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Chapter 27 - Dungeon Heart
🕑 Added 2021-06-12 17:17:11 +0000 UTCSpellbook
Chicken Fix
Description:
Create a sympathetic link between a broken chicken bone and a broken bone. Be sure to create the link AFTER you break the bone. Proper application of the listed ingredients while maintaining the link we bind the bone back in place. Be warned, while the bone will once more be functional, it is not fully healed. Strain may lead to more serious injury.
Classification: Ritual
School: Healing
Spell Tier: 3
Ability Rank:
1 – Can create a sympathetic link between a person and a chicken bone.
Notes by Ivish:
Turns out voodoo’s not all bad. After a bit—witch snapped my arm in a furious, and dare I say it, extremely unjustified rage, she fixed me up with this handy little spell. Who knew chicken bones could be so useful? Just a note for future generations, never give a lock of hair to a witch, even if she is your girlfriend.
As Hump stared down at the dungeon heart, he couldn’t help but take a moment to imagine how much would change if he harvested it. He was so close. So close to power and wealth beyond his wildest dreams. His name would be known across the land—the wizard that cleared the Bledsbury Dungeon, fighting alongside Prince Kassius. His days as a hedge wizard would be behind him, that was for sure. In many ways, perhaps they already were. If Kassius really accepted Hump’s fealty, he might never be without a lord again.
“You found it then.” Kassius’ voice was like glass shattering.
Hump startled, nearly tripping down the very hole he’d been studying so intently. He looked at Kassius and paused. The prince must have known they would find it if they came inside the shrine, yet he’d failed to mention it when Vamir or Celaine were with them. There was a purpose to this. “It’s kind of hard to miss.”
Kassius snorted. “A blind man could find the hole. The dungeon core isn’t so obvious. You’ve got a Chosen of Kelisia at your side that couldn’t tell what was down there.”
Hump looked at the knight.
Bud shrugged. “I didn’t feel a thing.”
“Sensing essence is a skill that takes practice,” Kassius said. “Chosen don’t need to understand the workings of essence for them to use their god given powers. They simply work.”
“But a wizard has to understand,” Hump said. “Only those that have trained would notice.” He frowned at Kassius. “You can feel it too?”
Kassius smirked. “As I said before, I’ve dabbled in the arts.”
“Yet you fight with a sword,” Hump said.
“I’m a prince, after all.” Kassius grinned. “There is prestige in swordsmanship.”
“What use would it have for sacrifices?” Bud asked, glancing back down the hole, squinting as if to make out the core.
“Dungeons are alive,” Kassius said simply. “They require sustenance to grow. For it to create, something must be destroyed. And for life to be spawned, well, life must first be taken.”
“Isn’t that just jolly,” Hump said. He coughed up a wad of spit and made his own little sacrifice, watching as the glob disappeared into the darkness soundlessly. “Have a bit of that.”
Bud’s face fell into his hand. “Hump, you just spat in front of a prince. Even I…” he sighed. “They’d eat you alive at court.”
“Hey! It’s not like I pissed on it.”
Bud opened his mouth as if to speak, but words didn’t seem to come.
Kassius laughed. “Bloody thing deserves as much. Horrible place.”
“Deserves a lot worse if you ask me,” Hump said.
“If you knew it was here, why didn’t you mention it sooner?” Bud asked.
“I saw no hurry,” Kassius said. “We’re in no condition to face whatever beast guards it, and our first priority is to get these people to safety.”
“And you wanted to see if I’d notice it,” Hump said.
Kassius’ face revealed nothing. “Perhaps.”
Hump paused. He was being tested. Tested by a prince, and from the sound of it, the man was impressed. Once more he imagined how much his life could change on this chance encounter. Bud had warned him against it, but was Hump really foolish enough to turn down a prince’s offer? Perhaps Bud could, but small and common people like Hump didn’t refuse royalty.
There was a sudden, ear piercing scream that had them all turning to look. Two of the village men were lifting an old lady onto a stretcher. Both of her legs were broken.
Hump’s stomach sank. All other thoughts left him. Shame washed through him: he’d been distracted and forgotten why he was here. He’d let greed control him when there were people that needed help.
Vamir had told him to save his essence. He stared at the intense pain on the woman’s face. The bloodied and bruised legs, swollen and purple as a plum. He could fix the break. It wasn’t perfect, but it would take away the pain. She’d be able to walk.
“We don’t have time for this,” Bud said, already walking over to an injured man that lay nearby.
Hump shared a guilty look with Kassius and followed. He went to the old woman first. As much as it pained him, she would have to wait. If his magic were needed later and he didn’t have the essence for it, they could all be killed. There were healers waiting back at the fortification, and with any luck, Meera had successfully persuaded Oswald to send some down to the forward fortification. Other people that could tend to her properly once they were all out of immediate danger.
So instead, he took out another vial of Second Life from his pouch and trickled a small portion of it into her mouth. Her face relaxed immediately, and her pupils dilated, suddenly becoming awake and alert. She tried to rise, but Hump pressed her gently back down. “I haven’t healed you, only temporarily dulled the pain. You need to stay down and let these gentlemen take care of you. There are followers of Lady Light waiting for our return, but for now this is the best I can do.”
“Thank you,” she said weakly.
Hump nodded, forcing himself to smile, then stood. The other villagers seemed little better. Every wound he saw seemed taken by rot, which was no surprise considering the awful condition of the cages he’d seen. He focused on those that could walk. Speed was what mattered most here, and they wouldn’t get out of here faster by treating those that would still need to be carried anyway. He drew out a jar of paste from his potion pouch, made up of ground settle leaves, monomary, and barrowbud oil, applying it as a compress using some of the makeshift silk bandages that the villagers had torn up. Done up tight, their wounds didn’t bleed too badly; the paste would help to kill off the rot and aid in the healing process.
