Chapter 6

We have a second tussle with Gloom cultists

The entrance to the second crypt was in the middle of some ruins, old run down buildings that were falling apart. But we found it easily enough, there were signs of recent activity all over the place. And I could follow the feeling of that dark magic, which seemed even greater here than the last site. Because it was closer to ground level or just because it was a stronger source I couldn't yet say.

"Same plan as before?" Hanz asked.

"I'll check it out," I told them, beginning to cast. A minute later I had a picture. "Four guards on the main entrance. Ugh, two men in those same robes and two skeletons."

"It would be skeletons," Hanz mused.

"Yanking their heads off seemed to work for me," Malachite told them.

"I shall attempt it. Anything else of note?"

"There's a door, I'll have to do the spell again to see beyond that."

"Very well."

I did so, but ran into that same muddy glass effect I had been thwarted by before. "I can't see into the next room. They're doing something in there."

"So we take out the guards, and see for ourselves," Malachite decided, slamming a fist into his palm. "Let's make with the invisibility magic."

"I suppose we have no choice," I agreed. I started casting. I hate to just rush down there and kill them. For all I know this Gloom stuff is forcing them to do this, they became 'cultists' against their will. But I don't know any exorcism magic, there wouldn't be anything I could really do for them. And their souls may already be tainted, beyond saving even if I wanted to.

"We should talk about the plan?" Hanz suggested even as we faded out.

"Take them out!" Malachite told them.

"Yes, but specifically?"

"Same as before. Get into position, I'll attack first. Let's you and me take a skeleton, Snarly can backstab one of the guys and Orchid can hang back and use spells on the other one or to help us as we need it."

"That is acceptable."

"Sounds good ta me!"

We headed down, again trying to make as little noise as possible, and I closed up my box again as we headed down there. No hesitation. You know what you have to do, agonize over the moral implications later.

Malachite became visible as he grabbed the head of the left skeleton, causing the cultists to go "huh?"

Hanz did the same, while Snarly plunged his daggers into the back of the man on the right. With everyone visible I said the first word of the wind attack incantation and gestured at the remaining man. Two bolts slammed into his head, and he staggered forward.

"Attack!" managed the one stabbed by Snarly. The skeletons raised their weapons. Malachite wrenched the head but didn't pull it off, while the other one slipped Hanz's grasp.

"Blasted thing," they cursed, dodging back as the thing swung a sword at them. "Oh right I'm made of metal," they remembered. They went to grab the thing again, easily getting a hold of it. Malachite kept pulling, this time ripping the head off and tossing the skull aside as the bones fell apart.

By this time the cultists had drawn their own weapons, and the one had turned to attack Snarly. I flexed my muscles, casting a Mars spell to hopefully make him miss. He did, Snarly dodging to the side to avoid the blow. With a shrug I figured I would keep helping him, and cast the opposite spell on him, to make him hit better. It wasn't much, but it was all I could offer at the moment. It did seem to help, the man dropped as Snarly pulled his dagger away.

I risked a look at the battlefield, Malachite had turned to face the other cultist, while Hanz seemed to be having some trouble holding onto their skeleton. I cast a Saturn spell at it, hoping that would help. I was pretty sure it did, they got hold of it once again, and with a crack of bone they too had taken the skeleton's head off.

With only the one cultist left he stood no chance, and I simply watched as the others ganged up on him and finished him off.

"A good start," Hanz decided. "Now for what will no doubt be the larger chamber."

"Oh, oh, do the door thing!" Malachite pleaded.

