We continued on our way to the estate from the note. Shade turned suddenly when we were passing the center of town. His tail began swishing as he detoured from the group, and his typical grace was ever so slightly missing. He was still drunk. Bad time for it. He approached the well like it was calling out to him. Juno was fastest in pulling him away from the damn thing. When it became obvious that he was going to fight with her, Olaf and I rushed over. Good thing we did, in hindsight.
Olaf tackled him to the ground. I yelled, “don’t be an idiot,” but I don’t even know if Shade could hear me. Some poor kid did though; the same one that Olaf made cry earlier. He took off running. Some heroes we were looking like at this point. Shade just kept squirming on the ground though, so I finally added myself to the pile to keep him down. Slender looked like he was ready to start placing bets. Mole and Matanza looked like they were ready to ditch us.
We did finally talk him out of leaping into the dark, scary, probably draugr-filled well. He mentioned that one of the villagers told him they were having water problems– like that explained his behavior. Slender argued that we aren’t plumbers. I had to agree with that one. Cleaning a water supply seemed like it should have been above our paygrade, and I still didn’t trust the tunnels under Thornwall.
We reached the Rockovitch estate sometime mid afternoon. I don’t think any of us wanted to be caught outside after dark. Not after the night we had. The sun was dipping lower into the sky, and it was almost like you could feel a tangible increase in our anxiety. Slender was playing a little song on his lute, Olaf’s hand kept brushing the handle of his hammer, Shade’s ears kept swiveling to any detectable sound– though, I wondered how much he could hear with his ears full of cotton. I kept loading and unloading my flintlock pistol. Without the typical audible clicks, it didn’t have the same calming effect it usually did.
Another kid opened the door when we got to the estate. He was just as confused as we were about the note. Something about not even knowing who the people on it were? I had figured they were his parents, but if he was lying, he was really good at it. Even Juno seemed convinced, and she doesn’t miss a thing when it comes to people. Would someone have made up a fake note? A much more worrying thought crossed my mind. Was it possible that he had completely forgotten his family?
I glanced at the people around me. I didn’t want to think about losing them, but what if… What if we already had lost friends to whatever strange brain fog had encompassed this village? I ran through their names again in my head. I had to. Had to make sure I knew who they were. Juno, Slender, Olaf, Molilios, Matanza, Shade. That was all of us. Wasn’t it? There was this horrible feeling in my gut that it wasn’t– that one of us was dead. How unfair would it be if I didn’t even remember them?
I led the way out of the Rockovitch house. I couldn’t stand being in there any longer. Uncertain of what happened to Agatha Rockovitch, but knowing that her fate may not have been so unusual. Shade took the lead again– patted his ears real quick, letting us know he had something to say. I was hardly sure that I cared to hear it. Still, I readied myself to listen.
“Someone mentioned a cave leading into the tunnels under Thornwall. Could be a lead?” Shade said. He didn’t seem particularly convinced. “Or, you could let me jump down the well. Think those are our options.”
“I hate both of ‘em,” Olaf replied gruffly. “Though, if we go in a cave at least there’s an easy exit.” Easy exit. If only.
“I’d be fine with that,” Slender added. “These townsfolk may actually be dumber than most of you all, and that’s saying something. I’d like to start doing something that gets me paid instead of asking questions no one has the answers to.” Juno made a face at that. Technically, Slender still owed her a bit of money. I wasn’t sure if she’d let that one go as easy as Mole and I did.
“They already paid us,” she hissed. “They sent lumber to Port Battleborn.” I made a face as I tried to remember who had even mentioned that. It was in the letter? No… Someone said it, but who? “Oh my gods, did you all already forget?” She turned to look at how we were all staring at her with blank faces. “The priest thought we robbed him! Do you all really not remember?” We shook our heads. “Okay, put your damn cotton back in your ears and let’s go to the cave. We have to figure this out. Quickly.”
We followed after Shade as he brought us into the woods on the north-western side of town. It had been so long since I had seen trees that weren’t palms or those in the swamps of The Republic. It made me miss home, which was a stupid thing to be missing with all things considered. I didn’t want to forget Acheron. I didn’t want to forget my mom and dad, or Luna. No. We wouldn’t forget anything. I would make sure we made it out of here. Alive, and with our memories intact.
