The Wizard (Dungeon Core Book 1)

by MJ Kaltenbrunner

  It was better to sleep away from the banks of the river, so she had heard. Some large amphibious creatures were said to come close to the city at times, and it was far from her desires to take a lesson in the natural biology of the wilderness. No, if she were going to tangle with a nasty animal, it would be on land where she didn't have such a disadvantage.

  So, she'd gone out to the foot of the hills that rose up away from the river. The area was not used for farming, especially with the ample flat, grassy land that was perfect for it on the other side of the river. It was dry and windswept, but at least there were plenty of natural formations to hide behind and to use for shelter. The first night, she had slept in a low ditch behind a naturally formed wall. There was a fallen tree that still held most of its roots in the soil, while the gaunt trunk was almost horizontal with the ground. There was a cavity beneath this where the roots must have originally been, which was partially circled by jagged rocks in the soil. It was not an ideal place to lay one’s head, but it was the best place Tehra was going to find before she could figure out what to do with her life.

  From her experience, there were not many dangerous animals in the low hills so close to the river and the city. Insects, however, were in abundance, and Tehra was reminded of this throughout the night while she tried to sleep. Being so tired the first night, she had not realized the nasty things had been crawling over her fine, smooth skin, turning it into a battered wasteland of tiny bites by the morning.

  The second night was much harder to sleep through, already being itchy and now completely aware that the creeping little bastards would be back to continue the previous night’s meal of elven skin. Sitting up in her half-sheltered ditch, Tehra tried to tell herself that it was fortunate there was no rain.

  Try as she might, she could not get her mood to lighten. The sky was black, with the bitter moon encircled with shiftless clouds. Nothing was right in her world; everything was wrong.

  Then, it started to rain. "That would be right!" she called out. It wasn't a gentle shower either. One moment, the air had been dry, with a cool wind moving through the curvaceous hill lines, making it just uncomfortably cold. The next moment, heavy water was pouring from the damned gods, whichever of the callous bastards was actually real and watching this pitiful display for their own amusement.

  As an elf, Tehra knew she should show respect to all deities, whether righteous or not, but this had gone too far. She jumped out of her ditch, which was already starting to become a slaked mud pit, and looked at the dark sky. "I suppose you think this is all a good joke, right?" she called out. She shouted as loudly as she could; shouting in such a downpour wouldn't bring any attention, no one would be able to hear her over the millions of icy raindrops that were pummeling the land.

  While the farmers across the river would be happy with water for their crops to grow strong, the tired and aggravated elf benefited nothing from the drenching. "Fuck yourselves, you worthless cunts!" she screamed out at the surging rains. "Fuck all the gods!" Of course, she did not actually expect that any being of exceptional power was even paying attention to her, but it still felt good to blame something other than herself.

  Then, the voice in her mind said hello, and she almost fell over with surprise.

  "What?" she said, then regained her senses and dropped down low to the ground. It was too dark for a human to see anything, but elves were born with natural infravision: the ability to see things that gave off warmth, such as living creatures, even in the dark. She could see nothing, but then the increasingly cold rain that fell all around could have masked the warmth of anyone who was out there. That, or something cold-blooded was stalking her.

  "No," she said. It had spoken to her, or, had it? "Show yourself, or you will find my blade will come between yourself and your genitals!" she called out. The show of bravery made her feel braver in the dark, facing off against who-knew-what. And the coarseness of her remark made her smirk. There was no sign of any movement that she could detect with her keen elf senses, so she walked across the foot of hill she'd been sleeping on, perpendicular to the incline, being mindful to keep her ankles and knees slightly bent to allow for the angle and higher altitude on her right side.

  It was then that she swore she could smell meat cooking, something good too, with the kinds of herbs and spices that the merchant she’d killed had probably enjoyed every night. When the voice in her mind offered to give her something to eat, if only she could help to find where it was inside a cave somewhere, Tehra's interest was more than slightly piqued.

  "Can you hear me now?" she asked as she moved, wondering if this was just some sign of madness. As she moved up the hill and over the other side, Tehra felt the ground give way to a wide, subtly dipping trench in between that section of hill and the next.

  The shoes she had been wearing for her fake date with Rufer, the deceased merchant, were not at all well suited for climbing, even on the gentle slopes of the foothills. The rain was now making the task that much harder, so she decided to take them off and carry them instead of risking a nasty tumble in the dark and breaking her neck. Walking along the mud-caked hillside with her knife in one hand, and the pair of sopping wet shoes in the other, she did not feel at all confident about encountering some type of disembodied spirit or telepathic creature that was probably luring her in to feast on fresh elf.

  "Don't be stupid," she told herself, saying it out loud as though thinking it might allow her thoughts to be heard. When she was just about to give up, the wind changed direction, pushing a strong scent of food from out there in the rain-soaked hills.

  You are getting closer, came the voice in her mind again. I can see your aura more clearly now. You're an elf?

  "Oh, great, I guess even the ghostly voice in the hills is going to turn out to have a problem with non-humans now?"