"Liked that, did you?" I asked, shaking my head a little. "Fine. Get into position." I spoke the full incantation and this door flew into the next room, followed by the others. This was a much larger chamber, several doors in evidence on the far wall, and several cultists within. Three were standing before an alter of sorts at the side of the room, chanting something, and a column of black flame rose from the center of the chamber. This concerned me greatly, as part of it shot out and struck the two men that had been killed, giving them that dark aura and making them stir! It's turning them into zombies just like that? This is bad. I watched in horror as they started to move, their arms reaching in the direction of the flame. I had to do something, I couldn't let them fully become zombies especially with me right next to them. Luckily I had all the tools I needed right there. They hadn't seemed to notice me yet, more entranced by the flame in the next room, so I gently took a step back and started casting. Controlling four objects at once wasn't easy, but swords were pretty light all things considered that's how you could swing them around in combat so much. I gathered ambient mana and threw it into my Mercury spell to grab up the scattered blades. With them controlled by my spell I raised them high in the air, then brought my hands down. Two each plunged into the backs of the zombies and then deep into the floor, pinning them to the ground. They didn't seem to notice. That suited me fine, maybe they wouldn't notice what I was about to do next- set them on fire. Again drawing in ambient mana I set their hair and clothes on fire methodically, knowing it wouldn't really burn them to ashes or anything but would at least slow them down should they get loose.

As I cast my final fire spell I realized Malachite was screaming my name and raced to the doorway, looking for him. He was off to the right, pointing towards a door that had been opened by a cultist. He was busy fighting another, and I looked through the door. It was some distance away and lit from within by oil lamps but I saw some kind of creature stirring in there. It wasn't a mouse. The man was shouting something to it, then ran to the side as it got up. The thing was big, and looked like it was made from rock or something. I had never seen anything like it, and quietly started to panic about how we were going to deal with such a thing. I had one chance. If I could hit it just as it started to leave the room the blast might be contained. But I couldn't wait too long, because I needed to see my target; the burning lamps behind it.

When I copied the spell of combustion into my spellbook I dutifully copied the warning that was printed after the spell. "Warning: Do not cast this on an already burning flame. It will cause an eruption of fire far out of proportion to anything you expect. The fire will be hotter, brighter, and more deadly than any other flame you have ever experienced. You cannot escape the blast, it will reach as far as your magic can reach at that moment. It will kill you."

But in this case the fire would be contained in the tiny room, right? The entire force of the blast would hit this rock creature, and we would be fine, right? Right? I had to chance it, if that thing got loose my little wind magic spell just wasn't going to cut it. I just hope there's no valuables in the room as they're about to be turned into slag. But they wouldn't leave anything in with that creature, would they? I drew in mana and waited for my chance. When I thought the moment was right I cast, reaching as far as I could with my magic and hoping I didn't need to get closer. It worked! There was a detonation from that room, but I was horrified to watch as flame belched out of the doorway and filled half the room up. Malachite for sure was caught in the blast, as were the two men nearby. Snarly was on the other side of the room thankfully, and Hanz simply flinched back, but my box broke open as the horrifying realization took hold of me.

I had just killed Malachite with my carelessness.

I blinked my eyes against the fading light and was horrified again. The creature was still alive! That massive blast hadn't done anything more than enrage it, and it smashed its way through the door frame. This, it turned out, was a mistake. The flame or just age and the force of the blow caused that part of the crypt to simply cave in on the creature, trapping it. I held my breath to see if it would impossibly climb out but the pile of dirt and rock didn't stir.

"Nice job!" Malachite shouted at me. "Only a few guys left!"

I did a double take and stared at him, tears forming in my eyes. "You're alive!" I whispered, afraid to speak a reality into existence that may be some kind of wishful thinking on my part. I found myself running out to him, grabbing him up in a hug. "You're alive!" I said again, tears running down my face.

"Yeah, not sure how, but I'll take it. Are you crying? For me?"

"Of course I am, I thought I killed you. Are you hurt? Oh, I'm so sorry about that! I never thought it would be that huge! I thought I had killed you. Oh Malachite I'm so sorry!"

"You're repeating yourself. You're repeating yourself. Hey, don't worry about me, I'm tough." But he still looked a bit confused about the whole thing.

