Chapter 05

“We stood on the edge of the world,” Nicodomus continued. “Before us was an impossible abyss. A gaping maw of pure darkness. I swear on my allegiance to Thullkill, that when I put my hand into the hole of the abyss, it came out dripping with shadow!”

I listened with rapt attention. Everyone in the trading post had forgotten about their food, their ale, their bartering, their tales of courage, and even the time of day.

“We pressed on into the darkness of the abyss. As soon as we were cocooned in a pressure of shadow, a dozen afflictions assailed us. We were fraught with fear, with shock, with insanity, with disorientation, with paranoia, with siphoning mysteries, and a host of other afflictions brand new to our psychic and our healers.”

Nicodomus mimicked holding out a torch as he and his party traveled into the legendary abyss. They went on fighting new monsters that were freshly born from the wombs of tortured horrors.

A young girl took advantage of a pause in the warrior’s tale as he quenched his thirst on a tankard of foamed molasses stout. She said, “were there no walls? No tunnel then? No landmark that paved your way forward?”

Nicodomus wiped a second beard of foam from his face, fresh from the black stout he downed. With a flick of his wrist, the foam was cast to the floorboards.

“No! We saw no walls, no tunnel, not even our feet.”

Someone scoffed and said, “You had torchlight, at least, but you couldn’t see your feet?”

“Our light, whether by flame or magic, was compressed into a small bubble. You must understand that the abyss of the dungeon did not want us there. Even the lights we cast were afraid—were afflicted with fear. I know this because, although there was no wind, the flames of my torchlight trembled.”

The hearth beside us collapsed and a plume of cinder rose from the tumbled firewood. A thoughtful ancienne stoked the fire and piled on a few more logs. We all watched and returned to our ales and our food for a moment.

“For days we did not sleep,” continued Nicodomus. “We wandered aimlessly. We fought aimlessly against monsters we could not see. We fought against mammoth feet, colossal claws, and sudden fences of teeth.”

“The boss,” someone said.

“We made our way to a deep place of molten architecture. Columns of liquified earth glowed white hot. It was a cage that kept the dungeon boss entrapped. Infinitesimal as we were, we walked between the bars with ease. At last we had arrived—so yes sir, the boss. The monster we fought against for days was a Rokwark. A horror made from decayed mountain metals with a thousand tortured souls entrapped in its blackened heart.”

“Tell us the fight,” a rugged voice said.

I did my best to keep up with the warrior’s reenactment of the fight. I understood that they enacted shields and took a defensive stance, but then I was lost. He mentioned so many spells, items, and skills that I’d never heard before. I simply couldn’t keep up, couldn’t imagine their purposes in battle.

All around me, faces were nodding with the story, riveted to his tale. Nicodomus would mention something like, “...and Serane’s Cube saved my life…” and everyone would nod and elbow each other as if to say, “smart,” or, “brilliantly done.” Serane’s Cube was one of what felt like hundreds of things I was ignorant of.

I couldn’t follow the fight, but I could follow the tone, the excitement, the enthralling demise of the boss. I felt accomplished just from listening to Nicodomus. I carried that feeling with me for the rest of the night and to bed.

In my dreams I fought alongside the warrior and his party. In my dreams, I helped seal the dungeon closed. In my dreams, I felt like a legendary hero.

I woke up with that feeling lingering in my heart and in my blood. I was ready for adventure and I perused a conjured copy of the trading post quest log with fervor. I had been biting my tongue, flipping through pages like a maniac, until finally deciding on a party to join for a level 2 woodland dungeon crawl.

We traveled through morning fog, through narrow paths threatened by encroaching bramble, and through trickeries of thorns, until arriving at the dungeon mouth. It stood agape enwreathed with vines emptied of leaves.

Tosin: Healer; Level 12 Flagstaff

Eugammon: Bard; Level 18 Lute

Meine: Archer; Level 17 Short bow

Osmond: Warrior; Level 24 Hickory Club

Ulfert: Rogue; Level 18 Kukri

“You know,” I said. “I’ve never fought beside a bard before.”

