by Eric Vall
“No, not them,” it giggled, and I bristled angrily. “Your precious minions would never do such a thing.”
I once more whipped my head over my shoulder, and my minions jumped in surprise, and Rana laughed nervously as she scratched at her cheek. “What’s going on, Master? Are you all right?”
“Not there,” the manly voice tittered, and I took a deep breath in as my eyes stabbed through the brush, searching for the owner of the voice. “Not over there either.”
“What do you want from me?” I growled deep in my throat, and I could hear my companions whisper to each other nervously behind my back. I didn’t know this voice or the presence that moved itself around our party like a ghost, but there was only one logical explanation to who was speaking directly into my mind.
The deity known only as the Liebe.
“No, I don’t think you should be the one asking that question,” the Liebe said, and his voice was smooth and deep like the unbroken surface of a river, “What do you think you’re doing trip-trapping through my woods?”
“Do you really want to know?” I chuckled darkly as I tightened my grip on the reigns.
“But of course, tell me, oh Dark Lord.” The Liebe snickered loudly, the sound of his voice echoed in my head annoyingly, and I pressed my ear to my shoulder in irritation.
“I’m here to rip your soul from your body and as your taking your last breath, I’m going to suck your powers out and steal them for myself,” I roared, and Carmedy gasped from behind me, none of my minions hearing the voice of the Liebe like I was.
“That’s very funny,” the Liebe’s voice giggled then took on a darker tone as he snarled in my ear, “because you and your pretty little minions won’t make it out of this forest alive.”
Chapter Twelve
“Is that what you think?” I laughed loudly as I threw my head back, and I felt his presence pull away from me in surprise. “Then you are gravely mistaken. Threaten me all you like, but once you bring my minions in on this, you will see I am not a merciful man.”
“What’s going on?” Rana asked as she turned her head toward her sisters, and Annalise and Carmedy shook their heads with unsure faces.
“A magical presence, I can feel it all around us,” the pale-skinned elf interjected as she urged her Bantam closer to mine. “I believe Master is speaking directly with him. Am I correct?”
“Yes, he’s an insolent bastard.” I nodded as I gripped my reins tighter in my fist and pushed my bird on faster as we neared the opening of the Liebe’s dungeon.
“Let’s make things a bit interesting, shall we?” the Liebe chuckled, and from the surprised expressions of my minions, I knew they could hear him now, too.
“Interesting how?” my wife asked into the open air, but the only reply was an evil sounding chuckle … then I felt it.
I sensed it like the movement of a phantom limb, a twinge in the back of my mind that was faintly familiar. I hadn’t felt this sensation in a long time, and I almost relished it.
The feeling of strangers entering my dungeon. The vibration of one hundred-and-fifty sets of feet as they came into my dungeon and to their awaiting death below.
“Surely your essence must be back in your nexus,” the Liebe muttered into my ear, and from the tone of his voice, I could tell he was smiling. “Unprotected and just waiting for me to steal it.”
I wasn’t sure how the Liebe was able to do such a thing, since we were so far away from my stone tomb, but I was exhilarated. Though my avatar gave me mobility, it took away some of my strengths like the ability to mold my dungeon to my will and entrap all those who dared to enter without sending my essence back to my core.
“This is how you want to play? Are you sure?” I asked through mock horror, and I heard the Liebe laughing loudly from my left. This god had no idea what he was getting himself into, and I would leave him blissfully unaware until the last moment.
“Oh no, it seems your home turf is left undefended. What are you going to do?” The Liebe giggled to himself as the sickly sweet scent wafted over to me once more, but I ignored it as I turned back to my minions.
“Annalise,” I commanded as I pointed to the front of our group.
“Yes, Master?” The High Queen unsheathed Bloodscale with a flourish as she bucked her Bantam to the front.
“I’m going to have to move my essence back to my dungeon,” I began. “Can you guide my empty avatar and my bird through the dungeon? I’m not sure what the Liebe will throw at you, but I trust you will take it down with ease.”
