Trouble With Horns

The duke gave us leave to flee the castle and return to our manor after we explained what our faun runner boy had told us. Given the explosion, we were more than a little worried that our manor house had just gone up in a pillar of fire.

Before we were able to exit the castle entirely, though, the Duchess caught up with us. “Blessed Ladies,” she called, moving as fast as her outfit and noble station would allow. “If it is not your home that has exploded, would you please investigate the issues in your basement, and with the explosion, and report back to me? I will tell the guards not to shoot you out of the sky, so you may land in the Duchess’ rose garden. We can have a much more… candid discussion there.”

“Absolutely, your grace,” Dawn said, bowing to the commanding woman.

She nodded. “Good. Go. Be swift.”

We were, indeed, swift. Our flight was aided by the tall peninsular that the castle was perched atop. We swooped down into the city on wings pulled in slightly to decrease drag. Rather than cradle Kimmy in my arms like before, I opted to try putting her on my back. It seemed to work a lot better.

When we landed in our back garden, we found most of the household staff cowering there, while the tougher ones stood with makeshift weapons pointed towards the back door.

Leila, our ravenness steward, rushed to meet us, already speaking, “Ladies! I took the liberty of evacuating everyone out here, lest whatever is making those noises break through the containment door you had built.”

“Good thinking,” Dawn said. “I’m glad to see the house is at least in one piece. We heard the explosion all the way from the castle.”

“The blast wasn’t from here,” Leila frowned. “Did you see anything when you were flying over?”

“Nothing.” I answered. “We should get down there and do a sweep now, though. We can speculate once we know the house is safe.”

She nodded in grateful agreement. “Yes, thank you.”

Dawn, Kimmy, and I all shared a look, checking each other over briefly before we headed for the door into our manor.

Halfway to the containment door that led down below, the house shuddered. Another explosion, this one almost… more distant than the one we’d heard in the castle. Were we actually further away from the epicenter now?

When we got to the big door, it was sitting quiet and intact. It looked exactly as we’d left it. Okay, now I was really confused.

Slowly, carefully, I reached up and put the circular locking wheel thing into a spin. It opened slowly, revealing… nothing.

“Okay, what gives?” I demanded, walking over to lift the trapdoor and stare down the ladder. Still nothing.

The city rocked. Another explosion.

“I think, perhaps, it might be time to move quickly,” Dawn said from behind me. I turned to raise an eyebrow at her, and she nodded, “Yes. I’ll give Kimberly a movement speed potion. Those explosions are coming from below us, but also back towards the castle. You can see there at the edges of the hatch where the air pressure of the explosions was pushing dust around.”

Kimmy made a sound of disbelief and surprise. “How did you even spot that?”

Dawn just shrugged, but I answered for her. “She’s just really fucking smart.”

“Yes, well,” my girlfriend coughed, her dark cheeks sparking orange with inner fire. “Let’s get to it.”

We crept down the ladder and into the gloom of the ancient Imperial Parcosian barracks. Our hired scholars had evidently been down here once or twice, but apart from the dusty footprints they’d left, it was unchanged. It wasn’t long, however, before we heard the strange echoing noises that our people had reported.

It was a god awful grinding, screeching sound that filled my teeth with unsettling pain, then crashing and the clang of metal on metal. The very human shouts that followed pulled me up short, and I turned to look at the other two. Who the hell was down here?

Following the sounds through the barracks, we came to a stop next to a small air vent. Dawn peered carefully through, then turned to whisper, “Looks like there’s a tunnel on the other side. Wall is about two feet thick.”

Excitement flushed through me, and I hit the ignition on my gauntlets. Another wall to smash!

“Hey, no!” Dawn blurted, lunging to place a hand on my arm. “Let me do this one, it’ll allow us to keep the element of surprise.”

I huffed in annoyance, but quieted my engines and stepped back. With a grateful smile, my girlfriend stepped up to the smooth stone wall and pulled an object from within her robes. It was a handle of some kind, made of metal and wrapped with leather, but where you’d expect a sword to have a guard and a hilt, there was nothing.

“I’ve been waiting to do this since I first got my character,” she said, giving me a wink.

With a flourish and a deadly hiss of flame, the hilt gained a blade. It began as a flare of bright flame, wild and chaotic, but very quickly, it was reined in until it formed a white-orange blade of gently humming fire. Squinting at it, Dawn frowned slightly and waved her hand, opening a UI window. I watched her mess with something there for a moment, then she closed it and suddenly, her blade was an iridescent purple-blue colour.

“That’s the same colour as your hair back in the real world!” I exclaimed with a wide smile.

Expression softening into one of affection, she nodded. “Yeah, it is. It’s my favourite colour.”

