Soft, dusty
earth shifted across the forest floor as a small robed figure lowered itself to
the ground tensely. Birds sung amongst themselves high in the trees above,
oblivious to the figure as it began crawling on its stomach slowly towards a
forest clearing; not that there was need for them to be weary, after all - the
woman posed very little threat to them even before she started hiding herself
clumsily under a bush.
Breathing deep
Nesonna allowed herself to relish the smell of soft, dry soil for a few moments
before turning her focus to the derelict fort standing proudly just over a
kilometer away from the forest edge. Straining her eyes Nesonna grinned as she
saw the fort had been manned by several tall, bulking humanoids - orcs - with
crossbows held cautiously. She had been tracking these creatures for almost a
week before she was sidetracked in a village to get supplies, but now she could
relax a little as her quarry appeared to have settled down for a while.
Pulling out a
notebook and pencil, Nesonna began taking notes on the fort’s defenders and
possible plans of attack. Her elven eyes allowed Nesonna to make out more
detail from such a distance than lesser races would be able: she could tell
that the fort had seen its share of battles before its newest inhabitants
arrived, its walls were torn and crumbling; and she could tell from their
lowered posture and lacking patrol that her quarry was sure they were safe from
assault.
The elf’s scribbling was interrupted, however, when a loud battle cry rang out
from the forest - several hundred meters to her left - as a band of two dozen
heavily armed individuals came rushing from the tree line - straight towards
her quarry!
Nesonna tensed as she watched the group charging the full kilometer towards the
fort with seemingly no opposition - she’d been chasing these
orcs for several weeks, and now a random group of idiots was going to steal everything
away from-
Her miniature
panic-attack ended abruptly as a rain of arrow fire soared from the keep,
skewering over half of the group as a squadron of armored brutes came
sauntering out from the fort’s entrance, weaponry in hand. Any doubts Nesonna
had over the futility of her journey subsequently evaporated while witnessing
the ‘battle’ that followed as the survivors were cut down with minimal effort.
Shaking her
head in exasperation, Nesonna finished the last of her notes and shoved them
into her robes as she gingerly pushed herself from the dirt and skulked back
deeper into the forest, towards the quaint town she’d visited a day before.
…
A bell rang
cheerfully as Nesonna pushed open the door, signaling the shopkeeper to lower
her book and smile toothily at her guest as she entered.
“Fancy seeing you again,” a friendly, southern voice drawled as Nesonna closed
the door behind, “and here I thought you weren’t ever coming back.”
“Hi again, Amelia,” Nesonna raised a hand in an awkward wave at the woman, a
thin blonde human in her early-to-mid forties who she’d met only a day ago -
and yet had still been the only person to actually treat Nesonna
non-aggressively in months.
“What brings you here again, Nesonna?” Amelia rested her head on the tips of
her entwined fingers and stared tenderly at the elf.
“I, uh…” Nesonna averted her gaze from that of the human’s and stared at the
wall as she stuttered, “I need a grappling hook and a rope - if you have any.”
Amelia gave an amused smile and rose from her counter, “I have some rope there
on the wall, and a few hooks out back; just wait here while I go get one for
you.”
The human left out a door leading to, what Nesonna had assumed was her living
space, but now could have been a storage room for all the elf knew; and Nesonna
took a rope of the wall and began perusing items around the room.
The bell rung
again as Nesonna took a coil of rope of the wall and she instinctively turned
to see several men and women enter the store, a man in a thick blue robe
seeming to lead them.
“Looks like you’re ready for war” the robed man chuckled as he eyed the elf up
and down, “where’s the action?”
Nesonna eyed the man and his multi-racial party and something inside of her
decided they posed approximately zero threat to her, “I’m going to kill an orc
chieftain” she answered matter-of-factly.
“Oh,” the mage looked taken aback by her bluntness, “Do you want us to
help?”
Nesonna eyed
the mages’ companions as he waved a hand over to them - a true ragtag bunch of
misfits if ever she’d saw them: there were two elves, one with a new-looking
short bow, and the other with a lute of some sort; a halfling and a human both
dressed in leather, swords at their sides, and… a half-giant just slightly too
big to enter the building leaning on the window outside, looking into the
store. Nesonna took a step back as she saw the giant of a man, who
in turn waved at her with a big toothy grin on his face.
“Why would I
want your help?” she eyed the robed man cautiously.
“Well,” the man started rubbing the stubble on his chin, “I’m guessing
that you’re going after the bounty on those orc raiders that’ve been harassing
the towns around the area, and I think you’d have a better chance at taking
them down with us-” he motioned towards his group again “-than on your own.”
Nesonna swore internally: she’d torn the bounty off the board where she’d seen
it, how did anyone else know about it?
“Alright,” Nesonna narrowed her eyes at the band, “but that doesn’t answer my
question: why should I trust you?”
“Well, because we’re nice!” the man exclaimed cheerily, as if that was
all the argument he needed, then added “And we’ll let you hand in the bounty on
your own - and keep whatever you can carry if you help us with
the orcs.”
