by Jaxon Reed
“There’s a lot of them,” Erik said, pulling his sword out of its sheath. “Let’s hope they don’t all activate at the same time.”
“If they do, we likely won’t make it, lad.”
Everyone prepared themselves, readying weapons and spells.
“Stay close together,” Percel said. He pointed at Toby, “And don’t touch anything.”
Toby grinned at him.
Carefully, Percel stepped outside the radius of the column.
The air in the domed room smelled stale, although not a speck of dust could be seen either floating by or on the statues.
Everything seemed deathly still. And quiet. The only sounds were the soft scraping of leather against the white stone floor as the team walked away from the portal column.
After the Abyss, no one dared speak a word. They looked at the statues apprehensively, but none sprang to life.
Cautiously, Percel took another step toward the door. Then another. The others followed.
A movement in the air above them caught Tawny’s eye and she looked up. She squinted, then tapped Percel on the back.
He stopped and glanced up. The others looked too.
Percel locked eyes with Tawny . . . and shrugged. He could not see anything.
She frowned and made circles with her thumbs and fingers, pretending to put on glasses.
His eyebrows shot up as he realized what she was suggesting. He rooted around in his bag for his magical spectacles and put them on.
Looking up, he could see traces of magic. Flashes of blue were visible through the lenses, but little else.
He shrugged at her again, looking a little ridiculous with the big round glasses on his scarred face.
She frowned and thought about it for a moment, then realized she could cast a group spell on all of them: Spectral Vision.
Tawny waved her hand over the other four then pointed up again.
This time, clear to all, they watched as a host of spirits flew in random patterns near the dome’s apex.
Erik watched in amazement as a battle mage stopped, aimed a hand as if pointing at some enemy, and let loose a blue flash of lightning.
Another one, a soldier dressed in an old-style bronze helmet, breastplate and battle skirt, swung his sword in expert arcs, working through the ancient steps of close quarters combat.
Erik’s eyes swung down to the statue nearest to the column and closest to the party. There, in white marble, stood a physical representation of the spirit floating in the air up above.
Percel nodded when he noticed Erik glancing down at the statue and up at the spirit.
He said, quietly, “Cenotaph wights. They’re connected to the statuary. Careful now, let’s take another step.”
Together, the team inched forward.
The motion up above stopped. Everyone looked up.
Dozens upon dozens of spectral eyes glared down at them.
The spirits with weapons dove for them while the mages cast ranged attacks and archers loosed arrows.
Toby, as the largest, took a lightning blast and two ghostly arrows to the chest.
“Unhgh!”
He collapsed to floor.
“Toby!”
Nessa turned and rushed to him. She watched, horrified, as two more ghostly arrows thunked into his side, shimmering white and translucent.
Without thinking she lifted her right hand and cast Group Shield.
Another arrow made it through, but the spell weakened it. Just the tip went into the giant elf.
“It’s not enough!” Tawny said. “I’ll try Spectral Shield.”
She quickly performed some motions with her hands and raised both above her head. A larger dome appeared over them, this one a translucent blue. It materialized just as the warrior wights neared them. They slammed into the barrier and pounded it with swords and battle axes.
“Can we make it back to the column?” Erik said, eyeing its protective radius a few steps away.
Looking down he saw a spirit arrow sticking out of his shoulder. He grabbed and pulled, registering the strange pain spreading throughout his chest.
Nessa said, “We can’t leave Toby here!”
She reached down and summoned all her strength. For only the second time, she cast Field of Healing.
Orange light flashed under the blue dome. All the wounds on Toby and Erik healed instantly.
Toby opened his eyes and smiled up at her. She reached down and hugged his neck.
The spreading pain in his chest gone, Erik looked up again as dozens of angry spirits hurled against the dual barriers protecting them. The sound of ghostly weapons pounding and spectral shrieks seemed overwhelming.
“How do we defeat them?” Erik shouted to Percel.
“A cenotaph wight is attached to his cenotaph.”
He nodded toward the statue of the warrior in battle pose nearby. It looked ready to lunge, with a sword pointed up and a fierce expression on its face.
Erik glanced at Tawny. He said, “Can you shoot something at it?”
She shook her head, a bead of sweat forming on her brow.
“It’s all I can do to keep this Spectral Shield up. They are assaulting it nonstop.”
The warrior from the statue slammed into the shield as she spoke, then pummeled it with his sword.
Percel said, “Can you move with it, lass?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
“Let’s get near to the statue and try to break it up close.”
“There are dozens in this room. We’ll never get them all,” Erik said.
“I know, lad. But let’s see what we can do against this one before they pull our shields down.”
Together they moved closer until the dual domes covered them and the warrior. Up close, they could see tiny inscriptions along the base of the statue.
“Look! He’s weaker.”
The spirit seemed distraught now that their shields covered his monument. He swung at the domes over them, but his movements seemed listless and weak. The other spirits around him redoubled their efforts, snarling and hurling into the barriers, or casting assault spells at them.
