Dollano 28, SP~4,909
Rhonda Floam
Death from the Walls
Yesterday we ran.
Donnessling had woken early in the morning or, at least, what we believed to be the morning outside of this hole inside the mountain. He was weak, but his wound seemed to be mostly healed and he could walk, though slowly.
That was when we felt the stone shake beneath our feet. Sheshoffiss immediately pulled the white stone out of his tunic and uttered soft tones to it. He looked up at us in surprise.
“It has not moved. It stands outside of these walls.”
He looked around the cavern as we felt another tremble in the stone. This time some cracks appeared in the walls and ceiling.
Sheshoffiss could not conceal his astonishment, “How could this be? This place is ancient and its walls have held for eons before our passing.”
As the shaking grew stronger three of the cracks widened, and dark wisps of clouds curled out. At first they looked like nothing more than billows of smoke being blown into the cavern, but as they fell away from the wall they slowed to a stop and formed into something more menacing. They took on the shape of strange creatures with bony heads protruding from stiff, thick cowls.
From their sides each formed long, slim arms with seven-fingered hands at their end. Each finger ended in a long, gray talon. From their black heads, I saw white slits form into eyes. One creature had two and the others had three.
We could feel a coldness inside as those terrible eyes passed over us.
I heard Sheshoffiss cry out, “Meergates!” and waved to all of us to move behind him as he threatened these creatures with the white stone. Before we could react two of the ashen creatures launched themselves at us. I saw nossring turn to face them and swing their swords through the fell beasts, but they swept through the bodies hitting nothing, each left with a deep black soot along the blade where it had passed through.
Each of the creatures captured one of our companions, holding them fixed to their spot and writhing in agony as their foggy hands reached into their chests, wrenching their innards out of their bodies.
Portalling, the nossring that Allsassring had left in charge, commanded all of his soldiers to move back. The two stricken nossring slumped to the floor dead. I can’t be sure, but I thought I saw the flick of a white tongue from their attackers as if they were licking their lips with the blood they had just spilled.
Sheshoffiss raised his stone higher into the air and tried to cast the dark beasts away from us. The three of them were momentarily shaken by the white light, but then slowly started to advance on us.
It was then that a dazzling green bolt of lightning flew toward the creatures and struck the center of the leader. It shrieked with surprise at this sudden unexpected force and it reeled back in pain. Its two companions saw their leader and retreated to its side. Donnessling was standing at Sheshoffiss’ side, holding the Stone of Darmyn in front of him.
It was then we heard another shriek, louder but much further away on the other side of the stone of the cavern. It was the shadow creature, which was still waiting for us. It had found and released creatures of Shadow Energy from the walls of this place. Even though it could not move through the walls of the cavern to attack us itself, it had found a way to release foul things that would do its bidding.
As this realization hit us, we felt another shake of the cavern’s stone and several more gaps had opened with new dark, cloudy menaces oozing from their reaches.
Donnessling cried out, “There are too many! We must flee! Down the tunnel my comrades!”
And so we flew down the tunnel protected by a final spell that Sheshoffiss and Donnessling cast together that sealed the opening behind us. I don’t know where Donnessling found the strength to lead us, but he did.
That was yesterday and we marched many long miles, always traveling deeper into the mountain. We ended the day in a place that had once been used by creatures not entirely unlike ourselves, but that story and the story of today’s journey must wait a few hours because I am too exhausted to write more now.