Author Frank Morin
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Ch 12 - A Wight in the Hand
🕑 Added 2024-10-10 18:01:01 +0000 UTCI expected a dungeon to be a complex labyrinth of creepy tunnels I could get lost in for days. Maybe some were, but the entrance tunnel of Forest Glade Dungeon was not.
I crept slowly forward, senses alert, but I didn’t see anything. The tunnel meandered a bit as it steadily descended deeper into the ground. Luckily I didn’t need to use one my torches since there were weird little glowing stalactites hanging from the ceiling.
Most were barely longer than a pencil, but they filled the tunnel with a soft, blue glow that made it easy to navigate. My perception was now 18, so I could see better in the dim light than any human ever had. It was fun, and it boosted my confidence.
Maybe a bit too much.
The first hint of danger I got was a searing cold pain plunging into my back.
I shrieked more like a little girl than I’d ever admit and stumbled forward, gasping as I spun to see what had stabbed me. A vague shape had appeared in the air behind me. It looked like a dingy, gray ghost. The coward had shoved one ethereal hand into my back. I felt my back, but the skin wasn’t broken. There was no blood.
Instead, a cold chill was spreading through me from the point of impact. It sapped my strength, and when I scanned my stat levels, my eyes widened in horror.
I had lost nearly 10% of my health and nearly 20% of my mana. That thing packed a wicked punch.
Identify triggered. “Essence Wight. Ethereal. Level 9. They’re kind of like that friend who keeps you shopping until they exhaust your will to live. With these freaks, the danger is real. Ethereal beings are immune to physical damage.”
That sucked my good humor more than it sucked my mana. I didn’t have anything that could deliver non-physical damage, and my Energy Ward did not protect me from ghosts.
“Ghosts? Really?” My earlier confidence cracked. What was I thinking? I wasn’t a super hero. I was just a computer nerd who liked martial arts and riding motorcycles. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t equipped to save the world.
I took a step back, but shook off my fear. If I doubted myself, I’d die fast. I might not be a hero, but I wasn’t about to surrender and let some life-sucking ghost punch my ticket.
So I set myself to sprint around the wight. I’d been an idiot to explore deeper. I needed to escape.
The wight moaned like a B-horror movie ghost. Lame.
Not lame when a lot of other moans answered.
I spun back to look farther down the tunnel. I had almost reached the end where it widened into a large cavern. I had hoped to creep to the edge to take a look. Now wights were rising from the floor all through the cavern.
Not good.
I spun back to make a run for it, but my heart sank when I saw 2 more wights rising out of the floor to flank the first one. The 3 of them filled the tunnel. I could never slip by.
Maybe I could simply run through them? I’d take a hit, but they didn’t have any physical form. Couldn’t I just plow through and keep running back into the sunlight?
I hesitated, and that sealed my fate.
More wights joined the 3, ghosting out of the walls to either side. They advanced, floating slowly toward me, ghostly hands rising to grasp at my torso.
Nope. No way I could escape that way now. I backed up, mind racing. I had high intelligence, and needed to use it. Maybe I could lure them into the cavern, then sprint around them and escape? They didn’t look that fast.
So I trotted ahead to draw them in while looking for another exit. The dungeon was just starting. There had to be other routes to take, even if it meant going deeper.
Nope. The cavern stretched nearly 20 yards across and the craggy ceiling rose over 10 yards. The curving walls were covered in protruding rocks and larger glowing stalactites. More importantly, no other exits.
The stone floor was mostly flat, with a few random rocks and cracks. In the center of the room stood some kind of pedestal thing. It was wide, but squat, not tall enough to hide on, so I ignored it.
No easy escape. Back to luring them away from the one exit. I used to play a lot of MMO computer games. One of the most common tactics was to keep moving and kite monsters with spells or arrows.
If only I had some offensive spells or arrows. Well, arrows might not help much. I had tried archery a total of 2 times in my life and proved a bow was no good in my hands other than as a rather weak, bent stick.
The icy chill in my torso had already started to fade, so I resisted the urge to use a healing potion or my skin thaw salve. I might need those a lot more before I was done.
More wights were appearing every second. There had to be nearly 20 of the gray, ghostly shades. I couldn’t seem to find enough breath as I scanned wildly around. The wights weren’t closing in from all sides, but shifting along the outer edges of the cavern.
I frowned as I continued deeper into the cavern. Wights followed, but they were slow. If they just came at me, I could dodge around and get free.
Then I realized what the other wights were doing, and my heart sank into my new moccasins. They were moving to help cut off my only exit.
