by Kevin Murphy
It was towards the edge of the tribesmen’s lands—at a similar bottleneck—where Zelle’s spiritual scout animal, a zippy little hummingbird, returned with anxious determination. Unlike other points which were simply surrounded by thick brush, this narrow path dipped down into the earth about three meters like a miniature gulley. The forest around the pathway was unnaturally dense—as if it had been cultivated to be impossible to traverse. The single, three-meter dip looked as though it, too, was unnatural. The pathway seemed like it had been built as a way through the wall of wood and brambles.
“Now that’s definitely got to be a trap,” said Saden. By the looks on others’ faces, no one wanted to try disproving him.
Dakkon used his newly gained sight again, but to no great effect. With danger all but guaranteed to be lurking somewhere around him, he decided to try out something a little more drastic. “This had better not burn out my eyes,” muttered Dakkon inaudibly.
“We’ll have to find another way,” Zelle said to Damak who had been rubbing his forehead in contemplation.
“What other way?” Damak barked.
“It’s a forest, not the edge of the world. There has to be a patch where things thin out if we keep skirting along the edge,” Zelle said.
“Are there any talented druids hiding in our ranks?” asked Saden of the restless crowd.
There weren’t. Two druids had, indeed, joined the mission but they were both fledgling practitioners who were better with a sword and club than they were with magic. A more powerful druid could have been a great asset here, making the forest bend to their will, even without being a master of the class.
Dakkon attempted to use condense with his new vision skill, altering the concentration and intensity of his focus. The sensation was abstract. He first had to believe the skill affecting his sight could have a form—over his eyes—like some sort of goggles. Then he focused on trying to alter those metaphysical goggles he’d only just imagined, as though adding and removing lenses of hot and cold. Barely paying attention to the conversation and frustrated with his task, Dakkon said grimly, “I suppose burning it all down’s not a real solution?”
“You’ve got to be joking,” said Zelle, “that would be a more surefire way to kill us all off than any ambush.”
“Well, at least we aren’t being chased,” joked Cline, morbidly.
Dakkon’s eyes scanned the trees in front and behind him while he continued to alter the supply of mana flowing around his eyes. After a few seconds, everything lit up in a spectrum of warm colors, but he could see nothing useful. Dakkon continued to make adjustments. Although all other thermomancer skills worked synergistically, he was still surprised that he could affect his vision so profoundly. Still tinkering, a timely howl rang out from behind.
“Oh right,” said Cline. “We’re being chased.”
After a few more mild alterations, Dakkon could see the thermal shapes of creatures obscured behind brush and peeking out from behind trees. The amount of heat he saw forced him to involuntarily gulp. “Guys,” Dakkon drew the attention of the others. “We’ve got a problem.”
The forest was aglow with the amassing bodies of beastlike forms to every side save for the suspicious cave-like entrance. “I’ve unlocked a new skill—I can see heat signatures. There have to be 100 of them,” said Dakkon, who attributed any control over the panic he should have felt to the curious ‘Daring’ spell that Zelle had cast on him after the last attack.
Damak stopped rubbing his forehead and looked up. “100… tribesmen?” he asked. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m as serious as we’re about to be dead,” said Dakkon. “They’re still coming, too. I don’t think we’ve got a choice here—we’re completely surrounded.”
They appeared to have a poor choice to make. Either they hop in what looked like a trap, or they try to fight through a throng of angry shapeshifters.
Damak let out a powerful sigh and yelled, “All right, damn it! Everyone into the trap!” Then charged inward to lead the way.
The dip could fit two abreast with a smidgeon of room left over to unsheathe a weapon and, for at least one of each pair, to be able to swing it. It would be an extremely unpleasant location to meet up with a large beast able to take full advantage of its claws and fangs. The expeditionary force filed into the path quickly behind Damak, who spearheaded the group’s movement at a quick pace, taking the danger of the unknown upon his own shoulders in order to protect others from the danger they knew about from behind. He was a good tank.