By all rights he shouldn't be fine, draig aren't immune to fire and- "I thought you were dead. Where are you hurt, I'll heal you right away!" I pulled away and started checking him over.

"I'm telling you, I'm not hurt."

"What?" It seemed it was true, his scales didn't even seem singed, and he was still dressed so his clothes hadn't caught on fire. The man he was fighting was burnt to a crisp right there before him, his robes and hair still burning. Same as the other one not that much further away. But Malachite? Not a scratch.

"Not to intrude," Hanz called, beam cannon at the ready and pointed away from us. "But what are we doing about them? I can't get near them."

We both looked over where they were pointing, there were three men surrounded by some kind of elemental energy, swirling around and shielding them. They seemed to be chanting, and there was a creature seemingly made of air forming near them.

"Shoot the middle one!" I told them.

They shrugged and their beam lanced out, exploding the man's head. With no intelligence to guide the magic it went wild, and the two at the sides cried out as the elemental, vanishing again into whatever non-existence it enjoyed before this struck out and slashed them to ribbons.

Silence fell over the cave.

The black fire started to sputter out too as the wind died down, and we all looked around for more threats. There were none, the cultists were all dead.

"What wath that fire?" Snarly asked, putting his daggers away. "Wath that you?"

"Some kind of creature in that room over there," I told him. "Panicked a bit. Had to hit it with my best spell, and that didn't even seem to finish it off. Luckily the ceiling fell on it." I said a quick prayer of thanks to the Allfather, or whatever angel had been watching over us at that moment. "If it could take that blast and keep going, I'm pretty sure it could have taken all of us."

"Warn a guy before ya do 'hat next time, 'k? Seesh, my fur got a bit singthed."

"Forget your fur, Malachite was just standing there in front of the open door. Are you sure you're all right?" I asked Malachite.

"Completely fine," he assured me. "I mean if you want to do a more thorough examination later back at the inn… Oh I mean, uh, that is to say, what I meant was-"

"Never mind, jerk." I hugged him again. "Don't scare me like that again."

"Don't blow me up next time then!"

I chuckled. "I won't."

"Yer 'upposed to leave people to loot," Snarly complained, looking over the dead cultist. "Well, time to check the place out. Glad yer not dead, 'Kite."

"Yes, I too am relieved to see you alive and well," Hanz told him. "Especially given your proximity to the blast and how hot it registered to my sensors. Most peculiar you escaped unharmed."

"You're telling me. Are you going to let me go or what? Not that I'm complaining..."

"Sorry!" I let go and wiped my eyes. "I just, right, looting all the bodies. Let's get out of here before the whole place collapses."

We checked the site, and these people were "proper" bandits. They had a nice haul of what Snarly declared were antiques, and should fetch a good price.

"Suns, not Moons," he quipped. "We need to haul all this 'tuff back 'n sell it!"

"Gold?" Malachite breathed. "Now you're talking my language. But are you sure? For this junk?"

"Ith not junk, to the right peopleth."

"I'll take your word for it."

Additionally we found more silver coins lying around, nine in total, bags of supplies like travel rations, but I was most interested in the books. They had gotten blown around when the elemental went crazy but they were intact. We also found some old tablets and scrolls, as well as a few maps of the area. From my quick look over of the stuff it seemed the crypt was a place of power involved in the mage war centuries ago. Ancient mages tapped into elemental power here, when magic was "new" and the chaos moon had "only" hung a few hundred years in our skies. Records from that time were scant, we didn't know how long the age had lasted from the time of the Moon's arrival to the mage war that ultimately knocked us back to the stone age again and precipitated the creation of the mage's guild to make sure such a war never happened again.

"The maps here mark other locations ancient mages used," I told the others. "It's written in their script, I'm not great at it as I rely on magic to read other languages but I can tell that much. This one it seems has been overrun with the undead, as you can see that's in Trade. So the cultists must have looked at the site and marked that here."

