by Edward Brody
The skeleton finally pried off the skull and immediately turned and hurled it towards me like a baseball. I wasn’t immediately concerned by the throw—after all, how much would an old, hollow skull hurt, but almost as soon as it exited the skeleton’s hand the skull started flying at an abnormally fast speed and became covered in flaming grey energy.
I had to jump and roll out of the way of the skull, tossing the tiny Firebomb I had conjured in the process. My Firebomb boomed when it hit the floor, but the skull the skeleton had thrown exploded violently when it hit the wall behind me, throwing dirt and broken bone all over the room.
Rithnar and Mordok were both startled by the explosions and they turned their attention to me after Mordok’s spell connected with the pelvis of the skeleton they were attacking. The undead thing tumbled and fell apart on the ground.
“It’s him!” I yelled as I grabbed my staff and shot an on-cast towards the thrower. The skeleton had already turned around and was trying to pry another skull from the wall when the energy shard pierced through its lower ribcage, knocking off large chunks of bones. The skeleton didn’t seem to even notice.
“They’re coming back!” Rithnar shouted and glanced aside to see the skeleton he had previously knocked down reforming as if all its bones were magnetically attracted to each other.
“How do we kill these things?!” I yelled as I shot a Fireblast at the skeleton working on the skull. This time, I connected with its spine, and its lower body collapsed underneath it. Its upper body dangled from the wall as it maintained its grip on the skull it had been trying to retrieve.
“It’s necromancy!” Rithnar yelled. He ran for the skeleton that had just reformed, ducked as it swung its arm towards him and thrust his axe upward, tearing through its chest and knocking its head off. The body stumbled back before falling to a heap on the ground.
“Over there!” Mordok yelled.
I looked to where Mordok was pointing and saw only the end of a curved blade sticking out from around a corner that led further into the Catacombs.
“Go!” Mordok yelled. “Kill it while I hold back the skeletons!”
Rithnar ran towards the mysterious blade as it disappeared behind the corner, and I ran right after him.
Chapter Fifty
2/23/0001
Rithnar and I slid on our heels as we rounded the corner, and drifting away from us was a tall dark being. Its legs and rump were thick and straight, but its back was thin and long and curved into an ‘S’ like a snake. Its neck continued the curve, and its head appeared as the eyeless skull of a giant bird with many bony feathers jutting out behind it. Its body was covered in a jet-black cloth that dragged on the ground, and its only visible appendages were two long, thin arms, dangling from the side of its frame. In one of its hands was a long, curved scythe.
Name: necrosyth
Race: undead
Level: 40
Health/Mana/Stamina: 780/200/300
Status: aggressive
It drifted silently and slowly with no swaying motions to indicate that it had legs.
The hall it moved down was empty, save for the skulls on the walls, just like the room we had run from.
There was the sound of crashing and bones clanking on the ground coming from the room where Mordok was fighting, and as the creature floated away, it held out its free hand, and a stream of grey energy erupted from its palm and passed through the wall.
“Kill it or it will continue to raise the dead!” Rithnar yelled as he ran towards the creature. He stopped before reaching it and threw his axe towards its back.
The axe whirled in the air, but the creature seemed to somehow sense it. Right before the axe made impact, it spun and swung its scythe at the axe, knocking it back and into the wall. It stood motionless for a second before holding its arms out and letting out a terrifying glass-shattering scream.
I flinched at the high-pitched sound and grabbed my ears as my eardrums rattled. The whole ground seemed to shake from the creature’s shriek, causing us to both look to our feet. Skeletal hands suddenly burst from out of the floor below, and the ones closest to us grabbed onto our ankles.
We tugged and pulled at our legs, but the boney hands held us tightly. When I reached down to try to pry the fingers off with my hands, the creature stopped screaming and swung its scythe in our direction.
A wave of dark gray energy sprung from its curved blade and spun rapidly as it hurled towards us. Not knowing what to do, I held out my staff to try to block the attack, and Rithnar held out his arms.
The energy flew too low for either of us to duck, and it struck us both at the same time, hitting like a massive punch to my gut, tearing us from our rooted positions and throwing us both back several feet.
You’ve gained 1% resistance to dark magic!
I groaned and gasped for air as I rolled on the ground and grabbed my stomach where I had been hit. My staff survived, and there was no apparent damage to my robe, but I felt like I had just taken the perfect body shot from a heavyweight boxer. I coughed and spit, but my eyes went wide as the creature started drifting closer to us.
“Rithnar!” I yelled as I turned to see the orc holding his stomach and groaning as he pushed himself back to his feet.
“I…” He moaned. “I… I will not let this be the end…” He straightened his back, bared his teeth, and roared as he charged the necrosyth.
I noticed as Rithnar ran that the skeletal hands that had been holding on to us were still attached to both of our ankles and had simply been broken off below the wrists. Rithnar ignored them as he kicked at other hands that were reaching out from the ground, breaking them. He kicked two more before continuing his charge and leaping into the air as he closed in on the monster.
The necrosyth held up its scythe with one hand as Rithnar hammered his fist down at it, blocking the blow. Rithnar grabbed the scythe and slid on his feet as the creature jerked him back—back far enough that he pulled Rithnar back to his axe.
