I dreamed of deep halls beneath the mossy earth, sculpted by water through the eons. Strange, dripping things inhabited those lightless trenches, guarding and mourning something I could neither see nor comprehend. I reached toward them, but the dream began to dissolve, and I felt myself returning to the waking world — and reacquainting myself with an increasingly familiar companion: pain.
Every inch of my body ached, and the sun’s blinding glare pierced through my barely opened eyes. My confusion did not lessen when I realized I was imprisoned in a large wooden cage — hands and feet bound — while pinned under Leslie and Lysindra’s unconscious bodies. A pungent stench of decaying flesh burned its way into my senses, dragging me into focus. Right next to us was Boga, knife in hand, throwing me a glassy stare. For a moment, I felt like a piece of roast lamb resting on a platter before a hungry, hideous child. Did he always look that hungry? Hard to say, as I’m still unaccustomed to goblin physiognomy.
“Boga!” I whispered sharply, snapping him out of his musings. He immediately gestured for silence and used his knife to sever my bindings. As I shifted to regain any degree of mobility, it became evident that the reek of rotting flesh was coming from Leslie — a lingering symptom of the corruption infecting her.
Still agitated and hindered by the numbness in my limbs, I accidentally rattled the cage as I moved Leslie and Lysindra aside. This, as luck would have it, drew the attention of a village child, who promptly cried out, “Grandpa, Grandpa! They’re up! Can I play with them?”
By then, Boga had damaged the cage enough to create an opening and was already retreating into the shadows behind one of the cabins. I, however, had barely found my bearings when the damned boy started shouting and, within moments, several villagers were converging on my position — Taraban among them. I glanced back at Leslie and Lysindra, still unconscious, and instantly knew that fleeing was not an option.
Fully aware of how thin the ice beneath my feet was, I made a desperate gamble on diplomacy. “Taraban, what is the meaning of this?” I ventured, stepping out of the cage and keeping my voice as calm and measured as I could. “We pose no threat to your village! I am a wizard of Ordo Magica, and I have the means to secure a considerable reward for your aid. Please, think this through — there's no need for hostility!”
Taraban’s demeanor, however, seemed to have shifted dramatically from the moment when we first encountered him. His voice, though weary, carried a grave and commanding tone now tinged with unmistakable fanaticism: “You do not understand, wizard,” he intoned. “Your company has trespassed on the sacred grounds of our pact with mighty Gulgafal — and he is already coming for you!”
Taraban and his helpers reached for the sickles at their belts. The women, who had been carrying baskets and fruit, dropped them and followed suit, closing in to surround the cage. Standing by my unconscious companions without my staff nor any of my other belongings, I must admit the thought crossed my mind that this might be the end of the line. Then, a whistle cut through the air, and an arrow struck the side of a cabin with a loud thump, drawing everyone’s attention. Outside the circle of villagers stood Anya-Rey, bow in hand, radiating menace. What an entrance! The thought of hugging the elf crossed my mind (but, just as quickly, disappeared).
Unrest rippled through the villagers, some of which scattered, running and shouting for reinforcements. Taraban, however, dropped to his knees and raised his hands to the sky, praying loudly: “Gulgafal, mighty one, hear our call! Come forth and take what is owed! We call unto you to fulfill our pact!”
Clouds unfurled above us, and a familiar oppressive dampness swept through the village, bringing with it an unnatural mist. The trees swayed in the wind, showering us with wet leaves.
From the cage, a painful gargling drew my attention. I turned to it and saw Leslie on her knees, her limbs still bound, as a dark, oily ooze poured forcefully from her mouth and nostrils. “Leslie…” I muttered, knowing not what to do. Lysindra had woken as well, and was just beginning to take in — with dawning horror — the gravity of our situation. Nearby, a female voice cried out: “Everyone! Look at the barbarian — she bears the taint of corruption! May Gulgafal take her, may he save us!”
