As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown?
Good Lord show me the way!
In the omnibus of legends about Thassilon I had been reading, there’s a particular entry that had caught my eye. It was about a creature that sounded like an unholy cross between Nessie and a trans-dimensional horror. Even now, people still spoke of it, but it had been known even as far back as ancient Thassilon. It was said to be older than the gods, the harbinger of terrible storms which it used to capture prey and even speaking of the creature would cause black blood to well up in your throat, preventing you from talking about your experience.
Of course, that last one begs the question of how we know about the creature if it’s true. Unless maybe there’s a loophole in writing about it? I don’t know.
I don’t know, but as the gargantuan creature breached into the shallow water that flooded the town, I was able to deduce some things. It was an outsider – a creature from another plane of existence – but it seemed to have some affinity for the material plane. I could fairly safely rule out the possibilities that it might be a demon*, daemon* or devil*, but couldn’t say with complete certainty that it wasn’t a qlippoth*, though I suspected it had more of an affinity with the Plane of Shadow.
(Margin note: *Demons, Daemons and Devils are creatures generally born of mortal souls in The Abyss, Abbadon and Hell respectively. Qlippoths are native to The Abyss, but aren’t born of mortal souls.)
I would have killed to have a Jaeger, a MegaZord or Voltron handy at that moment. But we had none of those things. We didn’t even have a couple ballistae. Nope, we were on our own, mostly on foot and up against a creature that was literally in the neighborhood of fifty feet tall. Yes, we were living in a science fiction B movie, but instead of a giant woman, it was the attack of the fifty foot dino-squid.
Yeah, you heard me. It looked like someone took all of an octopus’ tentacles and stuck the neck and head of a plesiosaur directly onto them with almost no body in the middle. It almost would have been comical if it hadn’t been so damned terrifying. “You should see if Geo can distract it with a mating dance,” Fleur quipped. I almost laughed.
I analyzed the situation and desperately wanted to be wrong. “It’s not going towards the church. It’s not going towards the church…”
“I think it’s going towards the church,” Fleur said.
I cursed. “Yeah, it’s going towards the church!”
Almost as if cued by my self-honesty, my horse reared up and pulled its reins free from my grip. Aurora tried to catch it, but was too slow and Applejack sped off towards the monster. Yes, towards the monster. The hell kind of horse does that? Apparently the kind of horse I ride.
The yellow blur that was my horse charged forward and spun on its hooves as it reached its target. With a mighty crack, her back hooves connected with one of the massive tentacles. The creature, known by locals as “Black Magga”, roared in pain, the injured tentacle hanging limply at its side.
Of course, against the massive creature, Applejack was still just a horse. Black Magga’s head darted forward terrifyingly quickly, snapping my poor horse right in half. “APPLEJACK! NOOOOOO!!!!” I shouted.
O sisters let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
O sisters let’s go down
Down in the river to pray
Aurora drew her weapon. I held up my arm. “No. We can’t go in half-cocked. Give me a moment to plan.” She nodded. It took me maybe eight seconds to take it all in and come up with a quick and dirty plan. “I’m going to make you some lances. I need you to make hit and run attacks on the monster. Hit as hard as you can. Cripple tentacles when you can. Do as much damage as possible otherwise. I’m not sure if we can kill it, but maybe if we hurt it enough it’ll go away.”
She nodded. “What about the people in the church?”
“If you can keep it distracted, I’ll try to get them out. Conjure up your horse. I’ll pass along the plan to the others.” I cast a spell to amplify the sound of my voice. “Lenn, disengage from the snake and attack the monster! Geo, once the snake is down or retreats, move to assist him. Paulie, once the snake is taken care of, lead the children this way, taking shots at the monster as you move!” They all signaled their acknowledgement.
If the creature was an outsider, I likely needed to find the right kind of material to really hurt it. My only clue was the attack by Applejack. That had hurt it. Her horseshoes were made of cold iron, so that was worth a shot. I cut my palm and cast my spells. In a matter of seconds, half a dozen cold iron lances materialized, tips embedded in the muddy ground.
I pulled out the wand we had used against the barghest, Malfeshnekor and enchanted one of the lances. No idea if it was necessary, but it wouldn’t hurt. Meanwhile, Aurora hopped onto Starbrite’s back and grabbed the lance. “Good luck and stay safe!” I said in a magically loud whisper.
“You too!” she responded.
She charged off. I turned to see Paulie and the schoolchildren approaching. “Conjure a light on yourself,” I said. “Stay here and keep firing. I’m going to send the people in the church towards you.”
The catman nodded. “Understo-“ He stopped mid-word and stared off into space for a moment.
After a few uncomfortable seconds, I waved a hand in front of his face. “Are you okay?”
He grinned. “I’m super! Thanks for asking!” His voice had changed. It was very…camp.
I didn’t have time to worry about it. “Can you do what I asked?”
“I would be delighted!” he sang, conjuring a light.
