‘Oh! I hadn’t thought of that. I got back to town as fast as I could, but they’re going to have been stuck for four days by the time we get to them.’
‘Hopefully, that’s not enough time for any lasting damage to be done.’
‘I want to be out of this place as fast as we can anyway,’
Aneshti said. ‘I know this is important and a rescue mission and everything, but this place is just too hot and steamy for me.’
‘You’re wearing less than Constance!’ Mimi exclaimed.
‘So? I’m shitagi. We’re built for the cold, not steamy jungles.’
‘You’d really better hope we never have to go into the real jungle then. Compared to this, the Great Forest is a sauna.’
~~~
They camped that night under the branches of a massive oak, its leaves bronze but still quite thick on its branches. It had started to drizzle midway through the afternoon and the tree provided some respite from the weather.
‘It’s raining,’ Aneshti complained, ‘and it’s still too warm.
I’ll take the first watch because I won’t be sleeping in this heat.’
‘It’ll get cooler soon,’ Mimi said. ‘The weather workers are saying it could be a bad winter and the weather’s going to change soon.’
‘Huh. I suppose you southerners won’t be liking that, but I’ll be in heaven.’
‘Where I come from,’ Kana said, ‘we have hot summers and cool to cold winters. Snow isn’t uncommon at the start of each year. The middle of summer tends to be hot and wet.’
‘That’s strange weather,’ Megaina said.
Kana grinned. ‘Not where I’m from. You’re from Alabeth?’
The young mage nodded. ‘The summers there are really hot. We almost never get snow in winter.’
‘That’s a city for you. They’re usually warmer than the surrounding countryside.’
‘Really? I didn’t– Though, now you come to mention it…’
‘Are you with the Mages’ Guild?’
‘No. Well, yes and no. I was training under a guild mage before I came out here and I want to become a full member. Thing is, it costs money for that kind of education and my family could only afford so much. I’m out here to make enough to finish my training. Or that’s the plan.’
‘Not going so well?’ Constance asked.
‘It’s a lot harder than I expected. I’d figured out roughly where this dungeon was before I came, so we were aiming to find it all summer. But we just weren’t ready. It took us months to get the equipment we would need and learn the ropes. Finding jobs to keep us fed was about all we could do. And then, when we finally thought we had the gear and experience we needed, this happens.’
‘It’s like that for everyone.’ Constance paused, apparently reconsidering. ‘Almost everyone. Rich kids don’t often become adventurers, but the ones who do usually have the best gear when they start and they’ve trained under masters. If they don’t get too cocky early on, they usually have it easy.’
‘If they do,’ Rain said, ‘they have a glorious but very short career.’
‘Yeah. That. For the rest of us, it’s struggling on and doing whatever we can when we can’t find paying quests. Of course, if this dungeon pans out for you, you’ll get a leg up on the reputation ladder. You’ll have larger parties considering you for membership. They’ll likely even overlook the fact that you’re a sorceress.’
‘Well, y-you will too,’ Megaina said.
Constance shook her head. ‘Not us. We’re on the bottom rung and we’re probably going to stay that way for good.’
‘We should get some sleep,’ Rain said. ‘We should get to the dungeon by midday if we get an early start.’
‘I’ll stay up with Aneshti,’ Kana said. ‘I’m still used to colder weather too.’
‘Wake me at midnight,’ Rain said. ‘This place isn’t too dangerous this time of year, but it’d be best if someone was watching through the night.’
2 nd Anokarte.
‘It’s right here,’ Megaina said, pointing at a mound of overgrown plants in a small clearing in the forest. ‘Uh, looks like the vines have grown back while I was away. We’ll have to cut them–’
‘We don’t need to cut them,’ Mimi said. ‘I’m morally opposed to that kind of thing unless it’s absolutely required.’
‘Then how–’ Megaina stopped abruptly as Mimi raised her arms, holding her staff high, and a circle of green appeared above her, sliding down over her body. ‘Oh.’
