by Kyle Johnson
“Maybe another 4?” he guessed. “Two at each door?”
She shook her head. “Only one path leads from this level to the next,” she corrected. “The other staircase ends at this level. This limits access to the Treehome even further.”
“Well, hopefully, we’re on the right side, at least,” Aranos shrugged. “Let’s go head up.”
Of course, they weren’t on the correct side of the Spire Tree and had to trek back around to the far archway to move forward. They ascended into the darkness, Geltheriel’s night vision and Aranos’ nose both alert for any signs of danger. As they moved higher up the stairs, his Scent ability picked up the dusty, dry-bone scent of a gasha. He strained his sense and tried to tell how many awaited them, but to his surprise, he could sense only one. If that’s true, he thought cautiously, then finishing the gasha Quest will be pretty simple.
Light began to filter from above, and Aranos realized what that must mean: the doors at the top were either destroyed or open. If they were destroyed, his theory that the city was taken from within might not hold water, after all; if they were open, then he’d have to assume something was waiting for them outside. Not a good sign either way, really, he thought grimly.
Another half-turn about the Tree and the pair paused, staring up at the well preserved, wide open doors ahead. “Yeah, that’s not good,” Aranos murmured.
“You think they await our arrival, at last?” Geltheriel responded. “The last of the gasha, or maybe the rabisu?”
“I’m only smelling one gasha,” he muttered. “And I don’t like that, honestly. I’d think this Mistress would have stacked the things around her palace.”
“Perhaps they are blocking your Ability,” Geltheriel suggested. “They may wish to make us overconfident and foolish.”
“Well, if that was their plan, it backfired,” Aranos grinned. “Instead, I’m nervous and suggest we move really, really cautiously.”
“Wise decision,” she muttered, rolling her eyes before slipping back into Stealth and heading up to the opened doors.
Aranos followed behind, his mind racing. Is there really only one gasha? he thought furiously. What if there are a dozen? Veronica did say that my encounters with them were losing their challenge; maybe the AI’s figure a bunch of them would be more appropriate? There can’t be only one; that would make this part way too easy.
As they exited the Spire Tree, Aranos realized that, despite his expectations, the Treehome had not been spared the ruination of the city. He had anticipated high walls, rusty but solid gates, and a towering structure many stories high.
What he saw before him was a crumbling, tumbled wall, pierced with gaps throughout large enough for Geltheriel and him to walk through side-by-side. The gates were solid but had pulled free of their mounts and lay, collapsed, upon piles of debris. Beyond the gate, the Treehome itself had crumbled inward as if pulled down by some giant hand. The side wings were crushed and gone, and he guessed that only the ground floor had survived. Well, that will make exploring it easier, he thought ruefully as Geltheriel led him past the gate and through one of the gaps in the wall.
Beyond the wall lay a wide, open expanse of ground with nothing to provide cover – well, nothing but the shattered pieces of wall that had collapsed into it, that is. He could see that the doors leading into the Treehome had fallen against one another, with a gap beneath them that they could both squeeze through. He could also see that his Scent Ability had been correct: there was but one gasha standing between them and the doorway.
However, any thoughts that the battle would be easy were cast aside as the gasha immediately rose to a full 30 feet in height, easily as large if not larger than the one he had defeated upon entering the city. The skeletal giant threw back its head and roared, purple-black flames racing from its open jaw as it uttered the first sound Aranos had heard from one of the undead creatures. It reached behind its massive form and pulled forth a giant axe formed entirely of blackened, yellow bone before it rushed at the pair, the axe whirling.
Geltheriel shoved Aranos to one side as she dove to the other, and as he rolled away awkwardly, the axe crashed down on the space he had been standing. The gasha reared back, turning the axe toward Aranos who, panicking, cast Crystal Prison upon its entire arm. Thrown off balance by its sudden lack of flexibility, the creature stumbled and crashed to the side, but it flexed its arm and shattered the mana shell easily, clambering to its feet and glaring at the Sorcerer.
Suddenly, Geltheriel sprung between them, her sword flashing steel sparks as she carved at the monster’s ankles. The gasha kicked out, but she stepped to the side and drove her blade at the opposite ankle before diving under the first foot’s return sweep.
