Question to the readers:

Has any one character emerged as a favored yet?

 

Chipper is a favorite of mine, if only for his lunacy.

I like Elsa quite a bit. Having bit of mystery in character is always fun.

Nelson's seeming insecurities aren't my favorite thing in the world, but it doesn't totally kill the story for me. It seem a bit of a common trend in your writing style. Again, not bad, just not my fave.

My biggest pet peeve is how slow you post chapters.



Side note. Why is it so damn hard to type in the response field?

 

Thanks for responding, I appreciate the feedback.

 

Post number 7800!!!

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Twenty One ₰₰
​

In the corridors they watched as a small gathering of six-legged, iron-skinned, equine-like Horrors plodded into their midst, each one burdened with two or more large containers of goods. The small, bat-like creatures ceased to monitor such movements, for the time allotted to them had ended, and they prepared to depart. Their leader, having sensed something quite odd, telepathically called out: “Watch, observe, learn, for we are not alone; I sense the subtle weave of magic at play, and we must know this new player in the game.”

Silent as death they watched, waited and wondered what was about to happen and if it would be worth facing the unmitigated wrath of the Guardian for wasting time.

They were not disappointed, for moments later a field of amethyst glitter flared into life, and filled the region in waves of confusing, confounding psychic-babble.

In an instant the equine-like, simple-minded automata, deprived of their hive-mind link and confused with the cacophony of noises entered into a maelstrom of action. Some simply stood still, others howled and rolled on the floor, races in circles or reared to battle one another. Here and there great trunks and containers of goods fell to the floor, shattered or crushed under foot.

The bat-like scouts took keen interest as two hooded figures emerged from the shadows, and struck with arcs of lightning which changed coloration as they reached out among the equine-like Horrors. Moments after the first blasts of reaveing death, a second chain, and then a third and fourth followed; each automata was subjected to unearthly cold, intense heat, unendurable pressures, acid so strong that metal hissed and dissolved into acrid clouds.

A small contingent of hound-like automata, having wandered into the region and unaffected by the chaotic psychic-babble, howled and charged into battle; but a moment later all twenty and seven in count succumbed to the babble, and perished at the hands of the magicians soon afterward.

The bat-like scouts watched as the two quickly, methodically and efficiently stripped the carcasses and many containers of gems, precious goods, and anything else a mortal being would find of worth. At last, their looting done, both rapidly crafted magical booby-traps which would cause carnage on any automata, and only automata which passed through the region for many a month.

Moments later, as the two beings finished, smiled wickedly at each other and vanished from sight. Even as the bat-like scouts spread out to follow and trail the two for as long as possible failed, and returned to their leader in a matter of minutes.

Over the next few hours they navigated the Labyrinths tunnels and magical gateways to appear before their liege the Guardian; they reported and watched as the Guardian grinned, his eyes flared with righteous wrath and with a clenched fist thrust into the air, declared: “Now, now is the time for us to face and defeat Mechanus.”

₰


​

The humanoid Horrors, six giant-sized, blue-skinned, knobbed-armored creatures, watched as the spider-like Horrors approached. Unholy blue-white flames watched as the thirty small automata staggered and slid as they struggled to advance, eyes of green flame barely maintained as their energy reserves commenced to fail one by one. Curious about this situation, unable to decide if they are friend or foe, one giant knelt down and lifted one into its hand.

Moments later it, the remaining humanoid Horrors, and the thirty smaller spider-like automata vanished in a holocaust of heat, flame, fantastic pressures and crushing force which left them little more than smoldering, liquefied masses of twisted metal. Minutes later, once the stone floor cooled enough to stand upon, two beings emerged as their magical camouflage dissipated; they grinned, looted the carcasses and departed with their enemy none the wiser.

During the course of their hunt, four more giant outposts fell to the pair that struck hard after crippling the Horrors telepathic links.

Nelson grinned as he and Elsa returned to the grotto, greatly enriched in magical goods and treasures the likes he had never dreamed of until now. He said to her: “It worked well enough; build a magical bubble that cuts off all telepathic communications without sending them into a state of complete confusion. With brutes that size, I think this would be the preferred tactic we can build upon, and if time permits, tailor for each strike.”

Elsa took a long pull from her water skin and nodded, then said: “It did, just as your idea of reanimating a few defeated Horrors, after being booby-trapped, and combines them into a second-layer trap in their own right. I still want to conduct a few more such raids to ensure they will work. And if our alarm systems are correct, there is one very overconfident patrol we can dispose of.”

Exhausted, Nelson flopped onto their bedrolls after depositing his gear next to them. He asked of her: “Do you mind if we wait until tomorrow? We have covered so much ground today, conducted the hit-and-run raids and more that right now that right now I’m beat.”

Elsa stacked her gear, armor, cloak and arms next to Nelsons; she stood to where he could watch her strip down to her britches, and then stretched next to him, her body pressed hard against his. As she played her fingers in his hair, she smiled, and said: “Tomorrow; we have a few other tactics to work on, especially that one suggested by Chipper.”

Nelson looked over Elsa’s shoulder to the high rock on which the squirrel stood, twig in hand as he pretended to be a great magician of old. “Great, the squirrel goes more and more psychotic,” he muttered under his breath as he gently gestured with his hand.

Elsa gave him a confused look, then gazed upon Chipper and collapsed against Nelson in wild laughter. For her spirit-companion has been subjected to another illusion by Nelson: monk-robes swathed his form, colored in a riot of lights and darks, and patterns too complex to fully grasp. “Oh you two are giving me no end of fun!” she said.

Chipper scowled, tossed aside the twig, crossed his forepaws and said in a high-pitched alto voice: “Fine, fine, and laugh all you want; I guess now I should just say ‘I’m friar Chipper.’ I hope you understand Nelson, I will get you back in the most hideously hilarious means I can; just as soon as I figure what that is.”

Nelson looked at Chipper and said, “I would expect no less of you Chipper. Since we’re going to be stuck in this place for a time, we can use all the good cheer possible. Heavens and Hells above and below, I just want to get out of this blasted Labyrinth.”

“Elsa; is this adventure is supposed to be about? Is it unending hardship, constantly on edge until you become reduced to a nervous wreck; one that jumps at every noise and shadow? I, ah forget it…” Nelson said as he snorted in self-disgust and lightly laughed at his own antics. He looked at Elsa and tentatively held his hands out to her while putting on his best ‘forget me not’ puppy-eyed face.

A moment later his hands were filled with a gigantic octopus, one conjured up from some deep ocean by Chippers magic. Nelson skewered the squirrel with a withering glare, one that promised a dire revenge when the time came.

Chippers frantic, high-pitched, keening, manic laughter lasted until the octopus splattered him with black ink. In turn, Nelson began to laugh like an unleashed thunderstorm, a laugh which redoubled as Chipper speared him with an ‘I’ll get you for this’ look.

Elsa laughed as she snuggled up close to Nelson and placed her head against his chest. She felt the thunder of his heart and blood, the arousing heat of his body upon her cheek and neck, and the thousand distinctive odors which wove a story unique to him and him alone. She closed her eyes, put a hand under her head and gave off a contented sigh, then began to softly mewl as she began to drift off to sleep.

“Nelson, try not to be so gloomy, we’ll get out of here soon enough…” Elsa’s words faded away as sleep at last took her into its arms. This night, for the first time in untold ages, she slept peacefully; despite the hunger which built, and the unending rage of the beast within.

₰


​

Nelson drifted off to sleep shortly after Elsa. His dreams bespoke of the distant past, the echoes of which he walked within: the grotto once was part of a thriving, multi-level underground city of vast proportions. People of a thousand species passed him by and conducted the normal business of any city; here and there he saw a hand count of great angelic beings assist in lifting phoenix-bird statues onto great columns of stone.

As each one grew in place, brilliant white-gold fire danced and flowed in ribbons around the columns, and then radiated outward into the crystalline-webs in the tunnels. He said to himself: “We were right; the whole system is connected together.”

Then, in one small corner of the city he passed through a short time later, he spied something wonderful: the second shrine, near the ancient palace from which the city was ruled. Time flowed away from the underground city to the age when beings of great power, angels mightier than others he had seen, crafted and secured in place each perfectly made nail, panel, brick and inscription hewn into the walls, floors and ceiling. Then, he beheld how the shrine was blessed, hallowed, and sanctified to withstand the greatest of evil, for he heard the leader of the angelic host declare that times would come, over the millennia from that moment, when others would need to shelter within, and to use the magical pathway concealed from most who sought it.

Nelsons joy was absolute as the vision shifted back to the underground city; but soon that joy turned to despair and terror, for he beheld the cataclysm which ended the city in a holocaust of fire, blood and death at the hands of Mechanus and its minions.

₰

​

Elsa beheld in her dreams an event greater than even she understood…

Near the Labyrinths heart the Guardian, now in his true form, stood tall and regal, his curved rams-horns full and illuminated by golden fires, as were his eyes. Clad in a fine metal coat-of-mail set with a jade tiger upon the breast plate; great battle axe in hand, its serrated edge glowed red and steamed from internal fires; he advanced to stand before his gathered minions, such as still remained available to him, and saluted each in turn.

They parted for him, great gargoyles and mysterious creatures of shadow, spirits of earth and stone, of fire and light, plus countless others beyond common knowledge. When he reached the head of their formation, as one they bowed to him and shouted, cried, or screeched: “Hail Guardian, Protector of the Labyrinth!” Three times they repeated this call; three times in perfect harmony the Guardian tapped the ground with the butt of his axe.

Silently they watched as the Guardian donned his great bronze helmet, secured the straps and placed his war mask snugly to his face. He lifted his axe high, and in its blazing light declared: “Not long past the three beings who came into the Labyrinth, the ones you have honorably warded against our many enemies in our home, have scored a great victory upon these same foes: Creation, Scorpios, Vapor, Menace, and many others who had gathered to do battle now lay crushed under miles of stone.”