  I have nothing against elves. But I'm sure your superior olfactory can bring you to me now. Yes, that is real food waiting for you. I conjured it myself.

  "Conjured?" That should have been the warning signal she needed to turn and head directly away from the source of the enticing aroma, but Tehra just felt like she had nothing at all left to lose. On the other hand, if there was some kind of magical presence out in a cave up there, there was the chance that it might be sitting atop a lavish keep of gold and valuables. Either way, she was going to get that food, magically conjured or not. Her stomach was rumbling painfully; it was probably so completely empty it was gnawing on itself.

  She came up to what she assumed was a rocky crag far down in the trench created between the two hill sections. Up higher on the slope, it looked flat, almost as though a pathway could once have ran there.

  It was a good thing Tehra had removed her shoes already, or she might not have realized the texture of the ground had gone from sodden soil to wet and slippery chunks of rock, jagged in some places like scores of disjointed blade fragments waiting to render her bloody. As she closed in, the smell grew more powerful and her hunger became bigger by the second.

  Going back was not an option at this point for the stubborn young elf, so she continued to move up the rising incline of slippery rock inside the hill's trench.

  As it steepened, she had to throw her shoes away to free up her hand, and once more needed to hold the knife between her teeth. Of all the times to be left without something as simple as a sheath, this was one of the worst she'd faced. Eventually, Tehra came to a slight ledge, hidden away by jumbled rock formations that stuck up out of the ground so much that the moon's light could barely reach them. There was much less wind here too, and the rain was held back from her chilled neck and shoulders as she entered a narrow cave entrance in the rock.

  Welcome.

  "Is this where you are?" she asked out loud, not sure if just thinking would be enough to make herself heard.

  Your aura is near. I can only assume that means, yes.

  "My aura? Because I'm an elf?" She was still stood at the entrance of the cave, looking down into a dark aby
ss of unknown width or depth. Outside, the night was not much less ominous - the wind and rain continued to batter the hillside, and there wasn’t anywhere safe she knew of to sleep without becoming deathly ill. Was going down into that gaping maw in the rock a slightly preferable option? It was hard to tell.

  Tehra's skin was still sore from the insect attack of the previous night, and now it also pricked up all over her body. Her natural sense of wisdom was telling her this was a bad idea, but there were no other ideas in her mind. Her stomach growled as though making a stand against her hesitations.

  Are you afraid? said the voice. It did not sound evil or even malignant. Although, beings that would cause harm to innocents often sounded good and kind in their attempts at luring in their hapless victims.

  With elven pride surging through the blood in her veins, she replied firmly, "Of course I am not afraid. However... neither can I see in the dark."

  I don't suppose your infravision will help you much against hard stone and soil, will it? How about now?

  A sudden tingling entered her body, making the wet fabric of her all-but-destroyed dress feel like it was clinging to her. The rain had soaked her thoroughly through and through, making her body shiver. Such a strange sensation, like being part of a low-level magic spell. The narrow corridor of haphazard stone leading into the side of the hill suddenly grew a little brighter. There was no real visibility, exactly, but Tehra could sense where she was going all the same. It wasn't entirely different to the way she experienced infravision with warm-bodied creatures and other heat sources when there was little to no visible lighting.

  "Amazing," she said, walking down into the belly of the world, or so it felt. Eventually, there was a green aura, a magical glow that could not be mistaken for mere torchlight or a fire. "Are you in here? All I see is this- wow, what is that?"

  That would be me.

  Tehra saw a flat-topped slab of stone coming out from the rock floor, where the rest of the floor was flat around it. It seemed like a room right there in the cave, although it was empty of the usual comforts one would expect to find in any regular room. In the center, where the raised structure stood, was a floating skull of some kind of metal, perhaps even a dull gold. There were green crystals sticking out from the skull, and the thing had a green glow seemingly coming from it. "That is you? Where are you?"

  I am before you. And might I say, you are quite the sight after untold years of solitude.

  Tehra looked down at herself and realized her chest was barely covered by the remains of her dress, while her nipples had frozen to hard nubs in the dead night chill. "This is the first time I've been ogled by a floating skull."

  What? Oh, no. That's not what I meant. But aren't you hungry? I would ask how long you have been wandering around the wilderness. Some time, judging by the state of you?

  The skull was not actually looking at her though. It wasn't animated in any way. It was just sort of floating, aimlessly, as though adrift in a tiny pool of water, meandering from facing one side of the room to the other. The way it just hung in the air above the stone table was also disconcerting.

  Again, Tehra's stomach demanded that she feed it immediately, and enough with all the curiosities! "Food? Yes, I sorely pray you are not up to any trickery."

  7

  Mertho could see that she was puzzled by his appearance. Without any way to see himself, her reaction only made him more curious about the nature of his physical change. It seemed that he was lower than her, and he could feel a sense of floating, just like he had when the green vortex had formed around him on that fateful night with Gaynor in his bedchamber.

  Are you afraid? he asked.