Aranos stood quickly and fired a Mana Arrow cloned into 5 directly at the monster’s closest knee. The arrows buried into the joint and burst, sending cracks crazing along the bones above and below the knee. To Aranos’ horror, though, the cracks resealed before his eyes until the bone was unblemished once more.
Desperate, he cast Entangling Web, placing it so that Geltheriel stood just outside its boundary but the gasha was trapped within. Its movements instantly slowed, but suddenly, its pale eyes began to glow, and Aranos could see the wispy mana strands start to be sucked into the skull, drained by the creature. Thinking quickly, he poured mana into his arms, preparing to cast his Mana Barrage, and activated Rapid Shot at the same time. As the spell formed in his hands, he screamed, “Down!”.
Geltheriel reflexively dropped, and he unleashed his barrage at the creature’s knee, feeling the mana pour through him. The first few shot simply exploded with no effect, though, and in frustration, he clamped his will down on the balls of energy. They’re too big, he gritted internally. They’re just dissipating in the air. Gotta make them denser, so they penetrate! His next blast was the size of a marble, then the size of a pea. As the tiny, pea-sized pellets reached the creature’s knee, they buried into it and erupted with a much more impressive blast. Fragments of bone raced through the air as his explosive barrage tunneled through the knee, finally sending the lower leg flying. Aranos shifted his aim and sent his last few shots at the creature’s pelvis, the blasts destroying its balance and hurling it to the ground.
Aranos lowered his hands, panting with exhaustion. Geltheriel jumped back to her feet and screamed, “The leg!” as she dove after the fallen creature. Aranos’ eyes widened as he saw the fallen leg sliding back toward the beast’s body, attempting to reconnect, and in a panic, he encased it in a Crystal Prison. The leg instantly halted, although he could see it shifting and trying to break free of the crystalline prison.
Geltheriel was back in front of the beast, her sword whirling as she dodged its blows and struck its wrists and arms with clanging blows that did no damage but kept its attention. Aranos ran around behind the creature, beginning to summon his mana saw, when the gasha tilted its head back in seeming frustration, howled toward the shadowy sky, and then lowered it jaw and belched a gout of purple-black flames directly at the elf woman’s face. Geltheriel screamed as the flames licked at her skin, scorching flesh and crisping hair, and the gasha took advantage of her distraction to slam its hand down onto her, crushing her to the floor and pinning her down. Aranos saw her LP bar plummet to 10% in his vision, and as the creature raised its axe, he knew he didn’t have time to decapitate it.
An idea came to him, and instantly he began sprinting at the creature, dodging its kicking leg and running directly up its vertebrae to its head. His feet burned as the flames in its ribcage licked up at them, but he ignored the minor pain and stood on the creature’s shoulder, slamming both palms onto its skull and pulling hard on its mana.
Instead of feeling a flood of energy, though, Aranos felt resistance, and suddenly, the mana flow reversed: energy was trickling out of him into the skull, instead! He pulled harder, and suddenly, he felt himself plunging into his mindspace.
He opened his eyes and saw an ancient, skeletal elf before him, bony ten
drils extending out from it into his swirling mana spirals. It was covered in decayed, gray fabric of some kind, and a tarnished crown topped with points of purple fire sat upon its head.
“Foolish boy,” the creature hissed, its voice dry and dusty, “you dare to challenge me for my power? I was Lord of this land before our fall, and I will not surrender my power again!” Streams of rainbow power started to trickle down the elf’s tendrils toward its body as it spoke, the energy draining from Aranos’ pool.
The aleen had not stood patiently and listened to the monster’s speech, though. He threw his mind into his spirals, reaching out to grasp them, but there were too many for him to control at once. He could stop the drain on one, but as he did, the pull shifted to another. Desperate, he relaxed his focus, trying to see the entire flow of his energy at once, and as the pattern formed before him, he could see what he was doing wrong.