I gritted my teeth, taking some small comfort in the thought that things could not possibly get any worse, but — once again — I was wrong: A thunderous sound — a roar? — came from above the ancient birch overlooking the village, shaking the colossal tree and the ground beneath our feet. As the villagers cried “Gulgafal! Gulgafal!”, a gargantuan serpent-like creature descended from the mist, coiling itself around the birch and surveying the village with a voracious gleam in its eyes.
I… wanted to laugh. Not from joy, but from the sheer absurdity of finding myself under the gaze of a lindworm. I had read about this monster, this wingless dragon which was said to guard treasures, sacred sites, or areas of immense magical energy deep within Davokar. Thus, I understood — likely better than these villagers — the true extent of the danger we were all in. Not just my companions and I. ALL of us!
“They are yours, Gulgafal!”, Taraban shouted, seized by zealous fervor, “Feast, feast on them!”, he laughed. The lindworm uncoiled itself from the birch tree and slid through the air, unceremoniously chomping on a female villager who stood in submissive adoration. Its bite was heavy and sharp, like a butcher’s cleaver, sending severed limbs flying and spraying blood across the clearing. Without hesitation, the lindworm landed on the stony ground and slithered to the boy who had yelled earlier, swallowing him whole. Gods damn you, Taraban, reckless idiot! Deluded fool!
The creature was so perplexingly massive that a single swipe of its tail against one of the village huts was enough to bring down the entire structure. At this point, the villagers finally began to realize that they too had been invited to the feast, except they were sitting on — rather than at — the table. Panic and chaos, at long last, justifiably ensued.
I looked back at the cage and saw Leslie struggling to free herself, while Lysindra’s wide, terrified eyes darted from the lindworm to Leslie’s tar-dripping mouth, then to me, silently pleading for help. Fleeing was not an option, nor was fighting. Also, I had nothing with which to sever Lysindra’s bindings, so it seemed — by my estimation — less unsafe to carry her to one of the cabins for shelter than to remain exposed and risk becoming another morsel for Gulgafal the Ungrateful. Resolute, I re-entered the cage and lifted her into my arms. I had carried her out of one battlefield before, and I could do it again. Then I tripped on the way out, sending us both tumbling back into the cage — on top of Leslie. A sad day for heroism, I suppose.
The next thing I knew, Leslie — having freed her limbs — was forcing her way out of the cage, hurling barbarian insults and swear words in every direction, though mostly at me. I didn’t know her language, nor did I need to; the tone conveyed a clear message. Once outside, she paused, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and quickly took stock of the mayhem. I sat up and did the same. One of the village huts was ablaze, and Anya had somehow managed to draw the lindworm’s attention, leading it away as she fled the village towards the forest.
Leslie’s face lit with a sudden spark of insight, and before I could ask what she was planning, she pranced away toward one of the few remaining huts. Her voice rang out, singing, loud and clear despite the chaos: “Lindworm, fierce and grand! Don’t look in its eyes, you’ll fall to its hand!”. How very eccentric, I thought. But she was right: lindworms are said to cast paralyzing curses on those who meet their gaze. Her warning might just save someone.
I sighed and dug deep for inner strength. Yes, there I was, still in the cage, moderately demoralized, with a still-bound and wounded Lysindra next to me. No, I would not give in to melancholy or despair — though the circumstances seemed to warrant at least one of them. Patience. Focus. Think.
I looked around. The lindworm was not upon us, and Taraban remained on his knees, arms outstretched to the sky, chanting fervent pleas to the monster: “Yes, punish them! These trespassers! These sinners! Gulgafaaal!”. How did he even know if that was its name? Had they summoned this creature before, utterly blind to the fact that they were no more than livestock to it? What insanity drove these people to build a village within the territory of a bloody lindworm? The absurdity, the sheer outrageousness of it all, stirred something unpleasantly violent within me.
Alas, I was useless without my staff and gear, which had been confiscated before my imprisonment. Then, I spotted Boga emerging from a hut, carrying a crate of supplies and wearing his own equipment — just as Leslie was stepping inside. Aha! However, for all I knew, the village was still crawling with sickle-wielding nitwits. With the lindworm temporarily out of sight, I concluded that the fastest way to make myself useful was to retrieve my belongings. Leaving Lysindra behind, even briefly, was not a decision I made lightly. Indecisiveness, at a moment like this, could be just as bad as abandonment.