I managed to keep that fearlessness up even as we stared into the entrance of the cave. It was pretty big, but the tunnels under the town were so small. Maybe it wasn’t even the same creature. I don’t think any of us could take it if this was another dead end lead. I stepped forward first, steeling my nerves for whatever was waiting for us in the dark. Matanza stuck a torch for those of the group not gifted with darkvision.
Juno wrinkled her nose about 20 yards into the dark. I pulled my mask forward just enough to see if I could place the smell. I could, pretty easily, unfortunately. Death. Smelled like my palace after those dark necrotic flames had their way with my family. Smelled like Ravenspurn during the plague. Smelled like that crypt we had braved together. We could brave this too.
I wished I could hear better, but at least Thunderstick would warn me if something was about to attack us. We turned a corner and came face to face with… something. It was like a weird snake hovering in the air, and as it turned, I realized it definitely wasn’t a snake.
“Stars help us,” I gasped as I came face to face with the most horrifying creature I had ever seen in my life. It was a pale head, wrinkled, mutilated. It could have been human, or some sort of mortal if it weren’t for those dead eye sockets. It opened its mouth and a tongue the length of my forearm lolled out past its awful teeth. The jaw completely unhinged, and I took a step back, bumping into Olaf. He was pale as a ghost, and if our fearless warrior was scared, I was terrified.
“What the fuck?!” Slender shouted, loud enough we could hear him past the cotton. I think that sentiment summarized how we were all feeling pretty well. As soon as I saw it, I knew– this was the thing that hurt us. This was the thing that killed Juno.
She must have known too. We looked at each other, both frantic. A second passed. It felt like years. I turned back to the creature, and my blood ignited.
“Ashen Cabaret,” I shouted. “Stay together. Stand strong. No mercy!” I cast my armor and pulled Ifrit out of the rift I stored my pact weapon in. The heat of the sword made my form become enveloped in mist. Another head came around one of the tunnels behind us, and I shuddered. How many of these things were there?
Juno decided to change things up. I guess if this thing had already killed her once, she figured our typical strategies wouldn’t be effective. Instead of keeping her distance, she pulled out both her swords and charged toward the head that was trying to flank us. As our paladins got ready to deal with the first head, I got ready to follow Juno. No luck.
The pale neck coiled around her and lifted her off the ground. The more she squirmed, the tighter it seemed to hold her. I yelled her name and reached for her hand as it pulled her past us, but it was too far away. Slender ran towards it, readying his magic. I held an arm out and looked back at him. I couldn’t let us all die if we became divided. My heartbeat felt like a drum in my chest. Juno could handle herself. I repeated that over and over in my head as I prepared to hold position.
I yelled for Matanza to help me out in fortifying our location. Juno would be able to get back to us– she was slippery and fearless. We just needed to have a safe place for her here. The tiny kenku stepped back from the monster and their eyes began to glow green. The nearby roots of the trees above us grew larger, twisting and coiling through the dirt until they had made all the passageways around us a maze of thick flora.
I planted my feet firmly in the center of where the tunnels connected and begged for The Aeon to lend me his strength to protect my friends. I directed my palms towards the neck of the first hydra. Fire erupted from the ground and I slowly spun in a circle to set the other passageways ablaze. It created a perfect ring, not quite high enough that Juno wouldn’t be able to slip back in.
Mole and Olaf swung their weapons at the head that was separating us from where Juno had disappeared. Olaf hit it first with his hammer. It slammed into the tunnel wall, raining dust down on all of us. Mole twirled their greatsword around and pierced through its wrinkled skin. It recoiled back a bit, glancing over at me like it wanted to attack. My magical armor was enough of a deterrent that it kept its distance. Just as it seemed like we may have been able to handle this head, Shade shouted behind us.
I spun around, flaming sword still at the ready. Another head had burst from the ground and was threatening the back line. Matanza beat me to the punch– quite literally. They ran forward and leapt into the air. The head turned and took the first punch directly. It swayed away from the second, then thrusted forward. Matanza was knocked back and skidded to a stop at Shade’s feet. The tabaxi jumped over them and swung both of their fountain pens into the creature. It hurt it, but more than anything it just seemed to make it mad.
