"Is there a trophy with the vakalegur hygrunalur?" I asked.

  "I believe there was," she said without stopping work on the super-mole.

  "Was?"

  "I believe it would have been the body, the shell of the creature."

  'That's huge."

  She nodded.

  "What happened to it?" I asked.

  "Someone burned it," she replied.

  I sighed. I wanted to point out how that would be the only way to have killed the thing, but I hadn’t exactly given anyone else a chance to kill it before I just went all burn-y on it. I walked back over to the remains of the vakalegur hygrunalur and stood there with my hand on my hip. The other was already there. Sort of permanently.

  Looking over the body, I saw all the spots where there had been mouths, empty of teeth. All the flesh from the inside was removed, and all the legs pulled off. It was pretty spherical, but taller than me. I touched the shell, and my finger went right through. A stiff breeze, and the whole thing would likely fall apart. Denitza had been lucky to get what she had from the legs and whatnot. I imagined that she'd probably have been able to fill two ice bags had I not been so, um, pyromaniacal.

  "I hear you are looking for a trophy?" I heard Erling ask in Old Norse.

  I turned to face him. He held up the super-mole head in his hands with a giant smile on his face.

  "I am," I said, "but—”

  "Seems like the least we could do," he said, tossing the head to me.

  The head hit me and I tried to get a hold of it, but it was slick with various disgusting fluids, and I couldn't quite grab it in time. It bounced down and squelched onto the floor.

  “Well, step one accomplished,” I said to myself.

  44

  Because time barely has meaning in the Gloom, I can't quite tell how long it took us to get out of there. I do know it was a rough trip.

  Three of the five members of Erling's party couldn't walk, so we fixed them up as best we could, and crafted makeshift stretchers for them. Mornax carried the survival bag as well as most of Erling's party's gear. Denitza ranged ahead. Then the remaining members all carried stretchers. That was slow going, especially when I realized I had to free my hand. I managed to heal it up without too much trouble — benefits of having a self-heal spell. I felt like I had control of it, but the coloring, or the lack thereof, remained.

  We moved slowly through the Gloom, taking frequent breaks as our grips or legs gave out. We ate what dried rations we had, and drank the last of our water.

  Some time later, we trudged through the gates.

  As soon as the portcullis was down, the lightbringers were there, grabbing our stretchers and guiding all the wounded over to the healer's hut.

  My little party just stood there. I could see exhaustion about to overwhelm everyone.

  "Anyone know where baths are?" I asked. "Because you guys stink."

  No one laughed, but I saw a few slight smiles come up from under the blood and mud.

  Denitza went to sell the contents of the ice bag, save the trophy I was about to deliver to the lightbringers.

  The others went in search of baths and food.

  I had to carry the trophy head with both arms, almost like it was a giant laundry basket, barely able to see around the foul monster's remains. Despite the chill, there was definitely a funk to it. But when I got close to the main building, a man in white armor intercepted me.

  "Are you presenting that to us?" the lightbringer asked.

  "Is there something special I need to do?" I replied. “This is part of a quest."

  "If this is for a quest, I will note your name and make sure it it listed in the record."

  "Clyde Hatchett," I said.

  He nodded, and then relieved me of the head. He handled it as if he were tossing around a volleyball.

  Congratulations! You’ve completed a QUEST!

  A Test of Worth Part I

  You must successfully brought back a titled trophy from the Gloom.

  Reward for success: None Yet

  Seeing that notification pop up made me sigh with relief for the first time in a long time. I was finally starting to get somewhere on this quest — maybe I’d actually pull it off and return to just being me.

  "Anything else?" he asked, breaking me from my reverie.

  "A bath?" I asked.

  His craggy face broke into a smile. "Main building also houses the baths, though they are not free."

  The baths were nothing special, just tubs of lukewarm water and plenty of soap in tiny private chambers. I cleaned all the grime off, and then just sat there in the water for a moment, trying to come to grips with everything. I heard a soft knock at the door, likely the gentle reminder that someone else needed the bath.

  I got out, toweled off, and dressed as quickly as I could. I didn't want to give anyone else a reason to be mad at me. Maybe because of that, I was the first of our party to get into the cafeteria and grab a bowl of that night's stew. Mystery meat again. With mystery potato-type things. And something that was, I hoped, carrots. I missed vegetables in Vuldranni. There were biscuits with the meal this time, so that was a welcome change. I grabbed two.

  I sat down and focused on my food for a moment, truly hungry. I figured that was partly due to the increased mana expenditure of the day, and also the grueling trek back while carrying stretchers. It wasn't bad. The food, I mean. The day had been bad.

  Someone sat down in front of me, and I looked up to see Lux with her own bowl of stew.

  "Evening," she said.

  "Is it?" I replied.

  She shrugged, and started eating.

  "Where's everyone else?" I asked.

  She pointed to the right with her spoon. I looked over and saw the rest of our party sitting at another table.

  “All a bit angry with you," she said.

  "You aren't?"

  "I am too," she said. "But I drew the short straw."

