by Brent Tyman
Both magical spears fell to the ground before those, too, disappeared from sight, winking out and taking the light they had provided with them.
The figure was simply gone, as if it had never existed, leaving puzzled looks on the faces of all the soldiers who had been near it.
A flash of color caught my eye, and I looked up to see a familiar face floating above us.
“No way,” I said in disbelief, taking a moment to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.
“It’s you…!”
5
At first, I thought my eyes were deceiving me, or even that this might be some kind of strange, magical illusion.
But the more I stared, the more convinced I became. This was the sickly woman we had healed on our way to the Beastkin town. The one who had been promptly knocked out by the Troglodread only moments after we’d encountered her.
To see her up and about was a massive relief, but something else about her appearance was bothering me.
How the heck was she floating?
The woman looked like she was drifting in a billowing tempest. Her crimson red hair swirled wildly behind her as her figure floated above us. Small streaks of wind circled around her, which was likely part of the magic she used to float like that.
I had to admit, it was pretty impressive.
Her gaze swept over the entirety of our party before settling on me, of all people. She made a few slight hand gestures and then slowly sank down towards us, neatly landing where the shadowy figure had once stood.
We were all fairly puzzled by her appearance, especially the soldiers here who had not seen her before, those who’d been separated from us in the initial cave in caused by the Troglodread.
Either way, every soldier near her remained wary and raised their swords as they surrounded her.
“Alex,” Juliana said, a concerned look on her face as she approached me. “Isn’t that…”
“Yeah,” I breathed. “I didn’t think we would see her again, not after she disappeared from the apothecary several days ago.”
“Uhh, what now handsome?” Clarissa said as she appeared next to my side with Anny in tow. “Was she the one who threw those spears? She’s got some real power in her.”
“Probably,” I said. “What we need to do is figure out what the heck is going on.”
“Agreed,” Clarissa said, before shouting at the soldiers. “Hey! Let her through already!”
The soldiers were hesitant at first, but eventually backed off enough to give the woman some space. She watched all of us with only a hint of curiosity on her face before she approached.
And headed directly to me.
On closer inspection, I could see that she looked much healthier than when I had last seen her. Her skin practically glowed from the light emitted by Clarissa’s magic, her eyes were a perfect shade of hazel and she looked as beautiful as ever.
She had worn a tattered cloak and robe that hid most of her armor when I first encountered her, and I had only caught glimpses of her expensive looking armor before.
Expensive didn’t even begin to describe how it looked without those robes hiding it. Exorbitant was more like it.
Her armor was pure white, with gold trim along its edges and seams. It hugged her curves and almost seemed like it glowed at times. I hadn’t noticed any of that when I had first seen her.
Even surrounded by wary soldiers who still stood with their weapons at the ready behind her, she looked like a force to be reckoned with. I had no doubt at all that, despite my having to heal her previously, this woman was powerful.
She stopped only two feet in front of me and gave me a curious once over, her hazel eyes twinkling.
“You are Alex, correct?” she asked in a velvety smooth voice.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Thanks for your help with that thing. I’m not sure if you remember us, but we worried about you all the same when you disappeared from Valdura.”
She smiled at that and slowly dipped her head.
“It’s an honor to have you care for me. I would have come to you sooner, but my duty remained unfulfilled.”
“Duty?” Juliana asked as she eyed the rest of her retinue coming over to us. “Vencia, would you please heal Daiver? He’s still…”
“Do I have to?” Vencia complained, but after a sharp look from Juliana, she headed off towards the man’s crumpled form.
Daiver probably wouldn’t be pleased that he’d missed most of the battle when he woke up.
“I apologize,” the woman said. “I wished I could have intervened sooner, but tracking you down was more difficult than I’d thought it would be.”
“I would say,” Clarissa replied, crossing her arms. “I’m surprised Anny wasn’t able to see you with her skill.”
“Ahh, that’s right,” Anny chirped, pointing towards where the figure had been. “I didn’t see any auras at all from that shadowy guy, and now I see that yours is…” Her eyes got really wide. “Yours is… a beautiful white and gold.”
That was fitting, since she was wearing armor in those colors, too.
“Let’s begin with introductions, first,” I said. “My name is Alex Augere and…”
“Yes,” the woman interrupted. “You are the one who healed me, correct?”
“Not without considerable effort,” Clarissa said, wagging a finger at the woman while gripping my arm with her other hand. “My handsome Alex has quite a large repertoire of tools at his disposal, many, many big and… useful tools.”
I shook my head and tried not to laugh outright. Jeez Clarissa…
“What’s your name?” I asked.
The woman stood up a little straighter. “Please,” she said, “call me Aurielle of Trukasa.”
“Aurielle,” I said, testing the name on my tongue.
“My guess was correct,” Juliana said with a smile. “She is from the South Pralisian Deserts.”
“The southern deserts!” Karl blurted out as he scribbled notes on a parchment. It seemed he intended to jot down our entire exchange. “My source for news of events that are transpiring down there hasn’t responded for the past few months. It would be incredibly valuable to my research if you would be willing to answer some questions.”
