by Ian Rodgers
Another loud crashing shook the chamber, and the door shuddered violently, rattling in its frame. A second boom. Then a third. Naliot rose, roaring furiously and demanding that the assault cease. There was a long moment of silence.
“BOOOOM!” The door cracked, a great rent that consumed its entire middle, reaching from top to bottom. Silver light spilled forth from the spreading wound. The silver light then grew brighter and brighter until it completely engulfed Naliot’s domain, and he howled in pain as it seared his flesh.
Dora cried out in shock and raised her hands to cover her eyes to shield herself from the sudden glow. The silver washed over her, and all she could see was white.
∞.∞.∞
With a gasp, Dora sat bolt upright, panting heavily. She looked around wildly, one hand unconsciously drawing the knife from beneath her pillow, while the other snatched up her crossbow.
For a few, pulse pounding moments Dora looked around in a panic before she got her breathing under control and a good look at her new surroundings.
She was back in her tent, and there was a dull orange glow of dawn seeping through the canvas. Shakily, she crawled to the flap and peeked out. Her campsite was exactly the way she’d left it, without a single stone out of place. Starspot was still tied to her post and asleep, making little neighing noises as she had horsey dreams. Above, the sun was starting to tickle the horizon with its rays, illuminating the landscape, though the path Dora had taken through the Aldani Gorge would not get proper light until the sun was directly overhead.
The half-orc sighed out in relief seeing everything in order. “Was it a dream?” she wondered aloud. Everything she had experienced last night had seemed too real not to be an actual experience.
She was drenched in sweat and felt sticky. Putting her weapons down, she wandered out of her tent to fetch some water to wipe herself off with. As she reached for her pack at the entrance of her tent, though, she paused.
There, at the foot of her bedroll, was the small cast iron statuette of Naliot that had been given to her by Holt and the others in the Menagerie a year ago. It lay on its side, a tiny crack running from top to bottom.
Confused, and slightly worried, Dora reached out to pick it up with her left hand, but her appendage froze mid grasp. Wrapped around her left wrist, tangled up with the silver Bracelet of Nia she had been gifted for saving Rahmal’Alram, was a disturbingly familiar necklace with three charms; a golden dove, a silver bolt of cloth and a silver lily flower.
Trembling, Dora carefully untangled the necklace from her bracelet. Her mind was blank with fearful shock. It was her mother’s necklace, one of the few pieces of jewelry she had owned before her death. Dora had kept it, though it had been too painful to keep close by or wear, and so had hidden it in the depths of her pack for years.
It should have still been there, crammed deep in her pack, between her finer clothes and the rain gear. Yet there it was, wrapped around her wrist when she knew she had never bothered to look for it since the Menagerie was attacked.
Uncertainty gripped her soul, and her eyes flickered over to the wayward idol. Her hands still shaking, she lifted it up. And though she was uncertain, the crack through the middle of the metal statue appeared almost identical to the one that had been inflicted on the door to Naliot’s inner sanctum.
Dora sucked in her breath through her teeth, shocked and stunned, and feeling more than a little fear gnaw at her heart. Something was going on. Matters of a divine nature were occurring right now, and though she wanted to deny it, they all seemed to be focusing on her. Her! Dora wanted to laugh at that thought.
She was an eighteen-year-old half-orc Healer who’d lived a hard life. She’d done a bit of slaving, done a bit of saving. Sure, she had stopped the Rapture Dawn cult from summoning the demonic mistress of sin, the Queen Swathed in Vermillion, and saved the city of Rahmal’Alram from a growing siege of Undead, but those were acts she’d done for her own benefit! Not out of some sort of sense of duty or desire to be heroic! There was nothing about her that could explain why gods would fight over her!
The evidence that said otherwise was all there, though. The dream, the cracked idol, the necklace she’d refused to look at for years but now found on her arm. It was all building up and pointing to something beyond ridiculous happening around her.