He paused as the gathered minions declared their acclaim and then continued: “Our greatest of foes though, the one called Mechanus, that abomination, who favors the mechanical over the flesh, has lost much of its forces. Even now, they have fled to the lowest depths of their territory, yet it still continues to pursue with obsessive detail and determination the cat-girl, the squirrel and the young human. So it is we now march to deal with it once and for all, to end the threat, and to purge the Labyrinth – OUR rightful home, of these rivals and self-declared ‘lords’ once and for all. Among them to die, and by my own hands shall be the devil Malevolence.”

With that, he signaled the advance to begin, and thus commenced the final war for the Labyrinth.

Yet at the last moment, the Guardian turned, looked at Elsa with his golden eyes and telepathically said: “We shall soon meet; fear not Malevolence but that of Mechanus and even Gloom. For the former has recently figured you are in his domain, and the latter has escaped the shrine in which you had imprisoned it.”

Elsa awoke a moment later drenched in a cold sweat, unsure if what she had seen in the dream was real or just her imagination. She shook her head, slapped her face and moved to the waterfall and remained under its hot, comforting cover for some time as she mulled it over: dream or reality?

In the end, she could not reach any conclusion save for these: real trouble was coming to the area, and soon.

For the three great and darkened powers – Malevolence, Mechanus and Gloom, especially Gloom, represented a massive threat, and challenges she could not ignore if the opportunity arose to take one or more of them down for good.

Of the Guardian, having seen what she concluded is its true form, or close to it, sent a chill through her body and caused even the beast within to whimper and cower in primal fear. She had to discover the secret of passing the Guardian without a confrontation, and to pass through the gateway beyond to the greater cosmos; for if it came to battle, she had no chance.

For the time she set these thoughts aside, and returned to get what slumber she could, for in the morning she and Nelson would hunt the Horrors, something she was coming to enjoy so very much.

₰₰₰


​

They raced down the side passage with the grace and speed of fleet-footed deer. Six hound-like Horrors wove, leaped and jumped among the craggy outcroppings and massed boulders; each day they followed the same time honored paths, alert to any intrusion in their liege’s domain. Blue-facetted eyes filled with watchful flame told any observer, before dismemberment occurred; that inhuman intelligence and cunning was at play.

A thousand times and more, past intruders were detected and destroyed by them. Not one had escaped; but this day they encountered not prey, but the hunters of the hunters.

The leading pair of hound-like beasts skidded to a halt, and watched as a rock formation began to transform into something new. Instantly alert, they growled, howled, and then collapsed to the ground and writhed about as if in great pain. Having crippled their hive-mind and body control with magical psychic-babble, Nelson emerged from before the boulder, his robes camouflage dissipated. From outstretched hands a lone prismatic bolt of light arced outward, divided into six branches and slammed hard into the automata. Instantly the fell mechanisms were burned, frozen, crushed, mangled, and exposed to acid so virulent that metal dissolved in hissing columns of deadly mist.

A quick look around, and Nelson nodded to Elsa, having confirmed the destruction of the automata. Moments later, as she came to his side, he said to her: “You are right; projected-images of us allow for a safer and faster means to explore, clobber these isolated bands, and determine whatever else is going on. Mind you I’m finding the lack of opposition more disquieting than if we had a number of them hunting us all at once.”

Elsa; involved in intricate spell weaving for a magical series of traps said to him: “I know, if they are not at all aware of us, that means something or someone else is holding Mechanus attention; or his forces have been hit harder than we anticipated with the collapse we managed to arrange up above us. Our priority is to figure out where the second shrine is located, get to it, and in the process not bring down the entire region on our heads, figuratively or literally, again.”

Nelson’s image glumly nodded as he spoke: “I know, the destruction of an entire region is not going to look very good upon my next apprentice recommendation. I can see it now: prone to destruction, accidentally, of entire kingdoms and continents. Employ with reasonable precautions in place.”

Elsa’s image looked at him with concern over his growing melancholy. She kissed him on the cheek and said: “Nelson we are closer than ever, it’s just taken us longer than either expected. Don’t lose hope Nelson, once a tutor of mine told me how his father ‘accidently’ blasted the legendary Atlantis empire apart just to settle a minor dispute. Image that kind of record on his recommendation?”

He gave her an astonished look. “The entire continent; gone after he got into a dispute? I would hate to be on the receiving side of his anger.”

Elsa took his hand in hers and they began to walk down the passage, alert for any foes coming from behind or ahead. “Believe it if you will; but his ‘dispute’ was a disagreement with the last warlord of Atlantis. His wife, Lady Alleia’shan, was said to have thrown a fit over the loss of her home.” Nelsons gasp caused her to look about, figuring some trouble had come calling at long last; seeing none, she looked and asked him: “What is it Nelson? What has happened?”

He shook his head, confused and pained in his heart: “Alleia’shan; that was my mother’s name. I don’t see how it can be connected though? I mean, if the name was fairly common or such?” He threw his hands wide and let the matter go.

Elsa looked at him, and saw pain in his eyes, but sensed more troubled him. “What else is there Nelson? Tell me, please, and I’ll see what I can do to help.”

“During the last few nights I keep dreaming of the great city. The one whose ruins are around us and that Mechanus destroyed all those years ago. I seen the defenders desperate defenses across the multiple levels of the city; how the invading forces used the phoenix-archway portals to rapidly shift from point to point and infiltrated ever deeper into the city…” he said to her in some despair.

Elsa shook her head, schooled in warfare she envisioned how fast the city fell. “What else did you see Nelson?”
She cringed at the detailed account of the cities fall; recalling for a moment the dream discussion she had with the Guardian.

He gulped, and continued: “I beheld one of the shrines that were scattered in this area of the Labyrinth. I assume this one was destroyed long ago when the city fell…” He explained to her all he had seen, and answered each of the thousand and more questions Elsa badgered him with; unable to comprehend her sudden excitement.

“Come on Nelson, let’s get back to the grotto,” she said, understanding that the palace he described was the one in which their camp was located. As she and Nelson released the projected-image magic, their illusion-selves faded into nothingness, Elsa forgot about the concern which had momentarily returned when she remembered the warning of the Guardian; the part with Mechanus hunting for the companions.

₰


​

In the grotto, Chipper watched the verdant landscape and enjoyed the abundance of raw, untamed, unrefined life in such abundance. Here and there, near massive fungus growths and humus heaps, he watched the colony of the mushroom-men, humanoid creatures of sentient fungus, move around and tend to their crops. On occasion his gaze took in an old arch, tumbled wall, or another series of phoenix-birds mounted atop of great pillars, and he wondered what secrets, mysteries and riches awaited the discovery by some future explorer.

He looked back to where Nelson and Elsa sat in a meditative trance as they explored the area with the projected image magic. “At least the two lovebirds are leaving me alone for a time.” He yawned and decided a brief nap would be in order. “It’s not like anything is going to stir without fair warning. Nothing at all…”

Chipper curled up, pulled his tail over his head and drifted into the dreams of squirrely dreams, save for the one which showed him, as it had Nelson, echoes of the great city; he beheld the time of its founding, the centuries of growth and life, the joys and fears, loves and terrors encompassed in that timeline; and then, the mighty battle which ended the city once and for all under the forces of Mechanus.

He watched as the end came, and the final run of a lone priest to a hidden shrine.

He spied the shrines guardians and gasped, all too familiar with the formidable creatures. Of more importance, he gained an idea of how he and the others can safely enter the shrine, and of what challenges and mysteries awaited them once inside.

Once he awoke, Chipper raced off to where he suspected the shrine to be, and to converse with the guardians.

₰


​

Minutes later, Elsa and Nelson awoke from their meditative state. They looked at each other, grinned and embraced, then gave a long, heated, affection-filled kiss to the other.

Elsa looked around and pointed out the mushroom-men at work as their chief and its bodyguards, each twenty feet in height, maintained a stern vigil. She said: “Something has them stirred up. I think we should go and look at the alarms and such we have established; maybe set up a secondary and tertiary lines of defense within the ruins here incase we need to make a final stand…” She quieted down upon seeing the troubled look on Nelsons face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head; the pressure that warns of imminent danger thundered in the back of his mind, and yet all seemed peaceful. His eyes fell upon the two phoenix-birds atop the columns and he gestured to them. “Somehow, I keep feeling were missing the obvious; for five days we have swept the tunnels, crushed a few patrols, and in the end discovered nothing of value to where the second shrine may be located. Yet here in the grotto we have ruins that are linked to the author of that journal…”

Elsa closed her eyes and bashed a fist into her forehead, “and because of me we have failed to check them out first and foremost. When am I going to learn; never leave your base camp unsecured. I should have done that from the beginning…” She cringed and looked at him apologetically as she bowed her head down in shame, “I keep forgetting Nelson, we’re in this together; you are feeling the strain as much as me, but for a different set of reasons.”

Nelson put his hand on her cheek, and reveled in the close-eyed, ears-pressed back, sigh-induced reaction he got from her. “Elsa, I just want to clear this area of the Labyrinth. It’s this place, and not you or Chipper, that has flayed my nerves raw; I’m tired of having to be on edge nearly all the time, and the one instant we feel capable of dropping our guard, chaos shows up. In your case, it’s the beast-within, that is wearing you down day by day; or even hour by hour. I know its only a matter of time before it wears you enough to try and break free; so we need to devise some means to counter it, or to…” his words trailed off.

She opened her eyes and looked with true sadness and self-loathing into his; and said: “Or you need to let me go and hunt for a time. Every time I have to do so, even against beasts of unspeakable evil or darkness, I feel as if I lose another part of myself.” She slid deeper into his embrace and said: “You’re the anchor for me and my sanity right now, I don’t want to lose you ever; I just want the danger to go away for a time as well.”

“Elsa, why did you question me so much out in the tunnels? What did you notice that I missed?” Nelson said.

She looked at him and said, “I think, based on all you have said, we have missed the obvious. The shrine we are looking for may be the same you envisioned. Right here under our noses, so to speak. Besides, there is another reason to assume so…” She gestured at something over Nelsons shoulders; her expression a mixture of shock and mischievous delight.

