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In some ways, I was irritated that we had to wait for Tiffany to reward Mongo for his promotion. In others, I think it may have been a necessity. It took quite a bit of time before Jess began to focus on her surroundings and interact with us once again. She had been perhaps the closest of us all to Dino, except perhaps for Mongo – who was being distracted from any grief he might be feeling, and his sudden death took her by shock. Even once she started blinking and moving again, she seemed lost in her own thoughts and didn’t talk to Crystal or me at all.

It wasn’t until Mongo and Tiffany had quit what they were doing; and Tiffany skipped merrily into the room we were waiting in, still tying her healer’s robe back shut in front; that Jess hopped up, ran over, and grabbed her hand. “Tiff, you got to help me with Magey!” Yanking her along, she immediately started to drag Tiffany back towards the room with Dino’s corpse in it.

“Are you guys going to bring him back to life?” I couldn’t help but blurt out the first wild thought that crossed my mind, but Jess just stopped long enough to snort in my direction.

“Don’t be stupid,” she replied, coldly. “Dying down here, who knows what this place has done to his soul. I wouldn’t bring him back, even if I could.”

“Then?”

“I just want his seed,” Jess answered, before I could even finish the question. “It’s still alive and healthy for now. With Tiffany’s help, we can pull it from him, and I can still have his child. All I ever really wanted was a child born by a male wizard, and I don’t see any reason why I still can’t have that.” Somehow, her words sent a shiver down my spine. Poor Dino! I guess he really was going to be a ‘Deadbeat Dad’.

“We can do that!” Tiffany bounced and hugged Jess several times before running the rest of the way out of the room with her. I could hear her excitedly tell Mongo, “Jess is going to be a Momma! Come watch!”

By the sound of the clanging, banging, and scrambling, Mongo almost broke his neck rushing to get out of the room and join us. The right side of his greaves was fastened and held in place, the left side still swung free and nearly caused him to stumble and fall as his arms were weighed down with the rest of his armor. “No thanks! I need Michael to help me get into this armor so I can keep you guys safe!” Looking pale, he yelled back into the other room where the two healers laughed back merrily.

Crystal started to wander curiously over to the door to see what was going on, and I forcibly swapped bodies with her, walking her back away. ‘We don’t need to see that,’ I thought to her, causing my own body to laugh girlishly. Mongo stared over at my body, puzzled at the odd sniggering I was making, and I swapped back over. It was a little disorienting to change places with our souls inside each other’s flesh, but it was becoming easier and more natural to do as Crystal and I both adjusted to our bond better.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious about what they’re doing in there, My Lord?” Crystal asked, teasingly.

“Oh, I am! I am,” I lied shamelessly. “Unfortunately, I need you to help me with something vitally important in here that I almost forgot about.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Help gather up all the broken pieces of our little forest statues,” I commanded.

“Are you planning to repair them? It’s a shame to see them destroyed like this,” Crystal replied, sadly.

“Even better,” I told her, putting on my ‘evil madman’ look and wringing my hands together furiously, “I’m going to use them to take over the world, Pinky!” Stopping from where she was bending over and picking up a shattered fragment of one of the tiny deer statues, Crystal raised an eyebrow and looked baffled in my direction. Even Mongo had a stupefied look on his face, which caused me to once again burst out laughing. “Never mind! It’s just a joke. I’m sorry,” I apologized.

“Child of Chaos,” Crystal muttered.

“Yep,” Mongo agreed.

“I keep telling you guys, I’m really not!”

“Yep.” “Uh-Huh.” Crystal and Mongo spoke at about the same time, took a moment and nodded to each other, and then replied in harmony, “We believe you…”

They totally didn’t!

Muttering under my breath, I used magic to help sweep up the rest of the scattered fragments of the broken statues that I’d worked so painstakingly hard to perfect and bring into existence in the dungeon down here. “Toss yours in the pile,” I muttered to Crystal, while pointing to the pile of dust and stone shards. Nodding slightly, Crystal gently bent and put the pieces she’d collected into the debris heap, so they wouldn’t break into any more fragments, and then she took a step back.