“I’m not some sort of special hero. I’m not a chosen one of any sort!” Dora said to herself. It was not as firmly as she’d have liked it to be, though. Unable to stand the sight of either the statuette or her mother’s necklace, she grabbed both items and stuffed them deep into the depths of her pack, before taking down the tent and the campsite.
She then walked over to Starspot, and raised a hand to awaken her, but quickly cast a second Protection from Evil before finally getting her horse up.
“Come on lazy bones, it’s morning,” Dora said softly, stroking Starspot’s mane while also bringing out an apple. Upon smelling the fruit, the large steed huffed drowsily and quickly woke up. With a happy neigh, Starspot ate the apple out of Dora’s hand.
“Good girl. Here, eat up. I don’t know how much further we’ll have to travel, but let’s keep your strength up,” Dora declared, removing a feedbag full of oats. Starspot happily began to chew the food, while Dora made her own breakfast out of dried biscuits and jerky. She’d gone to bed without dinner last night, and felt the pangs of hunger from that foolish decision fade slowly after her less than satisfying breakfast.
She swallowed her meal down, washing the bland and salty taste out of her mouth with a few mouthfuls of water from a sealed pouch. She then emptied the waterskin into a bucket and offered it to Starspot. The horse eagerly slurped up the precious liquid.
As she waited for her partner to finish her meal, Dora spent a few minutes cleaning up the campsite, tidying up the runestones that contained the temporary wards, removing the tiny bits of trash every camp seemed to generate, and took a few moments to brush Starspot’s coat and check the condition of her hooves.
One of the most important rules in the Dreadlands was that any and all beasts of burden were as close as dear friends, and often treated better than family. Be it the horse-rearing masters of Saluda, the mules and donkeys that were popular with the inhabitants of the Cracked Land, or the massive War Boars that the orcs of the Jungle preferred, animals were vital to survival.
A traveler treated their animal well. Those who didn’t often found themselves barred from the Outposts that were oases of safety in the deadly wilds. It might have been expensive to pay for what a draft horse required in terms of feed and equipment, but it was worth it. Trying to go by foot for more than a few miles was a death sentence. Life in the Dreadlands required an animal companion.
And Starspot was Dora’s. And the half-orc loved her. She took pride in her steed’s strength and beauty and found a small measure of peace when she was brushing her coat, untangling her mane, or checking her horseshoes.
Sensing the traces of anxiety in her rider, Starspot neighed comfortingly and rubbed her head up against Dora’s. the Healer giggled at that, and nuzzled Starspot in return.
“Heh, it’s okay, Starspot. It was just a bad dream.” The loyal steed did not believe Dora’s words any more than the half-orc herself did, and snorted. Starspot then proceeded to try and eat her straw blonde hair.
“Ack! Stop that! My hair might look like hay, but it’s not!” Dora protested, yanking her ponytail out of the horse’s mouth. She wrinkled her nose at the slobber covered hair and groaned.
“Now look what you’ve done! Now I have to clean up this mess.” Dora rooted around in her pack for the water gathering kettle and brought it out, activating the enchantment. Slowly, it filled with water as moisture from the air was sucked into the enchanted object. When it was halfway full she cut off the flow of mana to the artifact and brought out a Soapstone from her pack.
She spent the next few minutes tending to her hair, and once it was all clean again, dumped the water into the bone-dry soi
l. It would evaporate quickly in the heat, and the Healer could already tell the late summer weather was going to be unpleasant even in the shade of the canyon.
To Dora’s surprise, after rinsing off her hair she felt a lot better. Her mind was still worrying over the unnatural meeting between herself and Naliot that had occurred last night, but it felt distant. She had other problems to tend to before she could panic about the Chained God and the Divine Family contacting her again. And wasn’t that a sentence she’d never thought she’d have to imagine!
And the first problem to contend with, now that her hair was horse spit free, was following the Dark magic back to its source, and with it, hopefully locate the accursed mystery client of hers.
