by Ian Rodgers
“Great, now there’s creepy laughter. What’s next, a kid dressed up all in white with a big cleaver asking me to play with her? Next time I see Reesh I am punching his lights out for telling me all those nasty campfire stories about murderous children,” Dora complained to herself. More unearthly mirth bounced off the walls, and for a brief, terrifying moment, Dora felt that the sound was close by.
She swallowed down her nerves and focused on the pain. Pain was good, it meant she was still alive and not paying attention to the mind-numbing horror that kept pressing down on her.
A crunch a few feet ahead of her snapped her out of her agony-induced haze, and she looked up and stared in horror at the sight of an emaciated Manticore emerging from the gloom up ahead.
Like all Manticores, this one had the body of a male lion, the wings of a bat, the tail of a scorpion, and an unsettlingly human face filled with too many razor-sharp teeth. The creature before her was old, though. What little was left of its mane was white and grey. Patches of its sandy brown fur was missing, revealing bruised and scabbed-over flesh. Its wings were tattered, incapable of flight, and one of its eyes was milky white. The Healer part of Dora winced in sympathy and wondered how long it had been lost in the Miasma? The rest of her was sensible, however, and she was rooted to the spot in terror.
The Manticore’s sole good eye, its left, stared at Dora with a terrible hunger, and it roared in joy. The sound was pathetic and scratchy, nothing like the majestic and almost musical boom a Manticore in its prime would have made, but it was loud enough to cause Dora to scream in fear and take several steps back.
She reached for her dagger with trembling hands and brought it out, holding it in her left hand in front of her in an attempt to menace the starving predator. The Manticore snorted in clear amusement. When it had been younger and a pride leader not even a sword would have threatened it. Even now it knew that a mere knife was little threat to it. It roared again, a challenge, and charged at her, saliva flowing from its maw.
Dora threw herself to the right and tumbled underneath the Manticore just as it leapt at her. Blindness had done the monster’s depth perception no favors and it slammed hard into the wall, claws scratching and gouging chunks of stone away as it scrambled to get back on its feet.
The half-orc, in her frantic dive to avoid the charge, cried out in pain as her tumble caused her to jostle her right hand, agitating the broken bones and causing a few scabbed over cuts to break open and seep blood.
Panting in pain, Dora rose to her feet and hurried away from the Manticore, narrowly dodging the stinger as it lashed out at her. She continued to retreat, though, and was soon running away as fast as she could.
Unfortunately, Dora had never been much of a runner, her days as a horse riding Healer making such an activity mostly pointless, and so she was soon out of breath with burning, pulled leg muscles.
The Manticore, on the other hand, was used to chasing after prey, and despite being old and crippled, was still more fit than the half-orc. Which was sad, really.
‘Oh gods why didn’t I ever exercise now I’m going to be eaten by a monster!’ flew through Dora’s thoughts in a panic as the Manticore caught up to her, the gloom and its one good eye barely slowing its pursuit down.
Again, it roared and lunged, and this time Dora was unable to dodge. The Manticore slammed into her back and she crashed into the ground. A single large paw pressed down on her spine, pinning her in place and she knew the end was coming if she didn’t act soon.
In desperation Dora squirmed about and managed to flail her left arm, still holding the dagger, around enough that she was able to graze the Manticore’s nose as it lowered its head to take a bit out of her.
The monster recoiled from the sudden, unexpected pain, and Dora rolled over onto her back, looking up at the creature. It was so thin she could see its ribs from where she lay, and briefly wondered if stabbing it repeatedly would bring it down. It might work, but she’d still be pinned beneath a Manticore’s corpse if she succeeded in killing it as she was.
An idea flickered to life in her mind. It was foolish and against the very core of the Healer’s Code, but at this point Dora did not care, and she reached out with her right hand and pressed her damaged appendage against the Manticore’s chest.
She then cast a healing spell directly into the point she was touching. A stinging sensation flooded her hand and she growled slightly before biting her lip. The Manticore, on the other hand, howled in shock and pain as the fur and flesh around the point of contact began to suffer a series of thin but deep cuts.
