Skirmish (The Stork Tower Book 8)

by Tony Corden

  Leah said, “I’ll try to teleport just you five. If it doesn’t work, I’ll take you there and come back.”

  Leah pictured the hand of guards on the mountain in the centre of the ridge running along the western face. As she cast, she felt herself being pulled but reinforced the image of her back with the group. She felt a flicker as if she’d moved the hand and then returned. She checked her mana, and it looked as if she’d used three times as much as she’d expected. Thad said, “T: You faded as if you were both here and not here.”

  “So, probably not the best time to experiment?”

  “T: No kidding.”

  Leah pointed in the direction of the maze entrance and said, “Val, you ready? It’s supposedly at the end of this small valley.”

  “V: Absolutely. I hope this is less traumatic than yesterday.”

  “S: Jinxed it.”

  “V: Did not.”

  “S: Did.”

  Val was about to continue bickering, but Granite had already started off, and she had to jog for a moment to get ahead of him. There was evidence of a long-forgotten trail which Val carefully moved along, and ten minutes later slowed to a stop at what looked like a solid granite wall where the two sides of the valley came together. The old trail ran straight through the middle.

  Leah didn’t do anything except nod to Val who stepped up to the wall to examine it. Several minutes later she stepped back and said, “V: I’m pretty sure this is a segregation or winnowing entryway. Each person enters and ends up in a different part of the dungeon, or in this case, the maze. From there, they need to work their way to the middle. Granite and I have done something like this before. That time it was a dungeon. Three things from that experience I’m thinking might be applicable. First, entry isn’t guaranteed, and there is usually a test of some sort. Second, dwarves are involved because it’s one of their traps. Third, it’s a timed event.”

  “T: How do we get through?”

  “G: The one we did was a dungeon controlled by dwarves who lived deep under the Forest of Night. There were pictographs visible only in Darkness, and it was pretty clear who took what. One of the markings was of a gargoyle, so I pressed that, and the doorway became visible to me. I talked to a few others who attempted it, and no other group ever saw that pictograph.”

  “S: So, what do we use, Darkness? I’ve a spell which would cover it in that.”

  “T: Pretty sure my girlfriend’s worked it out, but her silence means she wants ideas first. Last time we did this, we were in a group of eight. Seven chose one way, the Empress chose the other, so that’s what we did. Still, she wanted our opinions. Val?”

  “V: Dragonfire. Thad?”

  “T: I’ve no idea. Dwarves do fire and earth magic, so fire makes sense, but they hate dragons so not sure. Granite?”

  “G: Ditto on being clueless.”

  “T: I didn’t say clueless, although that’s probably accurate.”

  “G: Shaman?”

  “S: Dwarves can’t cast Dragonfire, but Val’s rarely wrong when it comes to tracking so I’ll go with that. Leah?”

  “I think Val’s on the right track, but I don’t think it’ll work straight up. Val, why Dragonfire?”

  “V: The haiku talks about magic’s pathway, and while I’m pretty sure it means the way through the maze, I suspect it relates to the entrance as well. The mundane races were on the eastern edge, the fae on the northern, the gods, or in this case the refuse of the gods tunnelled up from the south. That leaves dragons on the northern side. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a back entrance somewhere on the northern face which bypasses the maze. The hunter, us, has done each in turn and now we’re reaching for the top of the northern face which exists I would suggest in eternal winter.”

  Everyone turned to look at Leah who said, “Agreed and it makes sense, but this isn’t a dragon door, they wouldn’t fit. I’d suggest the dragons entered on the northern face with what Val called the back door. Sometime in the past the dwarves, maybe another reference to the hunters, tunnelled through here and did something to the dragons and I have no idea until we read the description. I’ve studied the northern face, and it looks pretty solid, so whatever was there has been blocked up. The dwarves then built the maze and created this door. We all understand how programming works, but the AI will have made it logical so the MOBs we fight have a reason why they’re doing what they do and protecting what they protect.