With practiced ease, Dora attached the saddle to Starspot, and then swung herself into the seat. It was time to ride, and the horse snorted eagerly. With the spell protecting her simple, horsey mind from the fear inducing effects of the local Miasma, Starspot trotted swiftly through the channels of the Aldani Gorge, directed by the Healer as she followed the trail the Darkness gave her.
Chapter 4: A terrible darkness
The day passed, and the oppressive atmosphere continued to grow. By the time noon rolled around, Dora had had to refresh Protection from Evil on Starspot four times and had begun to put it on herself as well after the third refresh.
The Miasma was thick enough that even she started to feel the effects. The itching sensation at the back of her head of being watched, already a nuisance since she rode out of Creidor, had doubled, and had been joined by a crawling, icy sensation down her spine that accompanied a growing feeling of dread.
But Dora had swallowed her terror and dutifully wrapped herself and Starspot in her protective spells. Protection from Evil was a Level Four spell, and took a large chunk of her mana reserves to cast. At first that hadn’t been a problem, since the time between casting the spell and it fading was a couple of hours, leaving time for her depleted reserves to regenerate. But as the Miasma became denser the spell lasted less time and took more effort to cast. And with her having to place it on two targets the cost only grew.
By her calculations, within three hours she’d have to cast this spell every thirty minutes to keep Starspot and herself calm and free from influence. She was no mage, but she did know her limits, and if this continued Dora estimated she’d have to start casting the spell every ten minutes by the time dusk rolled around. And that would not be wise, as she couldn’t maintain Protection from Evil so many times without chugging down Mana Replenishment Potions constantly. She had a few, but not nearly enough to last for several days.
Dora sighed heavily but made the hard decision. If she couldn’t find the client by sundown, she’d have to retreat from the Aldani Gorge back to Creidor and find help in delving its depths. There was just no other way.
A grumble broke through the stifling silence of the canyon, and she looked around in panic, ready to draw her crossbow at a moment’s notice, but settled down with embarrassment as she realized the sound was coming from her.
“Why don’t we stop here for some lunch, Starspot?” Dora asked, patting her neck. Starspot neighed and tossed her head, the horse equivalent of a shrug, and Dora took that as agreement.
They came to a stop under an overhang of dark brown stone that was studded with flakes of what appeared to be gold. Curious, Dora rubbed a finger against one of the spots that had a lot of the golden material on it, and her finger came away with a few specks of golden dust. She discreetly scraped some off the walls into a spare pouch. If it was gold, then it would net her a nice bit of coin back in Creidor. If it wasn’t, well, she was sure someone in Dust Town could find a use for it. Whatever it may be.
After her quick bout of gold scraping, Dora got off of Starspot and offered her a feed bag of oats. Starspot happily began to eat, and after checking that nothing was physically wrong with the horse, Dora took out her rations and began to make herself some lunch. Jerky, black bread, and hard yellow cheese washed down with a few mouthfuls of cheap wine wasn’t much of a meal, but it filled her up and made the loud hunger growls go away.
“Shall we ride?” Dora inquired, refreshing the spells on her and Starspot. A neigh was her reply, and the Healer rode on, follow the thick trail of Miasma.
“Well, I know I’m on the right track,” Dora muttered after a few hours of sedated trotting. The Miasma was now everywhere. Trying to follow it or pinpoint an origin was an endeavor in pointlessness, as it was blanketing the entire area with its presence.
But there were tricks to use to keep her on the right track. “Dancing Light,” Dora intoned, and a green orb of light appeared above her head. With a flick of her wrist, Dora sent the glowing orb forward, where it bobbed along in the Miasma’s current, flickering slightly as the Dark magic tried to crush the construct of foreign mana.
Only Dora’s concentration and focus kept the Dancing Light alive, and she used its flickering as a dowsing rod to home in on the most volatile and active regions of Miasma. If the taint of Dark magic was strong enough to extinguish her spell, then Dora knew it would only be a matter of time before its source would be found. And there, gods willing, would be her client.
