Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Merid's Mark ❯ Merid's Mark ( Chapter 1 )

Today had not been a good day. It really, really had been a downright unpleasant day. Not that the past few days hadn't been equally unbearable—to be fair, I'd been having a horrible time throughout our entire trip through Merid's Mark. It was notable, however, that that particular day was not any better. The only body of water in the Merid's Mark canyon is Demon's Blood River, and its red, brackish water tastes awful. Even at my thirstiest, I could barely stomach it.

I stumbled to my sore feet after nearly gagging on another mouthful of water. “This place is—fascinating.” I was about to remark my dislike for our current situation, but I knew I would get a lecture from Aleric on being steadfast and the destiny of adventurers and how I had to learn to tolerate such hardships.

“Indeed,” Xerei mused. “It is an honor to pass through this sacred place. There is a wonderful story dating back thousands of years that tells of this place's origins.”

So I'd get a story from Xerei instead of a lecture from Aleric. I could live with that. Actually, either of those had to be better than staring in silence at the dusty, drab blood red walls of the canyon that rose mockingly above me.

“It's said,” Xerei continued, “that the great god of heroes, Merid, fought a great demon named Babedar in this area of the kingdom before the land was even separated into territories and kingdoms. As he slew the demon with his powerful sword, it cleaved the landscape long and deep, and this very canyon was created. The river you see there,” he gestured needlessly to the side, “was said to have formed from the blood of the great demon. Over time, even after the blood stopped flowing the magic the land possesses after having made contact with the sword of the god of heroes has kept the river this red color after all these millennia to remind us all of Merid's bravery.” Xerei slowed his pace and closed his eyes, bowing his head as if in reverence.

“But demon blood is black. And the river is black when it flows out of the cave it comes from. But it's said that it reacts with the holy power of this place to turn it blood red, just like good and evil essences do,” Shani added.

“But everyone knows the river is really red because of the clay the water carves out of the canyon walls,” Katrina pointed out from her usual spot next to Geddon.

Xerei twitched visibly. “That very well may be so, but the legend is still… well, it's…” He raised his hands in front of him as if ready to grasp the phrase he was looking for, should it appear.

“An irrelevant, ancient story meant to reinforce love for the gods and hatred for the demons,” Kao interrupted. “It has no meaning anymore, if it ever did have one.” He turned to his brother with a toothy, self-satisfied smile. “That what you were looking for, Brother?”

It was true that most of the stories of old, at least the popular ones, are about the triumph of gods and men over demons and other evil creatures. “Everyone's attitude toward demons should hardly be a surprise,” I told him.

At a rare loss for a reply, Kao turned to face me as he walked, his golden eyes glinting for just an instant.

“I understand you're bitter,” Xerei said softly. Then, as if emotion overtook him he turned harshly. “But that's something you should have considered long ago.”

Kao paused as Xerei's words echoed cruelly through the canyon. “Let's not talk about this,” he said dismissively.

“You brought it up,” Xerei pointed out with no lack of satisfaction.

“Shut up!” Kao's voice took on its usual shrill, penetrating tone that accompanied anger. As if in tune with his emotions, all of him seemed to bristle.

I rolled my eyes. So it had come down to the same brotherly quarrel again. I half expected one to stick out his tongue at the other. It was embarrassing to see the two men argue like children… especially so while traveling through populated areas.

“Please,” Geddon stammered. “This is not how heroes are to behave.” As usual, even his timid murmurings were delivered with charisma and authority.

Off White nodded, smiling pleadingly. “Let's not let past grudges control us!”

We all took a moment to look at White.

White blinked. “What?”

Katrina rushed forward to grip Geddon's arm, her sunshine-colored hair flowing fluidly over her beloved's shoulder. “Anyway, Geddy's right. Fighting is bad… at least when it's amongst ourselves.” Geddon blushed. Yeah, he loves her. He doesn't pull away from her anymore—kind of like a trained pet.

“Shh!” Aleric hissed. “When you get caught up in personal disagreements, you let your guard down. Remember that while this land is regarded as holy, it is not totally free of threats!”

I looked around. Aleric usually enjoyed giving the rest of us advice, but in this case he had a point—and he looked serious. Everyone else was neglecting their surroundings in favor of their personal disputes and paying no attention to what was going on around them. Not that much was happening. The red canyon walls towered above us, full of wrinkles and creases, like hands of a massive titan shutting them in as a child toys with insects. The Demon's Blood River flowed quietly beside us. We hadn't seen any signs of life besides birds and the occasional fish since we entered Merid's Mark.

“Besides that,” Shani added, “but does anyone smell something burning?”
I took in a deep breath and was overcome by a calming, musky scent. Sniffing the air as his companions were, Xerei wrinkled his nose and scanned the area with a displeased frown. “Smells like cheap incense.”

“It could only be coming from up ahead,” White pointed out. “We've already been back that way.” Her pale hands reached for the dagger and short sword that hung at her sides.

Kao looked back, his catlike demonic eyes narrowed. “Naïve…” he said with a smirk. I only saw Kao's right hand rise for a split second before he sent a ray of magical energy over his shoulder, barely missing Geddon and White. “Venatra Sentrakri Indari!”
Recognizing the chant for forbidden magic from previous adventures, I whirled around to try and catch a glimpse of the spell's target as a yelp of surprise came from around the bend just behind us, followed by a dull thud and the clanking of metal. What had Kao done? He may have just zapped an innocent traveler!

“Careful with that!” White intoned angrily.

Kao gave a satisfied smile. “Hmph. Let's go see what we've caught, shall we?”

“C- caught?” I asked.

“Of course,” Kao said, rounding the bend. “A corpse can't answer questions.”
So he had used a restraint spell instead of harming whoever was following us. I tried to hide my sigh of relief as I followed him back down the pass.

Kao emerged dragging a mass of roughly patched together cloth, hanging from which were bags of numerous sizes, a couple of metal pots and what appeared to be a tankard. The strange mass, which seemed to be vaguely shaped like a short human, was trapped in an entanglement of magical ropes that glowed with a powerful red energy and struggling weakly as if the restraints were sapping its victim's strength.

He let the mass come to rest on the ground in between him and us. “All right, then.” Kao snapped his fingers and the bindings faded away. “This was the best way to keep her where she was without hurting her.”

“Her?” I asked.

With the clattering of the mass of possessions hanging from the being's clothing, it rose up to its full height of only about four feet and drew a shillelagh from the coarse material that made up a crude cloak and clubbed Kao in the side. “Demon!” it roared. “Back!”

“Yaaargh!” Kao growled, recoiling. “Now listen!” he hissed with bared fangs.

“And again!” the thing's voice shrieked shrilly.

“Eh?” Before he could get out of the way, the club hit Kao over the head with a solid thunk.

“Oh!” A hood obscured the old woman's eyes, but the leathery, sun-weathered skin of her lower face was exposed. “You have friends, I see. Are you tame, demon boy?” She poked Kao's leg with the shillelagh with a little cackle.

Just as Kao began bristling again, Shani stepped fluidly between them. “Hey!” he said carefully. “We don't even know each other. Let's not start things off with a fight!”
I noticed now that the incense smell was definitely coming from the old woman. A glass jar strapped to the rest of the mass of things she was carrying constantly gave off a thin, delicately twisting white smoke that gave off a spicy odor that clung to my tongue and made me thirsty.

“What an adorable boy!” The woman put a shriveled hand to her cheek, looking up—even Shani was taller than her. “Are all of you together, then?”

“Yeah,” I answered.

The woman lowered her head. “And what is your purpose here in Merid's Mark? Hardly a casual stroll, I would think.” She bowed a little to lean on her stick, the strange mess she was wearing draping over her like a monster trying to devour a victim.

”We're just here to see the legendary Merid's Mark,” Aleric explained. “This place is sacred to my family… since Merid is our patron god.”

The woman's figure shook. I couldn't tell if she was laughing, shuddering or something else. “So you've heard the legend, I expect?” she asked expectantly.

“The one about Merid slaying the great demon? Of course,” Aleric replied a little indignantly but with a tone of uncertainty.

“That's not the one I'm talking about,” she quickly replied with a tone of satisfaction. “I'm talking about the legend of Merid's sword.”

“Merid's sword?” I repeated.

Aleric turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “I've never heard of anything like that.”

“The legend that says that his sword rests somewhere in this area, correct?” Shani asked. “They say that making contact with it will fill someone with godlike heroic power and valor that will echo through their family for generations to come… but no one knows where it rests, if the legend is even true.”

“Hah,” White smiled appreciatively, putting her hands on her hips. “Just as we could expect from little Shani. Knowledgeable as always.”

It couldn't possibly be true. Something that important, no matter how well hidden, would have to have been found already by someone. No matter how obscure the story, if the lore was still accessible enough for Shani to know it, I doubted the rumor could be true. Someone would have confirmed it by now. “If Merid's sword was really here, don't you think someone would have gotten to it and we'd have heard all about it? It is just a legend.”

Aleric smiled, chuckling lightly. “Don't you know by now, Tione? Some fools believe in the impossible, but the biggest fools refuse to believe in the improbable. Besides...” He looked down the pass at the long expanse ahead of them. “If it is true, it would be invaluable to the Iu Duno family. Godlike heroic power and valor in the family for generations to come…”

“Hold on,” White said, gazing directly at the strange old woman, obviously frustrated that she couldn't look her in the eye. “Who are you?”

Scarcely pausing, she stated with a tone of great significance, “I am Hemapecca.” I saw nothing significant—or dignified, for that matter, about the name.

Aleric drew back as if the little woman had tried to snap at him. “Hemapika?”

“Hemapecca,” Hemapecca replied patiently.

“So,” I addressed her. “We've told you why we're here. But what's an old lady doing in a place like this?”

“I'm a humble potion brewer,” Hemapecca answered. “I came here to restock my supply of Demon's Blood water. One could always secure the water as it flows out of the canyon to save time, but its power is not as potent.” She raised a tiny arm. Underneath layers of dirty rags were leather cases bound to the inside of a heavy coat she was wearing—each one contained a small glass vial. “I charge a lot for my potions because not many make them better than I do.”

She certainly had the appearance of an independent woman who put everything into her work.

