Chapter 10

Monster after monster after monster.

First came the frog-flies and giant water striders.

The endless bridge of roots had come to its end. There was no choice but to walk through shallow water. Stillwater. Stillwater reeking of decay. Organic matter floated by my ankles as I waded through the swamp.

The black cloud that floated just above the canopy of bare branches, absorbed much of the light. We carefully picked our way through the dim grey. With the sky obscured, It certainly felt like we were underground.

This stretch of the dungeon was louder. Croaks and ribbits plagued us. Clara came upon the winged frogs first. She found them dotting the grey trees, each the size of a coin. Every winged frog was a strike of vivid green.

The strange frogs flew all around us. Whether it was teeth or barbed skin, they stung fiercely, and we sucked teeth from every strike they scored upon us. We spent a comical time swatting the brood of winged frogs, crushing them between our palms, until no more plagued us. Each of our health bars insubstantially took a hit, so I passed around a Pyrrhon’s potion for us all to share.

We kept an eye for more of them as we moved onward. Our trek was heedlessly noisy, until Poppo turned suddenly and equipped his stiletto dagger. His navy cloak trailed in a swoop after him. He pointed at me and said, “Tosin, lookout!”

Marcian spun with me. A massive water strider was gliding silently our way. A dozen more were gliding towards us from behind it. Their faces were mosquito like and they possessed saber tooth canines. Long toothpick limbs spanned several meters on all sides. They drifted upon the stillwater, avoiding debris and rotten logs.

Marcian’s mana bar was out two seconds before I flowed mine as well. He thrust back a sleeve of his robe and I spied at least seven huge bangles around his arm. He flowed a few points of his mana bar to one of the bangles. Mana trailed off in a stretch of cloudy filaments until filling the etched rune of the bangle. The item glowed bronze and the rune glowed a bright red.

A reverse gravity waterfall of flames burst before the mage’s hand. It formed a circular shield of multilayered flames. Flames that flickered impossibly fast.

The mage was quick, and he splashed through swamp water to come sliding in front of me, keeping his flame shield up.

The water strider was unable to stop and it slipped and scrambled, before sliding right into Marcian’s shield of flames. It hissed and bayed a wooden sound as its legs pierced the shield. Then half its body burst through the shield and the reverse waterfall of flames cut through it in a matter of seconds.

In those few seconds, the sounds of battle erupted around me. I heard both warriors bellow war cries before their muscled forms raced by either side of me. Swamp water splashed and drenched us in the skirmish.

I don’t know how, but I saw Poppo’s mana bar deplete a fraction before he performed an enormous leap over our heads. He landed with a mighty splash on foot and knee, then executed his flanking attack on the scrambling striders.

Alisander and Clara were alternating blows on the striders. Exoskeletons were being crushed and smashed to the bottom of the swamp. Brackish water was flinging from Alisander’s mace head in wide arcs. I was blinking against a spray of swamp water that crossed my face, then I was rushing forward and piercing straight through a strider’s upper jaw and brain with the pyramid point of my flagstaff. In the thrust, all my flagstaff articles were dragging in the water. Straining with effort against the sudden weight, I was hefting my flagstaff upright and retreating a few paces. The saber toothed water striders were dwindling in number.

Poppo was again leaping clear over our heads, somersaulting, and landing stiletto point first onto the back of a water strider. The strider was squirming in its death throes and the rogue could not free his dagger. Another strider was sliding in to take advantage of Poppo’s vulnerability. It’s teeth were coming down fast. In one sure chomp, the rogue’s shoulder was being clamped in the water strider’s saber toothed mouth. Poppo was screaming in agony and his face was contorting in pain. I was watching his health bar drop a full quarter, then down to halfway when the strider was beginning to bite down harder. The rogue’s shoulder was making a crunching sound as the monster’s jaws slowly closed around it.

“Five of Gryf!” I said and slammed my flagstaff down. It sank into the water and mud beneath, but did not activate. Poppo’s health continued to deplete. Other water striders were drawn to the sight and both our warriors moved to intercept them.

“Tosin!” Poppo cried out in agony. “Help me!”

There was no surface nearby with which to activate the rune beneath my flagstaff. I called out Five of Gryf once more, and slammed the flagstaff upon the flat-ish vamp of my leather boot. Five of Gryf would not activate, and Poppo’s health continued to fall. Alisander and Clara could not get to the rogue. They were stuck battling encroaching strider’s. Marcian was cut off by a handful of striders and he looked on helplessly as he fought for an opening.

I waved a hand to draw 5 points of mana directly into the Five of Gryf ribbon, instead of through the staff’s rune. I aimed the artifact at our rogue. The silver ribbon thrashed in an unseen wind and rebelled against the chain and eyelet of the staff.

A small pair of silver bird’s wings fluttered above the rogue’s head and his health went up by 7 points. I cast Five of Gryf twice more in a row and his health bar filled counterclockwise to halfway. I cast Five of Gryf twice more and lobbed a Pyrrhon’s potion just after. His health shot up to full.

By that time, Marcian had burned a path forward through the striders and arrived to fend off Poppo’s assailant. The water strider screeched as it burned and our rogue was freed from the clutches of its maw.

The warriors defeated the last water strides. They stuck together and laughed back and forth as they washed their weapons in murky water.

Poppo and Marcian came to me asking, “what happened back there?”

“I-I don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t able to use Five of Gryf for some reason.”

I explained how the flagstaff worked; there had been a lack of surface to strike it upon. Calling upon the ribbon hadn’t worked when I’d struck the staff against my boot. Something was wrong.

