?HP
“Big” unknown? That was the only nugget of information that changed? Are you kidding me?
Ben scoffed, and Chloe already knew why.
“Nothing useful,” Ben said, shaking his head.
“A ‘big’ load of nothing useful?”
Ben nodded.
“How are we supposed to defeat this damn thing?” Jesepiah asked from nowhere.
“Gideon seems to be doing well, holding the fort,” Tag reported.
Chloe narrowed her eyes. “Think again. Even Gideon’s mage-boosted mana is going to run out soon. See?”
Tag and the others saw Gideon, creases covering his face as he fought to contain the blob. His forehead was drenched in sweat, and they all wondered how long he’d be able to hold on for.
“Then what do you suggest?” Tag said. “We need to do something. Either the blob is going to outlast Gideon and he ends up getting sucked into the living oil stain, or the big beast is going to die first. We don’t know its health. Maybe this is enough to kill it.”
Chloe doubted that very much. The beings protecting the pieces of KieraFreya were hardly going to keel over and die that easily. She had gotten incredibly lucky with her first piece of armor, lucky beyond words. Without the intervention of the gods, she wasn’t sure how she would ever have made it to the bracers.
Trolls, labyrinths, fire pits—all manner of dangers.
And then the greaves. They had been protected by some of the fiercest bugs she’d ever seen, bugs that made the spiders that scared the crap out of Hilary in the bath look like fluffy bunnies.
Chloe had had to run from the insects, abandon the fighting and escape. Of course, she hadn’t had anyone helping her then, but was this band of newly-classified trainees enough to take down the guardians of a set of magical armor sent to the earth by the gods themselves?
The blob answered for her as Gideon groaned, collapsing to his knees on the floor. The strings remained, but the electricity stopped. The blob seemed to grin as its body thinned, the rope falling slack and dropping to the floor. Manipulating its body, the blob squeezed through the cords, coming close to the adventures, now completely unchained once again.
“Run!” Chloe said, kicking the others into gear as the blob came for them. It punched its hands into the spot where they just were. Chloe dragged Gideon to his feet, pulling at him with all her strength.
They got away just in time, sprinting around the edges of the sandworm’s digestive organ, bashing and destroying smaller blobs on their way.
“Stop it!” Chloe shouted at Tag as she watched the fragments of blob begin to migrate toward the mother beast. “Can’t you see that’s what it wants? It’s growing all the time.”
Tag looked at his hammer in horror. “Sorry!”
Chloe wracked her brain for a solution, avoiding blobs now as they went. When they reached the tunnel they had traveled through to get here, they were dismayed to see that it had sealed itself and was now entirely closed.
“Now what?” Tag wheezed. He was not as physically fit as the others.
Chloe looked at Gideon, who was doubled over with his hands on his knees. She remembered his previous magic trick, and suddenly, the answer came.
Chapter Seventy
“I’ve got an idea,” Chloe said, “and it just might work.”
“It needs to,” Tag replied. “If not, we’re screwed.”
Ben touched a finger to his chin. “Hold on, can’t we just all, like, die? If we kill ourselves, we’ll all end up back with the sharks—”
“Sherikans,” Chloe corrected.
“Sherikans, anyway.” Ben laughed and clapped his hands together. “Problem solved. Let the big ol’ bad blob swallow us whole, and we’ll be free!”
“We can’t,” Tag said, an edge to his voice Chloe hadn’t heard before. “What about Jessie? She’s an NPC. She’ll die without us helping her escape.”
Ben raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Awfully fired up over a girl you’ve been ignoring for the last few days. What’s the matter, little one? Somebody got a crush?”
“No,” Tag snapped, his cheeks flushing. “No, not at all.”
“Oh, Taggy!” Jesepiah said, appearing from beneath the invisibility cloak and dragging him under. They both disappeared, but they could hear Jesepiah smooching Tag as he protested and fought her off.
He emerged a second later, looking disheveled. His eyes locked with Ben’s. “Not. A. Word.”