I was going to say something, but decided against it. Whatever the hell was going on with him was at best the fifth weirdest part of my day. And I had my own part to play in the plan. I cast the most powerful spell I had remaining. My body was enveloped in light as I began to transform. “Kylemon digivolve to…” The light spread out around my body, altering a number of things about me. I grew a bit taller, only a few inches, my hair lengthened, my facial features became more regal and a giant pair of white feathery wings grew out of my back. Even my clothing had change, now white trimmed with blue and gold. “…ANGEMON!” I cast one more spell, causing my body to glow with magical light.
With a single flap of my wings, I was off like a bolt. Normally, it would have been adjustment to learn to fly, but I had recently upgraded my intelligence amplifying headband and given it the ability to impart knowledge of flight skills. I impacted on the first floor church window with my full weight, shattering the glass with my gauntleted fist.
People shouted in alarm. “Everybody move!” I commanded. “The church won’t last long against Black Magga. Out through the window. Move towards the glowing cat man and then make your way up to the large building past him. NOW!” They might have protested, but the orders of an apparent angel and the simultaneous shaking of the building from a blow by the beast cut that off immediately.
I helped people out through the window, clearing away glass as quickly as I could. It wouldn’t help to have someone die from an infected wound after escaping this damn beast. As they passed me, I noticed that almost everyone had a sihedron mark on their skin. This was all Lucrecia’s doing.
It took just over a minute to get everyone out. I flew up onto the church’s roof and began casting every spell I had that could damage the creature at it. They were mostly ineffective, though it didn’t like the bursts of light.
Meanwhile, the creature cast a mind control spell, targeting Geo. Geo began doing what the creature commanded – it spoke common! – but suddenly he began to shake violently. His body morphed, becoming that of “Old Lenn” and he began fighting Black Magga once more.
We were losing, but we were holding our own and buying plenty of time for the people to escape, but then disaster struck. A heavy tentacle swing struck Aurora and she was knocked from her horse, hitting the ground hard. She twitched for a moment, but it was evident she was unconscious. Starbrite put himself between her and the monster and began glowing blue once more. Black Magga decided that Lenn and Geo, cut off from rescuing Aurora by the building and water between them, were the larger threat.
I tried to fly in to grab Aurora, but got smacked out of the air by a massive tentacle. I flew back over thirty feet. Paulie rushed to me and healed me before pulling me to my feet.
“I can help her,” Fleur said.
“And let you do something insane that has no guarantee of helping? No, there’s got to be a better way.”
“By the time you come up with something, she’ll be dead! Just let me help!”
“No! I will find a way!”
“BUT IT WILL BE TOO LATE!” I roared, startling the cat man. I looked at myself. “Huh.” I was in charge of the body. Next to me was the imaginary representation of my other self, who I like to call Fuddy-Duddy. I just laughed at him. I was going to save Aurora!
“You go, girlfriend!” Paulie said with a laugh. “I know that feeling!”
I gave him a high five and stuck my tongue out at FD. I cast a spell to protect myself a bit from what I had planned. After that, I flew right over to one of the remaining cold iron lances and hit it with the magic wand from earlier. Then I picked it up and flew up, straight at a crackling thundercloud.
“You can’t be serious,” FD said.
“Me? Serious? Not likely. But I’m doing it anyway. Come on, cheer up. This is the most METAL thing we’ve ever done.”
“Yes,” he said. “Metal.” His tone was dripping with sarcasm. “We’re going to die. You realize that, right?” He began singing.
Guilty as charged
But damn it, it ain’t right
There’s someone else controlling me
Death in the air
Strapped in the electric chair
This can’t be happening to me
Who made you God to say
“I’ll take your life from you?”
“Oh shut up,” I said. “Only you could make one of the most badass songs in existence into a whinefest. Either do something useful or go away.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He cleared his non-existent throat. “Daa-da-da-da-DAA-da, da-da-da-DAA-da, da-da-da-DAAA-da, da-da-da-daaaaaaa!” I’ve never heard anyone sing the tune from Ride of the Valkyries sarcastically before. Eh. Close enough.
I continued to climb, reaching the cloud in less than a minute’s total ascent. As I flew through it, I could almost feel the electrons being stripped from my outermost atoms. In short order, I had reached the same electric charge as the surrounding cloud. I stopped my ascent, coasting to stop. As I reached my apex, I laughed.
“Lucrecia, if you’re watching, I want you to pay attention! We’re coming for you next!” My voice boomed through the sky. If she was within a couple mile radius, there’s no chance she missed it. I did a backflip and with a great beat of my wings, I began diving.
As I dove, FD began frantically reciting Hail Maries. Such a drama queen. We were absolutely going to live through this. Probably.
A number of Black Maggas tentacles turned towards me. On each of these, I could see that the tip was some kind of eyeball. She knew I was coming. Good. “I AM THE GOD OF WAR!” I shouted. “I WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER!” Grasping it in both hands, I extended the lance before me.
FD had bought a pair of magic boots to protect us from injury when falling. Because of these, I didn’t hit as hard as I could have. But it was enough to get the message across. It was also enough to break all of the bones in both of my arms.
I would have screamed in pain, but I didn’t have a chance. As my electrically charged body had raced to the ground, I had ionized the air behind me, creating an electrically conductive path from the charged cloud to the ground.
The lance took the brunt of the impact, but a billion volts of white hot pain still shot through me. It sent me flying again, over ten feet. As I flew, I was nearly deaf from the lightning, but still managed to hear the creature roar in agony.