A high-pitched voice butted in - the halfling fighter - for the first
time since they’d entered “We’d bet there’s more than enough for all of us to
take away from their camp, and we just want some gear and a little better
experience in combat.”
Nesonna crossed her arms and began glaring at the group “None of that answers
why I should trust you.”
“Well…” her would-be friend sighed in annoyance before smiling as
seemingly an idea sprung to head, “well we’re going to assault the orcs
ourselves anyway, so this is the best deal you’re going to get,” he put a hand
up before Nesonna could respond “and as for why you should trust us: we’re
telling you our plans and putting ourselves in danger if you end
up being…” he began fumbling his words, “like, insane, or something.”
“Or a spy,” the halfling pitched as both she and Nesonna stared at the man in
awkward disappointment.
Nesonna arched
an eyebrow at the man as he stared awkwardly at her. Was this some kind of
rouse, some twisted joke from God she had yet to understand? Erring on the side
of caution she chuckled awkwardly, hoping to appease her god’s apparently
twisted sense of humor, and then shook her head at the group, “Well, I suppose
I have nothing to lose joining you, so…” she struggled to spit out the words,
“so… I guess I’ll join you.”
“Excellent!” The man clapped his hands together as Amelia entered with
Nesonna’s hook and a leather satchel in hand.
“I noticed last time you were round that you’ve been shoving everything in your
robes,” Amelia eyed Nesonna amusedly, “So I figured you’d want to buy something
to actually put everything into; it’s a very good quality, locally-made and
it’ll only be 75 Silver!”
Nesonna eyed the bag carefully; she wanted to decline the sale, but she had
lost her pen on the way here when it fell from between her robes, “I’ll take
it,” she grumbled as gratefully as she could manage “thanks.”
With that, Nesonna paid the silver - which she’d had to fish from a pocket in
her robes - and left with her new travelling companions.
Several pints
slammed onto the table by one of her human companions as Nesonna worked with
the strap on her new backpack until suddenly a mug was thrust in front of her.
“Drink up, kiddo!” The man, a human dressed in leather with several pieces of
plate strapped on, laughed as Nesonna stared into the mug. He was Roderick;
Nesonna only vaguely remembered his name from when he had introduced himself on
the way to the tavern.
“There are reports around town of an orc band shacked up in an abandoned fort a
day’s travel north of here.” Roderick explained as he jabbed a finger down on
their map and fell into his seat.
“A fort?” the halfling, Jayne, piped up next to Nesonna, “Do you know how
defensible it is - or how many orcs there even are?”
“It’s more of a small keep - stone walls about 10 meters tall
surrounding it - with a good sightline on all approaches manned by at least 5
crossbows” Nesonna interrupted before the fair-haired man could respond.
The group turned their heads in unison at the elf, Agerius chuckling “Oh? I
guess I shouldn’t be surprised that someone resourceful enough to be travelling
on her own would have done a bit of scouting beforehand.”
“Do you think it’s assailable?” a deep but feminine voice spoke for the first
time Nesonna could tell - the elf ranger - Arlania if Nesonna recalled
correctly - was staring at her from across the table.
“Probably by a small force at night,” Nesonna’s face contorted in
thought, “but I don’t think many of you are… dexterous enough to make the
climb.”
“Do we all need to go?” Roderick spoke up again - to the robed man, Agerius,
more than the group itself - “I mean, if a few of us sneak in and take out the
guards then the rest of us can charge in, right?”
Nesonna shook her head as her companions began agreeing with the leather-clad
man.
“My original plan was to sneak in on my own and confront the leader while he slept,”
Nesonna eyed her companions, “but the more of us who sneak in, the less room we
have to sneak around.”
Jayne spoke up from Nesonna’s side again, “Yeah, and I for one’d rather not be
trapped in a keep full of orcs when the rest of you fail to get inside and
create a big scene.”
“So,” Agerius pulled a map from the pack at his side, “We need to make a
frontal-assault against an encampment of orcs: luckily I know of an abandoned
site - that was said to have found an ancient vault of magical artifacts - just
a few hours west of here.”
“Artifacts?” Nesonna cocked her head inquisitively, “What use are artifacts?”
“Well, they’re more of the magic sort,” the mage flashed the
elf a toothy grin, “but the site never actually opened; it was abandoned
shortly after they set it up-” he jabbed his finger down on the map, “-and I’m
certain it has what we need.”
“What do we need?” Nesonna interrogated further; the site was
a significant journey from the orcs’ encampment, and she didn’t want to lose
their trail by going on a scavenger hunt.
Sensing her caution, Agerius explained; “Well, an archeological team from the
university in Gandring claimed to have pretty solid evidence that this location
was the site of an ancient vault, and…” he trailed off, “it’s really the best option
we have to give us an edge.”
Nesonna exhaled in annoyance; they did need something to give them an edge over
their foe, and like it or not this was their best option. “Fine,” she muttered,
“I guess we’ll have to leave in the morning.”
