Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Even the most bright-eyed apprentice will tell you that magic tends to play fast and loose with traditional reality. Those same students, hopes of arcane mastery unsullied by the impenetrable wall that is basic competency, recognise that perhaps the shadows cast by a basic light cantrip should reflect the actual shape of an object rather than its mood.

An evocation mage takes a break from burning your house down to mumble that perhaps real flames don’t actively spread towards objects that the victim is emotionally attached to. An enchanter may concede that the water flowing from your new showering unit maybe shouldn’t refract quite that much light. An Illusionist of course would never admit to anything but absolute perfection, though you’re pretty sure real chickens don’t have that many scales.

Of course, these effects are generally mere frivolity or incompetence on the part of the mage, neither of which apply to yours truly. No, in my mind it is the most unassuming branch of our craft that can deal the most damage to one’s fragile expectations. Yes, I believe that one cannot adequately presume to know the reach of the arcane until an over-enthusiastic touch of necromancy has liquefied a skeleton and rendered the surrounding muscle into the feel and texture of cottage cheese.

These thoughts pass through my mind as I try desperately to keep the bone splooge and the remnants of this morning’s breakfast off of my new cockatrice skin boots. Honestly, I’m kind of shocked that I’m wiping it off of my trousers and not sending it forth to do my bidding. Granted my experience in applied necromancy starts and ends with poking a dead possum with a stick; but I was expecting at least a minor perversion of the natural order, not a rapidly curdling puddle of calcium.

You see, while the scholars of the imperial institute will go on and on about the infinite scientific complexity of the arcane, no matter how many runes you painstakingly carve into your altar, or how many livers you offer up to whatever eldritch entity is ready to hand, if nothing’s working your best bet is still to pump whatever’s wrong full of mana and hope for the best.

The growing chittering of a couple of humanoid rat-men down the tunnel draws me out of my thoughts. Now usually I’d tell anyone interrupting the raw unfiltered genius of my most inner sanctum to go choke on my foot, but seeming’s as those two over there were probably responsible for the arms missing from the chap whose remains I’d accidentally melted, I tactfully withhold my complaints.

I peek out from the crevice in the tunnel wall in which I had sequestered myself, and – Yep, they’re definitely coming closer. I swear those bastards have been tracking me since the first junction I’d wandered down two hours ago. At the very least the flesh goop currently soaking into my socks should make my scent difficult to track. Thinking about it, that should round my necromancy up to a minor success if anything. Father would be thrilled.

I crouch back into the crevice, readying myself to do something. A physical confrontation was dicey at best, for all that ‘lesser creature’ business the church likes to go on about, their arms were thicker than my head, which is absolutely terrifying on a four-foot bipedal rat. That leaves my arcane mastery between me and a soon to be ruptured everything. At this stage on my road to legend, that amounts to a basic fire-bolt and an air-freshening charm, the latter being absolutely essential for a prospective necromancer with a weak stomach.

Alright, actually fighting them would leave me down a limb and more than likely, an earthly tether. So, aim to stun or incapacitate then book it back the way they came, hopefully towards the exit of this cursed cave. I edge closer, back to the wall, fingers wiggling through the motions for fire-bolt, orifices clenched. Jump out, unleash arcane fury and skedaddle, too easy, initiate plan in 3… 2… 1…

Fire Bolt!

Gods, they’re closer than I thought. By some miracle the first bolt hits the smaller one in the snout and whips its head back – one down. I bring my hand back, fingers an angry red for mis-timing that cast but I forge on to the next, aiming towards second rat.

Fire Bol-

My hand snaps back and the spell flares and fizzles out in my palm as the furry bastard reaches me way faster than I thought possible. I don’t as much see, then hear the bones in my hand bend into new and interesting shapes. The whole thing was sort of on fire anyways, I probably need to visit a healer on the way back. I look down at the rat, feeling kind of bleary, what was he doing again? In answer my breath rushes out and the world suddenly speeds up and dramatically changes angle as my back impacts the ground and my body finally catches on to what happened to my hand.