I’m trying to defend my own mana, he realized as the patterns became clear in his mind. I can’t win that way. I don’t want to keep mine; I want to take his. No, I am going to take his! I just need more power draw…and that means more rotation. Aw, man, this is probably gonna hurt…
He let his consciousness flow into the spirals, not fully grasping each but intuitively holding them all at once. His intellectual mind couldn’t quite see the pattern of what he wanted, but his subconscious could feel it, and his will drove forth, accelerating the spirals. He winced as a sharp pain stabbed through his mind, but he ignored it and kept driving the spirals, pushing them to spin faster. He didn’t try to stabilize them; he simply willed them to stay stable, demanded that they do so, and slowly, they complied.
As the flows of mana accelerated, he could feel the drain in his system slow, stop…and reverse. He pushed harder, in case the skeletal elf could pull even harder, and he felt the flow into his system increase in volume until it was a raging torrent. The incoming energy increased the torque pushing his spirals, and they whirled so fast they almost looked like white blurs.
He opened his eyes to see the elf starting to shrink and crumble before him. “NO!” it bellowed, reaching out toward the mana with its hands, but Aranos snatched the staff from the wall and smashed it into the creature’s arm. The bone shattered into dust, and he spun his staff backwards, crushing the other arm. He struck low and swept its legs, cracking both knees, then slammed the butt into its chest over and over until its ribs collapsed.
“It cannot be,” the only remnant, the skull whimpered plaintively. “I was to rule! I…” Aranos ended the creature’s rant with a staff blow to its forehead, caving in the skull and causing the fiery crown and glowing, yellow eyes to wink out.
He sighed and turned away, but movement caught his eye. He raised the staff once more as a filmy, translucent figure swirled into view. The figure’s features were blurred, but it looked to be humanoid, albeit bent and shrunken. Its featureless head turned toward Aranos, and he heard its voice echo in his mindscape.
“My thanks, young aleen,” the voice spoke weakly. “You have freed us from our bondage.”
“Umm, who are you?” Aranos replied, still holding his staff at the ready. Weird phantasm in my brain? Yeah, not really okay with that.
“I am nothing but a memory,” the figure replied. “In life, I was Riluaneth Daewynn, Lord of the Realm of Haerobel. I and my city were betrayed by our High Sorcerer, and now my Realm is Fallen.”
“Yeah, I guessed the city was betrayed,” the aleen nodded. “But, by a Sorcerer? That, I wasn’t expecting. Can you tell me what happened?”
“The Sorcerer showed me the portals being opened during the Feast,” the phantasm replied dully. “She told me there was a ritual that would protect us, hide us from the creatures. In my fear for those of my city, I agreed to the ritual, and by doing, bound us all to her bidding. Those of us who knew we had been betrayed were bound into these gasha; those who simply died in agony as the Ritual drained their lives became the edimmu.”
The figure’s form was losing cohesion, and its voice grew weaker. “My time is past,” it intoned hollowly. “I am bidden to tell you one thing, aleen, before I move on: you must give the Sorcerer what she wants.”
“I have to what?” he demanded as the figure slowly faded and vanished. “Son of a…,” he swore aloud, punching the target dummy. “Seriously, Veronica? One last, cryptic clue before the ancient spirit fades away? That’s such a freaking trope!”
“Tropes exist because they work,” Veronica’s voice echoed in his mind. “Aren’t you curious to see how you’ll be able to give the Sorcerer what she wants, now? Aren’t you feeling eager to move forward in the story?”
“Well, yes,” he grumped. “But…”
“But, if the spirit had simply told you what you wanted to know,” she continued, “there would be no dramatic tension. No denouement. You would just be following directions, and what’s the fun in that? Thus, the cryptic message from the grave. Don’t fear the trope, Jeff. Embrace it!”
Aranos spent the next minute swearing creatively while flailing pointlessly at the target dummy before he had regained control. “Okay, I’m good, I’m fine,” he breathed. “Gotta go check on Geltheriel. Gotta wrap up the Quest. Let’s do this.”
As his eyes opened into the courtyard, Aranos found himself standing on the dusty remains of the fallen gasha. He darted over to where Geltheriel lay, barely conscious, her LP bar flashing warningly. “Don’t worry,” he told her, pulling out a bandage. “I’ve got this.” His Herbalism Skill told him that the bandage needed to be applied to her chest for maximum effect. He hesitated but decided that she’d rather trade her modesty for her life before undoing the straps on her armor and pulling it aside. He lifted up her shirt, very carefully not staring at certain things that became visible as he did so and pressed the bandage vertically down the center of her chest. He quickly dropped the shirt and flipped the armor back over her, leaving it for her to put back on later, and reached back into his pack.
