The Phoenix of Altria

by David M Zahn

  "Oh, right," I mumbled chagrined. "I was just making sure, that's all."

  Elaria rolled her eyes in response to this, and we continued on, meeting up with the rest of the large group. Most of the people we freed looked dazed and exhausted, which considering what they'd been through, wasn't surprising in the least. It would be up to our group to find a way out of this place and to fight any enemies should they emerge.

  Several notifications popped up as soon as I reached the rest of the group.

  Congratulations Graard has defeated level 16 skeleton swordsman! As a party member, you have earned 241 XP.

  Congratulations Iasz has defeated level 14 skeleton swordsman! As a party member, you have earned 209 XP.

  Congratulations Eldertits has defeated level 16 skeleton swordsman! As a party member, you have earned 241 XP.

  Congratulations you have defeated level 15 skeleton swordsman! You have earned 227 XP.

  Congratulations Iasz has defeated level 14 skeleton swordsman! As a party member, you have earned 209 XP.

  Congratulations you have reached Level 19!

  HP: 180 → 189

  MP: 280 → 294

  You have 4 unallocated stat points.

  You have 4 unallocated skill points.

  The experience and gaining a new level was always nice, but we currently had bigger issues to deal with, so I ignored these.

  "Which way do you think we should go?" I asked, after we got up to the larger group. "Does anyone know their way around down here?"

  None of the former captives responded, which I took to mean they didn't. Looking around, there were five exits out of this chamber. The one behind us I could eliminate because it led to the room with cages in it. Aside from that one, there were the three openings on the far side of the chamber and then the staircase going down.

  "Well, I doubt we want to follow the staircase," Eldertits said, voicing my own opinion. "That leads down, and I'm almost positive we need to head up."

  "Shall we just pick a path and double back if it leads to a dead end?" Rondo suggested.

  "Last time we did that we fell into a kobold lair," Eldertits said.

  "Do you have a better suggestion, Tits?" I asked, quieting the elf. "Elaria, do you have a torch to take point?"

  "I always come prepared," Elaria said, pulling a torch out and holding it out for me to light. "Unlike a certain human fire starter."

  Lighting the torch with Ignite, I sighed and said, "I'm getting better about it."

  Starting down the leftmost tunnel, Elaria lead our group in a long snaking line. The tunnel itself turned to the left a little bit after we entered. Following it, we were let out onto a narrow ledge high up in the largest cavern I'd seen yet.

  The vast ruins of a city made from stone and clay sat on the floor of this cavern. The most remarkable thing about it was how much was still intact. Whoever these Rurilae people were, they certainly knew how to construct buildings. Most of their buildings had outlasted them. On the far side, opposite of us, I could just make out a torchlight on a staircase leading up.

  "Do you reckon that's the way out?" I asked pointing over at the distant staircase.

  "They've got torches lit and it's going up, so I'd say that's a pretty good guess," Rondo answered. "One thing is for sure, someone is using that staircase."

  Turning my head, I looked along the ledge we stood on until it ended in a staircase that spiraled down onto the dark floor below.

  "Getting from here to there isn't going to be as easy as it looks from here," Eldertits stated matter-of-factly. "Once we're on ground level, we're not going to be able to see around buildings, and our only source of light is going to be Elaria's torch. There better not be any fucking spiders hanging out in these ruins."

  I grimaced, remembering our last encounter with spiders underground and hoped Eldertits didn't just jinx us. The skeletons Rurir summoned were annoying, but I would take them any day over the creepy cave spiders or, god forbid, another rock spider.

  "Well," I said sighing, "let's get moving. We need to get out of here before we run across any more of the conspiracists."

  Elaria moved out and led the chain of us down to the ruins proper. Tits was right on both counts. Once we reached ground level, the buildings blocked out the light from the other torches and kept Elaria's torch from shining over a wider area. The buildings also didn't seem to be built with any sort of organization, because they overlapped one another and made it impossible to walk in a straight line toward our destination.

  Luckily for us, Elaria seemed to have an innate sense of direction and began zigzagging us through the city. As we walked, I couldn't help but notice some of the impressive things left behind by the Rurilae. On one of the buildings, there was a mechanical clock that was still somehow operating. There were also beautiful fountains all over the place, even if none of them had water running to them.

  The most impressive thing was a lift that was operated by an elaborate system of gears and pulleys. From a user's perspective, you just had to turn a crank attached to it and it would raise or lower you depending on which direction you turned it. Because of the system in place, turning it to lift several hundred pounds took almost no effort at all.

  "These people were pretty advanced," I muttered after I got off the lift. "I wonder what happened to them?"

  "They probably all got kidnapped, locked in cages, and eaten by cannibals," Eldertits quipped, walking past me.

  "God, I hope not," I replied. "That would be an awful way to go."

  "Maybe a plague or something," Rondo suggested.

  "If it was, I hope it's not around anymore, or we are all going to end up diseased," I said in response.

  Most of the rest of the group seemed to be just as curious about the ruins as we were, and considering most of them lived in a town above this place, I couldn't blame them. The only one who showed no signs of interest was Elaria. She barked at us every so often to keep up the pace and to keep our voices down. The elf was never in a very good mood underground.

