by John Mangold
The spell lifted those in the front lines, sending them sprawling backward into those standing behind. This caused a minor domino effect, each line sprawling into the one following. However, their overwhelming numbers quickly compensated for this. Within only a few pulses, those knocked into their brethren were regaining their feet, the relentless march beginning anew.
“Now, while they are bunched up, bathe them in flames!” Maluem screamed at Volo.
“What if I strike you? They are still too close-” Volo objected.
“Remember my binding Volo,” Maluem bellowed. “Your flames can do me no harm. Now strike, before they disperse once more!”
Volo complied, sending a stable stream of liquid fire down into their lines. The inferno spread around Maluem like water, filling the clearing she had made in the span of a pulse, completely obscuring her view of the undead warriors for a few breaths. The heat upon her was intense. However, she could feel her binding on her arm augment her natural abilities as she concentrated on channeling the blaze’s power to her staff.
The pain and discomfort of her physical wounds faded, forced to the nether regions of her consciousness. Her mind was suddenly suffused with power as her staff was filled to its capacity. In the hopes of bleeding some of the surplus power, Maluem cast a second force spell, this time targeting the very flames around her. The effect pushed the wildfire deeper into the ranks of the mindless minions, setting even more of their numbers alight.
As the inferno dissolved, Maluem witnessed the results of their combined assault. To say the least, the outcome was underwhelming. Ranks of the undead were incinerated in mere pulses, while still more crumbled under the flames, their tinder-dry bones devoured by the ferocity of the firestorm engulfing them.
However, the vast majority still stood, even as their rotted flesh melted from the heat of the blaze. As Maluem had told Cruentus, these warriors were beyond fear or pain. Even as the fire continued to devour them, the masses pressed ever inward, their numbers ensuring their success despite their losses.
“This isn’t working, Volo,” Maluem admitted. “We need to try a different tactic! What of Cruentus?”
“She appears to be holding her own well enough,” Volo replied. “She is taking them out two at a swing! Lucky for us, these corpses cannot use the weapons they carry!”
Looking around, Maluem saw the truth of Volo’s words. Death had indeed robbed these warriors of their fighting expertise. For those equipped with swords and the like, the application of their implements was still present in their rotted minds, but their assaults were clumsy and slow, making these soldiers threatening only en masse.
For those armed solely with ranged weapons, matters were much worse. Some held their rifles by the barrels, swinging them clumsily with both hands like ungainly clubs. Others retained memories of their weapon’s actual purpose yet lacked the skill to operate them. These repeatedly pulled rusty triggers causing corroded hammers to continually fall on empty chambers, stabbing their inert firearms forwards like blunted spears.
Lastly were those who possessed functioning weapons, dry ammunition, and an inkling to use them. However, they could not aim properly, launching round after round into whatever stood before them, enemy, ally, or terrain alike. The chaos these shambling wrecks caused was overwhelming all on its own.
“True enough,” Maluem agreed after reflexively ducking the screech of a ricocheting projectile. “Still, their numbers will be her undoing if we are not careful. If her weapons become ensnared, or one manages a lucky hit, the avalanche of rotted humanity will overwhelm her. Go, see if you can burn a path to the center of the ruins. Do not overly concern yourself with accuracy. Her abilities will guard her against your flames. I will meet you two there.”
“What of you? I can’t just leave you in the middle of this,” Volo protested.
“Do not concern yourself with me,” Maluem yelled. “I believe I learned a technique from our last engagement that will work quite well here. Just go, support Cruentus. If she should fall, our hopes of escaping with the cell in hand fall as well.”
Even in apparition form, Maluem could see a look of concern in Volo’s blazing eyes as he turned to fly towards Cruentus’ position. As Maluem watched him disappear over the circle of rotting opponents, she returned her attention to the matter at hand. Looking to one of the closest staggering soldiers, she could see a bit of his breast bone revealed under his ravaged flesh and armor.
