Fallen Ambitions

by Vann, Eric J.

  Celia patted his shoulder twice before gesturing with her head for him to move on. She was really losing this battle about being a lady… But the fact that despite their fears these humans were able to communicate and work with herself, Vhal and the Grauda was a good sign of things to come.

  “You and the Grauda will need to be particularly careful if that path indeed leads to the Underdark,” Vhal said, gazing into the mouth of the hole.

  “What do you mean?” She was certainly not looking forward to stepping into a place so full of legends and myths, almost all of which ended in death and misery. But what other choice was there?

  “Just be aware,” Vhal said as he bent forward to enter. “There is often a core of truth at the center of myths. Not all things are as they seem…. and beware the whispers of ancient power.” His voice echoed back to her from the dark.

  Celia gestured to the Grauda female to follow, as she herself crouched to enter the narrow tunnel. What whispers? she asked herself, unsettled.

  Chapter 17

  Footsteps echoed as Celia, Vhal and their contingent of Grauda made their way through the ancient and seemingly unending stone corridor of the Underdark. It had taken longer than she anticipated to descend down the Wervin’s narrow entrance tunnel. At one point, they had walked so far Celia thought they might come out on the other side of the world.

  The circular corridor they had emerged into was immense: wide enough for armies to march through with ease, and high enough that Celia’s Dark Vision could not make out the top. Other than a strange arrangement of two parallel metal rods running along the ground, the main tunnel was clear of debris, or anything else you would expect to find in an ancient place supposedly inhabited by monsters such as Wervins. From time to time, a path would open off to either side of the main tunnel, all of which were short and ended abruptly in empty rooms.

  At first, the tunnels were warm—cozy even—from the heat radiating off the stones. But as they followed the main tunnel, that began to change.

  “Why is it so cold?” Celia shuddered, her breath crystalizing into mist before her. There was a constant chill hanging in the air, and yet the corridor looked no different. There was no buildup of ice on the ground or walls.

  The Grauda were faring far worse than she was. As a race who lived in the Central Wilds, they had never dealt with such cold, and now they struggled to even keep up with her slowed pace as they huddled together to share their collective heat.

  Vhal, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind at all. Celia held out her hand and allowed her fire mana to leak through her fingers before activating it. The mist burst into flame and the Grauda swarmed around her, seeking whatever heat they could. Celia continued to activate her mana, until Vhal put a stop to that.

  “If our presence is noticed, the cold will be the least of our concerns,” he said. Celia didn’t complain, as his warning was delivered in a tone rare for the lich.

  He was worried.

  “What is this thing we are hiding from?” she asked, rubbing her arms. “We are two Elders, I’m sure we can take it on.”

  Vhal shook his head. “The same way you took on that ambush at Fes?”

  Celia frowned. That stung.

  Noticing this, Vhal grinned as he trailed one hand along the wall. “Just because we are Elders does not mean we should look for trouble. And the Underdark is certainly not the type of trouble you want to be found in.” The lich shook his head, his ethereal eyes flashing. “A year before I was assigned to the Facility, the Emperor lead an expedition into the Underdark. It was all people could talk about.” He paused dramatically. “It took weeks for any news of them to emerge. Over one thousand troops went in, including elite guards. Only one returned: the Emperor himself.”

  Celia glanced back nervously the way they had come, then into the darkness ahead of them. What could possibly have done what Vhal had just described? Other than the occasional pest or crumbling rock, the passage was empty. Suspiciously so, in fact. If the Wervins were using these tunnels, then she would have expected some kind of evidence. A bone, a footprint—anything really. It was as if the whole place had been… cleaned. “The Emperor, did he say what attacked them?”

  “Vaguely. It was mostly rumors,” Vhal replied. “From what I remember, they said people began to disappear the further in they went. Some went mad and began attacking the others. And they spoke of whispers in the dark. A lingering presence.”

  Perhaps Celia had heard of this expedition, though not directly. What Vhal described was what people warned would happen to those who entered the Underdark. That deadly expedition was likely the original source of those beliefs.

