“What did you do?” Madrona said, glancing around the room.
“Nothing!” Kassadi shouted defensively, pushing herself to
her feet. “It’s a magic item it’ll empower your spell crafting!” She too was glancing
around the room, confusion etched into her features. They both stood there for
a long few moments, waiting for whatever was about to happen to happen.
Nothing
happened.
“See?” Kassadi said, though there was a hint of nervous
energy to her voice. She stretched her arms over her head, interlocking her
fingers. “Nothing to worry about! Just a successful adventure by two spell slinging
Adventurers!”
“I’m not an Adventurer. I was just hired to get those magic
items from the Goblins.” Madrona said, still leering at the cieling waiting for
a boulder to suddenly drop on both of them.
“Uh… retrieving stolen goods from some Goblins is like,
baseline Adventurer stuff.” Kassadi giggled.
“That’s nice. Can we leave now? I think I’ve had my fill and
I’ll be quite pleased to be out of he-OOF!” Madrona had been walking away as
she spoke heading towards the exit of the room, when suddenly her arm was
yanked backwards harshly, wrenching the woman off her feet. She collided with
the stone with a harsh thud. When she looked up she stared at the bangle on the
arm that had been yanked, before glancing up to see that Kassadi had seemingly
been pulled forward with equal force, splayed out on the stone as well with one
arm extended.
“Oooooow.” She croaked.
“What… what was?” Madrona groaned as she pulled herself to
her knees, she could still feel the tug on her arm. She pulled against it, gritting
as she tried to put her weight behind the force, reaching out and grasping her
arm with her free hand just to try and stabilize it. Madrona heard Kassadi
wail, and could see the Wizard frantically grasping at her arm, still on her
stomach.
“Stop stop stooooooop!” She wailed. “You’re going to break
my arm! Aaaaaah!” Kassadi wasn’t in any position to fight the sudden force on
her arm but had, it seems, figured out where it was coming from. Madrona
stopped pulling, moving towards Kassadi instead which seemed to give slack to
whatever force was pulling at them both. Kassadi rolled onto her rear, and
grasped at her shoulder painfully. She sniffled, and as Madrona closed the
distance she could see tears in the blond woman’s eyes.
“I uh, I’m sorry.” Madrona said, leaning down towards her.
“No.” Kassadi said, still sniffling and wiping away the
tears. “You didn’t know till you saw me yelling.” She rubbed her shoulder. “Ow
though.” She said, Madrona couldn’t help but chuckle, Kassadi smiled.
“What happened?” Madrona said, more sternly this time.
“Uuuh.” Kassadi pushed herself off her rear and scrambled to
her feet. “Curse?” She grinned sheepishly. Madrona’s expression soured.
“What do you mean… curse?” She said, though her teeth.
“Well,” Kassadi began, taking a defensive step away from the
every angering Inferni. “Sometimes people, buttholes really, curse magical
items.” She grimaced as she said the words. “They do it to protect the items or
to punish those who would steal them and they…” She took another step back. “They
tend to be specially made so they don’t show up on a detection spells.” She
raised the lens, referencing the spell she had cast just moments before to ascertain
the nature of a magical item.
“I see.” Madrona said, swallowing hard. “And if the previous
experience was anything to go by the nature of this curse means…”
“That we can’t walk more then forty feet away from each other.”
Kassadi answered for her. “Maybe fifty? I don’t know I wasn’t counting.”
Madrona
sighed.
“And there's a way to undo this, right?” She said, not even
trying to hide her annoyance.
“Oh yeah sure.” Kassadi said with a nod. “I mean probably.”
“Probably!?” Madrona screamed.
“We just have to find someone who can remove the curse!”
Kassadi raised her hands, trying to calm the woman. “But don’t look at me I don’t
know how to do that. Do you happen to-“
“No!” Madrona threw her arms into the air in annoyance. “No
I do not know how to do that!” She stormed off, and stumbled as she apparently
met the invisible boarder they now both existed in.
“Yeah that’s definitely more like fifty feet.” Kassadi stated.
The two
of them ascended the maze in absolute quiet from that point on. Madrona with an
annoyed look of anger and Kassadi with one that you would normally find on a
puppy who had been discovered making a mess of it’s owner’s bedroom. Kassadi
lead the way, apparently knowing the way out though Madrona had her doubts on
that now as well. How did she end up in this mess? Oh that’s right, agreeing to
help someone. Hells to that, next time she’ll shoo the poor sods away and continue
to read her book and enjoy her tea. This whole endeavor had been a disaster, the
entire reason she was even down here was to deal with the Goblins and she didn’t
even know where they were now.
