by Han Yang
Freninick expected the fifty or so satyrs to run.
Instead, the largest of the bunch shouted, “Let's captures em!”
The rest blindly followed, uncaring of the danger or the impossibility of their task.
He slowed his mount, watching how the envoy handled the situation.
Javelins and arrows zipped towards the satyrs, arching slightly as they closed the distance.
Thwack!
A dozen satyrs tried to dodge but failed in the first volley. He saw them tumble in death, and orbs appear almost instantly.
Freninick hurled a dagger, watching the blade flip end over end until it sunk into the side of a satyr. The female yanked the blade free, struggling to walk from the spurting blood loss. A moment later, she stumbled and died.
The remaining satyrs bounded away, quickly fleeing the range of the archers. Demtrion charged down a satyr, cleaving the head with such force that it shot off the body.
Freninick understood he rode with warriors now, not diplomats. He collected his dagger by plucking it off the blood slick flooring. He ingested the female’s orb then proceeded toward the main group.
He counted thirty something orbs. The warriors hustled to collect their rewards, hearing their happy grunts as the orbs were ingested. The spare rhino was freed, and right as the rest began to loot - whoosh.
The intense magic of a champion stripped the remaining orbs from the bodies.
“What in the six hells was that?” Demtrion blurted in dismay.
“That was a champion who claimed your kills. I’d tell you to take it up with him, but he would probably keep his minions from letting you get close,” Freninick snickered.
“What a cheat!” a different minotaur said sourly.
“The gods bestow their champions with powers we cannot fathom. Bearouth wisely chose to send you on this mission as my protectors. He can and will defeat your city if you anger him,” Freninick said.
“He is not that powerful,” the warrior from earlier said with an angry snort.
Antagonizing the disgruntled warrior didn’t serve a purpose. He knew they likely had a plan to enact on the tenth floor and had decided it was best to survive until that point.
The long desert biome stretched for almost three hours. During that time, they rode in silence and avoided additional satyr problems. He did feel Damien’s domination spell repeating over and over, only fading with distance, never stopping.
During the trip, he studied the staff, even sniffing it. Eventually, he figured out what the necromancer staff actually was and carefully stuck it into the saddle. He wasn’t sure if he should be angry or happy at the gift that precluded no warning or instructions on how it might be useful.
When the tunnel descended for the ninth floor, Freninick again prepared for his guides to turn on him. Nothing happened, and Demtrion didn’t talk to pass the time in the dark. He watched the twelve other minotaurs with skepticism, worried about their true intent.
His ability to defeat them all at once wasn’t possible unless the staff helped, and even then, a win would be exceedingly difficult.
Waroni guards waited at the bottom of the tunnel, halting their progress ahead of an immense gate that barred all vision into the floor.
“We hear there is an invasion,” the alpha of the group said. “An invasion that has proved disastrous for those above us.”
The warrior sighed and said, “There is an invasion that we stopped, hence our envoy. That one captured one of their weapons. We’re bringing it to the core to explain the situation. Are you going to stand in our way?”
“You’ve shrunk, Teebon. How do we know you’re not compromised?” the alpha asked with a hearty laugh.
Teebon drew his blade and everyone went deathly silent. The alpha groaned and said, “I was just kidding. You know we waroni do not accept duels from minotaurs.”
“Wise of you to leave out further quips about my current height. Offended I am, nonetheless,” Teebon growled.
Freninick watched with disinterest, wondering how much was theater.
“I’ll let the elders know you wish to duel and someone might even accept,” the alpha sneered. “We honor our agreements and dare not stand in the way of the core learning such knowledge.”
The gates opened, and a vast landscape of rolling lush hills awaited the party. A perfectly flat stone road split the landscape.
“I know we’ve been… indifferent at times, Teebon. These are strange times. New players enter the game of floors. Be mindful that the wild packs are growing in power to the point we’ve been giving them thoughts of sacking satyr cities if you catch my drift,” the alpha said.
The gate guards stepped out of the way and Teebon led the group forward. Freninick peered down at the waroni who eyed him with disgruntled gazes. He could feel their happiness at the minotaurs shrinking, and it irked him.
The next ten minutes went by quickly, and Teebon said, “I can feel your need for violence, surface-dweller.”
“I don’t trust you, and I don’t trust the waroni. They want you dead,” Freninick said directly.
“There is a reason our best warriors travel as envoys. The route only gets more difficult the further we go. We normally bring a thousand, and this time we have a dozen, each of us smaller than normal. If we were ever a prime target, this is the time,” Teebon said.
“So, no double cross?” Freninick asked.
“King Bearouth said he would revive us if we die, and we believe him. There’s a few champions in the core floors, meaning if we don’t return, he will likely hold his word. We did secure him the throne after all,” Demtrion said.
Teebon squinted his eyes at his comrade but held his tongue.
“You really want the edrino gone?” Freninick asked inquisitively.
“If there is a massive war soon, we can stay out of it due to recent losses to you. While others lose their might, we can play the game of floors, maybe even shift to a lower floor when a floor leader overextends,” Teebon said.