Behind us, Mole sliced through the neck of the first head. I turned around as the thud shook the ground. The stump of the neck pulled backwards into the darkness, and I sighed in relief. None was to be found yet, however. As quickly as it vanished, two more heads took its place. Suddenly, the weird serpentine necks made sense. It was almost like a hydra, but not quite. It was not nearly as reptilian as I had expected… Almost like it was a false hydra.
Slender grabbed my shoulder, and behind his mask I could see the panic in his eyes. I read his lips. We have to leave. I knew he was right, but I looked over my shoulder down the dark tunnel Juno had vanished in. I didn’t even know if she was still alive. I couldn’t risk everyone’s lives by staying here for a corpse.
I gestured for everyone else to begin a retreat. My hands traced the fabric of my magic cloak. I could escape from almost anything, this would be no different. Shade picked up Matanza, much to their dismay, and began running. One of the necks turned and went after them, but Shade’s acrobatics meant they could escape unharmed. Olaf ran for Slender and Mole came towards me. Slender began casting his spell, but it gained the attention of the false hydra. Olaf knocked back both of the other heads as he wildly swung his hammer. Mole looked at me expectantly, but I didn’t move.
“Come on. Come on,” I whispered too quietly for anyone to hear. Slender’s dimensional door opened back outside to the serene autumn forest. Olaf ran through without hesitation. Slender looked at us.
“Jadeth!” He shouted. Just as he did, Juno burst through the tunnel, shaken and covered in blood. “Run!” Juno took a second to catch her breath before taking off again towards the entrance. Her wings were beating rapidly. Slender disappeared through his door, and I pushed Mole and myself through my own.
We all collapsed in the green grass on the surface, panting wildly. I stared up at the golden sky as sunset started to approach, wishing we had gotten more information about the creature we just encountered. Everyone was battered, but not as badly as we were last night. We had escaped, and shouldn’t that have been enough? I wished I could have just been selfish and decided to abandon this town. They needed us though. Those kids needed us.
When we got back into town, Shade pulled the coin from his pocket that we had received from the Goddess of Chaos. I took mine out as well, looked over the engravings on either side. One side was a mechanical cat head, the other, a cat skull. Before anyone could stop him, he flipped it up into the air and caught it. The coin gleamed, and a pile of gemstones exploded out of it. Slender’s eyes grew huge.
“That’s what these do?!” He exclaimed and pulled his own coin out. He flipped it, and it landed in his palm– skull side up. It began to glow, and a campfire came into existence at our feet. He looked down at it in silence as the coin vanished from existence in his hand. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He glanced at Shade. “Buddy, don’t suppose you want to share?” The tabaxi was too busy shoving the gems into his bag to hear him.
I stepped forward, now feeling fairly confident in my own coin flip. As it rotated through the air, everyone watched it with wide eyes. I caught it. The skull in my palm stared up at me.
“Shi–” I was interrupted as a monster fell from the sky. We all jumped in different directions as it burrowed into the earth below us. It emerged onto the surface to roar with its huge teeth gleaming from the fading sunlight. Its gray, armor plated body seemed to be no joke, but Olaf ran at it with his hammer out. It swiped at him, but he slid under its claws and hit it with an uppercut. It roared again and burrowed back into the ground. The earth beneath us gave way and collapsed into the false hydra’s tunnels.
I jumped down into the hole, spells at the ready. I swung both my arms forward to hit it with some eldritch blasts. It charged at me, and I dove out of the way towards Olaf. It hit the wall behind me, knocking more ground down. We jumped out of the way again, and I grabbed Olaf to take us both back on the surface with a jump.
The monster shot out of the earth and arched towards a nearby child in guard gear. Juno readied her crossbow and shot an arrow right through its eye. It collapsed over dead not even a foot away from the kid. I fell onto my knees in relief. Seems even luck wasn’t on our side today.
We went back to the tavern that Olaf now owned. No one went into separate rooms that night. No one drank either. Even Olaf, though it was evident he wanted to, kept sober. It was probably for the best that we were as alert as possible. We piled into different corners of the room, making sure that we could all see each other.
