by Ian Rodgers
“Why didn’t you say anything beforehand?” I asked, and the halberdier shrugged.
“I can only assume it was the adrenaline running through me. I was too focused on fending off and avoid the Iron Bristle orcs that I didn’t notice the slight tingling sensation Long-Tail caused when she was nearby.”
Concerned, I sent a few discrete spells Long-Tail’s way. When they failed to register anything even remotely Void related, I sagged in relief.
“There’s no trace of Void energy on her,” I replied. “Unless it’s so well hidden my spells cannot detect it.”
“It’s the Void, Jellik. Who says it isn’t erasing its presence to your detection magic in the first place?” Gaelin pointed out, not unreasonably.
“Fair enough,” I grunted. “But you get to be the one to explain to Dora why I’m casting any more diagnostic spells on her friend.”
Gaelin glanced over at the half-orc in question and flinched back from the glare she was giving the two of us.
“She looks mad,” he said, rather pointlessly.
“Dora is quite the skilled Healer, Gaelin. It’s only natural she’d detect me using magic on Long-Tail-Shadow. Probably even recognized the spells, too. I don’t think she’s very appreciative of the fact that I scanned her friend with a few variations of the Detect Evil and Detect Truth spells,” I stated.
He winced. “Yeah, that would do it.”
Apparently, Gaelin’s show of weakness was enough for Dora, because she let out a huff and turned her gaze away, going back to chatting with the Rakkar.
I chuckled quietly at the way the whole scene had turned out. “Just let the matter go,” I advised Gaelin. “Regardless of being the Void’s pawn or not, we can’t do anything to her without proof. So, relax, and if you can’t take my advice, just be extra vigilant around Long-Tail.”
Gaelin sighed in frustration at my words, but nodded all the same.
“Oi! Boy in the Berserker armor! I need some help with your weapon!” Grandor’s voice suddenly boomed out over the weapon littered front yard.
“Coming!” the halberdier called back, and he got up. I bounced down from my perch as well, curious to see what he needed. Even Dora looked intrigued, though she stayed where she was.
“What exactly do you need?” Gaelin asked, taking off his helmet as he did so. The interior of the forge was ferociously hot as usual, and Grandor’s bare upper body was shining with sweat. He was currently standing in front of a crucible filled with molten silver.
“Some of your hair, blood, and a fragment of your soul,” he replied, and we both froze at his request.
“Why?” Gaelin demanded.
“Because the only way I can make a weapon that, if broken while imbued with the Shatterbane hex, can slay the person who broke it, I have to forge something unique,” Grandor explained. “And Soul Silver is one of the few materials I know of that fits the bill.”
“Soul Silver? What’s that?” I asked, and the master smith acknowledged my question with a snort.
“Soul Silver is rare and precious. It’s made by fusing pure, high-grade silver, normally a highly magically resistant substance, with a piece of a living creature’s soul. In doing so, any weapon or artifact forged from it will be attuned to the wielder, growing in power, durability, and ability as the user does,” Grandor revealed. “However, it comes at a price: weapon and wielder are so closely linked that damaging the weapon harms the wielder. And if it were to break…”
“I might die. Or be crippled at best,” Gaelin finished for him. Grandor nodded solemnly.
“This is the only way that I can make something capable of doing as you wish. Otherwise, no matter how fine the material, it won’t affect the Void-tainted essence of your opponent,” the master smith stated.
“I’m risking my life and soul regardless,” Gaelin said after thinking it over briefly. He shrunk his halberd down to handheld size, then reached up and severed some of his hair with it. He passed the brown strands over to Grandor, who took them and added the hair to the molten silver in front of him.
“Hair begins the familiarization process,” the dwarf explained as the brown clump burnt and melted into the silver. He held up a knife. “Then, we add in your blood, to prepare for binding the soul fragment into the liquified silver.”
Gaelin took the blade and carefully cut his left palm open, dripping his life juices into the crucible. After a few seconds Grandor nudged his arm away, muttering that he’d given plenty.
“Now, the trickiest part,” the shortest of the Six Heroes declared, holding up what looked like tongs made of glowing pink crystal. “Pulling out your soul without killing ya.”