Squinting, she could faintly perceive what looked to be a rune carved deeply within the sternum. This confirmed what she had suspected; it was a Bone Bind, the deepest of all bindings. It was challenging to apply, and only possible on a dead subject, but it would hold the victim in one’s thrall indefinitely.
The only way to break this type of mystical hold was to pulverize the bound bone. Sheer brutality would not work on enemies such as these. You needed precision as well, something that a mass assault usually would not afford. If you did not shatter the proper bone, the corpse would continue advancing until the sheer numbers of the Bone Bound sealed your doom. This was not an economic tactic for a Sorcerer unless a large number of deceased were readily at hand. However, Maluem felt she was witnessing a practical lesson in its effectiveness.
As the shambling masses drew yet closer around her, Maluem considered another fact of such bindings. This sorcerous spell held its subject in an unnatural state, one riding a precarious blade’s edge between life and death. The victim could not heal to regain their life, yet neither could they retreat to the hereafter. As such, they were in a similar situation to that of Skylla and Letifer, but much more extreme. Their bodies were in flux between rot and growth, one which would need but a nudge in either direction to trigger a total collapse. Maluem prepared two incantations that would provide that nudge.
With a deep breath, Maluem triggered her prepared spells, knowing full well the impact they would have on her. A force bubble flowed out from her once more, but this time her aim was not to drive her attackers back but to deliver an unbalancing condition in the form of a heal spell.
As her spell impacted the lead elements, the effects were as immediate as they were disturbing. Rotted flesh pulsed anew, flesh regenerated, hearts pumped, lungs expanded in desperate spasms to grasp air. Desiccated bodies felt the blessed caress of life itself if only for a breath, and then the spell was gone. At that moment, the binding’s delicate balance was upset, its purpose unraveling the instant its victim’s system was pushed from that precarious precipice. The binding shattered, the heal spell run its course, the victim’s body embraced death entirely and finally.
With that single spell, a circle thirty feet in diameter from Maluem was filled with inanimate corpses. This had little effect on those that followed, merely shambling forward over their fallen comrades. However, the impact on Maluem from the spell was quite significant. The expected Nausea that had always come from such intimate contact that healing required never arrived.
In fact, the sensations unleashed upon her were far more disturbing than she could have expected. Where a feeling of intrusion and unwelcome intimacy had been, now she felt a firm, soothing embrace of inevitability. Maluem could not explain why, but this macabre sensation felt peculiarly familiar, welcoming, and inescapable. Maluem shuddered as she briefly considered what her reaction to these sensations implied about her.
Quickly modifying her spell selection while violating her rule against experimentation amid combat once more, Maluem scorched a hybrid perimeter spell, combining a low-level healing spell with a static force bubble. The activation of the incantations was invisible to the eye, but their effects were not. When the first of the rotting masses attempted to close with her, their bodies experienced a grotesque spasm, falling to the ground to move no more.
As each corpse struck her barrier, sensations crawled across her skin, filling her mind with the welcoming comforts of the grave. Once again, she felt no revulsion. Why? What did this say about her very soul? Why would the li
ving repulse her but not the dead? Maluem shook her head sternly as she forced down such distracting thoughts. Combat was no place for internal contemplation.
Marching forward with renewed intensity, Maluem began to make her way towards the ruins where she knew Cruentus to be. As she advanced, her spell moved with her, cutting down all who stood before her in a similarly gruesome fashion, creating a broad path to her goal. She had no mind for the morbid sensations flowing over her as each corpse fell, her intentions now locked on Cruentus. A flow of combat’s elation had flown from Cruentus since that first strike, but now it dimmed as frustration began to take over.
Maluem also sensed that the ghoulish sensations that soothed her had a very different effect on Cruentus, hampering the woman’s ability to fight. With every corpse she unbound, Cruentus’s frustration spiked. Maluem realized that, if she did not get to her goal as quickly as possible, the spell that granted her salvation could bring about Cruentus’s death. With renewed vigor, Maluem forcefully centered her mind on the task at hand, striving to pick the path least populated by the undead. She would not let her incantations cause the fall of her party.