  Coming upon a plaza, Elaria stopped the group and made several shushing noises. I moved up close to her, listening as hard as I could, but I couldn't hear anything.

  After several tense moments, I asked whispering, "What is it?"

  "I thought I heard something," Elaria whispered back. "It must have just been my imagination, though. Let's keep moving."

  "Try to relax a little, eh," Rondo said, moving up next to Elaria. "You're always tense in places like this. Don't worry. I'll protect you."

  Cocking an eyebrow at Rondo, it looked like Elaria was about to respond to him when an almighty screech sounded from somewhere above us. I looked up just in time to see a giant bat dive and tear into Rondo's shoulder with rotting teeth.

  The bat was hideous and the definition of a monster. Aside from its awful teeth, large parts of its flesh decayed away, exposing its, somehow, still-functioning innards. Its eyes were milky white leaving no doubt that the creature was blind.

  Rondo screamed and crumpled underneath the bat. Upon Rondo hitting the ground, the bat let go and stood up on its hind legs and screamed at the rest of us. The smell of rot and decay washed over my face causing me to stifle a gag.

  My first instinct was to run, and I'm ashamed to admit that I took a few steps back. Thankfully, Elaria was braver than I. She responded to the monster's challenge by loosing an arrow straight into its open mouth.

  As soon as the arrow struck, a significant portion of its health bar dropped, and I caught the creatures name for the first time: Nectule. The Nectule gagged and roared before taking flight and disappearing into the darkness above.

  "Rondo, are you alright?" Elaria asked, dropping down to check on the man who was clutching his bloody shoulder. "Ryland, we need a cure spell now."

  "That son of a bitch has a bite," Rondo said, while I began charging my cure spell. "What the hell was that thing?"

  "Nectule was written above its head if that means anything to anybody," I
replied.

  "We should move," one of the former prisoners said. "If it really is a nectule, they never hunt alone, and her arrow won't keep it away for long. They are creatures of death that desire nothing more than to eat the flesh of the living. We need to get under cover now."

  "I'll take your word for it," I said, unleashing my spell on Rondo. "I'm sure we can get in one of these buildings."

  The rogue immediately relaxed, and Elaria pulled him to his feet. He still had a bit of a wound, but it looked a lot better than it had before.

  "Don't try to protect me again," Elaria said, smiling at him before leading us across the plaza to the other side.

  She entered a large building with an arched entryway and waved for everyone to hurry inside. Rondo and I got in quickly, but as soon as we did several screeches came from above, and a group of nectules dive-bombed the members of our group that were still out in the open.

  Pandemonium erupted as already weakened villagers were assaulted by the man-sized bats. Eldertits, who hadn't reached the building quite yet, spun around and swung her giant axe straight through a bat that tried to bite her. The rest of them weren't so lucky.

  Humans and goblins fell under the weight of these disgusting creatures as sharp teeth tore into living flesh. These things definitely didn't discriminate when it came to attacking people.

  Realizing that I was watching this scene like it was a car crash, I shook myself and ran out into the open. In one hand, I began charging my Fist of the Phoenix Flame, and in the other hand, I shot a fireball at the nearest nectule, who was currently trying to eat one of the guards. By the look of it, the bat was succeeding, too.

  My fireball sailed through the air and smacked it in the side. The nectule's head snapped in my direction, and its terrifying blank eyes stared at me while it unleashed an angry screech.

  As soon as the screech washed over me, it launched itself into the air straight at me. I met its open mouth with my Fist of the Phoenix Flame which blew straight through its body tearing the creature in half. Coagulated blood slopped all over my arm before it vanished.

  While I was vaporizing one nectule, Elaria began firing arrow after arrow at the rest. The arrows struck, but because none of them were critical shots, the damage was only minimal. Still, a few of the nectules looked up, screamed, and launched themselves at the archway Elaria was standing in.

  At the last second, as the first nectule reached Elaria, Rondo shoulder butted her out of the way and caught its open mouth with crossed daggers. A vicious struggle ensued between teeth and blade. Blade won after Rondo distracted the nectule by kicking it in the wing. It tried to twist out of the way which gave him an opening, and he drove his blades straight through the roof of its mouth into its head. A second later, it vanished.

  This was unfortunate, because it left Rondo completely exposed to the two nectules behind it. They quickly charged and latched down on opposite sides of his chest. Rondo toppled over backward through the archway, disappearing from my line of sight with two man-eating bats on top of him.

  A second later, my focus snapped back to my immediate vicinity when Graard slammed a nectule straight into me with his club. I fell sideways under the weight of the bat and the force from the club.

  Hitting the ground, the wind was knocked out of me as the surprisingly heavy creature and the ground pressed my body in opposite directions. Without even consciously thinking about it, I found myself holding the Blade of Twilight and driving it up through the back of the creature on top of me. After several stabs, he vanished.

  After pausing to catch my breath, I pushed myself to my feet where I caught Iasz blasting one off of another goblin with water that had the force of a fire hose. The nectule was blown backward where it caught another nectule that had taken a massive chunk out of another poor man.

