Chapter 25

The path meandered through a black forest. The trees were black. The earth was black. We navigated over exposed roots and around pools of swamp water. Empty tortoise shells lay scattered about. We ran into the occasional live giant tortoise, but our anciennes had become experts at slaughtering them and avoiding their poisonous tongues.

The hag’s cackling had led us straight to her. We hid at a distance and observed her in secret. For a while we thought she was speaking to herself. Then her cauldron moved, and we realized she might have been speaking to the creature who carried the cauldron upon its back.

The creature was blood red and had holes for eyes. Holes that held human skulls, one in each socket. The creature was squat with spindly legs and spindly arms. It’s body was flat, crushed that way from the weight of the cauldron and its contents.

Its balance was impeccable. As the hag stirred a mysterious brothy concoction, the cauldron swayed and tipped, but the squashed imp creature adjusted itself to keep the cauldron level.

The hag spoke nonstop nonsense.

“Clean toes and toes and fold the hill. Sprinkle salt and break their will. Pluck a tooth and put it back. Stir the liver and melt the silver. Yuk yuk yuk! Let’s all burn! Burn!”

This went on for sometime. She’d stir the contents of the cauldron, pause to spit her nonsense, then return to stirring.

“We’re going to have to attack at once,” Belpheus whispered. “There’s no two ways about it. We rush in and fight. There was little to deliberate since we were all in accord.

Prepared for battle, the anciennes advanced. With a replenished mana bar, Belpheus began reciting his Necrotic Crush spell.

“Bhel Dheu. Sag Dheu. Dhe Dheu. Gwel Dheu.”

The hag didn’t even look up. She simply ladled about four liters worth of chunky cauldron broth into her gullet. Her mouth stretched so wide her cheeks split, revealing yellowed and gangrene teeth. Some of the cauldron stew spilled out of the sides of her mouth and ran down her tattered black dress.

Her stomach bulged and a squat red imp broke through her flesh, tore through her dress, and tumbled to the ground in a mess of gore. The imp creature growled like a rodent and scampered toward the charging anciennes.

The hag’s stomach healed in half a second. The skin fused and scarred over. Her dress remained torn, and her stomach bulged and then burst once again, releasing another squat imp with skulls for eyes. Then the birthing of imps repeated six more times. Each time the hag’s stomach reopened in a violent tear of flesh, her screams contorted with pain.

Belpheus’s Necrotic Crush orbs never made it to the hag. The imps leapt up to swallow each one. When the mage completed his spell, the imps that swallowed the orbs fell over dead.

After the final imp had tumbled free from the gash in the hags stomach, and her skin rapidly closed, she leaned over the sides of the cauldron, and then puked directly into it. For half a minute she leaned over the cauldron, her face almost submerged in the bubbling broth, panting heavily. Then she stood up, gathered herself and began stirring once more.

“We’ve got to hit her after she’s made the last imp!” Samantah said, swinging her Toppirius Lantern out and drawing orbs from the artifact.

There were three remaining imps and their short spindly legs provided massive jumping power. They leapt upon Allmeer and went into a frenzy of biting and scratching.

They were vicious and relentless, ignoring the damage Wesley was inflicting with his canine shaped daggers and focusing purely on ripping chunks of health from Allmeer. One by one, the imps were destroyed. They fell with splats to the ground and human skulls rolled out of each eye to stare lifelessly into the black swamp forest.

Between Samantah’s orbs, Antoine‘s potions, and Ten of Gryf, the anciennes were in good health.

Now eight more imps had ripped out of the hags stomach and she cackled with madness before slumping over her cauldron and puking once more.

“Belpheus!” Samantah said. “Attack the boss! Now!”

The mage formed tridents of fire and threw them one by one. Four of five tridents sailed over the leaping imps and struck the hag. The fifth trident of fire had been plucked from its trajectory by an imp. The trident seared through the imps hands, fell onto the imps body and seared the creature in half. The other seven imps were dealing damage quite rapidly. Wesley fared better than Allmeer since he was armored by Galnokrah’s Bark. As a result, we three healers focused most of our attention on Allmeer.

I cast Zekaidean’s Anvil and while the spell chimed out its healing, I repeatedly cast Ten of Gryf. Antoine’s Hawk Familiar hovered above and buffeted the anciennes with healing.

When one of the imps was knocked off Allmeer and it sought a new target as soon as it hit the ground. It rushed over towards Samantah. I sprinted forward to spear it with my flagstaff. I felt the creature's true strength as it thrashed to death, impaled on my spearhead. These little abominations were way stronger than they looked.

One look at my mana bar had sweat beading at my brow. While we’d been preoccupied with two runs of the squat imps, Belpheus had only achieved nominal damage.

As the last imp died from the second round, another eight began charging forward.

“Use Necrotic Crush!” I said. “Trust me!”

Belpheus gave one look back before chanting, “Bhel Dheu. Sag Dheu. Dhe Dheu. Gwel Dheu.”

I dashed to the side so that I had a clear angle between our mage and the imps with the boss at their backs. Then I cast Fist of Wind twice in a row.

