• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

A green glow emanated from its palm. Its arm came around and it released. A glowing green viscous glob sailed at Marrec. The cleric tried to sidestep, but the throw caught him on the left leg.

He knew pain then. He'd expected the glob to be something akin to the spittle it'd caught him with earlier, but the glowing glob was acid. It was eating away at his clothing and his skin. It was pain.

But pain was something a warrior expected and could overcome. He charged his tormenter, running up the slender root and onto the slowly-roiling surface of the island. The creature could not evade him. With all the power of his enhanced strength and Justlance's enchanted fervor, he struck at his tormentor and pierced its head. It tried to scream around the shaft of his spear, but only for a moment. A second later it decomposed into slumping ooze, completely devoid of life.

He whirled, trying to see his friends who were still strung out along the length of the root. At the same time, he grabbed up a double handful of the island's muck and begin to scrub at the burning spot on his leg. He had to neutralize the acid.

One of the creatures hovered just beyond Elowen, who had drawn Dymondheart. It threw an acid glob at the elf similar to the one Marrec was attempting to scrub away, but in a feat of amazing swiftness, Elowen deflected the glob away from her and into the void with the flat of her blade. Dymondheart was a potent weapon indeed. Marrec understood why she hadn't pulled out her longbow to strike the creature at a distance.

Behind Elowen, Ususi stood incanting, while Gunggari beat away the advances of the last ooze creature who was attempting to dart in and claw Ususi's face. Gunggari clipped the creature once with his dizheri, sending it into a shallow spiral, but it recovered.

Ususi finished incanting and commanded, "Slumber take you."

The command had no effect on either of the remaining creatures. They didn't even flinch.

"They're not really alive, only animate," yelled the mage.

The creatures tittered but redoubled their efforts. One gurgled, "We will have more claim to life than you, when we've completed the task Anammelech set for us."

Marrec cursed, ceased scrubbing at the acid on his leg, and cast Justlance. He winged his target, which squealed and dropped away. Moments later, the damage to its wing oozed closed, and it flapped back up, still too afraid of Dymondheart to close with Elowen. Justlance fell out of sight.

Gunggari reached into the haversack and pulled out one of the vials, glinting with red highlights. He hurled it at the creature bedeviling Ususi. The creature evaded, but as the vial flew past, it exploded in flame. The wave front of fire expanded, encompassing the frantically flapping mud creature in an instant, before burning itself out. All that remained of the flame was smoke, and all that remained of the animate ooze was a crumbling form of flash-dried earth, which fell quickly into the unlit silence of the Nadir.

Gunggari said, "I wondered what the 'Bead of Flame' might accomplish. Good thing that I did not drink it!" The Oslander grinned at his witticism.

The remaining visible creature, which continued to evade Elowen's reach, reconsidered its chances. Breaking off, it made a beeline for the glowing exit.

"Don't let it get away," yelled Marrec. He wondered what had become of his spear, it wasn't like the enchanted shaft to take so long to come back "Return, Justlance!" he yelled in frustration.

Elowen drove Dymondheart point first into the root-path with one hand while her other hand simultaneously pulled out her longbow. Problem was, she didn't have it strung, though she made a valiant effort to quickly pull it

Ususi flipped the latch on the bright yellow wand pouch she wore on her belt, quick-drawing a slender glass rod, also yellow, but translucent.

A sizzle of magic leaped from the wand's tip, closing the gap between Ususi and the creature in an instant, but the bolt continued past the creature-who had not been its true