Rescue

by R. A. Mejia

  I look up from the piles of gold and jewels. The solid gold paneling that backs the altar catches my eye. Etched scenes of men and women killing each other don’t seem to register, and instead, I wonder how much I could sell the paneling for. I hear the sound of metal scraping and turn to see Sonya staring at me. Her eyes glow red, and she has the two rubies in one hand and her longsword in the other. “You want it all for yourself, don’t you?”

  I scowl and growl, “Take your hands off those rubies. They are mine.” Part of me is surprised at the anger I hear in my own voice, but a larger part is incensed that she’d dare lay her hands on my treasure.

  Race, with an arm full of gold, backs away from us and screams, “NO! You can’t have it. Neither of you. It’s mine. It is all precious to me! MY PRECIOUS!”

  Sonya raises her sword, but the instant before she strikes, Race backs into the gold paneling, causing it to shift and reflect the light coming from the ceiling directly into our eyes. I’m momentarily blinded, and I hear the sound of a sword cutting through the air. I instinctively step back but feel a burning pain along my forehead. My right foot trips on something, and I find myself falling down the stairs that lead up to the altar. I bounce and tumble, seeing flashes from damage notifications that tell me I’ve taken a point or two. When I finally stop my descent at the base of the stairs, the air is knocked out of me. Something wet is dripping into my eyes as I get to my knees, and when I wipe it away with my hands, I see that it’s red. Something clicks, and I realize that the stinging along my forehead means that Sonya tried to kill me. If it weren’t for that flash of light that blinded us and threw off her aim, I’d likely be dead. Or at least gravely wounded.

  I spellwrite the symbols for ‘life’ and ‘self’ and feel the healing energy close the wounds above my eyebrows. The bleeding stops, and I’m able to focus my mind enough to wonder why Sonya attacked me. I look up towards the altar and see Sonya chasing Race around the thing. Living up to his name, he’s able to stay ahead of her and her deadly sword.

  Then it hits me. The gold and jewels. They must be magicked somehow. I look at the gold. While it is still attractive, I can recognize the strange influence it had on me. There’s still the whisper in the back of my mind telling me to kill Race--and even Sonya--and take the gold for myself, but I stamp it down ruthlessly. I wonder if it’s my increased wisdom stat that’s letting me ignore the influence, but I know that, no matter what it is, it’s something that Sonya and Race don’t have. I try to think of some way to break the spell that has a hold on both of them. I consider trying to stop Sonya with force but then remember her superior training. I don’t think the odds would be in my favor. Then I recall what broke me out of the influence of the treasure. Pain. It wasn’t until I was cut and fell that my mind was cleared enough to fight back.

  I open my inventory and grab two elemental grenades. I activate both and lob them, not at my teammates, but onto the pile of gold. Five seconds later, they pulse with an inner red energy then explode in a fiery heat wave. Both Sonya and Race are caught at the edge of the blast, and I get notifications that I’ve injured them. I ignore the notices, knowing that it’s not enough to kill either. Of more interest to the two of them is the fact that the gold and jewels seem to be on fire. Race drops what he’s holding and tries to put out the fire with the sleeves of his robe. Unfortunately, they only catch on fire. He ignores his flaming robe, and I have to run up the stairs and tackle him to the ground and roll him around to stop the fire from spreading. When the flames on his robe have been extinguished, he looks up at me with a confused look on his face. He looks back and forth between me and the pile of gold, and for a moment, it looks like he’s listening to that voice whispering to him, but then he shakes his head and crawls away from the altar.

  Sonya, on the other hand is in worse shape. She’s dropped her sword and has grabbed an armful of rubies and gold from the altar, trying to save them from the blaze. Unfortunately, the metal conducts heat too well, and I can hear the sizzle as it burns her skin. Sonya’s a tough woman though and only grits her teeth as she grabs for more. I can see the damage the hot metal is doing to her health bar. I run around the altar and pick up Sonya’s dropped sword. Raising it high in the air with both hands, I bring the solid metal pommel down onto the back of Sonya’s skull as hard as I can.

  Damage dealt: 6

  She staggers from the blow, but she doesn’t go down. I have to hit her six more times before she finally collapses, unconscious. If her mind wasn’t so taken with those rubies, I don’t think I could have knocked her out. Thinking the threat over, I drag her to where Race is curled up at the base of the stairs to the altar. I’m about to heal her when I hear a loud laugh reverberate through the room. The voice sends chills down my spine, and it says something in a language I’ve never heard before. While I don’t know what the voice says, I can tell that it’s pissed off from the tone. I look to Race, who stares at me wide eyed with fear. Then the only light in the room is snuffed out. My [Darkvision] skill is still active, and it lets me see Race and Sonya in shades of grey. I almost wish I didn’t have the ability as I see the floor beneath us suddenly open, and the three of us drop into the empty blackness beneath.

  Chapter 20

  I groan as I get up off the hard stone floor and rub my sore back, knowing that the fall from above could have been much worse. I pull up my character sheet to see if I have any notable injuries.

