by Tj Dixon
“We had to head back before we could reach their last known position. Now we have no choice but to focus on defending the town instead. It seems we’ve lost a lot of mages in this attack.” Trinity tells me.
“Share their last known position with me.” I tell Trinity and it isn’t a request.
“Ok.” Trinity says a bit taken aback. She places her forehead against mine and I see in her mind the spot she believes they were captured at. It isn’t that far from here, but Trinity also shares another location with me. It is the enemies’ main base and a bit further from here. It is at Heaven’s Fall. “Be careful if you are going to try to rescue her. The enemy may not be elves, but there are an awful lot of them.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back with Hilda and her comrades.” I tell Trinity confidently. I just hope that she is still alive to rescue. I don’t want Cherry and Sherry to lose their mother, especially since it sounded like they loved her and she loved them. I look to my friends and ask. “Is everyone ready to continue?”
“I am.” Rin says and Midori nods. I look to Hermes who looks hesitant but nods too.
“Then let’s go.” I say and pick us up with flight magic. I could fly above the trees but we’re less likely to be spotted if we fly below the treetops so I fly us through the forest just below the tops of the trees. It isn’t far so we soon reach the spot where Hilda and her patrol were captured. The trees have been badly damaged, with many burnt to ash, cut in two or knocked over. More importantly though I sense dimensional magic. I look at Rin.
“They were ported from here.” Rin says and I nod.
“Probably to Heaven’s Fall. It’s ironic that we were heading there already. Hermes, place your head against mine so I can share the location. I want you to port us there.” I tell Hermes who places her forehead against mine just like I asked. I share the location that Trinity shared with me. “Can you port us there?”
“Yes.” Hermes says confidently. “It will use most of my power though.”
“That’s fine. Midori will shield us.” I say but Midori shakes her head.
“It would be better if Rin did that. I’m still not fully recovered from the curse.” Midori tells me.
“Curse?” I ask.
“You’ve forgotten that too?” Midori asks.
“Yes. Anyway, Rin will shield as you suggested. We’d better hurry though.” I say and hold out my hand. Everyone places their hands together and then Hermes ports us. There’s a port barrier up, so the port stops short of Heaven’s Fall, but only by a few hundred feet.
Heaven’s Fall is a huge waterfall about seven hundred feet high and over a hundred feet wide. Below the waterfall is a large fast flowing river that leads into the sea. The sound is deafening even a few hundred feet away from the waterfall. The enemy are believed to have made their base behind the waterfall. Using earth magic they seem to have carved into the stone.
It is very defensible when combined with the port barriers and port blocks that they have raised around the waterfall. The rock is magic resistant and so very hard to break or carve with magic, but with enough goblins it is possible. For Contractia however it is simply not practical to carve through the stone, so any attackers must use the tunnels and caves that the enemy have already made. It is a pity we don’t have any dwarven allies to call upon. Even with Kai, or for that matter Yu Kii, we could have sensed where the tunnels led.
Even at a disadvantage though, we have no choice but to attack the enemy and pray we can beat them. With just the four of us though, and with Midori and Hermes not at even close to full strength I am now really worried.
“Midori, can you hide Rin and Hermes?” I ask cautiously.
“Yes. I can hide all of us. Do you plan to sneak in?” Midori asks.
“I think even you would have trouble hiding us as we entered.”
“No. I can do it.” Midori tells me very confidently.
“Are you sure?” I ask dubiously.
“Very. If there’s one thing I am good at it is sneaking.” Midori tells me.
“How did you learn?” I ask but Midori looks uncomfortable and we really don’t have time. “Never mind… If you really can hide us, then the four of us sneaking in sounds like a very good idea.”
“Don’t worry. Just don’t panic and raise a shield. If you are shielded you’ll break my stealth magic. Talking is fine as long as you don’t shout.” Midori tells me and then looks pointedly at Hermes and Rin. Hermes nods and then we are all looking at Rin.
“I’m not going to panic, but if you fail and get us killed, I swear I’ll kill you, Midori.” Rin says with a grin.
“Anyway, I’ll hide us and you can fly us. Make sure not to get too close to the enemy though, because if we touch them, the magic will break.” Midori tells me.
“I’ll do my best. Depending on the size of the tunnels and the positions of the guards it is possible we may need to fight.” I tell Midori who shrugs.
“If we need to fight then we do.” Midori says. She really does seem much more reliable than when she first joined my club. When she went on her first bounty hunt she seemed out of her depth and not always really with it. The way she handled herself today, her ability to hide us and her confident attitude make me start to think of her as an equal.
“You’d better hurry and hide us or we’ll be under attack.” I say as I sense the auras of goblins headed this way.
“Everyone get closer.” Midori says, because we’ve spread out a little since we first ported in. We quickly stand as close together as we can and Midori chants a few words that seem vaguely familiar but that I don’t understand. Then I feel magic wrap around us. I can tell that it doesn’t extend far past Midori but if we fly almost touching each other, or perhaps even touching each other we should be ok.