Gaelin made a sound that was a cross between a gurgling choke and a wheeze of terror at the smith’s words.
“Take off the armor,” he urged. “It’s easier to grab the soul from a person’s chest, and we can’t have anything in the way.”
Nervously, Gaelin stripped. As he removed the Berserker armor from his torso, he began to pant, the heat hitting him as the cooling charms in his black full plate no longer affected him.
A strangled gasp came from where we’d left Dora and Long-Tail-Shadow, and I looked over at them. I was surprised to see Dora staring at Gaelin’s toned abs and upper body, a red blush on her face. Had I eyes, I would have rolled them.
‘Silly non-slime-based mortals and their hormones!’ I sighed to myself. ‘I swear, if they start courting, I am going to make sure my tent is as far from theirs as possible!’
Dora snapped out of her funk when Long-Tail-Shadow started giggling, having seen where the Healer’s gaze had drifted. She pouted at her friend and deliberately turned away from watching the spectacle that was Gaelin’s toned body.
Grandor snickered to himself as well, and I joined in, leaving Gaelin bewildered, and the only person who didn’t know why we were laughing.
A quick cough from Grandor put his amusement to the side, and he stood atop a stool so he could reach Gaelin’s chest easier. Carefully, he pressed the tongs against the area above Gaelin’s heart, and the glow around the crystalline material intensified.
Slowly, and with extreme care, Grandor pushed the tongs into Gaelin’s chest. They phased through flesh without leaving a mark, though Gaelin sucked in a gasp at the sensation. I watched, fascinated, as Grandor tenderly extracted a shimmering, shining, glowing silver lily flower, its stem reaching back into the young man’s chest.
“Is that my soul?” Gaelin asked, his voice laced with awe and barely above a whisper.
“Aye. Souls take on various forms when extracted like this. Makes it easier to remove small bits of them when they have a defined shape,” Grandor grunted.
With the pink crystal tongs still clutching the extracted soul, he reached down to his tool belt and removed a pair of wicked-looking, black metallic shears. With one hand he reached out and snipped a petal off of the soul-lily, causing the halberdier to wince in pain.
Over with Dora, Long-Tail-Shadow let out a gasp of pain and she doubled over, clutching her bandaged left hand. Curiously it happened at the exact time Grandor snipped off some of Gaelin’s soul.
“Long-Tail? What’s wrong?” the half-orc asked worriedly. She leaned over to try and place her hands, glowing with Healing magic, on her friend, but the Rakkar scrambled away, doing her best to distance herself from Dora.
“S-stay away!”
“Quiet down over there, I’m trying to concentrate!” Grandor snapped as he tried to delicately push Gaelin’s soul back into his body while also keeping a stable hand on the shears which held the petal of pure soul energy.
“Um, Grandor? Just out of curiosity, what would happen if a soul were to suddenly be removed from the body without any wards or barriers nearby? Specifically, the soul of a Chosen One?” I asked, a sinking feeling of dread welling up within me.
“Well, first off, I’m not an idiot. I’ve plastered my home and the area around it with numerous wards to contain any magic leakage. So, the p
erson would have to be close by to even sense anything,” Grandor said, grunting as he managed to shove the lily shaped soul back inside Gaelin, who doubled over in pain and relief.
“As for detecting something? Yeah, removing a soul releases a lot of energy. Damaging it would also cause a ripple of energy to be unleashed. And a Chosen One’s soul has a ton of power with a very unique feel, so if we weren’t warded, all of Gaeum, and probably a few other planes, would have felt it and come looking.”
“Oh boy,” I muttered, staring at Long-Tail-Shadow. Something had happened to her when Gaelin’s soul was pruned. Her left hand was starting to seep a malignant energy that I hadn’t noticed before. Had the bandages been acting a seal to keep me or anyone else from sensing what lay beneath?
“Long-Tail, please, let me help!” Dora begged.
“N-nooo!” the Rakkar wept, crawling away from the Healer, shame and fear marring her face and emotions.
“Gaelin, get your armor on,” I told him, not daring to look away from Long-Tail-Shadow.
“Huh?” he grunted, still recovering from the procedure.