‘I’ll just bend them out of the way,’ Mimi said. Stepping forward, she began pushing on the interwoven vines. The plants should, in all probability, have sprung back or at least shown more resistance to Mimi’s pushing, but everything she pushed aside stayed where it was put and soon there was an opening in the covering of foliage. ‘That should be enough. I can see the stairs down.’
Constance stepped forward and looked down into the dungeon’s entrance. There were stone walls on either side of a flight of steps. The actual dungeon entrance was in the dark further down.
‘Okay, Rain and Kana take the lead and the rest of us will follow. Megaina, you know the way, so you get to be close to Rain and Kana. I don’t want to take a wrong tunnel and end up hitting some trap your rogue hasn’t disarmed.’
Rain looked around at Kana who was busy placing a light on the end of her staff. ‘Ready?’
‘As I’ll ever be,’ Kana replied with a grin. ‘I mean, I know we did the thing in Dvartim, but this is going to be my first real dungeon. I’m excited and nervous.’
‘Sounds about right. A little fear isn’t a bad thing. Keeps you on your toes.’
‘So I’m told.’
The steps led down about three metres into the ground before you came to a stone door which had been wedged open with a stone fallen from the walls. Then there was a short landing and then more steps which went down a lot further.
They had gone down perhaps ten metres when Kana noticed the change. ‘The flow of magic here is stronger.’
‘Yes,’ Constance agreed. ‘There’s definitely a change.’
‘That might explain the strange mould,’ Mimi said. ‘Long-term exposure to a stronger flow of magic is known to cause some odd changes in animals and plants. Even in people.’
‘Th-that might mean that there are other strange monsters down here,’ Megaina said.
‘Not impossible. You didn’t encounter anything?’
‘No. Assuming the petrification was caused by a mould, that’s the first animate thing we found. I mean, moulds aren’t very animate, but you get my meaning.’
‘It might also mean that there’s a ley line feeding this place,’
Constance said. ‘Did you discover who built it?’
Megaina shook her head. ‘It was built a really long time ago.
What I found was a reference to someone discovering it during the Founding War. The soldiers who found it didn’t have the time or inclination to search it. Then the report was lost and ended up in an archive in Alabeth. I did a little research, but nothing I could find suggested why this place was here.’
‘Well, won’t it be interesting to find out.’
‘The steps end in another few feet,’ Rain said. ‘How far to the place where your friends are, Megaina?’
‘It’ll take us a couple of hours to get there,’ Megaina replied.
‘This place is a maze.’
‘Then we’d better get started.’
~~~
‘There!’ Kana exclaimed. She came to a stop, pointing her staff out toward what she had seen: four dark, humanoid shapes about ten metres ahead of them. In the light from her staff, the statues appeared to glisten a little and so did the floor, ceiling, and walls of the corridor they were making their way down.
‘Stay where you are,’ Mimi said. ‘I’ll see if I can identify the mould.’ She started forward carefully and Kana ignored her instruction by walking just behind her, staff stretched out to light the way. Mimi did no
t object. They had almost reached the statues when Mimi came to a stop again. ‘It’s grown up over them.’
Kana peered at the gunk illuminated by the light from her staff.
It was a wet, runny, greenish-brown substance which looked sticky and probably not something you wanted to get on your skin. And that was without even considering that it could turn you to stone. ‘Is it safe to be this close?’
‘Well, moulds usually react to contact. So long as we don’t touch it, we should be safe.’ Mimi reached out with her staff until the tip of it was almost touching the nearest statue. ‘Identify,’ she said, and a green circle appeared briefly at the tip of her staff. ‘It’s a mould. Poisonous and supernatural. It’s one of the standard dungeon species, but it’s not quite right. I think we can safely say that the magic down here has changed it over the centuries. The type it’s closest to normally just causes sickness
and it’s just brown. This has a green cast to it which isn’t normal.’
‘So, how do we get rid of it?’
Mimi looked around at her companion and flashed a grin. ‘Fire should work fine.’
‘I thought you were opposed to destroying plants.’
