The metal scraping was getting louder. We heard his voice echo throughout the basement. We made our way down the stairs. The basement was far larger than the upstairs buildings. The ceiling was a good six feet above my head. I scanned the room as I reached the bottom of the stairs.
Then I saw it.
Whatever it was, it wasn't human. It had deep red skin and stood about seven feet tall hunched over. Its muscles were bulging out all over its body. As it turned around to face us, I saw the black horns on its head. It looked like an orc or something, must be a creature from the underworld. Which means that guy must know how to use summoning magic.
I quickly scanned the room. It looked like some large torture chamber and work room or something. To be honest, I'm not sure what they were going for.
"Tessara I'll deal with this thing, you go find the others."
"Are you sure you got this?" She said, looking him up and down. All I did was glare at her with a bored face. She made a small laugh and gave me a thumbs up. Then ran through a doorway across the room.
"Who, who are you? You're not meant to be here," it said in a deep, gravelly voice.
I quickly studied his weapon, he was holding a mace that was about the size of my torso. I'm surprised it's even usable as a weapon, since it looked so unbalanced. I'm going to assume he can swing it, so it's a good idea not to get in the way.
"Oh, don't mind me. I was just here to have a small conversation with your boss, but he's not so talkative anymore," I said.
"You touch him, I kill you," he said, scratching his head and shifting his mace.
"You should've said that before I cut his hand off," I said with a smirk.
"I'll take your head off!"
He charged and swung the mace with unnatural speed. I flicked my sword out and side-stepped, trying to move past him, but I wasn't fast enough.
I quickly switched to a block barely managing to barely catch his swing. My sword was positioned on my left side, the back of the blade pressed against my forearm aiming down in a reverse grip. He managed to off balance me a little bit with that swing, but not enough to knock me over. I could feel his strength as he pushed into me with our weapons locked. He was strong.
"You're strong for a human, but too slow," he said, smiling with confidence.
I quickly spun, using his momentum against him. He stumbled forward, knocking over a nearby table.
I quickly lunged and struck again. As I was about to connect my strike, I fell back flat on my back as fast as I could, dodging the table he launched at me like an oversized frisbee.
I looked over to see the table stuck in the wall. Way too close.
He was fast, but let's see how fast. I spun to my feet and started with another strike to the left. He blocked it with his mace. I struck upward and he blocked it again.
"You're gonna have to try harder," he said, mocking me.
I had to kick it up a notch. He started to falter as I picked up speed. Then I saw it — an opening. I slipped past his defenses, ready to strike. Just when I was about to connect, my sword was stopped by something hard. It was a spike from his mace.
Before I could process what just happened, another spike shot right at my face, barely missing my head. A third spike hit my kneepad, sending sparks flying across the floor.
I jumped back away from him. He must have seen the surprise on my face because he was smirking. The spikes quickly retracted. Squeaking as they did, like a creaky door hinge.
"Cool trick you got there. I've never seen a mace that could do that."
He kept smirking. I wondered what other tricks he might be hiding.
This was clearly going to be a challenge. Sheer speed wasn't going to be enough to take him down. It was time to fight smart. By now, the room had broken furniture and devices littered all across the floor.
I charged in and he swung. I quickly blocked and pushed off, using his momentum creating space. As we clashed I noticed the poles the spikes are attached to are skinnier than the hole they extend from. Perhaps if I got something in between the holes it could ruin something internally. Based on their speed at which they extend and the sound of them extending it was using gears. So all I should need to do is disrupt the interior to make the weapon malfunction. I made quick scans of the floor as I moved around, looking for something I could jam into his mace. My eyes settled on a random pillow on the ground. Perfect.
He charged at me so fast, I almost didn't block it. He sent me flying back into the wall behind me, crashing to the ground.
"Time to squash you, bug!"