In any other circumstances Hand of Healing was a Level One spell that was capable of mending minor cuts and bruises. But in this Miasma infested region of the Gorge, the Light Element mana was overwhelmed and supplanted by Dark Element mana, the spell instantly morphing into Hand of Pain, a Level One Dark Element spell that caused several lacerations to appear on the surface being touched.
As the spell attacked the Manticore it jumped away, leaving Dora lying on her back with a handful of fur in her right hand. She quickly got back onto her feet and shook her right hand at it, letting the Manticore observe the green glow of her magic around her fist.
“How do you like that, huh?! Come on, want some more pain? I’ve got plenty to give!” Dora shouted.
Her attempts at intimidation backfired, however. The Manticore growled angrily, and it took a step towards her. Dora gulped, but stood her ground. Running had proven to be ineffective. She had to fight.
The Manticore sensed her resolve and roared a challenge. It prepared to pounce, but was instantly blindsided as a large, grey humanoid figure slammed into it from behind and began to slash at the monster with long, blade-like fingers.
The unexpected challenger managed to knock the Manticore off its feet and onto its side. It lashed out with its back paws, catching the newcomer in the chest and sending it staggering back. But the Manticore was the one who roared in pain as blood spurted and one of its hind paws disappeared with a crunch.
Dora gasped in shock and stared at the newcomer. The creature was tall, possibly eight feet from head to toe. Except it had no toes, as instead of feet, it had regular human hands attached to the bottom of its legs. Its arms were long, reaching to its knees, and each arm had hands that ended with four, sword-like fingers. Its head was elongated and pointed, almost conical in appearance with a single vermillion eye studding it directly in the center. No ears or nose or other features. It did have a mouth, though. It was sideways and situated in the middle of its chest, positioned above where a human’s ribcage would be.
She knew it was a mouth because it was busy chewing on the Manticore’s paw that had tried to kick it, but had been bitten off instead.
What was worse, however, was that this creature was familiar to her. She’d seen it back in the zombie-filled city of Rahmal’Alram, where it had broken into the Emir’s palace and murdered both the ruler and his son right in front of her.
She’d assumed at the time it had been a Necromantic construct crafted by the madman she’d been sent to kill. This guess seemed to be correct as Dora had not seen it after unleashing the explosion of raw Light energy that had vaporized a good chunk of the Undead population. But seeing it here, attacking the Manticore in her defense, made her question that assumption.
Both monsters seemed to be engrossed in fighting each other now, the Manticore limping on three paws as the pale grey humanoid tried to flay it with its finger blades. They ignored her, and Dora took that as a sign that she needed to leave. So, she did. She turned and fled, trying to put as much distance between herself and the two monsters as possible.
Heart pounding, she rushed through the twisting stone labyrinth that made up the Aldani Gorge, blindly trying to escape. Forget the client, things had become too dangerous to stay in the area. She’d try and find Starspot and then get out of the Gorge.
Her flight was arrested when a protruding stone she’d failed to notice tripped her up. She mana
ged to avoid falling flat on her face, but she did land hard on her knees though, scraping and bruising them through the fabric of her trousers.
Instead of rising up off of the ground, the half-orc slammed her fists petulantly against the rock that had tripped her. It was childish of her, but the day had not started off great and had only gone downhill from there. She’d finally hit her breaking point. Tears prickled in her eyes, and against her better judgement Dora began to bawl, letting her whimpers resound through the canyon.
After a few seconds of letting all of her pent-up stress out in a nice, therapeutic cry, Dora vigorously scrubbed her eyes with the back of her left hand and stood up, determined.
“This is not going to beat me. This is not going to beat me!” Dora shouted at the sky. At this point there was no light anywhere. He orcish vision was straining to see through the murky darkness surrounding her. She conjured up a Dancing Light orb to light her path, and let the spell hover in the palm of her left hand as she walked forward.
