Chapter Fourteen

Igneous and the rest of the group follow Thomas, the high-priest, down a flight of stairs and follow him to a large oak door. Thomas fumbles with a ring of keys, before producing a large brass key, sticking it into the door, a loud click feels the silence. Thomas swings the door open to reveal a large room, with shelves full of leather scrolls and a few thick rectangular objects lining the walls, a table covered by stacked scrolls, and a wooden desk with a padded chair. Walking around the room Thomas touches the light in his hand to three large crystals along the walls. The crystals glow after being touched, filling the room with a bright white light. Sitting in the padded chair Thomas release the light in his hand with a sigh. Korren pushes past everyone and inspects one of the crystals, turning his head Korren looks at Thomas with surprise, “ Are these spell holders?”.

Thomas looks over to Korren as if he hadn’t heard the question then nods, “ Oh yes, I got them during the war.”.

Korren then looks to the shelfs and grasps one of the rectangular things, opening it he flips through thin things with dark squiggles on it. Eyes wide Korren says aloud, “ Are these books? From the Orcs?!”.

Thomas laughs and nods, “ Yes, more items obtained during the war the war.”.

“ I have only heard of these, I never saw these anywhere near the battlefield.”, Korren says replacing the book, unable to read it.

Thomas smiles sadly and whispers just loud enough to hear, “ Not all of war is fought on a battlefield.”.

The four adventures all nod at these words and get a far away look in his eyes. Igneous looks at Nelly and Yasevl, with a look that asks what’s up with them, which they return. The silence is broken a by a round of coughing leaving Nelly on the floor holding her hand to her mouth. Igneous and Yasevl already by her side try to help her but is pushed away by Marigold that holds a red potion to Nelly’s lips. After the content of the vial is drained, she places a hand on Nelly’s chest and chants while a golden light spreads over Nelly. Nelly takes a deep breath and nods her head, with a hoarse voice, “ Thank you, Marigold.”.

Nora steps over to the desk and sets an intense gaze on Thomas, “ We need you to heal them. They were infected by a magical darkness.”.

Thomas nods, “ I’ll do what I can, and after words we have a lot to talk about.”.

“ Fair enough.”, Nora says with a small smile.

“ What can we do to help.”, Igneous says stepping forward.

Thomas studies Igneous for a moment, his eyes giving off a small golden glow, then says with a series tone, “ I need your blood.”.

Nevil sits at a large table, in Yasevl’s temple, with Heva, Corma, and Giblex sitting next to him, and on the other side of the table, a group of people that came from the mountains. These people were short, some only a foot taller than the goblins and others shorter, coming only up to Nevil’s knee. They all had long beards, save for one he believed to be a woman. The two sides smiled at each other politely, unable to converse, speaking vastly different languages. Every now and then someone would try to speak but would quickly give up after it was apparent the others couldn’t understand. Awkward silence over took the group, when suddenly one of the shorter ones jumps up from his seat and walks over to a stone fire pit and points at the flames. Saying something that sounded like stones smacking together in a sing-songy voice, he pointed at the fire looking intensely at the goblins and wood elves. This went on for a long time till Giblex gasps and rushes over and points at the flame and tells the tiny one what it is, causing the tiny one to jump up and down clapping. Giblex looks at Heva and Nevil with a grin, “ We need to teach each other what things are!”.

Nevil and Heva both smile and say it’s a great idea, but inside they both have the same thought, This is going to take forever.

A human ranger made her way through the forest, deeper than she had ever been. She was searching for a special moss that had been requested through the Adventure’s Guild. She usually wouldn’t take such a job, but she wash strapped for coin and a girl had to eat. She thought about the description of the moss, gross on underside of logs, purple with red roots, the job offered twenty gold pieces, if she could find it, she wouldn’t have to work for almost half a year, if she was frugal. Sighing she mumbles to herself, “ This better not be a joke.”.

Letting kicking a log over, she fines bugs and lizards , some even purple, but no moss. She begins searching for another log when she hears what sounds like talking. Crouching behind a thick patch of shrubs, she watches as a group of dark-skinned elves with green hair walk by speaking in a language she has never heard before, she hadn’t fought against the elves, but the Orcs. She smiles to herself as the group of elves head in the opposite direction of her, this will be worth far more than any damn moss. Once, she believes the elves are far enough away, she runs through the forest as stealthily as possible, if she hurried, she could cut her travel time down to only a couple of days.

Thomas kneels before the temple’s alter, before turning around and fixing his gaze on Nelly, “ You first my child.”.

Nelly looks at Yasevl then back at Thomas and shakes her head, “ No, him first, my village needs him more.”.

Yasevl places a hand on Nelly’s head and smiles, “ I appreciate your concern for me, but you need this more than me. I have more energy to keep the darkness at bay, you on the other hand are running out of mana and time. I couldn’t face your father nor myself if anything happened to you.”.

Nelly looks up at Yasevl with tears in her eyes and hugs the thin spirit and cries into his robes, “ Lord Yasevl.”.

A tear of sap escapes the wooden man’s eye, and he nods at Thomas. Thomas walks over to Nelly and leads her away and towards the alter and hands statue. Having her kneel in front of the open palms, Thomas removes a large glass vail that contains a swirling orange and purple liquid from his robe. The potion contained one of the strongest all-purpose medicine that the man could brew, along with a potion that was meant to replenish her mana, and the blood of Igneous. The priest had said that while Yasevl’s and Nelly’s body fought against the darkness, Igneous’ had taken it in , and instead of the darkness taking over his body, his body used it to grow. Thomas hoped that by introducing his blood, along with the medicine, would force Nelly’s body to expel the darkness or to at least over power it. Pressing the vial to Nelly’s lip, Thomas tilts the vial up and keeps Nelly’s head tilt back as she tries to fight it. After the vial is drained, Thomas releases her, as soon as she can Nelly coughs, and sticks her tongue out, “ That tasted awful!”.