  Even then, there was an itch in her mind, a feeling… which told her Vhal was not being entirely truthful here. Or, at the very least, was being selective in what he shared.

  Just as she was about to suggest this, a low gurgling sound came from ahead. It was almost like large bubbles forming in water. She froze, and saw Vhal and the Grauda all do the same.

  Then Vhal grinned. “Well, that explains why this tunnel is so clean of debris,” he said, as a tide of greenish ooze became visible in the gloom ahead. It seemed almost…alive.

  It was alive, Celia realized with horror. The ooze was slowly shifting back and forth, rubbing against the walls as it inched closer to them.

  Celia raised her arm and activated her Inspection.

  You have failed to Inspect your target.

  Failed? Celia took a step back. To fail, her target was either resistant to Inspection, or over level 40. “What is that?” she asked, her hands drifting to her sheathed dagger.

  “A Gorging Ooze,” Vhal replied grimly, as he raised his staff. “We should go—”

  The ooze lashed out, a green lance shooting from its center, aiming directly for Vhal’s chest. In almost the same moment, the lich raised his staff and a wall of bone shot out of the ground, the sounds of cracking and snapping bones filling the tunnel.

  “Kill it!” Celia cried out, and the Grauda hissed as they moved to the front. Their arrows flew over her head as others charged the creature with their spears. Celia watched their arrows pierce its body, causing it to ripple like the surface of a lake—but the ooze was not even checked by them. The arrows simply dissolved into it within moments.

  “Necrotic Bolt,” Vhal said calmly, and lobbed a ball of pulsing black, tar-like substance at the ooze. The creature made a hollow, awful bubbling as it came into contact with Vhal’s spell, which sunk into its body. Chunks of the oozy surface began to harden and fall off, but even so, the creature was so large that Celia realized it would take hours to die at that rate.

  The ooze bubbled again as four green tendrils extended from its center. One lanced through a Grauda male, while another grabbed Vhal and pulled him toward it. Vhal struggled in vain, as he was absorbed into the creature’s body. No, it wasn’t only absorbing him, Celia saw with a shock, it was Siphoning him too—that thing was a demon! As the ooze fed on Vhal, the damaged areas of its body begin to heal.

  Celia crouched, clenching her teeth. She may have had her doubts about Vhal, but they didn’t extend to watching him die. Even in the biting cold of this place, she could sense the fire within her, and now she let it all out.

  Red mana burst from her body and formed a series of glowing red symbols, which she flung into each other to weave the spell she wanted. “Phoenix Flame!” she bellowed, and the completed symbol roared to life, forming a fiery bird. Its blazing fury lit the tunnel so brightly Celia had to look away. The bird cried out before diving straight into the ooze.

  The explosion that followed shook the earth. Celia stumbled and fell to the ground as rock and sand crumbled and fell around her.

  She waited there until everything grew still and silent before trying to push herself back to her feet. She coughed and spat to clear her mouth and throat of dust before opening her eyes. Then she simply stared around herself, dumbfounded by what she saw.

  Soul Crystals covered the
walls and ceiling, glittering like stars in a night sky. Several massive pillars stood tall and strong to either side of her. This…

  This was her Master’s place of power.

  “Master?” she called. Though she couldn’t account for how she had come to be here, she hadn’t seen him for a long time, and her heart ached for his presence beside her.

  A pained cough sounded from behind her and Celia turned, her eyes opening wide. Her Master leaned against a crystal column, his eyes unfocused, his hands grasping the hilt of a dagger as steam and smoke rose from where the metal pierced him. It was a hilt she knew well. It was the hilt of her own dagger.

  Horrified, her heart pounded as she ran toward him—but stopped short when his eyes flicked in her direction.

  “Have… have you come to finish the job?” he asked.

  “No! Of course not!” Celia cried as she rushed to his side to place a hand under him, just in time to keep him from sliding to the floor. “Why aren’t you healing? Should I pull it out?” she asked, her hands shaking.

