Author's Notes: This chapter is a bit longer than the previous ones. It has more content to it, and it's a slow transition to a writing style where I describe things more thoroughly. Chapter 12 should be up by the end of the week, but I have family coming down, so it could be delayed.
Chapter 11 – Into the Depths
The sun was beginning to sink in the sky, signaling the end of the noon but still leaving several hours of daylight in its wake. The swordswoman Lucia Moore and her traveling companion Naga the White Serpent stood in front of what appeared to be little more than a pile of decaying stone blocks. Some of the blocks had retained their more-or-less rectangular shape while others had crumbled into shapes only vaguely recognizable as man-made, while others still resembled little more than piles of dust. The grass and weeds growing over the area were a reminder of just how long it had been since any structure had stood in this location.
"This is the place according to the map. The man said the castle had a very large dungeon." Lucia said as she took one final glance at the map, ensuring that they'd come to the right place before she tucked it away. The man she'd gotten the information from hadn't been specific, but then again she hadn't really paid him for the information anyway, just the map.
"What if they're completely collapsed, Lucia?" Naga replied hesitantly. She for one hoped they hadn't traveled all this way for nothing, even if the journey itself had, in a sense, done both of them some psychological good. Hell, if this turned out to be a wild goose chase, she would immediately suggest that vacation she'd thought about earlier. Yes, and they would definitely have to visit a hot spring!
"We won't know until we look for an entrance." Lucia replied, stepping into the ruins. She had to be careful with each step, often placing a hand on what remained of a wall or support beam to steady herself. Naga watched for a moment before moving in herself, also taking care with her footing. She was considerably less enthusiastic about this than her companion was, but that came mostly from a feeling that they wouldn't find anything of value inside of the dungeon below. If they even found the dungeon, that is.
After thirty minutes of searching, both women were covered in dust and sweat, completely negating the invigorating effects of their earlier visit to the waterfall and leaving them no closer to finding any way into the dungeons that supposedly lie beneath the ruins. In frustration, Lucia drew her sword and slammed the tip down into the ground beside her, using it as a leaning post as she mulled over this latest turn of events.
"Damn. I'm starting to think you were right. Maybe it is buried." The swordswoman said as she leaned on the hilt of her sword chewing lightly on her lip. Naga sat down on one of the several fallen stones and gave a shrug.
"I was really hoping to come across some kind of treasure trove, too." The sorceress replied with a sigh. Lucia pushed off of her sword to stand up, then looked at it curiously. She'd felt it shift when she pushed on it, which was unusual given that the tip was buried in stone. She realized that there was no way the sword itself had shifted since the particular cobblestone she'd buried it in was in no way cracked. Experimentally, she pushed the sword back and forth, only stopping when she heard a deep rumble under her feet.
She had just enough time to look up at Naga and say. "Oops." Right as she spoke, the ground collapsed from under her feet, dropping her into the hole. Naga instantly jumped to her feet, a pang of relief hitting her as she heard the swordswoman's voice call out "Levitation!" from deeper within the hole.
"Lucia! Are you okay?" The sorceress called down into the hole. Sunlight shone through the opening, but she was unable to see anything at first. A moment later, a small pinpoint of light appeared deep within the hole.
"I think I found the dungeon!" Came Lucia's shouted reply. "It looks safe. Come on down!" Naga shook her head in disbelief at her companion's casual tone. With a smirk, the sorceress hopped into the hole, casting a levitation spell to slow her descent to the bottom. As she drifted downward, she realized that the hole was extremely deep, at least a few hundred feet. As she got closer to the light source below, she saw a small globe of light hovering above Lucia's head, realizing that the swordswoman had cast a lighting spell to illuminate the darkened ruins. As she drifted gracefully to the floor, Naga cast her own lighting spell. The combined lighting from both spells revealed them to be standing in a large chamber, the outer walls barely visible beyond the perimeter of their spells. Lucia stepped closer to the center of the room.
"What are you doing, Lucia?" Naga asked as Lucia extinguished her spell and turned to smile brightly at her companion.
"I created a variation of the lighting spell for just such an occasion. You don't explore dusty crypts and ruins as often as I do without coming up with some creative ways of finding your way around." The blonde said, closing her eyes and lifting both hands above her head. Naga watched with interest as the girl began chanting.
