Chanterelle woke a short time later. She ate quickly and they returned to the task of finding the center of the labyrinth where the Beast That Eats the World and the black crystal waited.
"What do you do for the Lady of Shadows? You know, when you're not stabbing me in a shadow temple," he said.
"The Lady is busy with the defense of her lands, just like you are. I am her hand," said Chanterelle with an incline of her head.
"Fair enough," he said, recognizing he wasn't going to get further information. "What's she like? Is she the embodiment of shadow, or a person, like you and me?"
Chanterelle speared him in her gaze. "Like you."
"Yes, an Offworlder."
"Not just that," said the elf. "Arrogant, and brilliant, and self-centered."
"Ouch," said Terran, holding a hand to his chest. "Not that I blame you. We Offworlders show up to these lands and throw them into chaos. I didn't know what to expect when I joined the game." Chanterelle's face flickered with annoyance. "Sorry, world. But it wasn't this...meaningful."
He reached out and squeezed her hand, but this only deepened her scowl.
"You're infuriating."
"Probably."
The scowl softened as she squinted slyly. Their flirting ended when they came to a round opening lit brightly from within. The next hallway was a long cylinder, the width twice the length of his legendary staff. The end was a shiny plus pattern.
"I don't like the looks of this."
Chanterelle touched the ceiling right outside the room, her fingers tracing a rectangular line.
"Looks like this slab will block us in the moment we step inside. Anything in your little book about this place?"
Terran paged through the tome, stabbing the paragraph with his finger when he found it.
"The Great Exhale. Reported to be a test of strength, agility, and timing...whatever that means." Terran slapped the book closed. "That plus sign at the end of the tunnel must be a fan that turns on once we step inside."
"We must get past it?"
"Can you shadow jump through it?" asked Terran.
"Only if there are shadows on the other side." She craned her neck. "But this room seems to be lit magically, completely. There are no shadows to travel through." Chanterelle touched his staff. "Can you blast it from here?"
Terran positioned himself in the entrance. The blast of gray energy made it to the threshold of the cylinder before dissipating into nothingness.
"What the Abyss? There must be an anti-magic field in there. Glad we tested that first."
"Strength, agility, and timing," said Chanterelle, hands on hips, staring down the cylinder. "Can we just jump through it?"
The thought of getting cut in half by massive spinning blades made Terran wrinkle his nose. He looked back the way they came. "If Zara was here, I'd just have her charge the blades and we could stroll through the gap right after."
Chanterelle grabbed his hand. "Come on. We can do this. We are quick and strong."
Terran didn't quite agree but he followed her lead, entering the cylinder together. The slab fell behind them. Blocking them into the room as expected, followed by the blades spinning into motion. Within a few seconds gale winds pushed at them, forcing them to lean forward or be thrown backwards.
"It's like walking through a hurricane," said Terran, the wind catching his mouth and making his cheeks vibrate.
Chanterelle marched forward, scowling with intent, looking like she would dismantle the blades with her hands once she reached the spinning fan.
When they were halfway through the tunnel, the fan slowed suddenly, pausing briefly before reversing direction. Terran figured what was happening the moment before the suction started pulling them towards the blades.
The smooth walls offered no purchase. Terran grabbed Chanterelle's hand as they fought to keep their feet. The wind howled past his ears, making them pop painfully from the suction. They managed to stop about ten feet from the blades. Hair flapped in their faces. Chanterelle shouted over the noise.
"We have to time it!"
Terran stared at the whirling death. The blurred metal gave him no indication there was a window to pass through.
"Are you crazy? I can't jump through that," said Terran.
"I'll go first. Look for a brief shimmer at the bottom. Leap when it passes," said Chanterelle.
He opened his mouth to object, but she released his hand and rocked on her feet briefly before launching herself in a forward roll, coming up on the other side of the blades without a scratch.
"See! It's easy," said Chanterelle, grinning.