…
Nesonna awoke
early with the rest of her companions just at the break of dawn and the party
began on their journey westwards to their target; the journey went smoothly -
the woods around these parts weren’t known for their dangerous wildlife and the
countryside was too poor to be of any worth to bandits - and they arrived at
their destination well before noon.
Ahead of them
lay what Nesonna could only assume was the excavation site they’d travelled so
far for; a large cave entrance surrounded by long-abandoned digging equipment
and discarded weaponry.
“I’m guessing this site wasn’t abandoned very peacefully.” Nesonna huffed while
kneeling low to look over a shattered sword lying at her feet.
“Maybe not,” Arlania muttered, her almond-shaped eyes narrowing in examination
of the site, “but then where are the corpses? Shouldn’t there be some sort of
remains?”
Nesonna rose, tossing the old blade aside and crept to the entrance of the cave
as the rest of her party discussed matters amongst themselves.
Poking her head inside, her eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness and allowed
her to make out a long, empty hallway of stone brick and several large doors.
“I think it’s a bunker,” the monk called back to her group, still standing
gormlessly at the outskirts of the site, “it looks empty, but there’re some
rooms that look like they lead somewhere.”
Agerius was the only one with the wits enough to respond “I guess we should get
exploring then?”
I can’t believe these are the… people I agreed to travel with Nesonna
seethed internally as her ‘companions’ finally joined her and begun
preparations to enter the bunker.
Entering the
cavern, Nesonna and Arlania both seethed as their mage created a magical ball
of light above them, destroying their natural dark vision at the cost of
allowing the rest of their companions to see and Agerius shot them a
sympathetic glance, “Sorry”.
“You girls stay
behind us, okay?” Roderick, seemingly very serious, ordered the group as he and
his half-giant friend, Apper, pushed ahead to act as a shield against whatever
lay in the dark.
Nesonna opened her mouth to rebut with something witty, but stopped as she
actually looked over her female companions - a ranger and a halfling - and
shrugged instead; it’s not like the other two would actually be of any use in a
prolonged melee - and Nesonna herself didn’t really mind letting her human
“companions” take a few hits instead of her if they were ambushed.
Finally the
group stopped halfway down the corridor to split off and open the doors around
them; Roderick coughed hard as he opened his to a face full of dust, and
Agerius shone his unnatural light into the room.
“I think it’s an office,” the mage leaned back and took a deep breath of
fresher air before entering, robbing the hallway of his unnatural light.
“I guess we should keep within shouting distance then?” Arlania opened a door
on the other side of the hallway and crept in as the rest of her companions,
save Apper and Nesonna, followed her suggestion.
Apper tensed as
he stared as he stared deeper into the dark hallway and took an unlit torch
from his backpack to light the hallway in the mage’s absence. Seething as her
night vision was destroyed yet again Nesonna glared briefly at the half-giant
and leaned against the wall.
“So what brought all of you together?” she asked as the giant gripped his mace
firmly in both hands.
“Uh,” he started in a deep but strangely unintimidating baritone, “Roderick,
Castile and I were mercenaries, and we joined the mage and his friends after
one of their tasks because it paid better than mercenary work.”
The giant man stared at Nesonna and shuffled, clearly not used to being spoken
to or with. Nesonna shrugged at his discomfort and prodded further, “Why did
you join them though? Surely the three of you would be better off on your own; you,
Apper and…” she trailed off; she hadn’t quite cared to remember her bard’s
name.
“Well, because they’re talented, and we have a better chance at adventuring
with them then without.” Apper stuttered out slowly, uncomfortable with
speaking in general it seemed - or shy around strangers.
Nesonna cringed
as she heard several items falling, followed by a cloud of dust emanating from
Arlania’s room before the elf strutted out triumphantly with a large tome in
hand.
“Guess what I found”, beamed the ranger, continuing before anyone could answer,
“It’s an encyclopedia on a bunch of flora and fauna native to the continent -
something this old and knowledgeable has to be worth a fortune!”
Nesonna chuckled in spite of herself at the other elf’s seeming unnatural cheer
and edged closer to examine the book. As she got close however, a deep,
animalistic screech pierced through the air from deeper down the hall, drawing
her companions back out of their respective rooms and draining the color from
both elves’ faces.
“What the hell
was that?” the lute-carrying man - Frederick? James? Nesonna was drawing a
blank -glowered down the hallway fearfully.
“I don’t know, but it’s in our way.” Roderick unsheathed his sword and drew his
shield from his back as he edged closer to the strangely large door at the end
of the hallway.
“Wait, we don’t know what’s in there,” Apper whisper-shouted as he ran to
Roderick as the human pushed open the ancient door with a loud moan.
Immediately a
second screech filled the air, and both Roderick and Apper began battle with
something further in the dark, scuttling on hundreds of tapping legs. Nesonna
ran to her companions with fists clenched but paused when she saw what they
were fighting; creatures she could only describe as termites each the size of a
large dog, alongside several dozen more pouring out of burrows in
the walls.
