027 – Eye

***

My fellow disciple, Zambulon, had put on a quite a show. The trolls in the central silo had devised a way to escape the cult’s trap. That would have ruined our plans to capture them all at once. But then Zambulon showed up in the nick time to cut off their escape route. He appeared on the high walkway, like on a theater stage, and sent the unfortunate trolls tumbling to their deaths. All those falling corpses surely caught someone’s attention. He dramatically severed the ropes and sent the ladder crashing down. Then we bowed and exited stage left.

For the first time, my senior disciple was in a good mood. He clearly had hopes that his timely intervention in the battle would win him a promotion, or at least him gain some credit for one. I hoped, on the other hand, that this victory would lessen his resentment toward me. Maybe he would forget about our prior incidents. The fact that we left our minions behind turned out to benefit him, because he didn’t have to share his moment of glory with anyone but me.

I tossed aside my ruined shield and took out the lumestone to light the utility tunnel.

“I haven’t explored this area before before. So there’s no telling what’s over here,” I cautioned.

“It shouldn’t matter much. Our side has won the day. Victory is assured. We’ll clean up the last few trolls so they don’t try any more clever tricks. Then we can join Fightmaster Putrizio and the other disciples downstairs to celebrate.”

Another gate marked the boundary of the troll’s domain. A hefty wooden door, strengthened with iron bands, hung open. The fleeing pair of trolls had come this way. A large symbol of an eye, crudely painted in red paint, adorned the inside of the gate.

“Maybe they’ve left the citadel and run off to the woods,” I said. “We could let them go.”

Almost three hundred trolls participated in the ritual of refleshment. We trapped maybe half that number in the central silo. Without a strong leader, the tribe dwindled in numbers as individuals struck out on their own. The two fleeing trolls might keep running until they left the Spitpoison Valley entirely.

“Come on, junior disciple. There’s no backing out now.”

There was very little difference between the areas belonging to the trolls and those on the other side of the gate. The dark, dirty tunnels all looked the same. But in this section, the trolls had left hand prints in red paint all over the walls.

“What do you think these hand prints mean?” I asked.

“They don’t mean anything. It’s troll filth. I don’t envy the workmen assigned to clean this place up. The whole citadel needs scrubbed from top to bottom.”

The gate slammed shut behind us. It echoed down the hall with a hollow boom. When we ran back to the door, it was already closed and barred from the other side. The trolls had hidden themselves in the halls and waited for us to pass. Then they came out of hiding and locked us out. This pair of trolls seemed more cunning than average; I wondered if they had eaten goblins recently and digested some of the smaller monsters’ devious nature.

Zambulon kicked the door.

“Damn it! We’d need a battering ram to get through here.”

“We might as well go down and meet the others. Our troops are still at the base camp. We can have them reinforce the troops at the silo.”

“Right. Let’s do that. What’s the fastest way down?”

He pulled out a torch, snapped his fingers, and ignited it. Zambulon feared the pair of trolls might roll out another rope ladder and tarnish his recent success. But there was nothing to be done about it now.

“There are stairwells and vertical air shafts near the silo. If we can’t find one of those, pathways and ramps link many the sub-buildings on the exterior of the citadel.”

We jogged through the old utility tunnels and crossed a few intersections with more hand prints painted on the walls, but we did not find one of the elevator shafts. Again, I wished that the old maps survived. If they had been engraved directly into the walls instead of printed on aluminum sheets, the maps would have lasted twenty millennia and beyond.

A long corridor snaked through the solid slabs of mergestone. It lead us away from the center of the citadel toward the outside. Zambulon was anxious to get back to the fight.

We walked past another large painting of the eye-symbol, this time wreathed in scores of dripping hand prints. I was starting to worry, as these signs had not been in any other parts of the troll’s domain.

“What exactly do we need to accomplish before graduating from being a disciple?” I asked Zambulon.

“You need to prove to Putrizio a competence in the three methods—augmentation, enhancement, and projection—by mastering a number of basic skills. And then you must develop and perfect at least one technique of your own.”

“They don’t teach us techniques?”

“This is a cult, not a sect. In a martial sect, the masters teach all the students a single fighting style and that style’s magical techniques. The same goes for a master to their apprentice. But our cult is a collection of freaks with wildly different fighting styles. Everyone here has to find their own path in that regard.”

“So the cult doesn’t even fully train us?”

“No. But it’s fine with me. Otherwise we’d be stuck as disciples for decades as we slowly mastered everything on the menu. I’d rather make my own style tailored just for me. That’s why I ran away from my original sect and joined the Void Phantoms in the first place.”

“Do the other officers teach any lessons to disciples?”

“They might if you ask them. Or bribed them. But they aren’t obliged to.”

“What about witches?”

“Listen, Strythe. Only a crazy person would try to become a witch. That’s a shortcut to the grave. I’d steer clear of those women if I were you.”

“And the cult leader?”

“Ha ha. No one has been deemed fit to be our lord’s apprentice.”

So much for taking necromancy classes from Dark Lord Hrolzek. But on the good side, I could graduate by learning a single technique, without spending years in training. After that, my time could be used for the more useful research into magic. Pure magic, that is. Without the swords.

At the north face of citadel, we came to a sub-building that had once been a greenhouse for growing plants from the torrid zone. Millennia ago a geodesic dome topped the building with steel supports and glass panels, but now a great hole opened to the evening sky. Zambulon stopped and waved his torch in front of us.

“Does something feel off to you?” he asked.

“No. But I haven’t fully developed my senses yet.” I closed my eyes and concentrated on the spiritual realm. Thick streams of mana flowed upward through the citadel. Years of occupation by weird monsters had left behind traces of other essences as well. I could feel Zambulon’s presence, but had to focus to properly sense anything else. “Is there something on the floor?” I asked.

