Chapter 10: Seeds of Darkness

"This was not something I signed up for. Not at all," Iago said as they stared into the forms of several shadow monsters.

"These are the same kind of monster as the one we met when we first came to this realm. Before we met Mozenrath," Aladdin said with a wince. There were at least ten of the shadow monsters, far more than either Aladdin or Iago could hope to fight. Aladdin backed away slowly, hoping to make an escape while throwing them off guard. But Iago was far more loud and commanding with his intentions. The bird yelled and flew past Aladdin.

"Wait!" Aladdin shouted, but it was too late as one of the shadow monsters tackled Iago, slamming the bird against the nearby wall so hard that the bird slumped to the ground. Aladdin's eyes widened as he realized Iago wasn't getting up any time soon. "Iago!"

The monsters were turning their attention on Aladdin and Iago quickly, approaching slowly and hungrily from what Aladdin could hear from their growls. Realizing that he couldn't fight them all, Aladdin used his momentum to run, slide, and grab Iago just before the attacking shadow monster could rip its claws through the bird. The claws tore a part of Aladdin's vest as he escaped, but he was thankful that it didn't hurt him otherwise. Aladdin ran as fast as his legs could carry him as the horde of monsters chased them. The poison going through him was slowing his movement, making it hard for him to get a good distance between himself and the creatures behind him. It wouldn't be long before they caught up.

Now what do I do? The prince realized that it was only a matter of time before he'd run into the giant shadow teddy bears ahead of where they were, which meant he'd have a collision course of two potential foes. Aladdin looked at his surroundings, trying to find any other possible escape routes or paths to take. There weren't obvious paths to anywhere, but there were definitely a number of dangerously unstable hiding places. If we have any hope to shake off these guys, I'll have to hide around here - even if it is dangerous, Aladdin thought. I think these areas are even less safe than the place we were hiding before.

Aladdin saw his opportunity as he turned a corner of the path. There was a ledge in the broken area of the pathway that he could duck down and hide in, but one part of it looked like a cliff that fell off. Aladdin couldn't tell how far it went down. "Have no choice but to chance it. Hold on, Iago. This is going to be a tight squeeze."

Aladdin lay in the hidden crevice, holding Iago close to him as he heard the stampede of monsters go past them. But what was even more alarming was the fact he heard the shadow monsters fighting the shadow teddy bears. It sounded like the bears were...winning? He wasn't going to look to check.

It was a long time before silence remained in the area, the shadow teddy bear drumbeats fading until they were nothing. Aladdin moved slightly to see if the coast was clear before crawling out of the hiding space with Iago. The bird was still breathing, but still hadn't woken.

"Looks like they're gone, but..." He looked down at the bird with concern. He wasn't feeling too well either with the poison flowing through him. HIs vision blurred, and he felt like the room around him swayed. He remained on his feet, but stumbled a little. "Mozenrath said that the poison wouldn't kill me, but how long is it going to be until it wears off? I'm gonna need every bit of focus to make it out of the traps here and keep Iago safe while finding the others."

But then, he heard a familiar set of voices. They sounded like they were far away, and Aladdin couldn't tell the distance. His hearing had been off, he realized, when he turned around to see Jasmine, Abu, and Carpet flying in to greet him.

"Aladdin! Aladdin!" Abu screeched cheerfully.

Aladdin smiled as they arrived. "Man, am I glad to see you. All of you."

Jasmine shook her head. "We were held up by Mozenrath, not to mention a few traps and monsters that chased us. We heard you guys earlier and realized you were in trouble, but..." She noticed Iago and gasped. "What happened to him?"

"Pretty much the same thing that happened to you guys. Escaped some traps and chased by monsters. One of them hit him pretty hard." Aladdin set Iago as gently as he could on Carpet's surface. "I think he knocked out, but he's still breathing. Managed to keep the monsters from cutting through him, but I don't think the blow to the head did him any good."

"Oh no!" Abu said, shaking the bird's shoulders. "Iago, wake up."

"Let him rest, Abu. We need to get out of here before..." Aladdin winced as his voice trailed off, thoughts lost. His arms clutched his middle as pain went through him, like he'd been gut punched. His vision blurred over completely, and he felt the area around him spin as his legs gave out beneath him.

"Aladdin!" Jasmine managed to break his fall. Aladdin took a while to steady his breathing. When his vision finally cleared, he looked up at Jasmine, whose face etched with worry. "Those dark vines on your body. It wasn't as bad when we last saw you, but now..."

"It's everywhere now, yeah. Feels like it, at least." Aladdin said. "Sorry princess, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm just...trying...to stay awake."

A familiar laugh echoed around them in the path. It wasn't long before all of them saw Mozenrath appear in the path ahead of them. The sorcerer's grin twisted the features of his face. "At last, it looks like things are finally ready. Aladdin's at his breaking point, you're all still trapped in my lair, and I can finally harness the power of your Genie to defeat the lot of you. Revenge is certainly sweet. Sweet as Black Sand poison."

Aladdin spoke through clenched teeth as Jasmine helped him sit upright. "What about the game, Mozenrath? Or are you finally admitting you've been cheating this whole time?"

"Your Princess's arrival was a violation of my rules. Which, as I told her, the stakes are higher now. Gave me just enough time to be able to garner the power that I've wanted." Mozenrath's glove began to glow with a scary amount of dark power. "And believe me when I say, I've been waiting all too long to do this. Come forth, seedling of the realm! Grow into your fullest potential and destroy them!"

At that moment, Iago woke up slowly, but he was fully awake as he saw the same vines that emerged from the cracks in the pathway and walls. "I wake up from one nightmare into another. I shoulda stayed asleep!"

"Wish it was only a nightmare, but it isn't." Jasmine said, her eyes widened as she saw the dark vines sprout flowers with sharp claw-like petals.

Aladdin was able to get to his feet as Jasmine helped him. "Makes sense that the worst monster this realm had to offer relates with all of the vines and flowers that we saw before. And there's nothing deceptively beautiful about this one."

Mozenrath shrugged. "The good news for all of you is at least the thorns and petal teeth in this creature won't infect you with poison. And it doesn't have any kind of healing magic to speak of to seal any poison within you. So no more curses like the one Aladdin has now. If you get bit or stabbed with the vines on this Black Sand made creature, it's going to draw blood. The least harmful option of all the possible ones." Mozenrath's grin widened. "The worst - it will rip you all to shreds."

"Oh no!" Abu cried.

Aladdin's eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched as he watched the massive creature unfurl and unravel behind Mozenrath and around them. "Yeah, we're in trouble."

Genie was trying his hardest to flood as much of his magic as he could to help out Aladdin and the others. The teddy bears hadn't been what he'd been aiming for, but at least they had protected Aladdin and Iago where they were needed. But things shifted very quickly when Mozenrath decided to directly draw from the source of power Genie was provided. The shift shocked his senses, hard enough to make him grit his teeth and groan.

"Ha, ha. Genie feel pain." Xerxes mocked.

But Genie noticed something small that had his attention in his particularly tight containment space. Sometime between feeding his massive magic powers to the realm in which his friends were trapped within, alongside Mozenrath recently deciding to draw upon his magic directly, he noticed a splintering crack near the base of his prison. If I can just manage to crack it more to break open, this whole thing can definitely turn around, Genie thought. The idea in his mind that formed was a solid one, but the problem would be that the magic that he used against it would potentially feed more power to Mozenrath and the monster for a short time. But if he timed it right...

He knew exactly what he had to do, he just hoped that the others would be able to hold on long enough for his plan to work.