“THERE!” The shriek came as the two women turned a corner.
Down the hallway was a force of Goblins 20 strong, lead by the female Goblin
who was leading the previous chase… She now, however, was missing half her hair
from obvious fire damage and the skin around her neck was darkened and bruised.
The two
didn’t have much time to react as the Goblin leader pulled a Wand from her
satchel and let loose the magic inside of it. A blast of arcane energy streamed
trough the air, crackling with what seemed an electrical current and baring
down on it’s target, the blond haired Wizard who turned the corner first.
Kassadi shrieked and threw her hands up in a hasty spell, energy forming in
front of her in a transparent blue half dome the instant before the bolt of lightning
struck with a resounding crack against the shield.
“Crap cram crap!” Kassadi shouted as the Goblin bellowed in
anger and loosed another bolt, it slammed into the shield, which cracked down
the center, and began to sheer at the edges. Kassadi whimpered.
“MOVE BEHIND THE WALL!” Madrona shouted, her own back
pressed against it. She had her hand out, reaching for Kassadi.
“I can’t!” Kassadi’s eyes were full of worry. “If I move my
shield will drop and she’ll hit me!”
“If you stand there the bolts will tear your shield apart!
You have no choice!” Madrona was inching forward, and just had her fingers on
the shoulder of Kassadi’s top… it was too late.
As
Madrona managed to find purchase on the shirt, with intent to drag Kassadi behind
cover, the third bolt of energy crashed into the shield. There was a sound of
shattering glass and the magical energy that protected the wizard was gone, the
remainder of the lightning’s energy piercing through it… and through Kassadi.
She hollered in pain and fell back, face contorted into pain. Madrona’s grasp
on her shirt wasn’t completely in vain though, as she managed to keep her hold
and instead of being blasted past the hallway and left in the open she was able
to swing Kassadi’s momentum into the hallway. She did end up tearing the
Fabric, Kassadi would have to just forgive that. The Wizard crumpled as she hit
the floor, rolling twice before coming to a stop. She groaned and clutched at
her ribs where the spell had struck her, Madrona let out a relieved breath. She
was alive. The Goblins would not be able to say the same in a moment.
Madrona
stepped out with her dagger already in hand. Before the Goblin could react
Madrona’s free hand was already extended, middle finger tucked in with the three
remaining extended fully. A swirl of sickly green energy formed around those fingers
before launching forward in a streaking ball. Madrona pondered for a second,
and realized that one did feel different from some of her spells, that was one
she didn’t need the dagger for. It also felt a great deal more powerful… the
bracelet? It struck the Gobblin in the forehead with an incredible force, causing
her to tumble backwards in a sprawl, she dragged three other Goblins down with
her. The rest all jumped back, suddenly without their leader and her magic wands
they hesitated for a moment. That was all Madrona needed.
She
took two steps forward and lifted her dagger so the blade pointed towards the
Goblin horde and then let it go. The blade hovered in the air and she lifted
her arms into the air and brought them down in a wide arc on both sides. As her
arms passed through the air dozens of daggers began to appear behind them, a
halo of sharp blades surrounded the Inferni woman, all of them now suddenly
occupying the space three inches behind her. She smirked at the wide eyes
expression on the goblins. A single hand rose, fingers pinched together, and
she snapped them. The sound signaled the weapons to surge forward, hurling
themselves down the hall. The Goblins all scrambled to get away but it was far
too late. They shouted and hollered as they were cur down by a hail of conjured
daggers. Groaning bodies littered the hall, clutching the wounds the blades
left behind, and those were the lucky ones. As the spell ended the daggers
vanished and Madrona snatched her own blade from the air.
The
leader of the Goblins, spared the daggers do to being laid out on the ground,
suddenly hopped to her feet. She let out a war cry, shrieking out in the Goblin
language to her companions to attack… When nothing happened, she looked back
and saw that most of her people were dead and those who weren’t were gravely
injured. She swallowed hard and turned to Madrona. The Inferni woman started walking
calmly down the hall. The Goblin leapt back, fear now taking her eyes.
“That…” She shrieked in the Collective tongue. “That not
Wizard magic! I know! I know!” She was taking tentative steps back away from
Madrona. The Inferni didn’t stop her advance.
“I know.” Madrona said, closing the distance. “I’m not a
Wizard. I’m not a Sorcerer or a Druid or a Cleric.” She stood over the Goblin
now, who coward. Madrona snatched the bag of wands from the Goblin’s shoulder.
“What?” The Goblin croaked out.
“I’m a Warlock.” Madrona grinned, the Goblin fled.
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