Over my shoulder, I watched as Rana reached into her leg pouch and retrieved two of her elven knives. The fox placed one of the blades between her teeth with a wicked grin and held the other tightly in her clenched fist. Behind the rogue, Carmedy’s usually cute face hardened, and she grabbed two small pouches in one paw and carried them with devious intent. The white-haired elf smirked, reached up one spindly finger, and stroked Macha’s black beak as her eyes turned wholly black.
When I first spotted them so long ago in my dungeon, I would’ve been hesitant to call them adventurers, but now, with how they held their instruments of death with confidence, it was plain they were a fearsome crew of skilled warriors, and I was proud to call them my own. Their transformation under my careful instruction was miraculous, and I knew they would do well in my absence.
I flipped the reins over my bird’s head and offered them to my queen. She lashed them to her saddlebags, and my Bantam rushed to shorten the distance. I readjusted myself in the saddle and made sure there was no way I would fall off during the journey deep into the Liebe’s dungeon while I fought back home. The brunette nodded to me, and I clenched my hands around the horn of my saddle as I leaned my head back and breathed in deeply. I felt my essence rise from my avatar’s body and leave the warmth of its flesh that I had grown accustomed to. All of my minions watched as my being rose in the air, a blurred ball of energy above their heads. I imagined the place I wanted to go, back to the place I was imprisoned for thousands of years, and I felt myself phase in and out of space and time.
The last thing I heard before I disappeared from view was the sound of my minion’s loud gasps.
Once I returned to the material plane, I breathed in the familiar scents, and I opened my eyes deep in the heart of my dungeon. My senses expanded through the networks of tunnels and chambers as if they were my bones and blood, and then I could sense the intruders and the hammering hearts in their chests.
How the Liebe was able to conjure this many minions in such a short time was strange to me, but I would soon find out how. Hidden deep in my nexus, I turned and spied something I had forgotten I had. The great stone Soul Collector I took from the annoying lava god.
It was still as magnificent as it was the first time I laid eyes on it. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as it stared down at me with glowing red eyes below the hood, and the skeletal hands offered the skull-shaped bowl as if begging me to place a soul inside. The stone wings tightly held to its sides were beautiful and terrifying at the same time, the joint of the wing pointed and the tip sharp like a talon. I wondered what this great beast would do, and soon enough, I would witness the real strength and wonder of the Soul Collector first-hand.
I turned myself from my nexus and pushed through the caverns and tunnels towards the men who were idiotic enough to think they could simply walk into my dungeon unharmed. The Liebe and his minions were on my playground now, and I felt power unused spring to life around me. I was practically salivating with eagerness when I rounded upon them. One hundred and fifty ghouls, their sickly green flesh bubbled up with boils and sores. Their yellowing eyes rolled in their sockets, wild and feverish with madness, and their long protruding tongues wagged from their misshapen jaws as they snarled and yipped at each other eagerly. Most of the ghouls held crude clubs, while some wielded crudely forged swords, and a few dragged spiked flails behind them.
“Mindless drones,” I laughed to myself as I summoned my
dark power around my floating essence. “You couldn’t have sent me a more fathomable challenge? Pathetic.”
I knew I could obliterate his troops with a mere wave of my hand, but this insolent god needed to be shown what I could do, especially when he had brought the fight into the belly of my dungeon. The Liebe’s ghouls made their way into the first room, just as my minions and the three men from Tuzakeur before them. I was going to do something I had never tried before and summoned the power of the forest god in a new way.
The smell of dirt and mud was heavy in the air, and the ghouls that poured in through the archway held their weapons over their heads, prepared to fight anything blindly. They shrieked to each other in confusion as they formed into rough ranks. Then the packed dirt at their feet rumbled and cracked into a massive black hole, and unearthly sounds poured from the newly created cavern. The sounds came slowly then louder as my newest creature was born and unearthed itself from its womb made of dirt. Its massive four-fingered hands grabbed onto the craggy walls of the hole and pulled itself up with a roar so loud that the walls of the room shook. The ghouls screamed and squawked in response, their high-pitched voices filled with terror as the roughly formed bald head rose from the hole.
