Rebirth Online 2

by Michael James Ploof

  “It’s a Morlock hunting party,” said Nanaya with disgust. “There’ll be at least a dozen of them. Come on, we’ve got to get to the other side before they catch up to us.”

  We set out at a run toward the other side of the cavern over the uneven, rocky surface. I started to be able to feel the heat again, and my interface confirmed that my Scorched Earth buff was wearing off. I cast it again on the ground ahead of us, and when we ran through the flames the buff was renewed.

  I glanced back as we ran, and to my dismay I realized that the Morlock hunting party was gaining on us.

  “At this pace we’re not going to be able to outrun them,” I warned Nanaya.

  She glanced back and cursed under her breath. “Then we’re going to have to slow them down. Come on Sam, jump on my back. The rest of you keep going!”

  “Trinity, Tweak, and a blubbering Wally kept running around the lake, and I stopped to see what exactly Nanaya had in mind.

  Her body began to change, but not into a bear. Her small wings exploded from her back, her neck elongated, and her skin morphed into shimmering scales. I watched with astonishment as she finished her transformation, and soon a small dragon was standing in front of me.

  “Holy shit,” I said staring at the red dragon.

  “Get on,” her voice rumbled.

  I wasted no time and climbed up her back.

  “Hold on tight!” she warned mischievously

  I settled in between two of her spikes and grabbed hold. Nanaya spread her big red wings and leapt into the air, beating them steadily as we began to climb.

  “They’re impervious to fire like most things down here,” Nanaya told me as we sailed out over the lake of lava. “So use that lightning spell and the Magic Bolt on them instead.”

  “Gotcha.”

  I conjured Arcane Lightning and held it off until we were swooping down toward the group. They had seen us coming, and as we sailed overhead, they threw spears and shot arrows in our direction. Nanaya dodged them all, and I let loose my Arcane Lightning as she barrel-rolled out of range. I didn’t get a chance to see the impact my spell had as I clutched the horn in front of me and squeezed my legs to her dragon body, but I knew that it would at least slow them down.

  “Banking hard left!” Nanaya warned, and I held on for dear life.

  When we came back around, the Morlocks were ready for us. The spears and arrows must have been a ruse to get us to come in closer, because as we descended on the skull-faced monsters, spells erupted from their ranks.

  “Watch out!” I yelled, but it was too late. The spells streaked through the air like missiles, and one hit Nanaya in the right wing. The impact jerked us to the side, and Nanaya let out a tortured cry.

  Another spell streaked through the air right at me, and I instinctively conjured my fire shield. The spell slammed into my shield and was absorbed, but the impact jolted me to the side and I lost hold of the horn. Nanaya tried to keep us aloft, but her wing was in tatters, and we began to spiral toward the hard, rocky ground. I squeezed my legs with all my might as I tried to reach one of Nanaya’s horns, but the spiraling descent was too much to push against, and my legs suddenly slipped off her back as well.

  I fell screaming, sure that I was going to die, but then I suddenly hit the ground with a blunt thud. The wind exploded from my lungs and I lay there unable to breathe. The fall turned out to only be ten or so feet, but the impact still hurt like a bitch.

  Nanaya crashed to the ground a few dozen feet from me, and in the distance, I heard the victorious cheers of the Morlocks.

  “Nanaya,” I croaked, trying to catch my breath. I pulled myself up when I could finally breathe and shuffled over to her. It felt like I had broken my back, but my healing could wait. I pulled up my interface and took out a health potion as I reached Nanaya and coaxed her to drink it, but she was thrashing about in pain, and her mouth was just too big to risk trying to pour it in.

  “You’ve got to shift back,” I told her and glanced over my shoulder at the approaching horde.

  She growled in response and continued to flail on the ground. For whatever reason she couldn’t change form, but if I didn’t get the healing potion into her soon, we would be overwhelmed by Morlocks.

  Hoping that she wouldn’t bite my head off, I leapt onto her snout and grabbed ahold of a tooth. She seemed to understand what I was doing and didn’t chomp me in half. I hurriedly pulled the cork out with my mouth and poured the contents of the healing potion down her throat.