  Health 43/52

  Stamina 61/65

  Mana 41/69

  Not too bad. I hear groaning from beside me. Even though the room is completely dark, I can see thanks to my [Darkvision] ability. Sonya is coming to her senses, and Race is not far off but is still lying unconscious on the floor. A quick glance at his health bar tells me that he’s not doing well. I crawl over to him to get a better look and see an expanding pool of liquid around his head. I don’t want to move him and make his injury worse, so I lean over the man and quickly spellwrite the ‘life’ and directional symbols towards his skull. It takes a moment to channel my mana to the spell, but a stream of healing energy is soon flowing, and I can see his hit points rising. While I’d usually be concerned about not having enough mana to sustain the healing for long, my increased mana regeneration means that the streaming spell is much less taxing on me.

  Once his health is restored, I roll Race onto his back to see if there’s anything else to fix. My spellwriting can restore hit points and mend flesh, but more complicated problems may require a specialized healer. An examination of the man reveals no other obvious injuries, and his scalp has stopped bleeding. I won’t be able to tell if he has any broken bones until he’s conscious, but nothing is twisted out of place.

  Looking at Sonya’s health bar, I can see it’s down, but she’s not losing any more hit points. I crawl over to her, careful to call out so she knows it’s me. After all, she can’t see in the dark like I can.

  “Sonya? Are you okay?”

  Her head turns towards the sound of my voice, and she gropes around blindly. “Armon, is that you?”

  I take her outstretched hand and see her wince at my touch. She’s still clutching one of the larger rubies from the treasure pile, and I have to pry it from her fingers. “Yeah, sweetie, it’s me. Are you hurt?”

  “My head and hands hurt terribly, but I think I’m uninjured otherwise. What happened?”

  I look down and see the skin on her hands is burnt and blistered. Some of the blisters have broken open, exposing the flesh beneath. She must be in incredible pain. I quickly spellwrite the healing symbol for life over her hands and pour as much mana through the spell as I can. I hear her sigh in relief as the wounds heal, but my head starts hurting from the spell, and I see that I’m nearly out of mana.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to pause to regenerate my mana.”

  Sonya flexes her hands, and I see a twinge of pain in her expression. “It’s fine. My hands already feel much better. I can wait. Why don’t you tell me what happened and
why we’re in this place?”

  I sit down on the cold stone floor and try to relax. I don’t think I’ll be able to meditate, but even just resting will increase my mana regeneration rate. “Well, what’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I remember coming into the temple and down the hallway. There was this large room with rows of pews that led to an altar. It made me uncomfortable to be there, but when I saw the pile of gold on the altar, I forgot all that. I remember running up there and . . .” Her brows furrow in concentration, and she continues, “. . . then nothing. That’s all I remember.”

  “Well, we ran to the gold, and I think we were hit with some kind of spell or curse when we touched it. It made us greedy and turned us against each other. It was only by accident that I came out of it, but I was able to get you and Race out from under the influence of the spell too.”

  “But that doesn’t explain the burns on my hands or how we got down here.”

  “Well, there may have been some attempted murder and a fire involved in getting you two to come to your senses. After that, there was some voice that came out of nowhere, and then the floor opened beneath us and dropped us down here.”

  By the time I’ve finished catching her up, my mana has regenerated enough for me to continue healing her. Once the flesh and skin on her hands are restored, she touches the necklace she wears, and a dim light starts to glow from it. Seeing me so close to her, she leans forward and hugs me.

  With the new source of light, my sight is able to expand considerably, and I can now see that we’re in some kind of stone room. It’s not particularly big, about six by ten feet, but there’s an open doorway at the far side of the room. A cough from behind me draws my attention to the fact that Race is waking up. Sonya and I go to him, and after checking to make sure he has no further injuries, I tell him what happened.

  He shakes his head when I get to the part about the strange voice. “Yes, I remember the voice. It said something about the path of the soul.” He shakes his head. “I can’t remember what else it said.”

  The voice, strange and grating on the ears, speaks again. The sound echoes in the room, and Race tilts his head, listening. It says, ‘Follow the path of the soul, and you will be free.’

  This whole situation seems way too familiar. The last time a voice talked to me like this, it was Koorb, trying to get our group to run his dungeon. Tentatively, our group walks through the doorway into the next room. The doorway disappears as soon as we pass through it, becoming just another part of the wall. Yeah, definitely creepy.

  The voice says something else, and Race translates, “Khat, the physical body.”

  A circular opening appears in the floor as soon as the voice finishes speaking, and a paw immediately reaches up out of it. Out of the depths of the hole, a creature pulls itself up. It has a body that is some mix of radically-different animals. It has the head of a crocodile and a torso that is part lion and part hippopotamus. The strange chimera growls menacingly, and the hole in the floor disappears, trapping us in the room. A health bar and name appear above the creature.

  Ammit - Eater of Hearts, Lvl. 8

  The monstrosity doesn’t wait for us to shake off our surprise and rushes forward, heading for Race. The poor man looks terrified as the creature runs towards him. Sonya equips her sword and shield and shouts, “Shield Rush!” Her entire body momentarily glows yellow before she rockets off in a line, smashing into Ammit.