‘I make an exception for supernatural, disgusting goo.’
‘Seems fair. We should back up. Give me room to drop a bomb on the stuff.’
They re-joined the others and briefed them on the situation.
‘You’re going to burn them?’ Megaina asked. ‘That won’t harm the others, will it?’
‘Stone doesn’t burn,’ Kana said, ‘but if we don’t clean that muck off your friends, they’ll probably just get petrified again as soon as Mimi frees them. And we’d probably get stuck with them.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose that’s true.’
‘Right. Now I just have to decide how much power to put into this…’
‘It shouldn’t take much to burn out the mould,’ Mimi said. ‘It’s a thin layer and it’s not very resilient. But cleaning it back a little way down the corridor might be a good idea.’
‘Yeah… Everyone take a few steps back.’ Kana raised her staff, aiming it down the corridor at the icky-looking tableau. A bright red circle appeared at the tip of her staff, brightening for a second as she charged her spell. Looking back, she checked where everyone was, nodded, and turned back to take aim. ‘Firebomb!’ A bolt of flame shot out of her collapsing circle to hit the ground about a metre beyond the furthest of the four statues. Then it exploded into a sphere of incandescent orange maybe ten metres wide. When the sphere collapsed again, they were looking at clean stone statues and the mould had been burned off the corridor surfaces for a good four metres beyond where the bomb had gone off. ‘Score!’ Kana said, grinning.
The mould was, however, not going to give up that easily. Past the scorched part, a cloud of greenish-brown mist was forming as it released its petrifying spores into the air. The cloud was not too close, but it was spreading.
‘I’ll take care of that,’ Aneshti said, striding forward a few metres and raising her own staff. ‘Purify Air!’ A circle of blue light appeared on the ground where the mist was forming. The light from it radiated upward, and the spores danced like sparkling motes of starlight that winked out rapidly, leaving the
corridor clear. ‘There we go. Now we should be quite safe from becoming lumps of rock.’
Mimi started down the corridor again, getting ready to work her restorative magic. ‘I can probably only do two of them at a time.
The spell is fairly energy intensive.’ She stopped at the nearest statue and frowned. ‘I don’t like the way the skin is rough and pitted here.’
‘You think that stuff was feeding on them?’ Rain asked.
‘Possibly. Let’s get them out and see what happens.’ Reaching out her hand, Mimi placed it on the shoulder of her first subject and began her prayer. Clerical magic, rather than magery, was a process of asking your deity to provide a small miracle. Sort of.
Clerics cast spells through prayer, but Kana had been taught that clerical magic was essentially the same as hers, just different.
Kana had decided to avoid thinking about it.
From the looks of things, Mimi was reviving a fighter of some sort. The statue was that of a well-built man, tall and quite muscular, in what appeared to be leather armour and carrying a stone longsword and stone shield. ‘Soansha,’ Mimi said as a circle of white light appeared at the statue’s feet, ‘restore this, your child, to living flesh.’ Quite suddenly, the statue was a man, and the man was collapsing unconscious to the floor of the tunnel. The reason was likely the nasty-looking reddish colour to most of his visible skin.
‘Domre!’ Megaina squeaked. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
Mimi was checking his pulse and breathing. ‘He’s alive.
Unconscious, but alive. His pulse is… uneven.’ She put her hand on Domre’s forehead. ‘This might take a little longer than I thought if I have to heal each of them after I’ve restored them.
Heal!’ The spell took and the reddened skin healed visibly, but it did not entirely clear. Mimi frowned for a second. ‘Drag him out of the way and I’ll do the next one. Hopefully, they won’t all be as badly damaged.’
‘We can hope,’ Constance said. ‘Mapping this dungeon is going be a real pain in the behind. We’ll need someone like Kana to come down and fry everything in sight.’
Kana grinned. ‘I’m always ready to let the fireballs off the hook. Seriously, if you want me to burn the place to ashes, I’m at your beck and call.’
‘Let’s save that for later.’
‘Spoilsport.’