The rat follows its kick with a pounce, drawing in, saliva dripping onto my clothes; oh god it’s going to try to eat me, isn’t it? I cough, struggling to catch my breath and try to raise my now smouldering left hand again, but moving the fingers makes me cry out and cough, choking on snot and spit. I don’t know what that sounded like to the rat, but it scurries up, bringing its fangs and the smell of rot right up to my neck. In pain and out of options I bring my right hand up to that horrible snout and do the first thing I’m conditioned to do when surrounded by the smell of blood and death; I punch it in the nostril and with a spluttered ‘Purify’ its nasal passage is flooded with the rejuvenating citrusy sweet scent of honey and lemon.

The rat rears back, hands desperately clawing at its nose as its tiny brain is woefully unprepared for such a thing as a pleasant scent. Sweet Mother above, that worked. Feeling a rush of energy – probably from not being dead – I lash out with my feet. A bit of squirming and a solid kick later the beast is contorting in agony and rage against the wall – meanwhile I’m up and running away.

A tail whips out. Damn, that probably wasn’t as effective as I thought. I stumble over it and keep going; short breaths, support hand, let’s keep moving. In the bare 10 seconds that had elapsed, the first rat had smothered the fire on its face and gave a swipe as I ran by. Typical of my complete lack of coordination, it catches my leg and I stumble; typical of the rat’s inability to catch a break, this causes my knee to collide with the charred mess that was its face as I tumble by. With a rare feat of athleticism, I right myself and keep fucking off down passage; in immense pain, but leaving the two mangy dipshits to choke on my arcane might.

Pretty sure it was right-right-left-right to get to the main tunnel, though the memory seemed so much surer 5 minutes ago when all my bones were still in their proper places. Still not looking at the hand, I forge on, should be okay in the short term. The failed fire-bolt probably cauterised it a little, definitely felt that way at least. Judging from the way I burned the sinuses off of one and the face off the other, I have at most five minutes before they’re back on my trail. Albeit down one working nose.

The passage suddenly opens into a small cavern with a pool of water to the side, so suddenly I swear the bloody cave’s messing with me. I’m not usually one to cry magic corruption at the slightest sign of spatial inconsistency but I didn’t even turn a corner. It was just tunnel, tunnel BAM cavern.

Whatever. I hurry over to the pool to finally address my injuries and – Good Gods it’s actually glowing, that’s a lot of ambient mana. On one hand, great, nothing heals burns faster than a good mana bath, it really shows how chaotic a substance is when it makes entropy itself go backwards. On the other hand, those fucking peasants lied to me. There’s no way that this is “just a small cave lord magus, nothing to worry about”, honestly the ‘lord magus’ part should have tipped me off sooner. I was ready for a couple of sharpened bunny rabbits, maybe a particularly aggressive mushroom – not the level of mana corruption that this glowing water suggests. Stooping down I shove my hands into the pool, feeling around with my less pulverised appendage to get a feel for what I’m dealing with here. Yep, a bit of a tingle and the indescribable sensation of a liquid that is somehow more wet than water. Some of it splashes on my shirt, eurgh, that’s going to take forever to dry.

Splashing around a bit more I let the magic works its magic until I can finally hear myself think. The intoxicating sensation of nothing at all makes it clear that some kind of a permanent healing magic is going to have to happen if I’m going to take on those rats and live. Surprisingly it’s a bit of a challenge shooting off fire bolts when submerged in water. Anyway, while the enriched water is good for numbing pain, I don’t trust a prolonged exposure to leave my hands human, let alone in perfect health.

I have, on occasion, asked father to teach me some healing spells. Every time he would looked at me bewildered and ask, ‘What possible reason could you have to heal someone?’ When I asked Grandfather for an actual answer, the best he could give me was that it’s a ‘conflict of interests’. Long story short, I’m barking up the wrong branch of magic.

My own magic is kind of limited when it comes to repairing damage. Maybe a potion? Of course, I didn’t think to bring one – still woefully unprepared for the treachery of the lower class. It’s probably best to just fill a water skin with this mana soup and re-apply every now and then, up until the rats catch up that is. At that point I have serious doubts that a broken hand will be as pressing a concern.

Speaking of which, I’ve probably been sitting here long enough for the rats to recover. I don’t actually know how long that would take, but in these kinds of situations, time spent running away is never wasted. Getting up, having absolutely no idea where the exit’s meant to be, I hurry down the passage across the room. As I half-jog I try to remember some of those dungeoneering tips and tricks I crammed before leaving home. Umm, I’m pretty sure I should be aiming uphill, and the walls should have roots and fewer rocks closer to the surface.

