Part 6: Chapter Five: The Coming Blight

Chapter Five: The Coming Blight

At least the fire is warm.

The morning after my escape from Glencoe Forest, stronger in magic if shaken in morale, I found a pleasant surprise; one of my fellow spirit tamers, Arkart, was at the inn!



"I've been lying low here because of the dangers of the woods," he said. "Now it is safe to go to Dondoran and back to the monastery." I tell him that I am on a pilgrimage to harvest stray spirits, and he wishes me luck on my endeavor.



At last, the time has come to leave for Larapool; our ship trades captains, the last taking shore leave. Captain Morague greets me with a mighty handshake. "Welcome aboard!" he said, "You're my first passenger in many a day. Come to think of it, the last traveler I met bore a striking resemblance to you... much older, though." I tell him it must have been my father. My heart leaps in my chest. I pray I can find his trail before it is lost entirely.

As Shannon steps aboard, Morague yells, "We're shoving off for Larapool!" I join Shannon downstairs in the passenger's cabin.



The boat shoves off, carried by a strong wind. I take the opportunity to nap; I sleep much better on the sea, far from the hellmouth of Glencoe. Shannon sits across from me; when I wake several hours later, she's sitting in the same place, looking at me. Slightly unnerving. She sat still as a statue in the gardens of the monastery.



The last leg of our journey worries me. I can feel the boat losing speed, then finally drifting to a halt. The captain and crew exchange increasingly severe curses; eventually, we are rowed ahead until we finally dock--not at Larapool, but at the trader's port near it. The captain tersely apologizes for his many oaths, and says, "What am I going to do? The wind has stopped blowing. And now the lake is flowing in the wrong direction. If it stays like this, we can't make the crossing to Larapool. A fine... uh, kettle of fish."

The wind stills, the lake flows in the wrong direction. One would be unpleasant, two is suspicious. The Earth Orb was stolen... One curse deserves three more. I fear for the other elemental sigils.



I invite Shannon to follow me to Larapool; she accepts, following slightly behind me. I've never seen her walk very far; there's something strange about her gait, like it's been choreographed. It is both graceful and strange...

West Carmaugh is beautiful. The strange blue stone is native to the region; the stairway here predates the Civilizations of Clay. It would be foolish to say it is unchanged--it has been repaired repeatedly--but it retains much of its original beauty.



Seeing Carmaugh chases away the lingering fears of Glencoe and the new ones raised by the lake and wind's condition.



Larapool isn't far off at all. We should be there by nightfall.



...what is this? As we walk across a series of rising hills, a quartet of women... writhe towards us. They are dressed in green vestments and slither along on all fours, pulling themselves forward, mumbling and uttering under their breaths. I've never seen such... no. I've never seen. But I've read about them. They remind me of the old Merrow cults, dating back from the Killing Age.



They attack us, hurling ice bolts. They're obviously unaccustomed to the power; each shot blasts them back several feet. I narrowly avoid one, but Shannon is blasted and encased in a shell of ice, rooting her in place. Their kind has been dead for centuries--has someone begun it again? I blast the Merrow with bolts of fire, trying to restrain myself from a killing blow.

To my grim surprise, they are not simply blasted unconscious; they are destroyed, my blasts leaving deep burnt scores in their bodies. I feel sick.



They carry on their assault. I have no choice but to fight--they're out for blood--but I raise the element of wind to try and restrict them, capturing one. In the end, only the restricted one survives. My staff ends the last one; blood and boiling foam pour from her mouth.

Shannon breaks free of the ice-spell's shell, and strikes the restricted woman unconscious in a perfect single stroke. She hefts the Merrow across her shoulder; I nod. We must get to Larapool soon.



Along the path I spy a stray spirit; I pull away momentarily to add its power to mine, then rejoin Shannon.



Goblins are common creatures here--thought-walkers of gambling and chance. They are not particularly strong, and I sweep them out from our path quickly.



There's another spirit ahead--but it is too far out of the path. I shall retrieve it after we reach the Water Capital.