Thomas laughs and smiles warmly, “ I know, but the best medicine usually tastes the worst.”.

Thomas looks to the windows as the sun begins to rise, its first golden rays pouring in the window, reflecting off the silver statue. Nodding he looks to the others, “ Its time.”.

Walking behind the statue, Thomas places his hands on the back and chants loudly. Golden light pours from the priest’s hands and mixes with the light from the sun, engulfing the silver hands in a brilliant light. The light extends from Nelly and shrouds her body in golden light. Nelly coughs and groans loudly. Igneous steps forward intending to intervene, but Yasevl places a thin, but firm hand on Igneous’ chest and shakes his head at him. Igneous glares at Yasevl, but quickly turns his gaze back at Nelly, with fear and worry .

After what feels like an eternity, but in actuality is only a few minutes, Nelly lets out a muffled cry, then she lifts her head back with her mouth open. From her mouth a dark miasma flows out, as the light hits it the darkness shutters then evaporates. Nelly’s head drops and she lets out a deep breath. Thomas stops his chanting and steps out from behind the statue, his brow and robe’s neckline drenched in sweat, whipping his brow, Thomas smiles weakly, “ It worked.”.

Yasevl and Igneous rush forward and embrace Nelly, followed shortly by Marigold and Nora. The group sits like this for a moment, when Thomas clears his throat. The group looks to him with slight annoyance for interrupting their moment. Thomas smiles weakly, “ I apologize for rushing you, but if we wish to heal Yasevl as well, we need to hurry before we lose the dawn’s light.”.

Nodding their consent, the group stands, Igneous helping Nelly to her feet and leading her toward a pew to sit. Yasevl nods at a Thomas and mouths, “ Thank you.”.

Thomas smile and tilts his head and acknowledgment. Yasevl kneels before the statue just as Nelly had, and Thomas produces another vial and holds it to Yasevl’s lips. Swallowing the vile tasting liquid, Yasevl gives Thomas the go ahead. Thomas moves behind the stature once more and begins chanting, the golden light spreading out and engulfing Yasevl. Everyone in the room watches closely, but all of them miss the thin tendril of green that moves in from the window and snakes its way into the golden light and enters Yasevl’s mouth.

Yasevl opens his eyes and finds himself in his center, but the once healthy green forest has undergone changes. The once blue stream that ran through the forest was now, murky and polluted with black slug. The base of the trees were black and rotten, with black slime covering the trunks. Yasevl rushes to the closest tree and tries to pull the slime away, but only manages to get it all over his hands. Yasevl curses in shock and fear as the slime begins to spread from his hands and up his arms before spreading across his chest and down to his legs. Falling to his knees, Yasevl continues to try and get the slime off, as it spreads to cover his head and covers his mouth. As the slime begins to cover his eyes, as he screams silently, he sees a flash of red and orange rushing towards him. As Yasevl sits in darkness, he feels flames spread around him, but instead of searing pain, he feels only warmth and comfort as the flame consumes the slime. The fire works its way up his body, eating away at the slime incasing him. When the flame consumes the last of the slime, Yasevl opens his eyes and he gasps in shock. The flame had purged the forest of all the slime, leaving the trees not only unharmed, but restored to their former healthy state. Picking himself up, Yasevl walks over to the stream and sees that it to is returned to normal. Yasevl walks through his inner forest, inspecting it for any slime that may had been left behind, when he hears a woman’s voice call to him from behind, “ Do not worry, the flames have purged you of all impurities.”.

Spinning around, Yasevl’s eyes fall on the figure of woman made of interweaving vines and grass, with flowers blooming into a rainbow dress with deep emerald green eyes. Power radiates off the woman and even though Yasevl has never seen her before, he feels as if he has known her for his whole life. Beside her stands an older human man dressed in black trousers with a silk white shirt covered by a purple vest, on his shoulders hangs a red and white cloak, and a belt hangs from his hip filled with various potions and bags, simpler to the ones he’s seen Marigold use. Yasevl stares at the two intruders, “ Who are you and how did you get into my center?”.

The human man smiles, the corners of his eyes wrinkling, then says with a warm and compassionate voice, “ We are here to help.”.

The woman steps forward and allows seeds to fall from her hands, the seeds instantly begin to sink below the soil as they hit the ground as roots sprout from them. As soon as they are completely submerging, small stems begin to sprout and grow into small saplings. The woman smiles and fixes her intense emerald eyes on Yasevl, “ We have much to offer and discuss.”.

Con makes his way through the forest to a spot far from the peering eyes of people. In the dawn’s early light, Con spots a small hole in the side of a hill. Feeling a force pushing him forward, Con pushes his way through the small hole and makes his way through a tight tunnel with roots scraping against his face and hands as he goes. Undeterred Con makes his way through the tunnel till he comes to a space just large enough for him to crouch. Smiling a twisted and dark smile, Con grabs the bag hanging on his back and pulls it close to himself. Opening the bag, he shoves his hand into the bag and grasps its only content. Pulling his hand out, Con produces a twisted stone carving of a thorns and twisting tendrils. Placing the slightly glowing carving down in the far most end of the space, Con sits with his legs cross with his hands in his lap, he grins as his eyes turn pitch black and he whispers into the nothingness, “ It is done, master.”.