"Light which burns beyond crimson flame, infuse this place with your power..." Lucia began. Naga recognized the words as the beginning of the incantation for the standard lighting spell, one so simple that anyone could learn it with enough practice. She also knew that by modifying a spell's incantation, one could alter its effects, but doing so without extreme care could cause a spell to have very undesirable, and occasionally deadly, effects. "…reveal onto us the secrets of the shadows before us. Continual Lighting!" Lucia spoke loudly, finishing the incantation.
The effect was gradual, but fast, as the large chamber very quickly became illuminated. The light seemed to come from everywhere at once, filling the room with a gentle but insistent white glow that lasted for several seconds before it faded slightly. Looking down, Naga saw shadows cast by herself and her blonde companion onto the dusty, cracked stone of the floor under them, yet when she looked around she could see no glaring source of light. The room was quite large with a rounded dome-shaped ceiling that would otherwise appear smooth and flawless were it not for the large hole the swordswoman had mistakenly punched in it, allowing sunlight to stream through into the dusty air. The outer edges of the room were decorated by stone seats arranged in a staircase pattern, split on each end of the large room by two doors on the ground floor and a series of them near the upper ends of the room at the tops of the seating sections. The room itself was only supported by a few columns around the far edges, signifying that this particular room had been used as a sort of stadium or auditorium. Naga surmised that it was likely the latter given the hard stone floor, as arenas and stadiums generally possessed dirt floors.
"So where is the light coming from?" Naga asked curiously, still noting that while there were shadows, she couldn't see any discernable source of light as with a typical light spell.
"It's coming from the center of the room. I discovered that it's possible to mask the actual point of light created by a lighting spell if you actually phase the spell's energy slightly." Lucia explained as she looked around the large chamber.
"Phased?" Naga asked somewhat incredulously. "You mean you put the spell's light point in the astral plane?"
"Only partially." Lucia said, holding a finger up. "That also causes the spell to pull energy from the astral plane, which is why the spell is able to light up such a large area." She explained. "It's not permanent, but should last for a few hours before it fades out. I use this spell a lot when I'm exploring big areas like this."
Naga couldn't help but smile. Spell creation ran in her family, and she in particular was fond of creating variations of golem spells, but she had never considered modifying such a simple spell as Lighting when the original version had always worked fine for her. Even thought it was a simple spell, she couldn't help but feel impressed at the practicality of Lucia's variation. She followed after Lucia as the swordswoman moved to a stone relief on one of the columns, casually examining its surface. "So, what other spell variations have you created?" The sorceress asked with intense curiosity.
"Well, not many, honestly." She answered, turning to face Naga. "There's a levitation variant that I use to move heavy objects around. It doesn't actually levitate them, but it does make them feel a lot lighter." She explained. "I also created a spell that allows me to encase my fists in rock. That one's useful when I don't have a weapon handy." Naga nodded slowly. Lucia had explained more than once that she preferred viewing magic as a utility rather than a necessity.
"So, where should we…" Naga started, then trailed off as she heard a shuffling sound come down one of the two tunnels that entered the main room. Lucia had clearly heard it too, as she had pulled her attention from the reliefs she was inspecting and drawn her sword, looking into the tunnel. The light from Lucia's spell didn't spread into the tunnel, so it wasn't until the source of the sound shuffled its way into the main room that the two women got a good look at it. Its appearance instantly made its nature clear to the both of them. A humanoid figure standing about six feet tall entered the room. It walked slowly, but with a somewhat clumsy gait, tattered clothing hanging from its decaying form, skin grey and leathery, rotted through in some places to display decayed muscle or bone. Its eye sockets were empty, and its lips had rotted away to reveal tight flesh clinging to what few teeth it still possessed. As it sensed the two women, seeing them with a supernatural sense that took the place of its long missing eyes, it echoed a roar and began rapidly moving towards them. Even as it shouted its hoarse alarm, several more such figures of varying height and build exited the tunnel behind it.
"Zombies." Lucia muttered, bringing her sword up into a ready stance. She was surprised to hear the metallic sound of a sword being drawn beside her and glanced over to see Naga holding her own sword out in front of her, tossing the sorceress a questioning glance.