The Dancing Light sputtered and flickered, but it endured the press of the Miasma and filled the canyon with a green tinge. On Dora walked, moving forward, finding her way through the thick, molasses like darkness.
The sound of battle between the Manticore and the other thing was gone. Odds were the Manticore was dead. But the fate of the deformed humanoid was up in the air, and Dora did not want to risk running into it in case the abomination had a taste for half-orc flesh.
As if summoned by her thoughts, a crunch echoed through the still, stale air. Dora hissed in shock, turning slowly to face the source of the noise. Out of the shadows cast by the Dancing Light the humanoid creature appeared, slipping through the gloom towards her, its red eye glowing balefully in the dark.
It paused a dozen or so feet away from Dora, half in the dark, half in the sickly green glow of her spell. It just stood there, staring at her unblinkingly. The Healer couldn’t see any signs of damage on the visible parts of the creature’s body. A tiny splash of red was smeared along its chest, but that was along the sideways mouth, and as she watched a fat, grey tongue emerged from its chest-mouth and licked clean the traces of blood on its body.
“What are you?” she demanded softly, staring at the being. It said nothing and continued to stand stock still and gaze unerringly at Dora.
“What are you?!” she demanded again, louder and more hysterical this time. “If you want to kill me, just get it over with! Don’t just toy with me!”
Again, no response from the twisted figure. However, it tensed up and lowered itself into a fighting stance. Dora flinched and raised her knife, still clutched in her left hand, but the abomination was no longer looking at her. Instead it was peering at something behind her.
“Oh, come on!” Dora complained as she turned around to take a look at this new threat. She swallowed heavily at the sight of the newcomer.
It was a large suit of full plate armor, easily eight feet tall. Whatever color or design had once been part of the armor was gone, scorched off. The suit of armor had been blackened by fire and twisted by heat, but still retained its form. Spikes had been welded onto the armor at various parts. Its knees, elbows, and greaves and vambraces all had wicked rusted spikes jutting forth, giving it an intimidating presence. The suit of armor’s right hand clutched a large, wide sword of unknown make; it too had been warped and darkened by flames, yet even in the pale light of the Healer’s spell a keen edge could be seen.
What drew the eye the most, however, was the fact that there was no head or helmet in the suit of armor, only a writhing cloud of purple, red, and black smoke that continuously bellowed from the neck area. And despite this fatal lack of a body part, the armor still possessed locomotion, and it strode forth towards Dora and the grey abomination.
So startling was the fact that there was a Dullahan, an upper class A-ranked Undead being, coming closer to her, that Dora almost completely missed the second figure accompanying the animated suit of armor.
Perched atop the left pauldron of the Dullahan was a small girl in an ornate black lace dress, probably no older than eight or nine years old. Her hair was coal black, and the most striking of her features were her eyes; the right was bright silver, and the left eye dark purple.
The little girl waved happily at Dora as the strange pair approached, eventually stopping several feet from the half-orc.
“Hello!” the child called out.
“Um, hello?” Dora replied hesitantly.
“I’m Anette! And this is my papa!” the little girl said, introducing herself and the Dullahan. “Grandpa sent us out here to fetch you!”
“Is your grandfather the person who summoned me here? Because if so, I have a few complaints to give regarding his choice of location,” Dora stated bitterly. At this point, all of her terror had come full circle, and transformed into anger. There was simply no more fear in her body left to give! So, when she saw the Dullahan and hear the girl call it her papa, all it did was push her over the edge.
The girl, Anette, just laughed at that. “You’re funny! Grandpa’s gonna like you!”
As her giggles faded, Dora twitched slightly, recognizing the laughter as the one that had echoed through the Gorge a few times as she’d traversed the Miasma.
“Come on! Our home is this way!” Anette said, eagerly beckoning towards Dora to follow. When she remained rooted in spot, unsure of what was going on, Anette sighed and slapped the Dullahan’s pauldron lightly. With remarkable care and tenderness, the headless Undead bent down and carefully removed the little girl from her seat on its shoulder. Once her feet were on the ground, Anette rushed over to Dora and tried to grab her right hand, but she stopped and winced as she saw the mangled remains of that limb.
