She moved towards me. Her mouth began to elongate and her teeth turned to snake like fangs.
“You cheated, I want to play another game,” I said.
Immediately her face changed back.
“I DID NOT CHEAT,” she screamed. Her voice was deep. Not like it was before. Not like a child not at all.
“Don’t have a fit, just admit it, you cheated, we should play again,” I said lifting myself up off the ground. I was laying on a pile of rocks. I was inside a cave. Under the mountain it looked like small lake or large pond. In the center stood a tower that led upwards into the ceiling of the cave. To me it resembled the shape of a small skyscraper, glass windows and all.
“I don’t want to play again, I’m hungry,” the girl said beginning to elongate her mouth again.
“But wait, I have a really great game that we can play, you see far above us there is a mighty king, but he is very very very sad and lonely so we have come to surprise him, we even brought him a present, a sacrifice, a wicked man named Molto,” I paused long enough for her to say ‘ok’ she spoke with her normal child like voice in a drawn out almost sarcastic tone.
“So here is the game, together you and I climb this tower and see the king, I’m sure my friends are on their way and then the king will give you plenty to eat, not only that but you won’t be lonely down here anymore,” I felt like I was trying to make a deal with the devil.
“I can’t go up there, daddy will get mad at me, I’m suppose to stay down here where its safe,” she replied.
“I’ll go for both of us then,” I answered.
“I think I’d rather just eat you,” she said her fangs appearing again.
I felt my speech fail. Charisma fail. Intelligence fail.
I fired at the girl with my rifle and she warped from one spot to the next dodging each burst. I felt like the whole world was moving in slow motio as she moved over me. I froze. Literally. Everything. The girl, myself, the water, the entire room around me all halfway up the tower. I fired my rifle using the force to break myself free. The bullets caught in the ice in front of the girl. I could see her blinking, her elongated mouth ajar her fangs frozen in ice. I spent the next several minutes digging myself out. My mana was at 0. Perhaps even in the negatives. I had no idea I was capable of such an attack. I climbed towards the tower breaking a window and making my way inside. There in the corner of the room sat another teddy bear.
“That was fun, that was fun”
“That was fun, fun fun,” I heard the voice echo again and again.
All around me I saw the girl. Her body was wet and I could sense the cold coming off of her. Several more creatures appeared from pools of black goo. She was summoning daemon wolves just as she had summoned the one before. She looked like she was coming at me from every direction filling the room. I felt like I was losing my mind.
“Game over,” she said.
Crack. Thud. Smack. Time began to slow again. This time it wasn’t me. The girl, ghost, specter, daemon or whatever the hell she was had frozen. All of her. There were hundreds surrounding me inside the room and outside standing on top of the ice. Each one looked exactly the same. Each one had an elongated jaw and fangs. The game was lagging. At least it felt like it was lagging. The world around me had slowed but I was able to move freely. Slowly I moved around the girl towards a staircase. Bending downwards and twisting my body so I didn’t touch her.
Her eyes focused on me as I moved. Each and everyone of her stared at me. Every so often one of them would move faster than the others whether it was their arm reaching for me or their entire body warping and moving several feet closer. At one point she almost had me. Her body moved right in front of the staircase her arm stretched out. I could see the dirt beneath her nails. I ducked down and crawled under her arm. As I moved up the staircase there were more of her. I moved sideways between two of them and crawled under a third. This happened as I went up several more floors until finally I found an elevator and walked inside.
I pushed the up button on the elevator and the girls vanished. Combining into one she ran towards me as fast as she could as the elevator doors began to close. I fired several shots off at her and than the doors closed. For several seconds I could still hear her outside screaming and clawing at the elevator door until finally she was gone.
Soft piano keys began playing softly from a speaker overheard. Never in my life had I been more thankful for the sound of elevator music than I was now. I was alone at last.
Chapter 23
Jace, Ariane, Ethan, Bendi, and Kale (our sixth party member and one of the soldiers of the Five’s army) along with Molto watched as Adam fell through the floor. They called out to him, even dropped a light down after him and prayed they wouldn’t see his body splintered and broken at the bottom of what they thought of as a well. Ariane used her magic to check and see if Adam was alright and there at the bottom of the trap door they saw him swim out of the water. Molto laughed under his gag.
Bendi begged the others that they should go after him, try and lower a rope, that they had to do something. Jace and Ariane agreed saying that it was their responsibility. Than they watched as Adam swam to shore. They called down to him but there voices were mute.
The trap door began to close and try as they might they couldn’t open it again. Jace slashed it with his sword revealing nothing but solid ground below. The well had closed. They had no way to find their friend. Adam would have to make it on his own. At the very least they knew he was alive and moving in the right direction.
“What is this cursed place?” Jace screamed grabbing Molto and pulling down his gag.