“Yes. It feels slightly daemonic.”

A cold wind blew and made the torch flicker. Something stirred in the shadows on the far end of the hall; a dark form stretched out its wings.

At first I thought it was a xlobat, but this huge monster dwarfed the albino bat creatures. Its proportions were too strange and distorted. In the middle of the monster, a single great eye opened and glistened with reflected torchlight. Whip-like tentacles writhed across the ground.

“Do you think we should–”

Before I finished my sentence, Zambulon turned and fled. That was all the answer I needed. Whatever this beast was, the senior disciple chose not to confront it directly. And if he didn’t want to fight it, I didn’t want to fight it. I chased after him.

The normal course of evolution could not have produced such a freak. The monster’s giant eyeball took up most of its spherical body. It crawled after us on three sets of bat wings. Six tentacles ringed its midpoint, and a rubbery tail extended from the posterior end.

The flying creature wriggled through the tunnels, hindered by its giant wings. I could feel a fire burning in its soul, one powerful but inhuman. Monsters possessed by strong daemons enkindled their own sort of fires. Browsk the Mighty had his own living soul fire, and perhaps if Fat Wellez had completed his transformation into a werewolf, he would have gained one as well.

We ran back through the citadel. Zambulon reached the first intersection ahead of me.

“Turn left!” I shouted to him.

“What’s left?”

“We’ll find out,” I responded.

The trolls had left red hand prints on two of the tunnels branching off the four way intersection. We didn’t want to return exactly the way we came, or we’d run into a dead end at the sealed gate. That left one unexplored tunnel that had no markings. I had to assume that the symbols were primitive warning signs telling which directions to avoid. The red hands meant, ‘Stop. Don’t go this way.’ And the red eye was now self explanatory.

The giant monster pursued us by reaching ahead with its tentacles and dragging itself down the hallways.

We came to a wide stairway leading down. I hoped that the monster wouldn’t try to follow us down the steps, but was disappointed when it snapped its long tentacles at us. One of the rubbery tentacles wrapped around my torso, pinning my right arm to my side.

“It’s got me!” Zambulon shouted.

The eye monster grabbed him by the right leg. It dragged us banging up the stone stairs. The monster had no mouth, so it wasn’t going to eat us. But it pulled us before its great, staring eye. Waves of energy poured off the beast as its fire grew hotter.

I pulled out my lumestone and channeled as much mana as I could into the stone. It glowed with a brilliant light. The monster faltered and closed its eye. It shook us across the stairs. Zambulon hacked at the tentacle with little effect.

“Quick. Strythe. Throw me your sword.”

I fumbled at my waist to draw out the sword of spiritual steel. I lamely slid it to the ground and then kicked it over to him with my foot. Zambulon grasped it firmly by the hilt.

“Whetted Razor Strike!” he yelled.

The tentacle fell away from his leg and spurted an inky fluid. The severed piece writhed on the ground as if still alive. Zambulon delivered a second attack on the tentacle binding me. I shuffled off the disgusting appendage. The blind and injured monster hesitated at the top of the stairs as we fled.

On the ground floor, we returned to the troll’s domain. A shattered gate and a disemboweled troll marked the spot where one of our teams had forced their way inside. The eye monster did not give up easily; it followed us through the open gate. In the larger passageway, it could move more freely and expand its wings to the ceiling.

“Run towards that light,” I yelled. I pointed ahead to an area lit by glowing orange fires.

“Is it our side or the trolls?”

“Either way.”

We raced into a room where a few of our minions rested around campfires. After a furious push toward the silo, the exhausted and injured men fell back here while fresher troops took their place at the front lines. Gritha stood by the fire with her hands on her hips.

“Where have you two been? We could have used your help at the– What the blazes!”

She didn’t have a chance to finish scolding us before the tentacled eye-beast burst into the room. It lashed out with its tentacles at the surprised Faceless. One man flew back into a campfire. Another minion was lifted off his feet and smashed against a wall. The room erupted into chaos.

The minions couldn’t contend with such a large and magical creature. A few of them unloaded their crossbows, but the projectiles bounced off harmlessly. The rest tried in vain to skewer it with their spears. The seriously injured tried to crawl away from the battle on their hands and knees. Instead of acting as our reinforcements, these men became fragile playthings for the monster to break and discard.

Gritha the witch unslung her two handed saber.

“Fire steps.”

Burning fire trailed behind her as she darted between the twisting tentacles. This was not a metaphorical soul-fire, but the real stuff. Red hot flames splashed across the floor. Somehow, the rising fire danced around her, leaving her untouched. The entrance to the chamber became an inferno the monster dared not pass.

Zambulon and I were of no use in this battle. We helped the injured minions to their feet and fell back to safety.

“Scathing brand,” Gritha said.

Her sword glowed red hot. Every time she struck at one of the tentacles, the blade hissed and gave off a plume of steam. Dark spots of moisture momentarily speckled the blade before boiling away. She dodged her way forward, directly in front of the monster and its gigantic eye. Instead of stabbing or slashing, she simply placed the flat of her glowing blade on the creature’s cornea and let it burn.

The monster convulsed in pain. It spun around to get away, flapping its six bat wings wildly and sending hot gusts of air our way. As it turned to flee, the monster snapped its long, snake-like tail at Gritha, catching her by surprise. She flew back, rolled across the floor, and skidded to a stop on her feet.

Gritha the witch didn’t pursue the wounded beast. She stopped to examine the chaos around her. The place was on fire. Injured cultists were strewn about. And then her burning eyes fell on two disciples trying very hard to look innocent.