“Megan! David! Dark Corruption that controls this place!” I shook my fist all around and summoned my magic into it, creating a shining light that lit up the whole room. It was nearly time to head out, so a minor show of force and enthusiasm wouldn’t affect the dead any, but it might just give strength and courage to the others.

“You bastards of Darkness hear me!” I used my magic to amplify my voice and echoed it around us. (I’d like to claim it was to intimidate the darkness, but truth was, it was mainly to drown out the sound of the two healers discussing how best to insert the seed, in the other room. Some things a man doesn’t want to hear!)

“For many centuries, you’ve sat here, trapped and dormant; awaiting for some hapless prey to fall into your clutches and release you upon the world again. You’ve tainted the soil! Corrupted the dead! Destroyed the forest and ruined all that you could get within your grip!” With a surge of energy, I blasted the door leading out into the hallway, sending it crashing into the opposite wall. Honestly, it looked impressive, but it truly required very little force; the door had already been weakened and damaged from the dead’s constant scratching and the rune which had exploded outside it earlier. The resounding bang that it made when it slammed into the other wall was quite satisfying though.

“Be warned, Minion of Darkness! We are not easy meat! We will not fall, falter, nor allow you to have your way. You have slain our friends!” I send tendrils of air magic arcing out the door, mixed with a spray of chaotic color just to make it visible for Mongo and Crystal so they could see it as it blasted out in a torrential rush. “You have tainted our souls! You have committed evils against us that cannot and shall not be forgiven!”

Using the power of earth, I gathered up all the broken fragments of stone and lifted them into the torrent of rainbow wind. Like bullets, they hurtled forward, accelerating to an unbelievable velocity, and were rocketed by the wind out of the room and down the hall in either direction. The sound of bone and flesh being blasted apart by the impact with the fragments was loud and clear.

“We are coming for you, Darkness! We fear you not! We do not quiver and hide, nor attempt to run and leave you to your devices! The Gods had mercy on you when they left you sealed here to learn from the error of your ways!” Sensing that the stone was no longer hitting anything, I knew that the hall had been cleared. With a flick of my wrist, I reversed the wind, pulled the broken fragments of my sculptures back into the room, and forced them to shape into a large naginata.

Basically a long staff, with a swords blade at the end of one side, I wrapped the power of Chaos magic around the fragmented and powdery stone to hold it together. By itself, nature would’ve scattered the stone pieces and the weapon would’ve crumbed into a pile of debris like it was originally; but Chaos holds the power to overwrite such rules. By infusing the wild energy in amongst the fragments, the staff and blade adhered tightly together; creating a weapon that was strong, sharp, and formed by dozens of sculptures of nature that had been destroyed earlier.

“Behold!” I grabbed the staff firmly in my hands and shook it at the ceiling defiantly. “Nature’s Wrath even descends upon you! You have ruled this place for too long darkness! Now….”

“NOW WE COME FOR YOU!!!” I amplified my voice and sent it echoing down and out the tunnels into the passage beyond, and deliberately directed it back up towards the surface and the way we’d came, and not down in the direction Megan had traveled. I wanted to raise my companion’s moral; not alert the enemy that we were still alive and coming for them. I don’t know that they know we survived the explosions, so I’m not going to go out of my way to tell them.

Boldly stepping forward, I led the way out into the hall, staff held high…

… and nearly screamed and almost pissed myself as a small floating orb buzzed around not five feet from the left of the doorway!

I’d forgotten about the little floating orb that had been playing with Tiffany and staying with her. Apparently, it had seen the wind, watched the rainbow, and grown curious about the stones flying down and back up the hallway. The little thing had floated out of the bars, was curiously meandering to the door where we were at, and I almost walked out and right into it!

Gods be damned! There goes my moment as ‘fearless leader’. Crystal’s gut-bursting laughter told me that she knew what had happened, even if no one else did.

Sighing slightly, I glared at the orb – it completely ignored me and was now playing with some of the shattered skeleton bones on the ground by lightly zapping them to make the bone smoke and smolder – and tried to regain as much of my shattered dignity as possible, as I slowly led the way down in the direction I had sensed Megan last.