Rithnar released the scythe, grabbed his axe and immediately swung at the monster with a backhand motion. The creature was faster and blocked before swinging a counter of its own. Rithnar noticed the attack, adjusted, and fell into a sideways roll to avoid being hit.
Fire Curtain, I cast as I stood back to my feet, focusing it right over the monster’s body. The creature shrieked and started waving its arms as flames erupted all around it.
Rithnar stood straight as the creature backed away from the flames, and he turned to me and yelled, “Lower it!”
“What?” I asked.
“Lower it!” he said. “We can’t let it fetch others!”
Before I could even think about canceling the spell, Rithnar started running for the flames, jumped for the wall, and roared as he kicked himself off one of the protruding skulls, allowing him to do a second jump over the flames.
I released the spell, and as the flames dissipated, I saw him swipe his axe across the creature’s chest, ripping a large chunk of black from it. It didn’t seem to bleed, but the attack clearly injured it as it tottered back, but when Rithnar followed up with another attack, the creature managed to block.
I shot an on-cast from my staff, which rocked the creature and it punctured deep into its chest, but when I followed up with a Fireblast, it held the scythe up and managed to block it expertly with the blade.
When Rithnar tried for another swing, the creature used its free hand to backhand him across the face, and the orc turned back and stumbled. When it raised its scythe to follow up, I swung my staff at it, releasing a powerful Arcane Slash.
The creature paused and watched as the wave of arcane energy powered towards it, but it seemed unsure of what to do. When the slash hit, the creature slid back several feet as huge chunks of its strange black body were torn away and a thick shard of broken wood was ripped from its scythe.
I ran forward, let out another on-cast from my staff, and started charging a Firebomb.
Rithnar turned around, dashed b
ack towards the creature and started swinging furiously.
My on-cast pierced the creature in the neck causing it to grab its wound with its free hand and let out a strange, hollow howl. It reared back each time Rithnar swung its blade into it, and while it seemed to be trying to raise its scythe to defend, it suddenly wasn’t fast enough.
“Watch out!” I yelled as I approached with a small Firebomb.
Rithnar glanced towards me to see me approaching, and when I flung the bomb towards the monster, his reaction time was a little slow.
“Duck!” I yelled when it looked like the bomb was going to hit his head.
Rithnar pulled his axe away from the monster and dove for the ground. The creature held up its scythe at the bomb, but it was no use. The bomb flew over the scythe handle and landed where its long abdomen met its base and burst.
Chunks of black exploded in every direction, and the blade of its scythe clanged as it broke away from the handle and smashed against the wall.
A huge hole was torn out of the creature’s body, and the creature leaned awkwardly against the wall before all of the black that made up its frame gradually began to vanish. The scythe handle and odd bird bones that made up its head clattered as they fell to the ground.
You have gained 5300 XP!
I breathed heavily as I walked over to Rithnar who was lying flat on the ground. I offered him my hand and asked, “Are you okay?”
Rithnar looked to my hand, growled, and ignored it as he pushed himself back to his feet. “I’m fine,” he said as he brushed himself off.
Mordok came running from around the corner. “You killed it.”
I nodded.
“The skeletons are down,” he said as he walked towards the bird head of the necrosyth and kicked it. He looked further down the hall of the dark catacombs. “Let’s get out of here before another one of these shows.”
“Good idea,” I said.
As we walked as quickly as we could from the space, Mordok pointed towards the hands that were still attached to my and Rithnar’s ankles. “You might want to get those off, unless you’re looking for a souvenir.”
Rithnar swiped his axe at the hands, dislodging them, and I lifted each ankle, tugged the skeletal hands off and threw them to the side.
“I need to meditate,” I said.
“So do I,” Mordok matched.
“Outside,” Rithnar said. “I’ll guard you two as best I can. It’s not safe anywhere in the Cataclysm, but I’d rather risk a fight with a scavenger than any more undead.”
Chapter Fifty-One
2/23/0001
“Does that have any reagents ending in ‘E’?” I asked as we passed the dead lizard.
Mordok glared at me out of the corner of his eye. “People commonly collect their hearts and tongues.”
“Lizard tongue, huh?” I asked.
Mordok nodded.
I slowed a bit. “I guess that ends in an ‘E’.”
“We don’t have time to collect reagents!” Rithnar shouted. “We must find the Gilgaroth!”
Mordok snarled, showed his teeth, and slowed his pace as well. He turned and started marching towards the lizard.
“Mordok!” Rithnar snarled.
Mordok reached his hand into the mouth of the lizard, yanked out its tongue, and swiftly cut it with a small knife. He walked the spongy pink appendage back to us and handed it to me.
You’ve received: Giant Lizard Tongue. Durability: 10/10. Quality: Average. Rarity: Common. Weight: 0.4 kg. A reagent with various uses.
“That wasn’t hard, was it?” he growled. “Remember that if this human hadn’t stolen an infinite mana shard to help us, you’d be getting your head split open by Ergoth about now.”
“Maybe I should split your head now!” Rithnar roared.
