Bloodstained Blade-Chapter 40 - Into the Dark

Although everyone in the group assumed that the cave would be empty since they’d killed its occupant so recently, that turned out not to be the case. The goblins had either moved in right after the ogre had vacated, or they’d coexisted the whole time as a sort of tolerated vermin.

Either way, the place was overrun with them, and the group had to use more of the mage's fire than Ivarr’s arm at first, just because they were too numerous to fight. After those first few purges there were at least fifty charred corpses littering the ground. There might have been nearly a hundred, but the blade wasn’t counting since most of them died well outside of its ever-increasing reach.

Sammel insisted that it was a sign that they should skip it, but the blade would not be denied a fight, especially after missing out on so much Life Force because most of the creatures had died just far enough away that their suffering did not feed it.

+46 Life Force

+9 Lesser Monster Souls

The Ebon Blade urged its wielder forward, and together, the two of them made short work of the creatures that were left after the smoke cleared. Sammel guarded the mules at first, but once everyone else moved far enough in that he could no longer see them, he quickly rejoined the group.

+86 Life Force

+6 Lesser Monster Souls

They didn’t have to go very far past that to find what they’d been looking for all this time. As they stood together in the dank, foul cave, all Ivarr could say was, “Well, son of a bitch, It really is here,” as he gazed at the stone door that had been sealed with runes of brass.

Toward the end dealing with the eye-watering stench of smoking goblin shit and rotting corpses had been more difficult than the remaining fights for its wielder, even in the dark. Ivarr couldn’t see very well, even with the light of the blade’s ruby and the holy light of the priest, but the blade itself had absolutely no problem with the darkness, and it would help steer the blade with minor touches to make sure that the swings found their mark as they went.

+187 Life Force

+14 Lesser Monster Souls

At this point, it didn’t take much to seal fatal damage to something as small as a goblin. It had only to make the barest wound with its blade, and they would simply slump to the ground as a half-mummified, partially frozen husk. The path of death had increased the energy that it drained by quite a bit, and though this wouldn’t be quite so easy to see on a bigger target like a man or an orc, it could drain a goblin dry.

+5 Life Force

Unfortunately, those heightened powers could do nothing about the door, though. No one but the mage could, and given how clean the area surrounding it was, it was clear that the goblins had given the thing a wide berth for a reason.

“I can’t believe it,” the elf murmured, too stunned to have finally found it to do much more than stare. “All that searching and it was under our nose the whole time… This… this is wonderful.”

“It will be more wonderful if we can get it open,” Dero chimed in.

“I-it might not even be the tomb,” Sammel insisted, but everyone ignored him. They’d scoured the whole region and found nothing that looked half so likely as this. It had to be the correct spot.

“Come on, man,” Ivarr said, pulling his friend away from the boundary of cleanliness that showed the edge of goblin activity by his collar. “Let's leave this to Altharia and make sure there are no more vermin.”

+7 Life Force

The other man protested but went with its wielder while it spent several minutes studying the thing before she cast the first spell in an attempt to disarm the thing. For a moment, the tarnished runes glowed a light blue as whatever she was trying to do appeared to be working.

Then, the light turned dark, and even as those same runes throbbed with shadows that didn’t look terribly different from the Ebon Blade’s own magic, shadowy arms reached out from the runes, and the edges of the door. It was every shadow that could fall under the spell of the door’s defenses were bottomless pits, and the hungry prisoner’s from beyond were anxious to break free.

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Each arm was different, in an unsettling way. It turned out that their strange slender nature that made them almost two-dimensional was perhaps the least disturbing part of the whole thing. Not all of them had the same number of fingers, or even belonged to the same species. They were inhuman whether they had nails or claws, though, and the blade was sure that they’d be able to rip the souls out of a mortal body almost as easily as its own magic.

+3 Life Force

The Ebon Blade’s feeling of alarm in that moment were so strong that Ivarr spun around and raised his sword at the same time Dero began to pray to his god. Neither of those things was enough to stop the hundred pitch-black hands as they surged outward to grab whatever was within reach. Fortunately, that reach seemed to be limited and fruitlessly groping around the area that had been kept clear of by the goblins they simply gave up and vanished.

Fortunately, no one had been close enough for them to touch, let alone grab. However, if they had been, well, the blade was certain they would be dead, the only question was whether their corpse would have been left behind or not.

It said nothing, though it would have if Ivarr approached the line. The weapon just waited for the humans to discuss what just happened, and the mage said much the same thing. “No one is getting through that door with their soul intact as long as those runes are there,” she confessed.

“But you can get around them, right?” Dero asked, “Or disarm them?”

“Would that I could,” the mage said disparagingly. “I just tried to dispel the magic in them, and you saw the result. We may need to copy the marks and then return to the inner kingdoms for more specialized advice from my colleagues before we can proceed.”

+5 Life Force

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The blade almost salivated at the thought. Suddenly, the elven woman was talking about taking it exactly where it most wanted to go. For a moment, it dared to dream that it would finally get the revenge it so craved.

Then Ivarr said, “Well, if you can’t disarm them, then why not destroy them?”

“That won’t work,” Altharia sighed. “I wish it would, but void runes like that would drink in the energy of any offensive spell I might cast on them, not just magic which is meant to dispel them.”

The blade’s relief was immense. Still, its traitorous wielder would not give up. “What about the stone?” Ivarr asked. “The runes only work if there’s still a door, there, right? Can you destroy the door, or even the wall it's attached to?”

The mage stood there with pursed lips for a second before she smiled and said, “I think I might be able to do something like that…”

The Ebon Blade could have cried out in frustration at the moment. Instead, it simply watched as the woman started to cast a more powerful spell than the gentle blue lights that characterized her last one.

It took only a few seconds to realize that this one was the same one that she’d used on the ogre all those weeks ago. This time, though, it was close enough to see the rippling bands of glyphs expand around her as she sang the spell into being.

For almost a minute, nothing happened except that the magic expanded, the weaves that blossomed around her became more complicated, and her song became more sonorous. Then, when she reached a crescendo, she stopped. When her words no longer existed to contain the forces she’d channeled, then were unleashed in a terrible crescendo of their own.

While Altharia sang, the filthy cavern had pulsed with dancing lights in a dozen different shades of red, orange, and yellow. When she released it, though, all of that ethereal grace was washed away by a deep, violent red that slammed into the center of the door like a lance that was as thick as a tree. With a sound like a rushing river, it slammed into the stone door and bathed the walls around it on all sides with fire as it tried to force its way through.

Everyone else stepped back as the runes came to life once more, drinking in the light in their predictable pattern. This time, though, even as the hands started to appear the same way they had before, something important broke in the spell, and the dark runes vanished a second time beneath a tide of flame.

They would not emerge again until the spell was done, and by then, all of the runes were glowing white and starting to melt. That superficial damage isn’t what had broken the spell, though. Even as the flames faded, the Ebon Blade could see what had happened. The elf had punched a hole through the door just as she had the ogre. This time, it was merely the size of an arm and not a tree trunk, given how hard the material was, but it was still enough to shatter several runes and knock the pieces to the floor.

“Very impressive,” Dero said when the smoke cleared. “But how do we know it worked?”

“It worked,” Ivarr said, already moving into the reach of the magic. It was a rash move, but the blade agreed with it, so it didn’t try to hold him back. They’d found the tomb, and now, as soon as they found a mirror and broke it, they’d be out of there.

Nothing swarmed to attack its wielder, and though Ivarr had to use it to push the door open because the stone was much too hot for bare flesh, that didn’t pose a problem either. It swung open without a slight grating noise to reveal a dusty tunnel that went deeper into the mountain.