Were they sentient enough to understand I was a lot faster? If they gave me any opening, I’d be gone in a flash, but more and more wights filled the space just outside the tunnel exit. I might have been able to rush through one, or even three, but not half a dozen. They’d drain me dry.
The mental image made me shiver and I cursed myself again for being an epic fool. I’d gotten myself trapped. I scanned my inventory for anything that might help, but got no ideas.
With the exit well guarded, wights spread out to come at me from the front and sides, driving me slowly but inexorably back. I checked my inventory again and grabbed a torch. With a quick acceptance of a mental prompt, it ignited.
It burned pretty bright and the warm, golden light bolstered my confidence. Gritting my teeth against my fear, I rushed straight toward the closest wight between me and the exit.
With a shout, I waved the torch in the wight’s face. The creature actually retreated a bit.
“Yes!”
I rushed past it, swiping the torch through its torso. For a second its shape seemed to shimmer and I wanted to shout with new hope. Then it reformed and drifted after me.
Maybe I’d gotten a bit too excited. Still, if they all reacted the same way, I could still get through. I rushed the second wight and tried the experiment again. It did hesitate, but did not retreat. Unfortunately, other creatures were moving in from both sides. With the one following behind, the noose was tightening.
Cursing with frustration and terror, I spun and dashed between two wights, heading back toward the middle of the cavern. Back to trying to kite them.
The two wights both stretched out their hands to grasp at me. Drawing deep from my high agility stat, I dove between them, making an amazing acrobatic flip in the air. It must have looked fantastic, but it wasn’t quite fast enough.
One of the wights accelerated just a bit, more than I’d seen any of them do so far. One grasping hand brushed against my ankle as I tumbled past.
Searing cold gripped my leg, and I stumbled as I landed. I managed to avoid falling and limped away. More of the wights were closing the half-circle hemming me in.
Panting with fear, I shouted and swung my torch, trying to keep them back. I triggered the minor healing potion in my hotlist and the healing warmth helped ease my terror.
I could still do this.
My leg regained its strength and I accelerated to a sprint, dodging and diving between the wights, trying to pull them all to one side of the cavern. It didn’t seem to work. They pursued, but in a random-seeming crowd that closed off one potential route after another.
I was drawing closer to the podium thing in the center of the room. Maybe I’d have to make my stand there after all. As I adjusted course to head straight for it, all of the wights emitted an angry-sounding moan and some of the ones trying to close the trap from the sides sped up.
They were trying to block me from reaching the podium. Maybe there was a reason for it. I sped up too. Now that I looked at it closer, it looked more like some kind of stone altar.
Three more wights rose out of the floor right in front of the altar, like a last line of defense. Now I really wanted to study that thing, but couldn’t reach it. I had to dodge aside, then burst into a sprint to dodge through the ranks of the quickly closing wights.
That bought me a bit of time, but forced me farther and farther from the altar. How smart were these things? All the monsters I’d faced so far had been stupid, but they were working together.
A growing part of me wanted to panic, but that would just get me killed. I needed a plan, and that altar might give me an edge, if I could get to it. I sprinted toward the back wall, breaking away from the wights to win a bit of breathing room. I slowed near the wall and forced myself to take a deep breath and search for a way out.
“Think, Lucas,” I muttered to myself as my mind raced.
Most of the wights were concentrated around the altar, with a second group too large to run through still guarding the exit. The mob near the center started to spread out to join the hunt.
Studying the wights, my Identify triggered again. I got no words. More a feeling, a sense of energy. It must be the reality filter upgrade. It had said something about perceiving reality.
Now I sensed something deeper about the wights. There was some kind of connection between each of them and the altar. Had they driven me from it because it fueled their power? If I could reach it, could I force them to sleep or drive them away?
Unlikely, but what better choice did I have? I needed to move, but just randomly running around was not helping. I scanned the loose mob of wights gliding toward me. All but 1 of the sentries had left the altar, but I couldn’t see a path through.
If I ran along the outer edge of the cavern, I feared they would just shift along with me. I was faster, but they could cut the corner and still block me. I needed another way.
I scanned the wall in both directions and one of the larger rocky protrusions to my left caught my attention. It was low enough I could jump to it. Could I hide up there and wait them out?
Probably not. They moved through the floor and walls freely. I bet they’d just float up and consume me. Frowning, I started to look away, but spotted a second outcropping a little higher on the wall. Scanning upward, I spotted more.
And got a crazy idea.
I didn’t have time to talk myself out of it. If I didn’t move, I was dead. So I sprinted toward that first outcropping. My breath came faster, but with anticipation instead of fear for the first time since I’d entered the cavern.