“However,” Hemapecca continued, “I've been hearing voices since I entered the canyon—besides yours, I mean. Sound travels so well through these walls. And to be honest, I'm a bit worried. I've noticed some suspicious characters skulking about. Bandits, perhaps. I've been able to avoid them so far, but—”

I could see where this was going.

“I know!” Katrina piped enthusiastically before I could speak. “You want us to protect you?”

Hemapecca twiddled her sticklike fingers. “If it's not too much trouble.”
As had become customary in our group when a decision had to be made (when standing around arguing fails, that is), we all exchanged glances. I smiled, shrugging. “Help those in need,” I repeated the words of Elin from the day I first left Sheste. It appeared that most of us were in agreement—at least, it would be a diversion. And perhaps we'd get paid for our trouble.

“Hemapooka, you can count on us!” Aleric said.

“Hemapecca!” The thunk of Hemapecca's shillelagh followed. This was easily the most entertaining thing I'd seen all day. I hoped Aleric kept mispronouncing her name.

Aleric rubbed his sore right leg with his left boot. “Heh, heh…” he strained. “Spry.”

“Come, kiddies.” Hemapecca turned and continued in the direction we had been walking, rags dragging and pots clanging. Kiddies?

“Hold on!” Xerei said. “Look at the walls.”

I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, no matter how closely I looked. Had all the noise we made attracted someone's attention? Annoyed and a fair bit indignant, I turned to Xerei with a wrinkled brow. “I don't see anything.”

Everyone else had taken up the challenge of seeing what Xerei had spotted. Aleric's gaze darted from one side of the canyon to the other, perhaps comparing. Geddon and Shani, perhaps still not used to having to make keen observations about a wild environment, appeared as lost as I was.

White, who stood closest to the wall, suddenly winced and brushed dust and bits of rust-colored rock out of her red hair and looked up with half-closed eyes. “Rocks?” she observed.

Now I understood what Xerei had been trying to point out. Through our journey through Merid's Mark, the occasional bit of dust or pebble would tumble down from the walls, bouncing playfully off ledges on the way down. At first it had made me nervous, but I had gotten used to it. Now dust and rock constantly broke free, as if the rock was being disturbed by an invisible force. Tight ripples agitated the lazy red river in a steady, foreboding rhythm that made me think of the footsteps of a giant.

Kao emitted a feral growl. “Something's—”

It seemed I was on the ground before I heard the sound of the far wall exploding outward. Before I could see what was going on, the wall a few feet above me burst and rocks tumbled over me to rattle sharply on the canyon floor in the form of crimson blurs. At the speed they were being propelled at, being hit by one of the larger ones could mean serious injury. My ears assaulted by the terrible noise of the stone clacking against stone and my eyes filled with the images of crumbling walls, I admit I panicked and my scream mixed with the echoes of falling rock. I'd been lucky—none of the stones had struck me. As the noise had dissipated, I could hear the relieved sigh of the rushing river again.

“Was anyone hurt?” Katrina asked, getting up from her hands and knees. Both had received minor scrapes; she cringed momentarily at the stinging dust invading the shallow wounds. “I'll heal anyone who's hurt,” she announced as she bent over the river to wash her hands clean. This, of course, was nothing new to us. As an angel, Katrina almost always took the position of healer of the party's wounds.

I saw Off White raise her hand reluctantly—it seemed as if she'd been struck in the back by one of the larger parts of the wall that had broken free in the explosion. “Should've been paying attention…” she muttered. I couldn't see any blood soaking through her red cloak, but she looked like she was having trouble getting on her feet.
All this time I had been avoiding investigating the gaping hole in the wall above me. The needs of the group seemed more pressing. While Katrina healed White, I finally got up from the warm dusty ground to look into the darkness. In the hole, the bloody red color faded from bright to enveloping darkness and I felt myself tremble, receiving a chilling reminder of what a silo full of blood looks like.

Suddenly the hole, and my entire field of view flashed bright red with the shock of a sudden impact to my midsection that propelled me backward as easily as a finger flicking a bit of grit. For a moment my body went numb and I tried to cope with the inability to react for only part of a second before I hit the ground several yards away. My thick clothing and padded armor helped absorb some of the blow, but the back of my head took it full on. Unconcerned with my attacker at the moment, I wrapped my arms around my stomach to try to deaden the intense pain there as I gasped for a breath of air. The pain in the back of my head drifted to a dull ache down my neck and back where I had hit the unsympathetically harsh canyon floor, and I could feel my scalp become wet and sticky with blood. “Damn… gods… dammit…” Yes, I've found that in a pinch, curse words can be used effectively to soak up a bit of pain.

“Tione!” Startlingly fast, I felt Aleric at my side—well, I made a reasonable guess that it was Aleric, since it was him who called out my name. My eyes—in fact, my whole body, was still clenched from the pain. “Hang on…” he said, his voice trembling. If I'd been in any shape to speak clearly, I could have made fun of him for appearing so concerned. We'd been through a lot worse.

Aleric's muscular arms gripped me just below the studded leather band protecting my chest and proceeded to drag me carefully to the side. The cool metal of his winged gauntlets was soothing. “Someone get her a potion or something while I fight this thing!”

“Wha izzit?” I barely uttered. I had gotten my breath back. The pain hadn't gotten any less severe, but I was at least getting used to it. I opened my eyes, expecting my view to be a little blurry. I was right; everything was a vague, red blur. I tried blinking, squinting and shaking my head before I could get a clearer picture. Sometimes you've just got to give it time.

What appeared to have come out of the hole to strike me were a collection of red boulders. Some were round and others were oddly shaped. Most were big, but some were smaller than my clenched fist. What was remarkable was the reason I didn't hear them hit the ground—they were still in the air, floating almost motionlessly in a chaotic formation. What was there to fight?

“I'll take care of ya.” Katrina winked. “Ready? Sukri Sethu Shifta!” She spread her hands in front of me as if to direct the bright blue light that shone between them. I didn't know why she asked if I was ready if she wasn't going to wait. Either way, I still wasn't used to the sensation of being healed by magic. Before I left Sheste, I had never experienced a healing spell—there weren't many magic users there, and I had never been injured enough to need one. The feeling was similar to the pins-and-needles feeling of blood rushing back to a limb that's fallen asleep, but far more intense.

To distract myself, I watched Aleric approach the floating stones. While I had been looking away, they had drifted together to form one mass so that they resembled a monstrous bunch of grapes. However, they hadn't made a move beyond that. Aleric, however, had drawn his sword. He pounded them with his pommel, hit them with his hilt, and bashed them with his blade, but couldn't produce any effect beyond getting the rocks to bob in the air a couple inches and producing an annoying clanging noise. Even though it hurt to do so, I laughed a little.

“What is it?” Geddon wondered, taking a cautious step forward like a cautious predator.

As soon as Geddon's boot hit the ground, the shape of the gathering of boulders elongated to form a new mass resembling a giant serpent made of an uneven skin of the red stone of the canyon. Its back and sides were lined with spines that very well could impale someone if they hit an unprotected body at a high enough velocity. The tip of its tail was like that of a mace—a solid ball with spikes jutting chaotically outward in every direction. Its dragon like head was adorned with stone horns and teeth, above which glowed piercing magma eyes. The monster straightened to its full length of about forty feet, scraping along the ground and kicking up dust, and stretching as if having been asleep, twisted the rocks that made up its body like beads on a string, its stony mouth emitting a gurgling roar. A couple of drops of magma dripped from its mouth like venom.

“Huh…” Aleric whimpered as a bit of molten rock fell at his feet.

I stumbled to my feet. The healing spell hadn't quite been completed, but I was quite capable of fighting if it came down to it—at least I felt like I was. “Scatter, everyone!” I suggested. If we were all spaced more or less evenly, it'd have to decide who to attack, and no more than a couple of us would probably get caught by a single blow. Then again, I couldn't begin to fathom what this monster was capable of. I staggered away from the thing, trying to keep my distance at first.

“Demon's blood!” White cursed, sheathing her blades in frustration. “My weapons won't affect something like that!”

“You've got healing potions, right?” Xerei asked. “Keep an eye out for anyone who could use one!” He turned to face the monster. “What would be effective against a monster made of rock and magma? Would water or ice be more appropriate?”

“Out of the way!” Kao yelled, approaching the serpent, his black cape fluttering frantically behind him as if reluctant to rush into battle. He put a hand to the ground. “Utaraki Butra! Irratu!” A small impact sounded and the ground shook just below his hand before a series of five explosions shook the creature along its length, shattering it.

“That would work too,” Xerei said flatly.

“Heh heh.” Kao flashed his brother a fanged grin, shortly before disappearing in a red blur with a surprised yelp. The head of a second rock serpent had rammed Kao into the far wall. Fortunately, none of its horns seemed to have hit—but even so, Kao crumpled against the wall once his body was no longer being held against it as the serpent withdrew its head to attack another opponent.

“Heh, heh… put in my place, as usual.”

“You deserve it for being cocky,” White said over her shoulder. “You gonna be all right?”

“Worry about yourself.”

“Just as long as you get back into the battle soon. We might actually need you!” As if after a second thought, she tossed the demon a vial of healing potion.

Geddon maneuvered around Aleric, who was taking on the second beast face to face, heading for the banks of the river.

I couldn't just stand by and not participate. It would be tough, but I bet that I could make a dent. I unsheathed my spoon, bending down to remove it from its leather holder around my leg. “Chaos!” At my command, the translucent handle of the spoon crackled to life with the blinding purple spark of chaos, the force that everything was created from. Mmm, ultimate power trip.

I whirled around when I heard Geddon stumble into the river with a splash. Not bothering to lift the dripping hair sticking to his face, he braced himself against the river and two steady streams of crimson water enveloped him at his sides where he stood. He thrust his hands into the gushing streams at his side. “Seihra Vaeri! Telsi Nandra!”

The flowing river bubbled and rippled just before a column of water as if one created by a gigantic splash rose out of the water and formed itself into a watery dragon of swirling water. The thing shook itself, sending droplets of water sprinkling down and sparkling in the blazing sun.

“Go!” the prince commanded, thrusting his dripping arms forward.

