Entering the Sandcastle of the Mad Dune Mage.
Zzzzt. I cringed as the door vanished behind me. The walls didn’t collapse, but the doorway disappeared. We were now stuck in the castle. Darkness encompassed us.
“Light,” I whispered, and Donut cast her Torch spell.
“Gah!” We all cried out as the brilliant light became unbearable. The torchlight bounced off the walls, changing colors, blinding us with a prism of hues.
“Turn it down!”
“This is the lowest it goes,” Donut said a moment later. The spell was now just a tiny ember floating in the air, causing the glass hallway to glow brightly and with a rainbow of light every time the ember moved. I took a step forward, and the glass floor crunched under my feet. It didn’t break, nor did it visibly crack, but it felt as if the floor rested upon an uneven dusting of gravel. The walls and floor were warm to the touch.
A long, thin hallway spread before us. The hallway was made of a cloudy, white and blue glass filled with cracks and imperfections and lightning-patterned streaks of black that sparkled in Donut’s light. The ground and walls were uneven, as if they were almost a natural formation. A t-junction appeared at the end of the hall.
Katia was forced to shed some mass in order to stand upright.
“How’s the map look?” I whispered. Whispering felt appropriate. The glass hallway felt eerily abandoned, like alive at the same time. It was difficult to explain. Like we were exploring a photograph and not living, breathing place.
“It’s a bunch of rooms and a few stairways, both up and down,” Katia said. “I see the level stairwell. It’s below us in the basement. I don’t see any monsters at all.”
“Look, look, I found something!” Donut said, jumping from Mongo’s back to the floor. She poked at a small lump with her paw. It was a glass mouse. The tiny thing was frozen in time, running along the edge of the hallway. Its feet were melded with the floor. She reached forward to touch it, and it broke into dust.
“Ew, ew,” she said, returning to Mongo, wiping her paw on his feathers. “It just exploded!”
“I think this place used to be real,” I said. “I mean, like a real castle, and that guy did something that turned everything into sand. Or glass. I’m not really sure what’s going on here.”
The hallway was too thin for us to stand side-by-side. Katia went first, Mongo second, and I held up the rear. If we got attacked from the front, Donut would leap to my shoulder. We had just under two hours, and this place wasn’t that big. We decided to quickly clear this floor and the upper floors first before descending to the basement with the throne room. We hit the first junction. The right led to an up and down stairwell, and the left turned to a large room with a fountain and statue within.
Everything in the room was made of glass, frozen in time, including the fountain. I stepped forward to examine it, wary for monsters or traps. There was no movement or sound other than the crunching under our own feet and Mongo’s nails scratching upon the glass.
The statue was human-sized, and it depicted a robed, female figure holding her arms out while she stood in the middle of the round fountain. Arcs of sparkling, crystal-clear glass sprouted up from the figure’s feet, raising to about waist height before curving downward again. The glass gave the impression of movement. This statue and fountain, before it had been turned to glass and frozen, had been of a woman standing in a bowl, arms outstretched in a Jesus pose but with her legs planted in a wide stance, her mouth wide open, as if she was belting out a tune. The fountain’s water flowed upward from all around her feet. It would’ve appeared that she was standing amongst a crashing wave. Or maybe atop a geyser.
Upon closer examination, I realized the glass statue did not depict a human. Her large eyes and small nose looked somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t place it at first. A pair of sharp teeth poked from the tops of her large lips within her wide-open mouth. Then I saw the gills on her neck, and I knew.
I’d last seen Tsarina Signet on the third floor. The half-high elf, half-naiad elite was the catalyst for the whole circus quest. When—if—I got down to the next floor, I still had a contract to fulfill. She was part of a third-party drama that used the production’s setting to create their show. It was called Vengeance of the Daughter, and it involved some story involving high elves, naiads, and genocide. I was obligated to participate in the program when and if we ever made it down to that level.
