LOCATION: THE CRUCIBLE, 50TH FLOOR
PLANET: LAPIS DIVINUS, ORION LUMINARY INSTITUTE
YEAR: 1 | DAY: ?? | TIME: ??
Trudging through the snowy forest, Kaela led the way with the Guard Captain, Edric Talloway and Marris Halford.
Two hours after they left the confines of Greyhaven, the sun began to rise, bringing with it a little bit of warmth and a blessed reprieve from the frigid temperatures of the early morning.
Birds began waking, and Kaela saw a pair of foxes staring curiously at the group from afar, before retreating behind a fallen log.
The men grew uneasy as they realized Kaela was heading directly toward the spot where everything had changed. The spot where they had failed their friend, Hark Fenwick.
The clearing came into view, and the Guard Captain stopped walking. He stared at the intricate totem that Aeryn had created under the instruction of the witch doctor.
Edric and Marris ran toward it, stopping five feet short of the object. Kaela just watched, letting them have their moment.
Edric dropped to his knees in the dirt, and tears were streaming down Marris’s face. The Guard Captain slowly approached, but kept more distance than the other two.
On the ground, laid out on top of a flat stone, Hark’s sword sat untouched.
The wolf’s blood was still visible on the surface, but neither it nor two seasons of weather had seemed to rust or dull the blade.
Edric reached out toward the hilt. But just as his hand made contact, a blue flash of light erupted and he yelped in pain, falling onto his back on the clearing floor.
Kaela chuckled.
“Oops. I forgot to warn you that there’s a protective field around the totem.”
Edric shook his hand, and the black skin from the burn slowly faded to red, then pink, then it went away.
He looked up at her, about to scold her for not saying anything, but then Marris started laughing. The Guard Captain joined in, and Edric had to admit that it was a little funny.
The three men spent an hour telling stories about Hark, crying and laughing. Then, to everyone’s surprise but Kaela’s, Aeryn appeared out of nowhere.
The men stumbled over themselves to apologize to her, but she held her hand up.
“I’ve been watching you for the past hour. I heard everything. At first I wanted to murder all of you.”
They shrunk back from that frank admission.
“I had devised quite elaborate plans for each one of you, too. But once I performed the ritual and realized I couldn’t stop it, I began to feel… remorse.”
She spoke the word as if it was new to her.
Aeryn turned toward Kaela.
“Please fill me in on the past two days. What did you decide?”
“Actually, if I may?” Edric said.
And then he, the Guard Captain, and the mayor all apologized formally to Aeryn, each man explaining how he planned to take responsibility for his own part.
Aeryn nodded, staying silent for several minutes. A single tear fell down her left cheek, and that was it.
“I think Hark would be honored by your decisions.”
Kaela stepped forward and raised a finger.
“There is one final action we need to take to honor Hark Fenwick.”
A sinister look crossed Aeryn’s face.
“The witch doctor. She must die.”
It was mid-day, and they set off to the north.
While Kaela had been in Greyhaven, Aeryn had tracked the witch doctor and found her lair, which was deep inside a cave buried into the side of a rocky mountain.
“It is a long way from here,” Aeryn said. “So keep up. I won’t slow my pace if you fall behind.”
The men could only nod, grateful for all the training they had been doing with Kaela for the past three seasons.
By nightfall, they had arrived at the side of a pond perfect for camping. The rocky mountain loomed to the north on the other side of the wide body of water.
“We will sleep here and set out first thing in the morning,” Aeryn said.
She tasked them with setting up, while she snuck into the forest to hunt. She returned shortly, dragging a small boar.
Kaela and Edric helped her prepare it while the other two worked on building a fire.
Aeryn was less on edge with the men by this point, and the five actually had enjoyable conversation around the fire that night, telling stories of their friendship with Hark while eating fresh boar steaks.
They prepared a few more cuts for the trip home, and Aeryn left the rest of the boar at the edge of the forest to feed the other wildlife.
Marris woke before the sun, and found Kaela and Aeryn sitting side by side, whispering as they stared at the mountain.
A short while later, the camp was broken down and cleared, the fire tamped out and covered with dirt, and the five were assembled. Ready to confront the witch doctor.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
They skirted the large pond and approached the mountain from the east.
But, as soon as they took one step in that direction, they heard a wolf howl.
Then another joined in, and another.
Red eyes appeared in the early morning light from behind trees. Kaela counted ten of the creatures as they snarled and came running toward the group of five.
Aeryn began nocking and loosing arrow after arrow, unerringly downing one wolf with each. She never missed.
More came and closed in on the group.
The five stood back to back in a circle.
Kaela swung at the first one, landing a jab to the side of its head and causing it to yelp before it tried to take her hand off with its powerful jaws.
But she wasn’t having any of that. She was a maelstrom of motion, dodging and weaving, bobbing and punching, feinting and kicking. Taking down wolf after wolf.
The Guard Captain, Edric, and Marris did not falter. This time, they did not run. They stood and fought. The Captain fought with a spear, parrying swipes of sharp claws and stabbing with the spear’s tip.
Edric used with a giant battle axe that he wielded like a true master, and Marris fought with two short swords.
The wolves kept coming.
Corpses piled up around them, and all five were covered in blood and viscera.
They slowly moved toward the cave mouth, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.
By the time evening came, everyone’s breath was ragged. Swords and axe blades were chipped. Aeryn had long ago run out of arrows and had been fighting with two daggers.
Kaela’s fists were aching from the constant contact with the beast’s skeletal structures.
They each had dozens of small wounds, but were still in good shape overall.
The onslaught eventually slowed, then as night set, with hundreds of wolf corpses littering the entire clearing, it suddenly stopped.
