Chapter 12: Chapter 12 – The Sand Man

Chapter 12 - The Sand Man

We were headed back to the hub, once again. By this time, we had grown so accustomed to the unchanging, and unadorned hallways that they scarcely even registered anymore. The quiet, oppressive miasma of this place was still present, of course, but it seemed more muted today. I had to suppose that, given time, a person will get used to anything.

Jax had finally decided on an ability before we left. It had sounded a bit iffy to me, but he seemed enthusiastic. They way he described it, it was a passive ability that made it so that each successful attack he made on an enemy had a chance to drain an unspecified amount of life energy from the victim. This drain, he explained, would be distributed between us. He had neglected to mention its name.

“That sounds useful to me, what with that healing spell and all, but what are you going to do with all the excess life energy?” I had asked.

He shrugged, “I dunno. Ye said usually ya get it from meals, right? Mayhap I can skip one or two, now?”

I rolled my lips together thoughtfully, “Just that? It seems like a waste of a skill if all you get is a free meal out of it.”

He snorted at me, “Aye, I can tell ye’ve never gone long without, if’n ye be thinkin’ that.”

He was not wrong. My entire experience with hunger prior to coming to this place had been restricted to waiting on a slightly too long line at the local McDonald’s. Still, to get a skill solely for that purpose seemed extravagant given our low level. I sighed in defeat. It was his skill to pick, ultimately. I just had to hope that he could build off of it in the future.

After he had made his decision, we left our little sanctuary for, it would seem, the last time. As soon as we exited the room, solid rock began molding itself around the opening like living putty, slowly contracting until the room was completely obscured from view. Once the rock had finally settled, there was no sign that there had been a doorway there at all, the wall as smooth and seamless as all the rest of the passages in this place.

“Well… tune me to a moon,” Jax said in wonder.

I did not know what that meant, but I took his tone, “Yeah, that’s something, huh. I guess the free healing was a one time thing.”

Nodding silently, he glanced over at me, taking in my profile. “Do ya know, I think the layer may’ve done ya some good. They say ye can nay make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but yer makin’ a go of, ain’t ya?”

Laughing at his own joke, he started away.

I did not know what that meant, either.

We had passed the intersection some minutes ago, not bothering to stop. There were only the two passages left, and not having anything else to go on, we picked one at random. As we walked along the now unfamiliar territory, our pace once again slowed to a crawl. Jax had no desire to be caught unaware by another trap, and I could scarcely blame him.

The slow progress eventually caused my mind to start to wander. How long had we been in this Dungeon, anyway? I had to assume that it had been a day at the very minimum given that we had slept. Then again, given the wounds that we had recovered from, it could have been much longer. For all I knew, we could have been in some kind of induced coma while we healed. We could have been stuck here for a month or more.

That thought brought me to another issue. How long had I been away from home? As it was, I did not have many friends still in town. Most of them had left after college to do their own things. Granted, I did have a couple of roommates just to make rent, but they mostly went about their own business. We even had different sleep schedules what with work and all. They would sure miss me when rent came due, though. And what about my parents? I was not in the habit of checking in with them regularly, so they probably were not going to be missing me any time soon. If I failed to check in totally, though… I sighed. There was nothing I could do about it now.

My eyes drifted back to my companion. I was lucky to have found the guy, if I were being honest. Sure, he was kind of an ass-hat, but at least he had been friendly for the most part. If that frog dungeon thing had eaten me while I was all alone out here, I would have died in the very first room. It was good to have someone to watch your back.

As I looked him over, I could see that the various injuries from the last day or so were completely absent. The various sucker marks and claw gouges were nowhere in evidence. He still had a few scars here and there along his exposed arms, most likely from encounters from his less than savory past. If we ever got out of here, we would need to invest in some armor for the man. A warrior needs protection, after all. With his slim build, and the way he fought, I had a hard time imagining him in anything too heavy. Perhaps some leather with a nice breastplate? It was something to consider for down the road.

My eyes drifted down as I took in the rest of him. His trousers were a little worse for wear. Not quite so bad as my own, of course, but it was obvious that he had been involved in some rough dealings recently. He was also kind of ‘hippy’ for a man, I realized. It was not so far out of the norm that a person would think it abnormal, but it was noticeable. That thought made me realize that I was checking out a guy’s backside, and I swiftly averted my gaze in embarrassment.

Jax suddenly stopped and looked back at me. Startled, I glanced behind my shoulder, thinking he might have heard something I had not noticed in my distraction. Seeing nothing, I turned back to look at him.

“What is it?”

“I…” he looked down and shook his head. “Never mind. I thought… it’s nothin’.”

He turned back and resumed his shuffling steps forward.