No one could see my eyes under my mask, and I wasn’t going to take it off tonight. It let me keep tabs on who was still awake. Most of us were. I was so exhausted that I expected sleep to come easy. We were too paranoid for that to be the case. Eventually sleep won out on it, but it took hours.
Juno was the first to wake in the morning. She was sitting at the bar, and I came up behind her to see two pieces of paper. One looked like a map of the town, and the other seemed to be hastily drawn tunnels. Most of them didn’t have a set end, but I recognized the choke point we had tried to push through. I leaned over her shoulder and ran a finger down the long passage that Juno must have been dragged through. She brushed my hand aside and overlaid the map of Thornwall on top of the tunnels.
“Here,” she said, barely audible. She pointed to the well on the map– the one Shade had nearly climbed into. I lifted the sheet and saw that she had aligned it so it was right above the large chamber at the end of the tunnel. “There was daylight coming in through a hole above me when the false hydra took me here. It’s where its body is.” Slender and Olaf came up behind us, both of them now also staring at the maps.
“So, you’re saying…” Slender’s lips parted into a scowl.
“We gotta jump in,” Olaf finished. “We can’t just keep chopping heads like we did yesterday. Each time we remove one, it’ll just make our situation worse. I also doubt it’s going to let us charge down one of the tunnels without heavy resistance.” He tapped the well on the map. “If you’re sure it’s here. We have to do it that way.”
“Oh, so now suddenly jumping in the well is a good idea?” Shade said as he came over. “No: ‘thank you, Shade– you’re actually so smart and brave!’” He made a face and grabbed a bottle of liquor when it became clear no one was going to thank him for that. He popped the cap off with a single flick of his thumb. “Fine, fine. I’ll toast to myself.”
Olaf grabbed another bottle and stuffed it in his bag. I thought about getting my own, but I turned away and headed off into the corner of the room with Mole and Matanza. I don’t know why, but I thought maybe having some holy people close would help me for the stupid thing I was about to do.
I sat down on the floor and closed my eyes. I was never one for meditation, nor speaking to gods. This time I felt like I needed to. I took a deep breath; the world felt like it was shifting around me.
Great Aeon Immortal, I called out in my head. As your champion, I humbly ask for your guidance. It was the first time I had ever thought of myself as a champion. It felt incredibly stupid, to say the least. I was just Jadeth. Just some idiot noble who was in way over her head. I didn’t deserve answers. I didn’t deserve anything, save for maybe being devoured whole by that monster in the well.
The answer took me entirely off guard, as I wasn’t really expecting one. I tried to open my eyes, but they remained sealed. I was greeted with the vision of his great skeletal maw– opened but unmoving as he spoke to me. The dark eye sockets of the skull had some dim flicker of light deep inside them, like burning stars at the end of their life. His crowning event horizon illuminated us both, and I tried to take a step back. I didn’t move. I found that I was floating in the ether alongside him.
What could you possibly want, Slayer of Gods? His voice echoed around me in celestial. It sounded like the roar of a lion mixed with the softest whisper imaginable. One so faint, you were certain you were hearing things. His face couldn’t hold emotion, but I knew he was furious with me for some unknowable reason.
There is a monster that plagues this town, killing everyone and erasing all memory of its existence. I strive to kill it, but I don’t know if we have the strength to. My voice didn’t make noise as I tried to speak, but I knew he could hear it.
Strength is a tool utilized by gods such as Gruumsh. To rely on it as my champion is a folly unmendable. You must be clever. Do not fight the beast head on. The Aeon circled me like a cat stalking prey. I didn’t turn to watch him. It felt rude to do so. I kept my head down, waiting for the lesson to be revealed to me. Weaken it. Utilize all the tools at your disposal, or you and your companions will meet with your fates too soon. Poison the beast, then reap its soul. The Aeon appeared again in front of me, and before I could move– he pounced.
I woke up from the vision, slamming my head backwards into Matanza’s chair. They peeped in alarm as I groaned.
“Poison,” I grumbled. “We can weaken it with poison before we jump in the well.” Juno reached down to help me up. Instead of taking her hand, I nabbed the vial of assassin’s blood poison off the sheath on her hip. I held it up for everyone to see– a deep red bubbly substance that was deadly for someone our size. It wouldn’t outright kill the false hydra, but it would weaken it.