"It's easy, she says. Look for the shimmer, she says. Now I know how people feel when they can't hear pitch."
Terran watched the blades, looking for the telltale shimmer, rocking on his feet like she had. He thought he saw something, but was that his imagination, or the so-called shimmer? Before he lost his nerve, he leapt, throwing himself forward, curling into a cannon ball. The gale-force winds propelled him through the gap—right as a blade sliced him through the middle.
Chapter Thirty
Terran lay in a pool of blood on the other side of the spinning blade, which was winding down. His whisperweave tunic had stopped the worst of the impact, but his ribs felt exposed.
"I said leap when you see the shimmer, not after," said Chanterelle, staring down at him with her hands on her hips. "Good thing you're pretty tough. That would have killed me."
The sliver of health remaining in his health bar was quite disturbing. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been that low. All those levels of dumping points into Endurance paid off.
Terran groaned to a sitting position, holding his side where the blood had finally stopped leaking.
"When this is all over, I'm looking forward to a bath. Between the wine and the blood, I'm stickier than a toddler's lollipop."
He limped from the room, letting his regen refill his health bar while they continued through the labyrinth. There was usually a few hours between rooms, which gave Terran a chance to enjoy the monotony until he had to come face-to-face with trap-filled terror, so it was a surprise when the floor opened up beneath them, dumping them into a chute. The brief slide deposited them in a tall, square room glowing with a necrotic green energy.
"I'm not even half-full," said Terran, dusting himself.
Chanterelle had her blades in hand. "I don't like the look of this room."
The four corners contained huge cauldrons. The greenish glow was boiling from their depths. The floor was covered in old bones, and on the north side, a pile of glittering gold spilled from an open chest.
"I wonder what's in—"
The words were barely out of his mouth before the first skeletal arm reached over the lip of a cauldron, matched by three other arms, and followed by more boney limbs than a graveyard.
Cauldron Skeleton - Level 17
Them bones, them bones, them shady, shady bones.
"These shouldn't be too bad," said Chanterelle, spinning her blades in her hands like revolvers. She met the first skeleton at the edge of the dais where the cauldrons rested, dismantling it with two precise strikes, a clatter following its destruction.
Eyeing the parade of skeletons, Terran belted out an auditory assault, dealing damage across the entire room, rather than at the end of a blade. The effect was instantaneous—both good and bad—as the skeletons' health dropped precipitously, but this drew them towards him like a moth to flame.
As the first skeletons reached him, he exploded them to shards with his staff, then scrambled away, out of reach of their collective hands. He could avoid them now, but there were more climbing from the cauldrons by the second. Terran ran past the pile of gold, hoping to spy something useful, but it looked like ordinary wealth.
With the skeletons closing in, Terran placed his boot on the wall and walked up the side, then at the ceiling, he continued, upside down. The skeletons gathered beneath him in a crowd, reaching up with their grasping, boney h
ands. He unleashed a new round of Auditory Assault, which turned the first skeletons to dust.
"Nice trick," said Chanterelle, dodging around her pursuers, stabbing with her daggers whenever the skeletons stumbled. "Can I join you?"
"Only works for one," he said. "But I can kill them all from here."
"Yeah, but they're still coming," said Chanterelle.
While he'd killed dozens already, more were taking their place. They could only keep up the fight for so long.
A group of skeletons broke from his mass, cutting off Chanterelle and trapping her in the corner, so he unleashed a Void Blast into their midst. There was nothing left but gray smoke.
"We have to stop the cauldrons."
Hanging from the ceiling like a bat, he said, "But how?"
"I don't know, that's your job," said Chanterelle, dodging around her boney pursuers.
He fired a few Vocal Blasts, before investigating the cauldrons, finding nothing but a seething green liquid, boiling and frothing, while skeletons climbed from their depths. A blast fired into the liquid did nothing but splash the contents onto the stone floor.
"There's too many," he said, glancing back to the dozens upon dozens of skeletons.