Hillock, 4 th Anokarte.
As it turned out, the others were not as badly eroded. Somewhat surprisingly, Constance knew the most basic healing spell, Salve, and was able to heal some of the damage, giving Mimi time to recover as the newly enlarged party left the dungeon to make camp for the night under the stars. By the time they started back to Hillock in the morning, Mimi had healed them all back to full health.
It was just after midday on the fourth day after they had left that they all marched into the guildhall to let Sonia know that the operation had been a success.
‘It turns out,’ Mimi said after the basics of the mission had been covered, ‘that that mould is more dangerous than most.
Petrifying people is one thing, but then it leaches chemicals out of its victims. If we had taken much longer to get there, I might have been restoring a corpse when I changed Domre back. This isn’t one of those cases where you might get rescued after months as a statue. You might have a week, if you’re lucky.’
‘And there was a lot of this muck down there?’ Sonia asked.
‘It’s hard to tell.’
‘It is,’ Kana said, ‘but you could see it a long way down that corridor. It might have colonised other parts of the dungeon too.’
Sonia gave a sigh. ‘That’ll limit who we can send in to map the place, which will limit any income from it. I think I’ll have to discourage beginning adventurers from going there, for example.’
‘Th-that’s probably wise,’ Megaina said. ‘It certainly caught us by surprise. I’ve got no desire to go down there again.’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Kana said. ‘It was my first unexplored dungeon. And I just don’t get that much opportunity to throw fire around like that. As a start to my adventuring career, I’d say that wasn’t half bad.’
Chapter Eight: Lord Winter Comes
The Ice Peaks, Skonar Island, 15 th Anokarte 6023.
Cadorian stood in the mouth of a cave, looking out over the snow-capped peaks known to the Skonari by the unimaginative name of the Ice Peaks. In truth, they were more than capped by snow and they were mostly obscured by the sleet falling from the sky in a deluge of freezing water. Cadorian wanted to be out there, searching, but the light was going and even finding this cave to shelter in had been as much luck as judgement.
Turning, he walked deeper into the cave, to where the others were huddling a
round a fire. The flames were the result of magic; there was little in the way of wood to burn among the Peaks, so
the mages had summoned fire to provide light and warmth. Most of the mages here were necromancers, however, and the fire could not be kept up for too long before the summoning of it exhausted the casters who knew the spell.
For the past week, their guide had been telling them that winter was coming. That was earlier than usual, even this far north, and Cadorian had decided to ignore the man. It was getting difficult to continue ignoring him, but they were close. Cadorian was sure that they were close to the heart. It was somewhere nearby, hidden from view. Likely, it was underground. Caves were not uncommon in these mountains and where there were no natural caves, there were mines carved into the rock. Humans had been mining this frozen region for over ten thousand years, carving tunnels into the rock in search of iron. More than half of those mines had been abandoned, lost, and forgotten. The heart was probably in one of those and Cadorian was sure that he was close to finding it.
But… ‘In the morning, we return to Skonar,’ he said. ‘Soon this place will be nothing but a field of snow and we could walk past our destination close enough to touch it and still miss it. We’ll return when the weather turns in spring.’
‘A wise decision, lord,’ the guide said, a look of relief on his face. ‘Lord Winter means to make the most of his time this year.’
Cadorian had no idea who or what Lord Winter was, but he could see that things were turning for the worst. Frustrating as it was, the search would have to stop for now.
Hillock, 16 th Anokarte.
‘Lord Winter? He’s… the personification of bad winter weather, I guess.’
Kana and Aneshti were trudging through the drizzle to the Sword and Staff for breakfast and the elf had mentioned Lord Winter, who Kana had never heard of. ‘So, he’s another god?’
‘Yes and no. No one worships Lord Winter. I don’t think they even sacrifice to him down here. In the north, there’s an autumn festival with bonfires. People throw meat onto the fires as sacrifices to Lord Winter, hoping he’ll be satisfied and stay away.’
The Girl Who Dreamed of a Different World Page 19