The damage had knocked Fleur unconscious and I was back in control of our body. My vision blurred with blood rolling down my forehead. Lying on the ground, I could see the giant shape moving towards me. I also saw two other figures. On the roof of the building was someone that looked like Lenn. Then another figure stood between me and the creature, a heavenly figure, incredibly beautiful.
“If you want him, you will have to go through me first, foul beast!” Aurora shouted. In Celestial. I wasn’t even aware she knew that language. But that wasn’t the weirdest part. She had a freaking halo.
I would have asked her what the hell was going on with that, but I passed out instead.
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown?
Good Lord show me the way!
O sisters let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
O sisters let’s go down
Down in the river to pray
I woke up a few minutes later with Geo standing over me. “Sorry, I used one of your wands to heal you. Hope it’s okay,” he said.
“It’s fine,” I said. I glanced over at Aurora and Lenn. The large man was pestering her about something, though I couldn’t quite hear them. “What’s going on with them?” I asked Geo.
“He wants her to show him how she did something, but I’ve been having trouble figuring out what exactly it is she did.”
“Okay,” I said. “Now what’s up with him?” I asked, pointing at Paulie.
The cat man was standing near the river’s edge. In his hand he held a ball of flame and there was a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Don’t be like that! Come out and play! I just want to light you on fire! It won’t hurt, much!” Then he started giggling.
“He said he saw another snake in the water,” Geo said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Probably a good idea. I looked around further and saw that the rains had stopped and the floodwaters were already receding. Several villagers drew near and began thanking us for helping them. Several of them wanted to touch my coat, others begged me to bless their children. Apparently I would need to be careful where I used the angel spell. I didn’t feel right offering my blessing, but I did agree to pray with them as a compromise.
The villagers filled me in with things they knew about Black Magga. I had already known most of it, but they did pass along their concerns that she had never been seen outside the Storval Deep, which led several, including the town’s mayor , a man by the name of Shreed, to fear that something bad had happened at the dam that held back the massive lake. He offered me a thousand gold pieces to go check out the dam, a place called “Skull’s Crossing” – yeah, that isn’t ominous at all.
I looked at the village around me and declined the gold. “You’re going to have a lot of rebuilding to do after this flood. Your people need the money more than we do. Don’t worry, we’ll still check the dam out.” Geo nodded his approval. Lenn would let Geo speak for him and Aurora would agree that it was fine. No idea whether Paulie would agree, but if he didn’t, I just had to wait something like twelve hours – or minutes, sometimes – and he’d change his mind.
“Thank you, milord. You are most generous. Is there nothing we can do to thank you?”
I thought for a moment. “Offer any support you can to Fort Rannick. They’ve lost a fair number of people to an ogre attack and could use your help. Also, maybe try to get people to get rid of those damn tattoos? Someone’s trying to murder all of you to steal your souls and you’re just playing into it by marking yourselves for them.”
Telling him about the murder plot might not have been the best idea. He stammered for a moment, began hyperventilating and fainted. “It was pretty funny, though,” Fleur commented. I couldn’t disagree with her there.
Several people seemed to want to thank Aurora, Lenn and Paulie, but with the heated discussion between the former two and whatever was going on with the latter, no one was brave enough to approach them.
We left the village to head up to the dam. I was stuck riding on Starbrite with Aurora. Certainly worse fates, I suppose. Still felt bad for poor Apple Jack and now Starbrite was stuck carrying us. I guess I could have gotten a horse from the village, but again, they needed every resource more than we did.
“Also, you get to ride with Aurora,” Fleur said. “Gropey gropey!”
I went right past how inappropriate that would be and went straight for the impossibility. “How exactly do you expect me to pull that off? She’s wearing a full set of armor,” I subvocalized.
“Oh, right.”
As we rode, Paulie kept riding up next to Lenn and floating his fireball above his head, which seemed to irritate the larger man. I stayed out of it, instead contemplating what I’d been told had happened during the fight. I’m still not entirely certain I believe it.
My actions had created a major distraction, which had been a part of Fleur’s plan. “I told you getting caught was part of my plan!” Fleur reminded me.
“Yes, yes, and I’m sure you’re a big guy.”
“For you!” she giggled.
Anyway, while the creature was distracted by my insane ascent, Lenn and Geo had quaffed some healing potions. Lenn had climbed up on top of the church to try to get a good blow at Black Magga’s head. Meanwhile, Aurora, was still unconscious. Paulie tells me that Starbrite had used the distraction to pull a potion vial from Aurora’s belt pouch and had managed to pour it into her mouth. I made a note that next time I had the opportunity I would give that horse some apples or some other treat.
She awoke just in time to look up and see me streaking through the sky at Black Magga. She witnessed my impact and the lightning and jumped to her feet, drawing her blade as she moved to protect me. Faced by the renewed knight, the madman with the axe on the roof, the man carefully slicing at her tentacles from the ground and a sudden fireball from Paulie, she had simply fled. I’m sure my own actions played a part, but I’m not delusional enough to think that I was the one who chased her off.
“It was still completely metal,” Fleur chimed in, interrupting my contemplation once more.