Nelson steadied his nerves, turned around and spied the mushroom-man shaman, who politely and awkwardly bowed to him, and telepathically stated: “Come, one awaits your presence human.”

It walked off, not waiting for Nelson who looked at Elsa. When she nodded reassuringly, he held out his hand and called forth his staff, then raced after the shaman and into the unknown.

Moments later, Chipper returned and explained all about his discovery to Elsa, who agreed that it was of a mixed blessing.

₰₰


​

Upon the rocky cairn it stood proud and tall as it watched the relentless advance of its army. Though many of its forces perished in the massive cataclysm of the higher levels, enough remained to find and defeat its remaining enemies, challenge and finish the Guardian, and to pursue and defeat the three companions who have cost it so much.

The great tauric creature thrust its trident high into the air howled as it became wreathed in unholy blue-green flames. Mechanus was revealed in his full glorious horror for his minions: six great mechanical legs; long iron-hard, forked, razor-edged tail; forty-five feet length of dragon body and humanoid from the waist upward.

Mechanus, a god-incarnate to its creations, roared to them: “Forward, we must find the unclean ones who have defiled so much of our homeland; they must be eradicated for all of time, tortured and then their foul life force used to create yet more of our mechanical brethren my children. We, all of us of the hive-mind, shall have our revenge and our fallen brethren shall not have perished in vain.”

In the collective hive-mind of his minions, each of which ultimately linked to him, Mechanus ordered them to increase their speed of advance, and to redouble their efforts to find the three companions. These three have caused him enough humiliation and must be made to pay for it, especially the human magician who had brought down most of the upper levels of this region of the Labyrinth.

Even as his minions advanced, on a collision course with the minions of the Guardian, others watched and then calculated odds and probable outcomes. Only two variables could not be reduced to a viable, predictable value; the first being the entity Gloom which even now closed into the regions around the Grotto. The other is the three companions themselves, whose mere choice to engage in the battle can turn all upside down.

One watcher, far in distance, found the entire matter quite amusing and satisfying.

 

₰₰ Book One: Chapter twenty two ₰₰
​

Sheltered among the stone, magically protected and camouflaged against detection, the hunter patiently waited for the prey to close. Preternaturally keen senses warned of the Horrors arrival moments before they emerged en mass into the long, narrow and confining chamber; and the hunter smiled from the sheltering stone, knowing the massacre to come would be complete.

The great four-legged dinosaur-like cargo-laden automata, thirty in count, were screened fore, aft and to the side by thirty or more great eight-legged, stinger-tailed scorpion creatures ready to do battle. Their facetted eyes held unholy blue-grey flames filled with malevolent intelligence and battle hunger, almost as if they knew prey was in the region.

But they made one mistake, exactly as the hunter had anticipated: they failed to monitor where, held to the stone by her magic, Elsa waited, and struck…

Infused and enhanced by her esoteric knowledge, Elsa shouted a single word of power as she held one hand out towards the center of the Horrors swarm. Instantly, a spiraling, blazing prismatic blast hit the ground and arced outward in a tsunami of destructive force. From this epicenter, twelve smaller arcs reached out past the first and wrought more carnage as blasts overlapped one another. Horror upon Horror was crushed, mangled, flattened, burned, melted or dissolved by pure elemental mayhem that even Nelson could only imagine.

Only the largest, strongest, most robust Horrors survived this initial holocaust; they perished to a last as Elsa unleashed two more subsequent cataclysms upon them and dropped from ceiling to floor, landing with the grace of a leaping hart. One by one she advanced upon each mangled machine, verified its destruction, and sometimes delivered a second or third blow with her magically endowed axes when in doubt.

Knowing her time was limited, for the next patrol and caravan was due to pass in mere minutes, she grabbed up what precious gems, magical goods and the like that were close at hand. One set of black diamonds caught her attention and as she paused to examine them, she smiled and said: “Oh yes, these make it worth the trouble; one of them is worth a king’s ransom, and there are twenty and more just from this haul alone.”

Tap-tapping
Tap-tapping
Tap-tapping

The constant sound, which grew louder by the moment, brought Elsa back to reality and put her on guard for the Horrors advanced guard was ahead of schedule. She grinned, and, after unleashing two more magical blasts that were all but guaranteed to attract their attention, created an shadowy image of herself and had it hide among the shattered automata.

She pulled her cloak tight about herself, and vanished from sight, literally melding into the stone and emerging upon a stone ledge high upon the wall, and within sight of her ‘surprise gift.’

Sixty of the scorpion-like Horrors, hides of gold, silver, and iron, each twice as long and three times in mass as she, swept into the region and probed their fallen kin. One by one, their eyes momentarily flared red, as they gave their reports via their hive-mind to their swarms’ leader: a big brute twice the size of the others with a hide of a deep red, heat-filled, razor-edged projection-covered metal.

Elsa watched it keenly, and when the eyes of the leader flashed as it reported to Mechanus, or a Horror close to their liege lord, silently willed her magical trap to trigger. Instantly, multiple blasts of amethyst light swept over the automata; the resultant onslaught, a cacophony of psychic-babble twisted, distorted and confounded the Horrors collective hive-mind.

Unlike her and Nelsons other confusion inducing magic of the same nature, this one was far more deadly, for it rent apart the artificial intelligence in the automata; and dissipated it to the four winds. Rendered lifeless hulks, the scorpion-like beings collapsed to the floor, no longer animate.

She shifted back across space-time to the chamber floor, quickly looted the valuable gems and other goods from the fallen. Then, to ensure they would never be of use to anyone other than salvage, she used her most powerful and sustainable fire-based magic to melt them into twisted, distorted, slag heaps akin to some modern sculpture she had seen.

Her ears twitched at the first subtle sounds of approaching Horrors. She smiled and said: “Here they come, just as expected.” With a thought, she armed the next layer of magical booby traps, which would rend the region of the tunnels unsafe for all automata for weeks to come.

She was long gone, headed for the grotto, by the time the next Horrors arrived and were annihilated.

₰₰



​

As she held up the gemstone to the light, Elsa said: “Nearly finished with this batch.”

She looked over to Chipper, who slumbered the day away on a small stone outcropping. “Lazy as ever, when the need for real work, such as sorting gemstones and other loot arises, you only slumber the day away,” she said with a melodious laugh reminiscent of a chill winter dawn.

She glanced across the grotto to the fungus and humus fields of the mushroom-men. Nelson had left with their shaman long ago, and not returned during the short hours she had parted to conduct her raid on the Horrors. As the time grew without any contact from him, she grew all the more nervous.

“I hope he’s alright,” Elsa looked upon the sorted collection of enchanted gemstones, and shook her head at the sheer magic some contained: some of them the stuff of ancient magic. With one hand she picked up a wand of spun crystal, and smiled as it pulsed with white-orange flashes of light.

“We’ve captured so much wealth and magical treasures, from spell-endowed gems to wands and much, much more. I wonder, before we find the seven tigers, how much more will be found, and what we will need to secure them for ourselves?” She sighed, and wondered how long, or even if, the far reaching raids of her and Nelson had diverted, decoyed and distracted the minions of Mechanus minions; for that matter, was the grotto secure?

She secured their great riches in her haversack and pouch-belt. Each of the magical creations, wonders of the trade beyond doubt, held multiple pockets, pouches, and other secrets large and small in an almost infinite amount. No matter how many times she examined them, she could only shake her head in admiration of the resources, knowledge, ability, skill, and time such manufacturing required.

Elsa stated to no one in particular: “I often wonder if the makers of these things, if they knew how much stuff could be held within; or if mine and Nelsons are duplicate wonders; exceptions to the rule for such magical storage goods?”

Chipper rolled over, stretched out for a moment and half-sleepily said: “No Elsa, both yours and Nelsons are far from the ‘exception to the rule.’ Such items have hundreds of small pouches, and many large ones; as you know each can be accessed with but a thought. Remember I made yours long ago; and have made hundreds of others when I was a normal person and not a squirrel.” He gestured with one paw towards the particular spot she had stored some spell-endowed gems, and warned: “Just a word of warning, be careful with some of that ancient magic you found – one of those going off at the wrong time can rend the Labyrinth to pieces in an heartbeat.”

He looked at her and said, “As for Nelson, don’t worry about him; he will be fine. The mushroom-men are, in their own way very honorable; I am curious as to why the Shaman called him? Something is happening, and I cannot put my paw upon the totality; I just sense events are moving, shifting, preparing to come to a grand old conclusion with such force as we will shake this corner of the cosmos from top to bottom.”

Elsa looked at her spirit-companion and asked: “What do you know Chipper? Tell me, if something has come to you as a clear and definite warning we have the right to know. Sometimes Chipper when you fall back into your old ways of the druids, secrets within secrets, it gets maddening beyond compare.”

The squirrel shrugged his shoulders and scurried over to stand in her lap: “It’s what I suspect, something is to happen and our group of three is about to grow by one more.”

He face-palmed himself at Elsa’s sharp intake of breathe and said: “No Elsa, you’re not pregnant. Though the way you two love birds rut at all times, places and situations…”

Chipper looked at Elsa and said, “Something wonderful is about to happen Elsa, one that should help take care of Nelsons growing despair. If the songs of the mushroom-men are true, he is about to gain a very special spirit-companion of his own, but one quite different from me.”

Elsa, relived and excited, clapped her hands in delight and said: “What kind of companion?”

He smiled and said: “In time Elsa, in time, now we have more important matters…” He fell onto his back and said via their mind-to-mind link: “Humble squirrel requests belly rub…”

“Okay,” Elsa said as she shook her head and lightly laughed a melodious sound of a babbling brook mixed with the eternal chill of the first winter frost. She began to rub Chippers belly and laughed again as his one leg went into a frenzy of motion.

“Humble squirrel is having way too much fun as of late,” Elsa playfully said.