“We could use a little help here, mage!” Roderick called as he pushed his
shield into a termite’s face, ignoring Nesonna completely.
Agerius ran closer before closing his eyes and chanting some strange words
Nesonna couldn’t comprehend - and suddenly an eerie, glowing green circle
spread across the ground from his feet that engulfed his companions in an
unnatural light.
Nesonna felt an
incredible burst of strength seep into her body as the light engulfed her, and
she leapt into combat beside her mostly-human companions, punching the closest
termite in the face - or at least what passed for a face when it comes to
gigantic termites - hard enough to send it spiraling back several several
meters, skidding on all its feet; beside her Roderick brought his blade down
into the skull of another, and Apper crushed the spine of a third before
swinging to the right and caving in the skull of a fourth.
Suddenly an arrow whistled past the elf’s head and lodged itself in the eye of
another termite - though to little affect it would seem; Nesonna gasped as she
saw almost a dozen more gigantic insects emerging from tunnels dug into the
ancient stone walls.
“There’s more than we can fight here!” Nesonna yelled as she uppercut
another multi-legged foe, sending it first upright onto its hind legs, and then
on its back on the floor where it writhed feebly to get back on its feet.
“Maybe these are the only bugs in the hive?” Roderick asked in a dying hope as
the flow of creeping insects seemed only to speed up. Without further prompt,
the fighters unanimously began to edge back to the hallway as a wave of
screeching bugs continued to crash into them.
“We’re going to
need a little more than an aura, mage!” Roderick yelled shrilly over his
shoulder as his shield was pushed ever further into him.
Nesonna dropped to the floor and kicked both feet hard into the face of an
enterprising bug that’d had the vision thought to go under Roderick’s
shield instead of straight through. A growing sense of queasiness grew in her
stomach as monstrous screams filled the air as Apper’s mace tore through swath
after swath of scuttling insect.
“Alright,
you’ll all need to cover your eyes!” Agerius yelled as his companions continued
slashing. Nesonna turned her back to the fight and covered her face as a
bright, heatless light lit the entire catacomb accompanied by a deafening
screech - or rather, dozens of deafening screeches and the
dull thumping of several dead bodies. Nesonna turned as the light finally
dissipated and bore witness to the mage’s spell; majority of the ‘termites’
were alive, but they all dragged themselves away and back into their burrows.
Several other bodies lay dead in a heap, Apper and Roderick among them.
Oh well, Nesonna shrugged to herself; she’d survived at least.
A pained
moan rang out from Roderick as he and his giant companion began writhing feebly
on the ground; not dead, then.
“What did you do to us, Age’?” Roderick gingerly rose into a seated position on
the body of a termite; his face was gaunt and dark bags had formed under his
eyes.
“I cast a psychic spell,” Agerius said, mustering up as much sympathy as he
could without actually doing anything, apologizing or actually changing his
tone, “specifically, I pulled a trick I learnt back at school; the light
psychically attacks whoever stares into it and causes severe headaches,
concussions, vomiting and eventual unconsciousness.”
“How did you know it would affect the bugs, and not just them?” Jayne pointed
at her downed companions and gave Agerius the side eye as she and Arlania
finally reentered the hallway.
“Well, I-” Agerius sputtered petulantly, “Well I just knew it would!”
Unanimously the three women gave Agerius a look of severe, judging doubt while
Castile stared at him in abject horror.
“Look, it’s over now; if we encounter them again then we know I can just use
the spell again - can we just go?” Agerius whined as he hoisted Roderick to his
feet.
“Sure,” Nesonna glared suspiciously at the mage as she stepped over a dead
insect, “but if I get caught in the next one I’m tearing your eyes out.”
Now free to
actually examine the room, the catacomb now appeared to be more of a cathedral:
dozens of large, stain-glass windows stood intact around the edges of the room,
rotting wood pews were scattered around the room save for a few that stood
untouched in front of an altar whose markings have since been lost to time -
though how it had been buried under several meters of rock and
stone was a mystery seemingly only Nesonna noticed.
Agerius
followed closely as Nesonna sashayed slowly towards the altar, examining the
room; to the left was a small wooden door that had been left untouched for…
some time - and to the right snaked another corridor, considerably taller and
wider than the one opposite which also looked untouched by any living creature.
In fact, the entire half of the cathedral from the untouched pews to the altar
appeared to have been left free of the termite’s ravages.
“Wait,” Agerius
grabbed Nesonna by the shoulder before she shirked away from his touch, “I
think some sort of spell is protecting the altar.”
Focusing hard on the altar, Agerius whispered a new chant and began analyzing
the room for something Nesonna could not see, and Roderick finally hobbled
towards the two.
“I also feel something emanating from the altar,” the swordsman muttered as he
walked past his companions and approached the weathered stone.
“There’s some sort of spell - I can’t identify it - but it appears to be
covering this entire half of the cathedral.” Agerius spread his arms wide, as
if that would prove his point better than the neat line of eroding pews left
actually standing amongst the mess that was the other half of the room.