I tossed my torch into my inventory to free my hands, and jumped. I never played basketball because my vertical leap used to be counted in millimeters.
Not any more.
I vaulted a full 10 feet, and I’m not gonna lie, it felt amazing. I reached the outcropping and kicked off again, vaulting higher to the second one.
In quick succession, I ran up the side of the wall, using the bulges in the rock face like steps. Little glowing stalactites flashed past my face and shoulders, missing by inches as I slowly circling the outer edge of the cavern. Soon the walls curved inward, becoming the roof, and the pitch grew too steep even for my enhanced agility, so I switched from running to swinging.
I felt strong enough to dig my fingers into wood, so gripping rough stone and flinging myself higher proved easier than I’d feared. Enough handholds stuck from the ceiling that I found easy purchase and soon neared the center.
Beneath me, the wights had paused, moaning in what I assumed was annoyance as they slowly turned, following my path with their hazy gazes. My hope soared. Their hesitation might give me a chance.
The altar sat in the exact center of the cavern. Nearly 30 feet above it, a large stalactite extended 4 feet, pointing down toward the altar. With a final mighty heave, I flung myself across the last 5 feet of open space and caught the end of the stalactite.
It broke off.
I had hoped to hang from it for a second to orient myself properly, but now I fell, my body still twisted out of position from that last swing. I cursed as I tried to twist back around.
The wights finally realized my destination and an angry moan filled the cavern as they raised ghostly hands and all rushed toward the center. Even the ones guarding the exit abandoned their post and raced in.
They moved faster than I’d expected. I’d get bare seconds to figure out the altar before they arrived in a flood I’d never escape again.
The single wight by the altar hovered around it expectantly. I hurled the broken end of the stalactite that I was still holding down at it. The stone passed right through the wight and shattered against the floor.
So I pulled both of my torches from my inventory, one after the other, activating each one and flinging it down. They rained down, streaming fire, right onto the wight’s head.
That did drive it back, but not as far as I had hoped. Still, I’d take any extra second the torches could buy me.
I wasn’t quite able to turn enough in midair to land on both feet. I got one under me, but struck the flat top of the altar with my other knee so hard a sharp stab of pain made me gasp. I might have just broken something.
The brutal impact also cracked the top of the altar. Bright blue light blazed up through the crack. The altar was hollow.
As soon as I spotted the light, Identify kicked in again. “Wight spawning generator. Rare. Created by a bitter necromancer suffering an existential crisis.”
My hope soared as I rolled off the altar. My right leg nearly buckled when I put weight on it, but I caught myself against the altar. Leaning over it, I noticed that dim light glowed along the edges. That suggested the top came off.
I scanned the top and sides of the altar, desperately searching for a latch. The wights were approaching like a cloud of death encircling me on every side. The flickering light of my torches illuminated them all in a weird, pulsing orange light that made them look even more ominous.
The wight guard closest to me dove over the torches in a slow-motion ghostly tackle.
I scrambled around the altar, using it as a temporary barrier. As I did so, I noticed runes and carvings all along the sides. It was far more intricately finished than I’d expected.
As my hand passed over one rune, I felt a soft tingle, like a pulse of energy. On instinct, I punched a finger into that rune. With a soft click, the top of the altar unlocked and more light seeped through. I flung the stone off, sliding it along concealed tracks.
The sentry wight had started to dive over the altar again, but veered off as a beam of blinding blue light erupted out of the hollow center of the altar. It lit the cavern in blinding blue incandescence and all the onrushing wights moaned again.
They did not slow, though, and the closest wight still managed to swipe one hand through my calf as it dove around the light. I gritted my teeth against a flash of pain and searing cold, but didn’t let that break my focus.
The closing ring of wights accelerated again, swooping in like a tide of death. I was out of time.
The light came from an enormous crystal at least a foot tall and nearly as wide. The faceted stone came to a point at the top and sat in some kind of metal housing in the center of the altar.
I didn’t see a big red “Turn off the enchantment” button, unfortunately. So I grabbed the crystal. If I could haul it free, I could throw it. Maybe that would distract the wights long enough to make a run for it.
The nearest ring of wights all dove at me in unison.
I screamed in fear and reflexively activated Energy Ward as I yanked on the crystal again. It didn’t budge, but I got an unexpected message.
“You have discovered the power source of the Essence Wight enchantment. You may attempt to wrest control over the energy crystal on a successful Intelligence check. Would you like to try?”
“Yes!” I screamed just as 4 wights dove headfirst into my torso from every side.