Chipper replied: “Yes, but it gets the belly rubbed and allows humble squirrel much relaxation.”

“So when do I get to have my belly rubbed?” Elsa drolly asked.

Chipper gestured with a finger at the mushroom-men’s gardens where Nelson had gone and said: “Love bird of yours, Nelson the magician, is the one to do that for you. And given the way you two constantly go at it, I am amazed you even have to ask that question. Especially the way you howl at the top of your lungs Elsa, even I cannot screech and caterwaul that loudly for that long.”

When he heard Elsa’s enraged growl, Chipper rolled over and bolted, leading her on a merry romp around the grotto while he laughed the next hour away.

₰
​

Deeper in the grotto, in a region hidden away by magic ancient and powerful, finally freed of the mounds of debris, humus and fungus, the egg rocked with greater violence. The cracks branched, branched again and yet again as the plaintive calls from within grew ever more frantic. From without, the mushroom-men who have cared for it, plus their shaman hummed a song of welcome and of birth for the creature within.

Seated next to the egg, Nelson watched in rapt wonder, fearing that this would turn out to be a dream. He put both hands upon the egg, and softly called out to the creature within; a moment later he felt the mind-to-mind link develop, build, and solidify as the magic took hold, and at long last, he knew his spirit-companion had accepted him.

With a roar surprisingly loud for a creature so small it slammed repeatedly into the confining egg. In a sudden blast of fire and light, it tore free and entered the world with a howl – a small one – of triumph. Twin eyes of liquid emerald-green looked upon Nelson and filled with tears of joy; scales of soft green and jade sparkled in the soft natural light and dainty wings struggled to unfold as the little creature awkwardly moved to his side.

Nelson lifted his new spirit-companion into his arms, and smiled, aware that his friends would freak to say the least. Few magicians could claim to have bonded with any kind of dragon; yet here he was, having achieved just that, and with one of the legendary emerald-dragons that most assumed were myth.

The shaman called to Nelson and asked: “What is its name?”

The little dragon cautiously turned its head to the shaman and sniffed it for some time as Nelson said: “Sparkle, which will be her common name.”

The shaman bowed, pleased with the name given to the little dragon.

“Sparkle, lets go meet the rest of our family,” Nelson said with an impish grin. The little dragon, as long as his arm and only minutes old, gazed upon him with intelligence nearly as great as his own. He envisioned Chipper and Elsa, and saw Sparkle smile at the feelings he had for the cat-girl; as for Chipper, she figured he would make a good snack.

₰



​

Chipper reclined on a nearby rock and watched as Elsa worked on their next meal over the cook fire. He shook his head, and wondered how it would end this time!

He said: “Elsa, do remember to actually follow the recipe, and the right one at that, given in your little cookbook. The last time you actually tried this recipe something followed the smell to our camp, something big, ugly, foul-smelling and that dined on carrion. It was a hard fight to finish the brute off, then its brother showed up and the rest of the family…”

As usual, Elsa ignored her spirit-companions non-stop, incessant griping and complaining. She checked the small recipe book open upon a flat rock, scurried to add dried meat, nuts, herbs, spices and much more to the kettle as the stew slowly thickened. One whiff of the mixture left her mouth watering, and she looked over at Chipper and said: “I hope Nelson enjoys this. What do you fell up to tonight Chipper? More nuts and berries; or a few fats, overbearing potatoes deep-fried and smoked in and out as you love?”

She reached for a small vial of seasoning, popped it open with her fingers and added to the stew while talking with Chipper, who for some curious reason began to grin. “So what will you have Chipper?”

Chipper braced his chin with both forepaws and told Elsa: “Not what you’re having; consider that you just mixed a vial of ‘witches-brew premium pandemonium’ into the mix, which should take effect right about…”

The thunderous retort shook the grotto from top to bottom, startled bird-like creatures to flight and scattered critters large and small. The mushroom-men looked upon Elsa and Chipper, shook their humanoid heads; one actually shrugged its shoulders, and resumed their labors in the garden.

Chipper rolled onto his back, fully in the grips of manic laughter that, when it lessened, renewed in full at the sight of poor Elsa: she was covered in soot and ash, small wisps of smoke and brimstone; she blinked in surprise and consternation, then examined the kettle and declared dinner to be a complete disaster. He said to her, between tear-filled bouts of hysterical laughter: “I tried to warn you Elsa.”

Elsa joined in with his laughter, left to clean up in the waterfall, and returned to whip up a magical meal of true wonder for her and Nelson. “How long do you think it will be before he gets back here Chipper?” she asked of him, her eyes staring off at the mushroom-men’s gardens for the first sign of Nelson.

Chipper created a kings feast of nuts, fruit and such with his own magic, and began to dine as he looked at his friend, and said: “Oh I would say about any moment…”

“Hello Elsa,” Nelson said to Elsa as he embraced her in a hug and kissed her neck. Elsa’s scream broke the mood instantly, and his problems compounded when little Sparkle, startled and screaming like Elsa, wormed her way into his robes, dug her sharp talons into his skin, and induced a chain of loud screams from him that drove Sparkle to more heights of panic.

Pandemonium reigned as Elsa tried to help Nelson. Unfortunately her efforts only alarmed the panicked dragon more and more; at long last, in desperation, she slid out of Nelsons robe sleeve, plopped on the floor and tried to incinerate Elsa’s boot with a short blast of flame and smoke.

Nelson picked Sparkle up, smiled, and over the next few minutes managed to calm her down. He turned to Elsa and said: “Meet Sparkle, my own spirit-companion. She hatched not long ago; that is why that shaman of the mushroom-men called me over. The journals author knew this day would arrive, and that Sparkle was to be the companion for me as Chipper is for you.”

Elsa ignored Nelson, her sole focus on the baby dragon, who cooed and chirped in response to her touch. Then she softly spoke a dragon-lullaby to it in its own language, which soon had her asleep. She stood, put her forehead to his and smiled: “So our family has grown by one. Just understand, she is going to be a handful for some time, until you and she get established as a team. But I have to wonder, what in the blazes will we face, in searching for the seven tigers, to need the aid of a true dragon?”

“I don’t know Elsa, but there is something you need to be aware of.” Nelson passed on a warning given to him by the shaman earlier in the day: “Mechanus and his armies are definitely closing on the grotto; all that our raids have done is to confirm the general area for it to hunt us; and it is looking specifically for us and the journal. The shaman said that the ancient magic inherit in this region will not permit it to find the shrine or us. Also, the Guardian is on the move to intercept and finish off, if he can, Mechanus.”

“There’s more,” Nelson said with some glumness, “If the fighting does enter the grotto we cannot count on the mushroom-men aiding us; they are determined to stay out of this fight, unless it comes down to their precious fungus gardens being disturbed. So the question we have to consider is this, if battle does come into the grotto, how can we protect them; and for that matter Sparkle, she’s far too young to risk in such a clash.”

Elsa softly cursed her ill-fortune and was determined not to be stuck in the middle of another battlefield. “At least we have some good news. I’ve sorted through most of our magical loot, and will tell you what each of us now has. Also, Chipper has managed to find the outer entrance to the second shrine while you were busy with Sparkle and the mushroom-men.”

“Where is it at Elsa?” Nelson asked his desire to be clear of this place manifest.

He gazed upon a heap of rocks she indicated and nodded. “Right between two circles of the phoenix-statues on pillars; that means the archway within, if it still functions, can take us to any of a hundred or more locations in the Labyrinth. And this assumes we can puzzle the secrets of how to bypass the illusions and traps defending it, and then actually make it work as planned for us.”

Elsa closed her eyes, covered her face with one hands and lowered her head as she shook it in denial. “Based on all you have said, we have no choice now but to secure the grotto and fight to keep it clear of Mechanus and its minions. More hit-and-run raids; ones specifically targeting key groups and there is no guarantee of it working, let alone not bringing Mechanus himself down on the grotto. If we do battle, the grotto may be destroyed; the mushroom-men massacred and we lose the shrine. If not, we cannot guarantee the safety anyhow.”

“How about this then,” Nelson outlined a brief plan, one which surprised Elsa with its audacity, simplicity and well within their capabilities. “What do you think?”

Elsa nodded and said: “Fine, we keep conducting limited raids, and focus on the defense of the grotto. Now, I need to go and set the second and third chain of traps and alarm magic to give us warning; I want you two to examine the journal and see if you can tease anything out of its encoded secrets. Mind you it has nearly four-hundred pages for the grotto alone, plus half that for the shrine and the halls which surround us, to the best I can make out. Most is in such ancient, obscure and complex coded languages I cannot make out one word or phrase in a thousand.”

Chipper grinned and said, “I have spoken with the shrines guardians: earth-spirits of immense power. I have no real idea what they mean, yet they stated if the grotto is breached, they will aid in the defense when the moment is right.”

Elsa nodded and kissed Nelson: “Get the passage into the Grotto ready for the final defense; just be careful and don’t bring the entire region down upon us again.”

“I shall do Elsa, how long do you think we have until the battle begins?” Nelson asked. He called his staff into his hand and felt the magic endowed within its depths awaken to his touch, and in his mind, a gentle voice presented multiple magical options that could assist his endeavor with the spell-traps. He had suspected the ram-headed staff was sentient, but this final confirmation still unsettled him.

“Who knows Nelson, who knows?” Elsa said as she kissed him goodbye, and headed to get her gear. At long last, Nelson watched Elsa race across the grotto and disappear from sight, suspecting she had other plans in mind. Indeed, Elsa had other matters in mind, for she established a chain of alarm-spells which would alert Chipper, Nelson or her of any large swarms of Horrors.

In ever wider patterns she placed three more lines of alarm spells and booby-traps, until she came upon the footprints of a known foe: the distinctive cloven hoof of a devil, and one of immense power.