  “Why?” her Master whispered into her ear, his voice labored. “How did it all go… all go so wrong…” His voice grew softer until it trailed off completely.

  “Master? Master! I—I don’t know what’s going on!” Celia said, sobbed as she laid him on the ground. He wasn’t breathing. “No, no, no! This can’t be happening!” She gripped the dagger and pulled. “You can’t leave me! Come, you must heal. Help!” she screamed, her voice echoing through the cavern, but there was no response. There was no one there. Celia fell on top of his body, her heart aching as she tried to keep her panic in check. Why? Why? her Master’s question repeated in her mind, until she had to scream to try to make it stop. With an effort, she pulled him to her and hugged him tightly against her. “Please…” she begged. “Anything but this. Please don’t leave me.”

  She didn’t know how long it was that she knelt there, her body weak, her tears flowing. No matter how much she told herself it wasn’t real, she couldn’t break free of it. His skin, it was so cold… his usually bright eyes were devoid of life.

  “Celia!” a voice called. Something was pressing around her wrists and feet.

  “Champion!” the voice said again, this time in annoyance, and a sharp pain stung her cheek. Celia shook her head and snapped open her eyes, moving her jaw from side to side to ensure it wasn’t broken.

  “Good…” the voice said, and Celia watched as Vhal pulled away from her to grip his staff again.

  “Vhal?” she asked, suddenly suspicious. “What… Wher—Master! Where did he go?” She tried to pull away from the bony cuffs which restrained her limbs.

  “Welcome back,” Vhal said. A flick of his hand caused the bones which held her to burst into black mist. “I thought we might have lost you in your dreams.”

  “What’s going on?” Celia insisted, taking in her surroundings now. They were in the wide tunnel again, but it was unlike she remembered. The skeletal remains of numerous humans, along with other beasts Celia could not identify, were scattered around the place. A series of dusty metal carriages of a design she had never seen before rested atop the metal bars fixed to the tunnel’s floor. Each carriage was attached to the one in front of it, leaving no room for horses or other beasts of burden to pull them.

  The Grauda had formed a protective perimeter around herself and Vhal. Celia noticed a patch of the tunnel wall was blackened, as if massive torch had been held against it for a while, or as if she…

  “Did I do that?” she asked as she tried to take everything in.

  “I warned you not to heed the whispers,” Vhal said with a shake of his head. “It would do you good to listen to me once in a while.”

  “But…” Celia said, still trying to understand. “The ooze? What happened to the ooze?”

  “What ooze?” Vhal asked. “You began complaining of the cold before simply going mad. You threw that spell and blew up half the tunnel. After we dug you out of the rubble, you started screaming and ran away, tossing Fire Balls wildly.” Vhal chuckled. “I don’t know what you saw in your break from reality, but rest assured, all is well.”

  “But, I saw—”

  “What you saw matters not,” Vhal interrupted. “There are enough alien things down here without your imagination adding to it.” He took a step aside and brushed his hand across the glass of one of the carriages, brushing away the layer of dust. “Don’t get me wrong,” he continued, peering through the glass, “I did enjoy beating you about. But those fire spells were becoming hazardous, especially since we might be close to the Wervins’ lair.”

  Celia squeezed her eyes shut. None of this made sense! If what Vhal was saying was true, then she had been imagining things for a long while. She could see now how people could go mad down here. Reality was broken. Then she realized the last thing Vhal had said.

  “Close? Where are they?” she asked, her words echoing. She had expected the Wervins’ tunnel to lead directly to their lair, but they had only descended deeper and deeper into this strange place. And after what she had just experienced, she wanted out.

  “The Underdark is a vast place. You could spend a lifetime exploring these halls and not see all it has to offer.” Vhal took a step back from the strange carriages to kneel beside a blue mushroom, which grew out of a skull’s eye. “Try not to touch anything. These carriages look like some form of ancient Magitech, and they might still be active.”