“Armor! Now! Because I think we might have a big problem!” I shouted at him.
“What sort of problem?” Gaelin inquired as he reached for his armor and began to put it on.
“I think you were right to be wary about Long-Tail,” I replied ominously.
All of a sudden, the Rakkar’s left paw tore itself from her arm, separating in a welter of foul, inky black ichor that hissed and steamed as it hit the ground. The paw flew, bandages unraveling, towards the entrance to the forge.
‘Right where the wards are the weakest,’ I realized in horror.
It stopped right at the edge, and as the severed limb did so, the last of the cloth wrap fell away, revealing a rotting green eye imbedded in the back of the Rakkar’s paw. Somehow, it was still alive, as it blinked slowly, and the paw began to draw symbols in the air.
I leapt into action, refusing to allow it to finish whatever ritual it was performing, and sent a barrage of lightning bolts at the floating paw. To my horror, the rotten eye glowed, and grey flames lashed out, swallowing up my spells, utterly annihilating them.
“No!” I hissed. Behind me, Grandor swore.
“Plodz! Boy, get your armor on faster! We’ve got company!” he shouted at Gaelin.
“What about you?” the halberdier asked, not unreasonably.
“I’m going to finish making your weapons!” he declared. “You’re going to need them to fight off whatever is coming!”
Grandor rushed back into the forge, gingerly clutching the fragment of Gaelin’s soul as he ran around his work space, checking on the other weapons he was busy making.
I rushed outside, plopping down a few feet in front of Dora. She had managed to get to Long-Tail’s side, and was staring in horror at the stump of her left arm as it leaked toxic Void gunk.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” the Rakkar cried, rocking back and forth in Dora’s arms.
I didn’t have time to offer any words of comfort, sadly. The severed paw had finished doing whatever ritual it’d started, and the glowing runes and symbols in the air flared with dark purple light before fading. In their place, a series of cracks appeared in the air, and the plane trembled as something reached out from beyond and pried the wound in reality open even further. Grandor’s wards trembled and quaked, unable to resist the power seeping into the area.
A crackle of shattering glass filled Grandor’s front yard, and a hole in the fabric of time and space was ripped open, the dwarf’s magical defenses falling. Two entities pushed themselves through the dimensional tear, sealing it behind them. As for the detached paw, its mission finished, it fell to the ground and began to disintegrate into black sand that was trampled by the two invaders.
The first was an obese male humanoid, flesh a pallid grey that was writhing with strange black tattoos. Bone spikes jutted randomly from his body, sometimes in places that looked like it would make moving or sitting awkward. He was clad in ripped and faded black robes several sizes too small, a bulging belly exposed for all to witness. The way he licked his lips as he glanced over everyone sent terror shooting through my core.
The second entity through the forcefully opened portal was without a doubt the most bizarre and unsettling abomination I’d ever seen.
Its flesh, too, was a pale, corpse grey color. But it wore no clothes to hide any modesty. After all, what does a hand have to hide? The entity was a massive left hand, floating a couple feet above the ground. In the middle of the palm was a large, lipless mouth, currently smirking toothily at us.
The pinky and thumb had ears attached to the tips, where a person’s finger prints would normally be. The index and ring fingers each had a purple and gold eye on the tips, creating eerie eyestalks. A nose was attached to the middle finger, and was constantly sniffing the air. And where the wrist terminated, a pair of spindly, frail looking arms, both also containing left-handed hands, dangled freely.
Dora gasped in horror as they emerged, somehow recognizing them. Long-Tail-Shadow only wept harder.
“Look Bolgoros! It’s the Chosen One who got away from us last time!” the hand-shaped abomination chortled in a reedy, rasping male voice.
“She won’t get away this time, Selquist,” the fatty boomed, his voice a trembling baritone, though it carried a hint of childishness within.
“No, she won’t,” the hand hissed darkly. “And what luck! She was even kind enough to find some more Chosen Ones for us to massacre! Now our brother won’t be able to keep punishing us for losing track of her the first time!”
“But shouldn’t we tell Brother Enom? He said we should kill the Chosen Ones together, as a family,” Bolgoros inquired.