This robed creature depicted before me was also a half-naiad… a water nymph. A fairy-type creature that lived in the water. But instead of being half elf, it appeared this one was half human. This one didn’t have the same horns on her head as Tsarina, but even in glass form, I could see she was very similar.
“Look,” Katia said. She reached down and broke away a piece of clear crystal, revealing a small, glass plate on the side of the fountain. The glass words were almost impossible to read, but when I examined it, the system happily read it for me.
Ahh, an old, crystalized figure with a cryptic description. How very convenient for those of us who are wondering wtf is going on with this storyline.
When the glass wizard’s research facility was transmuted, everything within was also transformed, including what you see before you now. At the base of this display is a small plaque. If you squint really hard, you can make out the faded words. It reads:
Lika, my love.
My sun and stars. My wife. M’lady, I will move the heavens so we can be together. I will burn and bury and destroy any who try to stop our love.
“Well that’s ominous,” Katia said.
Mongo leaned over to sniff at the statue. What had once been water was made of the clean, translucent glass. The statue itself was made of the same dirty-looking, multicolored glass that composed everything else in the castle. The whole thing wobbled when he sniffed, surprising him. The dinosaur screeched at the statue, scrambling back. We all hopped back as it toppled over and shattered. The sound was like a gunshot in the large room.
“Whoops,” I said.
The shattered glass mostly turned to dust. The glass head of the naiad remained mostly intact, though part of her chin was now chipped. I took the head into my inventory along with a few of the larger, intact pieces of glass, which the inventory called fulgurite. For the head, the description read:
Decapitated glass head depicting Lika from Troubadour’s Bounty.
It’s sticky.
Before I could figure out what in the hell that meant, I received a message.
Gwen: Hey bomber guy. I’m trusting you’re not dead yet. Tran reports that your hunch was correct. The electric line perfectly matches up with the wheel and the contact at the bottom of the tower.
Carl: Okay. Have him hook it up to the wheel, but not the tower. Then have him stand by in case I need him to attach it.
Gwen: If lightning hits it, it might, you know, electrically open up the release valve. You probably don’t want that happening while you’re standing in the castle. It’d be like stepping in front of one of those trains from the last floor.
Carl: Yeah, I am aware. So please don’t connect it unless I ask.
The valve opened when you physically turned it. I suspected electrifying the metal valve actually did something else, but I wasn’t certain just yet. I hoped we wouldn’t have to test it while we were standing in the middle of the castle.
Gwen: All right. You are a crazy fucker. I’ll give you that. But you guys better hurry.
“Come on,” I said to the others. “Let’s keep moving.”
We explored the remaining rooms on the first level of the castle, but they were all empty. There were paintings and furniture made of glass, but I couldn’t tell what they’d once been, and the furniture turned to dust or broke into pieces when I tried to dislodge it from the floor. The paintings were nothing but squares on the walls.
We went up the stairs, and it was more of the same. There was a table full of potions. I touched one, and it also turned to fine dust that swirled
up in the air. I covered my mouth and backed away, afraid to breathe it in. It was finally dawning on me that there might be a way to turn all of this back, and we were destroying potential loot. Outside, we could hear the sandstorm blowing loudly through the walls. Lightning continued to crash.
“Let’s stop touching shit and get this rolling,” I said.
“Agreed,” Katia said.
We moved to the basement. The ceiling here was low. It was only a few inches over my head, adding to the sense of claustrophobia. Katia had to widen her hips and lower her height to continue. At the base of the stairs was a small, round room with a large, wooden door against the far wall. The door was wide and went all the way to the low ceiling. It wasn’t made of glass or sand, and it wasn’t magical. It was just a regular door, and it was the first non-glass item we’d seen since coming in here. I paused, examining it for traps. Flashing light streamed from underneath the door.
This was obviously the boss chamber for the castle.
“It looks like it’s just one big room on the other side,” Katia said. “There’s just one small room beyond that, and it’s the level stairwell.”