“I see,” Aurielle said. “Perhaps, but I wish to speak to Alex in private first, if possible.”
There was a moment of silence at that, but then Clarissa raised an eyebrow.
“Vencia and I should heal the soldiers who are injured,” Clarissa said as she fixed a speculative gaze on Aurielle, as if she were judging her. “While we did heal you, we still don’t know why you were in that cavern, or what your motives are now.”
“Hmm,” Kesara hummed. “I’m not sure what to make of a woman who can hurl those magical spears and float in the air. Even Karl and Juliana can’t do that.”
“Exactly, exactly,” Karl agreed. “Hence, I have already calculated a few theories already on how she did so, taking into account those swirls of winds I observed.”
“I think if Aurielle intended us harm, she would have attacked us already,” I told Clarissa. “I’m sure we can give her some leeway.”
“Hmm,” Juliana mused as she, too, studied Aurielle with a critical eye. “I believe we all have some questions for you, before we can properly decide how much trust to grant you. Let us first take care of our soldiers, though.”
It seemed both of my women were skeptical of Aurielle’s intentions. On the one hand, I didn’t blame them. It was clear she was incredibly powerful and there were also unanswered questions about what she was doing here, what ‘unfinished duty’ had caused her to disappear from the apothecary, never mind her being in the cavern near Valdura, in the first place.
Since she had left the Beastkin town shortly after waking in the apothecary, she evidently hadn’t had any business there.
I was glad that my ladies were looking out for me, but for some reason, I instinctively knew we could trust this woman. Aurielle had something about her
… something that drew me to her. I couldn’t quite place what it was.
It wasn’t just that she was easy on the eyes. Those full lips and striking gaze had me staring in wonder at her beauty. It was more than her pretty face that pulled at something deep inside me.
Aurielle offered me a smile before nodding back to Juliana. “As you wish, please by all means, tend to your soldiers. I will wait right here,” she said.
Juliana motioned for some of her soldiers to keep an eye on Aurielle as the rest of us separated to tend to the wounded. Thankfully, no one had perished during our encounter with the shadowy figure. There were quite a lot of scrapes and bruises from its magical attacks and a few soldiers were unconscious, having hit their heads against the hard ground or the cavern’s wall, but it was nothing a little healing wouldn’t cure.
“Ugh,” Daiver groaned as he held his head. “I feel like I’ve been tossed aside like a rag.”
“That’s because you were, you doofus,” Vencia sniffed as she stood up from where she’d knelt by his side. “Next time, you might consider not jumping into the fray against an enemy all by yourself.”
“It was heroic, none the less,” Daiver retorted, snapping out of his daze to look around. “I see I have missed the rest of the battle… unless I managed to defeat whatever that was?”
“In your dreams, Daiver,” Kesara snorted from nearby, as she bandaged another soldier’s wounds. “You missed all but the first blow of the fight. Even Clarissa Vos Hoganna got a good swipe in on that thing. This is going to make for some juicy gossip when we get back to the Academy.”
“No!” he lamented, “foiled again. Life’s fickle fortunes for a noble like me are truly cruel. Opportunities for proving my strength are always slipping beyond my grasp. How infuriating.”
I chuckled softly, listening to him complain. I was glad to see Daiver had recovered and was back to his usual self. I helped a soldier get to his feet who was still a bit dazed from the figure’s magical explosion, keeping him still as Clarissa healed what was likely a concussion.
“What do you make of Aurielle?” I asked Clarissa quietly.
“She’s a right beauty, haha,” the soldier we were healing laughed. “Took that thing down without a fuss.”
“Hmm,” Clarissa mused. “She seems uptight… a lot like Juliana.” She motioned to the soldier that she was done and shooed him away. “But… uhh, what’s the proper word for it, handsome? Ah, honor! I heard the South Desert folk are all about their honor and oaths. She exudes that duty bound, honorable mindset in spades.”
“I’m still wondering what she wants with me,” I pondered out loud. “We did heal her, so maybe she just wants to just thank me personally. The Beastkin at the apothecary must have told her about me, since she knew my name.”
Clarissa drew close, her breath tickling my neck as her lips split into a sly smirk.
“Maybe she wants to thank you properly, in more… exhilarating ways.”
I rolled my eyes before letting out a chuckle at that.
“Never change, Clarissa,” I said as I wrapped my arm around her waist and kissed her soundly on the lips.
“Ohhh,” Clarissa hummed, “I don’t intend to.” She purred as she drew back. “But we still don’t know what she is doing down here. Don’t take your eyes off her, handsome.”
With Aurielle’s beauty, that shouldn’t be too difficult. Honestly, it was hard not to just stare at her. It wasn’t long before all the soldiers were back into fighting shape, making it time for me to speak to Aurielle.
Juliana had been watching Aurielle like a hawk this whole time. She took her role of keeping this party safe quite seriously; I could only be impressed with her diligence. She had been standing amongst some guards who remained alert near the beauty in the white and gold armor.
The target of this scrutiny looked serene, as she calmly waited for me to come talk to her. I finally joined Juliana and the others as we all gathered around Aurielle, ordering the guards to stand back but still keep watch. Aurielle, despite the circumstance of how we’d met, was still an unknown to all of us.
