by Eric Vall
“Great work, team,” I complimented with a happy sigh.
Layla recalled her hyppocrans as I put away my speed slug and leftover daggerdillos, and the silver dragon in the sky drew closer with a few lazy wingbeats as she shrank before my eyes. Kalon fluttered down to land on Cyra’s shoulder and nuzzled her neck contentedly.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Layla remarked as she walked over to pat the little dragon. “Was that it?”
As a whole group, we froze and looked around us as if a new band of monsters would spring from the grasses at any moment. This time, nothing emerged, and we laughed uneasily at our jumpiness.
The last gray prowler’s body began to disintegrate, and Varleth finally managed to pull his blade free. He wiped it on the edge of his mage cloak and sheathed the sword back at his side.
“I think I prefer facing monsters in the Shadowscape, where I can see them coming,” the gypsy concluded.
“I know what you mean,” I said with relief. “This ambush could’ve gone badly for us if we weren’t so quick on our feet. I think I’m ready to go on into the caves if everybody else is.”
There was a hearty round of agreement, and my team gathered back into loose formation as the cave mouth yawned large before us.
“You sure we need to explore this one?” Layla asked nervously as she peered into the darkness. “Maybe those prowlers are what caused the disappearances.”
“I wish I could say the same, but prowlers don’t come from nowhere, and there’s no rift outside,” I replied ruefully. “We have to check the caves and close it for good.”
“Aw, fine,” Layla conceded, and she followed close on my heels as I led us through the cave opening and into the waiting darkness.
“Hats on,” I suggested, and we all pulled out the crystal-powered inventions before we activated them with a series of small clicks.
The cave tunnel in front of us lit up with the soft white glow from our hat lights. The light danced over the cave walls, and the walls glittered delicately from within as crystalline patches refracted the glow.
Cyra made an appreciative noise. “Maelor was too cheap to spring for these hats. This is much nicer than a gas lamp.”
“Are the walls made of tiny essence crystals?” Varleth asked as he traced one hand over a glittering patch.
“Hmm, not quite,” Cyra replied. “They’re made up of the same stuff, but the pattern of their formation is imperfect. You couldn’t store the smallest monster in them, not even if you had a whole wall at your disposal.”
That made sense to me, but I lifted my head curiously to watch them glitter on the ceiling. “Could you melt them down and make one big crystal?”
Cyra snorted. “You forget I’m just a tourist reciting the information locals gave me. You’d have to ask a real researcher for that answer.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Layla declared.
“There’s probably a reason it’s not been done before, though,” Varleth commented reasonably.
Our walk through the caves was interrupted by the moan of a distant, indistinguishable voice.
A human voice.
“Somebody survived?” Layla asked with a gasp.
“We have to go help them!” I commanded, and we charged down the tunnel with renewed purpose and speed.
The moaning drew closer, but the eerie noise reverberated and echoed around the cave, which made it difficult to pinpoint. We reached a branch of the tunnel, and I hesitated as I tried to determine which way to go.
“You should always take a left at path crossings in order to avoid getting lost,” Varleth told us with authority.
“Left it is,” I agreed, since one way didn’t seem any better than the other.
Before we could resume our search, the voice moaned again with a breathy cry.
“She’ll find you … she always finds you.”
My blood froze cold, and we exchanged spooked glances.
“I’m in favor of turning back, just so we’re clear,” Layla squeaked in trepidation.
I was beginning to think the auburn-haired summoner had a special fear of caves, since she was usually enthusiastic and brave before a battle. I didn’t want to put her on the spot, but I stepped close to squeeze her reassuringly around the shoulders.
“I’m sure they’re just injured and delusional,” I told my team, “and when people are injured, we’ve got an obligation to help out.”
I took a step to head down the left fork, but Varleth stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
“Wait,” he requested with a strange look in his eyes. “I think we should go right.”
“Right?” I asked with a confused frown. “Aren’t you the one who told us to always go left?”
He stared at me stubbornly, but offered no new explanation. “We should go right,” he repeated.
I shrugged and relented to the powerful look in the banisher’s eyes, so I led the team down the right tunnel.
Sure enough, Varleth was correct, and the moaning grew subtly louder as we walked.
“Blood! She wants blood!” echoed the voice as we neared.
Cyra shrugged nonchalantly. “Sounds innocent enough. Oh, that’s a nice crystal there.”
I chuckled despite myself as Cyra’s penchant for wandering eyes manifested again, but I drew close to look at where she pointed.
It was a nice crystal, actually. It was bluish and medium-sized, and it stuck out of the rock at a jaunty angle.
“Just an empty crystal,” I said. “Should I get it out?”
“We don’t have any mining tools,” Varleth commented.
“We’ve got drillmoles,” I said with a shit-eating grin as I patted my bandolier.
“I guess we can save them for later,” Cyra allowed, “since we should probably figure out what the hell is going on down here.”
As if in answer, a moan bellowed from the tunnel just in front of us, and a man stumbled from the darkness into our headlights.
Layla screamed, but she clapped a hand over her mouth in embarrassment as the man did nothing but stand still and stare at us.