The dam was massive. Sure, it wasn’t as tall as the Hoover Dam, but it was almost as long. If I had to guess, I’d say it was roughly the height of the Glen Canyon Dam, which I’ve visited a couple times. So, let’s say around three hundred feet tall. And it wasn’t made of concrete, instead made of massive quarried blocks, as large as the blocks that the pyramids were crafted from.
Ominously, it had five skulls carved into the face of the dam, which is likely why it was called “Skull’s Crossing”. From where we were, we saw some severe damage to a spot on the dam, likely where Black Magga had burst through. There was a steady stream of water flowing down, but it looked like it was likely less than what it was hours ago.
We left the horses and headed up the massive stairs, which looked to have been carved for use by giants, perhaps the dam builders themselves. If so, that made them ancient, since the dam was supposedly constructed during the Thassilonian era. After the experience in the bell tower, I was a bit wary. Not that I needed to be. Apparently solid stone construction is built to last. Still, it was slow going, considering the size of the damn steps leading up to the dam.
On one side of the stairs was something akin to a railing, with each of the posts being adorned with an actual skull, mostly animal but with a few humanoid skulls among them. Each of these was marked with some kind of drawing of a skull. “Yo, dawg I heard you like skulls so I painted a skull on your skull so you can skull while you skull.”
“What?” Aurora asked.
I didn’t realize I’d said that aloud. “Don’t worry about it,” I said, I turned to our resident giant expert. “So, Geo, any idea what these mean?”
“Not entirely sure, but they appear to be clan markings.” He didn’t seem to be wrong, but it’s not like it told us much more than that the dam was likely inhabited by a clan of some kind of giant, likely ogre or troll.
At the top of the steps, we found a room that looked to be some kind of lair. Smelled like one too. Inside, we found multiple half-eaten corpses, most of which appeared to belong to large felines, though a few smoked human corpses were evident.
As an aside, I can now tell when a cooked corpse is human by the smell. When I get home, first thing I’m doing is posting that to F My Life. Well, second thing. First thing after I go get some tacos. Bastards better still be making Doritos Locos when I get back.
From inside the lair came a shout. “You no bribe me! I smash you for Skulltakers!” From within the shadows charged an ettin, a two-headed giant. No matter what anyone tells you, two heads aren’t better than one. Ettins are generally idiots. So too was this true with this one. Despite having a clear path to charge and Paulie or me, he charged straight at the knight clad in full adamantine armor.
I’ve tried to work out the logic. Maybe he figured that since she was the shortest of us, she’d make the easiest target. Or maybe the blood dragon painted on the armor offended him. Or maybe he doesn’t like girls. I don’t know. All I do know is that Aurora’s armor neatly deflected the blow.
Aurora returned the blow, cleanly severing one head from the creature’s shoulders. Geo ducked past it and with a quick maneuver pulled its massive arm into a lock behind its body. Paulie launched a small fireball right into…well, let’s just say it probably hurt a lot. Lenn…just stood there. He seemed to be thinking.
I was in a mood. “You no take candle!” I mocked the giant, using a wand to throw a couple force bolts at it. I’m not sure it got the reference, but I’m fairly sure it realized that I was mocking it. It roared and tried to break free to come after me. Aurora tripped it as wrenched away from Geo and the two of them stabbed it to death.
And again, Lenn seemed to completely miss what was happening. I walked over to him. “Hey, big guy, you missed a fight. We killed a giant.”
It took a moment to register. “GIANT!” he shouted, ferociously swinging his axe into the still twitching carcass.
“A little late there.”
He didn’t seem to hear me. “This giant was already dead!”
“Well, yeah. We killed it less than a minute ago. You missed the fight.” But again, he was off in his own world, lost in his thoughts.
“That must be a pretty empty place to wander. Bet if he shouted, it would echo,” Fleur said.
“Be nice,” I subvocalized, though I couldn’t help but agree a little.
We headed out onto the dam and ran across a small group of ogres. They were trying to damage the dam, but looked exhausted. I recognized the emblem one was wearing. “Kreeg!” I shouted, unleashing my remaining magical flash bang spell on the apparent leader. Geo and Aurora charged the leader and Paulie unleased a large burst of flame, taking down the four subordinate ogres.
Lenn didn’t notice the ogres. Of course he didn’t.
“Hey, buddy, what’s on your mind?” I asked him.
He looked at me. “I want to do the thing Aurora did!”
“Alright, well, how about this. You focus on what we’re doing here and as soon as we finish and make it back to the fort, I promise I’ll sit down with you and try to help you figure it out. Deal?” He considered it for a moment and nodded. “Good. Now let’s go see if we can go find more giants to kill.”
Along the rest of the dam, we found corpses of ogres as well as troll blood, though no corpses. If I had to guess, the ogres had thrown the injured trolls over the edge to drown. As we approached the damaged section, the piles of corpses got larger, as did the wounds they had suffered.
“I think this is where Black Magga broke through,” Geo said.
I nodded. “I was thinking the same.”
We headed into the dam and almost immediately encountered a group of troll survivors. They seemed to be angry. Didn’t matter how angry they were, though. Paulie had fire and I had acid. Lenn even engaged one of them, though he wasn’t really focused on the fight.
