The teeth tore at my armored vest. Such savagery was expected on an excursion, but its frequency was alarming. These beasts were, quite frankly, supposed to be under better control. Then again, what does one expect. Throwing the creature off of my shoulder, I spoke the words softly and let a fraction of the energy I hold inside rip out towards it. The sheer force of it tore the creature asunder, its head and limbs separated from its body by several feet. I looked at my shoulder. It seemed fine, nothing that the leatherworker couldn’t fix in an afternoon. I called out, “Gwynn? Are you safe?”
It was a moment before the response. “Fine here, Madoc. Just a runner. How about you, Llew?”
“Fuck you, Gwynn,” Llew replied, “I am not about to be stopped by a few monstrosities.”
I sighed. “Alright. I assume it is all good on your end as well, Arwel?”
“Better than you,” Arwel said, meeting up with me, “I saw that one bite you.”
I rolled my eyes at the youngest of us. “Yes, yes, I know. I was not paying near enough attention to my surroundings.”
Llew arrived. “Was Madoc just admitting he is flawed?” the large man asked. Llew towered over both Arwel and myself, and even with all of the weight I had put on in the last few years, he was still larger than the two of us combined. Muscles rippled, visible even through his mail.
“Never,” I replied, “I simply have to carry the slack for the rest of you.” That was not strictly true, but I was the most experienced of the group. I had been forced to do these excursions since I was a youth, one of the many fun benefits of being the first son of the Caretaker.
“What slack?” Gwynn asked before he arrived in the clearing, “There was no slack on my end.”
“Mine either,” Arwel added.
“Our trip has been markedly slack free,” Llew said with a smile.
I sighed as Gwynn finally made it. “What took you so long?” I asked the tall, lithe man.
He smiled, absentmindedly twirling his staff. “I was a tad busy, what with the whole runner business.”
I looked at him, my eyes widening in mocking. “Oh, one runner gave you trouble, then? Did yours give you guys any?” I looked at my other two companions, adding, “Because mine took me no time at all.”
Arwel shook his head. “I was fine. I had two hoppers and, well, if I am to be completely honest, they posed less of a threat than a potted plant might.”
“Exaggeration is bane of trustworthiness, Twig,” Llew scolded the miniscule young man, “That said, I dispatched the runner who was after me with relative ease.”
“I did the same,” I said, “So it seems like it was only you who had the issue, Gwynn. Mayhaps you should be better prepared next time.”
“Mayhaps I shall,” Gwynn shot back. Then, shaking his head, the man asked, “So, where is this terrible evil causing our discarded to be so aggressive?”
I pointed towards the small cave ahead of us. It led deep under ground. Whatever was in that cave was riling the creatures up, causing them to become aggressive before the culling would normally be necessary. Llew nodded and smiled. “Follow me, then,” he said, striding ahead of us confidently.
I nodded to Arwen, then looked over at Gwynn. “Take the rear,” I said, “Make certain we are not ambushed from behind.” Arwen followed Llew, I followed Arwen, and Gwynn, keeping a careful eye out for flanking enemies, took up the back of our line.
As we entered the cave, Llew looked back towards the rest of us. “You know, I hate to do this, but would one of you mind giving us some light here?”
I looked at Arwen, and he nodded. This sort of thing was more in his wheelhouse than mine. Extending his dagger towards the ceiling, a thousand tiny balls of dimly glowing dust floated about them. Arwen pointed his dagger towards the inside of the cavern, and the glowing particulates began to aimlessly flutter deeper and deeper into the cave, making a path of dim lighting for Llew to follow.
Llew followed the path of lights, which moved along with us. Despite the fairly frequent attacks of the creatures outside of the cave, the inside of it seemed vacant. It was almost as though the creatures themselves were afraid of whatever lurked within. As we descended, I felt a deeper and deeper sense of dread. Something down here was terribly wrong with the world. I could feel in my gut the same restlessness and rage which was most likely driving the creatures out there into their mad frenzy. Leaning in, I whispered to Arwen, “Do you feel that? That call?”
“What?” Arwen asked, turning to look at me, “What call?”
I sighed. That confirmed my suspicion. It either was only affecting or could only affect those already infected with the mind-plague. The further along the infection, the greater the call’s influence over the infected, hence why the monstrosities outside felt the effects on the surface, but I needed to go into the actual cave system before I felt anything. I was not sure whether that was good or bad, but it was interesting.
Eventually, we came upon a large chamber, almost directly under the forest. The room was empty, but it felt full. “Be on your guard,” I warned, “Something is not right with this place.”
Llew nodded. “Understood,” he said, and drew his enormous blade.
Arwen looked me in my eyes. He could see the discomfort behind them, the restlessness the call was pushing into my mind. “Are you going to be alright?” he asked.
I cracked my neck and forced a smile. “I shall be fine, Arwen,” I replied, “My infection is acting up here, that is all.”
“That is not something to dismiss offhand, Madoc,” Gwynn said, “Make sure not to exert yourself, alright? I would hate for whatever is going on with the castaways to happen to you.”