I still hadn't quite gotten used to seeing powerful magic performed— and summoning spells were my favorite. I shook off my reverence and prepared to attack.

“Tione!” Aleric shouted from his position at the monster's head. The rocky serpent had apparently chosen to ignore Aleric in favor of the larger foe that had been called into being. “Be careful if you get close to it! You don't want to be hit by its liquid rock!”

No time to snap at Aleric-- at that moment, the monster reared up, dragging its bulk jarringly against the ground. As if propelled by a coiled spring, its head launched forward. Its mouth glowed furiously for a second with the glow of molten rock before the fiery red jet spewed from its mouth, speckled with black where the air already began to cool it. Most of it hit Geddon's newly summoned creature, sending a cloud of steam bursting outward with an angry hiss—a hiss that almost covered a scream of anguish that sent an icy shudder through me.

“Dammit, Aleric…” I muttered. I wiped cool moisture from the cloud of steam out of my face and made a move forward to rush into help him. If I hadn't hesitated first, the monster's tail might have hit me instead of the ground when it smashed it downward, creating a convenient barrier between me and Aleric. I winced as pebbles chipped off the creature's tail and the rocky ground flew like sling bullets. There was no way I'd get to Aleric, but I knew he'd be okay—he had the luck of a fate snatcher. I had been trying to think of an appropriate technique all this time—I had had only about a combined year of training, from what Shani had taught me and from what I had read.

“Shak-han ahn kahn il!” I recited the incantation for a technique that allowed you to pin your opponent, rushed hastily into the melee and slammed the handle of the spoon, still glowing with chaotic power, onto the thing's midsection. I wasn't even sure if it would work on something this large. Foolishly, I waited in anticipation where I stood, poised to turn and run at the doubtlessly approaching sign that something had gone wrong.

The monster's body quivered before slamming with a ground-shaking crash to the floor of the canyon as if a colossal hand had swatted it. The impact shattered some of the rocks that made up its snaky body and snapped the spines that ran along its length, magma leaking sluggishly out of the fractures like blood. It wasn't dead, though. Pinned helplessly halfway along its body, it thrashed wildly with its head and tail, dissipating the remaining steam that was still wandering in the air around us.

I backed back out of the battlefield, stumbling when the monster's spiked tail whooshed threateningly past me, only to bump into one of my teammates.

“Thanks for not coming back to help me back there,” Aleric said in a mockingly sincere tone from behind me. “I really do enjoy rolling around on the ground in agony, and it would have been such a shame to have spoiled it.”

“You think so too?” Kao quipped, staggering over to meet us.
In the rush of trying to subdue the monster, I'd completely forgotten about Aleric. I whirled around. Aleric's short green tunic was full of holes in the places the dripping molten rock had hit him—more importantly, he was covered in tiny blistering wounds underneath. Fortunately his armor protected most of his vital spots.

A wave of shame swept over me—fortunately, I'd learned to ignore such things. “Some of us were busy fighting the monster instead of giving redundant advice!”

Aleric's twisted into a “so it's this game again, is it?” face. “Well you were just standing there like a rotting log!”

“A what?!”

Xerei coughed. “Er… as endearing as your little lovers' quarrel is, don't you think we should finish taking care of the huge monster that's thrashing around behind us? Just a thought.”

Geddon too rejoined the group, wringing out his white cape. “I never liked the idea of finishing off a helpless opponent,” he murmured, his green eyes pools of emotion.
I looked over my shoulder. The monster couldn't move from the spot where it lay, obviously. Would there be a point in leaving it there? Or for that matter, would there be a point in killing it? On my travels I'd had to kill monsters and beasts of all types—even some people. It's not something you grow into or even get used to, and it's never pleasant; Kao was probably the only one of us who took any kind of pleasure in such things. I looked down at my hand, which still held my unsheathed spoon. Would destroying this creature when we could just as easily leave it alone be cruel? There was no sign that it was motivated by evil—it may, I realized with a bit of guilt—have even attacked us out of fear.

A surprised and pained scream yanked me from my thoughts. I looked up to see the monster gone.

I turned to see Off White prying at a familiar floating cluster of red stones—the same kind the first monster we destroyed formed from. “Xerei!” she shrieked. It must have freed itself by breaking itself apart.

Shani, who'd apparently been hit by one of the stones as it moved to trap Xerei, righted himself, holding his shoulder. “He's… in there?”

The individual rocks shuddered and shook in the air. With a nauseating crunch, they squeezed themselves closer together. A despaired whimper emerged, muffled by the barrier of stone.

“It's going to crush him!” White wailed, desperately chipping at the stones with her dagger.

I and everyone else threw ourselves at the floating pile of stones. I threw my spoon to the side, wrapped my hands around a broken spine jutting out of one of the imprisoning stones and pulled, doing my best to brace myself against the dusty ground. But the rocks, each seeming to have its own life, pulled back, grinding against each other. Dust and sand sifted from the stones into a pile on the ground.

Amidst our screams and commands to one another, the stones drew together tighter than ever. In despair I realized that there couldn't possibly be any room for an intact body inside the cavity that had to be remaining. I barely pulled my hands away before the spaces between the rocks filled with molten rock with a sickening oozing sound.

I drew away from the stifling, stinging smoke that filled the air that had become heavy with the stink of sulfur and burning cloth and hair.

“Brother…” Kao exhaled in disbelief.

The mass of stones, now melted into a single boulder, dropped with a resounding crack to the earth, breaking open where the magma hadn't quite cooled yet. My knees weakened when I saw bits of charred white and dark blue cloth exposed among the pieces. It had killed itself to take Xerei's life. A cool breeze swept over the group, still silent with shock.

“Told you we should have finished it off,” panted a voice.

I smiled. I knew Xerei was tougher than that. With relief I let out the breath I couldn't quite bring myself to let out before.

Off White tackled the tattered and disheveled Xerei happily, who had appeared behind us. His costume was torn and sagging in several places (especially his cloak, which had been reduced to lonely shreds), revealing bare rock-scraped skin. His long elven ears were in worse shape—they were red with abrasion and sagging lopsidedly.

Xerei collected his wavy silver hair over one shoulder—it seemed a little shorter than it used to be; the end of his braid must have been left behind. “I turned myself to sand and escaped before it was too late. I've been in better shape, but I'm alive.” He put an uneasy arm around Off White.

“But then,” the girl in his arms pointed out, leaning on his chest, “you've been in worse shape too.”

“There now,” Aleric said coolly, sheathing his sword with a forceful push and a composed smile. “That wasn't so bad.”

But you didn't even do anything! Instead of yelling I picked my spoon from where I tossed it aside earlier and put it away. “Do you even listen to yourself?” I muttered.

“Is everyone accounted for?” Shani asked. Everyone appeared to be safe, but most of us were hurt and in need of healing and costume restoration—but the latter, with the exception of armor, was largely superficial.

“Not quite everyone,” an unfamiliar voice oozed as its speaker stepped from behind an outcropping, holding a knife at Hemapecca's neck. Her hood had been ripped away to reveal her full appearance—a wrinkled, tanned old woman with ratty red-brown hair. At the present an enraged frown distorted her aged face. Her captor bared a set of poorly kept teeth. “None of you move or she dies!”

Kao hung his head in exasperation with his thick black hair spilling over his shoulders as if in agreement. “Ah hell.”

My hopes of the man being alone shattered when a voice behind us commanded, “Drop your weapons and put your hands behind your backs. No magic.”

The dropping of steel to the ground mimicked a dirge of bells. Nothing puts me on edge like having to give up my spoon. Getting outwitted by common crooks did it pretty well, though. Humiliating.

More men emerged from around the bend until it looked like there were at least twenty. Most of them were dressed in common travelers' clothes and had dusty, disheveled complexions. They looked like they had been hard at work doing something recently. The more important ones, perhaps the leaders, looked like they hadn't done much in the way of work lately and dressed in colorful costumes that denoted their authority, almost free of dust and mud. One of these more aesthetically pleasing bandits (which is in itself a relative term) stepped forward.

“I'm not sure who sent you here to interrupt our work, but they should've sent someone better,” he chuckled. He waved his hand nonchalantly to his inferiors. On cue, they joined him in laughter until he lowered his hand again.

Really humiliating. But what was the `work' the lead (I assumed) bandit referred to? It very well could have been common banditry but I got the feeling it was something more.

“We weren't sent by anyone!” Geddon said, careful not to startle the bandits into harming their hostage.

“Doesn't matter,” the leader shrugged. “You'll live for now. We'd actually been hoping to run into someone out here that we could use. I can hardly risk the lives of my own men. At least, not with how many I've already lost.”

Behind him, his men nodded.

“Tie `em up and get `em back to the cave.”

Like I said, not a good day.

* * * * *

A sore ass really takes the fun out of any adventure. We'd been sitting in `the cave' for about an hour before my rear started to get sore. Our hands had been tied securely behind our backs and we had immediately given up on the idea of trying to untie each others' knots as our bindings had been tied to cold, rusty metal rings that had been installed in the wall at about three feet from the floor—put here for just such a purpose, I imagined (but they could have easily been used to hang things on). We hadn't been bound at the feet, but it was nearly impossible and useless to try to stand up anyway. Not even Aleric was strong enough to break free. Perhaps if Kao could have turned feral form, it would have been possible, but that would have put us all in danger.

The damp, cool chamber we were in was oddly shaped and about twenty feet long. There were at least five feet or so separating each one of us. Placed safely out of our reach in a far corner of the room were piles of tools and supplies, most of which were covered by a worn burlap canvas. Placed around the piles were boxes and barrels. It seemed as if they had taken care to hide what was under the canvas.

I shifted my wrists in their bindings as much as I could to alleviate some of the pain of the ropes digging into my skin, cringing as some more dirt got under my nails in my struggling. I had to think rationally. In times like this it's best to set your priorities straight and think logically. “Well, I blame Kao.”

“What?!” Kao roared from across the room. He had been leaning against the wall looking uneasy and averting his gaze to the pile of supplies next to him, but now straightened up and leaned forward against his bindings.

“You're supposed to be able to sense danger and stuff! But obviously you didn't. Therefore it's your fault we were captured, it's your fault our equipment is gone and it's your fault my butt is sore!”

