I’ll have it all back!” she smiled beatifically.
Blank stares surrounded her. “Why?” Rurik finally asked.
She blinked, “What?”
“Why are you getting all your spells back in an hour?” the dwarf clarified.
“Because it will be noon?” was her reply. “When my god is at the zenith of his influence?”
Fayne sat back in her bed with a groan while the samurai just looked at her. Badger spoke up, “How do you know that, honey?”
She glanced around before shaking her head, “I’m sorry, I forgot you can’t feel-” she cut herself off. “Because of my connection to Solus, who, in a sense, is the sun, I know when it’s up. At its highest point his influence is enough to bestow his power unto his chosen, even if his light does not shine directly on them. That’s in. . .” she squinted up towards the ceiling, as if she could actually see the sun, “about eighty minutes.”
“. . . Okay then,” her husband said, looking around. “So, hour and a half break?”
◆◆◆
~Are you sure this is necessary?~ asked the elf, looking cross as the Aasimar held a small white jar covered with suns in gold filigree, in which she’d burned holy incense.
“It is if you want to get better in minutes instead of hours,” Aria informed her, “Now strip!”
Fayne frowned at her, still shivering uncontrollably, and was glad that Rurik and Badger had been sent out of the room to ‘guard’. She held out for another few moments to communicate how she wasn’t okay with this, before sighing, letting Aria help her up and remove her armor. ~I’m keeping my underwear on, and this better be worth it!~ she declared
~What?~ Rurik asked over the connection. ~What are ya two lassie’s doin’ in there?~
~Helping to heal her, stay out there!~ “It will be,” the cleric reassured, setting the elf back on the bed and painting sun sigils across her supernaturally cold skin. “The effect on you was made not only by undead, but cold undead, the only way it could be more against everything that Solus is about would be if its touch were to have a darkness-based symptoms.”
“L-l-least it’s w-w-warm,” the elf stuttered, not wanting the boys to overhear but enjoying the dull warmth of the sigils. Aria paused, looking at the ash in surprise. “W-w-what?”
“It’s nothing dear,” she replied, smiling, continuing to apply the room-temperature substance. “I just have a good feeling about this.”
After she’d finished creating the ritual symbols, finishing with a stylized sun painted midway between the elf’s belly button and her bust, the cleric murmured a prayer and a small ball of flame, absolutely tiny in her cupped hands blazed to light. The coin-sized star lifted up, warming the room and seeming to banish the darkness which the torches could only hold at bay. Despite its luminosity it cast no shadows, the entire room becoming uniformly lit, as if by the noonday sun.
“Solus: Father of Light, Scourge of Undeath, Bringer of the New Dawn, I pray to you for your aid!” the cleric called, her golden-blonde hair glimmering in the light. “This humble soul calls to you in need to bring light to the darkness, to heal the injured, and to destroy that which makes itself a profane mockery of your divine radiance. More than the gift of your light by which you deem me worthy as your servant, I beseech you to help my kin, who has had a lasting grievance inflicted upon her by an abomination of ice and unlife.”
Fayne couldn’t completely put into words what changed, but it was almost like the magical star hanging in front of Aria shifted from a construct of divine magic to an extension of the sun itself, no longer under the Aasimar’s control. Fayne couldn’t help but think it looked confused before it turned its gaze upon her. A feeling settled upon her of the midday sun, where shade was fleeting and of little help to escape the heat.
“She does not walk your path of radiance, Lord of Life, but supports one who does as she stands by my side and protects me. Her soul is bright, and while she hides in shadows, she hunts those who live in darkness. I implore you Solus to use me as your conduit and heal her, even though it may cost me dearly.”
Fayne blinked at that, wanting to sit up and object. What did she mean by ‘cost me’? Aria said she’d be fine in a few hours! Even if Maggie could be a jerk, Grace didn’t want her to hurt herself for Grace’s sake! As she tried to speak up and say such, she found herself unable to respond. That all-revealing star seemed to hold her down with the force of its light as it pinned her down like the desert sun that bleached bones. The light flickered slightly, as if it were surprised, but what could surprise a god? The sphere of flame’s harsh radiance softened to a warm and comforting brightness, reminding her of summers with her family at the lake; her father lazily snoozing in a hammock, pretending not to smile as he watched his daughters play in the sands of the beach.
Her skin warmed, the symbols painted on her glowing gold as the warmth settled inwards, gently rooting out and dispelling the painful, bone-deep cold that the frost wight had forced into her. The glow from the symbols brightened, blue-white mist pulling itself out of her and collecting itself in the center of the sun on her stomach, the golden light wrapping around it and crushing it into nothingness.
The glow faded, the ash that had anchored it disappearing, leaving her feeling as if she’d just woken up from a nap outside, pleasantly warm and well rested. An omnipresent feeling of paternal approval remained within her as she sat up, the sun in front of Aria now a magical construct once more. The cleric breathed hard as it guttered out like a candle at the end of its wick.
“Aria!” Fayne called, springing up from the bed and rushing to her side, catching her as the healer staggered. “Are you o
kay?”
“I’m fine honey,” she smiled, taking a deep breath. “Channeling the power of one’s god is supposed to be draining, like turning undead or mass healing, but even worse. We mortals are not capable of doing so fully, except for a chosen few, of which I am not. How are you?”
Fayne wouldn’t be deterred, “I would’ve been fine in a couple hours! You didn’t have to do. . . do that!” Aria winced. “Right?” the elf pressed.
“Possibly,” the cleric hedged. “Maybe. Probably not, and I didn’t have the power to heal you on my own.”
“Wait, what?” Fayne demanded. “You said I’d be fine with a bit of rest!”
The healer shook her head, “I said what you needed to hear. You might have gotten better, but those things pull on your fortitude and yours. . .” she glanced at the elf’s slight frame, no longer bundled under cloth-covered leather armor, “isn’t the sturdiest, dear. Besides, everything turned out just fine,” she smiled, “Better than fine, Solus himself granted me a boon. That’s. . . rare.”
“Some boon, you’re exhausted!” she shot back.
Aria waved away her concerns, “It could’ve been far worse, when you ask a god for a boon you don’t get to name the price, after all. Whatever it was though, I’d’ve been willing to pay it, with the alternative being your d- not worth considering,” she corrected. Fayne wanted to ask exactly what she meant by that, but the aasimar continued, “Besides, I’ll be fine in a few, Grace. Just. . . he heard me.” she smiled to herself, sitting on the bed and taking a sip from her waterskin.
Fayne looked at her cousin/aunt/whatever and asked hesitantly, “Not that I’m not grateful, but aren’t you, you know, a Christian?”
The cleric shook her head, “‘For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.’ It may just be Aria’s memories, but a sermon to Solus feels a lot like a sermon to God. He has many names: Yahweh, Jehova, Shaddai, maybe here he’s Solus?” She shrugged, “Or maybe I’m wrong and just trying to justify my changing faith, either way, he answered and healed you, and for that I am grateful.”