Naga cleared her throat. "We chose the wrong time of the month to start exploring ruins." The sorceress said somewhat sheepishly. Lucia frowned in response.
"You chose now of all times to tell me that?" The swordswoman said, the words coming from her in a slight growl. Naga just shrugged.
"Well, I didn't really realize it until I cast that levitation spell earlier and realized that it took almost every ounce of my abilities to maintain it." The sorceress said defensively. "Don't worry, I don't need my full power to handle a bunch of zombies. Besides, they don't bleed."
Lucia just offered a nod as the first wave of undead closed in. As they approached, Lucia suddenly pitched forward, swinging her enchanted sword in a wide arc, slicing the two nearest zombies in half in a single stroke. She allowed the momentum of her swing to carry her sword in a circular arc, bringing it up over her shoulder and then down again in a diagonal slash, cleaving through a third zombie. Fortunately, the magic that held zombies in its thrall required that their bodies more or less remain in tact, thus decapitating or eviscerating a zombie had the same effect as it did on a human.
Naga managed to fare well herself. As she'd noted to Lucia earlier, she had received some basic swordsmanship training as a teenager, and it had been more than enough for her to deal with zombies, creatures that possessed only a fraction of the coordination and speed of their human counterparts. Within a few stokes, Naga had cleaved the heads from two zombies and had quite literally 'disarmed' a third, giving it a firm kick in the chest to send it sprawling helplessly across the floor. The two were still surrounded by a dozen or so of the undead creatures, but as the two women moved back to back, they realized that their tactically inept opponents would have a hard time breaking through their defenses.
"Assha Dist!" Lucia shouted, waving a hand at a few of the creatures as waves of bright light struck them, causing a small group to crumble into dust. She brought her sword up just in time to deflect a rotted wooden club being wielded by another zombie, and with a few more strokes the zombie dropped to the ground, armless, headless, and once more lifeless. Between the two of them, every zombie that stepped within range was quickly cut down, and within a few minutes the ground was covered with motionless corpses that should have long since remained motionless.
"Yuck." Naga said simply, wiping some greenish grey substance off of her gloves. "This is why I don't use my sword. Disgusting. Do you know how much these gloves cost?" She muttered. Both of them took a look around the room. At least fifteen zombies had attacked them, though it was somewhat hard to count for sure, as Lucia's spell had disintegrated some of them, and it was hard to tell how many half zombies there were in the mess. A whirling sound, once more from the same tunnel, caught their attention.
"I wonder what's next." Lucia said, glancing at Naga and noticing she'd brought her sword up to the ready once more. She let the appearance of the sorceress holding her sword distract her for a moment, and briefly found herself regretting the fact that Naga didn't use her sword more often. The woman made for a very attractive warrior, given her height and physique. She turned her gaze back towards the tunnel just in time to see several figures emerge from its shadows. Again, their opponents varied in height from taller than Naga to almost as short as Lucia, and once again their appearance instantly gave away their natures.
"Skeletons now?!" Naga said incredulously. "Well, at least they don't leak slimy grey crap all over my clothes." She muttered to herself. The figures approached them with more intelligence than their previous comrades, and in fact were splitting into two groups, each one circling around the opposite side of the room. Lucia suddenly felt a tug at the pit of her stomach as she came to a realization.
"They're trying to flank us." She stated firmly. Undead creatures existed in different tiers, each of which possessed a certain level of intelligence. Zombies and skeletons were at the lowest rung of the ladder, and often lacked the intelligence to perform tasks beyond simple commands such as 'kill', 'guard' or 'stay here'. Above those were wraiths, ghosts, and other spirits. These beings normally possessed enough intelligence to manipulate objects and possessed emotions as well, but were usually twisted by the torment of undeath that they were almost always evil and demented. Vampires, liches, and greater mummies sat at the top of the ladder. They were not only powerful in undeath, but also cunning and intelligent, and often used the benefits of their eternal unlives to gain power and manipulate mortals. The fact that these mere skeletons were using complex tactics could only mean one thing.