“Everyone, we’d better press ourselves against each other.” I say nervously. Midori, who is facing me, is quick to press herself against my front. A moment later I feel Rin and Hermes press their bodies against my sides, and of course against Midori’s. Everyone’s bodies pressed against mine feel really soft. Rin and Hermes both have a bit of a blush and so do I, but they don’t complain. Midori on the other hand just seems happy.
I lift us up into the air and send us carefully but quickly towards the waterfall. I slide us behind the falling water so we don’t disrupt it. Given how fast the water is coming down I imagine it might be dangerous to be under it without shielding, and shielding right now would reveal our presence to the enemy.
Ahead I see a large tunnel and am relieved they made it so big. There are goblins guarding the entrance, but we easily fly above them into the dark tunnel. I close my eyes and use my senses instead to guide us.
Chapter 24 (Peter)
Using my wind senses I follow the flow of the air through the main tunnel as it twists and turns, taking care to fly safely above any enemies that we meet. Until we are able to find a clue to our captured comrades location the main tunnel seems the best bet. There are smaller side tunnels, but it will be hard to navigate them safely. If we meet anyone coming the other way we aren’t going to be able to pass them safely even with our bodies pressed together like this, so it would be easy to get trapped and have to fight.
I suspect we could easily beat most enemies we might meet, because most of the enemies we’ve seen here so far are goblins. The problem is that whilst we could beat them one on one, it wouldn’t be one on one or even one on ten. We’ve seen hundreds of goblins already and I suspect that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands. They seem to travel in groups of at least ten and up to about fifty.
Not everyone down here is a goblin either. We’ve seen at least a couple of dozen human mages too. None of them saw through Midori’s stealth magic though. I will have to ask her to help me improve my own if we get out of this alive.
“Wait.” Hermes says quietly but urgently. I quickly stop our movement but I’m not sure what she’s spotted.
“What is it?” I whisper, not wanting to test
the limits of Midori’s stealth magic.
“The wall here is an illusion. There seems to be a lot of fire magic on the other side.” Hermes says and points at the wall just to our left.
“Do you think it would be dangerous to go through the illusion?” I ask her with a frown.
“As long as we go through slowly it should be safe, unless it cancels Midori’s magic.” Hermes says.
“Don’t worry about that.” Midori grins but her forehead is covered in sweat and her aura shows how big a toll the magic is taking on her.
“We’ll take a look.” I say, because we can’t pass up an opportunity like this. As far as we know our captured comrades could be on the other side of that illusion. I move us slowly through the illusion. My senses blur as we pass through it, but we come out safely on the other side.
There are enough flames to easily light the cavern that we now find ourselves in. The grey stone walls of the cavern seem almost natural despite the fact that it must have been carved by the goblins’ magic. It seems to be a forge, not that different from the dwarven forge I worked with in Nirvali, except for the size. This is about two hundred feet high and five hundred feet wide. There are about five hundred goblins chanting and working their fire magic in this huge cavern. Inside the forge is what looks like the upper half of a human skeleton. I gulp as I realise what they are forging here.
“Golem.” Hermes whispers, having realised too.
“Extremely magic resistant.” Rin mutters quietly.
“Prisoners.” Midori whispers, pointing to a grey stone bar running along the right side of the cavern, about twenty feet from the ground.
The stone bar is about ten feet wide and five feet high. From it there are almost fifty human men hanging upside down. They are encased in thick solid green goo from their feet to their waist and the goo seems to be stuck to the stone bar. I can’t make out any of their features below the waist, although I suppose since they are upside down, above the waist would be more accurate. Above, or more precisely below, their waist they are entirely naked.
“Human sacrifices, to power the golem.” Rin says quietly. Then she frowns. “I never imagined that the empire were capable of using such powerful and complex magic. If that golem is completed it would be easy to destroy the academy, and perhaps even the city walls at Utopia Camerona. The capital, Regalia, could certainly withstand an assault by that golem, but with enough of them perhaps even Regalia would fall.”
“With just the four of us there’s nothing we can do.” Midori tells Rin, sounding calm but her aura is shaking.
“Don’t you care about your friends back at the academy?” Rin hisses.
“Of course I do.” Midori tells Rin, again sounding calm, but again her aura shakes.
“Enough.” I whisper. “If we can free the mages that were captured, perhaps we can do something about this, but alone we don’t stand a chance. There are about five hundred goblins in here, and if we attack they will call for reinforcements. I seriously doubt we could beat the goblins here without help, but on our own we certainly can’t beat them and their reinforcements at the same time.”
Rin turns her head to face me. Our faces are less than two inches apart so it is a bit disconcerting to see her staring at me like this.
“Fine, you’re right but we can’t let them complete the golem.” Rin tells me very firmly.
“I don’t plan to. I don’t plan to let those men down there die either.” I tell Rin quite seriously.
“Good.” Rin says and glares at Midori.
“Midori doesn’t want to either.” I tell Rin with a sigh.
“Of course I don’t.” Midori shrugs.
“We’re continuing.” I tell everyone and then move us back through the illusionary cavern wall. On the other side it is too dark to see so I close my eyes and rely on my senses again.
