Chapter 11

The dark cloud above hunkered like a low ceiling. With ease, I could stretch up and tear through the cloud with my spearhead. The tear remained in the cloud like a permanent wound and filaments of black floated lazily to the island ground.

The island tapered ahead and disappeared beneath opaque water. Another island lay a simple hop across the stillwater. We crossed several islands this way. Bubbles occasionally rose from the viscous swamp and performed loud pops.

It was silent, save our gear that rustled with each step we made. We went up over small hills that formed the islands, then down again, then over small moats of water, then up more island hills once more.

We heard the boss before we saw it. Even with the auditory clues, we still fell prey to the ambush. The sounds of slithering traveled all around us, all above us, in the murky depths of the perpetual black cloud. Something slithered over hidden branches.

The last island we came to seemed to have had its top cleanly cut off, leaving a flattened span of sliced open roots and rocks and cleanly halved pebbles and swamp debris. Except there were trees. Trees that had simply come out of the ground in perfectly smooth, perfectly round trunks. Their branches spanned a thousand times each into the canopy. A canopy that hid all those branches. From those branches came the deafening sound of something dragging, something slithering. It sounded as though hundreds of kilograms of silk were being pulled through every forked branch and splitting wood along the way.

Alisander and Clara ducked with their mace and warhammer equipped. Poppo watched the canopy carefully while he brought out his stiletto dagger. Marcian turned to watch our backs and cast his mana bar out. I stepped to the middle of the party, flowed my mana bar out and gripped my flagstaff in both hands at an angle.

We halted and watched the cloud above us, trying to determine the direction of the slithering sound. Then green flashes of light began to appear in parts of the cloud. Each flash was a long line of bright green that faded in and faded out.

A streak of white lashed down through the cloud and rushed towards Poppo. The rogue cried out in pain. His dagger fell to the ground, his mana bar withdrew through his palms, and he was lifted off his feet.

He was caught in the fanged jaw of a massive snake. A snake made only of bone. The back of the snake’s exposed skull grated against the tip of the spine. Ribs swelled in undulating patterns down its body.

Eyeless sockets flashed a bright green. Millions of bright green spikes were clustered together in the form of a garland that outlined where the snake's body would be if it had flesh and organs and skin. That garland of green flashed at the same time as the eyes. The only place the garland of electric green did not cover, was the bone white skull.

From within the caging snake skull, Poppo cried out in pain once more. He slipped and struggled against an invisible tongue, and beat against invisible cheeks. His health bar flashed green.

“Poison!” I said, just as Clara and Alisander rushed to attack.

The snake was lightning fast and it bobbed its head twice in order to throw the rogue to the back of its mouth. The ribs of its spine swelled just beyond the skull, and Poppo was squeezed back into the ribs. Into the stomach.

The electric green garland of spikes flashed and sheened. Poppo tumbled through the tunnel of endless ribs. His footing slipped within the snake’s invisible intestines.

In the time the snake spent swallowing our rogue, Alisander and Clara had delivered two blows each to the snake’s skull. Splinters of bone showered from the impact of Clara’s warhammer. Slivers of bone rained from beneath Alisander’s brutal mace.

I lunged forward to the side of the snake as it began to withdraw back into the cloudy canopy. As my spearhead struck through the ribs, the electric green garland of poison fizzed into life. It traveled up my flagstaff and encompassed me in the blink of an eye.

I was suddenly overcome with a painful and sickening feeling. I was electrified. All the hair on my body stood on end. My flagstaff hit the ground a moment before I did. I was instantly nauseous. My chin tightened, and my lower lip wobbled. I lay on my side and puked.

Marcian was at my side in an instant, rolling me over and pulling me up.

“Hey buddy, you ok? Stay with us!”

As I came to my feet, my head lolled back and I saw the bone snake retreat into the black cloud. I could hear it slithering throughout the opaque canopy, like an infinite wreath being dragged through the trees. Everytime we saw flashes of green, I felt a sickening pain torture me. Poppo’s agonizing cries of pain happened at the same time.

I trembled as I flowed my mana bar out wide to look at our health and the boss’s. A garland of electric green buzzed around my health bar and the rogue’s, at the same time as flashes of green blinked above us. Each time there was a buzz and flash of green, my health depleted a few points, as did Poppo’s. His health was nearly halfway now. The boss’s health was nicked, drained just a bit.

