The Secrets of Starellion- the Court of Lincoln Hart

by Ember Lane

  “Strange?” Lincoln said, trying to tease out a bit more information, but Swift seemed oblivious. Lincoln knew he liked the scout, but he just couldn’t figure out why.

  They skirted the giant fungi-forest, and as they did, it became obvious to Lincoln that the majority of it was still made up by trees. The fungus gave it the black-gray color, coating the trunks, branches, and even the leaves with vast, vine-like tendrils and fans of spore-laden gills. He began to smell a damp tang to the air, a rotten mushroom-tainted perfume, and he picked at his nose, trying to keep the stink out for as long as possible. The unerring feeling that everything in the bounds of the fungal wood was struggling to live under the burden of the great parasite, crawled through him.

  Swift was waiting by a jutting rock, resting his back, looking straight at the trees. When Lincoln drew alongside him he saw what resembled a mouth: a great, big, mouth, swallowing a narrow band of sometime-flooded swamp, with a long, thin tongue providing a reasonably dry path in. Lincoln suddenly grinned from ear to ear. He felt his heart quicken further, adrenaline rushing through his veins. He wanted to bellow a great war cry—to beat his chest. He quickly altered his respawn point to a few feet away, raised his staff, flexed his neck, and marched in, pulling Swift with him.

  Now this is what it’s all about!

  Once inside, a path led invitingly away, and Lincoln knew that it was more by design than function, mostly because if nobody walked in or out of the forest, who trod the path? It was wide enough for two to walk side by side, but nowhere near enough to fight. Design again, he concluded. Either side of it, trees struggled under the weight of the overbearing fungi. The filamentous strands entwined like rope, some as thick as Lincoln’s forearm, hanging, draping, and pulling.

  It was dark in there too, not midnight dark, but the type of dark that allowed you to see just enough so that you prayed to see no more. Shafts of light bled down from the heavy canopy, spore motes twirling and swirling in a never-ending cycle. His night vision kicked in, and the gloom lifted to a degree, but it made little difference. It appeared there were only a few hints of color left to be seen, as if the great fungus had leached the rest away. Then he saw some specks of red, but just fleeting glimpses, and that caused him to hesitate.

  Swift had stopped on the edge of the entrance’s light, Lincoln a few yards farther in. “Hmmm,” Swift said, calling to Lincoln. “Spiders, rats, snakes? What do you think?”

  Lincoln’s gut told him it would be some form of beast resembling a pig. It was the usual way of things that places and monsters were somehow related. Pigs and hogs hunted truffles, truffles were mushrooms—spiders, snakes, and rats were not known for a fungal affiliation. “A hog, a boar, rabbits at a push.”

  Swift nodded. “My thoughts. Though there is something else in the air, something rancid, fetid, and evil. Are you going with staff or sword?”

  It was a choice Lincoln had been dithering over. “I’ll stick with the staff, for now. You don’t suppose it could be a troll, do you?”

  He had bad memories of trolls, memories of being reduced to the size of a pizza.

  “Something’s up. No self-respecting witch would want to live in this desperate place. I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll have a witch to persuade at the end of this little jaunt.”

  “Jaunt?” Lincoln grunted. “I’ve known nicer jaunts.”

  “But you’ll be all right, you know,” and Swift pointed to the path. “On your own?”

  “On…my…own? Where will you be?”

  Swift gave him one of those looks again. “Up there,” he said, and pointed to the trees. “It’s a plan of sorts.”

  “Especially if they only saw one of us walk into the glade and down to the entrance,” Lincoln grumbled, trying to point out the futility of hiding now, and not particularly wanting to go in on his own…

  “You give them too much credit. Monsters are lazy. They’ll be no lookouts.” Swift skipped up to a near-dead tree trunk, and into the very dead-looking forest canopy. A storm of spores assailed Lincoln’s nose all over again. Waving the cloud away, and sneezes raking through him, Lincoln twirled his staff, forced his earlier grin back onto his face, and started walking down the winding path. As the light receded, the few areas that lent the place at least a smidgen of color, even if it was blood red, became more regular, and he noticed that white dots were sprinkled on the red, that they were the caps of some reasonably large mushrooms, making them look like they belonged in some fairy tale. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad place, he thought, right up until the first one bit him.