“Lay low and don't draw attention,” I whispered to Lysindra, with no small amount of guilt. “I promise I'll be back for you.” She hadn’t had time to recover from her wounds, so she just gave me a look of exhausted resignation and nodded feebly.
Even as I leapt out of the cage and charged after Leslie, I was bitter and afraid. What if I wasn’t fast enough? What if the worm returned, or a villager got to her before I could do anything? What if I’d made the wrong decision again? These thoughts hammered at my resolve, my heart pounding in my ears as I flew past Boga and barreled into the hut.
Leslie had already retrieved her belongings and was now helping herself to… chunks of dried meat that were hanging from the ceiling. Is this really the best time to be raiding the village for supplies? — I thought about asking, though the answer was obvious: Yes, of course it was. Isn’t it always? I pressed my hands to the sides of my head. Keep it together, wizard. Power through the insanity.
My equipment was lying in a corner, and I reclaimed it without delay. As I rummaged through my backpack to ensure nothing was missing, my fingers brushed against the warmth of the Sunstone. I had not considered using Mermes's gift before studying it more thoroughly; however, the moment I touched the gem, that distant voice at the edge of my thoughts stirred back to life.
“He hath betrayed thee, hath he not? Cast thee unto the beast, deeming thy life but a trifle to be squandered for his folly. And for what? A covenant with a monster? A prayer to falsehood? Taraban doth merit more than death. Thus, take up thy flame thou lovest so well, wizard, and let him know the wrath of the betrayed.”
Under different circumstances, I'd have taken my time to ponder the nature of these hallucinations. But I could not spare the time, and I had no disagreement with the voice. Its logic was… irresistible. My wrath was then fueled by a sort of cold fire; I was furious, but in control — or so I thought.
I strode out the door and stopped beside Boga, who appeared to be crafting something in considerable haste. He paused, lifting his eyes from his work with a hint of a mischievous smile on his lips. Leslie must have sensed something, as she followed me outside, rattle in hand, looking fierce.
“You look like you have a plan,” Boga rasped, though it was hard to tell if he was serious or mocking.
“I don’t even know which way we’re supposed to run,” Leslie confessed, “Maybe follow the river, move north?”
I pointed my chin at Taraban and argued, “I do not believe we’ll find safety while that man lives”. Boga squared his shoulders and gave me a knowing look, his amusement barely concealed.
“Annihilating these degenerates before they can give chase does make sense”, Leslie nodded sternly.
Boga grinned, revealing a row of sharp, pointy teeth.
“Make no mistake, Leslie! The wizard wants revenge,” he laughed, “And I want to watch it.”
Did I? Hearing Boga phrase it so bluntly gave me pause. I looked at Taraban, still spouting his fanatic nonsense from the top of his lungs, and the rage within me burned white-hot. Yet, when I glanced at Lysindra, who watched us uneasily from within the cage, something else — quieter, but no less compelling — vied with that violence.
“Mordamir”, Boga said, tapping me on the shoulder. “Leave her to me. I’ll see her freed and safe. You go do what you have to do”. With that, he slid into a crouching run toward the cage.
“Revenge, then?”, Leslie asked, her tone serious, her expression genuinely intrigued.
Whether Taraban’s actions were truly evil or not — perhaps he had struck an accord with the lindworm to preserve his village — was irrelevant. I understood now that, in Davokar, people will do insane things to survive; that much is hardly unexpected. But the laws of hospitality are sacred, transcending cultures. To deceive us so thoroughly, to offer hope and then replace it with doom — this, I could not forgive. To hell with Taraban.
“Yes, Leslie”, I admitted, without joy, “Revenge”.
Thus, we went to him. As we approached, I saw that he had finished securing some of his own villagers to the ground — two women and a young girl — using some ropes and large wooden spikes. In the distance, an unsettling sight caught my eye: Anya-Rey, dashing back into the village, pursued by none other than the lindworm itself. Taraban saw it too: “Return to us, mighty Gulgafal!” he cried, his voice trembling with zeal. “I deliver you this child, O sacred patron, to appease you! To honor you!”
