Jeze and the Proven stood in formation before the two open tunnels as the ominous laughter echoed and grew louder. It was hard to determine which corridor the sound came from and if it was getting nearer or not. Rolfe flinched and raised his shield to swat at something.
“Where did these blasted flies come from?” The giant protector grumbled.
Jeze did not see any flies, but instead, she heard a whispering voice to her left. She turned and only saw the bloodied walls with flickering shadows created by the campfire and nothing more. What’s going on? She wondered.
“Adjust formation! We are surrounded!” Dunar exclaimed.
The team immediately reacted and formed a ring with their weapons facing outwards. Jeze and Mikal glanced at each other. They did not see or hear anything coming from the back tunnel they just traveled from.
“I see them!” Helga cried and then cocked her braided head. “Oh ho, that was odd. I thought I saw something.”
“Evil magic is at play here,” Mikal hissed and took a deep breath.
Jeze recognized that the dark-haired Rune caster was centering his Will. Where was Ziplocke? She wondered.
“You will die here!” A voice to her right whispered.
Jeze snapped her head immediately in the direction. Nothing, just flickering shadows from the campfire. Jeze followed Mikal and steadied her breath to center her Will.
“By the Gods! I think they got into my armor!” Rolfe exclaimed as he twitched and scratched.
“Stay focused! The enemy will be here at any moment!” Dunar Barked.
“Anyone see that? It’s so pretty!” Helga observed. The Striker was studying the bloodstained walls.
“Helga! Focus and ready your weapon!” Dunar ordered.
The laughter continued and echoed from the hallways. Oddly, to Jeze, that was the only thing that made sense. The whispering, the imaginary flies, the pretty walls, and the sound of footsteps from the back corridor were all not right. Jeze focused her Will inwards and just like when Miss Heng used the Mind aspect on her, Jeze was able to locate something within her.
“You feel it, too?” Mikal asked.
Jeze nodded. It was not something she could see, but it was something she felt and sensed. Miss Heng had Shaped Jeze’s thoughts. That was different. This, from within Jeze, was a different energy, and she recognized it immediately!
“It’s the Affliction aspect! Mikal, can you sense it?” Jeze said.
Rolfe, Dunar, and Helga glanced at her.
The Healer nodded with his eyes closed, and his breathing increased.
“Stay focused! We are about to be attacked!” Dunar roared.
Jeze ignored her team Leader and told Mikal, “Push it out.”
The dark-haired Healer exhaled loudly and visibly relaxed. He opened his eyes and told Dunar, “We are being cursed.”
“What?” Dunar asked.
“How are they getting inside?” Rolfe demanded. The large protector had lowered his shield and weapons in order to rub and scratch uselessly through the overlapping steel plates of his lamellar armor.
“So pretty,” Helga murmured. She was staring at the wall again with her two-handed axe down by her side.
“Someone or something has cursed us with foul magic,” Mikal answered.
Dunar glanced nervously all around and then focused on Mikal and Jeze. With gritted teeth, he asked, “How do I stop this?”
“Breathe deeply in and out as if you are in the Frozen Sea,” Mikal said.
Jeze wondered what that meant and watched Dunar rapidly inhale and exhale. His broad chest heaved in and out.
“Yes,” Mikal said and coached Dunar, “In with peace and out with stress. Go with the flow and be in this moment.”
Dunar looked back at the opposite corridor and nodded. He recognized that nothing was there, and the real threat was in front of them. The laughter was nearly in the chamber now.
“Formation!” Dunar barked.
Despite being afflicted with a curse, Helga and Rolfe responded to the command on instinct. Jeze and the Proven held ready until they each started to get distracted again. Helga glanced at the walls, and Rolfe began to swat at flies. Dunar nervously looked over his shoulder, and Jeze heard the whispering again. Mikal closed his eyes and focused on his Will. They were not prepared when the two mad adventurers bursted into the chamber.
Dunar was the first to spot the attackers, and he shouted, “Prepare yourselves!”
Rolfe barely raised his large round shield in time to intercept a blow from a long two-handed sword. The second mad warrior furiously attacked Dunar with blade and shield and the team Leader responded in kind with his axe and sword. The two engaged in a furious exchange.
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The whispering voices were in Jeze’s head and they distracted her with her own random thoughts. “Notice how odd these two look? What caused them to scar themselves in such a way? You will die here!” They whispered ominously in her mind.
The two mad adventurers were well-muscled fighters, and Jeze guessed them to be either Strikers or Protectors. They wore plate armor that was heavily stained with dirt and blood. The two men had mutilated their faces with gashes and piercings. They wore necklaces made out of bloody bone bits that probably came from their deceased teammates. Did they murder them? Jeze wondered.
Rolfe, unfocused, attacked with an ineffective spear thrust that glanced off his attackers'' stained plate armor. Helga snapped out of her reverie and swung her axe. Despite being consumed with madness, the two attackers were highly skilled fighters. Helga’s axe was redirected and countered in one seamless motion. The mad adventurer’s two-handed sword rang loudly as it struck Helga’s helmet and dazed her. Mikal, who was refocused, stabbed the attacker through the mail that was under the steel breastplate. The injury did little to faze the mad adventurer, and they slashed Mikal across his face. The Healer stumbled, bleeding, onto his back. Helga and Rolfe moved in to protect their teammate.