  “Thad said fire and that was my first guess, but it’s almost too easy, sorry Thad. Magma was the next option as dwarves are elementally bound to earth and fire. Still, it doesn’t resonate with the draconic element of the dungeon. Dragonfire was the next option, but I’ve no idea how they would cast that. Even if they could, I think I can’t understand why fire dragons would have a roost this high up the mountain where, as Val said, it’s eternal winter.”

  “T: Frost Dragons.”

  “I think so. I imagine the dungeon opens when the door is subjected to the coldest option the team can bring to it or the closest to the original used by the dwarves. Then the tunnel appears. Another cryptic I think, so—‘Winter’s quarry.’”

  “V: I’ve a freeze spell.”

  “So do I. Off you go.”

  Val tried freezing the door, but nothing appeared. Nothing appeared when Leah cast Freeze either. Working backwards, they tried Dragonfire and normal Fire, but nothing changed. Leah was looking through her spellbook when Thad said, “T: Leah, when did you learn the Freeze spell?”

  “In Carson’s Formicary, why?”

  “T: Was it something Merdivan taught you?”

  “I got the spell from what it froze. Merdivan used what was called Ultimate Freeze.”

  “T: Can you do that now?”

  “I’d have to do it from guesswork, sort of make it up.”

  “T: Try that.”

  Leah pictured the door freezing into a solid block. She imagined the molecules being slowed as the temperature dropped until the stone was too cold to touch. When she’d pictured that on her body she had to grit her teeth as the image on her skin showed the cold by dropping the sensation below freezing on her skin, causing the skin to freeze and start to slough almost instantly. Leah cast the spell and once again reached a barrier which she had to use her will to push past. When the barrier gave way, mana rushed from her, and the wall turned white even as she tried to stem the flow of mana. Everyone had to step back, as their breath froze when they exhaled and dropped in front of them as the vapour from their lungs became tiny ice crystals.

  All of them stepped close until it was almost painful; it was so cold, but no one could see anything. Finally, Thad said, “T: Can you make it colder?”

  Val and Granite laughed until Leah said, “I could, but I don’t think that’s the problem. If we’re right, then we need to get as close as we can to the original, and that was done by Dwarves. We know they only use earth and fire magic, so somehow they cast using those types of magic. I could pull the heat from the door, but somehow I think we’ll find the dwarves we come up against have been changed somehow so they can cast other spells. Let me use earth magic to cast that spell again.”

  “V: What?”

  Leah explained how using pre-formed mana increased the power of the spell. After taking a potion to restore her health and mana, she let a ball of earth mana from her earth shroud form in front of her then cast her Ultimate Freeze spell again. This time the still frozen rock seemed to suck the cold in, causing Leah to add more earth mana. It seemed as though the spell ate into the stone carving out a tunnel. When Leah could sense an opening at the other end of the rock, she forced the mana flowing from her shroud to stop powering the spell.

  Less than half her shroud remained, but there was enough that she still had a solid forearm and hand, though they looked to be only made of steel. Thad said, “T: I can see the portal. It has the image of Val on it.”

  Val said, “V: I’m up. See you on the other side.”

  With that, Val ste
pped through the portal and disappeared. Granite was next, then Shaman. When Shaman disappeared, Thad said, “T: Take care, beautiful.”

  Before Leah could respond to the use of the adjective instead of her name Thad was gone.

  29

  December 27, 2073

  DUNYANIN

  Leah could feel the image of herself form, and with a deep breath, she stepped through only to find she was in the same tunnel she’d felt all along. She was careful not to touch the walls as they were still bitterly cold and she was almost certain they’d do more than freeze the skin off her fingers if she dared to touch it. As she stepped out of the tunnel, a braille reader appeared. She glossed over the achievement and read the details.

  Winnowing Maze

  At the centre of this dwarven winnowing maze is the entrance to the Dungeon of the Dragon’s Blood Dwarves. The maze has five levels, and the dungeon’s portal is on the lowest level. Four of your group must pass through the maze successfully in the allotted time for you to gain entrance to the dungeon. (Note: This dungeon was made for a group of eight players.) Each player is in a different instance of the maze and faces opponents and challenges chosen to suit their chosen build and playing style. In this particular instance, each level of the maze is one league in diameter. Atherleah, you have two hours to exit the winnowing maze.

