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FLAMES LICKED MY SKIN as I tumbled out of the rift and onto a stone pathway, the wind taken out of me. I rolled over onto my back and looked up at the sky. The heavens burned in hues of red and orange and tinted with purple. I glanced over my arms in search of any wounds that might need my attention, but to my surprise the flames hadn’t scarred my body, only dirt clung to my skin.
I got to my feet and searched around for the group, yet I was greeted by derelict stone structures that nature neglected to claim. The ground beneath my hooves, craggy earth with fiery veins, seemed out of place against the brickwork. Once pristine stones, now caked in ash and stained crimson. But nothing around me gave any indication of where we’d landed. Then I heard them, the strange hiss from a tabaxi and anger of a fire genasi. My companions had to be close. I picked up my hooves, hurrying over to the strange source and when I arrived I was horrified by what I saw.
Barcius was lent against the broken brickwork, his hand applying pressure to a wound on his bicep, with Mitztail and Tarasque a short distance away fending off against a horde of skeletons. An electric shock pierced through me, a similar feeling I’d experienced the night the Darkling came.
I glanced at the skeletons, an eerie crimson smog coated the yellowed bones. These weren’t any ordinary skeletons, they’d been risen from the earth. Tortured souls now forced to do their masters bidding, with free will of their own. It was against my Tribe’s beliefs to disturb the dead while their souls rested, only one of ill-intent and malice could’ve been responsible for a horrific fate.
‘Is everyone okay?’ I called out to the adventurers.
Mitztail was the only one to flash me a glance, ‘There mew are!’ he squeaked, holding his silver rapier before him. It only took till now to realise it was more like an oversized needle than blade in his ginger paws.
I withdrew my staff from my back and held it before me. I summoned the wind around me, forming a twister around the enemies, broken bricks and wooden debris smacked against the bones. The skeletons cracked and collapsed to the earth, but my victory was short lived. As the twister subsided, the swirl of crimson smog around them, picked up the broken parts and affixed them back together.
‘Now you see our struggle,’ Tarasque said, her blade in hand. ‘We keep cutting them down yet they don’t stay down. Not even Barcius’s magic can keep them down.’
I glanced over to the tiefling, he was mumbling words I couldn’t quite make out. I moved to his side, digging through my satchel for a concoction I’d procured on my travels.
‘Drink this,’ I said and handed him a corked vial with ruby liquid inside.
Barcius narrowed his brow and replied, ‘I don’t trust you.’
‘I don’t expect you to, you hardly know me,’ I said, pulling out the cork, ‘But those two need you. I’m the healer of this party and I refuse to let you die on my watch.’
He didn’t argue back and for that I was glad, I didn’t want to delve into my past and how I’d almost killed my only brother. Barcius weighed his options and just when I thought he was going to throw it back in my face, he drained the vial dry.
‘Right,’ he said, getting back to his feet. His wound stitched itself together with an invisible thread, the crimson tears still stained his perfect white shirt. ‘Stand back.’ The tiefling produced a flame in one hand, forming it into a perfect sphere before hurtling it at the skeletons.
But just as I’d attempted to fight off the fiends, his magic had little effect and when I glanced up at Barcius his expression appeared perplexed. Mitztail struck his rapier through the skeletons, but their screams brought him to his knees, and his little ears pinned to the side of his hardee.
‘Come on, oh wise and wonderful warlock, surely mew know something?’ He turned to ask his companion.
Barcius removed a book from the holster under his cape, and flicked through the pages, ‘You’d think so wouldn’t you,’ he replied, his tone seemed agitated. ‘All I know is this is the work of a demon. Necromancy is a foul and cruel practice of magic.’
Mitztail gathered up his rapier and held his paw towards the horde. A wispy purple hand appeared from his body, made a fist and slammed down onto the bones, breaking them apart once more. ‘This is endless, we need a permanent solution.’ Again and again he struck them down, and each time the skeletons stood and rebuilt themselves once more.
‘We need to find the source,’ Barcius said while he materialised more fireballs in his hands and launched them at the enemy.
I stood back and watched the team work together like a well oiled machine, all I was going to do is get in their way. I glanced at each of the adventurers, seasoned in their abilities. The tiefling with his sorcery, the tabaxi with his jingles and magic.
Tarasque slammed her blade against a skeleton’s shield, yet she still found the time to glance back at me and yelled, ‘You commune with the land, you located the source.’ She threw a roundhouse kick at the bones, breaking the skeleton apart then moved on to cut through the rest of the horde.
‘Oh right,’ I said fumbling, my hooves tiptoeing on the spot.
When do I even begin?
I dropped to my knees, my staff at my side as I slammed my hands into the earth and listened for voices. As I searched, I cracked the tips of my fingers sending thorny vines through the ground, shot them up and grappled the enemies. There were too many of them to snare but it’d helped slow them down and allowed the adventurers to make light of their struggle.
Then I heard it, a distant voice, less than fifty foot away, barely even a whisper of a venomous tongue. The source was coming from a raven, perched upon the mounds of debris, watching our group with its beady eyes. But its caw was merely the echo from another, someone with a corrupted mind.
I came out of my trance and hauled myself off the ground, ‘Has anyone got a ranged weapon?’ I asked. The group through me confused glances. I waved my hands in front of me, ‘There’s a raven north of our location, I believe it’s projecting the magic from a distant source.’
Barcius was at my side, seeming to understand my plan. He withdrew a single arrow from his pack, handed it to the tabaxi and said, ‘You know what to do.’