Her eyes took precious pulses to adjust as she breached the outer walls of the ruined building. However, when her vision finally cleared, it was her mind that refused to accept the surreal scene within. The structure's center was completely hollow, with only the barest of walls holding up a domed roof. Here, Volo floated on wings of flame, pouring a focused inferno upon the walking dead, transforming their hordes into animated funeral pyres. Yet, as Maluem watched, countless undead reinforcements joined their brethren, instantly replacing their losses.
The chamber's main floor was dominated by an enormous, ragged hole approximately two hundred feet wide, disappearing down into a black void of unknowable depth. It was at the fragile brim of the pit where Cruentus made her stand, her smoldering adversaries surrounding her, closing in with every pulse. Though she remained fierce in the face of the onslaught, it was clear from her labored axe swings that exhaustion was taking hold. Even with her healing abilities, the last few hours had been unrelenting. Even synthetic muscles and steel has their limits.
Maluem lunged forward, not precisely knowing what she could do. If she tried to cast a spell, Cruentus’s absorption abilities would negate the effects. Still, Maluem was determined to try, hoping it might clear some of Cruentus’ adversaries for her. She set off the spell combination once more, but the results were not at all what she expected.
With the undead bodies massed as they were, her spell was diminished within a mere few feet. Several adversaries fell, but her path was not advanced much as the majority remained prone and active. She would need to cast this complex concoction many times before she would be within range of her goal. Maluem feared Cruentus’ luck would not hold long enough for salvation to reach her.
As she drew closer, Maluem heard a sound that at first seemed incomprehensible, Cruentus laughing. To be truthful, it was more of a maniacal giggle, but considering the situation, it caught Maluem off guard. Pausing to better view the woman’s condition, Maluem watched in horror as Cruentus faltered. Before Maluem could begin to scorch a protective spell, the rotting mass surged forward, forcing Cruentus to take a step the fragile ledge could not support. In a split pulse, Cruentus plummeted, tumbling into the gaping maw below.
In that instant, Maluem was filled with the horrid sensation of falling, panic, and then the icy impact of near-freezing water. These alone nearly dropped Maluem to her knees as she desperately willed Cruentus to swim. Moving forward to straddle the brim, Maluem looked down into the pit below, her protective spell holding the rotting masses at bay. What she witnessed was all that she had hoped and feared in one terrifying vision.
There, some thirty feet below her, in the center of a subterranean lake, stood Cruentus on an island defined entirely by bleached bone. At the island’s center rose an altar of finely carved stone, possibly constructed when these ruins formed a palace's foundation. Above this shrine hovered the Cell of Dorjakt, encircled by a swirling halo of bonded bones, their jagged edges pointing aggressively outwards as they spun.
Maluem longed to jump down and grasp the prize herself, to claim the jewel that she had envisioned for so long. But her memory was not dimmed. That device hungered for souls. Its very presence, along with the spells protecting it from theft, accounted for the bones forming the small landmass that supported it. But Cruentus would be immune to its powers. This she was sure of, this Maluem prayed was true.
Maluem opened her mouth to tell Cruentus to grasp the Cell, but the effort was unneeded. Before she could speak, the woman was already in motion, her gloved hands clasping around the arcane artifact’s glowing surface. The moment her fingers touched its smooth surface, the halo of bones exploded outwards, creasing Cruentus’s skin as they sped past, all failing to penetrate. Beyond this, Cruentus remained unaffected, standing triumphantly with the cell in hand.
Far above, Maluem breathed a sigh of relief she did not even know she was holding in. She had been right. Of course she had! Was there any doubt? A soft voice in the back of her mind reminded her there had been while speaking a truth she did not wish to hear. This was the second time she had risked another’s life to achieve her goals. Would Cruentus pay as high a price as Volo had?
Maluem’s had little time to consider this as the situation around her drastically changed. First, she heard Volo cry out above her, causing her to glance around, discovering the undead masses had disintegrated. The floor of the room was now covered with the prone bodies of the now peaceful dead. There was no time to celebrate as a second yell, this time from below, pierced the silence.