Kao recoiled a bit at my insinuation. “Wha—I'll give ya a sore butt, you—”

“Hey!” Aleric growled to my left. “No one gets to talk to Tione like that except me!”

“Yeah! Wait…” I almost agreed. Since we dramatically declared our love for one another, Aleric's only been encouraged to make more lewd remarks. Man, you save one guy from a fate worse than death…

“Kao, do you want me to tell mother about that language you're using?” Xerei was across the dark room. I remembered with pity that he had never been healed after his ordeal.

“I don't care.” Kao looked over his shoulder at the wall indignantly.

“Everyone,” Shani interrupted quietly. We turned to the boy. As usual, his innocence and youth alone could mediate any argument—in the couple of years since we met him, his angelic, boyish face had been slow to mature and he still looked like a kid who'd walked in on his parents arguing. The angry exchange ended.

“We're already in a difficult situation,” Geddon finished. “It would be best to not make it worse by arguing.”

Looking to my side at the corridor a warm light was escaping from, which our captors had retired to once we were securely bound, I wondered again what the bandits' purpose was for keeping us alive. We'd already discussed it, but didn't arrive at a singular answer that sounded the most plausible. At the same time, what we did come up with, like ransom, forced labor and sacrifice, were all frighteningly well within the realm of possibility. Still I got the idea that it had to be tied into whatever work they were doing in this cave. And we had no idea what they had done with Hemapecca.

Footsteps echoing through the passage I was staring blankly into rightfully commanded our attention. The bandit leader from earlier stepped into the makeshift dungeon with a pace that was probably meant to be a cool, calm swagger, but the effect was lost by the fact that he was obviously drunk—his wavering pace and massive build made me think of a dwarf on stilts. He entered a door near where I was bound. My gaze followed him from over my shoulder to the center of the room. “Ready to go?”

“Go where?” Xerei demanded from the other end of the room. “You've brought us here but still haven't told us why.”

“My men and I've been exploring this system of caves in search've a treasure rumored to be buried in the area. Admittedly, we've had some problems. Within just a few days, half of my men're dead—eliminated from my team by traps… n' mysterious accidents.” He leaned against the wall just above me, nodding a lot as he talked, as if he were watching a firefly dart around on the far wall. The familiar smell of drink, campfires and carousery made the feel of lack of freedom feel even worse.

Logic told me where he was going. “So you want us to look for you?”

He nodded. “You're as clever as I believed you t'be. O'course, the old woman'll be killed if you refuse to cooperate.” He leaned over as if speaking on-the-level with colleagues. This guy was huge and grubby, but he had charisma, and managed to be fairly eloquent even in his current state—I could see now how he got to be the leader.

Enunciating as best he could in a drunken slur, he continued, “And as incentive for all of ya, if you survive you will be allowed to go free… once we've found whatever treasure this place contains and have removed it safely.”

Compared to some of the possibilities we had thought up earlier, it almost sounded reasonable. We'd most of us been through worse than what was probably in these caves. “You'll let us leave? As easy as that?” Geddon asked.

“I swear on whate'er lies'n this cave.” He looked to me to be sincere. “Ho'ever, I may offer an extended invitation to th'ladies.” Thick fingers wandered into my hair like predatory snakes descending from a tree.

I shuddered. So much for reasonable.

“I'll die before that happens!” Aleric fumed.

The bandit leader raised an eyebrow and glared flatly at him. “Yes, y'might. But from how well y'battled the guardian beasts we inadvertently freed when we opened th'caves, you'll at least make our work easier.”

“So we've been cleaning up your mess from the start!” White realized.
The bandit leader's rough and calloused right hand slithered down the back of my shirt.

“Smart eh?” I still couldn't believe this guy outwitted us. I slammed my back into the wall. The smarting pain of the metal ring digging into the small of my back was worth his yelp of pain—it echoed pleasingly down the corridor.

“Like a cheeky lil' alleycat…” the bandit leader growled, roughly massaging his hand. “I was going to let ya rest and nourish yourselves, but it looks like your leader here dun want that. You set out now.” He took a broad, imposing stance in front of us and curled his good hand into a red, rough fist that resembled the canyon walls. As he exited he swung his fist at a burlap sack slumped like another prisoner against the wall, but missed and scraped it on the wall instead. As he thundered down the corridor he growled a stifled howl of pain.

“What do we do, we're screwed either way!” White spoke in her refreshing, clear voice. It was like a cool flagon of pure water after a day in a desert. Her steadfast tone was calming—more of a nature reserved for deciding what to order at a tavern than a matter of life and death.

“White dear, please…” Xerei spoke with a bowed head. He'd always been more sensitive and easily troubled than she.

“Okay,” I said carefully. “We won't get anywhere if we don't agree to their terms. So we go inside the caves where they won't hear us, and formulate our plans there, and they'll probably have given our gear back—we can't take them on while they've got the old lady, but we'll be in a better position to make decisions.”

“You're still worrying about her?” Kao asked. “If we forget about her, we won't even have to go into the caves.” There was a wild excitement in his catlike eyes. “We have our fun dispatching the bandits, saving the leader for whatever reward may be offered for him of course, and take what we want of their loot. Doesn't that sound nice?”

Maybe I'd been around Kao too long, but I had to agree that it sounded like more fun than trudging through a cave dodging booby traps. But leaving Hemapecca to whatever fate she might face if we did that just wasn't right, even to my admittedly slightly mercenary way of thinking. But I had to come up with something more promising. “What about the treasure in the caves? Grab the treasure, come back, and take care of the bandits?” I'd developed an eager taste for treasure since our adventures began, but the anticipation of finding out what a treasure might be and uncovering the secrets of items and weapons we find was the real fun. If Merid's Sword was down there, who knew what else might lie with it?

Aleric nodded. “I like Tione's plan.” Aleric was the unofficial second in command—if we agreed on something, we usually all went with it. “I say treasure!”

Footsteps scraping toward us interrupted our council and about a dozen men strode into the room. Just behind them strutted the bandit leader. “All o' you up!” He looked around the room. “UP! Get em' up!” he repeated. The men approached each of us, with two or three to take care of the more imposing of the group. “Keep `em tied up, and I want three on the brawny blond and the demon.”

The gangly bandit with dusty blond hair holding the rope binding Kao's wrists backed away as two others jerked the demon, scowling, to his feet. “Demon?”

Kao did his best to sidle up to the nervous bandit with two other men holding him. “I'm going to turn you inside out through your ass,” he whispered in a serpentine hiss.
The already edgy bandit blinked, straightened, and handed the rope off to someone else.

“You take him.”

Kao turned his fanged grin at the bandit now holding his rope. “Hi,” he purred.

Good ol' Kao.

The bandit leader himself grasped my arms firmly before loosening the rope from the ring behind me. “Ready to go, Alleycat?”

Should I? … Yeah. “Jump up a dragon's butt!”

“Such a charmin' young lady. In y' go.” The bandit leader pushed me first through the corridor, where the crimson walls were decorated by the dancing light of a bonfire in the next room and shouts, whoops and laughter turned from a trickle to a torrent as we entered the large main chamber where the remainder of the bandits were camped.

The chamber we were led into seemed to have once been a crude temple. Rough carvings, indistinguishable at the distance I stood, lined the walls up to a height of about ten feet, where the ceiling rose into a dome shape. The imperfections in the stone floor had been carved and pounded flat over the years, and it looked as if lines had been carved in it to give the illusion that the solid red floor was made of rounded tiles that curved in concentric circles toward the center of the room, where the bandits' bonfire blazed. Off to the side of the room a massive, worn carving of a sword with its hilt facing up stood in front of a roughly hewn stone altar, currently being used to hold cloaks and bags. The altar had been turned into a table where glass bottles and ceramic vessels were hastily placed after each drink. What might have once been a sacred place had been turned into a hideout for criminals.

“Hey Tione…” Aleric was just a couple paces behind me. “This is an ancient temple of Merid!”

I trusted Aleric's observations. While he was no scholar like Shani or Geddon, Merid was his family's patron deity. It was also fairly common knowledge that of temples constructed in the past few hundred years, only temples of Dedephael, goddess of the underworld, lie underground. And Dedephael's symbol was not a sword; if I remembered correctly it was a walking stick with a vulture perched on the handle.

“Marin!” The bandit leader's voice rang in my ear. “Get these guys' stuff from th' corner!” He lowered his voice. “We were kind enough t' take out any useless valuables an' money that might hinder you on your journey.”

I began to like Kao's plan more and more. The bandit leader removed my bonds in time for me to catch my gear. I strapped on my bag and returned my spoon to its sheath, realizing just how naked I had come to feel without it—after all my journeys having it at my side felt as natural as having hands attached to my wrists. Fishing through my bag, I found everything there except my coin purse—I was grateful my bag was too small to bother carrying many trinkets and valuable items around. I scowled—I'd have to get my Ring of Hangover Evasion back, though.

Watching us finish equipping ourselves, the bandit leader clapped his hands once. “Right. Ya ready?”

“Hold on!” White said to the leader. “Xerei is still hurt from the battle we fought before!” She approached Xerei and laid a slender hand on him—indeed, he was still bruised and scratched pretty badly. “Let us heal him first.”

The bandit leader narrowed a suspicious stare at White. “I don't want any tricks—take care of it once you're inside.”

I noticed Kao surveying the bandit campsite like a gryphon eyeing a flock of sheep and realized he might very well try to start a fight prematurely. “Kao,” I whispered. Getting no response I grabbed a handful of thick black hair and pulled gently. Kao's person and costume, I'd discovered, had many convenient handles with which to command his attention or keep him out of trouble. Usually I go for an ear but sometimes I like to change it up for some variety.

Kao turned to the bandit leader with his palm outward, flexing his fingers coaxingly. “Give me those glass vials back—you people won't need them anyway.” The bandits must have taken the tiny containers he keeps filled with negative energies—he'd probably been scanning the site to see if they'd been laid out in the open. Admittedly, they've often come in handy in tight spots, I had to admit.

White interjected from where she was rubbing a bright green gel onto her blades before sheathing them. “Go on, give them back. After all, what are big, capable men like you going to do with potions of virility, anyway? This poor demon has enough trouble getting any as it is.”