  "I don't need your pity--"

  "I am not here to make you feel better, Clyde Hatchett," she snapped. "I am here to try and understand what is going on in your thick skull."

  "Ah."

  "And with your graying hand."

  "That."

  "That. And all the other things that do not quite add up as of late.”

  "Makes two of us."

  "Do not say that. Do not try and weasel out of this conversation by implying you are as confused as we are. There is no possible way, because you clearly have been acting on knowledge that we do not share.”

  "You've seen my quest — you know why I'm here."

  “How about explaining it to me, nice and simple and out in the open?”

  I sighed, and looked around the room. Partly to see who might be listening in. Partly to buy a bit of time to decide how much I wanted to tell her.

  "I discovered a spell,” I started, "and it was powerful. I used it, probably more than I should, and it wound up with some unintended consequences. The major one being that I stopped being wholly myself. I was taking in some measure of the things I was draining. Did I mention it was a drain spell?"

  "You did not," she said. "But that makes a sort of sense."

  "One of the things it allowed me to do was tackle higher-leveled opponents, and there was a time in Glaton's graveyard that I fought a corpse king. I was going to lose, so I pulled out my big spell, and I drained the thing. But in doing so, I pulled it into me. And so now there's a corpse king trying to take me over from the inside.”

  “And the gray arm is an indication?"

  I nodded. "But it's more insidious than just that. The corpse king is in my head. I think it's having an effect on my thoughts and feelings. I'm not always sure my thoughts are my own."

  She nodded slowly as she stared into my eyes. I wondered if she thought she'd somehow see the corpse king sneaking around in my head.

  "The leap today," I said slowly and quietly, "I think that was because of the corpse king. I, and my mentor, we think the thing grows in power when I use certain powers. And maybe worse, when I let it out a little to gain something from it."

  "Let it out?" she asked. "What do you mean?"

  "It's more powerful than I am," I said. "By a lot. It’s got more spells, more tricks. Some I got from the drain spell, but some it seemed to have kept for itself. Sometimes, when things are going bad, it comes out because it knows I have to survive for it to take over."

  "So the leap off the cliff, it convinced you to do that—”

  "So I'd be forced to let it out to save me. Or my body. I don't think it has any real concern about me. It just wants the vessel."

  "Ah. And the fire?"

  "I don't know. It's become my go-to. Throw fireballs at things until they die."

  "Fire hurts us too, you know."

  "Yes, I get that, but in the heat of the fight, I thought that was the right path."

  "You thought or it thought?"

  "I don't know."

  She nodded, and then ate a few more bites, drank some watered-down ale.

  I pushed bits of the stew around with my spoon. My appetite was gone.

  "I'm up against a time limit," I said. "The corpse king is growing every day, and my only potential way out is this Girgenerth guy. And I have to get these quests done to just talk to him, because the lightbringers—”

  I stopped talking, realizing the danger of bashing the lightbringers out loud. I wasn't sure what the relationship between them and Girgenerth was, but I didn't need the reigning powers of Gloomguard to think I was disrespecting them.

  "I don't know what's going on," I said, "not with the lightbringers, or Gloomguard, or Girgenerth. I don't know how long I have before the corpse king fully takes over. I know it tried full-out once, and I managed to claw myself back. I know it has emerged at least two times to intercede when I was about to die. So I have to at least get a chance to speak to Girgenerth before it takes over. Because once that happens, I'm gone. And another horrible evil thing is in the world, and chances are, it'll pretend to be me as long as it can. Raise as many undead as it can. And go about destroying all the living things in the world as it can, because that is what I've seen it do in the past. Too many times."

  Lux sat there across from me, her mouth paused in mid chew, and, perhaps, mid-thought.

  "Bit stressful," I said.

  She nodded, but didn't say anything. She just finished eating her stew and polished off her ale. Then she nodded again.

  "You're not alone in this," she finally said. "You chose to make a party. You chose to bring people with you. It's okay to let them help, you know?"

  She got up, and, perhaps not realizing the irony, left me there alone.

  45

  I sat at the table for a long time. Partly waiting to see if my appetite would come back, partly because I was just thinking. Letting the thoughts rampaging through my head have their space to run, see if something became clear. Nothing did.

  It's entirely possible I'd have stayed there all night if it wasn't for the ringing of a bell.

  Gong.

  Everyone else in the cafeteria looked up at once, though some moved faster than others. The lightbringers ran full-tilt while the bell's ring still reverberated.

  On the second ring I was up and running, heading for the gates.

  Gloomguard was under attack.

  I knew I wasn't a front-line fighter, so as soon as the walls to the portal were in sight, I skidded to a stop. I had to think about what I could do, and how it would effect not just the fight, but those in the fight.

  Small humanoids were crawling over the wall. They attacked the lightbringers on top and scrambled down to attack the people running toward the portal as well. Larger humanoids were clustered around the portcullis, doing their utmost to pull the iron gates up and give their allies better access. They just shrugged off the arrows raining down on them, their thick gray skin barely punctured.

  Something felt off. The way that the attacks were coming, how the beings were focusing their efforts. It seemed almost haphazard.