Ork juniors--as they are called--are abandoned by their parents and forced to survive on their own essentially from birth. It is cruel, but perhaps no crueler than anything else nature may birth. These can cast massive rocks, easily avoided but damaging should it hit. They travel with Were-Hares, who have a strange fondness for the creatures.



The most dangerous here are the Ghost Hounds--the sires of Hell Hounds. Like Hell Hounds, they are born from Gehenna, but Ghost Hounds are sent not after gamblers and other wasteful rogues, but against those who truly sin in fire--the rapacious sort who serve as the coals in the ever-burning pit of Gehenna. Unfortunately, like Hell Hounds, they have expanded their list of victims to include all living things.



Even at night, Larapool is a beauty. As we approach, Shannon lays the unconscious woman on the ground; I lean over her and fill her with healing magic. She rises slowly, instinctively adopting the kneeling position, but me and Shannon both manage to get her walking--although in a crouched and painful way. Her rapid, incomprehensible gibberish barely rises above the sound of pouring water.



The night is young, and there are still several people out. We manage to wrangle our poor girl to the nearest man we could find. I told him we found the woman outside the city with a group of others, but that she was the only one we had alive. The man winced at the quivering wreck we showed him. He said, "I'm afraid we can't save her. She's been ridden by a water spirit. It won't let go until she's dead."

He gestures. We offer him the woman. "Damn..." he said. "It's Rose, Camelia's girl." He looks at us. "Please... if you could be so kind..."

He tells me the way to the girl's home.



I break the news.



Not the best way to make a first impression. I spend the night at the inn, though having slept so much in the past few days led to very little sleeping. In the morning I come downstairs to find a man dressed in chain armor.

"I had to run away from Greenoch and leave everyone behind," he says. "I wonder what has happened to my family..." I ask, first, what happened. He doesn't know; the king simply ordered his section to evacuate and go wherever they cared to. He elected to stay in Larapool until ordered to return. I ask his name; he gives it as Donovan. I promise him that if I come across Greenoch, I would return and inform him what happened to his family. He thanks me, but he doesn't seem at all optimistic.



I turned to Shannon. "The ferryboat has broken down, and I seem to be stuck in this town," she reiterated. "It seems that an evil force is casting a spell upon the water and the wind. They call this place 'Larapool, the Holy Water Capitol.' Across from the southern cavern is Normoon, the City of the Wind. One place or another may hold your fortune."

I ask Shannon where I might find some better information, and she points me to Larapool's high spirit tamer, Leila. She is, at the moment, upstairs in the inn. I decide to investigate.



I sense three recurring elements in my life: murder, horror, and women of unmatched beauty. I must say the latter makes the former two more bearable. I bow to her. She lifts up my head with a fingertip; it's not necessary, she says. "I'm Leila, the sorceress. My destiny is to protect Larapool, but somehow the wind has stopped blowing. The reason can be found near the City of Wind, Normoon. When the wind stops, demons are free to spread throughout the land." I made note of the Merrow; she nodded. "I am using all of my powers as Water Spirit to fight them off. Our world is balanced by four different spirits. If one of them should become stronger or weaker than the others, then we are doomed. I only have enough power to protect this single region. Master Brian, you must help protect the rest."

The path is clear, then; to Normoon, governor of the wind.



After consulting the map, I decide to take the bridge to Windward Forest. The land after the first bridge is unhealthy, dry brown earth showing between dry green grass.



Skeletons raise an attack on my way to the bridge. They are the bones of warriors from ages past, reanimated by wind-spirits of a kind similar to those who possess Were-Hares. The reanimated corpses project bolts of cutting wind from between their ribs and tear the wind itself with swings of their blade. Dangerous, but nothing I can't put down.



It seems I've reached a dead end. The bridge stretches out into the distance and abruptly drops off. I enter the hut near the bridge.



A pair of massive men, each at rest from a grueling day of work--I could tell from the thick stench of sweat. They give their names as Jeff and Lloyd.