The face, moulded and roughly formed from the packed dirt below, came up next as the stony arms bulging with muscles lifted it halfway out of the hole. The ghouls went deathly silent as the eyeless, stone face lined with vines and moss inclined itself to the puny creatures below. As the ghouls screamed together, the forehead of my beast twitched, then cracked open with a burst of dirt to expose one huge green eye.
The cyclops tilted its head curiously with the sound of cracking stone at the ghouls as it pulled itself entirely out of the pit and stood in front of them. A single ghoul rushed forward on unsteady feet and lobbed its sword at the cyclops. It landed limply at the cyclops’ feet, and the creature’s mouth split open in a malicious smile to expose gnarled teeth.
I floated over its shoulder and moved my dark power into its form, infusing my darkness inside its fists. The ghouls were getting riled again, and the sickly green creatures lifted their weapons and stomped their feet in unison in preparation for an attack.
“Kill,” I whispered darkly to my creation. “Slaughter them all.”
“Want to eat,” the cyclops grumbled back in its deep voice, and I chuckled sinisterly.
“Yes,” I murmured back as I watched the single eye harden on the troops below, “eat as much as you like.”
I pulled away from my creature and said nothing else as it stepped forward with its four-fingered hand clenched into a fist. With a growl, the cyclops brought that massive fist down on the frontlines of ghouls. The hand squashed four ghouls at once, and as my mighty giant pulled its fist back, it used its free hand to scoop up the corpses and tossed them into its open mouth.
The sound of the ghoul’s bones crunching against my creature’s teeth gave me sick pleasure, and then I extended my power over the ground in front of the exit on the other side of the room. I knew it was going to take more than one cyclops to take down the one hundred and fifty ghouls that the Liebe had sent me, and if he were a strategist, he probably had another wave waiting after these were massacred. Gray swirling pools of smoke broke from the rock at my command, and spindly thin arms reached up and out as my ice demons crawled out on hands and knees with their maws open.
The pale white beasts launched themselves into the fray, and one of the gangly monsters skewered one ghoul on its antlers. The limp body swung from the bone, and its pink ropey intestines hung from the antlers like garland as my ice demons snarled and bared their long pointed teeth at the ghouls. I was surprised at how well the ghouls were fairing against three ice demons and one cyclops. The ugly boil covered beasts actually managed to get in a few fatal blows that took down one ice demon. My creature’s body shook and shuddered, but I placed a new type of power over the bodies of each ice demon, and resisted the urge to laugh.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
The corpse of the ice demon stopped moving, and a few curious ghouls stepped forward with wide yellow eyes and gnashed teeth. Then a loud crack lifted into the air as the body of the ice demon exploded into slivers of ice, and the projectiles slammed into the ghouls who came forward. The ice sliced into them like knives and even pinned a few to the far wall as their blood gushed from massive wounds.
Meanwhile, the walls of the room quaked as the cyclops lumbered forward, its huge hands outstretched for the fleeing bodies of the ghouls. The cyclops snatched up three at a time and shoved them into its mouth. It chewed, a leg and one arm sticking out from its lips, then it licked them away with its rough brown tongue into the cavern of its maw.
Soon, there was nothing left of the one hundred and fifty ghouls that the Liebe sent in, but he wasn’t finished with me yet, nor was I done with him. He had only seen the surface of my power, and soon, he’d learn far more. I could feel the vibrations of more intruders’ feet, and I knew his next wave was on the way. This time he sent more, around two hundred, and I knew these were more than mere ghouls.
I summoned all my strength to me and closed my eyes as I pulled the power of the lava god to me. My cyclops and ice demons scurried towards the entrance as the floor behind them broke apart and bubbled to life with magma and lava. I thought my ice demons would die in the face of such beating heat, but they glanced at the magma with little to no interest and turned back to the entrance where the sounds of mixed voices echoed.