Chloe suddenly shouted, “Focus! In case you didn’t notice, we’ve got bigger problems.”
The blob had now turned and was coming toward them at an alarming speed.
Chloe bent down to Gideon. “How many more of those potions you got, Gid?”
“A handful. Why?”
“Because my idea is going to take a lot of magic, and I need your help to make this happen.”
She whispered directions into Gideon’s ears, his eyes widening as she unfolded her plan. He shook his head a couple of times, but after some soothing words from his leader, he got to his feet. “Okay, let’s do this.”
While Gideon drained yet another potion, glancing nervously at the approaching beast, Chloe summoned her firepower into Tag’s and Ben’s weapon.
“Pick off anything that comes near us. We need total concentration,” she ordered.
The others nodded unquestioningly, having previously learned that one of Chloe’s ideas generally meant fun, danger, and great rewards.
Chloe resumed her place beside Gideon. “Okay, go!”
Gideon and Chloe manipulated their hands, swirling them around each other. A moment later strings shot out of Gideon’s hands, white and ethereal, glowing as though the power of the gods was inside.
Rather than firing toward the blob, the strings skirted the edges of the organ, running in several lines around the wall, passing each other as they reached the far end and returning, then looping again, running like Gideon’s father’s cables around his living room baseboards.
Chloe waited for the right moment, listening to Ben and Tag preventing the little blobs from interrupting. Her eyes locked on the mother blob and a small smile touched the sides of her mouth.
“I’m sorry, you blobby piece of—”
“Shit?” KieraFreya whispered.
“But I’m pretty sure your host has a super bad case of,” she paused and bit her lip, and suddenly her hands exploded in purple flame, “heartburn.”
She placed her hands on the strings streaming out of Gideon’s hands. The white light was suddenly tinged with purple as the flame chased the string around the walls of the fleshy cavern. The blob’s mouth hung open as it swiveled on the spot, watching as the flame looped and relooped around itself, filling the organ with the smell of barbecue.
The flames leaped between the cables, crackling and roaring as the fire built. Chloe held the strings tightly, plumping in as much energy as she could possibly provide. Her mana was depleting at a rapid speed, and she worried about Gideon’s as his eyes screwed shut in concentration.
“Now, Jesepiah!” Chloe shouted, hearing someone fiddle beside her and feeling the mouth of the bottle find her lips. Jesepiah fed both mages like baby lambs, filling their mana to the top once more.
“Your turn, Gid.” Chloe grunted, gripping the strings and taking the reins. She felt their power in her hands. It tried to pull forward, as though she were walking a herd of horses who wanted nothing more to charge and only she prevented them.
The entire cavern shook as that same hull-scraping-in-shallow-water sound echoed around them. The blob wobbled and morphed shape, trying to find its balance.
Gideon shouted incomprehensible words. Blue electricity followed the flames, winding like a vortex around the cables. The effect was intense, crackling, sizzling, popping, and roasting as the cavern shook again, the entire organ shifting sharply in one direction, then the other as the sandworm began to thrash in pain.
“It’s working! Keep holding on,” Chloe shoute
d, unsure if her voice could be heard above the din.
The blob began to freak out, advancing on them in a frenzy. Tag and Ben stood in front of Chloe and Gideon, fire-coated weapons swirling and turning, touching the fire to the blob. It screeched and bucked but now looked more than slightly annoyed at the adventurers.
Gideon’s face was a mask of pain and effort. Veins stood out on his neck, and his face was charred and blackened. Chloe was a mirror reflection, two mages uniting to push enough magic to make an impact.
Chloe closed her eyes as Jesepiah topped up her mana—the last bottle each for her and Gid—and shouted at the top of her lungs, the ropes bucking and pulling in her hands. She forced her flames to build, seeing only purple behind her closed eyelids. The sandworm bucked, but she and Gideon held tight.
They had a sudden feeling they were rising. The blob rolled backward, slamming into the back wall. Tag and Ben fell with it, narrowly avoiding being sucked into its flesh.
There was a colossal sound of a cannonball being fired, and the sandworm lurched. The flames tore at its innards, but Chloe couldn’t see; she could only hold on.