He wasted no time and swung straight down at me. I rolled and spun onto my toes, then sprung off the wall. No more games. I activated the plasma blade and slashed his leg as I slid past him. He stumbled, then quickly spun around, swinging his mace backwards. The spikes flew out my way. Now's my chance. I swung one of the cushions from the ground straight at it. It flew onto the spike and down the pole. As the spike retracted, it got stuck in the hole. Strangely, the weapon still seemed to work.
His face turned red.
He started aimlessly swinging his mace around, trying to fling the pillow off.
"Stupid pillow. Stupid Pillow! STUPID PILLOW!!" he yelled, smashing the walls and what little furniture was left. Not what I planned, but it's still something I can work with. While he was distracted, I grabbed another pillow and charged him. He immediately looked and swung at me while extending the spikes out. I slid under the spikes and slashed the mace with my sword, partially splitting it. The slit seemed to widen as the metal melted, I shoved the pillow in the hole with my other arm as I slid. It got sucked into the mace and it began to make sputtering noises.
"What…? What have you done to my baby?!" he yelled.
"I'm just putting it to sleep, it needs to be oiled anyways," I said, flying forward striking him in the chest with my sword. He tried to grab me, but his grip was weakening rapidly. I pushed a little harder, and he twitched then went limp. I knew the fight was going to be far easier once his weapon was out of the picture, but I didn't think it would be this easy. I pulled my sword out of his chest and started to walk away. I only made it a few feet when, suddenly, my face smashed into the floor.
My vision went blurry and my head started throbbing.
I looked up at his face, wrinkled with anger. So much so his veins began to pop out..
"It's going to take more than that to kill me!"
I looked at his chest. The wound I just made was now a small burn mark. What kind of freak was this?
"Well then, I guess I'll just have to stab you a bit harder next time," I said, gritting my teeth as my face throbbed.
"There will be no next time, I'm going to smash you!" he said, lifting me up.
"Maybe," I said, gritting my teeth as I started bending the leg he was holding, pulling myself up towards his arm.
"Too bad I got your leg, you goin' nowhere." He said, squeezing a little tighter. My leg felt like it was gonna shatter.
I started to fall back down, losing the strength in my leg to pull myself up. I let myself drop. As I fell back down, I pushed on his wrist with my other leg, creating more momentum. It didn't work. I grunted in frustration, trying to kick myself loose.
"Goodnight." He said, pulling me higher in the air.
Gunshots suddenly echoed through the room and he dropped me. I fell, landing with a roll back onto my feet. I turned around and saw Tessara.
"Aggggghhh! Now there's two?" He yelled, stomping on the ground.
"More like twenty." She said.
As soon as she said that, a huge group of girls started coming around the corner into the room. He was facing away from me, but I could easily tell he was shocked.
"No, no, no!! You're supposed to be in a cage, not here. Oh...boss is gonna send me back now, I must put you back before he sees you!!!"
"Oh, I don't think so. I went through a lot of trouble getting them out, I'm not about to let you put them back," said Tessara confidently.
The faces of the girls changed from scared to a little more confident. He started shaking in anger, "I will now smash you for defying my master!!" He charged at Tessara and threw a punch.
He missed as she jumped and landed on his arm. "I don't think so," she said, smiling.
He threw another punch and missed as she jumped again and landed behind him.
"Ooo that one was closer, try just a little bit harder, I know you can do it!" She said, almost laughing.
"Stop moving!" He yelled.
"Um, sorry can't do that!" She said, running around him.
He started smashing the ground around her, continuously missing and smashing up the already ruined floor.
"Stop! STOP! STOP!!", he yelled.
Then Tessara stopped in front of the group of girls.
What is she doing? He's going to hit them. Then one of the girls started waving her hands and he faced her, muttering something I couldn't make out. He then fell flat on the ground.
What the hell was that?
Tessara turned and smiled. "Nice job, Harmen! That was just about to get real freaky, and not in the fun way." She said with a laugh.
"What did you do?" I said, looking back at the creature.
