Moonlight War- Act II (The Realmers Book 3) Read online

  Suddenly a clawed hand burst from within the mountain. Gold coins flew everywhere as the creature seized Evan’s arm.

  “Uugh,” Evan cried out in shock, punching the monster in the face on instinct.

  Unfortunately this only burned his hand as the creature was made out of fire.

  It was a Foblin, otherwise known as a fire goblin, Evan recognised it from training.

  Evan’s gauntlet saved his hand from being set alight, but still the heat strong enough to make him jerk his fist back.

  The Foblin looked similar to a regular goblin, except his skin was pink instead of green and every inch of him was imbued with flames.

  The Foblin’s grip on his arm was causing such immense heat, Evan thought it might well melt his armour at any moment. Evan tried to pull himself away but the minion had other ideas and threw him forward. Evan skidded down the side of the mountainous golden pile, rolling across the gemstones until he hit stone floor at the bottom.

  Before he could get to his feet, the fire goblin was on him. The Foblin placed his feet on Evan’s chest whilst reaching with his fiery hands to melt Evan’s unprotected face.

  Evan recoiled from the incredible heat, flinging out his arms and shooting volts of electricity into his attacker.

  The Foblin leaped backwards with a whine. He got to his feet just as the Foblin dived for his legs. Evan tried desperately to kick him off, but the creature managed to get a firm grip on his left boot and yank it off.

  The fire goblin then opened his mouth and attempted to eat Evan’s foot.

  “Get off of that!” He roared. Thinking fast, he transformed his foot into a steel spike which he kicked into the Foblin’s open mouth.

  The monster choked and reeled backwards, leaking droplets of gooey blood mixed with what looked like lava.

  Evan shot a torrent of ice magic while he had the chance. The blast consumed the Foblin, freezing him into an ice sculpture.

  Unfortunately the Foblin had been holding his boot. Even if he blasted it with fire, the boot would melt instead of reverse the spell.

  Great!

  He couldn’t go the rest of the mission with only one boot. And the one boot he had left was already half-chewed by the gator demon.

  Panting heavily, Evan looked around the room. He was in some kind of treasure vault, the gold pile was in the middle of the chamber, and the walls were bedecked with various weapons, armour and bizarre artefacts, such as a star where each point was a dagger and two small dragon skulls conjoined. All items appeared to be labelled.

  “Thank Rueda,” Evan said aloud as he spotted a line of shelves full of boots.

  Closest to him was a pair of white leather shoes named The Slithering Slippers, by the note beneath them. The label also explained how the slippers turned the wearer into a lizard. Next along were The Mahousive Mocassins, which made the wearer as tall as a Nephilm giant. Finally, he came across the light green boots that looked to be carved out of glass.

  Evan went to the display case only to find it had no handle not lock. It had been sealed magically. In Curse-Breaking, Elorian had prepared them for stuff like this. In training they’d only worked on opening enchanted treasure chests. But Evan supposed the same spell would work here. He’d have to draw out the trap spell.

  He placed both of his hands inches away from the case, but not touching. Evan then envisioned the glass lid popping open. He could feel the sorcery covering the case begin to peel off, trying to touch his hands. Evan waited until the magic was a millimetre away from his fingertips, before snatching his hands away. It worked. A red spark hit where his hands had been and the case sprang open.

  It had been close. Elorian had told them that some magically locked items bore curses too. That red spark would’ve done something very unpleasant to Evan if it had touched him. Elorian said many wandering adventurers had been turned to stone, or killed outright by lock curses.

  Up close, the boots were translucent. As he picked them up, he read the note lying beneath them: Here lie the Ghoul Galoshes, for the ghostliest of thieves.

  Evan spotted three small buttons on the heel of the left boot, red, green and blue. He put them on quickly; he needed to find the others.

  As he slipped on the second boot however he suddenly found himself floating several inches off the ground.