“Hey!” Kao half-heartedly protested. His face twisted into one of impressed realization but he quickly hid it.
The bandit leader looked incredulously down at White. I could see what was coming. If anyone knew the different negative essences nearly as well as Kao did, it was White. “Which one is that?”

“I'm not telling.” White smiled slyly. Oh hell yeah. This should be good.

“You're not in a position to withhold information from us, girl.” The bandit leader reached into his pocket and withdrew little glass vial of swirling pale blue vapor. Apparently he had pocketed at least a couple of them on his own. “What about this one?”

“You'd better leave the cork in that one,” Kao quipped. “That definitely isn't it, and it most definitely isn't a potion of invulnerability.”

I'd learned to identify a couple of the essences demons could draw directly from their victims and turn into a vapor able to be stored and used as nourishment by evil creatures, but I wasn't sure about this one, and I had even less of a clue what Off White planned by tricking the leader into opening it. But could this guy really be that stupid?

“Well, let's see, then.” He popped the cork with his teeth and the vapor inside eagerly spread out over the room.

Yep. He really was that stupid.

The blue fumes curled curiously into every corner, running cautious circles around the bandits like a pet investigating a new visitor to its home before dissolving away.

One bandit who had been sitting near the fire stood up, his gaze darting uneasily around the room, and turned to a companion he had been carousing with. “What in the hells was that?”

The man next to him threw his drink violently to the floor. “Get away from me! You know, don't think I didn't see you reaching for your knife—tryin' to get me drunk and then takin' me out so you can have a bigger piece of the treasure…”

“Only cause you were reachin' for my coin purse!” The bandit who had started the argument took an indignant swig from his bottle and brandished it in front of his companion, his lips curling in drunken anger. “Lousy bastard, I wouldn't toss you any further n' I could toss ya—trust ya—”

The bandit leader turned his back to us and stormed over to the fire. “Whattareya doing? Arguing when there's work to be done like ya always do? Right? So you can side on yer idle arses and grab yer share o' the treasure once the work's done!” The leader's broad, filthy fingers curled around one of his underlings' collars. “Why I bet you're even planning to take me out one of these days when I'm not expectin' it!” The bandit leader shook the confused man roughly.

“And ya only say that because you actually plan to finish us all off in this silly chase after this treasure so that you can have all of it when we're all dead! I dare ya to tell us it ain't true!” a voice from the back of the room yelled with confidence.

“Wha…” was all I could get out.

“Paranoia…” Off White said softly. “One of the most dangerous emotions of intelligent creatures. Creatures of a looser moral fiber can use it to put entire villages out of action without striking a single blow… and in our case, it can create a pretty good distraction!” she smiled slyly.

“I saw that way you were looking at me, Begen!” The bandit leader pointed through the crowd of men, now a melee of accusations. “What's your plan? Lure me into the dangerous part of the caves, finish me off and claim a trap got me?” Even amid the yelling that echoed in the chamber, it was easy to hear the leader growl as he withdrew a large tarnished dagger from his belt.

“Zelf, what're you doing?” A chorus of confused protests rang out.

The bandit leader - Zelf - held his dagger at the ready to take on any challenger. “If any o' you have a problem with me disposing of the untrustworthy weasels in this group, you'll follow `em to the underworld along wit' `em with yer head under yer arm!”

Up until it was too late, I thought the step Zelf took backward was to rear back into an attack stance, but instead he whirled around and grasped Off White's collar with barely a glance backwards to see where he was reaching and pulled her around behind his dagger blade in a single fluid motion.

Zelf backed up toward an iron-enforced wooden door set into the opening of a passage, barely glancing back to make sure he wasn't turning his back to anyone. “Thought you had me? It'd be a shame to slit such a perfect throat, so you'd better stay where you are.”

White smiled as best she could. “I don't fear death. I doubt the same could be said of you. Now— if you're finished threatening us, why don't you send us inside and pick of the pieces of your little troupe?”

Zelf's tight scowl twitched irritably on observing his once-friendly gang brawling amongst themselves. No one had been seriously hurt, but had the group been asked to go into battle on short notice, there was no way they'd pull themselves together. His hand tightened around the dagger against White's neck and for a moment, the young woman shrunk back against him, wincing as if already in pain.

As quickly and easily as he'd captured her, Zelf withdrew his weapon and shoved her stumbling back into our midst, where she collided with Katrina. I tried to glance over as nonchalantly as possible to make sure she was okay, but in a whirl of indignance, White said, raising an eyebrow to the still anxious bandit leader over her raised shoulder. “Come on. Let's go get the boys their little treasure.”

Even for it not being the right place or time, I almost laughed at White's forced nonchalance. She'd face any fate at the hands of a bandit gang to regain a little lost dignity. Whatta gal.

Zelf scowled, intimidated glimmers of perspiration dotting his filthy forehead. He'd already been shown that he could be outwitted, and I thought by looking at him that he knew we were a fair match for the whole gang in the strength department, too. Their hostage was their only trump card. “Go on,” he huffed.

White was the first one in. I couldn't see her face from the back, but I could see her quickly scanning the passages as far ahead as she could see. I looked past the dry, dusty cavern walls, trying to see past her. I quickly got the chance as we reached a small empty chamber—our group fanned out, stirring the thin layer of reddish clay under our feet.

Xerei was the last one in, striding in with unusual resolve. “I've spoken with the bandit leader about the subsequent passages. The traps that have been set off the first few passages ahead have not reset themselves, and we should be able to bypass them without difficulty.”

“For how far?” Shani asked.

“For as far as we see the bodies of those who failed,” Xerei replied.

I didn't bother hiding my displeasure. “Cheerful. Well, let's get the `dead bodies' part over with as quick as we can, then.”

Katrina cast a quick healing spell on Xerei first before we moved on. The first few rooms weren't all that unpleasant. Like the typical booby-trapped dungeon, the first few traps were easy to fool people going through them that they wouldn't have much to worry about. We passed by a room with a large, obvious panel that triggered a sleet of arrows from holes in both walls. However the bandits seemed to have spotted it and triggered it from a distance by throwing rocks, which were now piled around the center of the room where they'd landed.

“So tell me again why we're not just rushing back out into the bandit's camp and taking them out when they're not expecting it?” Kao asked, snapping an arrow under his boot.

“Kao, I'm sure you remember that they have that nice potion brewer that we promised to protect?” Geddon pointed out.

“You're still stuck on that? We've pulled off tougher stuff before, right?” Kao insisted. “Besides, if we couldn't see where she was being held, they couldn't pull her out to threaten us if we decided to attack.”

“Wait wait.” I skipped a few paces ahead to stop our steady pace through the cave. “Kao might have a point. Besides, I wanna give those bastards some pain!”

“No no no no no.” Aleric raised an index finger with an excited smile. “Let's go with our plan from before. We get the treasure first. Then we go back and save the old lady after we take out the bandits.”

“… and take their loot!” I finished.

Giving in, Xerei swept his cape to one side to keep it from brushing the dirty wall and plowed on ahead of us. “I hope to the gods we don't get famous enough for people to consider you role models.” Xerei rushed ahead around a bend in the rough stone wall.

“Oh, why don't you furrow your brow and look depressed for a change,” Kao retorted, the dagger of his voice tipped with sarcasm as he stepped in front of me.

“Ugh!” Xereis' voice cried from up ahead. It wasn't one of frustration but of disgust. “I suggest you hold your noses up ahead!”

I prepared for the worst and turned the corner. The air seemed to be thick with a stench of rot. “What is it?”

“Apparently, a handful of bandits that have been suddenly and rudely deprived of their entrails,” Kao called back. “They've been dead for…” Kao paused. “… at least three days or so.”

Once I stepped into the room, the culprit was easy to spot: a gorry, its dead corpse shoved against a far wall. Its black fur was matted with blood into twisted, dry hunks, probably both from its own body and from the bodies of its victims. The monster's hulking body had been defiled and ruined by the bandits that vanquished it and lie in a broken pile. But then, the bandits it had managed to take down before its own death didn't look much better. Rats and grats, overgrown versions of rats, had discovered the chamber and were helping themselves. In here, the rancid stench from earlier had become almost tangible—even holding my nose, I almost gagged on the foul air. Thankfully, no one paused long enough to hold of up the line getting into the next area of the caves.

“Blegh,” Shani sputtered. “Gorries don't usually live in this area… but we should look out for more.”

The sections of cave we passed through after that weren't much better. It'd been a while since I had to deal with the sight of dead bodies, and I'd thought it didn't bother me so much anymore—that was probably me getting overconfident in peaceful times. Seeing the human body sliced, crushed, broken and bent into odd shapes is…

“… not pleasant,” White muttered, turning away from the man delicately impaled on a bloody wooden spike.

“This body's fresher,” I observed. It didn't take a demon used to being around death and destruction to tell that. At least the bodies deeper in didn't smell so bad.

“We must be getting closer to the point where we'll have to start watching for traps,” Katrina observed from her place next to Geddon. She was uneasily embracing Geddon's left arm—knowing Katrina, not out of fear but sadness over what we'd seen so far. I'd learned quite a while ago that it wasn't because she was an angel—I'd met some pretty insensitive angels—but having an exceptionally compassionate personality.

“Further on, it looks as if the passage opens up,” Xerei called back and whirled around with a formal twist. “Right. I believe it is in order to get into our usual configuration.”

It was Xerei's idea to begin with, the order we march in when forced to travel close to single file—Aleric in front because he can take the worst hits and Kao and White in back for the ability to sense incoming violence and exceptional reaction time, respectively.

Kao leaned forward a little with an exasperated sigh. “Oh, how abysmally orthodox,” he muttered. I couldn't bring myself to disagree with the demon. “Let's just go see what's up there.”

“Right, this has gotten boring! Last one through's a phorva!” I maneuvered around Xerei and stepped ahead.

“Ah!” Shani warned. “I wouldn't just—”

Click. Fwip. A biting sting in my neck told me I'd been hit by something. “Yaah! Gods dammit!” I yanked out the tiny wood tip fletched with bits of feather.

“…dart out in front,” Shani finished.

“Ha, ha.” I almost relaxed, but White swiped the tiny dart from my hand. “What are you doing?”