  Three added the countdown to the image on Leah’s skin. Leah did a quick calculation and figured she’d need to cover somewhere between four and five leagues, so she took off down the tunnel at a jog. About two hundred paces along, she came to a junction where the tunnel split into three. As she came within ten paces, she felt a creature forming down each of the pathways. Each of them had multiple arms and the aura of magic. As Leah stepped into the junction, a bolt of lightning formed in the open maw of one, and she cast Ground even as she threw herself under a spear of solid stone thrown by one of the other two. It took two minutes to defeat all three, and as she stood, she harvested all three then considered the pathways. One of the creators had used earth, one shadow and one lightning. Of the three, earth was higher on the magic scale, and it was the only thing Leah could think of that met the haiku’s directions.

  One hundred and fifty meters later as she came to a T-junction, she was attacked in one direction by a large centipede with legs around the entire body circumference and a huge mouth filled with teeth like a lamprey. Poison mana oozed from the thousands of teeth. On the other side was a swarm of hand-sized fire-wasps. The fights were vicious and longer than the previous one and Leah had already begun staggering down the fire wasp tunnel before the restore potion had even begun to work. Three junctions later and the path she chose ran into a dead end.

  She considered the haiku, then used her mining sight to see if there was something to quarry. When she couldn’t see anything, she cast Ultimate Freeze to see if a way was opened, but there was nothing. She thought through her choices and options then almost swore but stopped herself, knowing the feed would be seen around the world the next day. If the haiku held multiple meanings, then the words ‘in their turn’ could mean any number of things. The most basic would be following the highest mana type, followed by the lowest then the highest again. Turning around, she raced back to where she’d fought the centipede and wasps only to have to fight her way back through each of the intersections.

  This time after killing the creatures, she raced down the one which had the centipede. Half an hour later she again came to a dead-end, but this time when she cast Ultimate Freeze it opened a hole in the floor which dropped her into a second level. So far she’d finished one level, and it had taken her forty-five minutes. Leah took a deep breath and ran down the tunnel. As she approached the next branching place, she focussed on the forming creatures, and as soon as she knew which was the next one in the pattern, she raced down that path. As she approached the creature, she misted through it and kept running.

  Twenty-two minutes and eighteen branches further along and Leah had travelled over four-thousand paces and had, by her reckoning, just under fifty creatures on her tail when she ran into a dead end. She cast Ultimate Freeze with her right ‘earth-shroud’ hand and with her left sent a pulse of gravity down the tunnel behind her. Even as she dropped into the next level, she could feel the survivors burrowing through the crushed and broken bodies in front of them.

  By the time Leah dropped into the final level she estimated over a hundred creatures still followed even though she’d used several of the Fiery Death crystals and a stacked Chain Lightning spell. Still, with thirteen minutes to go, she tried to ignore the growing concern that she’d have to deal with them all at once. Her BSP was below one quarter its maximum value and Leah started alternating teleport with misting.

  She had a minute and forty-eight seconds to go when she turned a corner and felt a wide-open space at the end of the tunnel and her four friends standing maybe thirty paces into the open area. As she raced toward them, she could feel a large cavern start to be superimposed on her skin and decided the opening was most likely a portal. As she ran toward the opening, she ignored the cavern and threw two Fiery Death crystals and one of the Twisted Vampire Vine seeds behind her. She practically flew through the opening as the two crystals exploded behind her. As she came to her feet and couldn’t feel the portal closing behind her, she typed the message, ‘MOBS incoming’.

  Even as she turned, the massive vine exploded from the portal with creatures impaled on its spikes as it sought to crush those who’d found a way through the fire. Leah summoned six of Orumeck’s Warrior Drones, then equipping the Amber Dragon and the Imperial Sceptre she waited for the few that made it past the vine and the drones. Thad stepped up beside her and said, “T: Cut that a little fine didn’t you?”

