So That Happened

Horn braces his legs again as the monstrosity barrels into his shield, to no avail. The monster’s impact sweeps the warrior from his feet and back away from the battle. Roland dashes forward aiming a slash at the back of its legs, hoping against hope to snag a hamstring and hamper its movements. The creature is entirely too fast for something that big. A swipe from one of its clawed upper arms smashes Roland backward. 

Horn stands again, shakes his head, and plants his feet hard into the stone, impact craters appearing around his boots. “Try that again, you big bastard!” he shouts slamming his mace against his shield. 

The guardian reaches for him, a clawed hand attempting to wrench his shield from his grasp. Horn slams his mace onto one of the things talons as they wrap around the edge of his shield, the blow hard enough to nearly sever the appendage. The beast howls in rage and pain. 

Roland, now on his feet again, lurches forward with his own talons extended determined to make good on the precious time Horn has bought them. He swings with everything he has and feels the sharpened nails bite deep into flesh. As his talons dig further in, something abruptly gives way in the beast’s leg and it collapses muscles bunching under the skin like a shade going up in a window. 

The beast gives an agonized shriek of pain as it collapses back on its leg. Roland immediately presses his advantage and begins clawing his way up the wounded leg, like a squirrel climbing a tree, as Horn slams his mace into a shoulder joint managing to incapacitate an upper limb. 

As Roland scrambles across the beasts back, claws digging into black flesh, he feels the thing take a massive breath. 

“Horn, look out!” he screams as the creature unleashes an ear-splitting ululation.  A literal wall of sound smashes into Horn who manages to get his shield up just in time. As the beast’s scream echoes throughout the large chamber, Roland continues forward ears bleeding and  deafened from the noise. He reaches the guardian’s neck and begins an all-out assault, digging gobbets of flesh from the beast in an attempt to reach anything vital. 

“Come on, come on… just die, damn it! Die, die, die!” Suddenly, his claws strike bone, and the monster goes into a frenzy of rolling and thrashing as it tries unsuccessfully to dislodge him from its back. As the creature gives a particularly aggressive buck, Roland spies a gap in the bones and aims a vicious blow at it, hoping to sever the thing’s spine. However, the monster gives a sudden and ferocious twist of its head ruining his aim. Roland can only growl in frustration as he feels more flesh part under his talons rather than the satisfying crunch of splitting bone. As the blood continues gushing hot and slick, he feels his grip slipping, and in a flash finds himself hurtling through the air to crash heavily onto the cavern floor. All the air rushes from his lungs as he blearily watches the creature continues its frenzied rampage. Roland drags himself out of the line of fire as rapidly as possible while simultaneously trying to gain his feet and drag air into his lungs. He sees that there is still an absolute river of blood gushing from the wound in the monster’s neck. As he watches, he sees its movement grow more and more sluggish and weak. Finally, as it makes one more attempt to grab at Roland, the monster’s eyes glaze over and it crashes to the floor.

—

“Your Majesty, you have received a request for a meeting with the high council of the Eastern Province. They are expressing concern regarding our activities in the dungeons.”  

“Peasants, one and all! Their simple minds cannot comprehend our motives. Why should royalty answer to simpletons such as these?”

“Be that as it may, my Lady, they do control of the largest armed forces in the East. Not to mention, they did grant you the land on which our kingdom stands.”

“Yes, yes, yes…so you continue to remind me. I will smooth the ruffled feathers on the stupid little cocks before their heads end up on the block. They strut about thinking nothing can harm them, but they stand in the way of our goal and that will not be tolerated.” 

“Yes, my Lady.” 

The man backs slowly from the chamber. The door closes with no sound despite its size. Wiping the cold sweat from his head with a handkerchief, he moves to quickly inform the messengers that the Queen will grant a meeting with the council. 

Inside the chamber, rich tapestries adorn the walls, and thick rugs cover cool stone floors. A raised bier topped with what appears to be a glass box rests on one side of the room. The woman moves with practiced ease and grace as she rises from her desk, gliding over to the crystalline coffin on the raised bier and the body that rests within. 

“Just a little longer, my dear one. Not much longer and you’ll be released from this torture. A living death. Why condemn my child for her mother’s actions? Soon I will exact my revenge and we will both be freed from our prisons. You’ll be free and they will not exist, even in memory, in this world or any other. I swear it by my title as Queen of Storms.”

—

Roland regains consciousness slowly, vision blurry and ears still ringing. As he looks down towards his feet, he sees the massive beast laying in a veritable lake of blood. Horn sits nearby with his back against a pillar breathing heavily. A robust snore comes from the big man’s mouth.

“Well, at least he’s alive but how can he sleep like that.?” Roland pushes himself carefully to his feet, his right arm hanging useless at his side. Apparently, despite all of his body’s resilience being launched through the air and crashing onto a stone floor like a sack of dirty laundry could still do some damage. He checks his bag for any potions, but the whole lot were smashed with nothing remaining but slivers of glass and a sticky residue. Tossing the bag aside in disgust, Roland moves to check Horn. 

“Hey, wake up, Horn! Come on, wake up!”  Shaking the big man, Roland yells to wake him up. “Horn, you idiot, come on! A dungeon is no place for a nap!”  

“Unng, five more minutes. I’ll get up I promise.” Horn mumbles. 

“Horn, get up, damn it! I don’t have time for this.” Roland shouts. 

“Huh? What? Where? I didn’t touch it?” Horn looks up at Roland with confusion in his eyes. Then slowly his mind catches up. “It died?”

“Yep, bled out. I think I hit something important with that last slash.”  

“Well, let’s check the thing and make sure.”

The two of them begin to walk carefully around the fallen guardian. Horn smacks it occasionally with his mace. 

“Yeah, I think it’s dead. 

“I’m gonna guess that it’s probably behind those big metal doors over there. You know, the ones that were guarded by the giant monster.” Roland says. 

“Let’s go, smart ass.” Horn says slapping Roland on the back of the head. 

Further inside the cavern, the two see a massive crystal floating in the middle of the room.  Horn and Roland approach slowly. 

The crystal dims and slowly descends to the floor,

“Alright, that’s a huge score. It’s been a long time since we could get an intact crystal for the guild to study.  Now that we’re not in any danger, let’s check out those two chests.” 

Horn leads the way back into the other chamber and to the first of the chests at the feet of the statues. “Please be money. Please be money.”  Horn chants while prying it open.

“Well crap, it’s not money. Looks like armor, and it’s definitely not going to fit me.” 

Roland peeks into the chest and sees several pieces of leather armor resting on the bottom. The armor is jet black with silver inlay of a snarling wolf on the right  side of the breastplate and shoulder guard along with a set of silver bracers and some blackened steel and silver greaves. 

“Now that’s more like it!” Horn says standing in front of the other chest and swinging a massive mace. Its handle is made of darkened wood and the bright steel head appears to be several hands clasped into a single fist.

Putting the new armor on in exchange for his old gear, Roland looks around just now realizing the beast’s corpse is gone. A lingering haze in the air the only sign it ever existed. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. It was a projected resonance from the core. Not really alive exactly but still way more dangerous than just a monster the core pulled in to guard it. Let’s go grab that core crystal and head back to the guild.” 

Roland nods in agreement straightening up and moving with Horn toward the large glowing rock. 

“Yeah because this seems like a good idea.”