  Damage! Satanshroom has bit you for 18 damage. You have 182/200 health.

  “Aargh!” he cried, looking down to see the monster mushroom clamped around his leg. It jumped away, vicious fangs spreading from the perimeter of it's fan as it leaned one way then the next, sizing him up. Suddenly, its whole cap folded back, and its stalk bent—its end some kind of sucker—and it sprang forward, its cap swooping together with its stem in a viscous bite.

  Lincoln swung his staff like a major league baseball player, its iron-shod end cracking into the ravenous mushroom. It splattered into a thousand pieces, its flesh bursting out in a cone of destruction. Lincoln saw a notification blink red, but ignored it. More of the monster fungi were on the move. He spun around as he realized he was surrounded, he roared and shook his staff in anger.

  “I can do this all day,” he growled. “My health’s already recovered.”

  Screaming, he surged forward, swatting the mushrooms like flies as they flew at him, fang-lined caps snapping. He took out the first, a perfect connection. This time the satanshroom flew into the trees. He splatted the next with a backswing, another with a forward drive, and for just a moment, he wondered if he’d need the apachalant.

  Fangs sliced into his shoulder, followed by a god-awful sucking sound as the thing drank his blood. In a rage, Lincoln shouted “Windmill!” And his staff blurred as he spun around and around. Mushroom flesh flew, its milky white substance splattering everywhere. Still, the thing on his back sucked.

  Damage! Satanshroom is sucking your blood. Initial damage 55, damage over time…nah…you haven’t got that long unless you get on with it!

  Lincoln threw himself onto his back, but the things fangs just went deeper. “Aargh!” he screamed again, but the sucking sound stopped, the thing crushed, and he sat up. He heard a wet plop as the dead shroom fell back onto the trail.

  Congratulations! You cleared ten level-5 satanshrooms. You are awarded 200 XP.

  Satanshrooms eat everything in their path. The forest has no chance of reviving while they roam. Will you clear the forest of another fifty for Belzarra Mistprowler? Belzarra looks favorably on those who help her. Y/N

  Lincoln looked up at the forest’s canopy. “Well?” he shouted up, but Swift didn’t reply. He selected yes.

  “Finally, a bit of grinding!”

  He saw the first, and dispatched it ten yards with a low swing, pirouetted around and sent the next packing with a viscous swipe, all the while strolling farther into the forest. He’d hunted out nearly thirty before he stopped to take a breath. He only had a third of his energy left. Keeping his eyes wide, Lincoln observed his surroundings.

  A small, slight slope angled away, steps of ugly, black fungus clinging to all the surrounding tree trunks. The soil was dark, rich, and just waiting to burst forth with new life.

  Something else is going on here…

  He saw a red-top shuffle across, hiding behind a trunk. Another rustling, a glimpse of another satanshroom, more red-tops on the move.

  They’re thinking, coordinating, working as a pack…

  His eyes darted around, trying to work out their plan. He spotted a small hillock, easy to defend, and then darted toward it. Trailing vine ropes of platted hyphae stuck to his face, pulling him back until they snapped with a dull twang, making him stumble forward. Numerous red-tops surged toward him, trying to circle around him. Their rustling was intense, creepy, sinister, and w
ith one giant leap, he landed on the hillock, no more than a brown hump. A defiant roar burst from him. He cuffed the strands of fungus from his brow, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  “Come on!” he yelled, and started swinging as they came at him.

  He lost count after the first swings, but knew he’d hit his quest when his stat board went crazy, but still they came. Just as he was about to run out of energy, he felt that unstoppable feeling in his stomach.

  Congratulations! You have completed the quest, ‘Clear fifty satanshrooms’. Your reputation with Belzarra Mistprowler has changed from Murderous to Excessively Hostile. You have cleared fifty satanshrooms. You are awarded 1000 XP. May the forest thrive again.

  A fan of brilliant, white light spread through him, circling him and then enveloping him in a sphere of purity. He levitated, hovering over the hillock as the last of the twisted mushrooms threw themselves at him. As they hit the light, they fizzed, shriveled, and fell to the ground with a plop.