“You’d think this was your first dungeon run,” Poppo said bitterly.

The entire party was irritated with me. I was a healer who couldn’t deal with afflictions, and I must have seemed incapable of simply healing someone.

As the party moved along, and I glumly followed, I wondered if leveling the power rune broke the ribbon in some way. Man, this was rough. I’d barely been able to keep up with Poppo’s failing health. I couldn’t achieve my party’s expectations of me, and I worried about the rest of the dungeon. My mana was at 27 now. As we walked, I downed two mana potions, bringing my pool back up to 53. 4 shy of my max.

The weight of my flagstaff had nearly doubled now that the flag, banner, and ribbon were drenched. Wringing them out only helped so much, but I followed along at a quick pace anyway.

We traveled single file on a narrow spit of shifting mud where the swamp was most shallow. Our boots got stuck at times and we had to pull each other out from the sucking quagmire.

We marched for nearly an hour beneath the black sky. The monotonous dim grey of our surroundings finally changed.

Clara stopped us at the edge of new scenery. There was no longer debris sticking out from the swamp water. No piles of cantilevered logs rose at obscure angles. No drifting organic matter. Roots could not even be seen. Vines were now absent.

However, the water was now quite active. Far off ripples lapped at our feet. Large ripples that came without pattern. Struggling splashes could be heard in the distance, but not seen.

“This way,” Marcian said, having found that the path continued sharply to our right.

Alisander and Clara again took the lead. We watched the expanse of new swamp to our left as we continued on. It never once stopped being unnervingly active. Occasional baying echoed around us. We heard the mix of coyote and barred owl calls. Calls that I was sure did not come from such animals. Calls that made me imagine frightening terrors.

“Well what have we here?” Clara said.

Our party stopped at a pair of posts. Thick ropes held a suspended bridge that swayed over the active swamp. Alisander went aboard to test it and nearly lost his balance. The bridge dipped quite low under his weight and he wobbled for a bit, until finally rebalancing.

He gave a quick thumbs up and a cheeky smile.

“Good to go!” He said.

“Hold on guys,” Poppo said. “Let’s all go one at a time. Give the person in front of you enough space so that the weight is evenly distributed.”

We traversed the bridge. Alisander was followed by Clara, then Marcian, then Poppo, then me. Each bridge swooped up to another pair of posts that anchored another suspended bridge. At every connection, the next swinging bridge angled off in a slightly different direction and our route seemed to curve over the active swamp.

By the fourth connection, we started to see the movement in the water. Whatever it was, was long and covered in swamp filth. It’s movements were serpentine and aimless.

“Long as these bridges don’t fall apart, we should be alright,” Clara said.

There were times when the bridge was absolutely terrifying to walk across. Some bridges were quite low and touched the water. The wood planks were soft, and squished under my feet. Water was squeezed out of the plank pores and bubbled out from the knots in wood, or where the wood had begun to decay. Other bridges had missing planks that we’d had to carefully make a small leap across.

The last bridge was short and sturdy. It led us out onto the first dry land we’d seen so far. A small island. The island was more of an almost fully submerged hill and we stopped at the top to get our bearings. Since the mist and fog hunkered low, we were able to see over the top into endless lines of trees.

The blue glow of Marcian’s mana bar reflected off the tiny droplets of mist at our ankles. He threw his sleeve back and once more revealed the seven bangles he wore. Half of his mana bar melted away with ethereal filaments and flowed into the second bangle from his wrist. The bangle glowed metallic, and the rune glowed a hot red.

A halo of fire burst to life above our heads and it stretched to accommodate the size of our party. Then it slowly descended until it mixed with the mist and sent walls of vapor into the sky.

“What’s going on?” Alisander said, equipping his mace. Clara hefted her warhammer and took a wide stance. Poppo and I cast our mana bars wide and I drew my flagstaff before me.

Ghoulish figures appeared, marching through the mist and into the searing ring of fire that hovered unmoving. They approached with a dumbness in their expressions, and with limbs hanging uselessly to their sides. Their jaws were piranha-esque and twice swollen. From every orifice dripped brackish water.

Reuuhggg! Reuuugghhh! Roaaaa!

Some died from fire damage as they passed through Marcian’s fire ring. Others survived and swung their dead weight limbs like clubs.

Alisander was swinging wildly into the fray, smashing skulls, and breaking limbs. Clara was destroying multiple ghoulish fiends at once with powerful swings of her warhammer. Fiendish limbs and cracked bones and gore and bruised flesh were flying all around me. Poppo’s mana bar was draining quickly. He was navigating the battle from within a trailing black ribbon spilled from a spool of shadow. He and his shadow were coasting over our heads in fantastic leaps, and he was delivering lethal stabs in quick succession, killing ghoulish fiend after ghoulish fiend.

I was sending 5 points of mana into Five of Gryf twice in a row to heal both Marcian and Clara, who were being beaten by flailing hands. I was running to their side and driving the pyramid spearhead of my flagstaff into the chests of the monsters. They were falling one by one. Marcian was sending another few points of mana into another runic bangle. Before him was manifesting his flaming shield with which he pressed into oncoming monsters.

Poppo’s health bar had taken a hit so I fell back in order to locate him. I put him in my sights and sent another 10 points directly into Five of Gryf to bring his health back to full. I was still afraid to use the flagstaff rune to cast magic so sending mana directly to the article was the surest bet for now.

I returned to battle alongside Marcian and Clara. When the last fiend fell to its death, Marcian’s ring of fire poofed out of existence and the wall of vapor returned to its state of encroaching mist.