“Aye. Try to damage the stone now, let’s see what it does.”
Erik swung his sword into the marble and it made a loud clank before bouncing off.
The spirits froze, as if in shock. The warrior touched his arm where Erik’s sword hit it. Then he snarled and attacked the shields with renewed vigor. The other spirits joined him in battering against their barriers.
“That sword isn’t going to do it, lad. Use your mithril dagger.”
Erik nodded, sheathing his weapon and pulling out the high quality knife. He shoved into the statue’s stomach and a chip fell away.
The spirit howled and flailed against the shield with his sword.
“Hm. Let me try the eye.”
Erik stepped onto the statue’s pedestal, coming up even to its face. He slammed down with the dagger into the stone eye.
The spirit screamed, dropped its sword and covered one eye.
“Do the other one, lad!”
Erik repeated the motion on the other eye, leading to more screaming. Now the warrior went down to its knees, covering its face.
The other spirits pulled back a bit, flying around their fallen comrade while casting hateful glares at the living.
Percel glanced down at the floor.
“It’s also made of white marble,” he said, pointing. “Let’s try toppling this and see if it breaks. Toby, get over here, lad, and push.”
Toby grinned and walked around the women concentrating on their spells. He approached the statue, rested his hands on the warrior’s shoulders and grunted. The statue fell over, its head cracking off when it struck the floor.
All the spirits froze again. The warrior’s spirit popped out of existence.
A circle of orange light moved quickly down the length of the fallen statue, and the white marble turned into a fresh corpse, its head lolling where the stone one
had been.
“Interesting magic,” Percel said. “Grab that sword, lad. It’s better than the one you’ve got. Let’s go for the next one.”
Erik reached down for the sword that fell out of the dead warrior’s grip. No longer stone, the shiny gray blade shimmered in the light of the shield spells. He grabbed its sheath and looped it through his belt.
Together the group moved to the next statue, closer to the door. This one was a female mage. Her legs were slightly bent. One hand stretched out in front of her while she held the other above and behind her head, as if casting a spell.
“Get ready to push this one over, lad!”
Toby smiled and approached the statue, stretching his shoulders.
The spirits, meanwhile, seemed to be conferring in the dome above. One of them flew back down in front of Toby, outside the shields. They looked and realized it was the mage’s spirit connected to the statue. She held up a hand to stop.
“Hold, lad. What does she want?”
They all stared at what must have been a young and beautiful woman at the time of her death. The other spirits held back, still floating up in the dome.
When she saw she had their attention, she turned toward the door and pointed.
Nessa said, “Is she . . . is she saying they’re going to let us go?”
“I think they want us to go, aye,” Percel said. “Very well. If you do not try and harm us, we will leave your statues be.”
The mage gave them a curt nod and floated up to join the others.
“Come along,” Percel said. “Lasses, keep those shields up. Let’s get through the door.”
The team marched carefully but quickly between the statues and to the door along the far wall, glancing up nervously at the ceiling as they went. But the spirits just followed them with angry eyes, no longer assailing their shields.
They came to the heavy wooden double door at last. Percel nodded at Nessa and Tawny. They dropped their shields, and Percel pulled open the door. Before them stretched a wide hallway. Percel motioned everyone out of the domed room, then shut the door on the cenotaphs and their wights.
He slumped to the floor, his back against the wall. The others sat down, too. Nessa and Tawny both sipped mana potions.
“We escaped three big threats with minimal fighting,” Percel said after a while.
Everyone looked at him, and he smiled.
He said, “That’s good. When you’re not strong enough to fight something, there’s no shame in running away.”
“Those spirits . . . they just gave up," Tawny said. "I thought dungeon monsters always fought to the death.”
Percel said, “It happens, lass. Those were once living people. They still retain the power of reason in their current state. Unlike, for instance, a zombie. When they realized we were intent on taking out a path to the door and they couldn’t stop us, they decided prudence trumped valor.”
“That just seems odd, especially for a deeper dungeon threat.”
Percel shrugged. He said, “They were in the same room as the portal column, but they’re not this dungeon’s primary.”
“And who, or what, is this dungeon’s primary?”
“That I don’t know. Mayhap it be this monster mentioned in the message. Mayhap something else. With a typical new dungeon, explorers face the lighter threats at the top and steadily progress down into its depths and greater challenges. But we came in the back door. It’s riskier, but we’ve managed well so far. If we can avoid the primary here, whatever it may be, all the better.”
Soon they felt revived, thanks to Nessa’s improved Rested State spell. Percel complimented her on the improvements. She thanked him, but her heart and mind remained with Toby. She doted on the giant elf and made sure all his wounds were truly healed.
Tawny cast her map spell again, making a visual representation of this new dungeon. She decided the spell should be called Dungeon Cartography, although if someone else had it written down it could be known by a different name.
Percel shrugged. He cared not what she called it so long as she could cast it consistently.