  "No," she said, but she was clearly lying to appear brave. That was not necessarily a negative trait in an adventurous type. "I am not afraid of a, well, I am not sure what you are. Floating skull of gold and green crystals?"

  That's what you see when you look at me?

  "You really have no idea what happened to you, do you?"

  No... Well, that's not true. I remember every depressing detail of the incident that was the catalyst to my current circumstance. But I don't exactly have a mirror down here in this cave.

  The pretty elf was looking around, searching for something. Perhaps she was a tomb robber, although she wasn't dressed for doing much of anything but lying in a ditch. "Wait a minute? You said you could conjure food. Where is it?" She was genuinely crestfallen at discovering there was nothing there for her to eat.

  Yes, yes, I can conjure food. I'll admit that I merely conjured the smell to get you to believe that I was really here, but I can make anything you like, within reason of course. But… let's just keep it simple for now, okay? Focusing intently on himself and the room around him, he cast a spell to conjure food for the elf.

  Tehra’s eyes widened, and she licked her lips. "Elven bread, jambala berries, blackbird pie, and is that a skin of water?"

  Wine, and I will venture a guess that you have never had such a vintage in your life.

  The elf lunged forward and knelt on the floor before the feast that had appeared there on silver platters. She began to greedily shovel handfuls of food into her mouth, her hands flitting between the different dishes, rotating around so that she was devouring each of them at once. She uncorked the wine without bothering to watch where the cap flew to in her haste. After gulping down half of the contents, she then stopped, realizing that it was actually a very fine variety of wine. "This is good. Wow, you're amazing. I take back what I said about anything to do with common pottage. I, uh, thank you." She almost choked on those last two words, although that could have just as easily been caused by her mouth being half full of the food she was still hastily chewing and swallowing in between syllables.

  Your magical energy is weak for an elf of your age, Mertho said while he watched her feast.

  Chewing and not bothering to reply until she had swallowed, the elf said, "I've never developed my natural magical abilities."

  That's a shame. I can assure you that there is nothing more useful than a vast knowledge of magical energies and spell casting.

  She moaned a partial affirmation but seemed a lot more interested in the food. It was impressive to see such a slight woman put away so much at once, and without showing any signs of being full, even after half of everything was gone. "I can see it's gotten you far," she said eventually as though it was just a passing remark."

  At least as far as your lack of knowledge has gotten you.

  He watched her, sensing her natural aura growing healthy and warm again, content now that she was no longer half starving. The room was cold but outside was clearly much worse. He could see that it had been raining, slicking down her dress and hair so that it clung to her skin. As she knelt there shoving food into her small mouth, Mertho could imagine that he might actually be aroused by the way that her body was positioned and so barely clad, wet and taut in places that were usually withheld from the view of the world. His body was no longer with him though, so, suffice to say, he was not going to be physically aroused by even the wettest and most pert of young elven maids visiting him in the middle of the night.

  Thinking of such things made him remember Gaynor and the way she had shown up at the entrance to his tower, out where it lay in the low hills near the city of Aklago. Had it been destroyed when he was consumed, confined, transformed, by the burst of raw magical energy that had somehow taken hold of him the night he'd made love to the beautiful Gaynor?

  "So, what did you happen to you?" the elf asked as she finally reached the end of her appetite and set down the bone she had been chewing the marrow from within. Taking up the flask containing the remaining wine, she walked over and sat down before Mertho with her legs crossed.

  I was studying in my tower, the building that had been in my family for generations, when a lady friend came calling. She spent the night.

  "Lady friend or 'lady friend'?"

  Mertho felt flustered but knew he had no cheeks that could
go red, and no telltale human features that could give away his discomfort at the question. He wondered if his glowing magical aura varied its appearance in correlation to his thoughts and feelings. If by 'lady friend' you mean a whore, no, Gaynor was nothing but virtuous and innocent... almost to the point of being naive.

  "So what happened, did she put some demonic spell on you and cast you down into this cave under the hill?"

  Under a hill? Are we, no, do you think there might be a ruin of my tower nearby?

  The elf's face lit up. "I thought they were just fallen rock fragments and crag. This would make more sense though! I think your tower was right here, I mean, above where we are now. Was there a path or something similar leading to it?"

  There was a dirt road that I used to travel to the river Stryks, where I had a small ferry boat to gain entry to the city. Mertho could feel his mood rising at the discovery of this new information. Finally, a possible outcome and explanation to his current scenario. He went on to describe the events as he remembered them, on the night he'd been struck by this strange magic that left him a disembodied magical core at the bottom of some strange cave.

  When he finished, Tehra spoke. "I remember hearing stories about an evil sorcerer who had a tower out in the countryside that vanished completely one night. In fact, I remember the stories all too well. The other children used to try and scare me to be cruel. They would say the sorcerer had been so evil, the ground had opened up and swallowed his tower, sucking it downward into the... ground." She paused before finishing that sentence, looking around at the underground chamber with a newfound fascination in her green eyes. The way they reflected back the green aura of Mertho's magical energy was doubly mesmerizing. "Oh my gods, those weren't just stories, were they? You are the sorcerer."