  “Wha…” He looked around, thoroughly confused. Seconds later he noticed his whole body was corporeal too. He looked like a ghost.

  Evan started to panic, but before the hysterics could take hold, he realised it had to be the boots. He reached down and attempted to take them off, which was hard considering he couldn’t stand on the ground. Sure enough, as soon as just one of the boots was off, he dropped back to the ground, his body normal once again.

  Hey, that’s pretty cool.

  Evan decided to put the boots back on again. This time he took a step forward and found he could walk normally, just on air. When he jumped he shot upwards, hovering higher and higher. He returned to the ground, or as close as he could get, and inspected the three buttons. Tentatively, he pressed the blue one.

  His body went from translucent, to instead match the red stones of the floor. This made him completely camouflaged, so much so that he was practically invisible. Curious, Evan floated over to the pile of gold. Like he’d guessed, his body went seamlessly from the red to gold, matching the coins.

  It seemed these boots had been enchanted with illusion magic so strong it would make Padrake envious. After a couple more minutes experimenting, Evan found he couldn’t pick up anything unless he pressed the green button. His hand would just pass through items, he could even walk through walls. Finally he pressed the green button and dropped to the ground, it appeared this button disabled all of the boots powers.

  “Jed will be so jealous.” Evan grinned to himself.

  *

  Please, don’t let him be dead. Please, don’t let him be dead. Emillia’s mind screamed at her over and over again.

  She kept replaying the moment of shock on Evan’s face a moment before he dropped through the floor and out of sight. The tile he’d been standing on had slotted back into place. She’d ran to try and prise it back up and see where Evan had gone, but to no avail. Emi couldn’t help thinking that she’d just seen Evan plunging to his death.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine,” Bane said.

  “How can you possible know that?”

  “I don’t.” Bane shrugged, “but there’s no point freaking out unless we know for sure.”

  “We have to find him,” she cried.

  “We will,” said Sintian. “The quicker we start, the better.”

  Bane walked to the small iron door in the corner of the hall. “We don’t know where to go, except that we need the gem of Quantem. So I say we try to avoid any cultists we might encounter and head down any stairs we find. Evan fell, so if we head downwards we should find him eventually.”

  “Avoid the cult members?” said Sintian, “Can’t we just kill them all?”

  “Not until we know more of what we’re up against,” Bane replied.

  They left the entrance hall and delved deeper into the temple. The door led to a narrow passage, which curved to the left as they travelled down it.

  So far the temple appeared deserted. Emi was just wondering where all the cultists were when she heard voices. As the corridor was curved they couldn’t see who was approaching, but they could hear them.

  “Be silent,” Bane hissed, grabbing their arms as all three of them pressed themselves against the wall.

  Emi felt a current of magic spread out from Bane’s hand on her arm and then wash over her. It felt like her body had been wrapped in a thin veil of material, and as she looked down she realised Bane had cast Obscurio, making all three of them invisible. It was an incredibly difficult spell, one beyond her ability, and they had to keep completely still for the invisibility to work.

  Emi also held her breath as the cultists came into view.

  Two
middle-aged human men wearing heavy brown robes rounded the corridor. They looked completely ordinary, nothing screamed demonic or evil about them.

  “We best put our masks on, Gerald.” One cultist said to the other. “The Bringer has called a meeting again.”

  She saw that both men held masks carved out of wood in their hands. The masks bore no expression, just two eyeholes and a small mouth slit.

  “What’s this one about?” the other cultist grunted.

  “I don’t know,” the cult member replied. “He probably needs us to kill some more. The Bringer always seems to need more sacrifices to appease his demon master.”

  The two men were parallel to the now. Panic flooded through her as the cultist on the left walked only inches away from her. If she moved an inch he might hear it and know she was there.

  Fortunately, the cultists weren’t on the lookout for invisible Venators and they moved on down the passage and out of sight.

  Seconds after their voices had faded, Sintian stepped away from the wall, breaking the invisibility spell on them all. “They’ve gone, back into the entrance hall,” he muttered darkly.