There was graffiti everywhere. The same phrases repeated themselves. With Aurora and Geo’s help, we translated the most common words. “Wet Papa Grazuul.” They were always accompanied by crude sketches that looked familiar to me. They almost looked like the illustrations I’d seen of scrags, an aquatic type of troll that would make perfect sense to live in a dam.
We crept along until we caught sight of the scrag. “Lenn,” I whispered. “Charge it and let’s try to bring it down before it can escape. No response. “Lenn. Lenn… LENN!”
“WHAT?!”
“Giant,” Geo said, pointing.
“GIANT!” he roared, charging. The fight was over pretty quick. Apparently what I’d read was true. Scrags don’t regenerate when they’re on dry land. Well, either that or Paulie’s fire had dealt with it. It was hard to be sure. He had been a bit more dangerous than the other trolls, but still easy work.
We continued on, soon finding our way to another large chamber. I’m not sure what the hell was wrong with the dam’s designer, but clearly his mother didn’t love him enough or something because there was a serious skull fetish going on in this chamber. There had been a fair number of polished skulls in the scrag’s lair, but that’s a troll. They collect things like that.
This room had walls covered in carvings of skulls everywhere. And, of course, there was a giant construct made of skulls. And OF COURSE it was a giant scorpion. What did I do? Just tell me what I did to deserve this crap.
The construct charged at the closest target, our scout, Geo. Aurora rushed in to assist, but the creature managed to grab Geo with one of its giant pincers. It tried to sting the knight, but her armor deflected the blow, which meant that she wasn’t hurt by the obviously dripping venom on the stinger.
Paulie and I unleashed what magic we could, but it wasn’t terribly effective. What we needed was Lenn, but he was off in lala land. “Lenn, we could use some help!” The scorpion pinned Geo to the ground. “LENN! Geo’s in trouble!” The scorpion prepared itself, looking as though it would tear Geo’s head right from his shoulders.
“LENN!” Aurora and I shouted in unison. Paulie was just watching it unfold, trying to figure out what kind of fire would make the skulls burn if I had to guess.
Lenn snapped out of his trance and swung his axe at the scorpion, cleaving the pincer holding Geo right off of the construct. “THAT’S! NOT! A! GIANT!” He swung again, burying his axe right in the scorpion’s face. The construct grinded to a halt.
Geo got to his feet, rubbing the raw skin on his neck. “You okay?” Aurora asked.
“I’ll be fine. Let’s just move on.”
We trudged on until we reached the hear t of the dam. The room was incredibly large. In the center, we found a pair of magical circles. In one of those was a fiend, an Outsider embodying evil. This one was easily recognized as a devil, a creature of Hell likely in the service of the dark god Asmodeus. And what’s more, this wasn’t just any kind of devil. This was a Pit Fiend, one of the most powerful creatures in all of Hell! This wasn’t the work of just any wizard. Whoever had done this was likely extremely powerful. I suspect that this was the work of one of the Runelords.
I looked at the circles around it. Each set of circles contained three individual rings. The innermost ring was a binding circle, meant to hold the creature in place. The second circle was a summoning circle, meant to bring the creature there. The outer ring was foreign to me. Reading it was like looking at foreign computer code. I could make out the magical equivalent of some “If-Then” statements, but I couldn’t quite figure out what the operands meant. It looked to be some kind of dark magic, likely necromancy.
That would explain the state of the pit fiend. He looked, um, well, I guess the only word that really fits is “desiccated”. Something had been draining the life force from him. In the second binding circle was a pile of ashes. Perhaps he had not always been here alone and his companion hadn’t fared so well?
“Human,” he said in the common tongue. “You will release me from this prison.”
“I’m afraid I cannot commit to such an action at this time,” I responded in the Infernal Tongue, the language of Hell.
He laughed. It was simultaneously sickly and booming. “You know what I am, then, mortal? Then you know that I will honor any bargain. Name your desire in exchange for my freedom and it is yours.”
“I’ll certainly have to think about that for a moment,” I responded. I had no intention of freeing him, but if we could find no way to kill it, perhaps instead we could make sure it was banished from the mortal plane forever by rules-lawyering it into agreeing. I did not want to preclude the possibility of negotiation just yet.
“I have been imprisoned here for millennia. I can wait a few moments. But do not test my patience, mortal.”
I walked over to where Geo and Aurora were watching Lenn. Something was wrong with him. His face was contorted in rage and he didn’t seem to be breathing. It almost looked like the kind of face a constipated person makes while desperately trying to evacuate their bowels. He had gone past red and into a shade of purple usually reserved for royal clothing. Geo and Aurora were desperately trying to get him to stop whatever he was doing, but to no avail.
Everyone has heard of someone who has performed what can only be described as a “grand achievement only made possible by ignorance”. Usually, it’s pretty mundane, like the old farmer who showed up to the Australian ultramarathon in overalls and rain boots, managing to win by running at a slow shuffle for five days straight with no sleep breaks. Sometimes it’s more spectacular, like the martial artist who learned to do the tricks he saw on old kung fu movies, not realizing that those had been done with wires. Hell, people do it all the time when the placebo affect kicks in. You think something should work, so you just make it happen. Nothing too out of the ordinary there.