"Doesn't look far," Hanz informed us. "I estimate we could detour there, see how bad it is and if something should be done about it on our way back to town. I assume we are returning to see our 'loot' sold as soon as possible?"

"Gold!" Malachite reminded them.

"Yes, quite."

"Are you damaged?" I asked them, finally taking a good look at their casing or body or whatever you wanted to call it.

"I did sustain a bit of damage from the combat yes, and I am not as fireproof as our scaly friend here it seems."

"So it's my fault. Let me try my repair spell, maybe it'll work on you like a healing spell works on living people."

"You may proceed, I too am interested if such is the case. But know if you should fail, my systems will self repair in time, so do not concern yourself overmuch."

So I healed them up, it seemed repair was healing for them, and took care of a scratch for Snarly as well. We again gathered up the cultists, even the now returned to death ones from the outer chamber and set everybody on fire. We used the wood from the doors and the alter this time, so they would burn a little longer.

"I really don't want them coming back as zombies, or liches or anything else," I explained. "Given how these two started to become animated just from that black flame being around, I can't trust them to stay dead. What are you doing?" I asked Malachite.

They gave a jerk and pulled their hand away from the fire. "Just making sure. The fire doesn't burn me, isn't that wild?"

"Experiment later. Maybe this place is interacting with you in some way. I don't like it. The weird magic feeling I had is going away but it's not gone yet."

"Fine, mom."

"Oh, is someone going to get a spanking when we get back home?"

Both of us froze a little and looked away. I certainly wasn't thinking about the shape of his butt, or his tail, or how exactly all that fit together back there and was curious to see it close up for myself. No, I certainly was not. Could I even spank him? Is he scaly back there too? That could actually be fairly inconvenient. Not the time, Orchid. Bad thoughts, out with the bad thoughts.

"Anyway let's load up these chests, they're not going to get themselves back to town!" he announced. "Nothing else for us here, let's go."

We followed the river south a bit, agreeing with Hanz that we should at least check out the nearby crypt to make sure it hadn't been disturbed enough to send undead spilling into the countryside. Though if it had we were already too late to do anything about it. We managed to find the entrance rather easily, it was well marked on the map, but I couldn't use my magic to see down the stairs this time. Unfortunately my magic treated me as if I had moved to the point my divination magic went, so if it was dark, all I saw was… dark.

We decided Hanz had the best chance of sneaking around undetected as they were not alive in the way a zombie or other undead would care about. Also they could see in near darkness. With their own invisibility and my phasing magic they slipped inside to scout the place out. The door was open but I had gotten a "no" answer to "have any undead come past this door since it was opened?" A few moments later they came back, reporting there were undead shuffling around in the dark down there.

"Nothing much of value either," they reported. "At least in those areas with enough light for me to see by. I say we close the place up again and hope time forgets it forever."

So it's only risk and no reward? I've already almost killed someone I know today, let's keep the total at one shall we? "I mean we should do something about them sooner or later," I protested. "I'm all for using zombies as tools when the situation requires it but you get rid of them afterwords. You don't leave them lying around. We can probably deal with them better than anyone who stumbles upon this place later."

"Very well. I shall make a note in my memory banks. Beep. Beep. Beep. I have set a reminder to come back and deal with this place."

"However you do it."

With the three of us (I used magic) we pushed the doors back into place, and I considered using my spell to sculpt stone to create a sort of "lock" by twisting parts of them together. But Hanz spoke up first.

"I have observed most people are somewhat wary of magic. Could we place a fake magical seal upon the door to discourage the curious?"

"It wouldn't be magical to anyone that knew what to look for," I told him, "but sure, whatever you want."

So with their beam weapon at low power and my sculpting spell we "carved" some "magical runes" into the door and stepped back to admire our work.

"I'd 'tay way from it," Snarly decided.

"Okay, let's head back. We've got a lot of stuff to do in town tomorrow."

"Thath right, I have a promish to keep," Snarly reminded himself.

And miles to go before I sleep.