“Hey, hey, hey!” I said, holding up my palms. “Relax and stop fighting… I won’t ask about reagents anymore. Let’s stay focused and go do what we need to do.”
Rithnar looked down a bit and shifted his eyes. “It’s my orc temper, I suppose.”
“Orc tempers…” Mordok muttered and snorted.
We continued until we were out of the Catacombs and stepped onto the bottom of the Cataclysm where I finally got a good look at everything. Scattered all along the base of the cataclysm were old bones, rotten wood, trashed armor, rusty weapons, a few broken skeletons and lots of smelly brown sludge. Several of the isopods were scuttling around and seemed to be feeding on the sludge.
“What is all this? Looks like a trash pit.” I sniffed and wrinkled my nose. “Smells like one too.”
“You could call it that,” Mordok said. “We throw anything that’s no longer useful into the rift.”
“What’s that gunk?” I pointed towards the sludge.
“Mostly goblin shit,” he explained. “They defecate everywhere, and we have to dispose of it someplace.”
“Oh, gross…” I groaned.
I looked further down the Cataclysm and could see lava falling into it from Mount Ardorflame, pooling below it. If there had been any trash and stuff that was ‘no longer useful’ thrown over there, it would have all been consumed, but it seemed they had been throwing trash in the rift for a long time—long before the volcano erupted.
“Where do we go?” I asked.
“That way,” Mordok said. “The entrance to the Gilgaroth’s seal is that way.” He navigated to sit on a small rock beside a large pile of goblin dung. “Don’t forget to meditate first.”
I found a stone of my own, closed my eyes, and quickly entered a meditative trance.
You have reached level 9 in Meditation!
When my meditation was over, Mordok was already standing with Rithnar waiting for me.
“Finished?” he asked.
I nodded before we all moved out.
“What happened on the rope?” Mordok asked as he stepped over a torn breastplate and mangled piece of wood. “Why did you stop?”
“I saw a…” I was about to tell them about the treasure chest but thought better of it. I wasn’t sure if they’d be interested themselves, but if I ever planned to return, I didn’t want to do anything to decrease the odds of it still being there. “I just saw something odd and stopped to take a look.”
“Not a good idea,” Mordok said. “You knew I was coming down after you.”
“Yeah well…” I stopped, realizing that he was right. I didn’t really have a good argument to that other than he should’ve been more careful and watched where he was going. But even so, I bore some of the blame. “Never mind. You’re right.”
Once we passed the rope that we had slid down, I noticed a dried pool of blood between a random pile of humanoid bones and a stack of ruined leather. When I scanned the area more closely, I saw a few more splatters of blood. “What’s all this?”
The two orcs looked closer at the blood, but neither of them had an answer.
“More threats may be nearby,” Rithnar said, readying his axe.
“Yes. Let’s be on guard,” Mordok warned.
I looked to the lava ahead, and the area between us and there. In the center reaches of the lava where molten liquid was still accumulating, I could see elementals somewhat resembling the sand elemental I had fought in the Endless Sands—their bodies dripping lava and their mouths and eyes vacant as they moved about slowly and listlessly. There was a lot of hardened rock that had once been liquified spread along the outer edges of the lava pool, and if it weren’t for a thin crack that was running right down the center of the Cataclysm absorbing some of the hot molten rock, I suspected the Cataclysm would be more filled.
“So, no one comes down here?” I questioned, eyeing a blood streak that was trailing away a couple feet towards the lava pool.
“No one,” Mordok answered. “Not unless they have to.”
I looked up from where we were standing, and we were a bit past where we had climbed down. It was difficult to judge from such far distances, but I wondered if the blood had perhaps come
from one of the orcs that had been tossed during the sacrifice. Though curious, I shrugged it away. Even if the bodies hadn’t reached the lava, there were lots of nasty creatures in the Cataclysm that could’ve dragged a corpse away to feast.
We continued forward ‘til we were walking on the hardened lava rock that surrounded the molten pool, and as we got closer, the heat was borderline unbearable. Sweat started pouring out of my skin and soaked my robe that was still damp from the lizard juices and potions that had been splashed over me earlier. The stench of warm goblin excrement didn’t help the situation.
“How far ‘til we reach the Gilgaroth’s seal?” I asked.
“Actually, we’re standing on it,” Mordok said.
“Standing on it?” I asked.
“The Gilgaroth is trapped beneath our feet.” He pointed towards the small crack running down the center of the Cataclysm, then lifted his finger to Mount Ardorflame further ahead. “The volcano marks its only entrance according to text.”
“If the entrance is over there, how the hell are we standing on it?” I questioned. We were still a notable distance from aligning with the mountain.
Mordok snorted. “The Gilgaroth is said to be amongst the largest of ancient beasts, hence why the elders had to open such a massive rift to contain it. ‘Wider than a castle and taller than the tallest windmill’ they say. The walls of the Cataclysm and the soil of the Wastelands consist of mostly hardened dirt and normal sandstone, but deep down, far beneath our feet, the ground is made of a denser stone and hardened minerals required to contain a beast like that.”
“And those are going to be a problem,” Rithnar said, pointing towards the elementals roaming in the lava. “I can’t get a read on them, so they’re likely a pretty high level.”