  Surprisingly, one of the guards charged them a second later with a spear and skewered one straight through the head. A second later, he killed the second one with the same technique. Apparently, at least one of these former captives still had a little bit of fight left in them.

  I found myself running toward one of the nectules that just finished killing the woman I fed less than an hour earlier. Bastard, I thought. She was only just freed after spending months locked in a cage without food or drink. At least she would respawn somewhere safe.

  Upon reaching it, I stabbed the nectule straight through the muzzle with my dagger, or at least that's what I tried to do, but at the last moment, it pulled back. My blade came down, uselessly hitting the ground while the nectule snapped forward at my exposed arm.

  Involuntarily, I closed my eyes as I waited for the sharp teeth to rip into my flesh, but they never came. Instead, when I opened my eyes a second later, I found Tits' axe buried in its head a couple of inches into the ground below. She winked down at my flabbergasted face, wrenched the axe free, and ran towards another nectule before this one could even vanish.

  It vanished a second later, leaving only a couple man-eating bats. I dual cast fireball and blasted them at one that was battling the brave guard from earlier. The first fireball missed and sailed away uselessly, but the second one hit the bat in the back causing it to jerk sideways. This opening allowed the guard to stab it through the side.

  That bat vanished just as Graard literally ripped the wings off of the last one and gave a defiant war cry. After this, he smashed it into the ground over and over until you couldn't tell what the creature had been before it met the goblin.

  Silence settled over the group of survivors. Only one guard, one goblin, and three villagers were left aside from those in my party. These nectules killed the vast majority of the group even though we managed to beat them back.

  Moving quickly, I began casting cure on the injured. To my eye, the injuries looked rather severe, but they all healed up nicely under the power of my magic. After I finished curing the last person, I remembered that Rondo fell under the assault of two of the bats and ran toward the building he and Elaria were in.

  Upon reaching the entryway, I found Elaria cradling a severely bleeding Rondo. He was bleeding out all over his chest and moaning in obvious pain.

  "Ryland," Elaria said, sounding a little panicked. "Potions aren't working on him."

  Coughing up some blood, Rondo muttered, "those bats infected me with something. It prevents healing."

  "Well, lucky for you," I replied, "I can cure diseases like a phoenix. Of course, I'll have to have you drink one of my tears."

  "Well, do it then," Elaria snapped at me.

  "I can't just cry on demand," I replied, feigning concern.

  Before I could blink, Elaria took one of her arrows, flipped it over, and plunged the head of it straight into the back of my hand.

  "What the fuck?" I yelled, jerking my hand back.

  "I was trying to help you cry," she said flatly.

  "God damn it, I was teasing about that," I snapped irritated. "It's just a spell I cast. I've already started charging it."

  "Maybe don't joke about such things when your friend is dying," Elaria said coldly.

  Shaking my head at her, I unleashed the spell on Rondo. It failed. It actually failed four more times before it finally took, and I was able to cure the remainder of his wounds with Cure. After this, I was met by several notifications.

  Congratulations Eldertits has defeated level 13 nectule! As a party member, you have earned 181 XP.

  Congratulations you have defeated level 12 nectule! You have earned 165 XP.

  Congratulations Eldertits has defeated level 12 nectule! As a party member, you have earned 165 XP.

  Congratulations Midnight Rondo has defeated level 13 nectule! You have earned 181 XP.

  Congratulations Iasz has defeated level 11 nectule! As a party member, you have earned 143 XP.

  Congratulations you have defeated level 12 nectule! You have earned 165 XP.

  Congratulations Elaria has defeated level 14 nectule! As a party member, you have earned 198 XP.

 
Congratulations Elaria has defeated level 11 nectule! As a party member, you have earned 143 XP.

  Congratulations Eldertits has defeated level 13 nectule! As a party member, you have earned 181 XP.

  Congratulations Graard has defeated level 14 nectule! As a party member, you have earned 198 XP.

  Congratulations, Cure has reached Level 3!

  Range: 6 feet → 7 feet

  Charge Time: 4.8 seconds → 4.6 seconds

  HP Recovery: 35% of max HP will be recovered over 18 seconds on the target of the spell → 40% of max HP will be recovered over 16 seconds on the target of the spell

  MP Cost: 18 → 21

  Congratulations, Fist of the Phoenix Flame has reached Level 2!

  Charge Time: 2 seconds → 1.8 seconds

  Damage: Charisma (26) multiplied by 2 → Charisma (26) multiplied by 2.5

  Additional Effects: 10% chance to ignore armor → 15% chance to ignore armor

  Mp cost: 30 → 45

  Congratulations you have reached Level 20!

  HP: 189 → 198

  MP: 294 → 308

  You have 6 unallocated stat points.

  You have 6 unallocated skill points.

  Congratulations you have learned the spell Armor of the Firebird!

  Armor of the Firebird

  "An ethereal flaming aura surrounds and protects you, much like the fire that the phoenix wraps around itself."

  Type: Physical, Fire

  Range: Self

  Charge Time: 10 seconds

  Effect: -50% from all damage types, save water and freeze. +150% damage from water and freeze.

  Duration: 3 minutes