He wore a miner’s hat painted with the number 76, and he stood at an awkward, unnatural angle. His brown eyes were large, and the pupils were dilated so much they nearly turned his eyes completely black. He swayed on his feet as he stared into the tunnel behind us with an unfocused gaze.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“She wants blood,” he repeated, but his eyes didn’t focus on us. “There is no salvation. She is inevitable.”
“Uh-huh … ” I replied uneasily. “Did you get hit on the head?”
“She comes,” the lost miner moaned with no indication that he’d heard me.
I frowned as I glanced at my three teammates. “I’m sure he’s on the list,” I said, “but what should we do with him?”
“Take him with us as we go deeper?” Cyra suggested.
“Leave him here because he’s creepy?” Layla tacked on.
Varleth said nothing, but he frowned and approached the man.
“I can feel something from him,” the banisher murmured, “but I’m not sure what it is. It’s like a darkness.”
Layla shivered and took two steps back. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”
“A darkness?” I asked with a frown. “Like banisher magic?”
“No,” Varleth mumbled as he tilted his head and let his eyes close.
I waited patiently for him to come up with a better answer. Rushing Varleth never did any good, since he was such an efficient person by nature.
“A catalyst,” Varleth announced suddenly as his eyes flew open.
“Here?” I asked as I glanced around in confusion. “We’re not in the Shadowscape.”
The banisher placed a hand on the miner’s shoulder, but the man still didn’t respond.
“Not an actual catalyst,” Varleth explained, “just a power that feels very similar to one. It’s coming from this miner. I think I can draw it off the same
way … ”
I fiddled with my fingers impatiently as the gypsy furrowed his brow and stood silent and still.
Then he rocked backward to brace his feet as he clutched tightly at the man’s shoulder. A smoky, dark magic rose from the miner, and the strange man gasped as the black mana swirled from him and into Varleth’s hand. Black veins ran up the banisher’s arm and disappeared under his clothing.
A few seconds later, they both stumbled away from each other.
“It’s done,” Varleth explained succinctly.
The miner whipped his head around with frightened eyes, and he looked like a completely new man. “W-what’s going on?” he asked. “How did I get here?”
Varleth adjusted his sleeves absently. “You housed a dark power inside your body. I would consider it similar to a state of possession.”
I winced as the lost man gawked in shock at the gypsy’s words.
“Possession?” he repeated.
I decided less explanation was better, so I took a step forward and grabbed the miner’s attention. “Okay, give me your name.”
“J-Jym Offrey,” he stuttered out.
“Perfect,” I replied. “You need to leave the mines and go back to town. Tell the mayor that his mages are curing the disappeared people.”
“Mages?” the miner asked as he looked at us. “That’s who you are?”
“Yup,” Layla chimed in, “but we can’t take care of you right now. Just take a left at the fork, and you’ll be out of the caves in a jiffy.”
I turned to Cyra and lowered my voice. “Can you send Kalon to guide him out? I think we got all the monsters on our way in here, but I’m not totally sure, and familiars are the only ones who can get that far away from their summoners.”
“Of course,” Cyra said with an understanding smile.
Kalon leapt to the task with a chirrup and a flash of pink wings as she launched herself at the miner.
Jym yelped as the little dragon latched onto his arm and crawled up to his shoulder. He looked like he was about to faint, but we managed to calm him down enough to trust the little monster to guide him home.
“Don’t worry,” Cyra assured the miner, “if you run into any imps, she’ll eat them whole.”
Jym paled at the thought and gulped, but he gave the small dragon a look of appreciation anyway.
My team didn’t have much tact, but we did good work.
Jym said his goodbyes with a jerky wave and turned to go with a stumble to his step.
Then another distant moan spilled from the darkness ahead.
“Sounds like there are more,” I commented as anxiety churned in my stomach. “What the hell is going on here, Varleth? What did you mean by possession?”
The banisher furrowed his brow and shifted uncertainly on his feet. “I’m not sure. I’ve never heard of it before, but that’s what it feels like.”
Layla shivered as she took a step closer to me. “I don’t like not knowing.”
“Me neither,” I agreed before I turned to the banisher. “If it’s possession, why can you feel their dark energy like a catalyst?”
Varleth shrugged. “No clue.”
“Did Gawain ever feel like he was possessed?” I asked as the coincidences began to line up.
Varleth sighed. “I never checked. I was just looking for rifts in here.”
“Well, what about the weird things they’re saying?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Varleth replied with a helpless gesture.
“Aren’t you a banisher?” I joked as I waved a hand at his black mage’s cloak.
“Guys,” Cyra interrupted with a roll of her eyes. “We get it, you want answers, but we aren’t getting anywhere by arguing.”
“And I want to go home sooner rather than later,” Layla added nervously.
They were right, of course. People were waiting on us to save them, and if Gawain’s odd behavior was related to possession, I needed to find the answers.
“Alright,“ I sighed, “let’s keep going. But I don’t like having so many unexplainable mysteries.”
We walked on into the darkness of the cave as we followed the mournful sounds of the possessed.