My disgust boiled over.
“Taraban!”, I shouted. He turned slowly, as though expecting us, his face twisted with fury.
“Infidel!”, he spat on the ground, pointing a trembling finger at me, “This is all your fault! Cursed, you be! Once and a thousand times cursed!”
I grasped the Sunstone in my satchel. I had never used it, and now that I was about to — it felt almost too hot to hold. The voice returned: “Dost thou feel it, wizard? Justice waiteth not, least of all for the guilty. Strike, for the fire is thine to wield.”
“Taraban,” I called out, my voice heavy with contempt, “I have no wisdom left for the likes of you. You have doomed your people, and the mantle of leader suits you not. But I can offer you something that does.”
To conjure fire from the Stone required barely any magic. All I had to do was to open my heart to it; let the flames run through me, and drink of my own aggression. They washed over me, nibbling at every buried violence, whirling faster and fiercer, until they roared out of existence — only to reappear, slowly, inexorably, at the end of my gaze.
At first, Taraban did not understand. He clutched at his chest, fumbling with his tunic, perhaps blaming the rising heat on his own exertion. Then it grew hotter, unbearable, and his confusion turned to terror. His screams tore through the air as the flames licked their way out from beneath his clothing, climbing onto his beard and hair, consuming him. The air turned to fire inside his lungs. His flesh melted away.
I must admit I experienced a surge of satisfaction from the spectacle. I might have smiled; I do not know. For a moment, the chaos, the conflict, and the pain — all of it — vanished, or was perhaps eclipsed by an odd kind of bliss, an overwhelming sense of victory. That triumph was abruptly interrupted by Leslie’s voice, faint at first, then louder: “Mordamir!”
I snapped out of it, my heart pounding against my throat. Leslie was grabbing me by the shoulders, shaking me back into reality.
“What?!”, I demanded, more angrily than I had intended.
“Your arm…”, she pointed, taking a step back.
I looked down at my trembling hand, still clutching the Sunstone. It pulsed in time with my heartbeat, and the veins around it ran black with corruption. I immediately returned the gem to my satchel. Looking up, I saw Boga and Lysindra standing a short distance away. She had a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with concerned bewilderment. Boga, on the other hand, gave me a thumbs up, grinning widely before turning back to his tinkering.
“We must hurry,” Leslie muttered, giving one last tug at my shoulder to ensure I’d received the message. Then, turning to the others, she repeated, louder this time, “We must hurry! Boga!”
“I know, I know,” he grumbled, “Don’t rush me.”
“What on earth are you doing?” I asked.
“Lure,” he replied, with a wink. He was fiddling with some kind of makeshift device, stuffing it with the same bioluminescent fungus they had used to subdue the black panther. “Say, wizard! How much of the stuff should I use?”
“Boga!”, Leslie pressed, her voice sharper now. Anya would reach us in seconds — and so would the lindworm.
“Just throw in all of it!” I exclaimed, though I wasn’t convinced that what worked on a jungle cat could possibly affect a creature out of myth. Still, of all the desperate ideas, this was not the worst. Part of me even wished I could witness the outcome of this gamble — assuming we survived it.
“Fine!” Boga declared, shoving all the remaining fungus into the device. A cloud of spores burst out, blanketing him in glittering blue dust that clung to his clothes, his face, his arms. “You lot get moving”, he urged, “I need to set this where the beast won’t miss it.”
I turned toward Lysindra, my steps deliberate despite the chaos erupting all around us. My corrupted arm pulsed faintly with heat, the blackened veins a stark reminder of what I had just unleashed. I tucked it out of sight, hiding it beneath my cloak, and extended my other hand to her instead. “Come on,” I said, meeting her wide, frightened eyes, “We need to move. Now.”