  Congratulations! You have leveled up. You are now level 7. You have 6 unallocated Attribute points.

  He didn’t even hesitate, just pumped the points straight into agility. His tired muscles immediately stopped aching, and he felt a good few pounds lighter. He started jumping from foot to foot, ready for the next challenge.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Swift’s voice called down from above.

  Lincoln scanned the forest, but could see no threat. “Why?” he asked. Wondering why the apachalant hadn’t bothered helping him.

  “I’d have joined in, but I saw you were doing okay, and you leveled up—nice,” Swift said, fairly cheerily, as if he were reading Lincoln’s mind.

  “Why shouldn’t I jump up and down?” Lincoln asked.

  “You might wake it.”

  “What?”

  “The ogre.”

  4

  Undead

  Lincoln rolled his eyes and looked up at the apachalant. “Ogre?”

  “You’re on its stomach…”

  At that exact same moment, Lincoln felt the hillock move. It was like he was standing on a plate of jelly. He wobbled, his legs wobbled, and the stomach wobbled, before a huge belch sounded out, and he was unceremoniously dumped on the forest’s floor with a splash. Lincoln scrambled around in the splatted, fungi mush trying to gain his footing.

  The ground in front of him began to rise, and slowly, the ogre became clear. Sitting up at first, it peered around sleepily. It looked a little like Pete the half-giant, the same spherical face, the same quite-dozy look, and a similar haircut. He had an old pair of blue dungarees on, with one of the suspenders undone, and was absolutely filthy, covered in mud, slime, and fungi. Just as Lincoln was thinking of sneaking away, he noticed the ogre’s eyes as they locked on to him.

  They were dead, devoid of any life. Not black, or anything like that, but big, yellowing, rotting balls, one with its iris part peeling away. His skin was gray and had jagged tears in it, but no blood flowed through; there appeared to be none, the edges of his lesions crusted black. He had fungi for earlobes, and filaments of mycelium for chest hair. As if an ogre wasn’t bad enough…

  A bloody zombie ogre…

  Lincoln tried to scramble back but kept slipping in the satanshroom goo. He fumbled around in the mush for his staff, desperate to get away from the beast. Feeling his staff, he grabbed it, but then thought better of it. He knew he’d never get a decent whack in; the ogre looked too tall. Pulling out his sack of holding, he stashed his staff, popped the sack away and drew his sword.

  Zombified Ogre. Name: Growler the Growler. Level=13. Status=Hostile

  Growler the Growler stood and reached up, stretching his arms into the forest’s canopy as he let out a huge sigh, very nearly upending Swift who landed a little way away from Lincoln.

  “Want a hand with this one?” the apachalant asked, as Growler the Growler looked down at them and bellowed, near drowning them in putrid gob. The smell of its dead insides made Lincoln retch, his body wanting to convulse, but he mustered his courage and raised his scarletite sword.

  Growler lumbered forward. He bellowed again and lunged straight for Lincoln. Seeing it coming, Lincoln dove under the ogre’s charge slicing at the beast’s outstretched leg as he rolled. Spinning around, he was surprised to see Growler already facing him, and shocked to see Swift leaning against a nearby tree trunk.

  “Are you gonna join in any time soon?” Lincoln shouted.

  “I’m not the one that needs the XP,” Swift called back.

  Lincoln grunted. Growler charged. Holding his ground until the last moment, Lincoln ducked under the beast’s clumsy lunge and thrust his sword into the ogre, and skipped aside at the last moment, but he forgot about the fungi goo. Sliding, slipping, he lost his balance, his feet scrambling backward, but his momentum took him forward. He grabbed at a branch, but the dead wood just snapped off and he stumbled around, momentarily losing his direction.

  He felt his jacket pulled, and his body lurched backward. His feet flew in the air, he struggled, tried to break free, but the ogre just spun him like a doll and looked him straight in the eye. Lincoln brought his sword up, determined to strike out, but without firm footing he could gain no purchase. Ignoring Lincoln’s waving sword, Growler punched him straight in the stomach, and let him go at the same time.