"Something's controlling them." Naga said after a moment, confirming that she had suspected the same thing as Lucia. Their skeletal opponents carried a variety of weapons, and some of them were dressed in tattered clothes, some wore rusting bits and pieces of armor, and others wore nothing at all. The only thing that they all shared in common was their apparent desire to kill Naga and Lucia.
Lucia acted first, twisting to one side and lashing out horizontally at the first skeleton to get within range. It tried to parry her attack, but the rusted sword it carried didn't stand a chance of stopping the swordswoman's enchanted blade, and her blow shattered the sword and continued on through the skeleton, knocking it to pieces. She followed up the attack by changing her tactics, charging into the ranks of skeletons. They reacted differently than the zombies, and instead of standing and allowing themselves to be slaughtered, they spread away from the charging swordswoman, though she managed to bring down a pair that had moved in and attempted to flank her. She looked across the room at Naga and turned course, not wanting to move too far away from the sorceress given that this wasn't her preferred method of fighting.
Naga, meanwhile, was having a slightly harder time of things. She found herself losing ground as two skeletons alternated taking swipes at her, and she was forced to rely on every ounce of training she'd received from her father in order to parry them. She uttered a gasp of pain as one of them managed to get through her guard, the blow glancing off of her parry and cutting a light gash on her unprotected thigh. The sorceress gritted her teeth, refusing to look down to where she knew blood dripped from the wound, feeling it run down her leg as she focused on her opponents. She finally managed to spot a hole in one skeleton's defenses and, with a snap of her arm and wrist, cleaved the creature's head from its brittle neck. Left with but one more opponent at the moment, she was able to regain her edge and quickly began to overpower her skeletal enemy. The skeleton's skills were carried over from life, but it became clear that these had not been highly trained soldiers or knights, and before long Naga disarmed the skeleton and brought a horizontal slash against its exposed spine, snapping it in two.
"Fireball!" Lucia cried suddenly, an explosion rocking a group of several skeletons, sending charred bone fragments flying everywhere. Naga's gaze turned towards Lucia just as she cut down another skeleton. The swordswoman was panting slightly, and the bones of destroyed skeletons around her showed that whatever intelligence drove the skeletons had decided that she was the bigger threat, thus pushing most of their forces towards her. Naga realized that the fireball had been an act of desperation as the spell had taken a lot out of the swordswoman, who generally relied on her sword more than magic. The last of the skeletons dispatched, Lucia returned to Naga's side, and the sorceress could see from the redness of the blonde's face that she'd been pretty close to the fireball when it had gone off.
"Something isn't right about this, Lucia." Naga said, grimacing as the wound on her thigh stung and burned. Lucia spotted it as well and knelt down, setting her sword aside as she brought her hands up and started casting a light healing spell.
"I know." Lucia replied, letting the magical energy flow into the wound to mend it as much as possible. "Did you notice how they attacked us in waves? We're being toyed with." She added, feeling anger well up inside of her and willfully suppressing it. Times like this made it hard to be cheerful.
"By who? Or…what?" Naga said, finally looking down as Lucia finished the spell. The wound was still there, but where there had once been a deep gash there was now only a thin pink line. Naga wasn't too worried about a scar, since those could always be removed later with the proper application of white magic.
"I'm willing to bet that if we live long enough, we'll find out." Lucia replied, standing up. Her breath was coming in short pants as she pushed her sword back into its sheath for the time being. Naga looked at her with concern.
"Are you alright? You don't look very good." Naga asked.
"I'll be okay. I just need to recover for a moment." She replied. That fireball had taken a lot out of her. She generally kept to lower level spells due to the drain it put on her, and she'd poured more power into that fireball due to the desperation of the moment.
"I think we're stuck going through the ruins, Lucia." Naga remarked, looking up at the hole in the ceiling. "Unless you're good enough with levitation to pull both of us through that hole, because I can barely manage to slow fall with it right now." Lucia sighed in response to Naga's words.
"I can only barely manage to slow fall with it at full strength. Levitation's not a spell I practice very often." The swordswoman replied, herself looking up at the hole for a moment as well before turning towards the tunnel their undead opponents had come through. "I'll take the lead." She said as she headed into the shadows of the tunnel, once more calling forth a lighting spell to hover over her head as she walked. Naga moved in behind her.