  “How did you do that?” she asked Bane, amazed at the skill of his Obscurio spell.

  “I’m a Phantom Venator,” Bane shrugged.

  “At least we know they’re connected to demons now,” Sintian said. “This Bringer they talked about is likely the cult leader, and he serves a demon.”

  “A Dread Lord do you think?” Emillia asked.

  “It’s possible,” said Bane. “Or these idiots simply believe it’s an ultra powerful demon they serve. Many higher-demons, the ones who can speak at least, often gather followers who obey their every command. Some demons like being treated like a god. We aren’t dealing with a common demon, those mindless minions don’t care what people think about them. They just want to feed.”

  Emi shuddered. From training she’d learned a little about higher-demons, but the major difference between them and common demons was intelligence, not strength. Higher-demons could learn speech and form coherent thought, but they weren’t as powerful as Dread Lords. Emi didn’t want to face either demon, but she’d take anything over a Dread Lord.

  Sintian snorted. “We might as well go back to Veneseron now then. If there’s a Dread Lord here the Masters won’t let us deal with it. Even though you and I probably could, Bane.”

  Bane grinned. “No one’s calling the mission Monitors, even if it is a Dread Lord. I’ve never failed a mission, and I won’t fail this one either.”

  “But have you ever faced a Dread Lord before?” she asked quietly.

  Bane hesitated. “Not exactly, but I’ve been part of teams that took down higher-demons many times. I’m sure Dread’s aren’t much harder.”

  Emillia wasn’t so confident. Evan had told her all about Kurrlan. As skilled as Bane might be, she didn’t think he could take on someone like that.

  “C’mon,” said Bane, “let’s get going before more cultists come. I don’t want to drain my magic making us invisible before we have to fight.”

  They continued down the corridor, which curved to the right now, then the left again. Emi felt like they were inside the body of a humongous snake as they zig-zagged from side to side.

  “Everyone must be at this meeting,” Emi said to break the silence, whispering in case any cultists were nearby.

  Finally the curving corridor came to an end in the form of another iron door.

  Sintian pushed it open slowly and soundlessly, in case there was anyone on the outside.

  She put a hand on her sword hilt once she saw Bane do the same, ready to fight.

  Once Sintian had the door fully open he called out. “Clear.”

  Emi sighed in relief as they entered the next room. Unlike the entrance hall, this room wasn’t empty, but full of metal shelves on every wall. Each shelf bore glass jars containing all manner of bizarre things.

  The first jar Emi spotted was just full of a fizzing purple liquid, which was normal compared to the next jar which held a gnome’s pickled head.

  “Eurgh, I’m gonna’ be sick,” she mumbled weakly.

  “Well, don’t,” Bane said unhelpfully.

  Emi tried to swallow down her nausea and distract herself by glancing at the other jars, but that didn’t help things much. The vast majority of them were full of disgusting specimens, from the toes of some creature she didn’t recognise to what to be a human brain.

  She nearly did spew when she noticed the slab at the far end of the room. Resting on it was a skeleton, with scraps of flesh still clinging to the bones.

  “Wha…why?” Was all she could say.

  “Hmm,” said Bane as he stepped closer to study the skeleton, he didn’t appear fazed at all. “Our report did say the cultists might also be necromancers. This skeleton gives that some merit.”

  Great, this keeps getting better and better. She turned away from the carcass, refusing to look in that direction. She just wanted to go home now. She wasn’t cut out for dealing with necromancers.

  “What is this cult doing?” Sintian asked, bending over to examine one jar. “Harvesting the organs of people they sacrifice?”

  Before she or Bane could give him an answer, Sintian picked up a jar directly in the middle of the highest shelf. As he lifted the jar the wall swung inwards, spinning and taking Sintian with it.

  Emi cried out, but Sintian was already gone, a blank stone wall replacing the shelves that had been there a second before.