“It doesn’t feel like traditional magic,” Roderick muttered, more to his own
focused thoughts than his companions, “It feels divine: like a cleric or priest
placed it.”
Nesonna tensed -
she didn’t understand much about magic, divine or otherwise (or even
particularly that there was a difference), but she figured that if the termites
hadn’t touched this part of the cathedral - and she and her companions had
managed to enter through to it - then the spell must be reactive to something
instead of... whatever else spells are.
Nesonna shuddered and took several long steps away from the altar and towards
the scattered pews; whatever was going to happen to her human companions when
they got to the altar was between them and it.
Finally reaching, and then actually touching the altar, Roderick completely
relaxed and turned back to his cautious companions, “I think the magic was only
supposed to protect the altar from non-human”- he paused and eyed his non-human
companions, Nesonna specifically, and added - “Or human-ish creatures from
approaching.”
Nesonna’s brow creased as her remaining companions crossed into the altar’s
radius, “But you don’t know for certain that it’s not waiting on us to touch
something before it kills us?”
As if to disprove her point, Roderick immediately crouched by the altar and
began rubbing the old stone with both hands, “I’m pretty sure that if it did
we’d be dead by now.”
Nesonna balked as none of her companions reacted to the swordsman’s potentially
suicidal actions, but forced herself cautiously towards them nonetheless.
“Well then, I
think it would be best to split up and take these two rooms separately.”
Agerius pointed at the simple wooden door and the eerie, dark corridor both and
then made towards the latter, reigniting the ball of light that followed behind
his shoulder and creating a second that floated near the roof of the cathedral.
Almost
unanimously the group split up and Nesonna was left to explore the corridor
with Jayne and Agerius. The corridor wasn’t particularly long, however, and
Agerius’ magical illumination made it significantly less eerie and just more…
old. Cobwebs clung thick to the long arches above and dust shifted around as
the three continued towards the giant metallic door ahead.
Suddenly the
floor shifted under them, and the large stone brick the three were standing on
fell slightly, releasing a cacophony of twisting gears from all around. The
group tensed as the massive doors ahead moaned open and a cloud of thick dust
poured from out.
Nesonna and her Halfling entered the room ahead of their group, weapons ready,
and tensed when they found what lay inside; almost a hundred giant, metallic
golems lined what appeared to be a massive workshop, lit by some unseen source
and locked away far longer than the rest of the cathedral.
“Don’t touch
them!” Agerius fumbled out as his Nesonna reached out to feel one of the stone
goliaths, “they’re dormant.”
Nesonna returned to a ready stance as she analyzed the metallic monstrosities,
“What are they doing down here?” she whispered, cautious as not to ‘wake’ the
stone and metal giants.
“I don’t know,” Agerius returned to his normal, unimpressed baritone, “I guess
this could have been the cathedral’s armory?”
“Then why weren’t they used when bugs infested this place?” Alaria asked,
eliciting a vague shrug from the mage.
“Well, guessing this place has been locked away far longer than the rest of the
cathedral.” Nesonna thought aloud as she stepped away and wiped a hand across a
workbench covered in a thick sheet of dust; “Maybe the bugs came after this
place was abandoned?”
“I think that might the case - the outside spell could have only been set to
prevent such creatures from causing any damage.” Agerius muttered as he stepped
close to a dormant golem and stared into its dead, stone eyes.
Jayne picked up
a golden circlet lying on a workbench and blew a thick coat of dust away, “Look
what I found!”
“Do you think we could use them to attack the orcs?” Nesonna, like Agerius,
ignored her halfling companion and pressed her hands to the sleeping
monstrosities and examined it hard, “Or maybe we could sell them for a tidy
profit?”
“Selling - or using them ourselves would be dangerous; nobody knows how golems
react these days, but they’re likely to be volatile…” Agerius trailed off.
“What do you mean by that?” Nesonna turned to the mage as he examined a golem
of his own.
Before he could
respond, a loud rumble filled the room, forcing both Nesonna and her mage jump
backwards. Jayne hid behind Nesonna as she lowered herself into a fighting pose
while a number of golems sprung to life.
“What the hell is happening?” the halfling shrieked as she drew her sword at
the metallic creatures.
“It’s that circlet, you idiot!” Agerius snapped and swiped at the halfling as
she dodged back; Nesonna turned to see the halfling clutching the solid gold
crown to her head.
“It’s mine,” she cried, oblivious to the stirring golems, or perhaps sensing
the mage to be the bigger threat - that is until two of the creatures began
slowly stumbling towards the her menacingly.
“Erm, actually it’s yours!” Jayne threw the circlet with surprising swiftness
and accuracy from her head into Nesonna, who caught it on instinct - which in
turn caused the golems to face towards her instead.
Before Nesonna
could react - throw the circlet, cripple Agerius and run away, punch the metal
beast in whatever passed for a face - the closest golem suddenly kneeled and
moaned out in a pained, booming voice that resonated from deep within its core:
“Please… free us.”
Suddenly a wave
of confusion washed over Nesonna, replacing whatever fear she had seconds
earlier, “Free you?” she repeated.