White sniffed its tip. “Seeing what kind of poison it has on it,” White said as flatly as if she were feeling fruit for ripeness at a market.

“Huh…” I said, taking in the statement. “And how do you know it's poisoned?” I felt fine. But then, I'd never been poisoned so I really couldn't speak from experience.

“What's the point in firing one harmless dart if there's not some kind of poison on it?” she quickly replied. For a moment, despite the situation, I had difficulty not laughing, remembering when we first met and she tried to kill Kao with a poison barely strong enough to knock out a human, let alone kill a demon.

“I'll suck it out of your neck,” Aleric offered slickly. I could have sworn I started feeling a bit dizzy at that point, Aleric's warm breath forming condensation on my neck in the cool, moist air. Or maybe it was the poison.

“Hush,” I simply replied, leaning on the cool, gritty cave wall.

“This is strange,” White said in a dire tone, lowering the hand holding the dart.

I tried to find an answer prematurely in her severe, green eyes. “What?”

White frowned in defeat. “There's no poison on it.”

“But—then—why did you have to sound so serious?” I stammered.

“Darts are always poisoned. There's no point to not poisoning them,” White spoke, half to herself, and stepped past me.

CLICK. The panel I'd stepped on snapped the rest of the way into place and White was assaulted by a slew of twenty or so darts identical to the one she'd just tossed to the floor. I stifled a chuckle.

“What the—rrgh!” White tore the harmless things away from her—most of them had only barely pierced the fabric of her costume; and she appeared unharmed.

“White!” Xerei practically stumbled over himself getting to his lover.

“Fine—I'm fine,” White reassured him, just as raspy high-pitched laughter erupted from the chamber in front of us, echoing tauntingly off the walls.

A chorus of “Huh”s and “Who's there?”s went up from our group, but the laughter continued. In fact, I think it may have gotten even more strained and louder than before. I hate being laughed at.

I wrapped my hand around my weapon. “All right, Giggles, you're going the right way for my spoon up your ass!”

Our little procession filed into the next room, some more enthusiastically than others.

This room was larger than most of the rest we'd been through so far. I would have figured it to be about twenty foot square, maybe a little larger on both sides than front to back. A series of roughly hewn pillars stood in the back of the room, where what appeared to be magical green fires were dancing to the laughter coming from the tallest platform in the center, from which hung the hide of some scaled animal. The green light played against the blood red walls, producing a wide variety of gaudy, sickening colors. On the left side of the room, dark red water spewed from a hole near the ceiling into a natural stone trough formed by rushing water, through a hole in the far wall. I shuddered—it looked an awful lot like a fountain of blood.

“This must be where the bandits stopped,” Geddon whispered. “I see no bodies.”

“Not a bad assumption!” an aged voice quipped from atop the tallest pillar. “But there have been plenty of bandits this way already, young travelers! The absence of dead bodies does not indicate an absence of death.”

At first because of the green light dominating the room, I thought the elderly, almost skeletal man that stepped forward was actually a severely emaciated orc. He looked down through wild, beady eyes set over a broad nose and a crooked grin spreading bony cheeks. He was bald, except for a few unkempt wisps of white hair. His thin body resembled that of a mantis or lizard—long, scrawny limbs stretched to where feet and hands gripped the rock like claws and he wore only a tunic stitched from fur and scale hides.

“I hope,” the man grinned, turning a talon-like finger at us, “that you brought your sense of humor.”

There was a short pause as everyone took all of this in, until Kao stepped forward and bowed deeply.

“With all respect to you, sir… some of us never had one.” He glanced sideways at his brother.

Xerei frowned immediately and puffed out his chest a bit. “The phrase `surprise buttsex' is not funny, it is disgusting and appalling. And I never want to see you naked again.”

At first, an eerie whine seemed to come from the direction of the old man. Then I realized that it was the beginning of another fit of laughter. “You people are entertaining—so much, in fact, that I'll spare your lives if you entertain me for a while.”

Not a bad proposal. From a purely optimistic standpoint, anyway.

“Hmmph. Entertain yourself.” I'm not sure White could speak for each of our sentiments, but that was approaching my feelings on the subject.

The old man chuckled. “Then let me put it to you this way, proud one: Either you entertain me, or I'll be forced to entertain myself by killing you all.” He smiled amiably. “I'll leave the matter up to you.”

Arrgh. Once again, the group's eyes fell on me. It's a curse to be good looking, a smooth talker and judge of character, and a strategist by nature. The old guy didn't look that scary—certainly not capable of taking on all eight of us, but he had to have some ability to be able to make such a claim. “Whaddaya want?”

The man rolled his eyes back in his skull momentarily—I thought he might collapse, until his head snapped forward with resolve. “Poetry,” came the reply.

Ah-ha. There was little doubt as to who this task would be delegated to—the youngest, yet most well-read member of our group. “Shani?”

The boy gulped and ran his index finger through his short blond hair. “Me?”

“Dirty limericks,” the ancient man specified with a smirk.

“Wha—” Shani recoiled.

This made things even easier. I sidestepped around Xerei and White and put a hand on my favorite demon's shoulder, giving it a little squeeze through the thick fabric of his shoulder cape. “This looks like a job for our friend Kao,” I winked. Finally, a use for that dirty mind of his.

“Huh…” Kao breathed with a little frown, for once not appreciating being put on the spot.

“No, no,” the old man said. “We're making a game of this. I split you into two groups and each group creates a limerick for me. Just one group has to amuse me with their poem and I let you all past me, and whatever treasure lies beyond is yours, but if neither poem is good enough… you all die. Easy, eh?”

It didn't seem any riskier than just having Kao come up with something—I decided for sure that he had some trick planned. He separated us into two groups: Myself, Kao, Aleric and Katrina; and White, Xerei, Geddon and Shani. It seemed awfully one-sided, but as long as the old guy was satisfied, we'd be okay.

“Okay, let's have fun with this. If he doesn't like what we come up with, we kick his bony butt,” I stated. I turned to Kao, who was raising a dark eyebrow at me, already expecting me to address him. “It's up to you!”

I thought I saw the bronzed skin of Kao's face blush, just a little. “I—ah! I can't do poetry!” he began. “No—no wait—let me think.”

Kao must have come up with something; he told us he had it taken care of. Looking at the other half of our troupe, I saw a quagmire of troubled, puzzled faces. Either way, we appeared to have a winning poem. After a bit more discussion, we were ready.

“Okay, Old Man!” I called up. “You want dirty?” I had to talk him up. “You'll be drowning in obscenity before Kao's done!”

Kao did his best to walk a confident swagger to the front of the group.
“Demons, given no other course
Have no qualms taking their sex by force
In fact one may say
`Tis the demonic way
After all—ah—bleh—fuck… … we're not any good at verse.”

Kao ended the rhyme, scratching his head with a defeated smile.

Arrrgh. I guess demons are capable of a lot of things, but poetry isn't one of them. We were pretty much guaranteed a fight now. As the old man raised a skeptical eyebrow, I turned to the other group—their apparent lack of confidence was as unreassuring as the old man's broad grimace.

White stepped forward with a delicate blush crossing her pale cheeks, visibly biting her lower lip. She cleared her throat and began:
“Where dragons threatened, Aleric slayed `em,
Saving villages, their mayors paid `im.
But he realized too late
His unfortunate fate
The dragon in question valiantly laid `im!”

“Ah!” Aleric's indignant voice erupted from the other side of the room. “Traitor!”

The blush lifted from White's cheeks. “Heehee! Sorry!” She smiled cheerfully.

Aleric clutched at his heart. “Gah! How could you!”

“Ha ha! You do what it takes!”

The old man was lost in a fit of giggles. His head bobbed, his teeth were bore, his eyes were wide. The whole of his being seemed to be tensing up from the intensity of his laughter. Suddenly his head bowed forward with a startling grin that seemed to take up the whole of his face—no, his face was changing. His eyes bulged and his face lengthened as if pulled forward by an invisible hand, his nose and mouth drawn into a reptilian snout. Rising to all fours, his back arched and sprouted sharp spines in a spray of ichor. An immense scaly belly dropped down and the creatures bony limbs became rough appendages covered in knobby green scales and tipped with claws. With a wave of his backside, a long spined tail sprouted forth and whipped through the air.

“Okay. He's actually a huge lizard. That's a twist,” Aleric marveled.

The creature, now barely able to stay perched atop the pillar, sent an excited hiss down to us, its projected red tongue dripping. “You have entertained me immensely. So much so, that I believe I shall entertain myself further by killing all of you!”

The giant reptile leapt down to the ground with an unpleasant scraping of its claws against the red rock. It took a step forward, pale belly dragging, and proffered us an unsavory view of its dripping maw, lined with dagger teeth surrounding that muscular tongue, above which hung a fleshy tube that oozed some type of pink goo. Up close I could see that my full height barely reached to its shoulder.

“Th- that's where the rest of the bandits went,” Shani whimpered.

“Just… what is that?” Aleric asked.

“It's a—” Xerei began an explanation but paused, and turned to the slobbering reptilian. “Pardon me. Would you mind terribly if I…”

“No, go on ahead,” came the hissing reply.

“Swallamanders aren't normally native to Jigsaw. Swallamanders trap victims in an exterior stomach regurgitated by that tube you see there. Inside the victim is converted into fluid and drawn into its body. Is that right?”

“Spot on,” the thing growled.

“Ah, good. Haven't studied non-native species in a while,” Xerei mused. “Professor Endsbram, I think. Always made lectures fascinating with interesting anecdotes, like—”

An annoyed hiss interrupted him.

“I think I shall begin by devouring the lecherous demon, for his inexcusable poetry,” the thing said. With a smack of its jaws, it raised that odd tube hanging in its mouth and shot a spray of that pink goop in the direction of the demon. With a frightened scowl, Kao sidestepped it, and the slime landed on the floor, where it solidified into a veiny membranous mass.

“That's… really not good,” Aleric observed, withdrawing into a defensive position and drawing his sword.

“Ya think?” I only glanced briefly at Aleric. I really, really didn't want to take the eyes off the thing that wanted to devour us. “That's our demon! Go find your own to munch on!”

