Journey to the Unknown

by Jaclyn Cadell

  Alison hit the Dragon with a cold spell, but, even though he did turn blue, the spell did not seem to have much of any effect. After observing this, Alison concentrated her spells onto Emett and let him deal with the Dragon.

  Emett's combination of shouts and stabs finally had the desired effect, and the Dragon collapsed to the floor. The Dragon was dying, but before it died, it got out one last taunt, "YOU MAY HAVE DEFEATED ME, BUT YOU WILL BE CHILD'S PLAY IN MY MASTER'S HANDS IF YOU CAN MAKE IT TO HIS LAIR ON THE BOTTOM LEVEL OF THESE CELLARS."

  Suddenly, there was a puff of absolutely black smoke and the Dragon disappeared. The only thing left behind was the priest's robe, a sword, and a ring. Alison slipped the ring under her Hat and waited a moment. A voice in her head said, "This is a rarity among rings. It gives a stamina boost of 100% and an attack speed boost of 50%. It should be very helpful to Lord Darius."

  Alison handed the ring to Emett and said, "This ring is definitely more along your line." She smiled and said, "Wear it in good health."

  Emett picked up the sword and held it long enough for Hat to identify it. "Lord Darius, this is a long sword of exceptional properties. It provides a 10 fold increase in hit effectiveness and adds a quick acting poison to every wound. You should find it very useful."

  Emett said, "Thank you, Hat. I'll start using it now." He stowed the pike in his pack and hung the sword from his baldric. "Alison, are you in need of a rest? I admit to being kind of pooped. Even with your stamina boosts, I still wear down."

  "Sure, how long do you need?"

  "A half-hour nap should do me."

  After the short rest, they retraced their steps to the previous level to find the stairs headed down. They made their way down the steps and entered an area very nearly like the one they just left. They looked around and saw some goat-men on the other side of the room. Emett said, "Get ready to back me up, but I want to try out these new items."

  Emett marched toward the 6 goat-men and shouted his war cry. With a leap, he landed in the midst of the goat-men and began swinging his sword with considerable authority. There was no real resistance; the goat-men were paralyzed by the shout, the sword had no trouble cutting through their bodies. Six swings or piercings yielded 6 dead goat-men.

  The bats showed up shortly after Emett had dispatched the goat-men, and he tried his shout on them. Most of the bats simply fell out of the air! It was funny to see, but much more efficient for Alison to take care of them with her moving fire wall, so she did. They looked around pretty thoroughly, but couldn't find any large concentrations of evil doers. There were a few pockets of goat-men, but that was about it.

  They decided not to bother with the regular portals back to the church vestry, since they now had their transport spell, so they went down one more level. This one did not seem to be much of a change in scenery, but there was a new monster here. They were attacked by a dog-like creature which spit a stream of vile smelling acid from a gland under the tongue. The stuff was very potent and a real danger if it hit you or if you made the mistake of standing in a puddle of it. It played hell with clothes, though Alison was able to do a complete repair with a spell she got from Hat.

  The moving fire wall worked well against the dog creatures, but they were resistant enough to need a couple of treatments to be killed. Emett's shout helped some, but it required some refinement before it was as effective as they really needed. If there were only two or three of the dog creatures, then Emett could handle them by himself with his shout and leaping attack, but more dog creatures than that was mostly a job for the fire wall spell.

  Alison's spells, especially the fire wall spell, appeared to be much stronger now than they were when the couple started out on their journey down the stairs. It must have been the added practice and experience that she had since she started. Alison certainly had plenty of opportunities to practice, and it seemed to have done her a world of good.

  It was hard to tell just how much of Emett's skills had been improved by the practice and experience, since he was very good to start with. Nevertheless, it was obvious that his skill with the shout and the leap had improved some, but they had no benchmark to compare his skills against the way they did for Alison.

  Chapter Eight

  The level they were on now looked more like a tunnel dug through clay than anything else. The floor and ceiling were unfinished, but smoothed, clay, and the walls looked like rammed earth. The atmosphere was dank and dark; it was a good thing that they had that spell which let them see in very dim light. They had hardly stepped off the stairs when they were attacked by a mix of goat-men and spitting dogs.

  Alison pumped out the moving fire walls as fast as she could, and Emett screamed out his war cry with every breath. It was close, the way the magic acid was sprayed all about them, but they had little trouble with the goat-men. Emett leaped from dog to dog, chopping off heads with his long sword. He had to have his health repaired several times when it fell very low, but Alison was able to keep up. Their experience was climbing and their skill was improving, but the fight was not as easy at this level as it had been when they were closer to the church.

  On top of everything else, attack by bands of different monsters at the same time were more difficult to combat because the best technique for fighting one type of monster might not work as well against another type of monster. Some of their most difficult battles came when the monsters were significantly resistant to fire. Alison and Hat were working on a spell to get a lightning wall, but they had not been successful so far.

  Oh, Shit! Now, they were really in trouble! There were 6 monsters that were spitting images of The Butcher. If they were as tough as he had been, the two heroes had to be ready to run for their lives. These monsters did not use weapons beyond their giant fists. This was some help, since it meant that only one at a time could approach for a fight. Emett backed into a doorway with Alison right behind him. This way, she was protected, but she could see well enough around Emett to use her spells.