He once again ground some herbs and poured them down her throat, by which time her LP bar was no longer flashing and was steadily climbing. He sighed in relief and stepped back to check his notifications.
Okay, Veronica, he thought bleakly, now that was a dangerous and challenging battle! Totally worth the XP! He glanced over his status, deciding to boost Endurance, Agility, and Wisdom this time: he had started to run low on SP in that last battle, and only his Agility gave him the option to climb the gasha and defeat it. That put his LP at 232 and his SP at 890, which gave him more of a comfort zone with his higher-cost Spells.
The best part, though, was that his Mana Control had leveled up to Expert! He was going to have to start working on giving aspects to his Spells – an actual ice Hailstorm would be cool – but that would wait until the Quest was done.
Geltheriel stirred beside him as he closed out his status, rubbing her chest. “I see we were victorious,” she observed quietly. “That was quite the battle, and once again, you appeared to have saved me.” She noticed her loose armor and touched the bandage beneath her shirt, her eyes suddenly narrowing.
“And how, exactly,” she asked flatly, “did you manage to get this bandage on me, aleen?” Her voice was cold, and he suddenly recalled what had been done to her the last time she was helpless. Maybe I should have just put the bandage on her arm and hoped for the best? he wondered pointlessly.
“I didn’t look!” he protested quickly, holding his hands up defensively. “I mean, I looked, you know, at where I put the bandage, but I didn’t look…there! I promise! You were dying, and…”
She held up her hand with a sigh. “Enough,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “I am not…comfortable with your having done this, Aranos, but…I trust you, and I trust it was necessary.”
“It was,” he assured her hurriedly. “That’s where you were most injured, and you were down below 10% SP. Putting it there healed you faster, that’s all.”
“Very well,” she replied, letting the matter drop. “I trust
you will not make a habit of it. Of course, I hope not to make a habit of being unconscious, but it seems fate has had other ideas lately.” She rose and fastened her armor, brushing herself down as she did.
“I see that we completed the Quest to free the gasha,” she said, her eyes vacant. “And yet, there is still a hidden reward.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty strange,” he agreed. “Usually, you get the reward right away, right?”
“This does not mean we have not received a reward,” she corrected. “It means we have not discovered what it is. I suggest, then, that we enter the Treehome and see if it lies within.”
“Not yet,” he denied, holding up a hand. “The Mistress is going to be waiting in there, you know. She’s probably got that rabisu thing, too. She’s a Sorcerer, probably higher level and with way more Spells than me, and likely lots more practice with them.” Geltheriel nodded slowly.
“Even better,” he continued, “you probably can’t fight either of them: from what you said, your weapons won’t hurt the rabisu, and I doubt the Sorcerer will give either of us the chance to attack her.”
“All of this is likely true,” the woman allowed slowly. “So, what does that mean? We should give up?”
“Nope,” he grinned at the woman. “It means, I’ve got a plan.”
Several minutes later, the Keeper was headed for the fallen doors, ducking under and squeezing through the gap, and Aranos scrambled to follow her. His Scent ability wasn’t picking up anything at all, which was itself kind of weird. Sure, he might not be able to smell the rabisu – the creature didn’t have an odor when he saw it before, at least – but he should have been able to scent the Mistress, or even just the smell of decay and mold. Yet, he smelled nothing but himself and Geltheriel, which made him very nervous. Stick to the plan, he told himself fiercely. It’ll be fine if you stick to the plan. Maybe.
The entry hall was dark, but some light shone in through cracks and gaps in the walls and ceiling. There was enough light, at least, to show that the hall was completely destroyed. It didn’t look like the typical decay he had seen throughout the city: it appeared more like something or someone had smashed the place in a temper tantrum. Fortunately, whatever had wrecked the room had also left nothing standing large enough for anything to hide behind, so he was fairly sure they were alone in the room.