“Ah, this is all part of a long term plan,” Freninick said. “I’m surprised the core lets you war against each other.”
“Yes, and -”
A long howl pierced the air from the right. A lone black-haired wolf stood on top of a grassy knoll. A moment later, three, then six, and finally a pack of fifty waroni crested the ridgeline.
Teebon spun his mount mid-trot, heading directly for the waroni.
“We can outrun them,” Demtrion said, whipping a javelin off his back, “but not for long. If we knock a few of them down, they tend to back off.”
Freninick yanked daggers out one at a time, loading them into his left palm. Another benefit to fighting with a necromancer was all the items one plucked off the dead.
The rhinos spun and the waroni hesitated at the sudden aggression.
“Look, it's the baby waroni. They’re going to run like pups!” Teebon taunted with a loud and boisterous tone.
The fourteen rhinos thundered forward. The howler dropped to all fours, charging the group of minotaurs.
Freninick hurled a blade into the group, watching the weapon glint in the sunshine as it raced for the clump of waroni. Before the first one landed, a second left his hand.
The waroni behind the alpha threw javelins and charged spells. The enemy released too soon, having their ranged weapons lacking the distance.
Freninick’s first throw missed, but the second throw caught the alpha directly in the neck.
The big waroni tumbled, being ignored by the pack of rhinos. Onward they charged, eager to reach the waroni who stopped casting. Arrows and javelins landed among the hesitant waroni from the minotaur’s return fire.
With their leader dead, he knew they would break. Freninick saw that their volley into the waroni had killed three and wounded two more. The rhinos thundered into the midst of the wounded, squishing them with their large padded feet.
The main pack fled, darting behind the hill for safety.
“Hur
ry up, get the Zorta. We need to flee,” Teebon said.
The other minotaurs looted the Zorta while Freninick retrieved nine Zorta and one of his blades.
“We gotta go,” Teebon ordered.
A second group watched from the other side of the road.
“What is the deal?” Freninick asked.
Demitron said, “Same issue with all species in the wurm realms - overpopulation. The young branch out, a rejection of society leads them to find a new home, and they get termed as …”
The minotaur stopped mid-sentence, gasping in shock. His eyes flickered slightly before freezing in place.
A fraction of a second later, an orb hovered in his spot.
He slumped forward before falling to the grassy field.
This spooked the minotaurs into flight, the entire party charging their rhinos to the road. When Freninick glanced back over his shoulder, an elva stood proudly. The archer quickly loaded another arrow into his bow.
Freninick saw an arrow jutted out of Demitron’s back. The shot had pierced his heart.
The elva archer unleashed a second arrow, forcing Freninick to veer left. His rhino smacked into an ally’s mount. The two beasts tangled for a brief moment, coming apart as a third arrow whizzed between them.
“Thanks,” the minotaur said.
Freninick held in his reply when an arrow pierced the minotaurs neck and fully ejected out the front. Hands sought to slow the jutting blood, failing miserably.
The distance gained proved enough when the next arrow landed short.
The warnoi howled, and thirty mounted elva blocked the path toward floor ten. Teebon readied an arcane spell, weaving his mount between incoming arrow fire. The closer he neared, the more arrows sunk into him and his mount.
Whoosh!
A moon shaped beam of golden energy zoomed forward farther than Freninick’s eyes could track. It had to be a monthly spell from an accomplished mage because its magnitude amazed Freninick.
The spreading beam sliced through rider and elva alike in an epic display.
He wanted to cheer their demise, but four minotaurs tumbled down from a final volley of the enemy. Freninick glanced around, seeing only three riders left and a swarm of waroni chasing him.
His rhino huffed, becoming sluggish from the exertion.
Without having much of a choice, he guided it to an empty mount. He ensured he grabbed the necro staff out of the saddle and mid-run stood in the saddle.
“This is gonna hurt,” Freninick muttered to himself.
He timed it just right, leaping into the other saddle with a painful crushing of his testicles.
The rhino grunted while he groaned, but the fresh mount managed to keep up with the smaller minotaurs.
The waroni outpaced the few elva horses, and the chase entered a final stretch with the cavernous opening for the tenth-floor nearing.
A wurm lord waited at the entrance, and Freninick could see the massive creature laughing. The animal was a mix of a snake, a dragon, and something new with digging appendages around the neck.
The length must have been a thousand feet while the head alone could swallow hundreds whole. The girthy roundness of the beast revealed the expansive tunnels were meant to handle the size of the wurm lords.
Freninick was a scholar and had been studying these mighty and magnificent beings in great detail. The fact one waited here told him he was done for. No one defeated a wurm lord without an army of magus and a field filled with thousands of ballistae.
The tan colored scales sparkled in the sunlight, and no other beings dared get near it.
“Do not lose hope!”
When Freninick shook the intense echo out of his mind, he realized the situation had gone from bad to worse.
The other minotaurs slowed their pace, concluding that they had lost. Or maybe they respected the wurm, not daring to be near it. Freninick didn’t care. There wasn’t a get captured option for him here.
He would either die or free the edrino.
The wurm slithered away from the entrance as if opening the way. Freninick stuck to his conviction, peeling away from the last surviving minotaurs.