“A cursed palace full of magic traps. This entire hellhole is built over a daemon mound, a small rift. You want to know my secret I’ll tell you, when I came here I came in through the sewers, into a vault and through a tunnel that led upwards. I fought daemons for days and nearly lost my head to a hound. I even blindfolded myself to escape the trap of a crazed siren. And I fought like hell to get back out too,” Molto raised his shirt slightly revealing a massive scar that ran across his stomach and side. “The tunnel I took led straight to the palace’s royal halls, once I was inside it was easy, I made my way to the king’s chambers and there I found his son, I was aiming for him but his kid was in the wrong place wrong time, I took what I could and killed him before he could make a move, they didn’t find him till the next day, the idiots had no idea I was here,” Molto finished.
Jace placed the gag back into Molto’s mouth.
“This palace is full of traps, expect more. Its probably their second line of defense. If I had to guess there are three levels. The first one that we went through at the gate followed by the one we are on now,” Jace stopped and shined a light on the walls. There were dozens of runes.
“This whole floor is cursed, we’ll have to be careful, the third level is probably the royal halls, barracks, mess, and throne room, I’m sure we will meet resistance there but we can tear through trolls a lot easier than we can cursed magic,” Jace finished. Ariane and Ethan led the way while Kale dragged Molto behind Jace.
“Still not sure how we are going to get an audience with the king,” said Ariane.
“One step at a time, hopefully the next troop that come after us are willing to listen to reason, if not we’ll defend ourselves till they see otherwise,” said Jace.
“We can’t defend ourselves against an entire army,” said Ariane.
“We can if thats what it takes,” answered Jace. Ariane shook her head. This whole thing was beginning more and more to look like a suicide mission. If the trolls didn’t kill the raid party than the traps would. Jace and the others continued through the maze of corridors for hours until they finally entered a large chamber with a massive pit inside. Ariane cast a light that shined brightly around them. It looked like they had come out inside some kind of coliseum. Jace was the first to notice a group of daemonic trolls heading their way. The daemonic trolls we
re foot soldiers. Seven feet tall. Their bodies were mutated, covered in a cracks like they had turned to stone and than back again. Small spikes like thorns rose up from beneath their hard skin making them even more dangerous. Several of the trolls had weapons grafted into their bodies where their limbs should have been. They acted as the leaders commanding the group through some kind of hive mind.
Jace drew his sword and lept into battle slashing the first leader down before moving just as quickly towards the second. Blocked by a grunt. He sliced its arm off and pushed it aside before kicking another to the ground. Ariane cast a fireball in the sky and catapulted it towards the others before they could reach Jace. Ethan drew a blade and fought to protect his master as the horde grew larger rising from the ground.
“How many do you think they are? What are they?” said Jace.
“Trapped souls, trolls infected by a daemonic disease, they look like they are possessed by something, they must have been lying here for ages,” Ariane said before casting another fireball and raining hell down from above. Jace went after another leader slicing it in two pieces. His stamina dropped and he moved backwards towards Ariane and the rest of his party.
Molto grumbled under his gag. Kale knew he was trying to say something along the lines of ‘free me’ but he ignored him and fired with a rifle at the trolls coming towards them. Too little too late. A giant emerged from the ground and swung at the raid party with a giant hammer. The sight of the beast was repulsive. Its insides were hanging out as if it had been torn apart. It was undead just like Ethan was, kept alive by some cursed magic.
Jace jumped in the air and swung at the giants neck only to be thrown backwards as his blade hit it and bounced back. The creatures neck was grafted with metal plates that ran downward sewn under its skin.
“Retreat,” screamed Jace at the top of his lungs. The daemonic trolls were overwhelming them. As Ariane, Ethan, Kale, and Molto turned to go back through the door from which they came it closed as if teasing them the moment they moved too close.
“Fuck, what are we going to do now,” Ariane said.
“Fight, You wanted to know if we could stand against the troll horde well here we are,” Jace said turning back again towards the giant and the daemonic trolls that were gathering around them. He positioned himself in front of the party and prepared himself for the worst as another troll leader jumped forward several feet above the ground. Its arm-blade slammed down against Jace’s sword but it was no match for Jace’s strength. Jace tore through the daemon’s arm-blade and severed its limb from its body, than like a surgeon dismembered the rest of it. He did the same to the next grunt that attacked slicing it across the waist. Slowly the bodies of the dead trolls began to pile up around them. They were creating a wall as the giant slowly paced back and forth.
“This isn’t working,” Ariane said staring at Jace. They were all nearly back to back now, the bodies piled around them.
“Pray for a deux ex machine,” said Jace as he began summoning up all his mana into one final attack. His blade began to glow bright orange burning with the glow of a fire. He was preparing to swing just as the trolls began climbing up over the bodies that surrounded them. Something happened. What it was is almost impossible to describe. A small golem creature similar to Bendi came up out of the ground holding a diamond and placed it against Jace’s chest. Everything turned white and Jace found himself transported far away trapped in time, standing inside the jewel in the same position he was in before. His body felt like it was moving in slow motion. He could see the horde reflected like giants outside. He had been shrunk down and trapped. Least that was what his mind was telling him. He continued to pour his energy into his sword until the diamond around him began to break. A few seconds later he was free of the curse. He looked down at the creature. Bendi’s double still holding the cracked diamond against Jace’s chest. He smiled. He smiled and swung his sword. A wave of fire erupted in front of the entire party burning the bodies and the daemon trolls and the ground. The entire room lit up like it had been filled with daylight.