But then there’s Lenn. From his vantage point on the rooftop, he had seen what I had seen but while I had written it off to an effect of getting struck by lightning, Lenn had no such reason to write it off. And, as a perfect storm, it had been Aurora. Had he seen Paulie or I do it, he would have assumed it was magic and would have just written it off as something he couldn’t do. Even Geo doing it might have been written off as a side effect of his experiments. But, in Lenn’s mind, Aurora was normal. She was just a regular human being like him. So if she could do it, he could too. And it obviously wasn’t a magic item, since she would have just told him so.
So it was, that just as I thought he was about to pass out, there was a strange sound, followed by a light. It should have been impossible. Aurora’s method was easily understandable knowing what I do now but didn’t yesterday. But Lenn doing it was impossible.
Fleur was having a grand time with it. She even started singing. “‘The chances of anything coming from Mars were a million to one,’ he said. ‘The chances of anything coming from Mars…were a million to one…but STILL THEY CAME!”
I’m glad Fleur was enjoying herself. Aurora, Geo and I, on the other hand, just stood, dumbfounded, staring at Lenn’s new halo.
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown?
Good Lord show me the way!
O brothers let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
Come on brothers, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray
Pleased with himself, Lenn calmed down. The rage gone, his halo dissipated as well. That made him angry, so the halo returned. Then he calmed again and it was gone. Satisfied that he could make it come back when he wanted, he grinned. “I DID IT! Just like Aurora!”
“Yeah, you sure did, big guy. You sure did.” Now I found myself having to figure out how the hell Aurora had done it. Not that I had time to think about it right then. Because no one had been watching Paulie.
“Get away from there!” the devil shouted.
“What? You afraid I’ll poke your friends ashes and figure out how to make a fire that can burn you too? I bet you’ll burn real good! I wanna see it!” The cat made a dash for the second circle.
In a frozen moment, the runes came together for me. I could see everything clearly as a copy of the circle hovered in front of my face. The circles powered some kind of mechanism on the dam, though I didn’t know what. They did so by draining the life from the two living creatures within. The creator had been using a pair of pit fiends to power the mechanism for at least ten millennia. That’s why the trapped fiend was so emaciated. His life force was nearly spent. He had maybe one or two uses left in him before he died.
Before I could even call out, Paulie crossed into the circle. The runes on both outer circles glowed and the creatures within cried out in agony. The dam shuddered slightly and I could hear the sound of rushing water.
“Floodgates!” I shouted in surprise. Either in a show of power or a glorious display of shoddy engineering skills, the dam’s creator had opted to give the dam a set of magical floodgates, set to open when the water of Storval Deep rose too high. These floodgates were powered by the life force of two bound devils. It was all in all a wonder of magic and engineering.
It was also ridiculously, unnecessarily complicated. With a bit of engineering, it wouldn’t have taken much to have created a set of mechanical flood gates to do the same thing. He obviously had the construction force to pull it off. But nope, he used a devil-powered design instead.
It’s kind of like using a wireless mouse for your gaming rig when your desk is perfectly capable of allowing for use of a wired one. Sure, you’ve dealt with that pesky wire, but now you’ve got to worry about a battery and have introduced a bunch of interface lag. No thanks.
After a few moments, the spell had drawn the needed energy. Paulie collapsed where he stood. “Pick him up and carry him over the outer circle. Be careful not to smudge the outer circle,” I told the others. I was pretty sure it would take more than scuffing to damage the circle, but better safe than sorry. Meanwhile, I looked over at the devil. Sure enough, that was his last contribution to the dam. All that remained was a pile of ash.
“What’s wrong with him?” Geo asked me once they had Paulie safely out of the circle.
“Life drain. He’ll be fine. Probably just the shock of it. I think he even has a spell to cure himself, though I believe it will burn through some of our supply of diamond dust.”
Geo nodded. “Good to hear. I’m going to look around and make sure there aren’t any more threats here.” He took Lenn with him.
While the two were looking around, Aurora and I checked out Paulie. He was breathing normally and would probably wake up in a few minutes. “Kyle?” Aurora asked.
“What is it?”
“Did you see it too?”
“What do you mean?”
She took a deep breath. “Did I really have a halo?”
“I had just been hit with lightning, so I don’t know how reliable my memory is, but yes. I saw it too. I suspect Paulie saw it as well.”
“Oh.” She looked away.
“Aurora…”
I was going to ask her what was wrong, but Paulie chose that moment to wake up. “Whoah, bro! That was totally gnarly!”
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Aurora said, managing to hide that despair I thought I had heard in her voice.
“What happened?”
“You stepped into the circle and became a Duracell,” I said.
“That’s like, whoah. What?”
“The spell drained some of your life energy to power the floodgates. If you have a spell to cure that, you might wanna deal with it now before it becomes permanent.”
“Righteous bro. I’ll go do that now.”
I did the surfer sign for “Hang Loose” and he returned it, though I’m not sure he knew what it meant despite sounding like a surfer to me. When he was out of earshot, I turned back to Aurora. “So, what’s wrong?”