The golem moved one large, groaning hand towards the golden circlet in
Nesonna’s hand and moaned again “Destroy the disc and free us, please...”
Agerius stepped closer and examined the kneeling golem before turning his
attention to the golden circlet in his elven companion’s hands, “I think this
is a control mechanism of some sort.”
“What does that mean?” Nesonna stared dumbfounded from the circlet, to the
mage, to the golems and then back to the circlet; this is too much.
“It’s, well…” the mage gave her a quizzical look, “A control mechanism. For the
golems. Whoever created them made this to control them.”
Nesonna felt a strange well of remorse as she held the golden circlet and
turned to the active golems - only a fraction of the total golems in the room -
and asked, “How do we free you?”
The lead golem grunted in what Nesonna could only guess was fatigue, “You must
destroy the control disc” it droned slowly.
That was going
to be a task. Nesonna tried bending the metal crown in her hands and found it
strangely unflinching against her assault; how was she supposed to destroy it
if it wouldn’t break when she bent it-
“Then you destroy it,” Nesonna held the disc out to the golem, “Crush the disc
yourself and destroy it.”
Agerius looked at Nesonna apprehensively as she handed the disc over and
tensed; this could be a trap - or they could just kill the trio when they were
free - but the elf stood with an otherworldly calm as the round stone and metal
creature tenderly took the circlet from her hands.
Taking the
disc, the golem held it tenderly in both hands before crushing it with all its
strength. A loud buzz filled the air for several seconds before stopping, and
suddenly all the active golems rose tall as though a weight had been lifted
from them.
“Thank you humans,” the golem’s giant, smooth hand tussled Nesonna’s hair with
surprising tenderness and began leaving the workshop with his kin.
Human? Nesonna frowned indignantly before a thought flashed through
her mind;
“Wait!” she shouted as the 50-odd golems began leaving, “The least you can do
for us freeing you is to help us with a task of
ours!”
Half the golems kept moving uncaringly, though the other two dozen stopped,
along with their ‘leader’ and listened; “We need some help in destroying an orc
encampment a few hours away from here; once that’s done you can all go!”
Nesonna blabbed out as a grin spread across her face, “You’ll be completely
free and won’t owe us anything!”
Agerius glared at the elf dumbfounded, “Stop antagonizing them, you fool!”
Before he could smack the back of Nesonna’s head - or before she could punch
him in the throat for smacking her in the back of the head - the golem leader
groaned, “I will help you then.”
The golem turned around as the final golems who had not already left pondered
amongst themselves; in the end an additional dozen stayed behind to help with
the party’s task, and the rest left on their own journeys.
Returning to the cathedral proper Arlania, Roderick, Apper
and Castile balked as they saw the dozen steel monstrosities mixed in with
their companions.
“New friends, I hope?” Roderick joked nonchalantly as Arlania struggled not to
choke on her abject horror and confusion at the metal constructs.
“Yep. They’re going to help us against the orcs, but that’s it” Nesonna
answered with just as much put-on apathy.
“What did you all find while we were recruiting an army of golems?” Jayne
raised a thick eyebrow at Roderick as Arlania went purple in the face from lack
of air.
“We uh,” Roderick began slapping Arlania’s back supportively; “We found a door
that we can’t open. It’s magic” he scratched the back of his head as his
embarrassment rose.
Nesonna turned to glare at Agerius as he began shuffling awkwardly; “So, what
he’s saying is that we came all this way for basically nothing, and that
if I didn’t find and befriend these golems we’d have almost
died with literally nothing to gain?”.
“Well, how do you know we can’t open it?” stuttered the mage, attempting to
shift blame back to either the second human or the nearly-dying elf.
“It was-” Arlania breathed deep as she finally regained the ability to speak,
“Roderick said it was
warded by the same sort of magic as the altar; and none of
us here know how to dispel magic,” she stared at Nesonna, “do we?”
“Nope. I don’t, at least.” Nesonna shrugged listlessly, “Shame though.”
“Yes, well, let’s get going to the orc stronghold then,” Agerius mumbled in a
weak, dejected attempt to reassume leadership over his group.
…
Nesonna stared
at the fort from the forest outskirts and watched as several of her companions
got into position on the other side of the forest. The elf wrung her hands
together anxiously as Jayne waddled over and placed a comforting hand on her
shoulder.
“Agerius has given the signal, and our golems are in position; we’re ready when
you are kid.” Jayne playfully nudged the elf with her hip and stared forlornly
at the keep.
Kid? Nesonna gave Jayne as much of a side-eye as she could manage
for someone over a foot shorter than her; she was pretty sure that, save for
the other elves, she was actually older than all of her companions combined.
Still, she followed the halfling’s gaze and glared in thought at the keep
again: she had devised a plan for Agerius and Roderick to take eight of their
twelve golems and draw the defenders’ attention by marching them to tear down
the keep’s walls while Nesonna, Apper, Jayne and Arlania would take the
remaining golems and attack the flank and take the orcs off-guard.