"You want to travel on, little one?" Jeff says, "Well, it's impossible. The bridge is down, and it'll take a while to fix. The only way for you to get to Normoon is to go by way of Cull Hazard cave." Cull Hazard weighs heavy on his voice. I was hoping to avoid it, but I don't want to wait any longer than I have to.

"From this point on," Lloyd explained, "we'll be entering the Windward Forest. But we hear that a suspicious magician has shown up. He has the power to control the wind, and probably was the one who blew down the bridge." I ask Lloyd if he knows the magician's name; he doesn't know.

With nothing else to do, I set forth for Cull Hazard cave.



These Wolf Goats are more bark than bite, but wandering too close will show how horrible their bite is. They can rattle down illusionary avalanches with mighty stamps of their hooves; the illusionary avalanche is every bit as deadly as it looks, despite the lack of structural damage it deals. Kept at a distance with wind magic, though, they are little more than noisemakers extraordinary.



The land leading to Cull Hazard was in no better shape than what led to the footbridge. I wonder what blights the land so--and my questions fade the closer I get to Cull Hazard. It stinks of sulfur.



There's a small cottage near the entrance to Cull Hazard. It's been warded against the stench; I can breathe freely near it.



The old witch inside offers me a place to rest before I tackle the cave. She warns against me going in; it is a breeding and feeding ground for Wyverns, deadly and vicious creatures. I heed her warning and tell her I will try to avoid the beasts. "Don't 'avoid' them," she said. "Just run."



Near her house grows a stray spirit. I pluck it before heading into Cull Hazard.



Cull Hazard hangs open like the maw of a great dead beast. I feel intimidated simply walking through it, as though I am plunging into the guts of a king monster.



Cull Hazard is a linear place, but it is cramped, claustrophobic. This can be to its advantage; there are few monsters in these parts of the cave. It's simply too cramped for most beings to be comfortable. The stench and heat are also at their weakest, as are the monsters. These Skull Bats are simple to dispatch, particularly with my newly-won third rank in Wind Cutter.



I feel much more vulnerable when I reach a wide-open space in the Cull Hazard caves. I can hear distant, echoing roars and the flap of vast, leathery wings. I try to keep my head down and try to sneak as fast as possible.



Blood Jells slide along the floor of the caverns. These oversized slime molds are carrion-eaters, particularly craving blood--fresh, if they can get it. They project masses of homing arrows at their targets; they can be dodged, but one strike can often lead to another, and another, and another.



It is not long before I encounter my first Wyvern. It sweeps before me, roaring like an organ with every key slammed at once. I steady myself on the element of earth and blast the creature with my strongest earth and wind spells.

But it is too much for me--from a distance, it snorts balls of fire, and up close, it sweeps the floor with an inferno. I run from the beast--screaming--and hide in a tiny outcropping of rock; the Wyvern howls at me before growing uninterested and flapping off after easier prey. I cower in fear from the great winged things. A fear rises in my gut, one buried since time immemorial; the fear of a tiny thing cowed in the shadow of vast and hard-scaled beasts that rule the world with tooth, claw, and mindless hunger.



I emerge from the shadows just long enough to scrounge fallen treasure and a spirit. Even with the boost in power, I daren't try my might against the Wyverns, though the Blood Jells and Skull Bats are well within my power.



Hidden on the other side of a great stone dividing the path to next bend in the tunnels is another spirit--a mirror of the first.



The tunnels are cramped again, too cramped for the Wyverns--but not for these Scare Crows. These mute scavengers are flightless birds the size of men. They are of modest power and great appetite. I use a Rolling Rock spell to crush several of these creatures at once before finishing them with my stave.



After hours of wandering through the inky tunnels, attacks from monsters began to taper off. I hoped more than knew that I was approaching the exit. I was never lost in Cull Hazard, but I'd been chased forward on jets of flame far too often for my liking. I crept through the threshold and into...



...what is this?

Next: The second gem.