Miztail nodded and withdrew his wispy spirit hand from battle. He threw his paws up to the heavens and summoned the spirit once more, a large hand appeared above him with the arrow held in the fingertips like a dart. The tabaxi acted out the motion and the mage hand replicated it, launching the arrow through the air and through the heart of the raven. A tiny yet distant caw sounded just as the crimson smog cleared around the skeletons.
Tarasque cut down the horde with her blade, crushing the skulls of our enemies. Thankfully not one bone rejoined with another, once broken the skeletons littered the earth. Our battle won.
‘Thank you,’ the fire genasi turned to me and said. ‘Your ability is certainly something.’
I bobbed my head in agreement, but inside I knew how careful I’d needed to be with my power. I’d communed with the earth many times after the fateful night with the Darkling but I’d promised Elder Sheatu I would never reply, only listen. My ability to tear rifts through realms was still untrained and unstable.
‘Do we need a moment's respite?’ Tarasque asked the group, yet her eyes wouldn’t meet ours.
Mitztail recalled his magic and holstered his rapier before leaning against a brick wall, ‘Mew know this place. Where are we, Tara?’ he queried as he dusted off his clothes.
I opened my mouth to speak, yet the tabaxi held up a paw to stop me and the words sat like a lump in my throat.
Tarasque drew in a breath as she sheathed her blade and then said, ‘The City of Delmuph, or what’s left of my homeland.’
‘Your homeland?’ I asked, my words spilled from my lips without a moment's hesitation.
Our leader nodded and slumped down in the rumble, ‘At least it was. Your ability allows you to commune with the land, but I wonder, can it show the past?’ she looked up at me and asked.
‘I.. I’ve never tried,’ I said, fumbling on my words. When I looked back at her, I saw the crystal tears clustering in the corners of her eyes and how hard she was trying to keep them from falling. ‘Take my hand, there’s no harm in trying.’
Tarasque interlocked my hand with hers, then I rested my other upon the ground. I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for, but I conveyed the fire genasi’s memories into the earth, connecting what was once lost and the present together. Ghostly figures began to materialise around us.
Mitztail skirted back to the wall and clutched his tail to his chest as one passed through him. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said, his tone raised several octaves.
Beside him stood Barcius looking over a spirit couple deep in conversation, ‘Fascinating, it’s like they never left, yet they are unable to interact with us it would seem. I wonder if they are stuck in limbo or are they merely reenacting their lives?’ he pondered aloud. ‘I must make a note of this for further study.’ He flipped to a fresh page in his journal and scribbled several notes with an inky quill.
‘Talk,’ I said gently to the fire genasi, ‘Tell me about you and your people.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘This is uncharted territory for me, I don’t know how stable this connection is,’ I said, ‘Those skeletons were a product of a fiend’s magic, one unfamiliar to me but maybe not to yourself.’
Tarasque narrowed her brow, ‘Actually I-’
Barcius interrupted our discussion to ask, ‘Perchance do you know if your magic is connected to necromancy? Seeing as you can raise lost souls?’
I shook my head, I didn’t want to admit that my power was still foreign to me. I prayed silently to the Wild Mother that it wasn’t connected to the dark arts. I didn’t need anymore reason for anyone close to me to distrust me, again.
‘My ability comes from an affinity with the earth,’ I replied. But I judged from the look on the tiefling’s face he needed more of an explanation than that. ‘Aside from listening to the ground for tracking enemies, I can hear the voices of those long gone from this earth.’
Barcius pushed his glasses up his nose and said, ‘I see, if you’ll excuse me.’ He hurried off into the distance to assist the squealing Mitztail.
I turned back to Tarasque and saw her golden orbs dry, ‘I’m ready to talk,’ she said. I nodded and knelt beside her. ‘My father was once the personal guard to the King of this land, and I was thrown into combat the day I learnt to walk. I trained under the watchful eye of my father in his military, hoping to one day take his place. I lived by the sword and I would die by the sword’
Tarasque stood from the rumble, her hand slipping from mine, yet to my surprise the ghostly figures around the fallen city didn’t fade. Perhaps I’d channelled enough of her memories into the earth for the souls to relive their final hours.
‘I worked my way up the ranks and became the esteemed leader of the Knights of Delmuph, and soon the personal guard of the King’s-’ she cut herself off mid sentence, completely lost for words. ‘I.. excuse me.’
The fire genasi took off running away from the group and as I went to chase after her, I fell into the rumble. Mitztail helped me to my hooves with our tiefling colleague not far behind. They too look perplexed as to why Tarasque had taken off so suddenly.
‘Could something have caught her attention?’ I asked.
Barcius shook his head to disagree, ‘I saw nothing in the direction where she was headed.’
‘We’ve got to find her, who knows what fiend awaits in this trial,’ I said.
Once the group was all in agreement, we hurried down our colleague’s trail, passing many ghostly figures and debris as we went. There was still much of the puzzle left to be uncovered about what had transpired in the City of Delmuph and what’d caused Tarasque to leave her homeland and join The Ashen Order.
Deep in my thoughts I almost missed the fire genasi kneeling before a white stone palace, looking real and not like the other spirits. Tarasque stood inches from a ghost, a hand clutching at her chest and the other reaching towards a ghostly pale girl. But around the pair I noticed the same eerie crimson smog that had tainted the skeleton horde we fought.
‘Tarasque,’ I called. I didn’t want her hurt, I couldn’t let her inside that palace under any circumstances. But the fire genasi ignored us, and instead I heard her plead with the spirit.
‘Please. I don’t want to lose you again, Verity.’
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