When her eyes met mine, a breath caught in my throat.
Whoa...
“Allow me to go over introductions in full, for those you do not yet know,” Juliana started, eying Aurielle. “I am Juliana Vos Tasberg, heir to the Tasberg Sovereignty.”
I wondered if everyone would prattle on about every piece of land they were in line to inherit. If that were the case, this might take a good while. I already found it hard enough to keep track of, and I’d heard the impressively long spiel from each of them several times. Then again, students at the Academy took their Clans and bloodlines extremely seriously, especially Daiver.
“These are my retainers,” Juliana continued, pointing to each in turn. “Daiver, Karl, Vencia and Kesara. And that is Clarissa Vos Hoganna, heir to the Hoganna Federation and her retainer, Anny.”
Huh, guess it would just be first names for everyone. That worked for me.
“Daiver Vos Hexladanis, heir to the Dukedom of Favona,” the man blurted out. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. This armor of mine costs almost as much as the equipment of ten adventurers put together, and I have three spares to boot.”
If there had been crickets in this cavern, I’m sure we would have heard them chirp and nothing else after that line. I pinched the bridge of my own nose in consternation.
“Lovely introduction there Daiver,” Kesara drawled. “Is that how you open up at these balls of yours?”
Daiver looked ready to protest, but a quick glance at Juliana’s unamused face silenced him.
“It is truly an honor to meet each and every one of you,” Aurielle said, a smile on her pretty face. She bowed her head slightly before continuing. “You had questions for me, if I recall?”
“Yeah, what the heck was that thing?” Kesara said, pointing to where the shadowy figure had stood. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Indeed,” Karl agreed. “Such a creature, if I can even call it that, is completely unknown to me. It spoke and had a humanoid appearance, yet I could find nothing about a shadowy creature that gives off no aura listed in any of my notes.”
Could he really have sifted through all of his notes in such a short amount of time? I supposed Karl probably had an inkling about whether or not a particular event or person might be mentioned in his notes at all, in which case, he could then look it up.
Or, maybe, he really was just that fast.
“Oh, yes,” Aurielle said as we turned to her for an answer. “That being is called a Malophas. I’m sorry that you were caught up in its hunt. It must have been searching for me.”
“Malophas, Malophas,” Karl muttered to himself, reaching into his robes to pull out a weathered stack of parchments bound tightly together.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Vencia said, tapping her chin in thought. “Have you, My Lady?”
“No, never,” Juliana replied. “What can you tell us about them?”
“Not much, I am afraid,” Aurielle said and shook her head. “They appeared in my homeland some time ago and have been hunting me ever since.”
“It called you ‘the Chosen’, if I remember right,” I added. “What does that mean?”
Aurielle gave me a long, sad look before sighing heavily.
“War has ravaged my homeland and… it matters not. The Seers of my land chose me to receive great power, to fight for my people to my last breath, and yet… the enemy was too strong, even for me.”
Aurielle took a long breath before she recounted a brief description of her past.
There had apparently been seven of these ‘Chosen’ the Seers of the southern desert had selected to receive some strange kind of power. I figured that had to be the same magic she’d used to create that giant glowing spear of hers.
She was a little vague on what had happened to her homeland but, from what I gathered, the nation that inhabited the land to the south had fallen
into chaos when a string of untimely deaths amongst many of the ruling Clan heirs left the whole place in a massive succession crisis.
These Malophas creatures had appeared at the height of the crisis and, to top it all off, monsters from the southern Dungeon started appearing on the surface, in droves.
That last part was eerily similar to what was happening here… Well, monsters were seemingly moving up to floors they had no business being on, at least. The more intelligent monsters, like those Ogres, had started to make a play for the surface, it seems.
Between the succession crisis, the monsters and these Malophas running around, the south Pralisian Deserts was probably not the best place to find peace and quiet these days.
“An enthralling tale,” Karl said, scribbling notes furiously on his parchment. “What of these other ‘Chosen’ of yours? Are they here in the Dungeon, as well?”
“No,” Aurielle replied, shaking her head. “All of them perished in the fight against the monsters and these Malophas. I am the last of the Chosen.”
“I suppose we now have an explanation of what happened to the south Deserts,” Juliana said, tapping her cheek in thought. “But Aurielle, if your homeland has been ravaged by so much war and you are still needed, why are you here?”
Aurielle hesitated as she fumbled absently with her armored gauntlet, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she considered what to tell us.
“You can take some time to rest first, if you like,” I suggested. “Trying to catch up to us in this Dungeon must have been tiring.”
Aurielle smiled at that, but shook her head.
“I thank you, but I am fine. You see… I was cursed years ago by… well, I do not wish to state how I was cursed, but my stats gradually declined as time went on. When the last of my peers perished, it was all too evident to the Seers that I was far weaker than I should be.”
“A curse?” Vencia asked, her interest piqued all of a sudden. “One that reduced your stats?”
Aurielle nodded. “It also caused me great pain whenever I used my magic.”