Marcian and our warriors weren’t yet touched by the poison. They’d only attacked the skull. The only part of the snake not covered by flashing green fuzz.

“Only attack the skull,” I said.

The snake had recoiled completely into the canopy. I heard Poppo’s anguished struggle as he was carried throughout the cloud above.

“Use your ears,” Marcian said as we all huddled together and kept our eyes to the canopy. “Poppo! Let us know where you are! What’s going on?”

“I feel like I’m drowning,” Poppo said. His voice was only a bit muffled. “I feel sick!”

All sounds stopped. I heard a very quiet hiss.

“The snake’s coiling! I think it’s gonna strike,” the rogue warned us. As soon as we heard movement, all four of us dove to the side. The poisonous bone snake’s struck down, missing all of us. Its jaw scraped against the island ground, creating a rut in the broken earth. It slid across the earth and hissed against the impact. I was on my feet in a flash, before being briefly damaged from poison. The jolt of poison that coursed through me almost knocked my flagstaff from my grip.

I launched a Pyrrhon’s potion at Poppo, who continued to squirm in the intestinal prison. The potion did not reach him, breaking fruitlessly against the snake’s ribs.

I flowed 5 mana points to the Five of Gryf flag, assuming it still didn’t work from calling its name out and striking the flagstaff down. I aimed the artifact toward the rogue. A pair of silver bird’s wings fluttered above Poppo and his health recuperated 7 points. I flowed another 5 points to heal Poppo another 7 points.

Before the snake skull slid to a stop, water particles began to coalesce within a dome around the snake’s skull. The particles hardened into ice shards. Marcian was in mid spell with his hand raised, palm open, his other hand touching a bangle that shimmered ice blue.

The snake shook its head and lifted a meter off the ground. Then the thousands of ice particles imploded around the snake’s skull, trapping it in a massive frozen crystal of ice.

The boss’s health fell by at least 25% percent. That had to have been the mage’s Ice Maiden spell. The bone snake was furious. It’s body whipped about, coming dangerously close to me. Its electric green garland barrier flashed in double time. I fell to a knee from waves of overwhelming nausea and jolts of pain. I could only keep one eye open and I kept it on our health bars. My health and Poppo’s health was taking hit after hit.

Marcian and I were on one side of the bone snake. Clara and Alisander were on the other. They easily leapt over the snake’s whipping body. Then the snake lashed its body at our mage and I. It was coming fast and I didn’t have the strength to jump, let alone stand. I didn’t trust striking my flagstaff down, so I flowed 5 mana directly into the Fist of Wind rune and aimed at the incoming snake tail. A furious giant fist of tumbled wind shot forward and collided with the snake’s body. The boss’s health took no damage, but the spell broke the tail’s momentum and it simply plopped down to the ground before lifting to whip back the other way.

I was horrified to find that our warriors’ health was also encased in a circling wreath of electric green. The boss’s health was dwindling. Alisander and Clara were alternating strikes at where the neck met the skull that wasn’t encased in ice. They were able to strike the skull, but they also touched the poisonous spine. Alisander had vomit running down the front of him. Clara’s cheeks were puffed out in her best attempt to hold back from puking.

Marcian ran and skidded to a halt before the bone snake. He threw back a sleeve and touched another bangle. It was the shield of flames he used before. Mana flowed into the runes inscripted on the bangle and a reverse waterfall of flames flashed into the form of a shield before him. He rushed toward the snake’s skull and pressed the shield into the ice. Vapor steamed violently from the mix of elements. Water ran around his feet.

When the shield of flames penetrated all the way through the ice, a thunderous hissing howl shook the island. As Marcian struggled to press the shield through ice and bone, the snake’s health started rapidly depleting.

Poppo’s health was also falling so I flowed 15 points of mana into Five of Gryf, healing our rogue by 21 points. My health was below halfway so I chugged two healing potions.

I heard ice cracking. The block of ice that encased the snake skull burst into thousands of shards. I braced a hand against the onslaught of flying ice.

The snake received a full and punishing blow from Alisander’s mace. It’s right eye caved in and the snake quickly retreated back into the canopy.

“Nearly halfway on health,” I said as we grouped together.

“Are you going to cure poison?” Clara asked, clearly irate.

