I was willing to go along with Lubus plan. She seemed to be able to slowly rid herself of the paralysis that this troll had inflicted us with. Unlike me who was struggling to get air into my lungs laying on the cave floor. The troll had placed us down gently enough, but with my muscles frozen and not responding I had tipped over and landed face first on the cave floor. In this position, I had watched how Lubus threw herself at the floating red gem and subsequently completely disappeared. I had panicked at first, what would I do now? Lubus had been my peoples best bet for salvation, with her death I would have to find someone else to help us. It was more than that though, I liked Lubus and considered her a friend. I wasn’t sure what she thought of me, but we at least had the beginnings of friendship building I thought.

Was she truly dead? She had disappeared, but I had not seen her die. If she were killed, I would avenge her, or if she were alive, I would have to find her somehow. The key to both scenarios lay in the floating gem and suddenly what I must do became clear. My panic turned to rage as I tried to move my body, nothing happened, for all my impotent anger I could not move a single muscle. These powers some of the mainlanders possessed were so strange, how did you protect yourself against them? There must be some way, or the power users would rule the world by now.

Trying to move was pointless, so I stopped trying, my thoughts turned inward, and the first thing I noticed was that I could still sense Lubus. The corner of my mind where this new sense of her resided was still there, and it told me that she was directly in front of me. If I didn’t know better, I would say that Lubus was inside the crystal she had thrown herself against. If I could still sense her maybe I could talk to her in my mind as we had done on the way here. Hope bloomed in my chest. It couldn’t hurt to try, I closed my eyes and tried to send my thoughts in the direction I sensed Lubus.

Hello, can you hear me? I waited for what felt like a long time but in reality must have only been a couple of short moments. I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding as a voice answered my thoughts.

Eshanai, is that you? Where are you? What happened?

Yes Lubus, it’s me. I’m still in the cave where the troll put me. I don’t know what happened to you though. Once you touched that gem, you just disappeared. I can still sense you though, but it’s telling me you are inside the gem. What does that mean?

That doesn’t sound good if I am inside the gem that would mean the dungeon absorbed me. I am still here though and not dead, but I can’t feel my body or sense anything, everything is just black and quiet. There was a long pause after that, what did you say to something like that? Lubus continued after a while, and she startled me with her intensity. Wait I can sense something, I’m talking to you am I not?

Yes, I answered uncertainly. What are you getting at?

Don’t you understand? It’s simple, if I can talk to you, I should be able to sense you. Lubus went quiet again, and I watched the crystal intently, the red color became less intense and slowly turned purple as I watched. I wasn’t the only one watching though as there was a surprised sound from behind me. I can see everything around me, at the same time, I think I’m going to be sick, this is too much. Lubus’ voice sounded in my head again. She seemed as if she was going to throw up when the red color of the crystal snapped back in to place. A large hand grabbed me from behind, not gently this time, the troll was angry now, and it brought me in front of its face and roared at me. Its mouth was probably as wide as half my body, and round yellow teeth surrounded me on all sides. I thought it was going to eat me when it suddenly closed its mouth and gibbered something angrily at me. I didn’t understand, and even if I had, I couldn’t answer as I couldn’t move my mouth to form the words. My silence angered it further, didn’t it remember that I was paralyzed? The head that had actually frozen me in place was still sleeping so maybe it had slipped its mind.

The troll shook me in its giant fist and squeezed me harder and harder if this didn’t stop soon I would face the same fate as the prey on my many hunts, and I had no power to do anything about it. The troll suddenly stopped shaking me, the gem caught its gaze, it looked at it in wonder and worry as if it didn’t know what to do. I followed the big brutes gaze with difficulty, I was extremely disoriented, and now it was I who wanted to hurl. When the room stopped spinning, and my vision cleared, I too watched the crystal, and I was just as astonished as the troll that was holding me. The color was constantly flickering back and forth between purple and red. I didn’t know what was going on inside the gem I only knew that purple was good and red was bad. When it had been purple before, Lubus had actually been able to see something. It confirmed my fear that she was inside the floating crystal.

My musings were interrupted by the troll laughing and dancing on the spot, the gem had turned red and stayed red. My hope sank, but as I watched the color slowly changed again and gently settled on purple this time. The troll stopped dancing and stared at the crystal in horror, it was my turn to rejoice, but I couldn’t dance as the troll had since I was still frozen in place. A purple beam of light shot out from the gem and entered my body, and I could suddenly move again. Before the troll could react, I extended my fangs and bit the hand holding me, my venom flowing into the trolls flesh. It shouted in surprise and dropped me, so I fell to the ground, I scrambled away and found my spear where I had dropped it. With spear in hand, I turned back to the troll, ready to run it through with my weapon. I froze in horror though as I watched the sleeping head wake up.