Weird. I shrugged to myself and put it out of my mind. Jax was getting jumpy.

We were standing at the end of the hallway and taking in the room in front of us. Much like the first two, it was a round area with a short pedestal in the center. Atop it, very clearly, sat a nicely shining yellow gemstone. That, however, was not what was taking up our attention.

No, the thing that had stopped us in our tracks the second we had laid eyes on it was the massive swarm of small orange wasps buzzing angrily about the room. I have no idea how many of them there really were. Of a certainty, some math wizard could come up with a pretty accurate guess using volume and wasps per square foot or something. But that is not me. All I can say is, it was a big room, and they were crawling and buzzing around every inch of it.

“So…” I yelled, the noise from the room practically vibrating my teeth.

“Yep.”

“That’s uh…”

“Oh, yeah.”

The conversation stalled there. We just kept looked at the angry mass of stinging pain rampaging around the room. Interestingly, the wasps stopped dead right at the entryway. Which was fortunate.

“Other room first?”

“Brilliant.”

So, anyway, we were standing at the end of the hallway and taking in the room in front of us. Much like the other three, it was a round area, but that is where the similarities ended. There was no pedestal, for one. The second thing that came to mind was that the room was carpeted with a perfectly smooth layer of sand.

“What do you think we’re supposed to do in here, do you think?” I asked.

Jax squatted down and narrowed his eyes. “I think I be spyin’ sommat over yonder ways,” he said pointing.

I bent down next to him and squinted, trying to see what he was looking at. Sure enough, way over on the opposite side of the room was a small lump marring the otherwise smooth sand. As clues went, it was minor, but it was something to start with, anyway.

Straightening back up, I said, “Alright, let’s go take a look.”

Jax nodded silently and stepped onto the sand. As soon as he did, the fine layer of particles scattered about began to coalesce, slowly at first, around the lump we had seen. The sand pulled back, exposing the stone beneath, and swirled around the now rising clump until the sand took shape into something vaguely man-shaped. Then it just stopped, apparently looking at us.

Jax, ever cautious, pulled his dagger and assumed a fighting stance. The sand person did likewise, forming a similar looking dagger in its fist. They both stood for a while, both waiting for the other to make the first move.

My companion eventually broke first and began making a slow advance, circling to his left. The shifting sands immediately began moving in the opposite direction, keeping Jax as far away as possible.

“C’mon, ya great lump,” Jax taunted, “make yer move.” He began tossing his dagger from hand to hand in an intimidating display. The particulate person, for its part, said nothing, but it imitated Jax in apparent mockery.

Something was bothering me. “Hold up, Jax.”

“Not now,” he snarled angrily. “This melter is askin’ fer a dagger to ‘is ribs.”

Ignoring my advice, he darted quickly to the right, trying to gain the advantage. The walking sands jumped at the exact same moment, again in the opposite direction, the move ending in a stalemate. Jax immediately rolled toward the creature to get into range, but the thing collapsed into a large spinning pile, moving to engage him in the middle of the room. What followed was a series of half-aborted swipes, parries, and dodges as Jax would move to get in an attack, but the sand would try to stab him at the same time, forcing Jax to stop and leap back. No matter what happened, they both would wind up facing each other over the middle of the room, unharmed.

“Hold on, man. Something isn’t right,” I tried again as the combat came to a natural halt.

“Yer tellin’ me. This roaster be mockin’ me, I know’s it.”

“Come back out of the room. I want to try something.”

He did not respond at first, watching the pile of sand warily, but after a moment, seeing that it was not keen on attacking again, he started edging his way back toward me. As he did, the sand began to shift back to where it had begun. Once he stepped through the door frame, it collapsed, unmoving, like a ruined sandcastle.

“That be an odd thing ter do,” Jax said in confusion. “Why did ‘e not keep at me?”

“I’m not sure that it has a choice,” I said by way of explanation. “Watch.”

So saying, I stepped into the room. The sand pile immediately reformed into humanoid shape, this time taller and broader in the shoulders. I grinned. My theory had been correct. Confidently, I took two steps forward. It took two steps forward. Smiling happily now, I hopped in place. The sand mimicked me, exactly.

“Are you seeing it?” I asked.

“What Shepherdess be damned abomination be I lookin’ at,” Jax said, realization hitting him. “It just mimes ya.”

I nodded, “That seems to be the case. The question, though, is how do we beat it?”

Neither of us had any idea, of course. Any move that we could make capable of hurting the thing would do the same to us. Plus, and something that Jax had evidently not considered, how do you injure sand?

“What happens if’n we’s both in the room?” Jax wondered as he slid a leg forward.