Breaking stride to check my bearings and catch my breath – note to self, work on fitness, running away is a valuable skill – I take in the tunnel. Paranoid of my chittering pursuers I keep walking along the completely level passageway - not a great sign. The walls are even less helpful really; the pretty even distribution of dirt and rock has suddenly given way to a thick coating of blue moss. Does this count as tree roots? Was blue moss a depth indicator? I can’t remember.

The slight glow from mana accumulation stopped a few minutes ago, so visibility is pretty bad. I shoot a fire-bolt down the tunnel – and it splutters against a dead end a couple of metres away – crap. I run up to it – no, no hidden corner – the tunnel just ends in a dense clump of moss. Panicking just a touch, I start clawing away at the moss in front of me. It’s way thicker here than anywhere else, it might actually be growing out from this point. Bottom line is that it’s not hiding some secret exit or blocking the rest of the passage, this may be a bit of an issue.

Of course, it’s when I turn around to backtrack that the sounds of angry rat-men come echoing down the tunnel. I start scrabbling at the walls looking for an alcove, a fault-line, anything that could conceivably point to an escape route. As a mage, the most potent weapon at my disposal is my sharp intellect, and thus it is critical to remain level headed when in stressful – the chittering suddenly speeds up and gets angrier, and I start throwing fire at the walls.

Nature is being weird again. The fire did in fact spread, it just had no effect on the moss. In a few seconds the ceiling and walls are an intricate pattern of blue moss and red flames. Apparently magic fire prioritises cool patterns rather than common sense.

As an exciting bonus to this brief separation from my usual ice-cold stoicism, the tunnel was filling up with smoke. Not too quickly mind, it’s still magic fire, but there is already a definite haze. Luckily, thanks to the fire, and for some reason the now glowing moss, visibility has improved. Thanks to that, regardless of the smoke, I can now see the two muscled fur-balls barrelling towards me. Maybe the smoke will mess with their sense. Who knows? I’m not a rabid freak of nature with anger issues. Giving a not-on-fire section of wall one last kick I turn and face my arch-enemies… wow that’s a depressing thought.

I shoot a fire-bolt at the one with the beyond-inflamed nose, hitting it in the chest but apparently doing absolutely nothing. In the time it takes to fire off a second bolt – which misses the first but hits the second in the face again. Classic – snot-nose has closed the gap. With its characteristic grace, it slams into me bodily, throwing me into the wall. Something cracks and all I can manage to do is hope it wasn’t me as I stagger away from the flaming moss.

The bastard recovers and lashes out with those monstrous arms. Luckily, I’m already stumbling out of its reach; unluckily, the glancing blow to my shoulder almost dislocates it and pushes me back into the wall. With possibly the most terrifying snarl I’ve ever heard, it charges forward, and with an equally terrifying crash, buries its fist in the wall, a hairs breadth from my skull. I can only credit my sudden capacity to dodge lethal head trauma as the fleeting fancy of fate, or possibly the acrid smoke in the rat’s eyes. Either way I use the brief reprieve to cast a fire-bolt in its face, snot-nose’s anguished howls as its eye melts gets me some distance and two solid kicks.

At this point, pain, noise, smoke and the steady glow of the walls makes it almost impossible to make out what the fuck is going on around me. So I barely see a shadow approaching before rat-man number two tackles me from the side. In line with my earlier efforts at glorious combat, being knocked to the ground simply leaves me out of range of the blind flailing of no-face and snot-nose. Hacking up dirt and smoke, I desperately fling a fire-bolt at the two hulking shadows; all participants of the fight are now swinging wildly, barley coherent. I shuffle away from the rats, back pressing into the dead-end and flame licking at my clothes. Each jerking swing bringing them closer towards me, maybe in the smoke I can sneak away if I distract them. I’m readying a fire-bolt when no-face suddenly rushes towards me. Panicking, I swing my good hand at it, the spell losing cohesion and bursting in my palm. The flames scald my hand while blasting the rat to the side of the tunnel, but snot-nose has already found me, a fist bigger than both mine put together rushes at my head.

Then the wall fucking explodes and a sword of truly epic endowment stands proudly in the fleshy pulp that remains of my foe.

O – O – O – O – O

Emmet shivered again. The High Priest himself may have bestowed on him these sacred garments, but they were not designed for the misty tunnels of this forsaken cave. Not that he questioned his eminence, or the will of the Holy Mother of course. It was a given that any quest worthy of the attention of the High Priest should test the faith and conviction of the devout.