“Give them the
signal,” Nesonna pushed away from the halfling and made towards her golems as
the latter took aim with her crossbow at a set of trees close to their
companions.
“Are all of you ready for this?” Nesonna caught herself feeling genuine concern
for her metallic companions as she pressed a hand to the chassis of a smaller,
stone golem.
“We. Are. Ready.” The tallest Golem boomed loudly in what it could manage as a
whisper “We shall destroy these invaders!”
Nesonna frowned as all her companions began edging closer to the forest edge;
she was so close to fulfilling her bounty, and yet still so much could go
wrong. Staring at her golems and more… fleshy companions her anxiety only
worsened. It would be one thing to finish this task at all, but it would be
truly a feat to finish it without any of her companions getting killed - not
like she cared at all; she’d be leaving this group as soon as her task was
complete, but a feat was a feat nonetheless.
Suddenly a loud
horn knocked Nesonna out of her thoughts, followed by shouts and the distant
rumbling of running golems.
“Hey, monk: get over here!” Arlania yelled as she nocked an arrow against her
bow.
With a nod, Nesonna jogged to the forest edge as her companions waited on the
ranger to loosen her arrow.
Eyeing the
ranger imperiously as almost an entire minute passed without a single arrow
being loosed, Nesonna almost jumped when finally Arlania did decide on a
target; an orc, smaller than the rest of his companions standing as the long
rear guard against the flank. Nesonna and Jayne both watched, first in abject
horror, and then side-splitting laughter, as the ranger’s arrow soared towards
its target, only to miss by more than a foot - and then kill the orc anyway as
he the shock of being fired at in the first place caused him to plummet off the
ramparts into the hard ground below.
A group of orcs
ran from the fort, weapons in hand, and made a beeline for Nesonna and her
companions; Arlania loosed an arrow into the throat of one as Jayne and Nesonna
both charged forward to meet the other half-dozen.
Sliding across the dirt Jayne sliced at the leg of the closest orc as she
passed and rose to thrust both blades into her crouched foe’s back. Meanwhile,
Nesonna leapt with as much strength as she could muster and pushed both feet
hard into the chest of an orc who ran ahead of his host.
Rising in time to see a second arrow fly into the face of a green foe, Nesonna
swept her leg around high to the head of an orc who’d paused between her and
Jayne, clearly unsure of who to attack first.
Suddenly Jayne leapt over a falling orc and threw herself into the stomach of
one of the two last charging orcs, toppling him over and saving Nesonna from a
heavy tackle.
Nesonna dodged
the final orc’s horizontal swing with a backflip and lowered herself to a
defensive stance. She leapt to the side as the orc swung vertically, and
peppered his unarmored chest with a flurry of punches.
Cursing in annoyance the orc began stabbing the at the elf with the thin blade
above his axe, forcing the elf to dodge each precarious blow more and more
clumsily until finally he thrust too far and too fast and left himself open -
looking about halfway into hugging his opponent instead of impaling her.
Taking
advantage of this position Nesonna kicked hard into the orc’s left knee,
popping it out of position and dropping her foe to his knees; as he screamed in
pain Nesonna slammed her palm down onto his throat then turned in time to see
Apper crumple to the dirt a few meters away as a barrage of arrow fire tore
into him; and several meters further a golem beginning to beat its fists
overhead into the sharpshooter, crushing him gruesomely.
Nesonna tossed
aside the orcish axe and charged at two orcs closing in on Agerius as he began
chanting a spell. Closing the distance quickly, she jumped and used her
considerable momentum to deliver a powerful kick into the lead aggressor;
Nesonna rolled as she hit the ground and swiped the legs out from under the
second attacker, knocking him clumsily down and entwining the two in an awkward
grapple.
Nesonna glared
up at her mage as she and her opponent began untangling themselves, “Are you
going to do anything mage-”.
She was cut off as a familiar green light spread from Agerius’ feet, and an
equally-familiar strength spread through her body.
As the orc cursed in an indecipherable Nesonna launched from her crouch and
tackled her opponent fists-first, knocking the wind right back out of the orc
for a second time; and as he wheezed on the floor Nesonna entwined her fingers
and delivered an overhead blow straight down on her victim’s face.
“Get on yer
feet kid!” a familiar voice - Roderick's - shouted suddenly, a little too
close to her ear, as he dragged the elf from the chest of her latest victim.
Analyzing the battlefield Nesonna felt a well of hope for the first time in
months; the orcs’ ranks were thinning, and thanks to the help of the golems
only one of her companions had been killed - not like that mattered as long as
it wasn’t her.
A sudden,
thunderous, solemn moan knocked Nesonna out of her reverie; both she and
Roderick turned to see one of their golems crash to the earth in a cloud of
dust with a thunderous boom.
Narrowing her
eyes, Nesonna could make out three brutish figures in the dust, at least a foot
taller than the orcs they had fought so far; as the dust settled Nesonna could
make out many intricate markings both tattooed and scarred across their hulking
frames. Meeting the middle fighter in the eye, Nesonna let loose a cry as she
charged the several tens of meters to attack him - she had grown quite fond of
her stone companions.