Coming to full alert, her eyes gleamed with battle hunger born of a deeper need than any natural lust or sheer desire. She pulled one enchanted axe free of her belt and silently willed the endowed magic to life. The beast within, the unending tormenter she constantly fought against howled in protest, fearful for its own eternal and unnatural existence as it discerned her intent…

Though she should return to the grotto, to rest and aid the others; fatigued by the amount of magic she had employed over the last few hours; and driven to distraction by the thoughts of Nelson and Chipper being in danger, she made her choice and decided to end two problems with one battle…

Eliminate one danger, a true devil of immense power; and eliminate, for a time, the growing, unending hunger.

As she sped off, she had no idea how badly she was going to turn the Labyrinth upon its head yet again.

₰₰


​

The mysterious man from the Academy of the Arts watched as his crystal ball turned dark.

He chuckled and said to himself: “And here I thought I had made a mess in that region against Mechanus and its minions. They have taken down a score and ten or more of the minor warlords in that area of the Labyrinth; Creation and Scorpios are gone for good, which is good. They brought the entire upper levels down upon them? Not the most efficient of means, yet very effective. I wonder if they will make it to the third shrine.”

In response to his silent wish the crystal ball floated across the room and came to rest upon a cushion atop a small pillar. “Malevolence has been gravely injured, and should be good sport for the Guardian. Sojourner is momentarily held at bay; Mechanus…” he rubbed his chin with a hand, weighing probabilities, “Mechanus, I hope the companions do not run into that one; as good as they are, the automata, that blasted thing, are that much better. I know that ‘Sparky’ will be a hard fight for them, unless they can figure out the clues far enough in advance. I wonder how much Primus will howl when that one is destroyed for good.”

He thought about the coming confrontation between the Guardian and Mechanus, once that infernal Duke of Hades had been taken care of. “I wish the best for the Guardian and the forces I have entrusted to his command. It should be short work, with three Primordial’s, to end the army of Mechanus. Of course, this assumes that, in the truly unpredictable means of adventurers, that Elsa and friends do not blunder into them and literally ‘bring the house down’ for a second, or third time.”

He shook his head and remembered another time and place, one in which a promising student had to be dealt with and banished from the Academy: “How much better it would have been for all if I could have destroyed he who would become Mechanus, and then so many lives would have been spared so much misery. But no, father stayed my hand due to some ‘larger purpose to be played’ by that contraption…”

“No matter,” he said and gathered up his books and other material. “Time for other things, such as pounding the latest lessons into students with heads filled with mush. I hope to find one or two with the potential and aptitude to become real magicians worth the time to invest in them.” With that he departed to begin another day of lectures and other duties too numerous to name.

 

Another good chapter

The buildup is killing me.

 

I am liking this story very much so far.

 

Omg. I can't wait to find out what happens.

 

If he posts a couple of chapters a week and the first book is his normal length then we should find out what happens somewhere around Christmas …


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2020.

just kidding. I would expect the first book to be completed posting by Halloween. Then we gotta find out what is happening in Book II (and that is not counting what is happening in Book III). This guy is worse than JRR. At least JRR had the decency to stop after one epic. (love ya, Snow:rose

 

Glad you are enjoying the story to date.

Thank you, that means a lot to me.

Hopefully you will not be disappointed.

Actually Darthel this news might surprise you a bit: Book I is nearing the half-way mark.

I will continue to post one or two chapters a week even during the CAW Reading Phase. Though given the frantic reading/posting on the entries fans of the series may have to hunt for the Chronicles. Halloween may be a fairly good estimate of the first book concluding.

As you know Darthel, I prefer having at least one entire story written from end to end before I begin to post sections of it.

For new readers unfamiliar with why I do this, it is due to ensuring the continuity of the story through and through. If a change needs to be made, or corrections done en mass or small, then it is easier to do so instead of half-way through a partly posted work.

I'm glad people are liking the story to date.

Though I have to admit, I never anticipated so many PM's asking "Why did you have to make Nelson a wimp?"

Be nice to know why they think he is instead of sending a 'question-only' PM.

Edit added: Darthel, you forgot to mention about Book IV and Book V

 

I don't think it is that he is a wimp. I think that he has some insecurities, originally born from his lack of experience and knowledge of his true heritage, that people would like to see him move past. For the most part, I think he has, but it pokes its head up here and there. Given all the companions, and Nelson individually, have accomplished, and the continuous support Elsa has given him, he should be pretty confident. The problem I can see from the writing perspective is keeping him from becoming cocky. A near miss or a minor maiming might serve to do this. Or, possibly, have Elsa get hurt badly because of some overly confident move of his. Something she can heal, but enough to scare him. He got hurt on the stair, but that was a mistake for than an over reach.

Your male character in the "my best studies ever" series had an exaggerated version of this. He was obnoxiously insecure, except when he wasn't. He never really moved past it.

 

Come to think of it, a good scar or a missing piece of earlobe makes a great humility reminder.

 

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Twenty three ₰₰


​

The chamber measured nearly two hundred paces long, ten wide and arched high above to a vaulted ceiling. Here, the natural ambient half-light from the stone, glowed a rich amber-brown; the shadows folded and shifted in an ever changing curtain of concealment; a tapestry of what may be, if given a chance to come to life.

It is into this chamber, one with multiple connections to over two score passages that the bronze six-legged spider-like Horrors arrived. Thirty and more swarming masses of the creatures passed through the chamber, their legs generated an incessant, non-stop, maddening tap-tapping which heralded doom to all enemies who heard and understood. One by one, the swarms carried on down the connecting passages and vanished from sight almost instantly.

Minutes later, another thirty such swarms appeared, divided up and departed down the passages. Over the next two hours this great amalgamation of mechanical life continued to advance. Within the ranks of this veritable army of destruction were scorpion-like, hound-like, snake-like, bear-like and dinosaur-like creations of diverse abilities, size and deadliness. All advanced with ruthless determination, committed to fulfilling their liege lords plans to the minutest of details.

In the midst of this mechanical madness a lone figure calmly watched with detached interest on a high ledge.

Elsa, hidden by her cloaks magic, kept her back to stone, one axe in hand, and fully aware she had stumbled into the vanguard of Mechanus’s advancing army. She saw in the massed mechanical force enough strength to easily finish off all within the grotto; no matter how formidable she and Nelson could make the defenses, even with the shrine-guardians and their ‘big brother,’ assuming they could bypass the grottos warding magic which she did not believe was possible.

She wanted the mass of automata to pass, or at least break their formations for the few moments she needed to ensure her escape. Another hour passed as yet more Horrors marched past, until, at long last, a large gap appeared in their ranks which Elsa exploited to the fullest. She leaped to the floor and sped down a narrow, little-used passage that the other automata had not seen or discovered.

Once within, she pulled out a wand and used its magic to create three stone barriers that efficiently sealed the passage. Afterward, the wand secured away, she checked the floor and detected the brimstone scent of her quarry.

At last, having caught the scent of this creature once in the distant past, knew her prey by its true name: Malevolence.

Her eyes flared black, twin pools of eternity that allowed no light to escape; her fist clenched tight, tendons and muscles popped and bled white from the effort as she growled. “Finally, now I can pay back an old debt of honor. I am going to so enjoy taking him down for eternity like all the others.”

The "beast-within' cringed at her rage, then laughed and said in a hollow, haughty voice: “You will perish at the Duke of Hells hands. There is no way you alone could defeat it even when at your full power before that soul-drinker so weakened you…”

It ceased the gloat as Elsa said: “So you don’t want to feed on a devil? A Duke of Hell none the less; and you claim to be such a powerful entity from the Far Realms of nightmares given form and life? Fine then, I’ll enjoy its downfall myself; and then you shall be denied all the more by me.”

The 'beast-within' within gave off a malevolent, feral growl of ultimate perversion and decay. It countered: “Come now Elsa, you claim to hold the morale high ground. Not even in the name of ‘goodness, gentleness, life and love.’ All of which are the grandest of lies any mortal being can conceive of.”

“Oh no beastie, you’re not fooling me this time,” Elsa said. “You fear the Duke more than you fear me; for with me you have a small chance of having a moment of mayhem filled fun. With the Duke, it would dominate you to no end, controlling a being that despises being controlled and enslaved; that is your worst nightmare; I am your second worse...”

“Not so Elsa, not so,” the 'beast-within' calmly proclaimed, “I will so enjoy controlling your body. And after you take the Duke down my power shall grow so strong that even you cannot stop me…with what I shall do to little Chipper and then Nelson...AUGH!”

Subjected to Elsa’s iron-hard grip of mental energy, the 'beast-within' was reminded of just how formidable she was, and that she knew all of its vulnerabilities. Elsa grinned at the beast’s silent scream of despair and anger as she silently headed off, determined to find and destroy her quarry for all time. “Who knows, maybe this time I’ll manage to exorcise the beast out of me once and for all…”

She halted, paused and as her tail twitched, said with a laugh: “Yeah, right. I’ll be stuck with that blasted thing until I find the last tiger and even then I cannot be sure…”

Once again, to keep her mind off the matter, she returned to the hunt.

₰₰


​

Nelson lowered his rams-headed staff and gave off a haggard, satisfied smile as the latest magic melded into the stone passage. “There, one more done with about a half-dozen major ones to go. Five traps woven into one, and set so that any Horrors which follow the first victims will suffer the same; mind you, this will be before the iron ball is released to roll down the passage.” He gave off a gleeful cry of “Splat!” and laughed as Sparkle, perched on his shoulder, did the same.

Chipper nodded in approval, still amazed at how well Nelson could conduct his trade. He looked at Nelson and said: “I have emplaced a few summoning spells: earth-spirits and fire-spirits will arrive to battle the Horrors that survive my other surprises. You have seen the crushing power of a large iron-ball. Can you imagine the crushing they will endure; the very devastation and terror; when the very pressure of the air is multiplied a thousand fold, upon their mechanical bodies?”

Chipper threw his forepaw wide and said “Crunch!”

“Good, the main worry of mine is that we maintain the crystalline-webs intact,” Nelson said as he pointed to the glowing structure within the passage. “If we start undermining them, the total collapse of this region will be a larger disaster than before. The area is a honeycomb of passages, galleries and chambers, all just waiting for a big enough boom-boom to bring it down upon us.” He cringed at the memory of that last, total collapse in the upper levels.