  Emett hacked away with his long sword while blocking with his shield. As long as he stayed in the doorway, he was afforded some extra protection, and he was able to keep the monsters away from Alison. Emett was tiring fast, since he could not let up a moment as he hacked at the monster in front of him. Alison kept pouring restorative spells into Emett and he swung his sword or blocked with his shield, but he was still being slowly worn down. The only difference between fighting these monsters and The Butcher was that these monsters did not have his magic cleaver. That would probably have been enough to send the fight in the other direction.

  Finally, Emett was able to defeat his current foe, and he was about to collapse from fatigue. Alison's spells just were not able to keep up with the drain on his resources. She saw what was happening and threw up her impenetrable shield before another of the monsters could attack. Emett had to rest, so Alison build a box from her shields for them to take shelter in, while Emett took a nap. When he woke up, they ate a light snack and returned to the fight.

  Uh oh! More trouble. While they were resting, more monsters had gathered at the doorway. These added monsters were the spitting dogs. They had to come up with a defense against the magic acid that they spit, or all was lost! Dammit, why did things have to keep getting more and more complicated?

  Alison and Hat spent 2 solid hours brainstorming a spell to block the magic acid while Emett slept. They came up with a shield wall that was transparent, but would stop the liquid shot out by the dogs. The shield needed to be transparent so that Alison could keep an eye on Emett and heal him when he needed the help. The shield would not stop spells, but it was impervious to solids and liquids, so it should serve for this special job. Alison would try it out as soon as Emett woke up.

  Alison pushed her new shield up against the old, stops-all shield and dropped the old shield. As soon as they became visible, the onslaught began from the monsters on the other side of the shield. They did not realize that a shield was there, since they could not see o
ne. Very soon, the giants were banging their fists on the shield and the dogs were splashing acid against it. Now that Alison could see what she was doing, she sent out her moving fire wall to roast the dogs. The giants were unaffected by the fire wall; apparently, they were resistant to fire.

  Alison erected an impenetrable shield behind the dogs so that they could not escape while she was burning them to death. Alison had complete control of the situation at this point and burned the dogs to a pile of ashes by the time she had released her fourth moving fire wall. Once the dogs were eliminated, Emett was able to work on the giants.

  Emett's long sword did a good job of chopping big pieces of flesh out of the arms and torsos of the giants, so that he was able to fight them, albeit, one at a time. Emett still had to stop for a rest twice during the fight; damn, those giants were tough! They needed a way to slow them down. Ideally, they should be frozen in place, but that was too complicated a spell for Alison to handle at her current level of experience, so they would have to come up with something else.

  Another brainstorming session including Emett, this time. He suggested nooses to loop around the monster to tie their legs and arms, but that would require close attention from Alison. Hat suggested a living vine that would use its own "intelligence" to figure out how to capture its target. Alison could pick a target and loose the vine; it would then be responsible for finishing the task while Alison went on to something else. Emett did make a contribution: the name of Tanglefoot for the spell.

  The first swine to be caught with Tanglefoot completely ignored the two heroes as he struggled to escape from the vine. Alison saw this and threw a Tanglefoot spell at the remaining swine. It only took a few moments for all of the swine to be lying on the ground frantically trying to get loose from the vines. It was almost at his leisure that Emett was able to chop their heads off. It usually took four chops before the neck could be severed, but it was remarkably easy, though very tiring, once the swine were so completely distracted.

  They spent several hours fighting more of the giant swine and the magic acid spitting dogs. Eventually, Emett had to call a halt—he was completely exhausted.

  Alison transported them to their room in the inn where they made themselves presentable and went down to the common room for an ale and something to eat. Tonight, the supper was a whole roast pig, and Alison almost blasted it with an exploding fireball before she caught herself. That would, indeed, have been embarrassing!

  They ate supper and talked for a while before returning to their room for an exciting game of "hide the weenie." Strangely, each one always felt that he or she was the winner.

  That night, Alison was introduced to the concept of spells getting old and wearing out. The specific instance was during the middle of the night when she felt a sharp pain on her left ass cheek. Alison woke up immediately and looked for the cause of the pain. She found it in the form of a very large bedbug that had decided to dine on her buttock. She banished the creature to the fireplace which had a small fire still going before renewing the spell on the bed which kept such unwelcome beasties from visiting the humans. Alison believed that she had learned a valuable lesson at very little cost, so she was almost sorry for the bedbug she had destroyed.

  The next morning, they had a filling breakfast and transported back to their last location in the church cellars. Some person or some thing had cleaned up after the fight. This was a little disturbing, and would continue to be so, until they could find out who or what was responsible for tidying the place up.

  Alison and Emett were wandering around this level making sure that they had eliminated all of the monsters when they heard the tromp-tromp-tromp of marching feet. Alison used a new invisibility spell on them so that they could safely observe what sounded like a marching army.

  The two heroes headed toward the noise and froze in their tracks when they found what was causing the noise. It was not an army, but a single creature with hundreds, possibly thousands, of feet and legs. They could see the head of the creature, but not the tail, it was just too long.