  “Sintian,” she shouted, banging on the wall.

  “Quiet,” Bane hissed, pulling Emi back.

  “But-”

  “Calm down,” he interrupted her. “This place is obviously booby-trapped. Don’t touch anything. We’ll find both Sintian and Evan soon. Just don’t panic.”

  “So what do we do?” she said desperately.

  “You die.”

  They both whirled at the new voice and saw five masked cultists at the door, their weapons drawn.

  *

  The treasury chamber felt surreal to Evan now as he was back walking through the gloomy temple corridors. His new boots slapping down on the black stone was the only sound. He tried to walk less loudly, but to no avail, so he used Mutemove on his feet instead.

  He would’ve liked to cast Darkbreaker too, so he could see better in the darkened passageways, but the green fireball would draw the attention of any Cultists who might be in the area, so he had to rely on the flickering torches placed far apart on the walls.

  Evan had considered pressing the button on his boots to make him camouflaged again, so no cultist would see him if he did encounter a group out of nowhere. But he knew from Kyoko’s Alchemy and Enchantment classes that most magical items couldn’t be used all the time. He suspected the galoshes might run out of charge if he used the buttons too much, and Evan had come up with a plan. He was going to use his new boots to sneak past the cultists and steal the gem of Quantem, once he knew where it was. He’d looked around every inch of the treasury chamber, just in case the gem had been hidden there, but no luck. He just hoped he could tell the others of his plan before they started a full scale battle with the cult. They didn’t know what they were up against, and Evan thought it would be best to just steal the gem and then sneak back to Veneseron. It was a plan that was far less likely to get them all killed at least.

  He tried not to let panic grip him as he walked through the cold and dark passageways. He also tried not to let his mind get carried away, he kept imaging that his three companions were already dead, killed by legions of demons the cult had summoned.

  Evan froze as he heard footsteps on stone somewhere ahead of him. He stood in the middle of a wide corridor which ended at another passage going left, the footfalls were somewhere down the left corridor. He edged forward slowly, unsheathing Ruaden from his belt.

  The steps got closer and closer, whoever or whatever it was, was only a foot away now.

  Evan jumped violently, causing Sintian
to jump back too.

  “Glarqing hell, Evan. Watch yourself.”

  “Sorry, I thought you might be a necromancer or something?” Evan mumbled. “Hey, where are the others?”

  “I got separated from them,” Sintian said. “Just like you.”

  “Well, at least we found each other.”

  “Yeah, lucky me.” Sintian rolled his eyes. “Come on, Bane and Emi have to around here somewhere.”

  “What happened after I left, or… you know?” Evan asked as they set off.

  “Not much, we saw the cultists for the first time. They were human, and looked pretty normal, except for the wooden masks. We found a corpse, so maybe some of these guys really are necromancers.”

  “What do necromancers do, exactly?” Evan knew a little about them, but it was best to be sure, considering he could be about to face them.

  “Uh- they raise the dead.” Sintian looked at him like he was stupid.

  “Yes, but is that all they do? There are many types of magic-users. Which type are they?”

  “Well, they’re not like Venators, or regular wizards. They’re probably closest to shamans. Basically, once they’ve reanimated a corpse, they control the body as if it’s a toy car and they’ve got the controller. It’s a form of possession, and the real powerful nec’s can control multiple corpses at once. They have to do complex rituals before they can control a dead body though, which include all sorts of animal parts and their own blood. If I remember right, they shout out incantations the whole time they control an animated body, or it won’t work.”

  “Oh, they probably get sore throats a lot then.” Evan smiled weakly.

  Sintian sniggered, then looked angry at himself for laughing at a joke Evan made.

  “Hey, you don’t have one of the Holophones do you, so we can call the others?”

  “Nope,” Sintian sighed. “Bane and Emi have the two phones Padrake gave our party. We were given two just in case we got split up, just our luck that we’re the ones without them.”