Nesonna leapt
the final few feet and threw a right hook into the leader’s face with
considerably more strength than her small frame betrayed. With a grunt as her
body collided with the thick wall of muscle that was an orc Nesonna spun and
threw her elbow into the chest one of the remaining beasts - she would have hit
the orc in the face if he were two or so feet smaller - or not an orc.
Suddenly Nesonna
became acutely aware of the situation she was in: here she was an unarmed
adolescent in the middle of a battlefield - more specifically, sandwiched
between three seemingly very angry orcs each with weapons as tall as her - with
the only potential assistance coming from a band of various lesser races on the
wrong side of the assault. As the first orc rose from the ground rubbing his
face, a bizarre wave of dread hit Nesonna in the stomach as she realized only
now that her life may be in danger.
Pushing the
fear aside was an onrushing sense of exhilaration as Nesonna spun a kick into
the rising orc’s already-beaten face and lowered herself into a defensive pose.
She could feel an impish grin spread across her own face as the orc she had yet
to injure gaped at her abject horror and confusion.
Eying each
other, the two remaining orcs nodded and began flanking the elf, mace and axe
ready - until a whistle of air shot passed and an arrow found itself lodged in
an already-bruised sternum. Grinning wider, Nesonna pushed from the ground and
threw a hook into the remaining orc’s gut, eliciting a dull “oof” as the beast
doubled over and presented his head for Nesonna to drive down two entwined
fists with all her admittedly lacking weight.
As the brutish
orc dropped unmoving, Nesonna turned and surveyed the field: her golems were
busy gaily pulverizing their foes into strange new forms of orc/dirt hybrid of
flower, Apper was gingerly rising from his injuries using his axe as a crutch,
Agerius and Roderick were beginning to tend to the injured halfling and Arlania
was loosening off arrows into the thinning few orcs. Speaking of orcs, most of
their numbers had been culled, though few still stood, hacking away at
mostly-unflinching golems, or dodging their angered blows; one though - a
particularly brutish giant Nesonna had caught gracefully swinging an axe almost
twice as long as she was tall in a single hand - began charging in Nesonna’s
direction!
Nesonna
grounded herself against a tackle as the giant axeman bellowed at her in his
charge, and as he closed the final few feet she dodged to the right and
extended her foot out to trip the orc, sending him hurtling across the dirt.
Nesonna charged the orc as he attempted to rise with his axe, intending to
knock him out for good; but as she charged close her opponent leapt from his
axe and swung it in an arc with his off-hand as he fell.
A sharp,
white-hot pain surged through Nesonna’s body and suddenly her eyes unfocused as
the world began to spin around her; her face contorted in confusion as suddenly
she was lying face-down in the grass and all sound dimmed around her and the
pain in her stomach burned through her body as everything else went numb.
Her thoughts came sluggishly as she tried to will arms she could no longer feel
to move and a deep sense of exhaustion fell over her.
These stupid creatures didn’t just kill me, did they?
A new confusion began gnawing at her mind, orcs? How could she have
possibly been killed by orcs? Shame mixed with the numbness that had
now consumed her whole body; she’d been training in hand-to-hand combat since
birth and she’d been defeated her first real fight? How could -
A familiar pain
tore again through the void of numbness as suddenly Nesonna was staring - or
facing, as her eyes had started going glassy sometime over the last minute -
the sky; she distantly felt something squishy seeping from her abdomen and
heard her companions urgently whispering as they began to treat her. Just as
her world began going numb again pain surged once more from her stomach as she
was witness to Agerius shoving… something back inside of her
split-open stomach before dabbing his hand in a green container and rubbing the
contents across her wound. This brought a new kind of numbness; she could still
distantly feel the pain of her injury, but a new feeling seeped from the wound
that reminded her of mint: cold and fresh - she felt just slightly less tired
than mere moments before.
As if that weren’t enough, a faint light shone overhead as Roderick began
carefully hovering his hands over her wounds; once more she felt a faint surge
of life returning to her body.
Great, she seethed to herself; I’ve been travelling around with
a cleric.
As her wounds
began healing - only partially - Nesonna felt a new tiredness creep into her
body: one that felt nowhere near as cold or as empty as it did previous.
Nesonna stared around frantically - or as frantically as her eyes could manage
as her mind grew more and more sluggish from blood loss - until she caught
Agerius’ gaze.
“You need to rest now,” the mage’s voice warped quietly as he pulled white
fabric from his pouch to press her wounds, “we’ll take care of you.”
Nesonna tried
squirming as the mage began mending her wounds, but her body refused to move,
either through blood loss or some arcane magic. Deciding it was easier to work
unhindered Agerius hovered a hand inches from Nesonna’s face, and suddenly an
overwhelming sense of sleepiness crashed into her like a wave. A feeling of
vertigo gripped the elf as an inky blackness crept at the edges of her vision;
before she could react, in what little way she could, she fell into oblivion.
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