He wanted to take a second look at the treasure, so he dropped to the ground. To clear the way, he sent two Void Blasts into the mass, to give them some time. Righting himself also let the blood return to his body. He was getting a headache hanging upside down.
While the skeletons ambled forward with grabby hands, Terran alternated between killing one or two with his staff and digging into the pile of gold. He'd nearly given up when his fingers hit something curved, so he leaned his staff against the chest and dug into the coins to pull an exquisite warhorn from its depths. The gold inlays showed armored figures fighting off a horde of skeletons.
Warhorn of the Ancients (+5% Bardic Damage; Ability: Summon ancient warriors)
Terran raised the horn above his head. "Found it! Get ready for some allies!"
He placed the mouthpiece against his lips and shot his breath through the opening. The horn's voice was low and deep, rising with the ancient call.
With the staff in one hand and the horn in the other, Terran listened as the sound echoed through the room. He watched eagerly for the appearance of the armored warriors.
"The cauldrons!" cried Chanterelle as she sprinted around the outside of the room towards his location.
He'd been looking to the center of the room, where he'd pointed his horn. As his gaze fell upon the green mists, he saw not the steady procession of single skeletons climbing from the cauldrons, but dozens of boney hands. Terran looked back to the horn, realizing the pictograph depicted the skeletons, not the armored ancient warriors.
"What do we do?" she asked, slicing through skeletons as the newly formed mass marched on them.
He threw the horn in his magic pack. "Climb on my back."
With Chanterelle holding tight, Terran walked up the wall. The added weight made him sag towards the floor, but the magic of the Ring of Spider Climbing held. She had to wrap her thighs around his waist when they turned upside down.
"Augh, how did you stay like this? My blood's about to drip out my nose," she said.
Terran stared in horror at the waves of skeletons falling out of the cauldrons in clumps. The undead beneath them were reaching upward, rising slowly as more pushed together.
"There's going to be so many they'll fill the room," said Terran. "They'll be like ants forming a tower."
"Fire at the cauldron? Maybe that will stop 'em."
"I tried that."
"Not in, but at. Hit the sides," she said.
He still had a decent amount of mana. Terran fired a Void Blast at the nearest cauldron. If that didn't put a nick it in, nothing would. When the gray energy hit, cracks formed in the side. His mana couldn't take continued use of the Void Blast, so he switched to Vocal Slams, since they dealt extra damage to vulnerable objects.
After a half dozen slams, the cauldron shattered, sending a wave of greenish vitriol across the floor. The smell of rancid mist made his nose curdle, but he turned his attention on the next cauldron, softening it up with a Void Blast before switching to the Vocal Slams.
"Hurry," she said, tapping on his shoulder. "They're almost to us."
Terran moved to a new location, which wasn't easy with Chanterelle on his back and hanging upside down. The ring's magic made him feel light, but her weight was fully on his hips, making him feel like he was caught in a vise and being pulled apart.
As the skeletons shifted to form a new tower, Terran finished off the second cauldron. There had to be at least two hundred skeletons in the room, and they were forming multiple towers, making even their aerie space dangerous.
"Two more."
"There's not gonna be any room left for skeletons at this rate," he said, dodging around the half dozen towers of grasping skeletal hands.
"We need to take care of the undead. There's almost no room left," said Chanterelle, holding tight with her thighs while striking with her blades. The constant motion made him worry that their combined weight might overcome the ring's magic.
Terran hurried to one of the few safe locations left, then poured his voice into an Audible Assault, catching a frequency that reverberated, sending the skeletons into a quivering frenzy. They scrambled upward, fighting to get to him as his voice tore them apart, bone by bone, ligament by ligament. His voice was raw from screaming.