Players filed in indiscriminately. As they moved forward at speed, the pathway became a tunnel, dipping deeper into the ground and hillside. The tunnel widened gradually and soon the force found itself inside a much larger, naturally-occurring cave.
Chapter 25: When it Won’t Bleed
“Well I’ll be damned,” said Damak. “It wasn’t a trap after all.”
“Unless we were just corralled in here to be fed to something nasty,” said Zelle.
After Zelle’s comment, the last two other shamans cast spells upon themselves which were visually similar to Zelle’s ‘Daring’ spell.
The inside of the cave appeared to be thoughtfully, if not meticulously, curated. A line of small, placed stones led deeper into the unknown in a path along the otherwise uncluttered floor.
“Maybe that way is the trap?” suggested one of the recently emboldened shamans.
“I think—maybe,” said Zelle, “this might be a place of worship for the Tribe.”
“What? Why push us down here then?” asked Dakkon.
“I don’t know. It’s just a hunch,” said Zelle, “but the path and those stones—none of it feels particularly sinister.”
Damak edged forward along the pathway marked by stones and the expeditionary force followed behind him. The extra space in the cavern allowed the force to fan out, repositioning themselves into their preferred, combat-ready groups.
The force moved forward, taking what precautions they could to move silently. In a cave without the nearby sounds of running water, the efforts were mostly futile and at best might disguise their numbers. They walked for an hour before reaching the end of the stones. When they had, the expeditionary force found itself emerging from an off-shoot cave of their destination. They were some 20 meters away from a maliciously battered ancient shrine; the ancient shrine which they sought.
“Dakkon, give the place a once over, would ya?” Damak asked.
Dakkon was already on it. No unusual heat signatures or pockets of cold could be seen from the cave ahead, but he was still unpracticed with the skill. He looked back at the members of the force as he tweaked his sight, comparing heat signatures as he worked. Dakkon noticed that two men were generating an exceptional amount of heat. They were two of the bunch of non-combatants from the earlier skirmishes. Dakkon wondered whether he was witnessing what fear looked like through heat vision.
After several adjustments, looking back and forth, Dakkon shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary that I can see,” he said before switching off the thermal sight to preserve and regenerate mana.
“Well, our path seems like it may have been off a bit, but that big, desecrated shrine over there appears to indicate we’re in the right spot,” said Damak. “If there was more than one shrine like this around here we’d have heard about it.” Damak looked over the remnants of the expeditionary force. “Before we give the shamans their turn, let’s go over some battle tactics.” Damak looked over to Zelle. “Just in case.”
Zelle nodded. She didn’t appear hopeful that the calming would go well, but perhaps fewer shamans meant less power-hungry meddling to mess things up.
The spell casters with the ability to do so buffed everyone with combat-focused alterations while Damak created a battle strategy focused around distracting the spirit and protecting the exorcists as they worked.
Damak was doing well filling in his superior’s boots as acting leader, but he had no experience fighting a large, anci
ent, pissed-off spirit so his guesswork would need to err on the side of caution. When he was done with his battle plans, he nodded.
The three remaining shamans, Zelle included, walked forward to the defiled, cottage-sized shrine. When they were about 10 paces away, white smoke began spraying out and upward from the broken stone obelisk at the shrine’s center. The three shamans halted and began to rhythmically chant words that had no meaning to laymen:
“Coo-lah, coo-lah, sah-nah, soo-nah,” they said.
A massive wolf’s head, with jaws as wide as a man is tall, peeked out through the fountain of white smoke. Its features were all gray, unlike the bluish spirits that the shamans were known to summon.
The shamans repeated their chant twice again, elongating the words more so with each verse. The massive smoke wolf opened its gray eyes and stared at the three shamans as they continued slowing their chant.
Whatever the three out ahead of the group were doing appeared to be working. The wolf head’s gray eyes were glassy, without a hint of malice. It appeared that after the trials of the forest, this portion of the quest might not come with a heavy toll.
“Cooooo-lah, Cooooo-lah,” continued the shamans.
