RotD - Chapter 10: Gambler's Loss

“There’s another one!” the male guard yelled outside the tent.

Dolli was running out of options. Perhaps if she left them on top of one of the crates, the next person to come in would put them away without a thought? It was all she could hope for.

Dolli rushed to an iron-bound chest and set the five health potions on top with a quick prayer. She looked up, trying to cast her first portal out into the treeline above, but got a negative buzzing in her ears instead.

[No Line of Sight]

You cannot cast that spell without line of sight.

-----

Damn it all!

Dolli snuck to the edge of the tent and peeked through the gap in the canvas. Toren swooped down and ripped the spear out of the male guards hands, then snapped it in his beak. Leina had the female guard wrapped in sand and was squeezing the life from her eyes. Two dead guards right outside the provisions tent, not a good look for their plan.

“Help!” the male guard got out one good cry that surely resonated far enough to draw attention.

Dolli jumped from the tent and pulled the dagger from her belt. The male guard didn’t look relieved to see her. “Get the shifter!”

Dolli nodded and moved around behind the guard, then stabbed the dagger through the meat of his leg and ripped down. The guard felt to his knees and Dolli pushed the cold, jagged steel into his heart, silencing him.

“A little late, Overlord,” Toren said. He swooped low and dragged his claws across the female guard who was gasping for air. Blood sprayed through the shifting sands and she crumpled to her knees.

Dolli growled through gritted teeth. “This has jeopardized the whole mission! Loot the bodies,” she ordered, but Leina and Toren didn’t move.

“We can’t have the provisions under suspicion. We must assault Kelzoul himself now, and we need the key,” Dolli said, rolling the male guard over. He didn’t have anything on him.

“There, right there!” came a shout from down the road. Three goblins pointed with bony fingers to Dolli and her not-so-stealthy comrades. The gray-skinned creatures pushed the goblins aside and charged forward.

“Not good,” Toren said, then took to the sky.

Brene dropped from the tree with a dirt trembling thud and dashed mantle-first into the new attackers. She speared one of them through the chest and shook her head to toss him to the ground.

“Got it!” Leina called and jingled the keys between her fingers.

Dolli dropped her corporeal form, taking on the misty glow of her Celestelle body and increasing her Spark pool significantly. With a single gulp she downed one of the untainted restorative potions she’d saved for herself, refilling her Spark to 75%.

“This is stupid,” Dolli muttered under her breath and snatched the keys from Leina’s hand. The only way to play this off now was to pretend it was a rescue mission all along. Kelzoul didn’t seem like the brightest candle in the cathedral, but he’d made it this far as a dungeon slayer, so he must’ve had a decent sense of self preservation.

Dolli twisted the key in the lock and the gate groaned open. Leina screamed when she saw the torture chamber full of Dolli’s dungeonfolk. The flayed corpses of Henrietta, Segrit, Walden, and many more twisted Dolli’s guts. Leina rushed to Henrietta’s side, sobbing apologies and curses.

Where was Kelzoul? Dolli scanned the clearing, trying her best not to take in the horrific sight. He must’ve retreated to his seat of power, but all this noise would surely draw him out. They had to be swift.

“Dol—trice,” a weak voice gave Dolli a start. She turned to see what poor creature had tried to utter her name. An Osorath, dismembered down to a bleeding abdomen and sunken skull, stared back at her from one of Kelzoul’s tables. Fury, fear, and devastation, erupted in her mind.

Dolli pulled a Health potion from her inventory and held it to Vilhelm’s bruised lips. “Drink,” she commanded.

Sounds of the battle outside the gate grew louder, and Dolli knew Brene and Toren couldn’t hold them off much longer—then there was Kelzoul, wherever he was.

The magic of the potion dripped out the bottom of Vilhelm’s chest and drained from his arm stumps. Dolli clenched her jaw in frustration.

“He took it,” Vilhelm uttered in a ragged breath.

“Your respawn essence?” Dolli asked.

Vilhelm nodded.

She uncorked another Health potion and held it up to him. Vilhelm held his lips closed, then looked away.

“Save it. You’ll need—” he gasped deeply, then coughed a glob of blood onto his chest.

Dolli watched helplessly, fury burning through her body. The glow of her twilight colors ran red and her body pulsed like an angry beacon.

“You were a fool,” she hissed at the dying Osorath, then placed a hand on his blood-drenched face. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t let ‘m do—more.”

Dolli didn’t know if Vilhelm meant for her to end his torture, or prevent the torture of the other dungeonfolk, but she nodded. “I won’t. Close your eyes now, and dream of TK_Hafhaven.”