Looking at the entire dungeon, or at least a representation of it, he decided the place Missan sent her spell must be somewhere about five levels above them. Together, he and Tawny plotted the fastest way up.
Unlike the Crypts of Phanos, which were mostly connected by tunnels, this one seemed to be architecturally based with subterranean hallways and rooms. There were also stairwells and ladders leading up and down, as well as sloping passageways and shafts.
It appeared to both Tawny and Percel that a nearby stairwell connected ten or eleven levels, and would offer the fastest way up to the lost party’s last known location.
Erik said, “If they met the monster that wiped them out on that level, it wasn’t the primary, right?”
Percel shrugged. He said, “It’s possible a primary could roam beyond the lowest levels. It’s not unheard of. I’ve seen it before. Regardless, it was very powerful. Keep a sharp eye out.”
At last, Percel had them form up and move out.
Erik immediately swapped his blade out for the new one he looted from the statue’s corpse. This one was not enchanted, near as he could tell, and it felt very old. Yet, it was so finely made it put his previous sword to shame.
Perfectly balanced, the steel had been lovingly folded several times over, giving the appearance of dark water streaks in the shiny steel. It came to a point at the perfect length, and Erik thought he had never held its equal.
The hilt and pommel were made of some white material. He hoped it was ivory, and not human bones. It felt smooth and warm in his hand. He tried a few maneuvers with the blade as they headed for the staircase. The sword practically sang as it cut through the air.
“It seems happy to be out of its long confinement,” Erik said as they carefully made their way down the hallway. “Do you think that was its spirit, the blade that warrior was using?”
“Aye. Without a doubt, lad.”
“So, when we broke the statue, and the statue’s spirit disappeared, the sword it carried disappeared too. Do you think the blade’s spirit went away, or did it go back . . . in here?”
“When we die,” Percel said, “as the cleric will agree, we go to face the Creator for Judgment. However, sometimes that can be delayed through certain magics. Those poor souls who were turned into cenotaphs have been delayed from departing for the afterlife who knows how many centuries.
“But objects . . . objects are not people, lad. They are not judged by our Lord and Creator for their actions because they have no free will.
“So to answer your question, I think you will find the sword’s spirit has returned to its . . . body, if you will, instead of passing to the other side.”
Erik swished the sword a couple more times, flicking his wrist back and forth.
“I can feel it. I can feel its spirit. And it’s very strong.”
-+-
An hour later they at last opened another doorway to a corridor on the desired level. On the staircase they met and subsequently dispatched four skeletons, a wraith, and something Percel identified as a corridor troll.
The corridor troll proved to be the most difficult monster to deal with. He evidently considered the stairwell to be his personal territory, and barreled into the team from an ambush, screaming and slashing with five inch claws while his spittle splattered on everyone.
Nessa and Tawny shot him with arrows and spells while Percel and Erik slashed with their blades. Toby watched with a frown on his face but did not engage.
The troll retreated after several cuts, arrows, and burn marks. Percel cautiously led the team forward in an attempt to root it out and finish it off.
The staircase sloped upward with long, running steps stretching about 100 feet before switching back in the other direction. They were made alternately of stone, wood, and sometimes packed mortar and bricks.
Attacks always seemed to come from above, so when following th
e corridor troll back up, Percel carefully peeked around the corner of the next flight of stairs. There, in the side of the wall, he found a hole tall enough to stoop through.
Bending down he caught sight of the injured troll’s glowing eyes and heard it snarl.
He looked up at Tawny and said, “Fireball should do it, lass.”
She nodded and cast the spell through the hole. The creature howled in anger and anguish as the flames hit him. He rushed for the opening. Percel and Erik cut him down with their swords as he came out in a cloud of smoke and singed fur.
Inside the lair, they found very little of value. A few copper coins, some scraps of leather armor, and an old knife were all the creature had.
Percel shrugged. He said, “Since not many people know of this dungeon, not many come this way, I suppose. He hasn’t had explorers to attack and plunder.”
They moved on and at last found the door Percel wanted. He opened it carefully and peeked out into the hallway beyond.
“The way looks clear. We’re heading to the right.”
He stepped out into the hallway, Tawny’s Globe of Light leading the way for illumination. They carefully moved down the hall in formation.
“Now, looks can be deceiving,” Percel said, quietly. “Iffen you see a little boy, it’s likely the monster that took the other team out.”
Everyone nodded as they continued going forward.
When they came to an intersection, Percel carefully glanced in all directions.
He said, “We go to the right again.”
Soon they came to their first trapped area. Percel, recognizing the feel of a potential snare, raised his hand for all to stop. He put on his spectacles enchanted with See Magic and gazed down the hall.
He grunted in disappointment.
“If it’s like the domed chamber,” Tawny said over his shoulder, “it’ll be spectral.”
She cast the same spell she used in the chamber of cenotaphs, and suddenly everyone could see ghostly runes floating in the corridor.
Percel grunted again. This time he said, “A pattern. Whoever designed this dungeon must have been an expert in Spirit Magic.”