Behind Dakkon, a voice said in a firm whisper, “Now!’ then he felt a stabbing pain in his left shoulder. Dakkon spun to see two men darting at him with weapons raised. A third readied another throwing dagger. Dakkon acted on instinct and side-stepped to place the first assailant in-between himself and the other as he stabbed.
The attacker fell in a single strike from his dagger. The second man fell dead from one of Cline’s arrows connecting with his sword arm.
[Kareen has stabbed you with a hurled dagger for 90 damage. Remaining HP 560/650]
[Poison courses through your veins! Your actions and reactions will be slowed.]
The message was accompanied by a flashing red skull and crossbones which was not so subtle that it had any chance of being missed.
[You have slashed Cid for 231 damage. You have slain a player: Cid]
[Killing players does not award experience points.]
[For the following 24 hours, you will be marked by Nokti’s sigil.]
[A player with Nokti’s sigil has a very high likelihood of dropping multiple pieces of equipment on death, regardless of preventative measures.]
[While marked by Nokti’s sigil, players and non-player characters may treat you rashly and unfairly.]
“What?” thought Dakkon. “What’s going on?” He had killed his attacker in an instant with a single attack which shouldn’t have been lethal.
The dagger thrower loosed another missile at Dakkon as other players rushed in his direction. Dakkon tried to dodge, but was much too slow as a dagger buried itself in his right bicep.
[Kareen has stabbed you with a hurled dagger for 84 damage. Remaining HP 476/650]
[Poison courses through your veins! Your health will slowly drain away.]
A second red, flashing icon was now anchored in his vision—likely to ensure the player was aware that they were, in fact, still poisoned.
As soon as the first two attackers had dropped, three more charged toward Dakkon. Sift rushed forward to intercept the incoming second wave of assailants as Dakkon’s mind snapped together the pieces of the puzzle. The two men who rushed him had been the feverishly-warm pair who had glowed under the inspection of his thermal sight. Had they poisoned themselves to make it so any counterattack would have proven fatal? Players that never contributed to the quest and kept to themselves; a surprise attack; poison; attackers dying instantly; an increased chance to drop items; and, ultimately, Gullen’s threat along with Ramses’s warning to not leave the city. It wasn’t a certain thing, but if Dakkon had this player-killer mark on his cheek, he would be far more likely to drop his coveted dagger upon dying.
Sift stopped the first assailant’s full momentum with a bone-destroying fist, supported by his firmly-planted foot as though he were an iron rod wedged against the earth. The jarring blow struck the center of the man’s face, pulping his nose into orphanage-grade meatloaf. The man would have howled if he could, but instead settled for a more manageable, guttural, ‘Hrmmfk’ noise as he fell to the ground. Sift intercepted an attack from the next assailant’s short sword by kicking her hand with force gained through whipping his body around 360 degrees.
The shamans’ influence over the giant spirit wolf’s head was undermined by the sounds of battle. The wolf appeared to stir as if from slumber, shaking its head slightly as it took in its surroundings. The three shamans continued their spirit-soothing chant despite the change until the wolf’s eyes shone with crimson light. One shaman turned to flee, drawing the spirit’s attention along with its wrath. The wolf spirit lunged out of the small plume of smoke as if being pulled from the aether. Zelle and the other shaman watched in muted horror as the demon-like wolf ripped into the downed third shaman.
Sift batted away an incoming dagger using the backside of his hand and completed the motion with a chopping strike at his second opponent’s exposed neck. An arrow from Cline pierced the tender pit of her upraised arm. The second assailant let out a wail cut short by Sift’s shove to her abdomen by the flats of both his palms. She stumbled back and into the larger, third approaching attacker.
Dakkon felt his strength and vitality leaving him. If this was the effect of poison in Chronicle, then he’d need to be extra careful in the future—and perhaps invest in his own supply. Dakkon was sweating and began to grow very dizzy. He wanted to help, but the meager act of staying upright was growing into a massive task. Dakkon staggered backwards towards the remaining members of the expeditionary force.