  “Finding Magitech is a good thing, isn’t it?” Celia asked. “But we need to track down those the dammed Wervins—why would they dig their tunnel so far from their home?”

  Vhal shrugged. “I don’t know the mindset of Wervins. Who knows how their ecosystem and behaviors developed down here? It’s practically a different world. It would be quite an interesting thing to stud—” A great thud interrupted him, followed by a low growl that echoed through the hall.

  Everyone turned to see a single Wervin standing in the tunnel behind them, a male human on his knees beside him. The beast’s already pale skin was turning paler as his hands gripped a rope which was tied around the human’s neck, his tiny eyes glancing from side to side, trying to keep them all in his sights.

  The human was light-skinned and naked—and his body was thin, too thin. He was covered in black and purplish bruises, but his knees… his knees were by far the worst. Celia flinched. The human didn’t even seem to notice them there, his eyes cast low as he shuffled along the rocky ground on his knees. Blood poured out of his many wounds as he reached for a blue mushroom just like the one Vhal had examined before and plucked it from between the weathered ribcage of another creature Celia couldn’t identify.

  The Wervin growled and yanked on the rope before letting go and sprinting away. The human fell to the ground, his hands grasping at his neck as he choked.

  Celia reacted instinctively, pulling her dagger from its sheath and throwing it at the fleeing Wervin with everything she had. The blade turned an incandescent orange as it spun in the air before it stabbed into the creature with a wet thwock, followed by a low sizzle. The Wervin yelped, then toppled forward onto its face, its body almost immediately falling still. A thin trail of smoke rose from where her dagger continued to burn into him.

  The Grauda female ran to the human and cut the rope around his neck to allow him to breathe. Vhal moved closer to the Wervin, rolling its body over with one foot before letting it fall back again. “Dead,” he chuckled. “An impressive throw.”

  Celia kept a neutral expression on her face as she advanced to kneel beside the Wervin. She had honestly been lucky—throwing knives was not her strength—but Vhal didn’t need to know that. She withdrew her dagger from the body before sheathing it again, trying her best to ignore the smell rising off the burnt flesh.

  She stared down at her hands and the weapon, remembering that vision… or was it a dream? She didn’t know. All she knew was that it had been awful, and she didn’t want anything close to that happening. This dagger, it had stabbed and kil
led her Master… If she got rid of it, she thought, then that would be impossible…

  She shook her head firmly to clear it. No, that hadn’t been real. She sheathed the dagger, her hands still gripping the hilt as she continued to doubt herself. What if it was some kind of vision? She frowned before moving to the human.

  He didn’t react at her approach. He simply sat there, his eyes glued to the ground, his hands holding the two ends of the severed rope which had been choking him a few moments before.

  “Here,” Celia said as she knelt and offered him a water skin.

  The man shook his head. “I am not allowed to drink, I did not finish my work.” His voice was low and hoarse.

  “Don’t worry about that. You’re free now,” Celia said, still offering the water skin.

  The man shook his head again. “No, I must go back… Accepting anything from anyone other than my owner is forbidden. I must go back; they will kill her if we are late…”

  Owner? Celia glanced over her shoulder at the Wervin, frowning, then back at the man. “Kill who?”

  “My daughter. They have her in a cage, I need to go back…” the man said as he tried to push himself unsteadily to his feet.

  “No, you don’t,” Celia said, as she placed a hand on his shoulder to keep him seated. “We will free her and everyone else they took. Just tell us where they are.”

  The man stayed silent, and Celia sighed deeply. After a moment’s thought, she sat on the ground in front of him. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  The man shifted on his knees, the fresh wounds surrounded by older ones. Celia glanced to the Grauda female, who pulled out a small vial.

  “Last,” she squeaked, before handing it to Celia.

  “Can you extend your legs?” Celia asked, showing the man the vial. The rest of their supply had been left on the surface; they had not expected to need to treat people down here. They had assumed the Wervins’ lair was far closer to the tunnel entrance. “It smells like death itself,” she explained, popping open the lid, “but it will heal your wounds quickly and properly.”