The second he did, a large chunk of sand flew from the mirror of me and formed itself into a foot jutting out of the wall opposite him. He had paused as we both observed this, but then he eased his way in until he was fully in the room. While he did, more and more of the sand forming the original clone started flying over to assemble into first a leg, then his body, and finally his other leg as it eased away from the frame of the door. Whatever this entity was, it was not quite capable of imitating the two of us perfectly. There seemed to be a wind flowing between the two sand mimics, blowing particles back and forth between them.

What caught my attention, however, was the slight glow I could now occasionally see coming from the original one’s chest. The extra mass required to mirror the both of us seemed to have revealed something.

Pointing, I said, “Do you see that?” My duplicate pointed at me in turn.

Jax and his double nodded, “Aye. What do ye make of it? You suppose it has a heart o’ stone beatin’ in there?”

“I don’t know if it beats or not, but I’d bet anything that’s its weakness.”

“Lemme take a closer look,” he said, moving toward my sand clone. As he did, his own clone started walking toward me.

“Uh… careful there, Jax,” I warned nervously. He slowed as he took heed of his own shadow. It, of course, stopped as soon as he did.

Jax frowned in thought for a long moment before saying, “Are ye sure it can nay move if we do nay?”

Still looking at the duplicate of Jax that was eyelessly staring at me, I muttered, “I hope not. They haven’t so far.”

Jax slowly started walking closer to the original, still standing there just as I was. His clone resumed its march towards me. I did not like that in the slightest.

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“What are you doing?” I quavered.

“Just hold on…” he said in a low voice. He stopped just in front of his target and bent forward to look at the glowing rock. I, of course, was left staring at his sandy double, bent forward and apparently peering at my chest. “It looks like I could jus’ reach in an’ take it.” His arm moved towards the glowing stone.

“Stop,” I said forcefully. He froze. His mimic’s hand was inches from my chest. “If you do that, you’ll end up ripping out my heart!”

“Sorry, ye be right o’ course,” he sighed. He and his clone stood up again and backed away. “What do we do then?”

Slowly, I looked from one duplicate to the other. This was tricky, but it should be possible. It was just a matter of seeing things from the right perspective. To that end, I needed more information on how this thing worked We needed to experiment.

If the heart was in my clone…

“I have an idea. Go stand over there… please,” I hastily added, avoiding the direct command.

Jax grinned toothily at me and sauntered over to where I was pointing, slightly more than halfway across the room from the door. He crossed his arms and waited.

For my part, I moved over to the door frame. As we were standing, my clone was at the far wall, while Jax was between it and his own clone in a line.

“Now, if I’m right, when I move through this doorway, my guy will collapse. But, you’re still in the room, right?” He nodded.

“So, the extra sand and the heart should reform over at your clone,” I finished.

Jax frowned at me, “And?” He looked back and forth between the two constructs, the dots connecting in his head, “Ye want me to catch the blasted thing out o’ the air when it zips over?”

“It could work,” I said, giving a lopsided shrug.

“Aye. And it could rip me bloody arm off, ya numpty,” he scowled.

“We won’t know that unless we try,” I said playfully. His scowl deepened. “Okay, okay. Let’s at least watch and see what happens. For science.”

“For what?”

“It… never mind. Just watch once,” I said, stepping out of the room.

As soon as I did, the sand that made up my own double lost cohesion and started flying toward Jax's clone. Jax, unfortunately, was still in the way and dove to the side as the sand — and the glowing heart — blasted past him, solidifying in the form now laying opposite him on the floor. The heart could no longer be seen. He growled as he stood back up, dusting himself off.

“Bleedin’ eejit. Wait ‘til I be clear first! Nearly took me ‘ead off, ye did.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I apologized. “But at least that confirms my hypothesis.”

“Yer what?”

“My… it did what I thought it would do,” I rephrased. “Although, it was a little faster than I was expecting.”

“More’n a little, I reckon!” he grumped.

Experimentally, I held my hand out into the room, more playing around than anything, at this point. Some sand, of course, raced over to the wall opposite me and hovered there in imitation. Pushing fully into the room, my own clone formed just like before, although, I noted, the heart remained in Jax's duplicate this time — now visible once more as it struggled to keep up the double image. I stared for a while at the swirling sands and the heart that would momentarily come into view.

I wonder…

“Okay, second experiment.”

Jax heaved a sigh.

“We’ll go slow this time, I promise.”

“What now, then?”

I stepped out of the room again and waited for things to settle before I continued, “I’d like for you to go stand over by the wall where this thing solidifies.”

Jax walked over and gestured, “Just here?”

“Yeah, now lean against the wall with your back to it, if you don’t mind.”