  She groaned with pleasure and began to change form once more, and three seconds later I was laying on top of her on the rocky ground.

  I pulled Nanaya to her feet and she wavered for a moment.

  “Can you fight?” I asked.

  Nanaya’s eyes went to the approaching hunting party, which was now less than two hundred yards away. “Doesn’t look like I’ve got much choice. I can’t shift right now.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Ten-minute cooldown,” she replied.

  “Then we fight,” I said determinedly.

  “It’s no use,” said Nanaya. “You saw how many casters they have with them.”

  “I know, but they’ve split up. Half of them are continuing after the others. We can take six of them.”

  “On a good day,” she said, still trying to catch her breath.

  “Well then, let’s hope this is such a day.”

  “Are you always so optimistic?” she asked with a grin.

  I didn’t answer. An idea had suddenly struck me, and I stared at the lake of lava, wondering…

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “My Scorched Earth buff makes us impervious to fire, so I was wondering…”

  “The lake? Are you out of your mind?”

  I shrugged. “Fire’s fire, right? It stands to reason that the buff will keep us protected from the lava. Unless the Morloks can swim in it too.”

  “They have a resistance to fire, but they wouldn’t last in the lake.”

  “Then it’s our best bet,” I said. “If we can make it to that island out there, then we can wait it out until you can shift again.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, gauging the distance.

  “You got a better idea?”

  She shook her head and glanced back at our pursuers.

  “Alright then,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  I ran to the edge of the lava lake with Nanaya close behind. Spears clanged against the stone around us and spells streaked by, and when I reached the edge of the lake I didn’t think twice. Had I done so, I’m not sure if I would have been able to jump.

  “Fuuuck!” I yelled as I ran across a natural shelf and dove off the end, straight into the bubbling lava.

  Chapter 13

  I swam blindly through the molten lava trying but failing to imagine that it was water. When I broke through the surface, I frantically searched for Nanaya. To my relief I found her a few feet behind me struggling to swim through the thick lava.

  Up on the ledge, the Morlocks shook their fists and threw spears and spells at us, but luckily their efforts failed.

  “Come on!” I said, urging Nanaya to follow me out of range of the ugly bastards.

  Swimming through the lava was a son of a bitch, and by the time we reached the closest little island we were both completely bushed. After dragging ourselves out of the lava and up onto the rocky beach, we laid there panting for at least five minutes.

  “Remind me never to do that again,” Nanaya said.

  “Amen sister,” was all I could manage to utter.

  The Morlocks hadn’t tried to pursue us across the lake, which was good for us, but bad for the rest of our friends. I sat up and peered across the lake of lava, but I couldn’t see Tweak and the others.

  “How soon can you shift again?” I asked Nanaya as I helped her to her feet.

  She tapped on her interface and grinned. “About two minutes ago.”

  “Great, let’s go find the others
before they get into trouble.”

  Nanaya shifted to her dragon form and we flew out over the lake toward the far side of the cavern. The Morlocks were still racing across the cavern, but we had slowed them down enough for our friends to get away. We found them waiting for us at the mouth of a tunnel in the back of the cavern and swiftly landed.

  “Sam!” Trinity yelled and rushed over to me to give me a hug. “We thought you were dead. Why the hell would you jump in a lake of lava?”

  “We had no choice,” I said glancing back at the Morlocks who were fast approaching. “Come on, let’s get moving.”

  We raced to the tunnel and hurried inside with the creatures hot on our heels. The tunnel was small enough that Wally had to bend to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling, and it was about an arm’s length wide. I thought that maybe we could block it up with something, but Nanaya informed us that it wouldn’t be necessary.

  “There’s a chute up ahead that the Morlocks are afraid to enter,” said Nanaya as she urged us onward.

  The sounds of our demonic pursuers began to fill the tunnel, when Nanaya stopped and turned to the right to peer into a glowing alcove dug out of the wall.

  “This is it.” Nanaya climbed up into the alcove and swung her feet around into a hole. “Come on Wally, let’s go for a fun ride.”

  “Fun ride?” he said, perking up.

  “Make sure that he gets in,” Nanaya told me before slipping into the chute.