“I guess I was saving it for emergencies, and this seems to fall in that category,” she admitted. “How are we planning to get it to ingest it? Applying it to a weapon isn’t going to work.” I smiled under my mask.
“Easy, I’ll jump in its throat, and then jump back out.” Everyone was staring at me like I was insane. “What?” Juno grabbed the vial of poison from me and shook her head. I simply shrugged. “It would work!”
“There’s a huge dead monster carcass rotting away in the street outside. If we throw it down the well, it’s practically a buffet for those heads.” Juno opened the door to the tavern and pointed out the carcass of the monster that looked like it had started to be taken apart by hungry scavengers up the road. She was right, but I liked my plan better. There were a lot of variables to hers. What if the false hydra didn’t eat the carcass, for one. Mine was easy. Jump in. Jump out.
Juno began giving the monster a hearty marinade of assassin’s blood. Everyone worked together to carry it over to the well, and once again, I tried to pitch my own plan. They still didn’t want to hear it, but I argued this time. I didn’t want us to jump down that hole unless we were positive the poison had taken effect. The argument lasted for a while, and Mole yelled for us to turn our attention to the well.
We all spun to see one of the false hydra’s heads poked out of the well and sniffing our delectable poison monster steak. As soon as we looked at it, its attention was pulled off the carcass in favor of fresh meat. I saw my opportunity, so I sprinted forward. I drug a dagger through the flesh of the carcass right where they applied the poison to cut myself a piece of it off. The head turned to face me and came at me, jaw unhinged. I lept towards it.
Unfortunately, Juno wasn’t one to let me make a bad choice anymore. As soon as the neck had coiled around me, she brought her swords down on it. Shade and Olaf both followed suit, and the head released me back onto the ground. It slowly backed towards the well again, but I wasn’t going to let it happen. I snatched the monster flank and pushed past everyone to dive after it in the well.
The head’s jaw unhinged, and I managed to angle myself right down its throat. I had never been inside of a creature’s mouth before, but I suddenly found myself wishing I no longer had darkvision. The muscles contracted around me, and everything was so disgustingly wet. I held my breath, knowing I wouldn’t be able to breath as soon as the jaw shut. There was a commotion of yelling above me, but it all went silent as soon as the mouth clamped. I fumbled the flank down the throat, then quickly created a rift to escape through.
I landed a few feet off the ground behind everyone, and they all turned to me, looking relieved. We didn’t have time for that, however. I wasn’t far enough down its throat to be confident it swallowed the toxin. I looked at my paladins.
“Tell it to swallow the steak!” I shouted quickly. Mole’s eyes narrowed, but then they realized what I was asking. They ran towards the well, sheathing their greatsword.
When they held out their hand, a slight yellowish glow appeared at the end of their claws. Their eyes began gleaming the same color, and their voice boomed with a ferocity unmatched.
“Swallow,” they commanded with their magical might. As soon as they did it, I fell back into the dirt and stared up at my company.
“I told you!” I said and wiped what I could only hope was sweat from my brow. My hood was drenched in the awful slimy saliva. “I told you that my plan would be fine.” I closed my eyes and coughed a laugh out. I wished that wasn’t the easy part, but we still needed to finish the job. We needed to jump in the well. Olaf and Matanza helped me up, and we all leaned over the deep dark hole. “You’re certain this is where the body is?” I asked Juno.
She nodded. Shade climbed onto the ledge of the drop and began to walk down like gravity didn’t exist. Juno’s leathery black wings erupted from her cloak, and she glided down after Shade with Matanza in tow. Slender ushered Mole through a dimensional gateway. Olaf and I gave each other a thumbs up, then began a careful descent. We had to drop the last few yards, landing in a puddle of tainted water. We all grouped up and lit a torch.
The grotesque body of the false hydra had four necks, but only three of the heads were in the room with us. They all turned to face us, and we drew our weapons. It was now or never.
The first head came lunging at us. Slender ducked down just in time to dodge it. He retaliated with a blinding burst of faerie fire that disoriented all the heads. They swayed back and forth, trying to shake off the feeling, but it was clear their movement was slowed. The poison must have been working. Slender retreated back towards one of the tunnels, letting the front line push forward towards the body.