With a shrug, Jax fell back against the wall as instructed. Meanwhile, his sand clone was leaning against the open doorway as if it were hitting a forcefield. Its back was flattened like a cat’s stomach against a glass table. Gently, I reached forward and brushed my fingertips against the sandy particles.

“Do you feel anything?” I asked.

He shook his head, “Nay, lad. Not a thing.”

Slowly, I nodded in understanding, “Right, of course. Because my fingers aren’t breaking the plane.” I looked back over at Jax, “I’m going to try to push a bit. Yell the second you feel anything.”

“Yer damned right, I will! What’re ya doin’ over there, anyway?” he shouted nervously.

“Just hold on…” I called calmly. I tried pushing my fingers in towards the heart, but the sand was too dense. I might as well have been trying to dig through a rock with my bare hands.

“I still don’t feel nothin’,” Jax yelled.

Finally, I stopped. “Well, that’s good, at least. I think I have an idea, but we need to figure out a way to reduce this thing’s density without both of us being in the room.”

Neither of us had any idea how to go about that, unfortunately. The second either of us left the sand’s field of influence, the man would solidify into something so dense it was impossible to damage. And with the two of us in at the same time, it was too dangerous to try anything. Jax was the one who finally hit on a solution.

“I be thinkin’… ye remember when we fought?” he mused.

I nodded and motioned that he continue.

“It made a wee dagger out o’ sand, right?”

“Right, because you did.”

“Be that it? Or do it have to mime everything,” he wondered. As he spoke, he pulled his dagger again, and his sand clone formed a matching one. Then Jax slowly reached his hand to the side and dropped the dagger to the floor. The clone did the same and we both watched it fall to the ground in a little puff. It remained where it lay, still vaguely knife-shaped.

Jax grinned at me fiercely, “Ya see? I were right!”

I pursed my lips in thought. He was on to something here. Slowly, I met Jax's gaze, and as one, our eyes drifted back over to the hallway to where we had left our packs sitting against the wall.

“Do you know…” I said slowly, “Never in my life have I ever considered a backpack to be quite so useful.”

It did not take us long before we had strewn our belongings all over the room. We swiftly determined that it was trying to mimic the packs by forming a thin veneer of sand in their shape. However, by removing objects from the pack, it was then forced to specifically make that item as well. We even unfurled our bedrolls so that it could not cheat. By the time we were done, a virtual sandy campsite had covered the room, and our own duplicates were looking pretty sparse.

“Right. That’s done. Now what?” Jax asked.

“Should we try the same thing as before?” I replied. “With you over there and me out in the hall?” The heart was still in Jax's duplicate as he had yet to leave the room.

“It should work,” he said slowly. “I just do nay like the idea of a hand reachin’ inter me chest.”

“If I do it fast enough, I don’t think it’ll have time.” The mimicry was quick, but it was not instantaneous.

He put his hands to his hips and glared at me, “Yer assumin’ that it’ll stop soon as ye get the heart out. What happens to me if’n it don’t, eh? What then?”

I blew air out of my lips and closed my eyes. He was stalling. Not that I blamed him.

“I’m open to other suggestions,” I said finally.

He just stood there, glaring at me for a long while. I waited patiently. Jax had a hot temper, but he had a solid mind once he cooled off. Eventually, he broke eye contact and started looking around the room. As his gaze landed on our packs again, his expression turned thoughtful.

“Donum…” he said softly, “I wanna see what’ll happen when we leave the room. Now t’all this stuff be in here.”

I blinked. It was a good question.

Wordlessly, I back-stepped out the few paces from the doorway. Jax followed a few steps behind me. Once the sand creature no longer had us to contend with, it spread itself fairly evenly amongst all the other objects in the room. The heart hovered a bit uncertainly for a moment after Jax's form dissolved before settling inside the duplicate of my pack.

We both stared for a while at the silent room. It was not an unexpected outcome, but the obviousness of it, in hindsight, was no less welcome. I slapped my companion on the back heartily, “My man, I think you may have just solved this thing.”

He lifted his nose haughtily in the air, “You be underestimatin’ the singular genius o’ the lilim race!”

I snorted, “’Singular’ being the operative word.”

As one, we re-entered the room. Jax made for the sand pack with the heart in it, while I waited by the door. Meanwhile, his clone made for my actual pack.

The heart was quite exposed, at this point, what with the two of us and all of the stuff it had to mimic. All he had to do was to simply bend over and take it, though I winced as I observed his double spear its hand into my already tattered bag. As soon as Jax hand closed on the heart, all of the sand that had been rushing around the room froze mid-air for a heartbeat and collapsed, inert once more.

“There now,” Jax said, tossing the stone up and snatching it once more. “Easy as that.”

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