For a moment, she didn’t move, her gaze flickering from my face to my outstretched hand, then to the chaos behind me. Fear and hesitation clouded her expression, but finally, she reached out, grasping my hand with trembling fingers. “Don’t let go,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Anya-Rey had managed to keep the lindworm occupied, drawing it through the outskirts of the village with a succession of arrows that glanced harmlessly off its armored scales. She returned from the treeline, breathless but unharmed. “It still follows the trail,” she warned. “Whatever you're planning, it had better work.”
Boga crept into the clearing, the glowing lure clutched in his dust-covered hands. I watched, scarcely daring to breathe, as he placed it among the debris and hurried back toward us.
The lindworm’s massive coils slithered over the ground as it sniffed, drawn to the bioluminescent fungus with a hunger that consumed its attention. When it found the trap, its monstrous jaws clamped onto the lure, crunching it with an almost mechanical ferocity. A cloud of glowing blue spores burst into the air, enveloping the beast in a haze. The villagers screamed and scattered — those who hadn’t been tied as offerings — but their cries were drowned by the beast’s guttural growls and the sound of crunching wood and stone.
“It's working,” Boga pronounced, satisfied with his work, “Now we run.”
Keeping low, we slipped from the village, moving swiftly and silently through the debris. The lindworm’s growls rumbled behind us, but we pressed on, our steps light, hearts pounding with the urgency to escape unseen.
Lysindra clung to my untainted hand, her grip firm despite the tremor in her fingers. The cries of a child — one of the bound villagers — cut through the silence, but we did not stop. None of us spoke.
The forest thinned as we neared the river, its waters growing louder with each step, a thunderous promise of both hope and peril. Anya stepped forward, her bow slung across her back, and turned to face us, her expression sharp and calculating.
“Can you swim?” she asked, her voice low but direct.
Leslie gave a sharp nod. Boga shrugged, muttering something about goblins being excellent floaters. Lysindra hesitated, her eyes narrowing at the dark water ahead. I met Anya’s gaze and gave a grim nod. “Well enough”, I replied, though I wasn’t certain if it was true.
“Good,” Anya said, her tone as matter-of-fact as if she’d asked us whether we could walk. “Because the river is our best chance. It will mask our scent.”
With that, she led the way toward the water, while the rest of us followed in uneasy silence. The cries of the villagers faded into the distance, swallowed by the roar of the river and the monstrous sounds of the lindworm’s feast.
Crossing the river was a harrowing ordeal, but we managed. Anya secured a rope on the far bank, and we followed one by one, clinging to it as the current battered us. As we emerged from the river, dripping and weary, a shadow glided out of the underbrush with silent precision. Before any of us could react, Maria Alice, the black panther we thought lost during the troll’s birth, pounced on Boga. He yelped as her massive paws pinned him to the ground. For a heartbeat, we braced for violence — but instead, her rough tongue began eagerly licking the blue spores still clinging to his face.
After this unlikely reunion, we pressed on until the roar of the river faded, finding a sheltered clearing where we could finally set up camp.
Now, as I sit by the dwindling fire, I glance at the hand that grasped the Sunstone. The blackened veins have begun to fade, retreating beneath my skin. Whether this reprieve is permanent or fleeting, I cannot say, and I find myself unwilling to ponder it too deeply.
What weighs more heavily on me is that, now that my blood has cooled, I scarcely recognize the man who stood before Taraban. Perhaps Taraban deserved it; or perhaps the lindworm had bewitched him, forcing his hand. If I had known this to be the case, I might have chosen differently — or perhaps not. We were cornered, facing impossible circumstances. I remind myself of that, but there were children among the villagers. I can still hear their cries.
My thoughts turn to the training I once received in the healing arts, a discipline I had long regarded as secondary to the arcane. Leslie sits nearby, seemingly undaunted by the corruption gnawing at her from within. I wonder if there is a way to purge her of it — not with fire or force, but with knowledge, and perhaps even the gentler skills I've neglected.
Lysindra rests a short distance away, wrapped in her tattered cloak, still weakened by her wounds. Yet there is a quiet determination in her eyes, a resilience that refuses to be extinguished, no matter what Davokar throws at her. I find myself respecting that. Unexpected.