“What?” I said.

“Cure poison, antidote—whatever—just heal us from the poison,” she said.

“I—I don’t have anything that can do that.”

“What?”

Marcian, Alisander, and Clara looked at me in bewilderment.

“What do you mean you can’t cure poison,” Marcian said. “You’re the healer! Why do you think we recruited you?”

“Is this just a game to you,” Alisander said, purple in the face.

Electric green flashed in the black cloud above. All of us except for Marcian shivered from a jolt of poison and pain. Each of our health bars took a small hit.

“It’s coiling for a strike,” Poppo said from above.

There was another moment of silence before the bone snake attempted another dive. When it struck out, it did so more slowly this time. We dove aside as it broke through the cloud. I tumbled away and looked up to see the wide open jaws of the bone snake heading straight for me. Marcian had prepared for the strike and his Ice Maiden spell encased the snake’s skull once again, delivering a mighty bit of damage and rendering the head of the snake useless for some time.

It’s health fell until only a third remained. The boss went still and its tail flopped to the ground, shaking the island. I cast Zekaidean’s Anvil, striking my flagstaff down.

Zekaidean’s Anvil fell from thin air to the ground with a deep thud. A ghostly blue winged hammer struck against a ghostly blue anvil. A chorus of angels chimed with each strike of the anvil. A ring gold light rippled out from the anvil and hammer. Everyone’s health increased by 2 points per strike.

Now low on health, the bone snake suddenly underwent a change. Every rib swelled until the snake’s body was twice what it had been. Its garland barrier of green spikes flashed to life. Everyone of us, save Marcian, twisted in nauseous agony.

The electric green barrier stayed up. It stayed lit. The poison was now exacting a perpetual toll on us. I could barely move. Clara could barely move. Alisander raged against the pain and began striking madly at the neck of the snake.

Marcian cast his shield of flames once more. The flames flickered in reverse gravity and burned impossibly fast. He pressed the shield once more through ice and bone.

I flowed another 10 points of mana into Five of Gryf and healed our rogue 14 points. I flowed another five points of mana to heal Alisander 7 points.

The boss’s health was dwindling under Alisander and Marcian’s attacks. When it hit zero, the green barrier fizzled out, and the snake gave a wild hollow cry as it fell to a heap of lifeless bones.

Poppo rolled out from beneath the bones and gasped for air. Zekaidean’s anvil finished out its last few rings, leaving all of us just below half health. Marcian was the only one who hadn’t received a lick of damage.

Spinning green wreaths still circled our health bars, but without the bone snake’s barrier active, the poison wasn’t taking a toll on our health. The last 4 of my healing potions were split between the poisoned, bringing our health to around 75% each.

Clara had ripped the potion I offered her from my hand. She was furious. Every once in a while, the poison would affect us, shaving off a single point at a time.

“I can’t believe you’re a healer with absolutely no way to deal with poisons!” Clara said.

“Yea,” Alisander said. “What’s your problem man?”

“Sorry guys,” I said. “I didn’t know I’d need anything for poisons. How was I supposed to know? I’ve only been an adventurer for a single season so far!”

Poppo shook his head. Marcian walked over to the snake skull and kicked the top jaw away. It crumbled down and revealed a bone white chest with black planks of wood.

“We’ll be careful to go over more details before we recruit another healer next time,” Marcian said matter of factly. “Lesson learned, no big deal.”

“Lesson learned,” Clara said. “You’re not poisoned! This feels awful! Alisander barfed all over me in battle!”

“I wouldn't have barfed if Tosin had cure poison or something,” Alisander said.

“Technically,” Marcian said, “You have to be poisoned first, before the poison is cured, so you would probably still have barfed.”

“Whatever,” Poppo said. “At least you guys got to fight.”

“You were crucial to the battle,” Marcian siad. “We couldn’t see the snake in the black cloud. You were able to observe the boss’s signature tell, and warn us. Could have been a lot harder to defeat without that contribution.”

Poppo shrugged and retrieved his stiletto dagger. He gestured to the white and black chest. “Let’s open this sucker up, split the loot, and make our way back to the Klayvale trading post.”

We shuddered against another loss of health to poison.

“You better hope you have enough healing to keep us alive until we return,” Clara said, pointing the head of her warhammer at me.