“Let’s hope these traps and such will not be needed,” Chipper said. “You wove a series of illusions such as that in our encampment, and added to them a misdirection magic: any Horrors which try to find us, and do not know the region perfectly will never find us; or so I hope.”

Nelson paused, closed his eyes and focused his will on a silent communiqué that reached out to him: “Okay, Elsa has established a third line of traps and alarms further to the north and on levels above and below our position. She’s taking a wide path to circle back to the grotto; hopefully she will make it back safely. If not, then we have to decide: stay with the grotto, or go and find her.”

“I know Nelson, I know.” Chipper perched on Nelsons head while he softly stroked Sparkle to keep her at ease.

Over the next three hours they repeated their labors time and again, five more combinations of magical decoys, distractions, misdirection, and traps of all-too-lethal severity for foes of metal instead of flesh and bone. Worn down by the efforts, Nelson struggled back to the grotto entrance and wondered what was keeping Elsa? He turned to Chipper who had ascended to a small stone ledge, and began: “Have you gotten any word from…”

He heard the hiss and metal-on-metal simultaneously with Sparkles panicked scream of rage and alarm. He whirled about, and sidestepped as the Horror, a great snake-like beast, whirled past and turned to continue its relentless assault. Twelve times in four heartbeats he parried blinding strikes of the beast’s eleven-inch fangs which dripped with acidic venom. Three times the strikes hit home, only to be denied by the stone-hard skin magic he now maintained at all times.

Eyes ablaze with eldritch fire, Chipper leaped at the beast, landed upon its neck, and erupted into a whirlwind of motion. Sparks and metal chips flew as he punctured the iron-plated hide and continued to dismember it part by part from within; as it began to thrash about, Nelson struck it with an small orb alight in ever changing colors. The automata shuddered as the orb struck and burned with hellish temperatures and subjugated it to unearthly cold.

As it writhed about, desperate to rid itself of the squirrel’s insane work, Nelson blasted the snake-like Horror with two small orbs of hellishly-green acid which etched arm-length holes into its hide. At last, the Horrors eyes blinked once, twice and a third time, then failed as its existence ended. It crashed to the ground, and, from Nelsons sleeve, Sparkle warbled in victory.

Nelson, breathing hard, wiped sweat from his head as he said: “Well, that’s that…” then whirled at a faint metal sound scraping on stone. Four great metallic hundred-legged centipedes, reared up, mandibles coated in poison, advanced; then hesitated when Nelson growled, his eyes alight with golden fire, and he held his ram-headed staff horizontally over his head.

In a voice that shook the very stones to their foundations he declared: “Return to the raw ore you have been made from!” His staff flared in prismatic flames, and he pointed a hand at the beasts, and then unleashed the magic of his staff followed up by a orb of glistening, translucent power.

As he emerged from the fallen snake-like automata, Chipper howled in surprise for he witnessed the Horrors reduced to piles of rust, and then each pile vanished under the rending force of Nelsons orb. He shook his head and said: “Impossible, but he did it! Blast and be bothered, but the boy knows some magic involving time!”

Chipper scurried over to Nelson and said: “How did you do that? Few magicians or priests can wield time-based magic half as well as you just did?” He paused, having noticed how hard Nelson leaned on his staff and heard the concerned cries of Sparkle who perched herself on Nelsons shoulder. Chipper asked: “Nelson, let me check you out.”

Chipper leaped into Nelsons extended hand and checked the exhausted young man over, and found no injuries. “You’ll be fine Nelson, now let’s get into the grotto and back to our encampment. Somehow that journal has a few secrets to yield for us before the big battle begins; or at least I hope we can. Right now, I wonder what we will find at the third shrine, let alone beyond that, if we find anymore of the double-doors which have shown the way.”

Nelson tiredly smiled and grinned as Sparkle climbed onto his shoulder. He said to the squirrel as they entered the protective shelter of the grotto: “I have to ask Chipper, we know the Labyrinth tests all of us to the fullest, so does it not stand to reason we are undergoing another such series of tests in this region? We face the greatest test of character and friendship: war.”

Chipper nodded and said: “Yes, that makes sense. But for now, you need sleep, and I will look over the journal after I make one little detour; that snake critter bypassed our entire chain of defenses, so how did it get here? The shrines guardians may have some answers.”

Nelson yawned and said: “Good, you go and speak with them. Right now, sleep sounds like the best thing that could happen for me.” He looked at Chipper and solemnly stated, “Call me if you need help, I have a feeling we are in more trouble than anything; those Horrors came closer to the shrine than I like to think about.”

“I shall do so Nelson, if needed you will be the first one called unless Elsa has returned by then.” Chipper then stood at attention like a soldier on parade, formally saluted, and scampered off like a bolt of lightning descended from on high. He hoped that the shrine guardians would have some knowledge of how the Horrors had worked around the companion’s traps and alarms.

When he found out, he was not happy.

₰₰


​

Unable to sleep for long, disturbed by dreams of the dead city that made up the grotto, he paid attention to the main need of the hour: dinner for him and Sparkle. He stirred the thick stew, added more seasoning and herbs, and smiled. “Got to give Elsa credit, her magical cook fires last next to forever. Mine last less than an hour at most; yet this one has gone on for days,” he said to no one in particular.

Little Sparkle, awakened and attracted by the smell, flew over to Nelson and alighted herself on his forearm. She leaned forward to the ladle, inhaled and lapped up a swallow out of curiosity. Then, without warning she warbled once, shuddered from nose to tail, and went stiff as a board. Nelson gasped as she rolled forward and plopped to the ground, apparently dead to the world.

“Sparkle!” he shouted with such force that rodents and other creatures bolted for cover.

He picked her up with trembling hands, unable to comprehend what could have seized her so fiercely. Then he noted something highly odd, completely out of place with what dragon lore he knew; for Sparkle remained iron-tense, each muscle fully strained in place, her eyes tightly focused to mere slits and that her breathing had slowed to a bare minimum.

“Fine then,” he said and tickled Sparkles stomach. He felt her muscles twitch as she struggled to remain still and not erupt into a wild fit of dragon-laughter. Nelson grinned, held her by her tail and across one forearm, and then sighted down her length as if she were a crossbow.

“Okay, let’s see. One dragon-arrow propelled across the grotto for the joke she is playing on me…” he said as Sparkle suddenly went slack and wrapped herself about his forearm. He smiled at her alarmed look and then said to her: “It’s alright Sparkle. Somehow I have the feeling Chipper put you up to this or that you are now developing as strange sense of humor as me and Elsa.”

Sparkle’s eyes lit up with joy at Elsa’s name, and she softly, hesitantly said: “Elsa…ma-ma Elsa…”

Nelson stood there, astounded and delighted, for they were the very first non-dragon language words she had actually spoken. He smiled and said, “Yes Sparkle, ma-ma Elsa.” He gestured at himself and said: “Pa-pa, I am pa-pa.” It took nearly an hour for her to say it well, and then, to Nelson’s consternation, Sparkle insisted to no end that Chipper was named “dinner!”

₰


​

They flew, crawled, slithered or ran throughout the region near the grotto. Minions of the Guardian, they sought the main force of Mechanus for their liege; in the process, they also sought to deny the same from happening to their own forces by the scouting Horrors.

So it was that the first moves in the great battle began with a hundred small skirmishes fought one upon another. No mercy and no quarter was asked for nor shown; each was a battle to the last, flesh and blood against that of the machine.

In the end, neither side gained an edge over the other, and the two forces continued on their way, soon to run head on into one another. Yet, as always, the fickle hand of lady luck introduced her wild cards, any one of which could change the entire struggle: Malevolence, Gloom and the companions.

Needless to say, the Labyrinth would never be the same again.

₰₰


​

Malevolence looked around the passage with unholy eyes. His supernatural senses detected the soft dripping of water on the floor, the slight heartbeat of a spider a hundred paces away, and the faintest sounds of mechanical beasts even further away. No threat was present, and yet, he could not shake the feeling of being watched, and of having been followed for some distance; yet never could he spot the cause of this growing alarm.

Great axe held ready before him; his cloak of living darkness that shifted and concealed his armored body; he kept solid stone to his back and cautiously worked his way down the passage. From passage to passage, across caverns and chambers, over bridges and along paths that edged the great abysses which plunged into eternity he moved always two steps ahead of the searching Guardian, and one step ahead of Mechanus.

And yet, of his unseen pursuer he never found another sign beyond the occasional melodious giggle which was filled with the birth of a flower, and the chill of final annihilation. Here and there, at the edge of his vision he caught a flicker of movement: the hem of a cloak, the movement of a boot, the flicker of a feline ear or tail. All of which led him to conclude his tormenter was some minion of the Guardian, dispatched to tail him and report back to its master.

Time and again, he advanced by short leaps and bounds, from cover to cover, determined to find his unknown and apparently untraceable foe.

Time and again, he double-backed on his trail and sought with supernatural senses and what magic he had left any clue, any indication of how to trap and dispose of this tormentor. Always he was one step behind; always he found a clue or trace only when his foe desired it.

Always was this hunt, this great dance of devil against…something…being led and called by another.

For a Duke of Hell, it infuriated him that he, the greatest hunter here within the Labyrinth, even if bound to duty by the Sojourner, was reduced to being the hunted by some beast. Or at the least he assumed it to be a beast; based on the non-stop cat-and-mouse game being conducted.

For the next two hours the game continued, until he sensed his foe was nearby. Pretending to move forward, he leaped high into the air and struck at his foe with his great axe, severing three stalactites clean in half. And yet, as he landed back upon the ground, he knew his foe had tricked him. For in that moment he was slammed with a massive blow of raw, unadulterated psychic-energy used by mind mages.