The devout in question, sneezed and brought his torch closer to his body. While the spluttering stick did well enough to illuminate the tunnel ahead, it seemed to do little to warm Emmet up. What fell magics pervade this cavern? Would a single vial of holy water be enough to sanctify the mana rift?

“E-excuse –,” an arrow with a shaft the length of his leg, seemed to materialize a hands-breadth from Emmet’s eye. He flinched, pulling back and is consequently met with the intricately crafted breastplate of the team’s leader.

“Ha Ha! Careful young Eren, you know how jumpy us adventurers can get” the talking tower of iron boomed, seemingly oblivious to the irritated twitch of his archer companion, whilst he good-naturedly slapped Emmet’s shoulder.

“Ah! My apologies sir” Emmet span around, giving a quick bow from his hips – form 25 of the order’s deference protocol. “A-and Sir, it’s Emmet –.”

“No need for such theatrics my friend!” the armoured knight ploughed onwards, his golden locks somehow fluttering in the non-existent breeze. “We have been chosen by his Eminence to rid these caverns of corruption, and by the Mother, we are all comrades in our crusade against the dark!” his smile seemed to fill the cavern with light, and Emmet’s heart, with glorious righteousness. “My friend! You among your peers was deemed worthy of providing the spiritual aid our quest so sorely lacked. Know that no simple choir-boy would be granted the privilege –.”

He continued speaking, seemingly oblivious to the archer’s barely contained frustration, and took the lead of the group. The third adventurer, a swordsman, started following after the knight.

“Come on Mel”, he said, voice low and poking the drawn arrow away from Emmet’s face. “You know Reynar’s been itching to go all ‘warrior poet’ since we got the damn contract. Especially with choir-boy here.”

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“Hey, what do you me- eep!” Emmet cut himself off as the readied bow flicked away with tangible irritation, the arrow-head sweeping by his eye.

The archer gave a hushed growl, “I just wish he would keep it down. This place is more blind-spot than not,” she began to follow after the swordsman, “and how many times do I have to tell you David, don’t touch the bow when it’s drawn, you’ll warp the wood.”

He rolled his eyes, “yeah, yeah, it’s a delicate work of art, tell that to guy you beat half to death last week, he probably has that artesian craftsmanship indented in his face”. The two kept walking down the tunnel, the swordsman glancing over his shoulder, “Hurry up kid, we’re losing lamplight”.

Emmet hurried after the pair. It’s probably best to leave the conversation starters to Sir Reynard, Emmet didn’t want to be at the business end of that arrow ever again.

The arrow itself was quickly pointing down the tunnel as Reynar came to a halt and turned to look at the wall, brow furrowed in dynamic contemplation. The swordsman, in response to the sudden stop, snapped out of his lackadaisical stroll, darting to cover the knight’s left flank, drawing his sword in the same practised motion. The archer followed in an orbit, covering the blind spots of her comrades and finishing slightly behind Reynard. The entire manoeuvre lasted barely five seconds and displayed a practised grace born of professionalism and years of working together. Naturally Emmet barely had time to realise the procession had stopped before he was left standing awkwardly to the side, glancing around confused.

A few more seconds of silence passed, Emmet moving to the side of the tunnel, supposing that the adventurers probably had a better sense for this kind of thing than he did.

“I say, Melanie, David, do either of you smell something?” The swordsman smirked and turned back to the knight. He opened his mouth to speak, but a meaningful creak of artesian craftsmanship gave him second thoughts and he quickly returned to scanning to tunnel.

The archer lady relaxed her bow a fraction and tried not to let irritation seep into her voice, “smell what Reynard?”

“Can you not smell smoke my friend? It’s as if something were burning not a few feet away.”

“The kid is holding a torch Reynard,” David sheathed his sword and turned back to the group.

“Quite right David.” He turned to Emmet, “put that out would you, old boy?”

Emmet just looked at the group uncomprehendingly before the torch was plucked out of his hands and trodden on, plunging the tunnel into total darkness.

Ignoring the squeak from their tag-along, Reynard turned back, facing vaguely in the direction of the other two.