An elderly woman, leaning on a crooked wooden staff stepped out of the cave.
“How dare you come for me!”
Her voice was so old and feeble, but it somehow still carried tremendous power.
She slammed her staff down on the stone, and thunder sounded in the skies far above. She raised her arms over her head and began chanting.
“We need to stop her before she builds whatever spell that is,” Kaela said. “Go!”
She started running forward, and the others followed her.
But as they rushed toward the witch doctor, winds rose from nowhere and pushed them back.
Edric pushed harder, trying to overcome the buffeting storm with his bulk and strength.
Then tiny pellets joined the wind, slamming into each of the five, and to Kaela’s surprise, penetrating their skin.
She grunted against the pain, feeling the tiny pointed stones spinning and burrowing deeper into her body.
She saw her health plummeting as thousands and thousands of the stones drew blood.
She leaned into the wind, struggling to take one step at a time forward.
---
Health: 896 / 1,515
---
She was judging the distance to the witch. Inch by excruciating inch, she raged against the storm.
The witch doctor’s voice was reaching a crescendo, and Kaela knew they had only seconds left before it would be too late.
---
Health: 432 / 1,515
---
“Just… five… more… feet…” Kaela gritted her teeth and felt two of them break in her mouth under the strain.
---
Health: 201 / 1,515
---
She saw Aeryn fall to the ground, covering herself with her cloak. She saw all of the men were dripping blood from every inch of their bodies, but they kept pressing forward.
---
Health: 93 / 1,515
---
Her vision was blurring at the edges now, but Kaela finally sensed she was in range.
She engaged Phantom Step and felt the world slow down around her.
The purple twilight turned gray, and she could see the tiny projectiles blowing by her. Even in this aether plane, the wind was not reduced to nothing, and Kaela had to rush forward with everything she had to get to the spot where she could…
Kaela reached out and grabbed her Phantom Blade. She phased back into reality behind the witch doctor.
The Guard Captain and Marris were down, bleeding out on the ground, and Edric was on his knees now, but still trying to crawl toward the witch.
Kaela used every ounce of strength she could muster, and swung her sword down in a diagonal arc.
The blade disappeared from her hand, and she fell to the ground.
---
Health: 26 / 1,515
---
The witch doctor’s chanting stopped.
The storm took a moment to react to the lack of power that had been feeding it. Then it unwound itself, slowly returning the night to its previous state.
Kaela looked up and watched the witch doctor’s body crumpled to the ground, split cleanly in two from her left shoulder down to her right thigh.
An ugly look of defiance was still on the hag’s face as Kaela watched the life fade from her eyes.
Kaela fell back onto the cold stone of the cave floor. She felt her regeneration begin to kick in and reverse the damage.
---
Health: 122 / 1,515
---
It took a few more minutes before she had the energy to prop herself up and crawl to the others.
She opened a dropper Aveline had given to her before they left, and poured a few drops into each of the her companion’s mouths.
It was made from another herb Aeryn had shown Aveline long ago, and it helped to bolster the imbiber’s internal regeneration.
She helped Edric, then the Guard Captain. Then she gave a few drops to Aeryn.
But when she got to Marris Halford, the mayor of Greyhaven, it was already too late. She checked his pulse, and there was nothing. Blood pooled on the ground around him, exiting his body from thousands of tiny cuts.
Kaela had been too slow.
She began crying.
Then, she turned back toward the witch doctor and began kicking the hag’s bloody corpse.
“Wasn’t it enough?”
Tears were streaming down her face now. She didn’t bother to wipe them as she stomped on the witch’s head.
“Years of suffering for an entire village! Still not enough?”
She was about to kick the body again, when Aeryn pulled her back.
Kaela felt Edric’s huge hand on her shoulder next, and she began to calm down.
“I’m so sorry,” Kaela said, burying her face in Aeryn’s chest. “I was too slow.”
Edric shook his head.
“No, Marris would have gladly given his life for you. You really changed him, you know.”
Kaela looked up at the big man, a questioning look on her face.
Edric chuckled.
“He had a soft spot for you. You really grew on him. He planned to name you the next mayor.”
“What?” Kaela asked.
“Oh, yes. There is nobody more qualified than you.”
But suddenly Kaela felt something pulling at her.
What was it?
Why now?
It was overwhelming all of her senses, trying to take over her mind.
She wanted to return to Greyhaven.
She wanted to convince Aeryn to join them. To live in peace in the village with their friend Aveline.
Kaela wanted to join them, but there was something pulling at the edge of her consciousness.
She stood and sniffed the air, then bristled.
Blood and death surrounded her.
But the ozone from the storm the hag had conjured was also in the air, and it felt somehow cleaner.
In the middle of all the carnage, Kaela felt…
Complete.
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
She entered the cave.
Followed it for a few hundred feet.
The hag had mounted torches on the walls, making it easy for Kaela to see the way through the twisting, naturally formed corridor.
Finally the tunnel opened into a large room.
It was damp here.
Moldy.
There were mushrooms on the cave floor and stalactites hanging from the ceiling.
And there in the very center, glowing brightly in the darkened space, was a portal, undulating purple and gold.
She had been in this place for so long, she’d almost forgotten that it was just the 50th floor of The Crucible.
Kaela ran back out of the cave, wanting to say goodbye to her friends.
But they were gone, along with the corpses of the witch doctor, the hundreds of wolves they had slain, and even Marris Halford’s body. It was all gone.
The cave mouth and the clearing around it appeared pristine, as if none of it had happened, and all that greeted Kaela was silence.
Her shoulders slumped.
She walked back down the winding tunnels and stepped through the portal.