"Oh nothing, just a little sleeping spell," said Harmen, smiling.
"Where'd you learn something like that?"
"At Laragoi's magic arts school when I was younger. Most of us were students there, so we all have magic."
"It's like an organized and kid friendly version of our guilds. I think it's pretty cool!" said Tessara, smiling.
"Yeah, it is!" said Yuma.
"Now how about we get all of you out of here before either of them wake back up?" Tessara said, walking towards the back door.
"Magic school?" I asked Yuma.
"Uh yeah."
"I thought people hated magic."
"Hated magic? What makes you say that?"
"Well, where I'm from, people aren't exactly fond of magic."
"Really? Well here magic is important for both daily life and quality of life, the better you are at magic the more money you usually make, so I'm trying to be the best mage ever!"
"Interesting," I said quietly.
It seemed strange to hear magic was an important skill and not a hindrance or the road to evil. In Nazul, that's all I ever heard from anyone outside the guild. I knew it wasn't true, because of all the amazing things Blazing Phoenix has accomplished with magic, but it was weird to hear it from someone outside the guild.
I focused back on the situation and followed behind, bringing up the rear of the group. We went up the stairs and exited out the back door."
"Alright, let's get over the wall. Quickly, before anyone spots us," I said. "Tessara — I'll boost you over first so you can help them down on the other side."
"Sounds good," she said.
I put my hands together for her to push off of.
"Now this time I'd like to stay in the atmosphere, please."
I just rolled my eyes and pushed up. She jumped and slid over the top of the wall, there was a small crunch as she landed on the other side.
"You can start sending them over." She said.
I put my hands together and boosted the first one up. She barely grabbed onto the top of the wall and I had to push her feet as she wiggled over the top, then she fell over to the other side and there was a small crash.
"Don't worry, I caught her!" said Tessara, in an exasperated voice.
I just continued to help the next person over. There was another small crash as the other one slid over the top and the same sound with the next one. I'm pretty sure I heard her fall after every person that went over to the other side. Yuma was the last one to help over, before I did she stopped and looked at me. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but why did you help me and all of us?"
I just looked at her for a moment.
"I'm sorry, I know it was rude to ask why, but I'm just curious." She said nervously.
"No, it's ok. I helped because you needed it and because I knew Tessara wouldn't have been able to do it all on her own."
"Yeah, I bet she appreciates it."
I didn't know how to respond to that, so I just brushed it off and put my hands together to lift her up.
"By the way, what was that monster?"
"I'm not sure. Whatever it was, it came from the underworld. Must've been summoned," I said.
I'm not sure exactly what the underworld is. From my understanding, it's another realm. Not much information about it. Most people think it's a fairytale, but I'm not sure.
"Oh yeah and thank you for saving us!" she said with a smile.
A sudden cold feeling washed over me, as if my body was physically rejecting the notion. A good person. I don't know about that, I mean yeah I can be nice sometimes, according to Tessara, but I've done a lot wrong too. A lot — things I won't tell anyone, not even Tessara.
"If you say so," I said, putting my hands together.
She stood on my hands and pushed up with me. Then slid over the wall, with another crash.
"I'm okayyyy!" I heard Tessara mumble from the other side.
I gave a small smile, then backed up to give me some space from the wall. I ran and jumped onto the wall, pushing up off the side and boosting me over the top. The ground was much further down on the other side than I expected. I landed, but immediately slipped on something and fell flat on my back. I just laid there for a second, waiting for the pain on top of my already tired body to slip away. Tessara walked over, rubbing her butt.
"Oh, come on! Get up, wussy." she said, holding her hand out.
No way I was gonna take something like that. I rolled over and stood up on my own. I could feel Tessara's unimpressed eyes staring at me.
"Come on, let's go before someone finds us."
"Where?" said one of the girls
"Don't worry, I've got a place," I said, walking down and around the hill back into the main part of the city.