Olaf and Mole took turns knocking back the heads as Juno and Matanza struck its awful bloated abdomen. Shade took a running jump and clung to one of the heads, stabbing repeatedly into the empty eye sockets. He reached into his bag, careful not to get tossed off. Olaf yelled for him to jump off of it, but it was too late. Another head shot forward, and the neck caught Shade in a bind. Shade didn’t seem to care. He didn’t struggle as the creature dangled him over its mouth. I found out why, but by the time I did, it was too late to stop him. He had pulled out his damn grenade. Idiot.
He disappeared down his throat, and I quickly understood how that must have been terrifying for my friends to have watched me do the same. There was a slight difference between us however. I had an escape plan. Shade was suicidal. We waited a minute, all praying to Thaldra that he would slice his way out. Nothing. There was an explosion deep in the beast’s throat. It created a muted boom and a slight glow, and just like that, I knew the tabaxi was dead.
The grave issue with that became apparent. As the hydra swallowed down his body, its wounds all began to heal. Where Juno, Mole, Olaf, and Matanza harmed the false hydra was almost fully recovered. I sheathed Ifrit, knowing we had to get a bit more creative to finish this fight. Slender called out, asking if we should leave, but we had come too far. We had lost too much. I was done with burying my family. No one else was going to die today.
“Hold fast,” I yelled. The shadows overtook me as I channeled that wretched divinity through my veins. A darkness spread out around me, slowly at first. Creeping closer and closer to the false hydra. Then it struck. I swiped my arm forward, knowing that all my veins had become infected with that umbral shade. Tendrils of shadow rose up from around me and lashed into the beast. “This ends here,” I growled through my mask, eyes aglow.
The heads looked at me like they were reconsidering a threat. Good. I wanted their attention on me. If they focused on me, that meant the front line could stay alive. I had a few tricks up my sleeve, and more than anything I wanted to make sure my friends were able to keep fighting. I yelled for Slender as the one head came towards me. I knew he didn’t want to come back, and I didn’t blame him, but we had to keep everyone else alive. If they started falling, we were all dead.
Slender teleported back right onto the front line. I felt terrible for asking him to, especially after one of the heads that was going after Mole hit him instead. It knocked him onto the ground, but it didn’t stop there. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see how it finished him off. That was my fault he died. It was my fault. The man I had thought of as a selfish twat laid down his life to save us.
I ran forward to recover his body, but a voice stopped me in my tracks.
“Heal me,” it begged. I tried to resist it– tried so hard to focus on getting Slender’s body away from the creature. Focus on killing it. Focus. “Heal me with everything your spells can offer.” I raised my hand. The glowing light appeared in my palm. I grabbed my wrist with my other hand, trying to shake the light out. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t help the thing that killed my friends. I wouldn’t!
Juno turned around and screamed at me, but I couldn’t hear her. My eyes were fixed on the heads. I couldn’t snap out of the trance. It felt like the night I killed my family. I wasn’t in control of my actions anymore. The magic left my hand and I saw a few of the wounds on the monster heal over. That should have freed me from its control right? No. I turned towards my friends, knowing it was going to make me hurt them. I couldn’t stop it.
Juno readied her sword as I crept closer. I thought she was going to swing at me. I wanted her to. If it was between my death or hurting my friends, I knew what needed to be done. She raised her sword and my breath caught in my throat. Instead of bringing it down on me, she spun and slashed through the belly of the false hydra with a fury I had never seen from her. The guts exploded out of the wound, and I fell forward– free from the control of the monster.
I immediately rushed to Slender’s side. I grabbed the revivify scroll out of my bag and began casting the magic. That stupid asshole didn’t get to die on us today. Juno yanked Shade’s body out of the hydra’s belly after some careful carving and she looked at me. Everyone pulled the damn cotton out of their ears, finally able to properly hear again. Slender coughed out more blood and groaned as his heart slowly began beating again.
“Damn it, Jadeth,” he groaned. “Dream was finally getting good, I just met the Jarl of Whiterun.” I had no idea what that meant in the slightest, but we all looked over to Shade.
“I’m all out of magic…” I breathed. The tabaxi’s singed orange fur was all soaked from slime and bile. I couldn’t bring him back. I looked at Mole, but they shook their head and leaned onto their sword for support. “Can– can anyone? Slender?” He looked away, I thought I saw a tear run down his cheek. Him and Shade had gotten to be particularly close.