As he roared in pain, his foe unleashed a barrage of lightning and blessed magic which burned and tore at the evil which defined his existence. Then, for some reason, his foe ceased the deadly barrage and sounded out a hauntingly beautiful and deadly giggle, one of eternal hope and joy mixed with damnation and pure madness from beyond the known universe. The voice which followed echoed off the walls and passages: “Oh my dear Malevolence, you are giving me so much fun. Soon enough you will perish and I shall so enjoy every moment of your final scream as obliteration comes upon you.”

By the time the voice finished speaking; Malevolence no longer cared to listen.

He bolted down the passage for his life and existence, as he at long last had a glimmer of what he faced…and he felt the first pangs of true fear. When the melodious laughter, conveyed by magical means, erupted from the thin air around him Malevolence ran faster than ever before, and rightfully feared its very existence was near to an end.

 

I Do wish that these cliffhangers would be eradicated.:wall:

 

Be patient Darthel, there will be an eradication...so to speak.

 

Malevolence: end game; other secrets revealed

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Twenty Four ₰₰
​

Within the great cavern, near the edge of the great abyss, Mechanus stood and beheld his advancing army; the steady, relentless tap-tapping of mechanical feet and claws a symphony to his ears. “Forward and to battle my minions; we enter the final battle against the Guardian and its minions of the flesh. Defeat them, assimilate all into the hive-mind we share, and prove that metal is superior to the flesh and bone of mortal beings. Centuries ago we defeated the great city which inhabited this region of they Labyrinth; we proved superior to them, and we shall do so again.”

Through the hive-mind Mechanus monitored the advancement of his army, determined to ensure it strikes the Guardian from multiple directions and allow for no retreat. One problem slowly grew to become a concern, he noted that in one specific area, multitudes of his scouts, and some small war bands had vanished entirely; they were abruptly cut off from the hive-mind, and then silence reigned from then on. It knew of the companions who raided his holdings, and yet defied his best effort to corner or capture; now, recalling the old grotto not far in distance, he made the connection.

With but a thought, a large war band departed to enter the grotto and ensure it was scoured clean of all life. So it was that the remaining mechanical carpet of death moved onto its goal.

As he refocused upon the pending battle with the Guardian, Mechanus grew troubled, for it sensed that another great force was on the move, a force greater than Gloom, a force which, in part protected the grotto, and in part allied with the Guardian.

Hours later, as the first skirmishes were beginning between its forces and the Guardians scouts; it knew something on the flanks had gone terribly wrong…for he heard the first deep rumbles of stone grinding on stone.

₰₰
​

Throughout the endless maze of rat-tunnels about the Grotto they came: great numbers of the rat-like, mottled-hided, lightning-swift Horrors. Their numbers continued to be reduced, steadily ground down by numerous magical booby-traps set by Elsa or Nelson; others were confounded, confused, decoyed or distracted to other regions away from the grotto by magical means. Nevertheless, a handful, by sheer fortune, bypassed these formidable barriers and advanced toward the grotto.

Three of them, working as one mind, had stumbled upon a peculiar scent; one not encountered before and commenced to trail the mysterious intruder. After many minutes, they came around a bend and stumbled head-long into Chipper, who growled, hissed and cursed at them as he held his forepaws wide to cast a magical spell.

The Horrors were all the faster, having leaped forward and struck with claw and teeth to rend and tear; and to discover the ‘squirrel’ was nothing but an illusionary image. The whirled about, unholy green flames alive in their eyes; they saw the real Chipper appear behind them as he unleashed a devastating blast of thunder.

Standing upon the mangled corpses, Chipper whooped, danced and gyrated in his victory. “Yes! Squirrel wins again! Squirrel wins again!”

He let out an insane cacaphony of whoops, cheers, howls of pandemonium bliss, and more.

₰

​

As he ran flat out, his great cloak flying like a castle banister in the wind, Malevolence roared in outrage and frustration. At the last moment, based on a hunch, he flung himself to the right, hooked the head of his great axe on a stalactite and let his momentum fling him into an adjoining passage. Moments before a blast of white-hot lightning infused with holy fire reduced the column of stone, to dust, soot and smoke.

He picked up his great axe, determined to at long last force his tormenter to come and do battle one-on-one. He shouted in a hoarse voice: “Come on you coward, come and face me once and for all! You seek to play cat-and-mouse with a Duke of Hell; here is your chance, face me one-on-one and you may have a chance, wounded as I am after encountering Gloom.”

His tormenters melodious voice called back, “Oh Malevolence, did you honestly think I have moved this far and done so much to guide you to this particular location? For such a vaunted entity who is entitled a “Duke of Hell” you can be incredibly stupid; I’ve been sending out a call to one being, one who has a vested interest in meeting with you as soon as possible…”

Alarmed, his neck-hairs bristling, Malevolence moved into the open and whirled his great axe in a complex set of attack patterns, searching for some unseen foe. All of the time the melodious voice grew ever wilder with the laughter of a vampire who has cornered its prey; and the Duke of Hell understood why a moment later when a wraith-like being passed through the wall, clapped its hands and said: “DINNER!”

From a nearby chamber, as displayed with in a shimmering orb of magical light, Elsa watched the final battle between Malevolence and Gloom. No quarter or mercy was shown, and, after being further wounded by the wraith-like being, Malevolence destroyed his foe for good by unleashing an unholy word of such power and corruption that it nearly slew the Duke as well.

Elsa magically called to the Duke: “I advice you start moving, for another awaits your companionship. Or I can come and just take your head right here and now, however unsporting…” she paused, and gave off a disgusted oath, for the Duke of Hell had already bolted.

She giggled, and said: “At least he’s off in the right direction. Now I just need to nudge him here and there until he is delivered to the Guardian. Or if he will not comply, then Malevolence is mine." She snorted in smug disgust: "At the least I’m rid of one portion of Gloom for a few years.”

Elsa dismissed her magical spell, began to speed off and then stopped and considered the matter of Gloom. She said to herself: “One aspect of ten or more destroyed? I never thought of the chance that, with this ones death, the rest of its group-mind might be capable of sending another part of itself into the Labyrinth.”

She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself as tight as possible. She had no desire to confront another aspect of Gloom, for the last time, just before her ever-so-costly battle with the life-drinker, was close. Too close by far, to her having been annihilated for all time and subsumed into its very being.

The beast within chuckled at Elsa’s nervousness, then howled when she promptly reminded the thing that if she perished in the hands of one like Gloom, so would the beast.

A few hours later she had her own reasons to howl, especially when the first keening sounds of stone on stone all but ruptured her preternaturally keen hearing.

₰

​

Chippers joyous celebration continued for some time until he first felt, and then heard, the steady tap-tapping of metal on stone. With a shake of his head, he proclaimed with great exasperation: “Why will these things never stop coming into the tunnels!”

He considered his options, and made his choice. In a magically enhanced voice he called out: “Over here, you overgrown excuses for mechanical life. Come and get me if you can, which I doubt will happen…” He nodded as the Horrors, a combination of rat-like and badger-like beings, emerged into sight and quickly took up the chance with fearless determination.

For Chipper, the chase was a merry old romp among the constantly shifting maze of tunnels. Here and there he turned and struck hard at the lead Horrors, with metal-melting fire or caustic, all-consuming acid; sometimes he struck with devastating retorts of thunder that shook the stone itself; other times he struck by collapsing tunnels, or altering the stone to mud, entrapping a score or more of Horrors, and restored the mud to hardened stone.

All the while he had to ensure his magic did not undermine the crystalline-webs which interlaced the region; nor allow his lead to open too far on his foes. For Chipper had already decided how he was going to finish them off once and for all, and gain the Grotto just a bit more protection.

Or so he hoped, for events can turn the best laid plans of mice and squirrels upon their head...especially one as insane as Chipper...

“Catch me if you can!” he excitedly called out as he reached the edge of a high ledge and leaped forward, then alighted himself on a stalactite some twenty feet away and five feet above. Quick as thought, he cast a spell by sheer force of will and desire, and his body changed coloration to match the surrounding stone just as the lead Horrors burst into the main passageway.

Originally he figured that twenty of the rat-like and half as many of the badger-like Horrors had been involved in the chase. Now, to his growing horror, the bared truth became evident as the creatures came out by the score. He had not stumbled into scouting teams of Mechanus, he had blundered into a large war party apparently on the move to the grotto.

He opened a telepathic link to Nelson and called out to the sleeping human: “Nelson, get up and get ready for battle. There is an immense force of Horrors almost at the Grotto. Get to the shrine and tell the earth-spirits that trouble is on the way. I’m about to do something Elsa will not like, as it’s completely desperate and most definitely stupid beyond measure…in short perfectly fitting for the moment...”

“Blast it,” he silently hissed to himself as the mass of mechanical life continued to grow and form into hunting packs interspaced with swarms of spider-like and scorpion-like Horrors. Even more alarming to him, was the sudden appearance of over a score of large, black-armored snake-like automata that stretched over thirty feet in length.

Shaken to the core of his being, Chipper sensed that the snake-like creatures were incredibly powerful mages. Individually, each one rivaled Elsa or even Chipper; together, they could easily find the means to annihilate a squirrel who had unknown limitations to his bodies regenerative powers.

Hissing, Chipper decided it was now or never to enact his plan.

“Nelson,” Chipper telepathically sent to his friend, “Get you and Sparkle under strong cover; I cannot be sure the grotto will survive if I gauge this attack wrong by even a small amount. If I do inadvertently crush you to death, then my apologies in advance; Elsa will be safe from its effects, or so I hope.”

Chippers eyes blazed with eldritch power, and he cast one of his greatest, most powerful, and most terrifying of magical spells. He modified it with his esoteric lore, which would, he hoped, buy him enough time to escape the area before the roof literally comes down.

He held one paw towards the wall, and called out elder words of power which shook the region to its bedrocks, and disturbed an ancient being, one of the earths primordial’s located in the region. It answered Chippers call for assist, and added its considerable magical abilities into the squirrels spell.