“I see the stairwell,” I said. Now that I was on the same level as the exit, it finally populated into my map.
“I don’t see any monsters,” Donut added. “Nothing. But I hear voices.”
“Peeping Tom,” I whispered.
“We decided to call it Peeping Mongo, remember?” Donut said.
“Just do it. Turn the light off first.”
The torch snapped off, and a small hole materialized in the door. I waited a moment and then peered inside. I couldn’t see much. The ceiling wasn’t any higher in this room. There were piles of books and magazines lying about along with several smaller statues on a display case. None of the items other than the walls and ceiling were made of glass, though I could see the floor was covered in sand, as if the room was built atop a beach. There also appeared to be several piles of clutter strewn about the room. Most of it was clothes. There was an odd mix of black and pink clothing spread everywhere, though all of it was on tables. The mess wasn’t as bad as the Hoarder’s chamber on the first floor, but an awful stench permeated through the hole.
I couldn’t see the source of the flashing light. If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess it was from a television. Or a videogame. Same with the sounds.
I took a step back. “Abort,” I whispered.
“What’s wrong?” Donut asked, also whispering. She was about to cast Clockwork Triplicate on Mongo, which would make the two dinosaurs appear within the room. But I couldn’t shake the feeling if we straight-up attacked whatever was in there, we’d miss out on learning what was going on.
“Change of plans. Look through the hole and use your Astral Paw spell to knock a pile of magazines or something over. I want to see if anything in there reacts. Sometimes we can get the boss to show itself before we get ourselves locked in there with it.”
“We don’t call moves if we’re going to abort the move, Carl,” Donut grumbled. “That’s the reason why we have a system in the first place. So we don’t have to think about it.”
Donut leaped to my shoulder to get a good view through the hole.
I patted her on the head. “We call it ‘Peeping Tom’ so I can look through the hole first and see if the clockwork Mongos are necessary. That’s the point of the name.”
“Peeping Mongo. Really, Carl. If you’re going to get the names wrong we’re going to need to spend an extra half an hour a day training with the move system, and that’s going to conflict with my brushing schedule. It’s not that difficult to remember. Katia always remembers the names.” Before I could say anything, she peered through the hole. She made a face. “Oh my, this mage is quite messy. It smells like old chicken and stale vegetables. The sand on the ground is really cold. He’s watching television. I don’t recognize the show, but it sounds like a cartoon. Okay. I’m going to knock over a pile of magazines.” She pulled back from the hole. “I did it. Honestly, I don’t know how it’ll make a difference. You never noticed when I knocked stuff over.”
“I noticed. I was just used to it.” I returned my eye to the magical peephole. The unseen show had paused, and silence filled the chamber. I couldn’t see what Donut had done. I didn’t see anything on the sandy floor.
“Is someone there?” a voice called.
The moment the voice spoke, a single white dot appeared on my minimap, just to the side of where I could see. A person appeared, shuffling through the large room. This was a human male wearing what appeared to be a bathrobe. For one confusing second, my brain thought this was Louis, but of course that didn’t make sense. This was an unkempt, overweight, 20-something guy with long, stringy hair. He moved to the middle of the room and looked down at the sand. He grumbled something I couldn’t hear, and turned back toward the television. Before he could leave my field of view, I examined him.
Ghazi – Human. Level 43 Glass Mage
Known by most everyone in the area as The Mad Dune mage, Ghazi came to the area for the same reason as the bugbear submarine captain, Shamus Chaindrive: to seek out the hidden treasure that is said to be buried within the Necropolis of Anser.
As a glass mage who specializes in the study of both transmutation and the teleportation of energized particles, Ghazi told his colleagues at the Larracos College of Magecraft that he was seeking out the Gate of the Feral Gods to study its potential use in stable, long-distance teleportation.
This was, in fact, a lie.