  “Nan!” Wally cried, and there was no need for me to coax him to follow her. A second after she disappeared, he leapt headfirst into the alcove.

  “Ladies first,” I told Trinity, and she too slipped into the chute.

  Next went Tweak, and I followed close behind.

  When I slipped into the chute, I expected to encounter a steep but manageable grade, instead I found myself falling. Wally and Tweak were screaming in the darkness, and Trinity was cursing Nanaya. I flapped my arms instinctively, thinking that any moment I would suddenly slam into the floor. But the others kept on screaming, and after a few seconds I heard them hit water. I held my breath not a moment too soon and slammed into the water at an odd angle. Pain shot through my shoulder and legs, and I resisted the urge to cry out as I sank deep. As soon as I stopped sinking, I began swimming for the surface. It seemed like forever, but I finally surfaced and greedily gulped the air.

  “Luminus,” I heard Nanaya say in the darkness, and a moment later the water began to glow. The light originated from a pendant around her neck, and it cast enough light for me to see that we were slowly floating down an underground river.

  “You asshole,” Trinity yelled to Nanaya. “You could have warned us!”

  “What fun would that be?” Nanaya called back.

  She was farthest downriver, but we were all in a pretty tight group about ten feet apart.

  “Any other surprises we should be aware of?” I called to Nanaya.

  “Yeah, this river will soon narrow, then it is going to start moving very, very fast,” said the succubus. Oh, and there might be a few waterfalls.”

  “Waterfalls!” Trinity yelled.

  “Waterfall, waterfall, water...fall!” Wally sang.

  As we had been warned, the river narrowed into a fast-flowing channel. The ceiling became lower, and we shot through the chute at breakneck speeds as it became narrower, and narrower, and...

  My legs slammed into Wally’s shoulders, and I came to a sudden stop. The water quickly began to ride over my shoulders, pushing me down, and filling the narrow tunnel.

  “Wally, you’re plugging up the whole tunnel,” I yelled as I fought to stay above water, but it was pressing me against Wally with crushing force.

  “Wally stuck,” he said, wiggling about and whimpering.

  “I can see that!” I yelled, before swallowing about a gallon of water.

  I frantically kicked at Wally’s shoulders and bulbous head, trying to dislodge him from the bottleneck, but the water was already over his head and it was quickly filling the tube. I imagined that the other side of the tube was dry, but for the occasional spurt created by Wally’s wriggling.

  The water rose above my chin as I pressed myself against the ceiling. I was pinned to Wally’s head by the power of the surging river, and I realized that I was going to drown.

  I took a big breath of air as the tube filled with water. The pressure lessened, and I managed to bring my hands in front of me. I had always been good at holding my breath, so I stayed calm and began moving through the gestures needed to produce a Fireball.

  Wally’s eyes widened under the water when he saw my Fireball begin to grow, and bubbles erupted from his mouth when he tried to scream. I didn’t want to hurt him, but if I didn’t try something, we were both going to die anyway.

  “Sorry Wally,” I said underwater, then I released my Fireball in his direction.

  The blast pushed me back through the water like I had been shot out of a cannon, but it didn’t dislodge Wally. I was quickly running out of air, and the blast had left me feeling disoriented, but I fought through the fog and unleashed another desperate Fireball in Wally’s direction. The explosion flashed, and the sound rumbled through the water.

  Then I heard a loud sucking sound and was suddenly flushed down the chute like a turd in a toilet bowl.

  I rolled and twisted and bounced off the tunnel walls as the water surged through the tube. My head was still below water, however, and I knew that I had only seconds before I blacked out. If the tunnel didn’t open soon, I knew that I’d be a goner.

  With one last ditch effort I released a Fireball against the current, and the explosion shot me through the water and right into Wally, who had once again become stuck. The force of our impact loosened him, and we shot out of the tunnel into open air like an exploding champagne cork.

  I took in a shocked breath of air as we fell with the crimson waterfall, and once again we were plunged into a raging river. I saw the light from Nanaya’s pendant in the distance as I bobbed on the surface and started swimming with the current.

  “Come on Wally, swim!” I urged the big lug.