Looking down, Maluem watched as the waters of the subterranean lake began to boil, but from what she had no idea, until something pierced the water’s surface. Slowly, bones that were lining the floor of the immense body of water began to align themselves, rising up from the depths to take on horrid parodies of life. Bones of humans, animals, and half-demons swelled up as one, combining to generate terrible new creations. Once complete, each monstrosity turned its malicious intent on the lone island of bone and the lone woman standing upon it. Yet another trap had been sprung.
“Get her out of there, Maluem!” Volo shouted from his loft above.
“How do you propose I do that?” Maluem yelled back. “I cannot get a clear line of sight on those atrocities without hitting her as well. Once that happens, the effects of my spells will be nullified, granting her no help whatsoever.”
“Then perhaps I can help her, I can burn them to a cinder.”
“Volo, those are only bone. There is no flesh or clothes for your flames to devour. By the time you manage to singe them in the slightest, those fiends will have utterly butchered Cruentus.”
“Then what do we do? Stand here and watch her die?”
Maluem glared at Volo, but she knew he was right. She had to go down there, yet she knew she could not rely on her spells once she arrived. As she pondered what to do, Maluem heard that disquieting giggle rise up from below, confirming in her mind that this was Cruentus’s way of expressing her distress. If Maluem was to assist her at all, she would have to act immediately.
Without another thought, Maluem leaped, using a decaying force spell to slow her descent until she landed on top of the cluttered altar at the center of the island of bone. She could feel Cruentus' mind within her own, more potent than ever, filled with exhaustion and the tendrils of real desperation. Cruentus had placed the cell in a satchel she had taken from the Gorgon to free up her hands, and she had even managed to strike down the first humanoid skeletons to reach the isle, but this was but the first of the multitudes now threatening to overwhelm them.
Maluem quickly removed her partial Focus from the staff case on her back and tossed it into the air to land on the island between her and Cruentus. This tactic would certainly prove deadly for Volo should the staff get destroyed, but considering the consequences should her plan fail, hi
s fate would be no worse than Cruentus or hers. As she suspected, and as Volo’s sudden disappearance confirmed, Cruentus’ innate abilities drained the staff immediately, leaving Maluem with only her internal energy to call from. This would not be near enough for what she was about to attempt, and that was precisely what was required.
Clasping her hands together before her bowed head, Maluem concentrated as hard as she could on the spell she had cast but once before. It was the incantation that had delivered the demise of the Leviathan. It was desperation that had driven her to push herself so severely during that encounter. Desperation would have to serve again. She felt power flow into her from the air around her, but most crucially from the water half flooding the cavernous chamber, the very substance those monstrosities waded through to reach them. Pulling in as hard as she could, Maluem bound her spell to the heat emanating from that body of water and released the final incantations.
With a deafening roar, the spell exploded, thundering outwards and upwards, its force pushing out everything around her, picking up the bones of the landmass, sending them hurtling out with projectile force. The roof cracked and groaned as the spell’s titanic power pushed up on aged stone and steel, threatening to bring the island’s mass down upon them. Outward the force bubble raced until the leading edge struck Cruentus, finding within her a thirst even its immense power could not quench.
It was here that the genius of Maluem’s plan revealed itself. As she had hoped, her mystical stores were nearly drained from a combination of Cruentus’s proximity and the demands of Maluem’s spell. When the massive force bubble struck Cruentus, Maluem became a conduit for the flowing mystical energy, pulled from the very heart of the subterranean lake, funneled directly into the ever thirsting Cruentus. The connection lasted only two pulses, but that was more than enough to drain the lake of all thermal energy, freezing water solid as granite, entombing all within.
For Maluem, the world suddenly became an inky black morass with the next sensation she could comprehend being intense pain. Opening her eyes once more, Maluem found herself being dragged across the newly formed ice, Cruentus’s steel hand gripping Maluem’s left forearm. The agony and nausea of this contact struck Maluem immediately, driving her to want nothing more than to be free of that woman’s grip.