“Now my dear friends, are my senses deceiving me?” He was met with cursing and the clatter of equipment as those dear friends struggled to find the torch in the total darkness. Emmet chose to stay completely still, liable as he was to just huddle in a corner if given the chance to move. After a moment of muttered expletives from the archer and deep sniffing from the knight and the swordsman (who had just decided to go along with it), everyone’s eyes began to grow used to dark.

Murky detail came back to the tunnel slowly for Emmet, possibly on account of holding a lit torch right in front of his face for the past few hours. But after rubbing his eyes and bumping into a wall, the four of them noticed a soft red glow emanating from the cracks in the wall.

David drew closer, “Woah, looks like you’re onto something here Reynard,” he ran his finger along one of the faults in the wall muttering, “kinda warm actually. Oi Mel, check it out.”

Melanie stepped up, “You are right, it must be quite thin for the cracks to go all the ways through though.”

David’s smirk reappeared prodding Melanie with his elbow. “Reckon it’s a secret treasure trove? Eh? Eh?”

“Out here in the sticks? Not likely. Unless some bandits just covered up an alcove in mud.” she knocked the wall, though it seemed to be the same stone as the rest of the cavern.

Emmet bent down to the cracks, if anything just to get closer to a heat source, and found that it was in fact quite warm. Though there was something that was niggling at the back of his mind.

“D-does anyone else hear anything strange?”

David looked up and then back to the wall with a pensive stare, all of them quietened and strained their ears. Was that a crackling? Maybe some dull impacts? Finally, a noise filtered through that was definitely unmistakable for the seasoned adventurer.

“…mmmmaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgggggghhmmmmmmm…”

“By the Mother! A maiden fair!” and seemingly without conscious thought the knight’s massive sword was already swinging directly at the wall. The sword, which must have been as tall as Emmet, didn’t so much as smash into the wall then simply pass through it, stone bulwark be damned. The strike seemed to have simply removed the entirety of the wall, replacing it will dust, debris and a sudden cloud of smoke.

With a triumphant laugh, Reynard swung his hand out, the motion sending his cape and the dust cloud billowing out. Wiping away the grit, the group opened their eyes to a passage that was as on fire as it was possible to be. Deep red flames covered just about every surface from floor to ceiling, quickly illuminating the tunnel and once again blinding everyone.

Reynard took a step closer and all of a sudden, the flames winked out, as if quenched with water, leaving the walls glowing dully – it was probably a magic thing. Seeing this, everyone kept a wide berth of the glowing rock and carefully peeked into the opening, taking in the scene.

At their feet was a mess of bones and blood that was probably (and hopefully) part of a monster that was standing in the way of Reynard’s sword. Looking to their left was some white-haired guy pressed into a corner in a foetal position. And pelting down the tunnel to the right was another monster that had probably re-evaluated its chances of survival.

Reynard swung back around to face the guy in the corner, who was still staring wide eyed at the mess of flesh on the ground.

“Hark traveller! Having a bit of trouble with the locals, eh?” he chuckled, probably trying to lighten the mood. The guy looked up at them at least, probably stopped crying too, though it was difficult to tell with his face already wet with tears and snot.

“Whaa- eh? Wh-wh” he blubbered something, eyes flicking between the four of them before settling on Emmet and then down to this own hands. Hands which it was now apparent, were pretty badly burned.

“Oh, of course,” Emmet hurried over and placed his hands over the burns and beginning a chant, “rest easy child, may the Mother’s light ease your pain, heal!”

A soft light washed over the cavern and, glowing faintly; the burns seemed to drain away and the bones quivered and snapped back into place, leaving unblemished skin. His patient stared at his healed hands, flexing them slightly for a second, before giving one last sniff and looking back to Emmet.

“Ahem – er, thank you… priest,” he looked over at Reynard and shakily got to his feet, “and thank you for the assistance sir knight,” his voice and bearing becoming firmer by the second.

“Think nothing of it my friend, it is my duty to lend aid to a fellow adventurer in peril. Though no doubt you had it under control, eh?”

Shaky confidence was quickly returning as the man replied will a flick of his fringe “Heh, of course, did you see the fire? The fight was basically over before you got here.”

A murmur came from behind Reynard that sounded suspiciously like, ‘over for you maybe’, though it must have just been the wind. Just as the muffled laugh that followed must have been a coughing fit.

“Anyway,” the traveller stuck out his hand, “the name’s Lucien, Lucien Sepulchrum.”

Since no-one else seemed interested in making a move, Emmet shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you, I guess?”

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