A boney hand grabbed the end of his staff, yanking downward. He kept up the song haltingly while he fought the skeletons for control. If he lost his Crystalline Staff of the Void, he'd lose a huge bonus to his damage, but the longer he struggled, the more skeletons were able to grab hold. A skeleton with a cracked skull climbed up his brethren and grabbed Terran's arm. The weight of the skeleton tower dislodged him and Chanterelle from the ceiling.
They fell into the mass of bones.
Only the initial chaos of impact kept them from being torn apart immediately. Lying on his side, Terran blasted the skeletons nearest, his voice turning bones into shards, flinging them against the wall, but there was a tidal wave of them stumbling over each other in retribution. Chanterelle kicked a skeleton in the hip, shattering it, before punching her hilt through the rib cage of another.
"There's too many. I need to switch to Nightblade."
"But won't the Lady know?"
She grimaced. "Better than our demise."
Billowing black smoke rose from her back instantly, forming into two wings. Chanterelle shifted, transforming until she was nothing but a shadowy dragon with malevolent crimson eyes.
He fired a few Vocal Slams, but mostly watched as Chanterelle the Nightblade swept through the room, leaving swirling bone dust in her wake. When she fell upon the cauldrons—one, two—they shattered, releasing the noxious fumes. Within a minute of her change, the room was empty, except for Terran and the shadowy dragon.
The Nightblade approached, wings contained by the ceiling, crouching menacingly. The dragon snorted and inky shadows swirled away from her nostrils.
Terran had been fighting from his knees and he kept leaning on his staff as the dragon shifted her enormous head towards him. His whole body was on high alert, but after watching her destroy the room full of skeletons, he'd resigned himself to fate, should she turn on him again. To his relief, the shadows disappeared, coalescing like an explosion in reverse until there was nothing left but Chanterelle.
"Thanks, you really saved our butts," said Terran.
Chanterelle glanced at his rear. "It's a nice one, I'd hate it to go to waste."
"What about the Lady and the Houndmaster?"
She turned towards the door that had appeared on the wall after the battle had been won. "If we find the Beast before the Hounds find us, then she'll never know."
"Good. That might still be possible. The Beast is supposed to be on the lower level. The Lore Keeper didn't know how one reached it, but now we know," he sai
d, glancing at the ceiling where they'd been dropped through.
"And after you fail to get your black crystal, we can let the Hounds take us right to the Lady. I can claim that I caught you, and we both come out ahead," she said matter-of-factly. "Assuming you'll still honor our agreement."
The businesslike approach to the arrangement left pangs in his heart. He'd been enjoying their relationship, and though he hated to admit it to himself, he'd thought it might continue after the labyrinth.
"Of course."
Not long after they entered the lower passages, Terran found himself unconsciously—and yet, decisively—making decisions about which way to go. Chanterelle said nothing, but her knotted forehead suggested she noticed too. It wasn't until a short time later, he could actually hear the song of the black crystal.
"Do you hear it?" he asked her.
She screwed up her face. "I'm afraid I don't have your hearing."
"We're getting closer," he said.
Back on the Reliant, when he was a schoolboy, the teachers took them throughout the ship to show them the various jobs that they could do should they decide not to enter one of the immersive worlds that rode with them to their distant planet. He remembered the trip to the ship's engines vividly, even if the physics of quantum plasma didn't make sense to him. But the hum that permeated the room, a vibration that went right through him, made him recognize the considerable power contained within the silver sphere that made up the ship's engine.
The hum of the black crystal reminded him of that power. It was like listening to the frequency in the heart of a dwarf star. Even a tiny fraction of unleashed power would annihilate him, like a tin can getting thrown into a black hole.
"I hear it," said Chanterelle a short time later, expression hungry to hear more. "It sounds..."
"Sexy."
She turned. "Sexy? It sounds like we shouldn't be here."
"Sorry." He tapped on his chest. "It speaks to a primal urge. I don't know, like that hungry feeling you get when you're kissing someone you can't get enough of."
The brief smile on her lips broke as she turned away. The end of the labyrinth was near. No matter the outcome, their journey together would be at an end.
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