To those that couldn’t be moved without screaming out in agony, Hump divided up his vials of Second Life. Other than that, there was little more he could do with his limited knowledge. He just didn’t have the time.
They were gathered outside within half an hour. The wounded were carried out on stretchers by their fellow villagers. It was slow progress transporting everyone from the shrine to the walkway where they had first entered the cavern. Hump and Bud worked together to guard those at the walkway, while Kassius and his party secured the rest that were still inside the shrine.
When Vamir and Celaine joined them on the walkway, Hump told them of the dungeon core.
“We’ll have to report it to Oswald,” Bud said.
“We could…” Hump said. “But once the major guilds catch wind of this, they’ll demand to be a part of it.”
“Are you suggesting what I think you are?” Vamir asked.
Hump shrugged. If they informed Oswald of their finding, the overseer would be obliged to inform the other guilds as well. "The more people involved, the more the rewards would be divvied up. Maybe we don’t tell Oswald. Maybe we come back down here ourselves tomorrow with a group of our choosing.”
“I thought the law states that the finding of the dungeon core must be reported to the Overseer,” Bud said.
Hump and Vamir both gave him a look.
Bud opened his mouth. “Oh. Oh I see.”
Hump shrugged. “It happens all the time. You think the Silver Spears and White Peaks would tell Oswald if they found the core? They’d just take it for themselves.”
“I suppose.”
“Better to burn bright and briefly than to never burn at all,” Hump said. “Isn’t that what you said, Vamir?”
“Precisely so,” the man said with a grin.
“‘Tell me that when you’re on fire,’” Celaine recited smugly. “Isn’t that what you told us?”
“Well, we have a prince,” Hump said. “Oswald can’t touch us.”
Even as he said it, his nerves grew. The old man would never have taken a risk like this. He wouldn’t be caught dead in the middle of a kobold village without an encampment’s worth of support. ‘Fools that take risks don’t live long enough to for their hair to go grey,’ he’d said.
“None of this matters until we reach the surface anyway,” Vamir said. “And as things are, our chances are far from good.”
Hump frowned, looking over the villagers they had with them. A dozen people were on stretchers, twice that needed crutches to walk. He saw one boy that couldn’t have been older than himself, clutching a broken arm to his side and staring ahead with hollow eyes.
“We have to try,” Bud growled.
Hump tightened his fist on his staff. He didn’t voice what he was thinking. He couldn’t. Bud was courageous, honourable, selfless; and for some reason the knight deemed him to be so too. If Bud knew what he was truly thinking, that would change in a heartbeat. That they should leave the badly wounded behind. That they should save those they can, and not risk their own lives on people that probably wouldn’t make it anyway.
Just thinking it made him feel sick. He’d been caught up on the heroics, lost in a fairy tale just like Bud. But the world was dark and twisted, and people died. They died horrible deaths that nobody deserved. That was fact, whether a rusty fool of a knight wanted it to be so or not.
Hump was a hedge wizard. He followed where the coin took him. There was no room for emotional attachment. There was no room for taking extravagant risks. One had to know when to cut their losses, otherwise the only thing they would get is an early grave.
Or eaten by a dungeon core, Hump thought. He didn’t like the idea of being consumed and turned into another part of the dungeon, or worse, a kobold.
“Where are they?” Hump said impatiently, leaning over the walkway wall to peer across the village toward the shrine. He squinted at the darkness. Kassius still hadn’t left the shrine. “What on earth is he doing?”
Hump felt a pulse of power. It made his skin crawl. His entire body want to curl in on itself as primal fear filled him. Every instinct he had screamed at him to run. A chill swept through him, and he shivered, goosebumps tingling on his skin.
Vamir approached the wall at his side in a rush, hands gripping the stone railing. He stared at the shrine.
“What the hell was that?” Hump growled.
Kassius and his party ran out of the shrine, hurrying the final villagers that remained with them on that side of the stream. It was only a handful, the strongest of the village men that had returned to carry across the last few wounded. Behind them, Hump saw more people coming. They were running, staggering as they tried to escape whatever it was that followed them.
One person drew close to the black paladin, a giant stain in the darkness at this distance. In a single, sweeping motion, the paladin cleaved them in two.
Hump’s heart stopped. Kassius lunged forward to meet another person that blocked the path ahead, taking their head off with careful precision. An arrow landed through a third, shot by Kassius’ archer, bringing them to the ground. Still, people hurried across the bridge.
“Bastards,” Bud growled. “Murderers!”
He had his sword in hand.
“Guys,” Celaine said behind them. None of them turned. “Guys! Look!” she snapped more urgently, pointing down the walkway.
From the darkness, four kobolds stumbled toward them, dragging spears and swords along the ground at their side. Scraping, grating sounds drifted toward them as the metal touched stone. As they stepped out of the dark, Hump saw the arrows in their eyes. The same arrows Vamir and Celaine had put there. Beneath the arrows, dark purple light shone.
Kassius’ party wasn’t murdering people. They were slaying undead. The people that pursued them were villagers raised from the dead.
Comments
Alex Maher
I made a change to make this more clear. I'm glad it worked!
Bookman
Was pretty clear to me.
Alex Maher
Yes, they are the villagers that died. They've just been raised from the dead. I've tried to make it clearer by adding a line at the end of the chapter, but it may need a bit more.
Josef Blumers
The undead are coming from the shrine?