“It’s just…I…”
Lenn and Geo returned at that moment. I knew they had returned because Lenn let us know by shouting as loud as possible. “I want to go back to the fort! I’m HUNGRY!”
“Everything else clear?” I asked Geo.
“As far as I can tell.”
I sighed and turned back to Aurora. “I guess we’re going back. Want to talk about it while we ride?” She shook her head. “Alright, well, if you want to discuss it, we should have time tonight to find a nice quiet corner and discuss it.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
While we rode back, I tried to think about what Aurora was worrying about. I knew it had something to do with the halo she’d manifested earlier. I couldn’t figure out what it was that worried her, so I just tried thinking about how she had done it so maybe I would have answers that could reassure her.
As I put many disparate data points together, I began to get a clear picture. Let me outline them here.
- She had manifested a halo.
- She had some strange resistance to certain spells. Specifically a spell that uses devil’s blood as a component.
- Starbrite was the amazing glow-in-the-dark horse and seemed much smarter than a normal animal.
- Aurora’s vision had been of angels. Everyone else’s visions seemed tied to something about them.
Let me elaborate more on that last point. As the idea began to form in my mind, I re-examined the vision through a different lens. What if it hadn’t been Heaven telling a woman she had been living well as a human? What if, instead, those weren’t random celestials? What if they were her family? Then maybe the vision was more like a family reunion. And that meant one thing.
Aurora is an Aasimar. The blood in her veins is quite literally the blood of angels.
Fleur cleared her throat. “Wait. That was a lot of celestials, and many different types.”
“And?” I subvocalized.
“Wouldn’t that mean her family is like candy to celestials? We need to get with her before the clouds literally part and some freaking six-winged angel descends from on high to snap her right up!”
I groaned. “Fleur…”
“Yes?”
“My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.”
When we got back to the fort, there was a visitor waiting for us. Well, he was waiting for Geo, specifically. He had some familiar looking tattoos, but I couldn’t place what they reminded me of. I explained to several of the Black Arrows what had happened in vague enough terms, only getting specific in my description of the dam.
“So, any time it rains, we may have to go activate it? Won’t it kill people?”
“Kill, yes. People, no. Whoever built it only used devils out of ego.” That wasn’t necessarily true. He might have done it so he wouldn’t have to leave people at the dam to monitor it. But it was more than likely ego. “Judging by the spell’s matrix, the amount of power required can be supplied by a pair of chickens. Just have someone go up there and toss a chicken in each circle and the floodgates will take care of themselves.”
“Excellent. Then, if there is nothing further, the Black Arrows will attend to the corpses in the river first thing in the morning.”
I nodded. “And we’ll head into the Shimmerglens.”
After everyone had eaten, Aurora and I returned to the room that had become ours unofficially. I used magic to clean us of grime of battle and travel. She looked like she wanted to talk, but wasn’t sure how to start.
So I took the lead. “You know, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Truth be told, you’re probably just an Aasimar.”
She looked to be on the verge of tears. “That’s what I’m afraid of!”
What. “But it just means you have a bit of celestial blood. It’s not anything to worry about.”
“Why wouldn’t I worry? That would mean that I’m just like Nualia!”
“Nualia wasn’t just a product of her blood. Most of it was because she had a horrible childhood with a father figure who cared more about using her for his own ends instead of caring about what she…Oh. Right. I guess I see your point. But I still think you’re stronger than she was.”
“What if I’m not?”
I shrugged. “Well, when you get to the part where it’s time for some guy to take advantage of you, I’ll be right here.”
Her eyes went wide. “KYLE!”
“And don’t think that I’m going to let you get away either. You screw up and let me impregnate you and I promise you that you’re going to end up married to me for the rest of eternity.”
After several moments of staring at me, she actually laughed. She hugged me. “Thanks. I needed that.”
“Anytime.” I wasn’t completely joking, but I figured I shouldn’t press my luck.
She turned her back to me. “Will you help me out of my armor?”
“Sure thing, but you can sleep in it if you want. It’s enchanted to be really comfortable.”
“I know,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “But with today’s rains, I figured it might get pretty cold tonight.”
Wait. Wouldn’t it be warmer in the armor? Why would she…oh. “Good point. Let me help you with that.”
You know, her fears weren’t completely unjustified. When I’d met her, she had been well on her way down the path of self destruction. And she didn’t exactly leave the path immediately after meeting me.
Her drinking had always been a problem, but it wasn’t until roughly two months after I met her that things came to a head. She nearly killed me. We had gotten into a fight after I’d told her that I learned that her father was dead. She had been drinking. She punched me and I almost died. One blow, and it was almost curtains for me. I think I almost got off easier than she did, though.
Aurora felt incredibly guilty about almost killing me. She didn’t tell me, but after I woke up, she gave up drinking. Unfortunately, when you’re that deep into the bottle, you don’t just suddenly decide you’re done and climb right out.
The first sign that something was wrong was the mood swings. At least, it was the first I noticed. I think she saw other signs before I did. Next, I noticed that her skin was pale and her hands were shaking. It wasn’t long until her first seizure.