Hold on.
Hold on with her best friend at her side. She felt him there, giving it everything he had. She gave one last push of etheric potential, hearing the sandworm screaming at the top of its lungs, the floor shaking and quaking, the entire cavernous organ moving with it.
A moment later, the sandworm stilled.
Chloe took deep breaths, letting go of the reins. Her whole body had been depleted of its power.
“Did we do it?” Gid asked, unable to lift his head.
When Chloe looked up, the light hurt her eyes. She couldn’t quite make out what she was seeing. Where the ceiling of the worm’s organ had been, there were now ragged holes as skin flapped and caved inward. She could see the flawless blue of the sky beyond.
A zephyr of fresh air floated through the burned ruin of the sandworm and Chloe inhaled deeply, the air revitalizing her body enough to make her see what had happened.
Impossibly, her plan had worked. The flames and electricity had eaten away at the flesh, creating huge holes in the worm’s body. The blobs, unable to withstand the sun and open air, had shriveled and were now just thick, viscous puddles on the organ’s floor, frying and boiling away.
Chloe let out a shallow laugh, the force of it almost painful. Taking Gideon’s hand, she stood up, following the others as they made it to the walls, the edges of the holes still crackling away with small embers.
Tag lifted Gideon high enough to jump down to the desert sand. Ben followed, leaping in one swift movement. As Chloe bent to help Tag, he suddenly paused, eyes looking wildly around.
“What is it?” Chloe asked, but then the realization hit her, too.
Tag turned back, seeing the body lying face-down in the puddle. He cried out, ran over, and hauled her up and over his shoulder. Chloe helped him and Jesepiah over the walls, lowering her to Ben, who caught her and laid her gently on the sand, protected by the shade thrown by the sandworm’s monstrous bulk.
“Is she okay?” Tag said desperately. “Is she…”
Ben raised his head solemnly, shaking it from side to side. “I’m sorry, bud. She’s gone.”
Chloe’s heart sank. She knelt beside her friend, the one who had busted her out of jail and helped them through their abuse of magical power. The one who had been able to pull them together and make this work.
“No!” Tag sobbed. “No…”
Gideon fell to his knees too, only his face wasn’t sad, just crestfallen. He dug into his pocket and fished out his final potion. “Here,” he said, presenting it to Chloe.
“What’s this for?” Chloe asked, wiping away a tear with the back of her hand.
“You know what it’s for,” Gideon said. “It’s for the better mage to perform her magic.”
Chloe took the potion, just holding it in her hand. It took her head a moment to catch up, her exhausted body still struggling with the idea that Jesepiah was gone. That no more would she hear her quips or see her swooning over Tag, the dwarf now folded over her body. No spell would bring her back from this. No piece of magic in the world would…
There it was. Gideon nodded, sensing her understanding.
Chloe thought back to the cavern with the black mage and the tiny scroll she had taken from his pocket and read the words, learning the incantation that she had all but forgotten.
“Stand back,” Chloe commanded, rising to her feet.
Ben gave her a strange look. Tag ignored her entirely.
“I said, stand back,” Chloe said, roughly grabbing Tag’s shoulder and pulling him off Jesepiah.
The dwarf protested, looking at Chloe as though she were a skelly that had taken his hammer. He tried to return to Jesepiah’s body, but Ben held him back, telling him to hold on. Just hold on.
Chloe let out a breath, doing her best to bring calm to her center. She had no idea if this was going to work, but it was worth a shot.
Her lips began to move of their own accord, words and whispers she’d never heard but knew from the inside of her body out. Her hands reached for Jesepiah, locating her chest as a mystic hum and glow began to pour out of her, raising the tiny hairs covering Jesepiah’s body.
She felt within herself for everything that life meant. For love, for meaning, for friendship, honor, loyalty, valor. She filled her head with memories of Jesepiah and their journey together, her body aching as the mana once more drained from her, leaving not a single drop behind.