Blinding white light forced him to close his eyes.
Crack!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Freninick’s ears rang and he felt what was likely blood oozing out of the canals. The wurm laughed harder, the thick scales bouncing in tandem with his happy cackling. Or… her, it seemed like a ‘her’.
He managed a look over his shoulder, seeing the other minotaurs as nothing more than heaps of ash.
A wave of healing washed over him. A tiny figure blasted out green energy from a horn on the wurm.
“Are you certain he can hear now?” a feminine voice asked. The immense creature neared his rhino before it continued, “Great. Great. There are three farigans guarding the edrino. Use your skills to defeat them, and you shall have your prize.”
Ferninick frowned. Farigans were twenty-foot tall mole people. Their stature was immense, the movements slow, but they could afford to be slow in a confined space because of their girthy frames.
“You don’t care… Intriguing. Why not remove them?” he asked. The wurm shook her head in a tisking manner. “Right, you probably have rules. Those were bad. The ones guarding the way are good.”
“Servant of King Hartinger and friend of the champion, your time here is at an end. If you linger in our kingdoms, the great hunt will catch you. This is your only warning…assuming you survive the coming fight,” she said.
Freninick snorted in approval and rode into the dark cavern.
He never knew of anyone crossing a wurm lord and living to tell the tale. Even if the encounter with the god-like being was brief, it would be studied for ages. While he wanted to sit and share a cup of tea, the elva never slowed their pursuit.
“Hurry! The core realms stir. While it will take months for the armies to ascend, advanced parties are coming to secure our prison,” the voice said.
Freninick pushed his mount harder, spurring the creature down the tunnel. The descending angle helped the rhino in its arduous efforts.
He reached a small landing pad. At first, he figured it was merely a resting area, but then he remembered none of the other descending tunnels between floors had this. Sure, they had cutouts for armies to shift by each other, but they never had a landing platform.
He slowed the mount, having to turn the big animal to get back onto the landing pad. The sound of waroni feet smacking stone above him echoed intensely.
Frenincik found a closed wooden door. The handle was chain linked to a ring on the wall and fastened with a big lock. He didn’t have time to fiddle with the chain.
His heels cracked the ribs of the mount, forcing the rhino to charge the obstacle. The animal bellowed angrily but obeyed. He braced himself as they neared the solid frame at full speed.
Smash!
Splinters of wood erupted in a showering pattern. Freninick catapulted out of the saddle, soaring towards a vibrant blue shield. He noticed two distinct things in a flash.
The first was farigans playing dice at a table. Their eyes looked shocked at the sudden arrival. The other was the edrino behind the shield. No record to date described their appearance, leaving Freninick both blessed and baffled.
Five foot tall gargoyles in the hundreds waited right next to where Freninick would ultimately crash into the field.
He tried to summon a spell in time to bring down the barrier but failed.
His magic puffed before sizzling into nothing. He smacked face first into the blue wall, and his snout cracked. The sheer jarring force of his sudden stop rocked his entire being. Worse, the farigans shot out of their chairs with claws flayed wide.
The curved hooks sliced through his armor and raked his back. Searing pain created stars in his vision.
The rhino recovered, charging in to gore a farigan in the back. Frenineck didn’t hesitate, snatching Damien’s staff off the saddle.
T
eeth clamped onto his leg, and he heard his femur snap.
“Get the hell off me,” Freninick shouted, not dissuading his attacker in the slightest.
His free hand sunk fingers into the eye sockets of the skull pressing indents.
Snap!
He triggered the flint that lit the wick.
Sizzle!
The wick traveled down the skull for only a few seconds. Freninick threw the staff up, praying his timing was right.
A reverberating crack from his other ankle shot fresh pain through his senses. Even crippled, he fought on. The staff pinged off the ceiling, and he feared he had mistimed the explosive weapon.
KA-BOOM!
The necromancy staff exploded, spraying bone fragments everywhere. The creation of Count Maron packed one hell of an explosion, and he felt his hairs curl from the heat.
The blast echoed endlessly until his ears rang deaf again. He knew the staff bomb amounted to too much force from a simple survey of the damage.
Shrapnel killed the three farigans instantly. He propped himself up, grateful the gnawing on his legs had stopped.
He shook his head, unable to remove the ringing in his ears. A quick scan of his body revealed blood seeping from countless punctures.
A slight cough caused blood to fill his mouth. He tried to get closer to the blue shield, but the dead pinned down his useless legs.
Freninick realized he had paid the ultimate sacrifice. There was no going back from these wounds, and he heard the nearing waroni reach the landing pad.
“Now! Free us,” a gargoyle near the front said in a gravely tone. “Hurry!”
He wanted to ask a million questions. He held a most valuable weapon - leverage. He could learn untold secrets by exploiting these ancient beings.
During a coughing fit, raspy blood showered his face.
“Well, shit,” he muttered, knowing his time was limited.
He raised two hands, unable to fully twist his body. His high aim against the blue would have to do. Void magic swirled in a purple, condensing ball between his palms.
The gargoyles nodded happily, chattering in a language he would have loved to catalog.