His real purpose in seeking out the fabled artifact was for reliable, controlled access to the Nothing in order to converse with Yarilo, the banished god of Lust. He sought but a simple boon in exchange for freeing the god.
Ghazi wished for Yarilo to make the famed Lika fall in love with him.
Lika is a half-naiad trobairitz. A trobairitz is a bard cleric who has taken a vow of celibacy. She is also the fictional main character of a popular series of stage plays that are often performed in the Larracos theater district. She was never real, and is very loosely based on a minor deity. She has been portrayed by dozens of half-naiad thespians over the years.
In other words, Ghazi was trying to summon a god in order to turn his waifu into the real deal.
Funny thing about summoning creatures from within the Nothing. They’re all crazy. They all want out. Some of them are very good at pretending they’re somebody they are not.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. The entity Ghazi summoned is not Yarilo. And now the glass mage is trapped in his now-transformed castle, cursed with the knowledge of what he’s done and what he’s unleashed onto the world.
He has an escape. He is too much of a coward to do it. But there is one thing that will throw him over the edge. You probably don’t want that to happen.
“Shit. It’s just a dude,” I whispered. “He’s not made of sand or anything like that. It says his wife isn’t real. It doesn’t make sense. He’s like a neckbeard who tried to cast a spell making a fictional chick fall in love with him.”
“It’s just like with Louis and Juice Box,” Donut said. “But at least Juice Box is real. Well, sort of. She was doing a Wonder Woman impersonation before our time out, and believe it or not, I thought…”
“Shell!” Katia cried as I felt myself fly back from the door. Donut leaped away, calling for Mongo to follow just as my back slammed the stairs. I didn’t know what was happening, but I banged onto Protective Shell just as Donut’s Wall of Fire burst up inside the room
The door exploded the moment I cast my spell, which didn’t make much sense. The diameter of the protective shell burst deep into the room, beyond the level of the door. It shouldn’t have detonated.
The fire spell immediately caught the piles of books and tables aflame.
“Hey, hey!” came the shout from within the room. Ghazi ran into view. He ran through the wall of the protective shell, looking around frantically. The wall of fire had trapped him on this side of the flame
s. His eyes got huge when he saw us staring back at him.
His dot is still white. The spell won’t protect us.
It was Katia who had pulled me back from the door. But why? What had happened?
And then I saw it. The sand on the ground was all pushed back, revealing a glass floor, as if I had thrust it away with a broom. The protective shell had tossed it back with the casting of my spell. Suddenly the entire room was red on my map.
The sand is a mob. The floor is a monster.
“Keep the spell going!” Ghazi yelled, rushing toward us.
I stood. Mongo screeched, ready to attack.
“Hold Mongo back,” I yelled to Donut. “The spell is going to run out in a few seconds,” I said to the fleeing mage.
The man looked over his shoulder at the flames. He spied something on a table in the room, just at the edge of the protective shell. The table itself was on fire. The bathrobe man cursed. He returned to the room, grabbed the item—a leather bag—and then returned toward us. The spell was going to run out in five seconds. The bag was on fire. He threw it down, patted the flames out and then scooped it up, holding it against his chest.
“Go up the stairs! It won’t follow up the stairs!” Ghazi wheezed.
I made a quick decision.
“Do you have the winding box? The college needs it to save the world!”
The man looked at me incredulously.
The spell snapped off. The sand started pushing toward us, moving quickly, bubbling like gray lava. It’s a slime, I realized. The floor of the room wasn’t covered with regular sand. The room was covered entirely by a slime, and for some inexplicable reason, the mage guy was living on top of it.
“Answer him, you fool!” Donut demanded.
“It’s here,” Ghazi said, patting the bag. “I knew the council wouldn’t abandon me. I…”
I punched the mage in the face, and I took the bag. The man collapsed, but Katia reached out and caught him. She threw him over her shoulder. We turned, and we ran up the stairs as the sand slime oozed toward us.
The Gate of the Feral Gods Page 31