  The air exploded from his lungs, his ribs snapped, crushed by the force of the ogre’s punch. Lincoln flew through the air, crashing into a couple of dead trees, snapping them in two, his sword arcing away. Thudding onto the forest floor, he scrambled around for his sword. Gasping, the pain from the snapped bones riddling his body. Its intensity shocked him. Even when he’d been pizza’d, it hadn’t hurt like this, although it had been over so fast that he’d hardly remembered it. This was different; this was ongoing.

  Damage! You have sustained 85 damage. Your health is 115/200.

  Growler was looking around, sniffing the air, trying to find his prey.

  Eyesight not so good, eh?

  “Here,” said Swift, and offered Lincoln a small vial part filled with a red, almost black liquid. “Just a small sip, mind you.”

  Lincoln swallowed a few drops of the liquid.

  Congratulations! You have drunk the blood of Brodgrat the Spider and recouped your health. Spiders' blood heals the body; spiders' poison kills the mind. Don’t mix up the vials!

  He felt the blood’s power course through his body and screamed as his ribs bent, fused, and clicked back into place. His spine hunched and then arched, and his shoulders flexed back and forth until all the pieces of his bone puzzle slotted into place. He clicked his neck, flexed his arms and muttered, “Good as new.” Tossing the vial back to Swift.

  The apachalant offered him his scarletite sword. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Lincoln shook his head. “Thing’s got no blood; gonna have to do it the hard way.”

  The ogre was still looking around, trying to find his opponent. Circling, Lincoln skirted the goo-strewn area and came up behind the beast. His eyes afire with rage, Lincoln ran at the ogre, diving as he got close. His shoulders crashed into the back of Growler’s legs. The ogre went down onto his knees, bellowing his surprise, reaching behind, and trying to grab Lincoln.

  Springing up, Lincoln clambered up the ogre’s back by the straps of his dungarees. Getting a foothold in the strap’s V, he grabbed hold of the Growler’s massive head and then launched himself over the beast’s shoulder. Lincoln kicked into the ogre, getting a purchase on his chest, diving across him and spinning Growler’s neck. It snapped with a sickening, empty crack.

  Lincoln’s momentum deposited him in the satanshroom’s goo again, arms outstretched, and Growler’s head in his hands.

  Touch down!

  Spluttering, he let go of the head and wiped his face, sitting up and taking a breath. He was just in time to see the ogre’s torso fall forward. He heard a slow clap ring out.

  “Nicely done,” Swift called. “T
hough I think the forest had eaten a lot of its power.”

  Congratulations! You have vanquished Growler the Growler, a level-13 Zombie Ogre. You are awarded 1200 XP plus 200 XP per difference in level. Total 2400 XP.

  “Here,” Swift said, tossing Lincoln a double headed ax. “Loot, and if I may say, much more…you…than a sword. You have a unique style.”

  Slice ’n Slaughter—Congratulations! You have obtained a rare ax once wielded in battle in this very dale by the Sandriders of Thurl. Thurl holds many ancient secrets, as does this ax. Study its runes—in dark times may it shine…

  “Shame,” Swift said. “You blew your chances of understanding those runes.” He offered his hand to Lincoln.

  “How so?” Lincoln asked, getting to his feet and hunting around for his sword.

  “Thurl is in Atremeny—right up the northern part where the sun is eternal. So, shame you sent the Atreman away.”

  Lincoln grunted, wiping himself down. “Never sent him away,” he pointed out.

  “You could have ordered him to stay. From what I’m told he would have.”

  “And how would that have worked out for me?” Lincoln studied the ax.

  It had a hardwood shaft, just over two feet long with crisscrossed, inlaid, leather strips traveling all the way up it, pinned in place with small bronze studs everywhere the strands of leather crossed. One end was capped with silver, and a small but sturdy chain looped through an eyehole. But it was the business end that interested him the most.

  Its twin blades would have formed a perfect circle were it not for the ax’s shaft. Each fanned around in a quarter slice; it’s honed, razor-sharp edge the only part that didn’t hold Lincoln’s reflection. The blades were held in place by a silver collar that clearly compressed the wooden handle onto it. Lincoln brought the ax’s head closer. Three runes were etched onto each side of the collar, though they made no sense to him.