We continue flying along the main tunnel which seems to be winding gradually downwards. It also seems to be getting slightly shorter. For now we are ok, but if it gets too much shorter we could have the same problem that we would have in the side tunnels.
I notice a group of goblins up ahead that are moving much slower than the other goblins we’ve come across in here. I slow down just before reaching them and realise why they are moving so slowly. It isn’t just goblins down there.
There is a long line of human women and men, encased in the same solid green goo that the men we saw earlier were in. They are encased in the goo from just above their knees right up to their necks. Like the men we saw earlier the goo hides their features everywhere that it covers. The goo shakes a little as they walk but it more or less stays in place. Other than the goo I can’t see any clothes. They may be wearing something under the goo but there is no way to tell.
Their auras are weak and the goo makes it even harder to sense their auras, but I count about two hundred prisoners and about thirty goblins. The goblins are spread thin along the line of prisoners so they would have a hard time defending themselves from us if we attack, but it also means that if we attack it will be hard to kill them all quickly. They would certainly call for reinforcements before we finished them all off.
“We’ll follow them and see where they are going. Hopefully they’ll lead us to the other prisoners.” I say quietly.
“Why aren’t there any children?” Rin whispers.
“I don’t know. Maybe they separate them by age?” I say doubtfully.
“Goblins prefer to eat children rather than adults when they have the choice. They wouldn’t even bring the children here to eat. They’d just eat them where they find them.” Midori tells me and I gulp.
“And the empire just lets them eat little kids?” Rin asks in horror.
“The goblins have a lot of power in the empire.” Midori tells her.
“I don’t like this empire.” Rin says in disgust.
“That’s one thing we agree on.” Midori says sympathetically and with a fire in her eyes.
“How do you know about the empire?” I ask Midori.
“It doesn’t matter.” Midori says and from her aura I sense shame and anger. I don’t want to press further but any information we can get right now would be very useful.
“I won’t ask then, but I will ask this. Do you know anything else that could help us?”
“No.” Midori answers straight away. I can’t quite tell from her aura whether or not she is being honest so I’ll just have to trust her.
“Ok.” I tell her.
“Peter…” Hermes says quietly and very nervously.
“Hermes?” I ask with a frown.
“The tunnel gets a lot smaller not far ahead. We’re not going to be able to fly above the enemy for much longer.” Hermes warns me.
“When the time comes we’ll just have to drop down behind the last of the enemies and pray that nothing else catches up with them.” I say nervously.
I open my senses a little wider. I still can’t sense the change in the airflow so it must still be a fair way ahead of us. I also sense a couple of side tunnels ahead, so it is possible that the enemy may turn off before they reach the spot Hermes sensed.
It isn’t long before I can sense the flow of the air change as the tunnel ahead narrows. I keep on praying that the enemy turn off but my prayers aren’t answered. We reach the narrower and shorter part of the main tunnel. It is barely wide enough for the four of us to squeeze through it like we are and we find ourselves pressed even tighter together.
I keep my senses open behind us as well as ahead. If we have to fight here it will be a disaster because targeting the goblins ahead without harming the prisoners would be close to impossible. There is still a powerful port block up so I can’t even port lightning at the enemy. Again I pray. This time my prayers are answered and no enemies catch us up, at least for now.
I sense the tunnel ahead split into at least fifty small tunnels, each about ten to a hundred feet long and at the end of each of those tunnels I sense a large room. Better yet I sense humans i
n most of those rooms and from their weak auras I think they must be prisoners and encased in the same goo as all the prisoners we have come across so far. I don’t sense any guards except the ones that we are following, and there aren’t any doors or bars so the prisoners must be restrained.
The only problem is how to rescue the prisoners. Based on their auras I doubt they’ll be capable of fighting even if they are mages and even if we can get rid of the goo that seems to cover all of the prisoners. It must have taken close to an hour to get this far so there is no quick escape from here. We would also have to fight thousands, or more likely tens of thousands of goblins plus however many human mages to get out of here.
The only possible options are to take out all the goblin guards before they can call for help or to wait until they have left. If they all enter the same room and we attack once they are inside we could probably kill them all at once, but it would be safer to let them leave.
“There seem to be lots of rooms filled with prisoners just up ahead. We’ll hide in one until the guards have left.” I whisper.
“Ok.” Rin says, sounding relieved.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not going to work.” Midori tells me sounding pained.
“Why not?” I ask worriedly.
“I’m almost at my limit. I can last a couple more minutes at most.” Midori tells me weakly. I sense the goblins and prisoners start to enter one of the rooms up ahead. At the rate they are entering the room it will take…
“Three minutes. You need to last three more minutes.” I tell Midori urgently.
“I’ll do my best.” Midori says but she doesn’t sound confident.
“I can give you power if it would help.” I tell her.
“Power isn’t the issue. The longer I use this magic the harder it gets to focus. I’ve never used it long enough for it to become a problem before, but right now my head feels like it is going to explode. So, much as I’d love to kiss you, you can use the power better right now.” Midori tells me and she really does sound like she’s in an awful lot of pain.