“Forget him! After that punishment he gave us, I think we deserve to let out a little steam!” Selquist sneered angrily. “Besides, we can handle ‘em ourselves! They’re just a pathetic human and a half-orc! No threat at all!”
The hand tilted slightly as the eyestalks regarded me while I trembled in fear. “Though I’ve never seen or heard of an Ooze becoming a Chosen One… How interesting…”
At that, Bolgoros snorted. “Heh, it sort of looks like that Ooze sister was lamenting over. Purple and gold, right?”
“Yes, odd coincidence, that,” the hand mused, before making an elaborate bow. “Greetings, Chosen Ones. I am Selquist, Hand of Typhon and his Last Act. Next to me is my brother, Bolgoros, Flesh of Typhon and his Last Meal. We’re here to kill you in the name of Zard, the Dweller in the Void.”
The moment Selquist finished his speech, Bolgoros shot towards Dora like a rushing boulder, fist raised to crush her skull in a single blow. She was still holding onto Long-Tail-Shadow, so I interposed myself between them, but found that I need not have bothered. Like a flash of dark lightning, Gaelin appeared, fully clad in his Berserker armor, and his Shapeless Raiment forming radiant purple wings behind him.
He swung his divine halberd like it was a sportsball stick and Bolgoros was the ball, striking the fat Void spawn away. The bulbous entity slammed into the wall of the cavern, and the lava burbled as rocks and Void ichor dribbled into it.
“Three Chosen Ones! Oh, Brother Enom will be so happy when we’ve eliminated you!” Selquist crowed in joy.
“That’s not going to happen!” Gaelin retorted, getting into a fighting stance. “Bladewave!”
A shockwave of silver lashed out at the hand-like Void entity, but it simply raised one of its boney arms and slapped the spell aside, sending the scything energy sideways away from it.
“Is that it?” Selquist sneered. “Oh well. Bolgoros, play with this one for a bit. I want to see what this little slime can do.”
“Ah, but brother, I wanted to kill that one!” the obese entity whined as he pulled himself from the crater in the wall. “I haven’t eaten an Ooze in so long! They hardly ever appear in the Aether, and we’re not allowed to go to the Mortal Realms anymore! Please, brother, let me eat it!”
>
“Fine, if you kill the armored one you can eat the slime,” Selquist sighed.
With a childish shriek of joy, Bolgoros burst from the stone wall, hurtling towards Gaelin, who lunged forward, halberd gleaming with a Magic Edge spell. The two clashed, sending rubble and dust flying everywhere. Ichor spurted out of a huge wound in the Void spawn’s side where the divine halberd had struck, staining the ground black, but already I could detect the wound was knitting itself back together.
“I feel so special,” I uttered deadpan as I dodged a spell that Selquist hurled at me through the haze of dust that’d been thrown up earlier.
“Such a rare specimen! Not since my sister or dear Aunt Panacea have I beheld an Ooze capable of speech!” Selquist revealed.
“You know, it’s hard to believe you are related to such a kind and helpful entity,” I shot back.
“Don’t speak as if you know her!” Selquist screeched, tossing orbs of grey fire at me, and I scoffed at him while countering his spells with flames of my own.
“I do know her! In fact, I even met her! She called out to me specifically from the Ocean of Ink in Pluton, and she helped me meet Dora! Lady Panacea is way too good for Void spawn like you to be related to her!” I retorted.
A furious screech was Selquists response, and he lobbed a crackling orb of Void-tainted energy at me. I cast a Fireball at it, but was horrified to see that my spell was devoured by my opponent’s.
Dodging the incoming orb was the only sensible thing, and I was immensely glad I did so, for the sphere of deathly power devoured the soil and stone around it, creating an impossibly smooth crater where it landed, just where I had previously been standing.
In retaliation, I hurled a dozen bolts of lightning at the hand-creature, but Selquist sneered and banished them with contemptuous ease.
“Is that all?” it asked mockingly.
“How are you able to destroy all of my spells?!” I snarled in annoyance. Without those, I’d have to rely on my own abilities as an Ooze, and I had a sneaking suspicion that acid and poison would be no useless against this Void abomination.