The next disappeared person we ran into was a female miner who wore a purple-dyed backpack around her skinny arms.
I pulled out my list of missing people and checked her off along with Jym from before.
“She will be all that’s left,” the woman warned in a high gasp. “She is the one who comes.”
Once more, Varleth clasped her by the shoulder and drew the dark essence out of her. They stumbled apart when the smoky magic was gone.
“What the shit?” the woman grunted brashly as she stared around her.
I explained who we were and what she had to do to escape, and she clucked her tongue before she nodded brusquely.
“Yeah, possession makes sense, I guess,” she agreed simply without a trace of shock or fear.
My team exchanged confused glances.
She seemed far more put-together than the last miner, so I took a chance.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked.
She cocked her head sideways and put her hands on her hips. “I had to take a leak, so I went deeper into the mine, way down by the real big crystals. There’s an underground stream and a big waterfall, usually a good spot to piss if you don’t want to bother heading back to town.”
“Nice details,” Varleth snickered out.
I ignored the obvious humor of the situation. “So that’s the last thing you remember?” I questioned.
“Yup,” she agreed. “Can’t think of anything unusual happening, but I was definitely there.”
“Could you give us directions?” Cyra asked.
I offered her the list and scoured a pen from my bag. She wrote us a series of detailed directions on the opposite side of the list in neat, simple handwriting.
When she was done, I asked Layla to summon her familiar, the bat-like keichim, to send with the woman.
“Oh!” the miner exclaimed as the keichim fluttered in squeaking circles around her head. “Your monster reminds me of my dog, Porro.”
Of course it did. I could hardly expect her to be fazed by a nearly-invisible, electric, flying monster at this point.
We thanked the odd woman, offered her some water, and said our goodbyes shortly after. She left with a jaunty, brisk step that belied her time spent as a victim of dark magic.
As we followed the woman’s directions, we ran into missing people at nearly every tunnel. Varleth tired more with every one, but he didn’t say a word about his exhaustion and concentrated unflaggingly on freeing each missing person.
Layla’s keichim and Cyra’s dragon took turns guiding people back to the surface, and each time a familiar returned, they reported no signs of monsters or other trouble.
As we ran into possessed people, I checked my list as Varleth freed each one. I crossed off “Limping Larry” as well as a host of other strange characters. Mining seemed to attract a crowd of real oddballs.
We ran into a couple tourists as well, but it took much longer to convince them to return to the surface alone.
The first tourist left only after we’d given him one of our gas lamps, and the second was a woman who seemed especially attached to Varleth.
“But I’m scared!” the young woman named Deresa gasped as she clung to Varleth’s shirtsleeve. Her big gray eyes glittered as she shook her messy brown hair out of her face.
The banisher jostled his arm to dislodge her, and then he turned to me with an expression of alarm.
I stifled a laugh and assured the frightened woman she would be fine.
We finally got her to relent and leave us behind, but only after I nodded my head meaningfully at the gypsy for some assistance.
“You’ll be fine,” Varleth told Deresa in a stilted voice. “I’ve imbued you with a spell of protection.”
She kissed him on the cheek with full lips and fluttered her ey
elashes. “I’ll wait for you in town. No matter how long it takes, I promise.”
Then she finally released his arm and went back the way we’d come.
I could understand her reluctance to go back without a light to guide her in the pitch-black caves, but with our instructions and one hand on the cave wall, it should be impossible to get lost.
“Your wife is very pretty,” Layla teased. “You ought to kiss her more often.”
“We’re in the middle of a mission,” Varleth snapped as he rubbed at his cheek.
In the light of our helmets, I could barely see the pink flush of embarrassment that crept up his neck.
“Ooh,” I cooed, “I think our young boy has actually fallen for this lady.”
Cyra gawked at the banisher. “You’re right! He’s smiling!”
“I’m not,” Varleth insisted with a flustered laugh, but the telltale pleased grin came back in full force a moment later.
“You’re fooling nobody,” I informed him. “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you see her again back at the outpost.”
The gypsy let out a series of flustered, indignant denials, but he trailed off as we stepped into a sudden clearing.
The tunnel walls curved away from us as we stared into the vague darkness. Our helmets were bright, but they didn’t do a good job of showing the entire space ahead of us, so I dug the remaining gas lamp from my travel bag.
“Can you light this?” I asked as I held the lamp up to Cyra’s hair.
Kalon chirruped and emerged. She puffed up her chest like a smith’s bellows and heaved out a huge breath that produced only a tiny flicker of flame.
It was far from impressive, but it did the job, and I clicked the gas lamp alight.
On the far side of the cavern, water rushed from a fall and cascaded into a beautiful, glistening pool. The water was dark and impenetrable as it flowed away via a stream and disappeared through a small hole in the rock to continue underground.
By far the most impressive thing, however, were the crystals.
Giant crystalline formations the size of wagons protruded like chandeliers from the ceiling. One enormous pillar of crystal traversed between the floor and the roof of the cave like a supporting beam. Smaller crystals jutted from the cave walls and floor, but I could still easily walk over to any spot and place my hand on a crystal bigger than my own head.