Dunar was struck in the helmet by the edge of his attacker’s shield, and he barely parried a sword thrust. The team Leader was off balance and ill-prepared to defend against further attacks. Jeze snapped out of the Affliction spell that enthralled her and rushed forward to aid Dunar. She trusted with her long knife and chopped high with her battleaxe. Jeze’s knife stabbed a shallow cut through the mad adventurer’s mail armor, and her axe blade was met with his shield. Jeze dodged a sword slice and returned a slash of her own that glanced uselessly off a shoulder pauldron. The mad adventurer bashed Jeze with his shield, and she barely deflected a sword thrust as she stumbled back onto her knees, dazed.
“Die!” The crazed adventurer screamed with spittle flying from his lips. Jeze was not able to defend herself from the incoming sword slice.
Dunar recovered and deftly intercepted the attack with a chop of his axe that nearly severed the mad adventurer’s sword arm. The crazed warrior howled as blood flowed freely from the grievous wound but was unfazed as he spun and struck Dunar with his shield edge. Jeze lunged forward and stabbed with her long knife. The blade pierced the mail on the mad adventure’s side and went all the way to its hilt. Jeze watched the life and madness fade from the crazed man’s eyes.
“Thank you,” he said quietly before he collapsed in a heap.
The second-crazed warrior swung his two-handed sword with a wild grace that bypassed Helga’s defenses. The warrior maiden grunted in pain as the blade sliced through the mail that protected her thigh and left a gash. Rolfe slammed his shield and knocked the mad adventurer off his feet. Helga roared and delivered a mighty chop of her Dane axe to her grounded opponent that, ended the fight in a geyser of blood and bone.
“Regroup!” Dunar barked.
“Hurrah!” The team responded as they returned into formation. Rolfe thumped his shield loudly.
Despite being bloodied and tired, they maintained their discipline. When it was clear that there were no more threats, they relaxed their weapons.
“Where is Ziplocke?” Jeze wondered.
The small Goblin was absent the entire fight. She scanned the flickering shadows and noticed movement. There were more shadows in the room than possible from the flickering campfire. Jeze tapped into her Shadow aspect ring and Shaped the shadows and, revealed a horrid-looking creature with deep red skin.
“Foul creature!” Mikal shouted and hurled his spear.
“Skibidi!” The monster shrieked as it dodged the thrown weapon.
It was small, just a little bigger than Ziplocke. It floated on fluttering bat-like wings, and it had a large round head with tiny horns and yellow eyes over a sinewy red body with gnarled arms and legs. With a hiss, it flew out of the chamber like a shot arrow.
“There’s more!” Ziplocke screeched.
The Goblin emerged from the shadows of the back corner and weaved the Fire aspect in his tiny green hands to shoot at another clump of shadows where a second red-skinned Demon materialized. The Fire magic splashed over the creature, and it let loose a horrid howl of pain. It rapidly fled toward the chamber’s exit, where it was struck down by Jeze’s thrown hand axe.
“Are there any more!” Mikal cried.
Ziplocke shook his head and inspected the fallen red Demon. The Goblin shook his head and sighed, “You killed it, knucklehead. We could have questioned it to find the others.”
“What were those things?” Dunar asked.
“Imps,” Ziplocke answered as he scurried back to Jeze’s shoulder.
“You could have warned us,” Mikal growled.
“I did! I told you that it could have been Imps or something much worse! You fools are lucky. It is just Imps!” Ziplocke squealed in response.
“You are not mad that we killed your kind?” Rolfe wondered.
“How dare you!” Ziplocke snapped and motioned toward the dead Imp. “These things are disgusting and nowhere near as noble as us Goblins!”
Jeze used her Life Channeling tool to close Mikal’s wounded face. It took all of her Will, and she had to sit when she was finished.
“Thank you,” the Healer responded.
It would have been extra difficult for him to heal himself through the pain and not being able to see his wounded face. He treated the others with his magic.
“They fought well. Do you suppose they were Adventurer ranked?” Rolfe asked.
“Oh ya. The two of them gave us a challenge, no?” Helga responded.
“It’s from the madness. It can inflict Rage on some people. Makes them more dangerous,” Ziplocke explained.
“Why is your Affliction aspect different than theirs? Can you make people go mad?” Jeze asked.
Ziplocke scowled at her. “No, I enjoy misery. Madness can only lead to death.”
“Oh, so we are to believe you are a kind Demon?” Mikal snorted.
“Not at all! Imps enjoy madness and death. Us Goblins like to watch misery, especially from pranks, which makes it funny!” Ziplocke said with a giggle. He added, “Death puts an end to it. So boring!”
“We should get the rocks from the other room and provide a proper burial for these poor souls,” Mikal observed.
“We don’t have time for that,” Jeze said, especially for her situation. If they don’t activate a Safe Zone Portal within the week, she will lose a lot of money to Miss Heng and the Amber Guard. Speaking of money, she retrieved her hand axe and searched the body of the dead Imp.
“Have you no decency?” Mikal snapped.
Jeze answered, “The Safe Zone is our main priority.”
Among the remains of the Imp she found a pouch filled with gemstones and Jeze’s eyes went wide. Among the spoils were a few Mana stones. These were rare and were primarily collected when the Spire appeared.
“Imps like to covet gems and crystals,” Ziplocke observed.
“Oh ya? What do Goblins like to collect?” Helga asked with a wicked grin.
Ziplocke shrieked, “You won’t find my kind in the Spire!” He scampered up Jeze’s shoulder.
Dunar knelt beside the bodies and covered them with their cloaks and sleeping rolls. He rose up and stated, “Jeze is right. We need to establish a Safe Zone so that this won’t happen again. Let us not forget that one Imp got away. We must be careful.”
“Oh, I am sure there are more than one. Much more,” Ziplocke said and cackled with glee.