The fist shaped balls of tumbling wind and shadow careened in front of Belpheus and his sailing black orbs. The first Fist of Wind bowled into the imps, sending them flying back, allowing our mages orbs to make contact with the hag. The second Fist of Wind knocked another three imps off their feet, and sent them sliding backwards.

“Nice!” Antoine said.

When Belpheus’s last orb was absorbed into the boss, he said, “Bher Dheu!”

He crushed his fists and a loud crack of bone snapped from within the hag. Her face contorted in pain, her tongue lolled out of her shredded cheek, and she rasped in pain.

Her health lowered substantially. Then the imps rebounded, bounced around, and leapt upon the anciennes once more. Belpheus returned to launching tridents of fire at the puking hag.

“Antoine!” Samantah said. “Replenish Belpheus’s mana.”

In the blink of an eye, an arc of 20 blue potions cascaded toward the mage and exploded at his feet, one after the other, in a cadence of breaking glass and splashing liquid.

We repeated our tactics with every round of fighting, but somehow newer imps were aware of Fist of Wind and braced against the spell, allowing them to intercept Necrotic Crush. Belpheus was forced to return to throwing fiery tridents.

Meanwhile, we three healers were tiring. It felt like we had a long way to go in defeating this boss. The birthed imps were unrelenting.

On the fifth run of imps, Allmeer took some damage in exchange for taking the time to cast Vine of Bear. The imps chewed through the vine in the next two runs. By that time the hag’s health was at around 30%.

Her eyes burst in their sockets and she gripped the edge of the cauldron. She was entering the second phase. She swung one leg into the boiling stew of chunky vomit and mysterious broth, then the other. She sank to her chest. The squashed imp holding the cauldron trembled violently. The contents rapidly came to a boil.

Before we could act, the hag stirred herself into the cauldron while skin and flesh began to sluice off of her. Her shrieking echoed in the marrow of my bones.

The squashed imp took a step forward. The cauldron lurched and tipped to the side, spilling what looked like chunky magma. It took another step and the cauldron lurched the other way, tipping once more and sending magma splashing out.

By now the hag was a skeleton whose bones would not melt. Its hands clutched the ladle and stirred and stirred and stirred.

The squashed squat imp centered itself, then started turning its body in circles, as though hula hooping. Magma splashed out of the cauldron in widening circles. The dangerous liquid was thrown far out, splashing each of us and dealing brutal burning damage.

Everyone’s health fell halfway. What was truly frightening was that the imp did not stop. It took two steps forward and whirled more arcs of magma around us. It’s steps were faster this time. It’s dancing body spun faster. No matter how many times it sent out arcs of magma, the cauldron never seemed to empty.

There was no way we could get close enough to strike. We had to rely on Belpheus’s spells.

Samantah’s orbs absorbed into me, and refilled my health to full. I cast Zekaidean’s Anvil four times in a row. Four hammers subsequently struck with choral voices in canon. That was 15 strikes of +12 health to all per collective strike. With our healing efforts, while giving the dangerous cauldron a wide berth, we were all healed to full.

Belpheus’s mana was once again replenished and he wasted no time in casting Necrotic Crush. The problem was that we were forced to run now, and the cauldron wielding imp was impressively fast, moving like a blurry tornado. The faster it moved, the further the arcs of magma were sent flying.

Twice now I cast Fist of Wind to ward off streaks of magma, saving Belpheus from scalding damage.

Necrotic Crush was cast once more and the mage shouted, “Bher Dheu!” He crushed his fists and the imp beneath the cauldron stopped, groaned, then tumbled forward. The cauldron contents spilled to the ground and flowed out, melting into the earth. The skeleton tumbled out and melted into the rapidly cooling magma.

“Yes!” Wesley said, as Galnokrah’s Bark fell away.

“Nice job everyone,” Belpheus said.

“There’s one more thing to do,” Samantah said and lifted her lantern away from her body. The glowing sphere leaned forward and pressed against the glass.

Samantah followed the direction the light was pointing. When it changed direction and pressed against another glass pane, Samantah changed her direction as well.

We followed her though the black forest for a few minutes until coming to a rotten tree that had fallen long ago. Half of it still stood and it was hollow. Toppirious’s Lantern blinked and then centered itself in the artifact.

Within the hollow of the rotten tree, Samantah found the Obsidian Shard along with piles of small bones the hag must have been collecting.

The Obsidian Shard sheened a midnight purple. Then Smantah’s lantern began to get brighter and brighter until I had to avert my eyes and shield my vision. It was so bright, I would have bet that a start was born.

At last, the light dimmed and the Obsidian Shard was gone. Simply gone. The air before Samantah wrinkled and formed the outline of a face. The face of an old man with long wavy hair. They spoke to each other, though none of us could hear them. Their lips moved but no sound came out. When Samantah bowed her head and curtsied, the figure vanished, leaving me extremely curious.

“Now that your Obsidian Shard has been taken care of,” Allmeer said, “Let’s grab that loot.”