It roared in anger and looked around frantically for what had hurt it. I shook myself out of my stupor and charged the creature before it could notice me. The head who had been awake got its brothers attention and pointed at me with an evil smile on its face. Blue energy surrounded its right hand, and it brought it through the air as if slapping away a fly. It didn’t hit me, it wasn’t even close. I was confused at first, this creature really was stupid if it thought it could slap me from this distance, but then some force slammed into me, and I flew backward to smash against the cave wall. The power didn’t let up, and I was held there in its grip. I looked up to find that the troll brothers were advancing towards me. The right head was glaring at me with madness in its eyes, the other was grinning wickedly as if anticipating what would happen next. The right hand was still glowing, and it was being held out towards me as if it was holding me here at a distance.

The glowing hand gradually lowered itself, and the brothers stopped walking towards me to look at the arm in surprise. They tried to lift it again, but it hung at their side lifelessly, sanity seemed to return to the right brother's eyes as it turned to its left to talk to the left head. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but a heated discussion seemed to have broken out, and they started shouting at each other. This was fine by me as the hand had lowered it had also stopped glowing, releasing me from its strange grip. I slid to the cave floor with a thud and looked up towards the troll in alarm to see if they had noticed. Luckily they were to busy with their argument to notice me, and I sighed in relief.

I gathered up my spear and took a moment to find my shield again, I would need all the protection I could get if this were going to work. I found it and circled the cave until I was behind the arguing brothers. My venom had taken too long to spread through the trolls arm. I suspected it was due to my fangs not penetrating deep enough into the flesh of their hand. So I held the tip of the spear under my fangs and let drops of venom fall onto it when it was liberally coated I brought it down again and snuck up behind the big creature with spear and shield at the ready. I aimed my weapon at the thick part of its thigh, they hadn’t noticed me yet, and I hoped I would have enough time to stab both legs. I had no such luck, as I sprang forward the spear penetrated deeply into the thigh as I had planned. But as I tried to pull it out the troll roared in pain with two voices and spun around violently ripping the spear out of my hands and flinging it away from me.

I watched as the spear sailed away from me in the air to bounce against the cave wall and clatter to the floor. I turned back to face the troll only to be met with a growing orange-red glow in the eyes of the right head. I remember what those eyes could do and quickly brought my shield up to protect myself. It was not a moment too soon, as fire exited its eyes and impacted my shield, it caught fire, and rapidly it grew too hot to hold. I loosened the straps that help it to my arm and threw it at the troll. It hit the right head in the face, and the stream of fire was cut off as it rocked back and my shield splintered into a million pieces it seemed.

Now weaponless but with the troll distracted I used my tail to jump at its heads. I caught myself and wrapped my tail around the right one's throat. As I landed the leg that I had stabbed buckled under it, my venom doing its job, and it toppled over backward with me squeezing it for all I was worth. I couldn’t choke it as it had another throat to bread through, but I hoped to break its neck. I didn’t get to see if I was strong enough, the right hand might be paralyzed, but the other head used the left arm to grab me and throw me away from its suffering brother.

I landed a fair distance away from it and I rolled on the floor to come to a stop against the wall of the cave. To my surprise, I had come to a halt next to my spear, and I picked it up to finish the job before the troll could sit up and fry me with those eyes. I winced and fell again at the pain in my tail where the troll had grabbed me. I wasn’t an expert, but something was definitely broken there. A loud boom caught my attention as the troll fell back against the ground from trying to sit up, it couldn’t be easy with only one working arm. I looked at my spear and thought about what to do, my venom would eventually spread throughout its body, but it would probably be able to burn me to a crisp by then. It was only one thing left to do, I got ready to throw my spear and as the troll sat up my hand shot forward and I watched as the spear seemed to hang in mid-air, flying incredibly slowly towards the troll's chest. The eyes glowed a bright orange again, and they looked straight at me ready to unleash their fire. Time sped up again, and my spear lodged itself deep into the troll's chest where its heart should be. It didn’t seem to affect it at first, and the glowing eyes only seemed to glow brighter, ‘don’t tell me that it has two hearts or something’.

My fears were relieved as the glow finally subsided, and the troll fell over again, its breath gradually slowing until it was utterly still. Suddenly the big body dissolved into a mass of glowing red light, it flew to the still purple crystal hovering in the center of the room all this time. The massive amount of light entered the gem in a torrent of power. Everything was eerily silent as I waited for what would happen next. Then the color snapped back to red, it was much brighter this time than it had ever been before, and words hovered in my vision similar to that magic contract thing I had made with Lubus.

Connection found through previously formed magic contract with asset and potential vessel

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