Eugammon chuckled to himself and hummed as he stepped over root and stone. Meine strung his bow as we entered the dungeon. The archer said, “Not your typical bard.”

“I prefer a lyrical battle,” Eugammon said. “If it comes down to it, I will use my dagger, but otherwise I’m a terrible diplomat.”

The woodland path, although narrow, led straight on. The underbrush had paused in its growth for the winter. The forest displayed thorns, beetles, cocoons, bird’s nests, and a tangle of green fuzzy vines. The trees that burst up and out of the underbrush curved over our heads to form an arch. Their branches formed thin wooden fingers that came together to clasp our trek in place.

I worried we would soon have to fight two abreast at a time, but instead, we soon came to a fork in the path. For some time we paused and deliberated.

“So no one’s got a clue which way to go,” Osmond said, to which we all shook our heads. “Alright, how about you pick, Meine.”

Without further delay, Meine led us down the left fork. We followed along as the path curved perpetually. A few of us began to grumble at the feeling.

“I think we’re going in a big circle,” Ulfert said. “The sun’s started over our shoulder, and I’ve watched it make an almost perfect loop around us.”

Upon finishing his sentence, we came upon another fork. Osmond cursed a storm and muttered his disbelief.

“We did do a circle,” Meine said. “We’re in the same place as before, so I guess we go right?”

We ran into these forks a couple times over. Half the time we guessed correctly, and the other half we wasted our time and energy. The going was tedious, but eventually we came upon a widened path of stiff trees with hundreds of stiff horizontal branches. From each branch were smaller vertical branches. There was an unsettling geometry to it all.

“Weird,” Osmond said.

Khhhh! Khhhh! Khhhh!

Meine lifted a finger towards what only he could determine from the woods. With a bit of uncertainty, he said, “something moved.”

Something also buzzed for an instant. Then another buzz vibrated somewhere close by.

We brandished our weapons. Eugammon’s smile changed. It had been jolly till now. His smile dripped with a thirst for blood.

The trees dive bombed us in a surprise attack. We were battered with branches. Ant-ish mandibles chomped at us one after the other. We fell back and fended off the attack with aimless swings of flagstaff, kukri, shortbow, lute, and club. Pairs of gossamer wings buffeted us during the attack.

It wasn’t the trees that attacked us. It was a flight of giant stick insects that were camouflaged brown in the tree branches. Some had suffered broken wings in the melee. They buzzed and tumbled about on the forest floor at our feet.

Ulfert crouched low to the ground with his kukri at the ready. He said, “Part stick bug, part praying mantis or somethin?”

“Time for a song,” Eugammon said.

He brought his lute before him. The strings of his guitar murmured as he slid his fingers upon the fretboard.

Osmond rushed forward and battered the fallen stick-mantids. His club came down in quick succession until the giant insects moved no longer.

Above us the rest had disappeared, blending perfectly into the angles of tree branches. I pointed at branches where I was certain I’d seen a movement, but I lost sight just as easily. Although we heard them shuffle, click, chitter, and flutter, we could not find them.

Eugammon flowed his mana bar before him, then began strumming a repetitive and dissonant melody. The rest of us turned circles and kept a keen eye out.

As our bard continued strumming, the heads of the stick-mantids began to bob and tilt. Meine brought up an arrow, and fired into the trees. One of the insects received the arrow straight through its brain and plummeted down.

The other stick-mantids took the death of their comrade as a signal to rush in. The canopy of the forest came alive with a menacing buzz. A dozen or so iridescent wings disturbed the air in a violent humming. Mandibles clicked wide open as the stick-mantids descended, one after the other.

Eugammon's discord increased in tempo. His fingers moved in a blur of activity. In the frantic dissonant melody, a haunting screech lamented. The sound waves emitting from the lute became visible a moment later and pooled around us to fill the shape of a dome which encased us all.