“Does it hurt?” Anette asked softly.
“What do you think?” Dora asked sharply. She regretted her rudeness when the Dullahan let out a low growl. Anette did not seem to notice. Instead, she reached out for the half-orc’s hand and enclosed it between her own.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Dora demanded, feeling a tickle of mana caressing her hand. The girl in the frilly black lace dress did not answer, as she was focusing intently on the broken bones.
Dora opened her mouth to tell the girl to back off, and scold her for trying to use magic on a person who didn’t ask for it, but was unable to as a sharp pinch ran through her limb. There was a barely audible grinding sound, and beneath the mint green flesh of her right hand her bones began to shift and rearrange themselves. Despite the pain, Dora could tell that whatever spell the girl was casting, it was somehow managing to reset and heal the shattered remains of her hand!
Another few seconds of stinging and pinching later, and Anette released Dora’s hand with a wide, innocent smile.
“All better!” she declared cheerfully and looked up at Dora with a gaze similar to a puppy demanding praise for performing a trick.
“How did you do this? Healing magic doesn’t work in this place,” Dora inquired, examining her restored appendage and wiggling her digits curiously.
“Oh, I didn’t use Light magic. I used some Necromancy to move the bones back into place and fix them!” Anette stated proudly, and Dora gave her a sharp look. The girl flinched back from the Healer’s gaze, a hurt and scared expression on her face.
The Dullahan growled again, louder this time, and behind Dora the malformed creature let out a hiss in response.
‘Oh, right, that thing is still here,’ Dora thought as she looked over her shoulder at the bizarre humanoid. It didn’t seem to want to cause any trouble. Was it perhaps a minion of Anette’s mysterious grandfather, sent to watch over her? That made a disturbing amount of sense, though it also left several questions unanswered.
Whatever it was, it seemed content to do nothing so long as she wasn’t threatened. Making up her mind, Dora turned her attention to the Dullahan.
“Take me to your master,” she ordered. “He has a lot of explaining to do.”
The half-orc then lo
oked back down at the little girl at her side and felt a pang on sympathy in her heart. The expression of fear and hurt Anette wore was familiar to her. It was the same look she had seen on her own face in the mirror as a little girl back in her village of Far Reach.
Dora reached out and gently grasped one of her hands. “Go ahead, lead the way,” she offered, a small, reassuring smile on her lips.
The little girl with mismatched eyes smiled joyfully, any sense of hurt or sadness at Dora’s rejection gone in an instant. She happily took the Healer’s now repaired right hand and began to pull her along after the Dullahan, who led the way deeper into the Aldani Gorge.
The grey creature behind them did not move. Instead, it remained where it stood, only springing back into action when all three of them were almost completely out of sight.
This, of course, went unnoticed by the trio as they made their way through the winding stone labyrinth. The Miasma parted before the group, dispersed by the elite Undead’s presence. It barely effected Dora anymore, and the half-orc had a feeling the Dark magic wouldn’t have bothered the young girl at all. The Dullahan simply marched forward, expecting the guest to follow, and Dora’s attention was taken up by Anette who chatted incessantly about all manner of topics.
The young girl was eager to have someone to talk to that was both female and alive, two qualities Dora had a feeling were in short supply while she lived with her grandfather and ‘papa.’ Dora was curious as to why Anette called the Dullahan her father. Was it truly her biological father, or just a term of endearment?
“…and grandpa says I’m really smart and talented and special and I can start doing more cool experiments and spells soon and…!” Anette babbled, looking up at the Healer with wide, innocent eyes.
“Uh-huh? Really? Good for you!” Dora replied every so often by rote, nodding along at the right places as Anette spoke. “No, you don’t say! Seriously, three? Oh, my!”
The half-orc wasn’t paying much attention to her surroundings, and nearly walked into the Dullahan’s back when it suddenly stopped walking. Anette giggled softly as Dora glared in annoyance at the Undead creature.