  I darted to the side and chose to climb up at the point where the built wall met the natural stone wall of the cavern. I got to the battlement, and crouched down so I could peek over the crenellation.

  Beyond the wall there was a mass of humanoids that I now saw were goblins. Given their coloring, likely night goblins. There were some hobgoblins out there too, wearing heavy armor and yelling at their goblin charges, exhorting them. But nearly all the hobgoblins were hanging toward the rear. The biggest things, the ones at the portcullis, weren't wearing much armor at all, and didn't exactly look like goblins. They were at least twelve feet tall and brutish-looking. Wide, thick necks that lent them a hunched forward appearance, almost no nose whatsoever, and small eyes. They had wide ears that drooped against their gray skin. Huge arms, thick like tree trunks, hung low, reached past their knees. Massive muscles rippled under what seemed like heavy layers of blubber. They moved slow, and seemed to ignore any attacks. And also ignored the small goblins in front of them, apparently more than happy to smush the slower goblins instead of pushing their way through.

  I saw more of the big gray-skinned dudes working on the huge doors on either side of the portal itself. They were most definitely trying to close the doors, which would shut the portal. So my suspicions were right: the goblins attacking over the portcullis were just a haphazard distraction, while the real damage was being done at the portal.

  I ran through ideas as fast as I could, trying to come up with a plan that wouldn't hurt anyone else. I didn't see any friendlies in the crowd below, so I got ready to toss a fireball, but my talk with Lux made me rethink my strategy. I pushed into magesight and looked around, just in case.

  There, in the mid-back, a group of purple-robed night goblins I'd overlooked. But in magesight, it was easier to track them. Bright splotches of intense arcane energy. They were ready and waiting, eagerly looking around for someone to throw spells, either because they were going to—

  A spell flashed from the other side of the Gloomguard wall, and the cluster of purple robes turned and fired a counterspell. Just judging from the complex weave that emerged from the night goblins, it was not a counterspell I was used to. Instead, it seemed to magically latch onto a human mage, who promptly started screaming as the night goblins chanted. Energy was being pulled from the human down to the goblin warlocks.

  I was about to throw a spell to thwart whatever they were doing, but someone beat me to the punch. Something that looked like a ball of lightning sailed over the whole horde, but someone in the cluster dispelled that. The night goblins promptly latched onto the new mage, and started leaching all the magical energy from him.

  The first human let out a massive scream of pain and collapsed on the wall, falling over the crenellations and into the horde below. He was promptly pulverized by the gathered goblins, much to their enjoyment.

  The second magic user wasn’t far behind, but it seemed like he got pulled over the wall by the goblin warlocks. Still, his fate was largely the same: torn asunder down below.

  It didn't look like anyone else on our side was willing to stand up and throw magic when the initial results had been so disastrous. It certainly made me less willing to engage in such activities. Still, giving up magic in a fight like this was making sure your side was extremely hamstrung, and the goblins were eagerly pushing their brief advantage.

  I had to do something. This time I knew it was me pushing that thought, because I could feel that tiny inner voice telling me it was a bad idea. The corpse king wanted me to play it safe.

  Time to get dangerous.

  46

  I pushed my foot against the cave wall and felt the slight stick of my magical boot. It wasn't like I imagined — I couldn’t just stick straight out like Spiderman — but it was some of the easiest climbing I'd ever done. It was like having a perfect foothold anywhere you wanted. Up I went, along the edge until I got to the roof, directly above the goblin strike force. I maneuvered around until I was in position over my chosen target: a small clump of purple-robed buttheads who were cackling as they threw spells unopposed.

  Too bad they didn't look up.

  With two daggers out, I dropped and impaled two of the goblins.

  I let those daggers go and grabbed two new ones from my belt, going full stabby-stabby on all the purple robes around me.

  There was bedlam. Chaos. Dogs and cats living together. Followed quickly by a small explosion as a warlock lost control of his spell and accidentally unleashed raw arcane energy. He also lost most of his head to my daggers.

  I stabbed out left and right, pulling daggers out of goblin belts as I lost mine.

  As the rest of the horde started to realize something was rotten in their midst, I checked to see how I'd done.

  A lone purple-robed figure was still squirming on the ground.

  I stomped on the robe, and stabbed down for good measure.

  A roar distracted me, and I saw one of the huge gray-skinned dudes charging at me, his crude stone club lifted high to kill me.

  I smiled at him, and cast shadow step.

  Slipping into the shadow realm was almost relaxing. My adrenaline still spiked, my heart rate was through the roof, and I was definitely feeling death's cold hand running down my spine, but for a brief bit of time, I could think.

  The best thing to do, from a selfish perspective, would be to run for the wall and climb back over while in the shadow realm.

  However, I was still the only one on the other side in the thick of it. I could still cause a massive amount of damage before being dragged down. If that even happened. I might get away clean.

  I twirled a dagger in my hand, or at least tried to. I maybe missed the hilt and let it drop to the ground.

  No problem — I had more.

  I grabbed another from my belt and ran right behind the brute aiming to crush me. Then I slipped back into the real world.

 

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