The sky slowly began to darken, but only partly due to the sun starting to set. The suffocating presence of the Miasma dimmed the natural light that was present. And as the shadows thickened around the Healer and her steed, the green orb became the most potent source of light in the canyon.
The darkness pressed down on Dora and Starspot, the shadows almost like walls in their density. Terror leaked into their minds in spite of the Protection from Evil charm, not even its mystical might was enough to cancel all of the ill effects of the Miasma.
But on they pressed. The Dancing Light continued to illuminate up their surroundings, though Dora could have done without the shadows that flickered and jumped as the glowing orb sputtered like a dying candle. The unnatural movement of the shadows made Starspot jumpy and nervous, which made handling her all the more difficult.
“Easy does it, girl,” Dora muttered softly, patting Starspot’s mane comfortingly. The half-orc wondered if she should get out the blinders but decided against it. They wouldn’t help Starspot all that much, and it might be better to have her vision unobscured in case there was something waiting in ambush for them.
Dora was so focused on keeping Starspot calm and ensuring the Dancing Light did not go out that she completely forgot about the weakening effects of Protection from Evil. Without warning there was a sound like the twang of a bow string in her head, followed by a sound similar to glass shattering the filled her ears.
Gasping slightly as a choking sensation gripped her, Dora flailed around in the saddle as Starspot reared up on her hindlegs in fright. With a cry of surprise, Dora fell from Starspot’s back and landed heavily on the ground. Her concentration broken, the Dancing Light was consumed by the Darkness. The sudden lack of light was the final straw for the skittish horse.
Starspot neighed loudly in terror as the Miasma assaulted her animal brain, and the ingrained instincts of her ancestors took over. The mare bolted, spinning around and racing back through the path she’d come down. As she fled, one of her hooves came down sharply onto Dora’s right arm, and with a sickening crunch the bones in the Healer’s right hand and wrist shattered.
Dora cried out in pain and immediately began to channel healing energy into her ruined appendage in reflex, only to stop when a caustic burning sensation struck her. There was so much Dark element mana in the air that it interfered with her healing spell and started to do more harm than good, with the skin starting to rot instead of knitting back together as it should have, and the bones breaking even further.
Tears stinging her eyes, Dora curled up and held her mangled hand close to her chest, uncaring of the blood that now dripped down and stained her clothes. She felt around in the dark for her pack and sighed in relief when she felt its straps. It had fallen off of Starspot when she’d reared up in panic.
Her Bag of Holding now back in her possession, she fumbled around her waist with her left hand, trying to find her Potion Belt and remove one of the precious liquid spells from it. After a bit of fumbling, she managed to extract one of the Healing Potions and quickly poured the contents of the vial over her right hand. While her magic didn’t work in the Miasma, she was pleased to find the potion still did, and her wound closed up. It was merely superficial healing, though. The bones were still broken, and she could barely move it at all.
It would do for now, though, until she could exit the Miasma and tend to the damage herself.
The pain had brought some unexpected benefits though. With the agony of her ruined right hand nipping away at her mind, there was no room in her head for the influence of the Miasma, and she was able to stagger to her feet and continue walking through the canyon.
Her eyesight gradually adjusted to the gloom; her orcish blood helped significantly in that regard. Placing her left hand against the wall of the canyon, she began to move forward, teeth gritted as she soldiered through the pain and the fear.
Attempting to escape the Aldani Gorge crossed her mind for a moment, but she put that idea aside quickly. Without magic or her crossbow, which had gotten tangled up in Starspot’s reins when she fell, her ability to defend herself was limited. The various monsters would be on her as soon as they smelled her blood. She had to find the client now. There was no other choice. He had to know of a way out. He just had to!
“Stupid, mysterious client, wanting to act all mysterious… couldn’t he just buy a burlap bag to cover up his ugly mug if he was so afraid of being seen?”
Dora grumbled as she pushed onwards. For some reason she heard childish laughter ringing echoing off the walls of the canyon and shivered.