Chloe opened her eyes and looked straight into Jesepiah’s confused face. The smuggler let out a small cough, glanced at the others, and slowly sat up.
“What happened? Did we win?”
Chloe laughed, a tear falling from her eyes. She waved at the sandworm’s corpse, beached on the sand like a bloated whale.
“What the hell do you think?”
The others laughed, then leaped to Jesepiah and engulfed her in their arms.
Chapter Seventy-One
Chloe awoke in the blinding dark, unsure exactly where she was. She was cocooned inside something tight, her body folded in half as she gripped the edges of the bath and pulled herself free with a grunt.
The world was dark around her, her mind still mildly clinging to her dreams. She cast a small fireball, which illuminated the sherikan bedroom around her, and smiled.
It had taken some convincing for Finley to remove the water from the bath for the adventurers. They had seen it as something of an insult to move it elsewhere until Chloe and the others had explained the ways and rituals of their own land.
“We just don’t sleep in water,” Gideon protested.
“What do you sleep on, then?”
Gideon palmed his forehead. “Beds. Flat, squishy, comfortable beds.”
Despite more grumbling, Finley had relented, accommodating them all in the sherikan palace.
Chloe stretched, then moved next door to rouse the others from their sleep, but when she looked for Ben and Jesepiah, they were nowhere to be found.
“Maybe they’re already up there?” Chloe suggested.
Tag grumbled and growled. “He better not be doing what I think he’s doing.”
They made their way up the levels of the palace, their discussion light and airy. Noises greeted them from the dining hall and Chloe couldn’t help but grin, already hearing the hundreds of sherikan busily enjoying their meals.
When they walked through the large doors, heads turned in their direction and the entire sherikan community started talking animatedly, clapping them on the back as they passed through. However, their focus was on finding Ben, Jesepiah, and Finley.
“I don’t see them,” Gideon said, brushing off a powerful slap on the back that almost made him faceplant on the floor.
“There!” Chloe pointed to Finley, standing and waving on a table by the far wall. Beside it were several empty chairs.
“Finley,” Chloe said warmly wrapping her arms around
its neck. Finley shuffled uncomfortably, unsure what to do.
“Come, take a seat,” Finley finally said, ushering the others to their seats. In front of each place was a plate piled high with food, goblets already filled to the brim with a sweet-smelling drink Chloe didn’t recognize.
Gideon and Chloe took their seats, while Tag propped himself up, twisting his neck in all directions. “They’re not here. I can’t see them,” he murmured.
“Oh, relax.” Chloe took a fistful of the back of Tag’s shirt and tugged him onto his ass. “They’re not going to be doing anything like that. He’s your best friend, remember?”
“He’s a horny jerk, is what he is,” Tag replied, folding his arms. A few seconds later, he became distracted as he tucked greedily into his food, draining his goblet and demanding more from a sherikan waiter who carried a large container of the drink around.
“What is this?” Chloe asked, taking a deep sniff and sipping from the drink.
The waiter snapped his jaw, looking to Finley for help.
“Hazelik. Our own secret recipe. There’s nothing else like it in the whole of Obsidian.”
Chloe grunted her approval, coughing slightly as the burn hit the back of her throat. “It’s wonderful. I’m guessing you don’t serve this to children?”
Finley looked offended. “Why shouldn’t our children drink it? It makes the sherikan strong. Confident.”
Finley thanked the waiter, who walked away pleased.
Chloe, Gideon, and Tag soon emptied their plates. Chloe reclined in her chair with her hands on her stomach, observing the gathered sherikan with fondness.
Since they had returned from the sandworm adventure, they had been treated as heroes by the strange shark-like people. After the sandworm had fallen and Jesepiah had been resurrected, they had started their journey, wandering through the desert.
The desert looked the same in all directions, with only the sandworm as their marker. There was no way to guess how far or fast the sandworm had dug, but they had certainly been a long distance from anywhere they recognized. Realizing that they had no water, barely any food, and no hope at all of finding their way back to the abandoned village, they had almost given up when they suddenly spied the tell-tale fins of the sherikans.
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