The surrounding latticework of crystalline-webs flared red, yellow, orange and blue-green with magical power; it flowed, rebounded, amplified and set them to singing. Then, as the primordial added its magic to the mixture, the witches brew caused the webs to shatter, and dissipate the magical forces, amplified a thousand-fold, into the surrounding stone.

As the region began to shake, Chipper cast a spell which would triple his normal running speed, and then one centered upon the snake-like Horrors. Instantly, Horror after Horror toppled to the ground, circled about, or acted in a hundred other confused ways; even the great snake-like automata momentarily fell under the great cacophony of chaotic intent.

Moments later, the snake-like beasts recovered. The hissed, lunged and missed the blur of motion which told of Chippers rapid egress from the region, and the snake-like automata quickly debated the merits of pursuit, or to find a means of dispelling the psychic-babble which held the others in an iron-grip. Minutes passed, and then, as they reached a consensus of what to do; the first warning sounds of stone moving against stone were heard, and then felt.

Moment by moment it grew louder, and the ground began to shift, dance, shake and writhe as if alive or caught in the unyielding grip of a flood. Great cracks spider webbed floor, ceiling and walls; soon to be followed by fist-sized chunks of stone falling among them. They recognized what was to come, and that they were unable to prevent it. As one, they telepathically sent their final report to Mechanus, and stood still, knowing eternity was but moments away.

So it was that in one move, the entire expedition that Mechanus had sent after the grotto perished.

Of course, for Chipper, he had other matters on his mind. Running flat out, dodging falling stones and slabs of rock in the rat-tunnels and main passages, he miscalculated the path, and cursed as he blundered into a dead end. He turned around, and screamed in final terror as the collapse continued its relentless advance.

One final, desperate, completely insane idea occurred to him in this moment of desperation.

In a frenzy of motion, he dug into the stone and gnawed an escape path at unbelievable speed, and just stayed ahead of the collapse until he emerged into an long-unused burial tomb. Exhausted, Chipper wiped the sweat from his brow, gazed upon the wonders about him, and sent to Elsa the image of all before him. He said: “Oh pretty!”

Then, as the darkness began to overtake him, he remembered, telepathic messages could not breach the defenses of the grotto; he hoped Nelson was still alive.

₰₰


​

For the first time in untold ages life filled the great cavern. The manta-like creatures of darkness, Cloakers, Elder and normal, flew among the stalactites or clung to them and warbled or moaned in their eerie language. Scores of bat-like and bird-like beings settled in among them, while on the ground great numbers of creatures who owed allegiance to the Guardian jockeyed for position.

For this day, a grand confrontation occurred, one in which they were the spectators, upon the direct orders of their liege: for the Guardian battled his mortal foe Malevolence, the Duke of Hell.

Clang!
Clang!
Clang!

So the battle went between the two, their great axes employed in a flurry of motion and perfected symmetry that belied their deadly intent. Neither gained ground upon the other, two mirror-images of wolf-headed devil and ram-horned tiger-eyed Guardian; no mercy or quarter was expected, or would be granted, for both had declared before the initial charge into battle: “One shall stand and one shall fall!”

Suddenly, feinting to one side, the Guardian executed a complex series of short slashes and cuts, driving his foe back and its great axe toward the ground. With a victory howl, the Guardian delivered an overhead chop, all of his immortal strength placed behind it…

Only to see the great head of his axe bites six-inches into solid stone as he watched Malevolence leap high into the air and avoid harm.

The Guardian howled and flung himself forward, ripped his axe free of the stone, and barely avoided the death blow his diabolic foe meant to deliver. So it is the dance of death renewed as the two closed, circled and then leaped into battle with equal relish. Time and again great blows and sweeping cuts were executed to perfection, only to be parried and riposted with equal skill; and the furious exchanged redoubled

₰


​

From a nearby passage, one watched the unfolding battle with keen interest, anticipated the likely tactics for the Duke of Hell, and giggled. The few minions of the Guardian who heard that giggle shuddered, for the feeling of the grave had swept upon them, and their worse nightmares awoke from creatures born of nightmares.

Some left to search for the source of that giggle, yet found nothing.

For moments before, the lone figure, Elsa, had vanished from sight as the magic of her cloak blended in with the shadows, and allowed her to move undetected to where the end game would actually occur.

₰

​

Malevolence ducked the sweeping cut of the Guardians great axe and lunged forward as he put his full weight into an overhead blow. Sparks and flame danced as the magic endowed in each axe struggled for dominance as the Guardian parried the blow with contemptible ease; with a rush, the Guardian closed upon his foe, grabbed the collar of his cloak and bodily hurled him into a stone column that shattered; though Malevolence was on his feet in a heartbeat.

The Duke of Hell, one of the diabolic realms greatest warriors and generals redoubled his efforts; axe crossed with axe, and all for naught, for the Guardian parried each blow flawlessly.

The Guardian roared with glee, delighted to have a real challenge upon its hands after centuries of captivity. His eyes flared with golden fires and he said: “I’ll have your head this night Malevolence, and I shall mount it on the mantle of my fireplace, where for eternity I can stare into those dead eyes of yours and smile. Think of the shame that shall carry on your record; especially after you are demoted from an Duke of Hell to the lowest, most insignificant form of devil-kind that can possibly exist. How do you like that picture?”

Enraged beyond measure Malevolence abandoned all caution and restraint. The Guardians insult had hammered home, and the Duke of Hell expected his merciless superiors to do much worse to him, at the minimum.

“I will take your head for that Guardian!’ Malevolence declared as he placed everything into a massive, single strike at his foe. As the Guardian ducked under the sweeping axe-head, the Duke of Hell released his grip on the handle and instead slammed into the Guardian, knocking the great creature to the ground. He leaped on him and delivered a chain of hammering blows with his gauntlet-covered fists which shattered the Guardians helmet and face-mask.

Sixteen-inch red-hot iron-hard nails extended from Malevolence’s fingers as he said: “Goodbye Guardian, you shall not be missed nor will you have use for your head…” His words ceased when the Guardian punched him in the jaw, shattering bone and splattering icky gray-green blood over the two of them. Staggered, the Duke of Hell could not resist as the Guardian delivered a relentless chain of hammer blows, and then called his axe to hand as he kneed the infernal devil in the gut.

Driven to his knees, Malevolence watched with cold rage as the Guardian raised his axe for the death blow, and knew he could not escape…normally…

The Guardian stood over his foe and knew, as he lifted his axe overhead, the battle was over. With a final roar of triumph he struck, determined to cleave in the head of the Duke of Hell, only to roar again in frustration as metal struck stone amidst a cloud of whirling sparks.

“Coward!” he roared, knowing that Malevolence had teleported away.

Knowing his foe had to be nearby, the Guardian began to order his minions into the tunnels and find the devil; then paused, for a final scream of denial swept over the lot of them.

₰


​

Malevolence staggered and struggled to stand upright against the wall. “Damn that Guardian, I will return and destroy him with a new legion of devils at my command. There is nothing which can stop…” He paused, and whirled around as a melodious laugh filled the hall, a laugh of a songbird mixed with the chimes of the dead.

A lone, cloaked figure emerged from the shadows, twin axes in hand which pulsated with power. “Oh how I am going to enjoy this Malevolence. It’s been centuries since you unleashed the plague at Charon's command that took me from my mother, and in turn made me captive of Primus and those dingbats.”

Malevolence shook his head, unable to accept the apparition of his past that approached like an avatar of justice. “You cannot exist, you cannot exist! This is impossible!” he said, even as the cat-girl closed.

Elsa smiled, one axe held high, the other to the side, and black lightning arced between them. Her eyes transformed into twin pools of eternal blackness, while a single blood tear flowed down her cheek: “Goodbye!”

₰


​

The Guardian, its eyes filled with rage, turned to order his minions to find the Duke of Hell, and paused as a great scream erupted from a nearby tunnel. All present heard Malevolence’s final denial of “YOU cannot exist, you cannot exist! This is impossible!”

Yet it was, for his final scream of absolute of doom and despair rattled the region. It told all that a creature, immortal, had met the final doom.

Minutes later, in one of the side passages, the Guardian and his minions came across the desiccated remains of the Duke of Hell. “So my old nemesis, you actually lost you head in this final battle? Oh how much shame that I was not the one to do so….”

He leaned down and stared into the dead eyes, and saw that the severed head had been artfully placed on the corpse with a final smile. “I’ll still mount it above the mantle of my fireplace, and I owe a debt of thanks to the one who did this.”

His curiosity got the better of him a moment later, and he examined the desiccated husk: on close examination he discovered twin puncture marks to either side of the devils heart; and found another odd sign: a hand print outlined in ice that smoked and reeked of brimstone.

The Guardian roared in laughter and said: “So the Duke of Hell is destroyed for good!”

On a hunch he opened a telepathic communiqué with the one who hunted nearby and said: “Fair fortune to you Elsa. We shall meet again before the doorway past the third shrine. Beware of the recharge mage called ‘Old Sparky’ and the minions of Mechanus, as I warned of earlier. My minions will not come close to the grotto, of that you have my word.’

He received no response, nor had he expected any. Only a faint echo, of great sorrow and regret reached him and he wondered what pains the cat-girl carried from her past.

He nodded, whirled around and told his minions: “Gather into formation and double march; we seek to bring our battle to Mechanus before he detects our location. Remember, when battle is joined, show no mercy to any of his mechanical creations. There shall be either victory or annihilation; and given the recent reduction of its forces, and the greater forces on our side, we shall be victorious.”

With that, he and his army marched with merciless determination.

 

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend ? ? ?

sometimes yes, sometimes no, but if they can be maneuvered into doing what you want them to then they can be your tool

 

Very true indeed.

Yet who maneuvers who, who is the master of the game, and who calls the dance?
The Labyrinth has many more secrets to be explored, some in other Books, so be patient.

Was the demise of Malevolence worth the wait?

 

Too short in description after he ran from the guardian but I liked that Elsa was informed about Sparky.

 

Thank you Darthel: noted about Malevolence's demise being too short.