  The head resembled the head of the Dragon from a Chinese New Year celebration, except, of course, it was much larger. The range of motion of the head was limited because it was so large that it nearly filled the corridor it was marching down. The body rubbed against the ceiling and the walls, and, in general, it looked very uncomfortable. Though they could not see them clearly, Emett and Alison got the impression that the body of the creature was covered with tentacles.

  Since he was wearing his armor that was proof against almost any form of attack, Emett thought that it would be OK to step in front of this "Dragon" and find out what it was doing here. Emett and Alison went together, since Alison was just as curious as Emett. She had wrapped herself in a force field that was impervious to everything that she could imagine, so she felt safe. This force field was not flexible enough to use as fighting armor, but it seemed entirely adequate for the purpose of facing down the Dragon.

  They walked toward the Dragon from the far end of the corridor in order to give the creature plenty of time to see them and not be startled into a hasty attack. It was Emett's hope that the Dragon was intelligent enough to have some form of speech. If it did, they probably could manage to understand it with the help of their hats.

  "Good day, Sir Dragon. What brings you to this level of the cellars?"

  "Good day, Sir. I have been sent by my master, Aaron, to rid this cellar of a pair of terrible nuisances. They have been killing my master's servants right and left, and he wants it stopped. Have you seen these individuals?"

  "Well, I am not sure. Can you describe them? That would go a long way toward helping us to identify them."

  "I'll tell you what I know. They are human, a man and a woman. The man is a fearsome warrior and the woman is a very dangerous sorceress. I really don't know anything beyond that."

  "Hmmm. Well, that is not much help in identifying those two people. You look to be very uncomfortable in trying to negotiate these halls. Why would Aaron send you?"

  "Well, I know it sounds like bragging, but I am renowned as the most effective fighter in Aaron's realm. I am known as The Undefeasible, and, obviously, I have won every fight that I have participated in, except one."

  "I am impressed! What was the fight that you lost?"

  "It was the fight with Aaron when he came here to my abode and enslaved me."

  "Can I assume from that fact that you would like to be free of Aaron's bondage?"

  "Oh, most definitely, but I don't know how to achieve that."

  "Perhaps you could escape your bondage if my companion and I helped you to fight Aaron. You see, we are the ones you were sent to eliminate."

  The Undefeasible drew back upon itself and asked, "Really? You would help me gain my freedom from Aaron? There is no way that I could repay you for such assistance, since my chambers contain very little of value. Of course, if you would accept gold or silver or diamonds, I have a lot of that stuff."

  "That would be fine, but we really don't need payment. We are here to help all beings who want our aid. We wish for justice and happiness to reign throughout the land."

  "Very well, I will accept your graciously offered help. May I know your names?"

  "Oh, I beg your pardon. I am Emett Darius and my companion is Alison Amabel. Now, what is the easiest way to find Aaron?"

  "Aaron has set himself up in a throne room in one of my better chambers. He is usually there at all times. I suggest, however, that we don't drop in on him directly, but travel to my abode and move from there to where Aaron resides.

  "He has a number of minions that we need to eliminate before we attack him directly. I did not do that in my first fight with Aaron and that was a serious mistake."

  Alison said, "We have two choices in how we can travel to your abode. We can walk down the corridors until we find the stairs going down, or I could transport us there by magic. Unfortunately, I have never been to your abode, so that will require a special conces
sion on your part. I cannot transport to a place that I have never seen, but you must know your place so well that I could get all of the information I need from your mind. The catch is that you have to let me into your mind to read what I need. I promise not to change anything I find, nor will I delve any deeper than I must to find what I need. Will you agree to that?"

  "Oh, yes, Dear Lady! I am so anxious to escape from Aaron's clutches that I would do anything that was necessary to accomplish that. What do I need to do?"

  "The easiest way to do this would be for me to rest my hand on your head while you think of your abode in as much detail as you can manage. The more detail that I have, the easier it will be for me to transport us. Are you ready?"

  "Yes! Yes! Let's be away right now."

  Alison read the Dragon's surface thoughts and got a good picture of his home chamber. She kept her hand on the Dragon's head and took Emett's hand with her other. She tucked her staff under her arm and concentrated on her transportation spell. POOF! There was the sound of disturbed air and all three found themselves standing in the Dragon's home.

  Now that they could get a good look at him, it was easy to see why he would have earned the sobriquet of The Undefeasible. He was about 70 feet long with a more-or-less cylindrical body that was over 15 feet in diameter. Every few feet along his body was placed a tentacle that was 10-15 feet long and the diameter at the base was equal to Emett's thigh. The hundreds of feet and legs along the underside of his body gave him tremendous traction, and he looked like he could not be moved if he didn't want to be. His body was covered with scales and gave him remarkable protection if they lived up to the reputation of Dragon scales.

  "My chambers are somewhat rectangular. That is because I dug most of them myself. Up until Aaron showed up, I was blissfully alone, but now the place is overrun with Aaron's minions. Mostly, they are the goat-men, but there are zombies and skeletons. Some of the skeletons have magical abilities and can throw fire balls and other such weapons.