“How can you have two colours as your favourite?” Kimberly asked, amused. “Also, you’re a total nerd, Dawn.”

My girlfriend gave the healer an imperious stare. “Yes, I am. Bask in my glorious nerdness. As for my favourite colour… I do what I want.”

Neither Kimmy nor I had a response to that, so we stood back and watched as Dawn carefully pushed her definitely-not-a-lightsaber into the wall.

The stone began to hiss and melt, like some sort of hellish grilled cheese. Frowning, Dawn shifted her grip on the hilt and it flared brighter. Heat increased, the blade sizzled through the stone wall like a three thousand degree knife through ice, and in no time at all, a huge chunk of the wall fell away from us.

“What the fuck?” A confused male voice yelled from the other side of the hole.

“Shit,” Dawn muttered, and launched herself through the hole.

I was right behind her, and Kimmy behind me. The large passage we found ourselves in looked different and even older than the imperial barracks we’d just left. Delicate, soaring inset pillars reached from floor to ceiling, holding up the ancient grey stone roof and the walls they were attached to. Decorative bronze disks that had once shone brightly from the walls between the pillars had since stained the stone with green corrosion, like some sort of molten sludge gone dry.

Down the middle of the passage, a modern minecart rail had been installed. Pinned into the stone floor without any regard for preserving the floor’s surface, the rails stretched off down the hallway until they turned beyond our sight.

Sitting on the tracks, a small train of minecarts was hitched to some sort of black-furred beast while four workmen and two guards stood beside it. All seven of them were staring at the chunk of sizzling stone wall that Dawn had just sliced up in confused shock. The six humans were wearing Pagutum livery, while the beast had the imperial symbol branded into its shoulder.

Dawn lifted her off hand while we were all standing there staring at one another and with a smirk, clicked her finger. Fire erupted within the enclosed space, searing the clothing of the six enemies. My girlfriend, not content to set her enemies on fire, flexed her wings and lunged, skipping up onto the carts. Her blazing sword sliced across a guard’s chest as though his scale mail were made from a desperate politician’s excuses. Which is to say, the armour was paper thin, but some old guy had enchanted it with archaic words and so it just barely held up against the assault that would have otherwise ruined him.

One of the workers drew a dagger and screamed, somewhat redundantly, “The half-breeds have found us!”

The first guard was already staggering back into a defensive posture, sword raised. His friend was a step behind him, moving to cover the wounded man while he popped a health potion with a shaking hand.

“One of you get help,” the second guard ordered, glancing at the workers for a brief moment. “Now!”

Not needing to be told twice, the three that hadn’t drawn steel turned and rushed headlong in the direction their carts had been heading.

Shit! We needed to stop them before they could raise the alarm. I tried to go around the two guards, but another explosion shook the tunnel, and I caught a viper strike sword blow on my hip. My armour deflected the sharp point away and behind me, but I stumbled from the combined hit and rocking of the earth.

“Motherfucker!” I hissed, and pushed my fist forward in the direction of the fleeing workers.

Lightning snapped down the passage, threading and arcing towards them, but with each pace down the hall it travelled, more and more of its power was snagged by the old bronze discs.

Dawn was slightly more successful with her fireball, which blasted the leg off a worker in a spray of gore and burning flesh. The man fell to the ground screaming, but true to their culture, the other two pags ignored their friend’s pain and kept running.

Pain lanced down my arm, snapping my attention back to the enemies beside us. The fucker with the knife had just stabbed through the join between plates on my bicep!

My other hand shot out, grabbed his knife arm, and roaring, I tore it free from his socket. Next, a low jab to the stomach threw him against the uninjured guard. I lunged after him, pushing further, harder. All three of us toppled to the ground.

The fourth, injured guard moved to help, but Dawn engaged him with a flickering strike from her sword, and he was forced to block. Sparks flew from the contact of their weapons. Ah balls, the guard had a damned enchanted sword!

Healing magic splashed over my back, easing the pain in my arm, even as it flexed, driving my iron fist down. Blood sprayed upwards, and then again as the other fist struck down to smack against flesh. Like some sort of disgusting sandwich, I tenderised the worker using his guard friend as the block of wood. Wait, that didn’t make sense. Maybe it was more like a piece of steak caught between a very squishy anvil and a power hammer. Yeah, like that.

All of a sudden, I got experience points flashing in the side of my vision, and the two men went limp. My eyes unfocused, and I looked at the notifications with confusion. Huh?

Hey, dumdum! Check your dang levels! You have so many points to spend it’s hurting my brain! Oh, and why do you have two different skills to save you from your own speed? Maybe combine them? Love, May.

QuietValerie