We had been in the woods, looking for another set of ruins when it happened. We were days away from civilization. Despite the fact that I had money to pay for magical treatment to help her through it, I didn’t have much hope that she would survive such a trip. The nights had been icy cold and it had rained for several days. She needed shelter, fast.
I took a magic potion that allowed me to fly, then took to the sky, searching for anywhere we could at least get out of the elements. Luck was on my side and I spotted a cabin not too far away. Once she had stabilized, I put her in front of me on Starbrite’s back and we made haste towards shelter.
The cabin wasn’t occupied, though it was clean if dusty. It looked like it saw use only a few times a year. Still, there was plenty of cut firewood and a small building where the horses could shelter with a fenced in corral attached to it and stream access. All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better place in the circumstances, though I would have given quite a bit to have found a witch’s cottage. I had a lot of interesting things I could have traded the witch for her aid, none of which really served me here.
I cleaned out the cabin, using magic to remove dust, checked the cot for spiders and set Aurora down to rest. I reluctantly left her side and tended to the horses. I then gathered up firewood from the bin outside the house and went back in to start a fire in the wood stove and check Aurora’s condition.
It wasn’t good. With her earlier seizure, her rapid and irregular heartbeat, clammy skin, pupil dilation and the tremors in her hands, I knew something was seriously wrong. Sure, I had taken some first aid classes and spent a lot of time online reading about different conditions, but I was no doctor and I had no real medical supplies beyond some fairly basic stuff. Hell, I wasn’t even completely sure what it was she was going through.
When she woke up, she began screaming. After a moment, I was certain I could add hallucinations to her symptoms. I had to magically sedate her and tie her up to prevent her from injuring me or herself. Unfortunately, the magical sedation didn’t last long and soon she was awake, screaming, raging, confused and, as a new symptom, vomiting.
I looked through her stuff to see if I could find a cause. At the time, I suspected a parasite or food borne illness, so that’s where I focused, but I looked at everything, trying to find a clue. It really didn’t take long before I realized what had happened.
As near as I could tell, she hadn’t had any alcohol since I had recovered from being knocked out. With the severity of her symptoms, she was probably going through the DTs. Worst of all, I had no idea how to treat her. Should I give her small doses of alcohol to wean her off of it slowly, or would that make things worse? Was there a medicine I might be able to access through a plant based source to help her out? Maybe I could give her charcoal to soak up toxins in her digestive system?
I had no other ideas, so I made some activated charcoal as I had learned from Youtube long ago. Then I focused on keeping her as hydrated and comfortable as I could, treated her fever, yet another new symptom, and kept her restrained so she couldn’t hurt herself.
While she worked through it, I did what I could to improve our situation. I made snares and left the cabin for short trips to set them. Over the course of a few days, I set a dozen snares, created a fish trap in the stream, gathered a few edible plants nearby and made sure that the horses had plenty to eat. Mostly though, I just sat with Aurora, wiping the sweat from her brow, feeding her broth when I could and making sure that she had plenty of purified water to drink when she asked.
About six days in, she had another seizure. Then she stopped breathing. If I hadn’t been so panicked, I would have laughed. At least now she was going through something I had actually been trained for, though the first step of calling for aid wasn’t available. I managed to pull her back from the brink, though just barely.
She spent several days in a coma. I don’t know that I’ve ever been more scared. I prayed for hours, begging and pleading that she be okay. I wept in frustration. I got very little sleep. I felt so helpless. All I could do was slowly give her ice chips while talking and singing to her, hoping that part of her would hear me and wake up.
Eventually, she did awaken. She was extremely weak, but it seemed that the worst was over. All in all, by the time she was back to full health, it had been over two weeks since our ordeal had begun. Exhausted, I slept for nearly eleven hours on that final day, which doesn’t sound like all that much, but I hadn’t been able to sleep for more than twenty minute bursts for almost two weeks.
Once we had both recovered, we restocked the firewood bin and I left a note thanking the owner for use of his cabin and a few gold coins to pay for what we had used and couldn’t restock.
Before we left, Aurora swore a binding oath to me that she would never again drink to drunkenness. She declared that she would follow the example I had shown her, having no more than a drink or so a day, and even then only rarely. For anyone else, I might have suspected such an oath, but I had come to know Aurora well. She would live by her word. Even if I could not be certain that any drinking at all was a good idea, I had to hope that things would be okay.
At the next town, I paid a cleric to use magic to free her of any damage her illness and long term addiction may have caused. It was an unnecessary precaution, at least that’s what I hoped, but it made me feel a lot better.
So, yeah, maybe she did have cause to be concerned. But I think we’re past that. Everything would be just fine. I told her so as we went to bed.
A few hours later, I woke up on our pushed together bedrolls spooning with Aurora. Sadly, we were both fully clothed. We even still had socks on, though we’d ditched our shoes. She was sleeping peacefully, though I could tell she was still pretty cold. I reached over and grabbed a small bead from one of my coat pockets. I carefully rolled it several feet from us and spoke the command word. The bead transformed into a small campfire.
Aurora stirred. I stroked her head. “Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.” She laid back down and pressed herself against me, pulling my arm around her. I began singing softly to her. She smiled and a golden halo appeared above her head.
I smiled. “Love you,” I whispered very softly, but she was fast asleep and didn’t hear me.
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