The tunnel went on in a straight line for several dozen feet before turning 90 degrees to the right and continuing on. The hallway was about ten feet wide and at least twice as tall and the walls were made of solid, carved stone, indicating that the tunnel itself was carved directly from the bedrock rather than being constructed. Decades of disuse had done little to undermine the strength of the passageway, however, and the stone walls, while slightly cracked, still appeared thick and sturdy. The floor was made up of stone tiles that were mostly even, though time and the expansion of rock under the dungeon had caused some of them to shift slightly, making every few tiles appear slightly higher or lower than the ones next to them.
It was because of this that Lucia didn't notice one particular raised tile until it clicked under her boot. Normally, she would have been more careful, but her concern for their unseen enemy and having to worry about how she would protect Naga if they faced a powerful enemy had taken her off guard, so she was completely unprepared for the blast of stinging green mist that caught her in the eyes. The swordswoman immediately dropped to the floor as Naga gasped in shock.
"Lucia!" Naga cried, kneeling down beside the swordswoman. Lucia was on her hands and knees and whimpering in pain.
"It burns! I can't open my eyes!" Lucia said fearfully. She cursed herself for being so stupid and careless, knowing that old ruins like these were often host to a number of traps, having narrowly escaped death from some of them herself on countless occasions. The burning sensation was beginning to fade, though it was being replaced by a numb feeling beneath her eyelids.
Naga reached out and dabbed some of the green fluid on her finger, then brought it to her nose and sniffed it. The acrid smell made her cringe, but then she touched her finger to the tip of her tongue, spitting a moment afterwards. "Cyralis extract." She said in a serious tone.
"What…is cyralis extract?" Lucia said, gasping a bit as the pain from her eyes began to lessen, though she still couldn't open them. Despite never having heard the name, the fact that it had been in a trap and that Naga had heard of it worried her.
"It's a type of poison. It's a common ingredient in blinding powder, but I've never heard of it being concentrated and used in a trap." Naga recalled solemnly. Lucia wiped her eyes a few more times, then opened them, only to find that her vision had been reduced to a very thick, streaked blur. She couldn't even make out her hand in front of her face beyond a dark colored blob.
"Naga…" Lucia said, her voice quivering. She couldn't hear the almost audible gulp of Naga swallowing the lump in her throat.
"I know, Lucia.", she said softly. "The blindness won't be permanent if we can get you to a healer within a day or two." The sorceress explained. She was being optimistic, however, as she'd only heard of cures for people that had taken a hit from so-called 'blinding powder', which was a power base usually made of ground flour or fine sand dust that had been saturated in cyralis extract. The dose Lucia had taken was easily five or six times that strong.
"You…you'll need to guide me, then. I can't see anything." Lucia replied, forcing herself to calm down. The thought of losing her eyesight permanently, of no longer being able to travel, or explore, tore through her. She'd heard that there was once a wise sage, the famous Rezo, that had been blind, but he had enormous magical power that served to enhance his senses in place of eyes, while she had…nothing.
"Take my hand." Naga said, though it was more a gesture than anything else as she reached out and grabbed Lucia's wrist, helping the swordswoman to her feet. Lucia stood up and sighed. The entire hallway was nothing more than a jumble of thick, morphing blobs moving in front of her. There was no depth, no contrast between them. She could make out very vague shapes and nothing more.
"Keep an eye out for more traps." Lucia said softly. She felt the sorceress nod beside her as the two started to walk forward. Despite her optimism, Lucia had begun to mull over in her head what life would be like for her if she was unable to get to a healer in time. Lucia loved to admire the world around her in all of its intricate beauty, and the thought of never seeing a sunset, or a beautiful forest canopy, or the crisp blue of a summer sky was like a horrible chill down her spine. She immediately shut down that line of thought, though, not wanting to depress herself, and instead focused on moving down the tunnel, Naga now in front and resembling nothing more than a dark blob as her cape fluttered with her movements. Lucia then realized she also wouldn't be able to see Naga's beautiful face anymore, and immediately wondered why she'd mentally worded it like that. Naga suddenly stopped, almost causing Lucia to bump into her.
"What is it, Naga?" Lucia asked curiously. She felt Naga tense up, and then anticipation started to well up in her gut.
"We've got company, Lucia."