I looked over the scene and did my best to quickly size up the situation. I remembered the stream on the left end of the room. If we could back the monster up against it, it might be easier to fight it if it was preoccupied with not falling in and being swept away. “Fan out along the right side of the room.” I made a sweeping gesture with my arm to show about where I wanted everyone—unless someone else had a better idea I was going with my plan.

The swallamander must have sensed what I had planned, because it charged forward through our line, putting plenty of distance between it and the water—in the process, with a sweep of its tail it tripped up Katrina, flipping her onto her back. The very tip of the creature's tail swiped against my leg, but not hard enough to cause any damage.

“Got it,” Xerei whispered to himself, raising his hands. “Sess Norata Suufra!”
Briefly a green aura emanated from all eight of us, but it quickly wore off. I didn't feel any different.

“If you get drawn into its stomach, its acid won't hurt you!” Xerei informed us.
Well, now I didn't have to worry about being melted. It didn't exactly make the swallamander harmless, but it was a big help.

“Feh!” the swallamander spat angrily and aimed its mouth tube forward. I stumbled back a few steps when another blast of pink slime shot through the sickly green light and splattered over the still incapacitated Katrina.

As I fought to regain my footing, the angel's face contracted into a grimace of disgust before she let out a frantic scream—the slime was creeping over her body and enveloping her completely and congealing into that same tough mass of red tissue, convulsing as its victim pounded on it from the inside.

“Ick,” I muttered. “Okay, Iggy, let's go!” I went for a quick-draw of my spoon, but it wasn't in its usual place in its holster strapped to my left leg. Making a wary glance down, I noticed that my precious spoon and its leather carrier were both on the floor—they must have been slashed off when the swallamander's tail hit me. I took a sharp breath and dove for it, preparing to leap backward should an attack come. I thought I heard Geddon scream Katrina's name and feel him rush past me.

“Dammit!” I heard Aleric call, and in a flash of steel armor and green, my vision in front of me was blocked. “Aagh!” Aleric stumbled backward, and the blood seemed to drain from my heart when I realized he'd been hit. His blade fell to the floor with a cacophonous clang as he concentrated both hands on trying to wipe away the quickly spreading slime. A series of high-pitched screams that I easily recognized as belonging to

Geddon erupted from behind me; Geddon, in trying to rescue Katrina, had apparently been pulled into her sickly stomach bubble. I assumed that if you made contact too closely with one it would swallow you up along with whoever was already inside.

I was pretty sure for the moment they wouldn't be hurt, but this was getting frustrating. But at least my spoon was back with me. “Somebody bash it! Throw a spell! I don't care!” There was no way I'd get the time I'd need to grab Aleric's sword and try cutting the stomachs open; instead, I needed to get up close to the thing, but I didn't stand a chance if it was focusing on me.

“Venatra Sentrakri!” Kao's voice hurriedly called out the incantation for forbidden magic. He uttered the word “Sajyakgyni” and misty black tendrils roiled forth from his slender fingers, rushing into the reptile's nostrils, ears and open maw.

“Feh!” The swallamander shook its head like it was trying to throw off a small creature clinging to it. “What have you done? I'll have you next, demon!” It reared its head up and the sickening sound of pink goo squirting from its mouth came again.

“N- yaagh!” Splat. To my dismay, pink slime splattered over the demon and began to spread outward. “No! Gods dammit!” Kao dropped his staff, its shining metal creating a sudden glare in my eyes. In the sudden flash of light I barely saw Kao stumble backwards in surprise upon seeing the growing membrane jump from where it was expanding to envelop his arm, trip over the pink skin forming under his feet, and fall. Kao was completely inside the thing before he hit the ground.

This was really bad. The few of us there were to fight the swallamander, the harder it would be to get anyone up close to hit it without being swallowed. There was just four of us left now, and I was forced to disregard my trapped friends as the huge reptile crept closer. It had ended up using my original plan, and the rest of us were trapped against the wall. There was absolutely no way we'd be able to dart for the door without a distraction.

As White glanced at one of the stomach pods beside her, fingering her dagger, the swallamander must have sensed her idea to slash it open to free whoever was inside, because its sinister creep changed to a feverish charge.

Well, this was it. Once we were all incapacitated it'd be only a matter of time before Xerei's protective spell wore off. It'd be a humiliating death, but at least no one would be around to see it. I prepared to take a final stand, holding my spoon at the ready. “Aargh! Would you just go away!”

The horrible scratch of the swallamander's claws against the cave floor ceased as its charge ended. The monster looked at me for a moment with a blank stare. Suddenly a look of comprehension came like a wave over its scaly face. It nodded its bulky head once and said simply, “All right, then.”

I couldn't even lower my spoon from the shock at the swallamander's reply. “What was that?”

The swallamander explained, its tail swishing contemplatively. “It's a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Swallamanders don't belong in Jigsaw. I believe I shall swim back to Threed.” The monster turned around and trudged to the stream flowing through the other side of the room, its tail and great belly dragging behind it. As it plunged into the cool red water, those who remained of our party rushed to free those that had been captured.

Scanning the floor, I spotted Aleric's sword. It looked as clean as when it was drawn, having not been used in the battle. “Aleric, don't move, I'm breaking this thing open!” Upon hearing a muffled reply of compliance, I put a hand on the sword's hilt and another close to the end of the blade and proceeded to make a small cut in the slimy membrane surrounding Aleric. I drew the blade across it— the thing started bleeding translucent mucus with swirls of acidic green from the cut.

“Ugh.” I put the sword down and tore open the veiny pouch along the cut I'd made. The same gunk that leaked out before spilled out over my bare hands. I couldn't really bring myself to complain though, because Aleric was covered in it.

“Gaaah!” Aleric cried, taking a deep breath of fresh air, flinging off the goo covering him in thick gobs. I'd have to bug him later for getting more of it on me. Eyes squeezed shut and still gasping, he wiped the slime from his eyes and hair. Around us, Kao, Geddon and Katrina were freed, all of them in a similar condition.

I put my arms around my slimy Aleric, who wore an uneasy, exhausted smile.

“Where did it say it was from? Threed? Yeah, let's not go there.”

“Wait,” Shani murmured, busily cleaning off Geddon. “Why would it just leave because Tione told it to?”

“Manipulation spell,” Kao immediately answered. He was sitting back against a far wall, wringing goop out of his dark hair. “Under a manipulation spell, a creature does whatever it's told to, but I didn't have time to command it.”

My grip around Aleric tightened in excitement. “So it went away under the spell when I told it to leave!” I finished.

“Well, we beat the monster,” Katrina smiled from where she was clinging to Geddon. Where they pressed together, slime oozed out around them, but she didn't seem to care. “And didn't it say that the treasure was just beyond here?”

That's right! I stood up with renewed energy, raising my fist. “Yeah! Let's go get it!”

“And where is it?” Xerei asked, gesturing to the rest of the room, and its one door—the one we came in through.

My clenched fist dropped. “Uh…”

Kao reclined against the wall a little further, taking tight and controlled breaths. He'd given up squeezing the digestive slime out of the folds of his costume. His eyes were gently closed. “Look for anything out of place,” he muttered.

I investigated a rock in the corner of the room. Nothing. Geddon tread over to the dark red stream, leaving slimy footprints under his boots. White and Xerei together systematically searched along the walls.

“If we intend to dispatch the bandits after retrieving the treasure,” Xerei said, “It might be wise to rest before doing so.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Who cared about resting? Take the treasure, have fun taking care of the bandits and taking anything that they might have stashed around the hideout. With luck it'd be more than enough that we wouldn't have to take any jobs for a while. My eyes darted around the room. Plain, drab red everywhere, except…

I walked quickly past Aleric and laid a hand on the scaly hide that was draped over that large central pillar in the middle of the room and noticed that it seems somehow fastened to the rock. “Okay…” I muttered.

“Aleric!” I turned to my bewildered lover, who seemed to be trying to think of something to do. “Make yourself useful and bring that sword of yours over here!”

Aleric came over, rubbing the slime out of his bright blond hair. During the time we'd been searching, the stuff seemed to be hardening into a crusty substance that could now easily be brushed off. “Try to cut that thing open,” I instructed, pointing to the hide hanging over the pillar.

“'Kay.” Aleric raised his sword in a stance appropriate to make a piercing rather than a slashing action, and thrust the large blade into the skin.

As I expected, the blade went straight through. A warm, musty draft wafted into the cool air from the opening as I began tearing the hide away from the rock ledge to reveal a passage. Before I could even look inside, the rest of the group had crowded around. From the smell coming from beyond the dark opening in the rock, it hadn't been open in a very long time. Still, since air was traveling freely between the rooms, it seemed as if there must be another opening in the joining room.

“Awright, that's far enough,” a disturbingly familiar voice called from the door behind us. Damn. It.

Behind us stood Zelf, a throng of bandits and Hemapecca, swords, daggers and clubs brandished at the ready. Hemapecca bowed her head in satisfaction so that her ratty burlap hood completely obscured her leathery face. “You see,” she said. “Trick some gullible heroes into doing the job for you. Things couldn't have turned out better if we'd paid someone to do it.”

Oh gods. This was even more humiliating that what we'd already been through. “So I guess you've come here planning on just giving up what we've earned?” I scowled.
“Naturally,” Zelf replied without a pause. “Do you think you can beat all of us? In these close quarters, you're at a disadvantage.” Zelf's face lit up mockingly. “Oh, yes…” He reached into a pouch at his side and withdrew the leather case Kao kept his vials in. “I do still have these.”

I huffed indignantly. “You've sobered up a bit.” It could be really bad if Zelf opened one of those. I'm still not sure which ones are which, but I knew for a fact Kao usually keeps at least one canister of the essence for the feeling of being on the verge of death with him at all times (I never ask him where and when he gets it—I'd rather not know). If you don't know how to handle being exposed to it, that stuff can actually kill you. Kao always carries a variety of almost equally unpleasant evil essences with him, some of them completely debilitating if the dose is strong enough. I prepared to back into the hidden room in case Zelf let one go.

“In these close quarters, we can run you through before you can chant an incantation, and with the demon's vaunted collection in our possession, there's not much it has left, is there?” Zelf grinned. “Draw your weapons and prepare to die.”