Matanza moved me aside with a low chirp. We all stepped back as they rubbed their hands together and held them out towards Shade. They had never done revival magic before, but they didn’t look phased. A few seconds passed where nothing happened. I held my breath as we waited. His whiskers twitched first, followed by a loud expletive as he jumped up.
“What?! Who?! Where am I– Oh. It’s you guys. I guess that grenade suicide mission worked, eh? Eh?” He smirked, and Juno threw her head back in a loud groan.
“Not really. You really made it worse for a second there,” Olaf scratched his shaggy beard. “Thought we were all going to die, and my last thought was going to be that I didn’t drink nearly enough ale to be ready for it.”
I stepped away from the group when the gleam of something metal caught my attention. Memories began coming back. Memories I almost wanted to stay forgotten. Juno put her hand on my shoulder, and I inhaled a sniffly breath.
“We’re all okay, right?” Slender asked, and I choked as I tried to answer.
I bent down slowly to pick up the mace. Spike. Spike wasn’t our dog– damn faulty memory. Damn hydra. We had nearly forgotten him. The man that had convinced all of us that we weren’t these broken misfits and doomed to never fit in anywhere. He called us a family. We were a family. I offered the weapon out to Juno, and she reached for it absentmindedly. Then it must have hit her too.
“Spike?” She whispered. As soon as the name was said again aloud, a flood of memories came crashing over me. I could have drowned in them. His big goofy unkempt beard. Those warm caring eyes. He saved my life back in Port Battleborn– he was the reason I was even getting a second chance to begin with and we…
“We left him behind,” my voice was hollow and distant. I pulled the powder out of my pocket. It was a teleportation crystal that was crushed upon use. He gave us all one, but he… he didn’t have enough to save himself. I collapsed onto the cold rocky ground of the cave. We left him behind. He was our closest friend since the beginning of this journey. Even when I couldn’t trust Juno or Slender, I trusted Spike.
The big naive idiot. I could picture all the wrinkles in his face as he laughed at the constant dumb stuff we were doing. He gave the best hugs, even though his beard tickled against my skin. He always smelled like cinnamon. I never really knew why. He was one of the few people I allowed to see me without my mask– he didn’t hold what awful things I did against me. He believed in me. No one ever fully believed in me.
A tear ran down my cheek, and before I knew what I was doing, I threw Spike’s mace away from me. It clattered against the floor, skittering closer towards the monster that killed him. I crawled away from it, like the memory would fade again. I wanted the memory to fade again. I wanted to forget who he was to me. Everyone turned to look at his weapon, then back at me. I buried my mask in my palms and screamed. It echoed down all the tunnels. I slammed a fist down into the ground, bruising the hell out of my knuckles. I couldn’t bury any more friends. I couldn’t bury any more friends.
“Jadeth,” Juno began, but I couldn’t reply to her. My voice was stuck. The only thing that came out was a sob followed by a sniffle. It should have been me instead. I didn’t even like priests– with their holier than thou bullshit attitude. It never felt that way with Spike. I wanted to push her away when she came closer, but she was just as close to him as I was. It wasn’t fair to make her suffer alone. It wasn’t fair to make myself suffer alone, either.
Slender came forward too, lighting a tiny flame in his hand. Juno reached into her bag and pulled out one of the candles she used to read at night. He lit it without saying a word. That was unusual for him. The candlelight flickered in the reflection of my goggles. I turned away and lifted them to rub my eyes, hoping no one would see me cry. I was supposed to be strong and scary, but that wasn’t true. Not right then.
We sat vigil there until nightfall, and in the morning, Juno and I went to bury his mace at the outskirts of the city. Olaf picked up the biggest boulder he could find; Spike deserved nothing less. Mole stooped down to chisel Spike’s name into the rock with one of their warpicks, then Matanza used their magic to make flowers begin to grow at the makeshift gravesite. Slender played a sad song on his lute as we said our goodbyes. Shade promised to recap Spike’s tale in the most epic of poems. All of it should have made me feel better. Should have. I didn’t, though. I don’t know if I will ever feel better.