  “I figured if I went any faster, I’d just have to wait for you to arrive.”

  “T: Ha, I was here first. I arrived almost half an hour ago.”

  There was a pause in the conversation as Leah cut the head off a giant praying mantis then cast Dragonfire as hundreds of smaller ones were disgorged from its lifeless body. Thad used a two-handed sword to batter a scorpion formed from magma away from Leah before bringing the blade around and slicing it in two. As Leah stepped back beside him, she said, “So, you’re the overachiever of the group?”

  “T: Hardly, none of us did more than wander through the door looking a bit worn and weary. You decide to fly in and brought the entire maze with you.”

  As the timer reached zero, the portal closed and the vine was sliced in half. The remaining creatures were quickly finished off, and Leah harvested what she could. The group gathered in the centre of the cavern and Leah waved away the braille reader and said, “Sorry I was late. I made a wrong assumption at the beginning and had to retrace a few steps.”

  “V: No worries. I only arrived two minutes ago, and it looked like you had it a lot tougher. Thad’s been here the longest.”

  “T: Yeah but my butt’s almost frozen off. I’ve looked around, and I think this was probably where the frost dragon had its roost. There are scratches across the entire floor, which has a layer of ice over a foot thick on it. You can still see the occasional gem or coin frozen in the flooring. To the left of the portal, the ice has been removed down to the bare rock, and I suspect that’s where the majority of the hoard was.”

  Leah concentrated on the cavern and let Thad’s description inform what she was feeling. Finally, she said, “There’s one exit so I guess that’s where we go. What about loot? Is there anything hidden beside the gems and coins?”

  “S: Ah, this is my forte.”

  As Shaman stepped away, Granite said, “G: Leah, how many levels in your maze?”

  “Five. Why?”

  “G: Just checking. Thad and I had three, Shaman and Val had four, so I assumed you had more.”

  “My instructions said they were aimed at the player’s character build and style of play. It’s a bit hard to change up the number of ways you and Thad could bash things in something to test ma
gery. Val and Shaman have more diverse options, but I bet they didn’t get to bash as much as you did. I’ve gone the route they say not to and got to bash things and use magic. Maybe you and Thad need to up your magic repertoire. All the tanks in the contest knew some pretty sophisticated magic. If you started as a dwarf, you’d be able to learn earth and fire magic. The change should have given you some access to blood and shadow.”

  As Granite turned away to watch what Shaman was doing, he said, “G: Thanks, I was feeling a bit lightweight, but I’ll take your explanation whether it’s true or not. I probably shouldn’t have given away all those spell scrolls over the years.”

  Shaman had walked to the centre of the cavern where he took a container from his bag and removed a worm the length and diameter of his arm. He dropped it on the ice, and said, “S: I discovered these in a dungeon several years ago. They’re called Avarice’s Doom. They eat gold, silver and gemstones to stay alive. They seem to know where the greatest concentration of such things is. I’d hoped to learn how to call them, but they’re coded to need constant feeding and can’t be kept in any suspended state. It costs me dozens of gold each week to keep it alive, but it’s never failed me yet. I won’t keep it forever, though, because it keeps growing.”

  The worm led to a patch of ice which Thad described to Leah as being slightly darker in colour. It showed up with the mining sight, and Leah left Granite and Thad to dig while she walked around the chamber hoping to sense if they’d missed anything. The thick section of ice held a treasure chest, and after taking a luck potion, Leah opened it. Besides gold and gems, there were a range of ice and frost spells, a dagger of ice, a container of scales from a frost-dragon and a vial of elemental ice. Once this had been distributed, Leah led them to a second spot and said, “The coins and gems we can see just under the ice are placed like the stars in the constellation Draco. According to one legend, Draco was killed by the Goddess Minerva and froze in the northern sky at the North Celestial Pole. Thuban, or Alpha Draconis, was the actual North Celestial Pole several thousand years BC. There is no gem where Thuban should be. The patch of ice you just dug up is right in the middle of the constellation’s main loop. I can’t sense anything to mine, so I was thinking of melting the ice.”