  He sputtered and spat, flailing his arms desperately. I tried to help him stay above water, but the dude was just too big to maneuver without drowning myself. The river began to increase in speed again, and soon we were shooting through another tube. This time, however, Wally didn’t get stuck, and we went over yet another waterfall. When I came up for air I found myself floating in a placid lake of warm water. The cavern that the lake sat in was littered with red, glowing crystals, and I could see Nanaya’s light on the distant shore.

  “This way, Wally,” I said grabbing his jerkin and pulling him in the right direction.

  We made it to the shore and collapsed onto the smooth stone. When the rest of the group ran over to us, Wally started crying and rushed over to Nanaya.

  “Your mage friend shoot Wally in the head,” he complained.

  It was then that I noticed the scorch marks on his bulbous head.

  “He was stuck in the tunnel and would have drowned,” I told the succubus.

  “You’ll be fine, Wally,” she told him.

  “That was a hell of a waterslide,” said a grinning Tweak as he shook out his dreadlocks.

  “Trust me, it was the fastest and safest way through,” said Nanaya.

  “Now what?” Trinity asked as she wrung out her long blonde locks.

  “Now we go through that gate.” Nanaya pointed behind us at the distant black gates built into the smooth walls. “Beyond are the Pits of Anguish, and your friend Kit.”

  “Great,” I said, pulling myself up. “Then let’s get going. I can’t imagine what Kit’s going through down there.”

  “I can,” Trinity said softly.

  We set out toward the gates watching the shadows closely. The crimson crystals hummed and pulsed with light, and I could see large bats clung to the high ceiling, but nothing tried to hinder us. Nanaya stopped in front of the gates and turned to add
ress us.

  “Alright, it’s time for the prisoner act again. I’m going to shift into a shadow wraith, and then lead you through the doors. Just like before, don’t speak unless spoken to, and do not look anyone in the eye. Sam, if shit hits the fan, you’ll do best with your Arcane Lightning and Magic Bolt. Fire is pretty much useless down here.”

  “Gotcha,” I said, mentally preparing myself for the danger to come.

  Nanaya loosely fitted us with ropes and then backed up from us and closed her eyes. Her body began to change then, first her legs, then her torso, upper body, arms, and head. By the time she was done, Wally was sobbing and backing away from her. Nanaya was unrecognizable. Gone was her smooth red skin and long hair, and in its place was a ragged cloaked creature that reminded me of a Ringwraith from the Lord of the Rings.

  “It’s okay, Wally,” she said in a haunting, ethereal voice.

  “Nana?”

  “Yeah, it’s her,” I told the cowardly ogre.

  “Why are we bringing this blubbering mess along again?” Trinity asked with disdain.

  “Because I’m his guardian,” said Nanaya.

  “He’s a friggin NPC, you can’t be serious.”

  “NPC’s have feelings too,” Nanaya rebuked.

  “Holy shit…” Trinity droned and shook her head.

  “Come on, let’s get this shit over with,” I urged the group.

  “You all ready?” Nanaya asked.

  “No,” Wally pouted.

  “Ready and willing, baby,” Tweak replied.

  Nanaya turned and knocked on the big black gates, which sounded like a hollow gong. The gates creaked open slowly, and two shadow wraiths came into view, floating on the other side of the doors.

  “What is your business here?” one of them hissed.

  “Ssselling ssslaves,” said Nanaya, just as creepily.

  The faceless creatures turned our way, and I felt a cold darkness wash over me as I quivered beneath their eyeless gaze.

  “Carry on,” said one of the shadow wraiths, and Nanaya gave our ropes a tug.

  Our little chain gang shuffled down the black corridor behind a floating Nanaya. I was first, followed by Trinity, Wally, and Tweak. The corridor opened into a large cavern, and inside was an elaborate mining operation. The hole in the center of the cavern was at least a half a mile wide, with a spiraling road around the edges that led into darkness. All along the many rings of the massive hole slaves could be seen wallowing away, spurred on by the hissing shadow wraiths. It appeared that the slaves were mining gems and coal, for wagon after wagon of the black stuff and shimmering gems moved up around the spiral.