I knew we would not escape damage from the incoming monstrous insects. We would receive punishing bites from all directions, so I had to prepare for the incoming attack. I cast my mana bar wide and hefted my flagstaff high into the air, then slammed it down after shouting, “Zekaidean’s Anvil!”

A ghostly blue anvil formed from 15 threads of my mana bar. The anvil dropped to the ground faster than gravity could affect it. Above it, the ghostly blue form, a winged hammer manifested from the same threads of mana. Between them leapt up an outline of a laughing dwarf. He appeared for the briefest moment, snatching the winged hammer from mid-air.

The stick-mantids intruded through Eugammon’s dome of sound. As they entered, They all hissed in pain. Eugammon strummed on, and the monsters suffered broken limbs.

For each broken limb the stick-mantids suffered, our bard shouted, “break! Break! Break! Your legs and limbs shall break!”

They broke as though each note of his dissonant melody was a hand that grasped at the mantid limbs and snapped them in half.

Disrupted in their dive bomb, half of the creatures tumbled to the ground and thrashed in violent anger. Wings fluttered. Mandibles snapped. Stick limbs scrambled.

The other half scored a hit on each of us. Two of the stick-mantids grappled with Osmond who had run in to bash in the brains of the fallen. I felt pairs of stick feet land on my back and mandibles clamp on my shoulder. Though my tufted leather vest protected me, the pinch was awful and I cried out in agony.

The winged hammer struck upon Zekaidean’s anvil and a chorus of angels sang a single note in place of metal banging on metal.

+2 health to all.

A black shadow snaked around me and it sounded like it was propelled by ancient whispers. Ulfert stepped from the inky cloud of trailing shadow. His cloak followed him in slow motion. Without emotion, his kukri freed me from the clutches of the mantid on my back.

The winged hammer fell.

+2 health to all

I turned and speared the mantid that attacked me as it struggled on broken limbs. In its kukri slashed eyes, I saw pain and a reflection of red fury. It couldn’t shake the insect off my spearhead and I felt I couldn’t spend the time to keep trying. Instead, I brought my flagstaff up, with the mantid still attached and twitching.

Ulfert’s shadow snaked a winding path towards Meine, and he stepped from it to battle beside the archer. Eugammon’s melody had changed and he battled a giant insect one on one. Across from him, Osmond battled five mantids at once. His health bled at least 5 points for every bite he received. He screamed in rage and pain, and fell to a knee from the attack.

Zekaidean’s anvil rang with choral voices.

+2 health to all.

“Fist of Wind!” I said and cracked the flagstaff down onto earth. A tangle of wind currents and shadow, formed a massive fist that sailed straight for the warrior. On impact, he and the stick-mantids blew to the forest floor.

The flagstaff’s gold Life-steal veins sheened with sunset colors. The Fist of Wind rune hovered above all our heads and we were all healed to full from the damage that each target was dealt.

Osmond’s health again began to take hit after hit when some of the insects swarmed him once more. He managed to beat two to the ground and they hissed to death as their guts gushed from their cracked exoskeletons.

Zekaidean’s anvil rang.

+2 health to all.

Arrows began crossing my vision. Ulfert and Meine had begun to start picking off the fallen stick-mantids around Osmond. The warrior was an art of pure focus, and mandibles could no longer touch him.

Zekaidean’s anvil sang.

+2 health to all.

When the last giant stick bug died, decapitated by Ulfert’s kukri, the music stopped and Zekaidean’s anvil rang it’s last choral note.

“That went rather well,” Meine said, bending to retrieve an arrow, then moving on to the rest. Eugammon swung his lute over his shoulder and he clenched and unclenched his fists. His face lit with a massive grin.

“What a show,” he said.

Osmond shared that grin and the two clasped hands as though they’d been brothers since birth.

Ulfert was leant against a tree and sharpening his kukri with a sharpening stone. He moved with leisure, as though he'd never once participate in the battle. He even yawned, and shook his head as though to wake himself from boredom.

“Did you have to hit me too, healer?” Osmond said, stifling a chuckle.

“Yea, my bad.”

“No worries, it helped actually. Appreciate it.”