Okay, this guy was really selling us short. But now wasn't the time to politely tell him everything we were capable of. Better to surprise them while they thought we were helpless.

A sinister smile stole across Kao's face. “What if we don't? What do you say to… leaving here as fast as you can?” Kao's proposition seemed to catch everyone off guard by just a little bit while he interposed himself between the hole emitting that humid flow of air and our attackers so that his hair blew in front of him and his black cape lapped at his ankles. Every once in a while through the waving of black I saw a flash of fangs and gold eyes glowing.

Kao emitted a feral growl as if trying to call something up from deep within him. When a mist of black and red roiled forth from his body and was carried forward by the draft, I knew what he'd done—I'd seen Katrina use a similar ability with her good essences to instill violent enemies with peaceful feelings, saving us a lot of time and effort fighting pointless battles. This, however…

“You forget that evil itself flows through a demon's veins, and those instilled with the ability to do so can call it forth at any time!” Kao grinned madly. “Or did you not know?”

Our foes stared, terrified, as if at a dragon that was preparing to devour them. If there was anyone in the group who'd mastered the art of intimidation, it was Kao.

“I'll tear you apart before you know I'm upon you!” Kao yelled as the mist lapped ravenously at our enemies, who had begun shrinking back into the corridor. Whoever was overtaken began screaming in anguish and fear—a few of them doubled over.

Zelf glanced frantically at his companions, straining against the power of the evil fog. “K- kill them! Now! Quick! I wanna see their insides spread out on the floor!”

Zelf's goons looked uneasily at each other, and then back at the demon. A particularly tough one tightened his grip around his sword and rushed forward with a furious scream, quickly followed by the rest, quickly closing the distance between them and us.

I dodged a bandit's sword, making it hit the far wall with a spray of sparks and a shower of red chunks of rock. “That the reaction you were going for, Kao?” I snarled over at the demon.

“Shut up!” a voice called back amidst the melee.

I sighed. This could get messy. “Okay, time for some pain!” Shouting an incantation to empower my spoon with magic energy, I took a decisive step back, slamming my elbow into the side of the bandit that attacked me. The force, amplified by magic, sent the grubby, gangly bandit into the wall behind me, where he slumped to the floor, unconscious, with a defeated groan barely audible above the roar of combat in the little room. At the other end, I spotted an opening. I danced through the combat, kicking up red dust and knocked a bewildered bandit into the stream. Hemapecca barely dodged the foe crumpling to the floor and made a quick retreat out of the room.

Not everyone shared my preference to keep my foes alive if possible. Having been toyed with, our patience was wearing thin and even Geddon and Shani were getting a little cranky.

An unpleasant splattering could be heard behind me. “Kao, that's disgusting! Could you please disembowel a little more quietly?”

Dammit. “At least leave the leader alive, he might have a bounty or a reward on him!” I punctuated my command by slamming another bandit to the floor with a dull thud.

“Don't get your tunic in a twist!” came the reply.

Following the sound of steel-on-skull, another bandit stumbled by me, disoriented, and plunged into the stream along with the first one. I looked to see Aleric standing nearby with his sword raised, smiling at me that silly dashing grin of his. “Come here often, cutie?”

“Smartass,” I smiled at him. I turned to look over my shoulder, but behind Aleric I spotted something that shattered the smile immediately—Zelf climbing into the passage leading into the treasure room. “Hey, stop him!” By the time I got my warning out, his other foot had already disappeared through the hole.

Xerei zapped another bandit with his scepter. Odd, I didn't hear him summon it, but thinking about it I did recall smelling charred hair and cloth. He looked around—there were only a couple bandits left of those that hadn't run away from Kao earlier.

“Right,” he said assertively. “We can't allow him to reach the end before we do, if some powerful weapon lies inside!”

“I got him!” Katrina, being closest, hoisted herself onto the ledge and dove nimbly into the opening.

But something occurred to me. “Katrina, hold up!” But the angel had already dove completely inside with a flash of silky blonde hair.

To my horror and disgust, I heard the familiar sound of a metal blade slicing easily through flesh and bone, followed by the thud of a dead body crumpling to the floor.

I didn't have time to worry about Katrina, because I heard her voice immediately after, followed by an uneasy giggle.

“Oh! Oh, that's… not pleasant.” There was a pause, and a sickly squishing sound. “Ew… watch your step when you come in here.”

I took a quick look into the hole Zelf and Katrina had climbed into. At the end of a short passage there was a thick blade stuck into a slot on one side of the little round passage with a trickle of blood making its way down its side. Not surprisingly, Katrina was still smiling cheerfully on the other side. I hoisted myself onto the ledge and into the tunnel.

“Ti- Tione? Be careful…” Aleric warned.

I'd squeezed out of the opening on the other side of the tunnel before Aleric could finish, and joined Katrina. “It's fine, the trap's already been set off.”

Soon, the other six members of the party had joined us.

“Ugh…” Aleric looked down at what remained of Zelf, lying in a gory pile slumped against the wall below the opening we'd come out of. “The guy had guts… too bad he couldn't hold onto them.”

“Ha, ha.” I turned away from the disgusting sight and finally saw what we had come for.

In the back of the room was a roughly hewn slab of white stone, carved into the basic shape of a sword with its blade facing down into the red rock and clay floor. The whole thing was… I figured about twice Aleric's height, and its hilt was adorned all over with weavings of dried out grass and vines decorated with beads, bone and teeth. A section of red stone in front of the statue had been turned into an altar of sorts and held what I could only assume to be offerings. There were some bits of bone, some stones and bits of metal strewn over its surface. Most importantly, a large sword was inlaid into a compartment in the statue.

The sword itself shone blindingly blight even in the dim light leaking uneasily through the passage we'd come in through. Its blade was double edged, long and of a medium width. I also thought I saw a small rune etched into the tip of the blade. The hilt of the weapon was far less spectacular, and appeared to be made only of a dark red wood with twine wrapped around the handle for a surer grip. Its pommel seemed to be inlaid with bits of some kind of stone—from where I was standing it looked like it could be jade.

“That's gotta be it—the treasure of these caves is Merid's Sword…” Aleric spoke.
Something seemed odd.

Kao put an arm on Aleric's shoulder—this looked awkward, since Aleric was a few inches taller than the demon. “Aleric… don't you already have Ga's sword?” Kao poked Aleric playfully in the side. “You worked so hard to get it.”

“Yes, I did. And another word out of you and I'll use you to demonstrate what I did to get it.”

“Promise?” Kao grinned with a flash of fangs.

“Get off me!” Aleric said with a little laugh, shrugging off his demonic companion with a step forward.

Something still didn't feel right.

“If you two are finished goofing off, perhaps you'd care to ponder why this sword appears to have remained here undisturbed for hundreds of years?” Xerei pointed out, gesturing to the statue with an open palm. Yeah, that was what didn't feel right.

“Uh…” Aleric trailed off.

“Because if you're joking around now, I can only assume you've solved this puzzle and there's no longer cause to be concerned about it,” Xerei continued. “And in which case, should be sharing the answer with the rest of us.”

“Hush,” White said quietly.

“It does seem odd that we're the first people to have reached this place,” Shani agreed.

I looked at the statue that held the sword, its bright blade winking at us almost mockingly. Then, I sank deeper into thought and looked past it. What was the answer? I agreed with Shani. There was no way that no one had made it here before us. But… “Maybe we're reading too much into this. I'm sure the answer is simple.”

I looked to Aleric. He was the main reason we'd decided to go this far instead of taking out the bandits early. He let out a sigh delicately laced with frustration. “We've come all this way,” Aleric pointed out, seemingly as much to himself as the rest of us. Finally, he stepped forward with resolve and grabbed the sword from its place in the statue before anyone could stop him. This is why I like my traveling companions to wear capes—they make excellent handles.

“Gh…” I winced. “Dammit, Aleric.”

He was already examining the blade, one hand on the hilt and the other allowing the blade to rest in its palm. He only barely got the chance to open his mouth. “I—”

“Aahhhhh, finally!” a voice of deep timbre thundered. “My new master has arrived to take me from this dreadful place!”

I winced again. I hate talking swords.

“Nothing to slay here, did you know that? Well, I'm sure you can see for yourself. Shameful, just shameful,” the sword continued. “To let you know, I require a sturdy leather sheath, gilded if possible, and daily polishings—but shall we begin?”

Aleric's jaw dropped low enough for a grat to climb in. “Wh… huh?”

“Rescuing damsels, slaying demons!” the sword answered as if the answer were simple.

Kao glared levelly at the blade. “Hey.”

The sword of Merid practically shook in Aleric's hands. “Go, go, GO! If I'm not dripping with ichor inside of five minutes I shall be quite upset!” it commanded.

“Uh… right…” Aleric stammered, completely off guard.

I addressed the sword. “Yes, yes. Of course. Perhaps you'd allow us to talk amongst ourselves for just a moment and discuss the whole ichor issue.”

The sheen on the sword's blade seemed to take on an impatient red color. “Very well. But only briefly! There is much to be done!”

After having Aleric set the sword down on the alter, I dragged everyone to the far corner of the room. Before I could speak, Katrina did.

“Maybe this is why no one took the sword away before we got here.”

I looked over my shoulder, as if the thing could be expected to hop off the altar and start slashing at our ankles. “Ya think?!”

“Let sleeping artifacts lie,” White said. “Perhaps that's best.”

We whirled around as a unit. “Sword of Merid, we've decided that we're simply not worthy to wield a weapon of your power and righteousness.”

“What! What!” the sword quivered where it sat on the altar. “Nonsense! Take me from this place, I command you! I pine for the battlefield!”

“Let's go, guys.” Aleric turned away with a shrug back to the entrance to the room. “Looks like we won't get anything for our trouble, this time.”

It looked that way… but then I remembered something. “Hey, whatever loot the bandits have stashed in their little hideout… well, may be enough to take us to our next adventure, if we spend it wisely.”

Geddon hoisted himself into the tunnel following Katrina and Shani. “I believe that largely depends on where we find our next adventure.”

“Are you kidding? Adventure finds us.” We left the perilous caves, the legendary sword of Merid screaming at our backsides, moving on to whatever fate might have in store for us next.