“Heal… poison…” Dakkon managed to croak out.
Despite the chaos brewing on both sides of the expeditionary force, blue energy surged into and around Dakkon’s body, forcing the lodged daggers out and closing his skin. The spells came from a pair of apprentice level druids without the capabilities to cure Dakkon of his poisoned status. Still, the waves of healing which crashed over him gave Dakkon the strength to stand, if not to fight. He used his renewed vigor to seek out Zelle, wading through the force.
A large, white, magical wall formed between the two shamans and the wolf spirit, obscuring the parties’ views of one another. With the chance to flee granted to them, the shamans gladly retreated. The wolf spirit did not appear alarmed by the barrier, electing to casually chew upon its first catch.
Dakkon halted Zelle from her flight and asked for aid which she lent after only a quick look back toward the wall of white. After a few quick gestures accompanied by slowly spoken words, Dakkon’s body was covered in translucent blue leeches which drank hungrily from his body. Despite being covered in leeches, he felt better.
Sift’s two-palm strike knocked the second assailant into the third’s legs, tripping him. The bulkier, third attacker toppled onto the ground, attempting to break his fall by bracing with both arms. His two-handed sword landed awkwardly beneath him. Before the assailant had fully fallen, Sift leapt upwards. Sift drove his feet downwards into the man’s back—feet on opposite sides of the large, two-handed blade.
The bigger, third assailant wailed out in pain—once again attracting the attention of the wolf spirit. Despite being jumped on after landing on his sword, the man was sturdy and still appeared to have some fight left in him. Sift moved off of the man to dodge yet another incoming dagger.
Damak had been assessing how to best salvage the situation when the second loud cry returned the gigantic spirit’s attention to the fresh, human chew toys that made up the expeditionary force. The spirit walked up to Saden’s magical barrier and tore through it with one claw swipe as though it were thin paper. The barrier faded away and Damak knew they had to act quickly.
“All right!” yelled Damak. “Forget about the brawl behind us! The finish line is just ahead! Focus!”
The portion of the force members watching the fight in the rear were in awe of Sift’s martial prowess, but they t
urned to face their goal at Damak’s command.
The dagger-throwing assailant who had been keeping his distance pulled out a short sword and moved to his two remaining allies. The three regrouped into a defensive formation and moved to attack Sift as a unit. The monk circled around them to prevent any attempt they might make to flank. He seemed to welcome the opportunity for a three versus one fight.
A volley of assorted projectiles, both mundane and magical, flew at the spirit. Most projectiles passed through harmlessly with no effect. A translucent prompt appeared for Dakkon.
[Lucky!! Your Luck stat has randomly revealed one of a boss’s special skills:
Not of this World: Boss spirit Geh`hen’s essence does not reside in this plane of existence. It is only vulnerable to strikes focused on the spirit’s connection with the other world.]
Dakkon didn’t hesitate to share the oddly gleaned information. “I just got a message saying it’s mostly invulnerable!” he yelled.
“Exorcists can sense its spiritual core,” interjected Saden, loudly enough to be heard so the information would spread. It was evidently no surprise to him. “Big, ancient spirits like this one can move their cores around the inside of their bodies. We’ll have to hit that core to sever its tie to the other world if we want to take it out.”
The spirit wolf howled with a deep, powerful resonance.
[You have resisted: Fear]
The combat formations of the expeditionary force broke rank chaotically. Players and NPCs bolted away from the massive spiritual beast. In sport-like pursuit of its prey, the wolf bounded from fleeing man to fleeing man, ending lives with swift strikes and bites from its powerful maw. The wolf spirit’s aura tinged more crimson with each victim it claimed, though the spirit ignored those who had not turned to run.
When it became apparent to Geh`hen that many of its fleeing prey would escape, the wolf spirit exhaled a dense, shin-deep mist which covered all escape routes in an instant. Those who ran into the new mist, terrified of the great predator behind them, found their feet stuck to the ground by a sturdy, magical frost.