I turned to look at my old friend. “I know what I am doing, Gwynn,” I said, slightly more angrily than I intended, “Or have you forgotten that I am have dealt with this since before you knew it existed?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gwynn replied, “Just, be careful, okay?”
I waved him off dismissively, not deigning to answer that. “Come now. This room is the center of it all. We need to figure out what is going on.” And, ignoring the others, I walked towards the middle of the room. The other slowly begun walking in, however they made certain to remain far more cautious than myself. As I approached, I saw the faint shimmer of something being mystically hidden. I also felt the calling more and more powerfully with each step. As it grew stronger, I began to slowly stab my quill into my leg in order to drive away the call with pain. Ten paces in even that was no longer enough, so I turned to the others again. “Perhaps I was a tad hasty,” I said through intensely gritted teeth, beginning my retreat towards them, “I do not believe it wise for me to get much closer before stop whatever this is.”
“What is it?” Arwen asked.
“I believe there is a building in the middle of the room,” I said.
“Really?” Arwen asked. Turning towards the empty chamber, he muttered something and pulled his hand down from his mouth to his hip, slowly grasping it into a fist as it descended. Grey dust seemingly began to fall from the ceiling, drifting down over the entire room. As it passed over everything, the small clay structure became visible. As did several people in robes, standing around the chamber. Six wearing black hooded robes, one wearing a white robe that lacked a hood, though it was augmented with a fanciful mask.
“What did they do!?” shouted the only robed figure in white.
Almost before we could think, the other robed figures drew swords out of nowhere. I groaned. “I hate cultists,” I murmured.
Llew, on the other hand, grinned from ear to ear. “I love cultists,” he said, loud enough for the entire chamber to hear.
Arwen was already beginning to mutter to himself, and Gwynn had stepped back into the shadows. I turned to the white robed lady. “You really do not want to do this,” I said, trying with all my might to remain calm, “Not today.”
She cackled, and a tentacle flung itself out from her sleeve towards me. It took me by surprise, wrapping itself around me and starting to pull me across the room. My companions all knew what that would mean, as the path was taking me directly over the source of the call. Arwen stopped his summoning and bolted for the door. Llew pulled his cloak over himself and crouched down, covering his body. Gwynn remained nowhere to be found. The cultists saw these actions and their understanding of the situation took just a hair too long. As my mind became overwhelmed by the call, I blacked out. I was no longer present in my own mind or body. This always happened to one of the infected heeding a call. This call was the one of violence. For most infected, that mean a frenzy of biting and punching and kicking, the natural violent reaction of a normal man. Unfortunately for these people, I am far from normal. I have massive quantities of mystical energy flowing through my bloodstream. It feeds off of my infection and my infection feeds off of it. That is why it takes so long for members of my family to be taken over by the infection, in spite of constant contact with it. Because of the near symbiotic relationship between the disease and the blood, whenever I lose control, I lash out against the universe mystically. Dependent on the call I lose control to, that lashing can be rather pleasant, very entertaining, or extremely deadly. This particular call generally causes the third.
I came to, lying in a puddle of my own blood, at the feet of the woman in white, who stood awestruck at whatever had just occurred. I looked up at her and sighed. “I warned you,” I said, as Gwynn appeared behind her.
“… But... Wait, what? I mean, how? I…” she began to mutter incoherently. People did that.
Gwynn grabbed her around the neck. “What next?” he asked me. He had seen me lose control before. He was not near as shocked as the others. They knew I was powerful, and I had warned them about what might happen, but they had never actually seen it first-hand.
“Hold,” I said, “She seemed in charge of the whole ordeal. We should probably bring her to the Duchess, let her have her interrogation, figure out the details before passing judgment.”
Gwynn nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
The woman in white, still clearly terrified, began to stutter out, “Th-th-thank y–” She was cut off as Gwynn’s staff smacked her across the head and she fell limp, unconscious but alive.
I turned to Arwen and Llew, who were looking at the carnage around them, awestruck. The black-robed figures were all shattered masses, lying broken against the walls of the cave. Blood oozed from their bodies onto the floor, filling miniscule cracks in the stone. I sighed and said, “Would you guys please deal with the evil thingy in the middle? I’d like to be able to go home without murdering anyone else.”
“Right, right,” Llew said, and he began to tear the small structure down brick by brick. In the center of the building was a statue.
Seeing the statue, Arwen approached and, holding Llew off with a finger, he began to whisper something and his hand moved in a circle around the statue, and then, pulling out his bag of useless things, eh removed a bunch of junk and placed it around the base of the statue. As he finished muttering something, the junk all burst into blue-green flames, and I instantly felt the call subside completely. I sighed, leaning back, and said, “Thank the gods for that.” Then I stood up.
Llew grabbed the statue and, ripping it from its base, hurled it against the wall. It smashed into innumerable fragments, scattering across the cave floor. Then, beckoning for us to follow, he began to leave the way we came from. We followed him back up to the surface, and we passed a few of the monstrosities on the way out. They were not hostile, just territorial. Everything was back to normal. I couldn’t help but smile as I opened the gate to the city from quarantine. The four of us, now with an unconscious body, filed out, and headed towards the palace to drop off the prisoner.