“Thank—ew.” His eyes fluttered shut and a grateful smile graced his lip.

Dolli summoned an icy Spark Lance and pushed it through his heart. Frost climbed up and down Vilhelm’s body and he sighed his last breath.

“What are you doing?” Leina shrilled and covered Vilhelm’s body in a protective layer of sand.

“He’d had his essence removed, there was no saving him.”

“Did you even try?” Leina yelled through her tears.

“I did the only things I could.” She threw the empty Health potion to the ground. “We need to leave, or we’ll be joining him.”

“Overlord!” Brene yelled from the battle at the gate.

Dolli grabbed Leina’s hand and pulled her from the gore-filled antechamber. Three gray-skins lay dead on the ground but five more of them had joined the fray. Dolli cast Gravity Sink, followed by Zeal on Brene, and finally Solstorm. The chain of yellow power jumped from Dolli to Brene, then bounced around between the enemies, zapping their life in five percent chunks.

Two of the gray-skins dropped to the ground, stunned by her spell, but that wouldn’t be enough. Dolli knew with this commotion, reinforcements were surely on the way.

“Into the trees!” she yelled.

Brene was still fighting, and her health was low. “I’ll stay. You go!”

Dolli had just enough Spark for Fold Reality and no time to argue. She knew Brene wouldn’t let herself be captured, and she’d see her back at Monster Haven in a few hours. Dolli cast the first portal directly in front of her, and the second on a low, thick branch. She pulled Leina through the portal with her and spared a second for another Spark potion.

Leina dropped to her knees, tears streaming down her shifting sandy cheeks. “I can’t do it.”

Dolli didn’t have time for breakdowns either. She slapped the woman across the face and barked with her Overlord presence, “Move or die!”

Leina yelped and jumped to her feet, quivering. She threw her sandy shield out and jumped onto it, then another, until she was climbing into the dense vegetation of the forest. Dolli followed behind, using Burst of Speed to keep up.

“We’re just going to leave them?” Toren cawed angrily beside Dolli.

“They’re dead! Forever dead!” Dolli snapped.

A loud ribbit echoed through the trees and the crackling of a fireball rushed Dolli from behind. She dove off the sandy platforms and clung to a nearby branch as the fireball blazed past and exploded on the tree trunk next to Leina. She shielded herself from the blast and the sand turned to glass, dropping to the ground with a loud shatter.

They were going to aggro the entire camp at this rate! Dolli thought of killing Leina and Toren to save them the trouble, but a misty white presence through the branches stayed her hand. A glowing red nose lead the way for twelve little elves on twelve floating reindeer. Snow blanketed the forest floor, covering the troops advancing on Brene.

“Needin’ a ride?” the lead elf asked in a comically high-pitched voice with an accent she couldn’t place. He extended a hand to Dolli with a winning smile.

Dolli looked down. Brene was fighting on, her health bar critically low. Dolli couldn’t leave without watching her die. She couldn’t let Brene be captured and tortured like the others.

“My dungeonfolk!” she said, fear trembling through her words.

The elf looked down, then drew an arrow to his bow as quick as lightning. The tip of the arrow glowed blue, then little ghosts of ribbons and bells danced around it. He loosed and the shot whistled through the air. The arrow penetrated deep into Brene’s shoulder, down to her heart, dropping her to the dirt. The Stagarth burst into green sparks and floated up on the air as if daring to race Dolli home.

“Ready now?” the elf asked again, hand extended to her.

Dolli took it and he pulled her onto the reindeer.

“I’m Taffy,” he said, grabbing the creature’s reigns.

Another fireball blasted through the trees and Taffy whipped the reindeer into action. The creature took off with blinding speed. Dolli grabbed a fistful of the elf’s vest to keep from flying off, then pulled herself close.

“Dolli. Thank you,” she said, her body on pins and needles.

“Don’t be thankin’ me yet.”

Shouts from the camp below followed them into the night but the heavy snowfall and great speed kept the other flying creatures from catching up. They broke through the trees and into the pink sky. It was dawn, and they were running out of time. Kelzoul would get his troops on the move soon, and they were mere days from assault range.

The horrors of the torture chamber returned to her, but instead it was Monster Haven. Her dungeonfolk lay butchered in the streets, shouting for mercy and begging for the end. The children screamed for their parents and friends, helpless to do anything but watch.

Dolli closed her eyes and let the whistling wind blow away those fake horrors. She never wanted any of this, but gods be damned and stripped of their magic, she would not let Kelzoul take another dungeon, or another life. She would put an end to him for good.