  Sonya deals damage: 5 (Shield Rush)

  The attack knocks the monster off course, and it goes running right past Race. The monster is nimble enough to avoid crashing into the wall headfirst, and it manages to turn away just enough that the force of impact is spread across its large body. Race runs towards me, seeking safety from the fight. I, however, am not planning on avoiding the battle. I stretch my neck and prepare to aid Sonya the best I can. I know that I’m a bit squishy, but I have magic and intelligence to help. I imagine what Mary would say if she heard me think that. Well, I have magic at least.

  The mish-mashed creature turns away from the wall and glares at Sonya through slitted eyes. Its crocodile mouth opens wide, hisses, and then snaps shut with tremendous force. I don’t imagine that being caught between those jaws will be pleasant. With her shield held tightly against her body, and her blade held high above her, Sonya activates two separate abilities. The first causes her boots and legs to glow yellow, and the second causes her blade to glow red. Sonya races forward at an unnatural speed, and her blade comes down in a crimson arc. Ammit is just able to avoid being struck on its head with a last second twist, and her blow instead lands on its lion-like body with a meaty whack.

  Sonya deals damage: 17 (Slash)

  The monster’s health drops by about 10% as Sonya quickly interposes her shield between it and herself. It’s a good thing she does too. While the creature can’t snap at her with its jaws, its claws slash at my teammate. I almost laugh when it strikes Sonya’s shield but then turn serious when I see that she still took damage despite taking the blow on her thick wooden shield. I run to the other side of the monster, so that it has to decide whom to attack: Sonya or myself. The beast looks back and forth between the two of us, and Sonya takes the initiative, attacking its injured shoulder.

  Sonya deals damage: 14 (Stab)

  The glowing blade stabs deep into the monster’s joint, causing it to cry out in pain and jerk back around to face Sonya. She takes a step back to avoid being trampled by its sheer weight. I, however, am not so astute. Its hind legs and tail swing around as it turns, slamming into me and knocking me back.

  You receive damage: 5

  I quickly get to my feet, annoyed that the creature did as much damage to me accidentally as it did to Sonya intentionally with a special attack. The monster tries to snap at Sonya, but she moves back just out of its range. I take the opportunity to quickly spellwrite the arcane symbol for ‘fire’ onto the hind leg of the monster and send a burst of mana to the spell, and there’s a bright flash of red as the mana is transformed into heat energy.

  You deal damage: 9 (Fire)

  The monster hisses angrily and turns its head toward me. With the casual grace of a horse flicking away an annoying fly, the crocodile-like tail snaps at me once again, catching me in the chest and throwing me back.

  You receive damage: 12 (Tail Whip)

  While I don’t fall down this time, the blow knocks the wind out of me, and I see that my health bar is almost half gone. I stand there stunned for a moment, trying to catch my breath. Ammit is not one to miss a chance and turns its massive head towards me, mouth wide to take a bite out of me. But there’s a shout. “Leave my boyfriend alone!

  At hearing the shout, my first thought is, “Boyfriend? Who me?”

  Looking beyond the monster, I see Sonya’s head glow red as she uses her [Taunt] ability. The monster’s eyes glow yellow as Sonya’s ability forces it to attack only her for the next few minutes, and it turns back, almost forgetting me for the moment. I breathe a sigh of relief as Sonya continues to attack the monster.

  Sonya deals damage: 16 (Stab)

  Sonya deals damage: 19 (Slash)

  Sonya deals damage: 11 (Pommel Bash)

  I instead focus on what I can do to help Sonya. I know that I’m out-classed by the monster and that it will end me with only a few good attacks, so I switch to support mode.

  I move within reach of Ammit again, but instead of using an attack spell, I spellwrite the symbol for ‘earth’ near the creature’s foot. I pour my mana into the arcane symbol, it glows a shade of brown, and the stone beneath the monster begins to shift and gather around its right hind leg. I break off the spell when my head begins to hurt, and I realize that I only have five mana left. But my results speak for themselves. The monster’s right rear foot is encased in stone, pinning it in place.

  Sonya laughs as the monster tries to lunge forward only to be held firmly when its leg refuses to move. She backs away for a moment and switches out her sword and shield for h
er two-handed sword. The blade glows red as she strikes out with [Slash] and [Stab] attacks again and again, cutting chunks out of the monster’s health as well as its hide. I almost feel bad for Ammit. Now that its movement is reduced, it doesn’t stand a chance against Sonya. And then its tail hits me in the face and knocks me on my butt.

  You receive damage: 10 (Tail Whip)

  I scuttle back out of range of the appendage and grumble at my vulnerability. My poor health has dropped to twenty-two, and I decide it’s best to stay sitting and try to recover a bit of mana while Sonya continues to hack away at the monster. She takes a few good strikes from the beast, and her health has barely dropped past the 2/3 mark when Ammit drops to the ground dead.

  You've helped kill Ammit - Eater of Hearts, Lvl. 8. You receive 67 XP.

  I feel annoyed by the notification, almost like I don’t deserve the XP. After all, I only did a total of nine damage to the monster. Still, seeing the broad smile on Sonya’s face pushes the annoyance away. It only takes a few more minutes for my mana to recover, and I heal both of our injuries.