Jace’s body was drained. He fell back into Ariane’s arms. The giant, the only still breathing beast crawled towards them. Ethan picked up Jace’s blade and kept forward stabbing it in the eye driving the blade down and walking inside the beast. Ethan walked out the hollow stomach. The smell inside the room was nearly unbearable. The entire party was ready to run, ready to collapse. Jace, Ethan, Ariane, Kale, they had all proven themselves to be true heroes.
The worst of it though had just begun.
Jace’s arm had become infected by the daemonic disease that the trolls had been carrying. On the outside it looked purple and black. Inside the disease was being carried through his blood moving slowly, turning his insides. Ethan’s body too had been covered in it but since he was undead there was no effect. Bendi appeared again to give medicine and help heal the party. Within a few hours Bendi managed to suppress the daemon disease using Fesmire root and heal Ariane and Kale. When Jace finally gathered enough strength they continued towards the other side of the coliseum and found a locked door. They let Kale break the lock and lead their party. They were nearly free of the second level when they walked into another trap.
The room moved around them and they found themselves running through a tunnel that was closing in out into the entrance of the entire palace. Jace looked at the door. The snow was falling in. All that they had endured and now they were back at the beginning.
“We’re not going to have to do that all over again are we?” said Ariane.
“No, we killed the trolls and already made our way over most of the traps, this time it should be easy,” said Jace. He was trying to be optimistic but his tone sold him out. Ariane could see it in his eyes too. She loved looking into his eyes. For the most part he was young and full of spirit but this time his eyes were mature and tired. His left eye in particular was red and looked like he had been crying blood.
“We need to rest,” she said.
“We can’t, Adam is in there, not to mention we have to stop the trolls from killing Croon and everyone else in Arcadia,” he said his sheer determination breaking through. Kale agreed with Ariane. He was just as worn as Jace, maybe more so even though he hadn’t used so much energy. Molto was the only one that didn’t seem tired. Years of training and one of his perks as a paladin. Molto was able to sustain himself without food and water for days and since he hadn’t been fighting he still had all of his mana and stamina intact. If not for Ethan and Ariane’s magic he could have easily overcome Jace at that moment.
“If we don’t stop to rest for a few hours, we won’t be able to save anyone,” Ariane said in defiance, “two hours sleep, thats it, I can use magic to keep myself awake and rested but your no mage, your body is getting weaker every second, every step you take,” she finished.
Jace wasn’t happy about stopping but he obeyed. Laying his head in her lap he let the world fade away.
Three hours later Jace woke up. He stared up at Ariane who sat in a meditative trance though completely aware of everything around her. She smiled without looking down at him. Kale was still fast asleep. Bendi woke him and everyone but Ethan began to eat some bread. Soon enough they were ready to begin their quest again. Opening the tunnels that led to the maze they found a straight hallway. They could see a door at the end. What they thought had been the wrong way had been the right way all along. They walked cautiously towards the door, opening it they found themselves face to face with the troll king sitting across a large throne room surrounded by his elite guard.
Chapter 23.1
Day 0
A man started jogging down the sidewalk of a bridge. The jog turned into a sprint. There was a loud electric crash of sound as his poncho was swept up by the wind. The intense rain, dense fog, swift winds and darkness of night caused drivers to slow their journey as they ventured forth into the city. As cars passed the man headlights illuminated. His heavy boots splashed water with each
step. The large drops of rain shimmered with each passing car. The man was slightly annoyed. After reaching the middle of the bridge he stopped and reached his arm out towards the ledge. He could see the moonlight as a cloud moved overhead. It was a full moon that night.
The runner felt his heart begin to race faster. A surge of adrenaline as the bridge began to light up around him. He felt the hair on his arms rise. Not even seconds later he was gone and so was the bridge.
—————
Adam had been running late. He failed to see the man jogging as he passed him in the pouring rain. He began to slow down. Traffic. ‘Just great’ Adam thought knowing he was going to be running even later than he was. Ellie was waiting for him at their favorite sushi restaurant. They only went on date nights like this once maybe twice a month. Times had gotten rough. It seemed sometimes like the world around them was falling apart as the economy dipped. It wasn’t that bad though. They had a great place to live, a cat, food, and games. The rain was coming down hard. Adam’s car began to slip backwards. The runner had stopped behind about a hundred feet behind him. The bridge was gone. Collapsing.
Adam pressed on the gas as hard as he could. He held his foot against the car floor. His tires spun and kept spinning in the rain.
He hit the water.
Within seconds it was pouring in. Adam grabbed a glass breaker from his glovebox and hit broke his window but he was already underwater. Adam knew in that moment he was going to die. That he would never see or touch Ellie again, that his story had come to and end… as he forgot how to breath and the world became a blur he let go. Adam lost consciousness and his body rose to the water’s surface. A medic pulled him out by helicopter.
Glimmer, A Throne of Souls (Convergence Book 1) Page 17