“Tired yet?” the Liebe called out to me from above, and from the tone of his voice, I knew he was frustrated. He had underestimated me, and even now, he still was.
I possessed unfathomable power and the more dungeons I conquered, the more I gained.
“You haven’t even seen the good stuff yet,” I mocked. “Why don’t you stick around and take some notes?”
He didn’t answer this time. His inexperience with high power gods showed plainly now, and I would soon take the power he so desperately clung to.
With a few moments to spare before the next wave of attackers arrived, I closed my eyes and checked in on my minions. The energy around me wavered and shook as I transferred my essence back to my avatar’s body. I sunk into its flesh comfortably and listened to the comforting voices of my minions. From the sounds of their voices, they weren’t in any trouble, but something certainly wasn’t right.
“Carmedy, if you put your foot--” Annalise grunted as she turned and pointed to a ledge. “You should be able to climb across without trouble.”
“Uh, guys?” Rana squeaked out, and I slowly realized I was looking at the back of her head with its unruly curly red hair. “Help … Master’s … getting … really … heavy …”
I felt hands on my back, and I was slowly lowered to the ground. I looked up at the person who had helped me down, and Morrigan’s face came into view. Her dark eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open.
“Master is awake,” Morrigan announced, and the alchemist, who was farther up, whipped her head back to stare in confusion.
“What do you mean he’s awake? He’s been out of his body this whole time,” the cat said unbelieving, but the High Elf shrugged and gestured towards me with limp, dusty hands.
“Master?” Annalise asked as she turned back, and I lifted my head to her with a smile. “Why are you awake?”
“The Liebe attacked, but I repulsed his first assault with ease. There were a few minutes before his next wave came, and I wanted to check in with you,” I told them as I took in their disheveled appearances. I move to stand, but my wife shook her head and held out her hands in front of her to stop me.
“No, no, don’t move. Please don’t move,” Annalise shouted, and her voice echoed down below us.
I turned my head slowly and realized I was seated on a small rock ledge above a massive black hollow below. In front of us, a long network of other rock ledges worked their way across the wall. Some of the ledges were so small my women would have to go al
one or crawl across, which explained why they were so dirty and sweaty.
“Where are the Bantams?” I inquired as I glanced between each of the women, and all faces turned towards Carmedy, who gave me a sheepish smile.
“We had to leave them behind,” the black-haired alchemist admitted as she scratched at her ear nervously. “There were … spiders.”
“Really fuckin’ big spiders.” Rana nodded in agreement. “Almost as big as the Bantam’s. We didn’t want them getting hurt, so we tied them off close to the entrance.”
“And this?” I gestured towards the expanse of ledges and the chasm below.
“We stepped onto the path, and it fell away,” Morrigan muttered as she peeked over the edge of the ledge I was sitting on. “Carmedy almost fell in, but we were able to catch her in time.”
“Pussycat almost lost one of her nine lives.” The fox laughed as she hooked a thumb towards the black-haired cat.
“Not just one of my nine lives but all of them.” Carmedy nodded vehemently as she giggled and rubbed at the dirt on her left cheek.
“Well, I am glad you and all of your lives are intact,” I said to the cat, and her cheeks bloomed pink.
She smiled as she kicked at the loose stones on the ledge. “Me too, Master,” the alchemist murmured back with a soft smile.
“Were you carrying me on your back?” I inquired as I looked Rana directly in the eye, and she blew her curly bangs out of her blue eyes.
“Yeah, since we couldn’t bring the Bantams, we decided to take turns carrying you. Your avatar is surprisingly light without your soul inside,” the rogue muttered as she averted her eyes from mine, and I chuckled deeply in my throat at her reaction.
“We didn’t have any other choice,” Annalise admitted through a raspy chuckle as she turned back to me, her chestnut braid over her shoulder. “It was either leave your avatar behind or carry it on our backs.”
