SWNOVELS Chapter The First to Fall
It was the next morning when our peaceful interlude finally shattered.
Sometime in the middle of what we were calling “night”, while the lightstones were burning dimly, Mongo finally awoke from his coma and looked around. It’d been nearly four full days since I’d worked my magics merging his spirt and Tiffany’s together so she could fight off the corruption, and his waking woke everyone. We were all pulled into the “common room” – even Crystal and me – and Mongo was flexing and enjoying being back in his own flesh once again. Tiffany was giggling and bouncing, snuggled up tightly to him, and every so often she’d end up flexing and he’d giggled girlishly.
From the best I could tell, the two were now able to somehow swap bodies rather freely, and they had no control over the phenomenon.
Jess was trying to use her magic to check the two of them out; as was I, secretly. After the way I’d been treated, I wasn’t going to grovel and ask permission to study their condition. I simply worked a gentle little touch of death magic and felt the flows of their spirit myself. Normally, I wouldn’t probe around and use my magic in such an intimate manner without permission, but in this case I felt it was suitably justified. I needed to know as much as possible so I could refine the process and do it better next time, with fewer flaws and drawbacks, and yet I didn’t think they’d give me permission to use my magic on them, considering the way they’d been treating me.
After all, all I’d done was save Tiffany’s life and soul. Nothing to be grateful about there!
As I was focused on feeling their spirits, and since no one else was paying attention to anything but Mongo and Tiffany at the moment, no one was prepared when all hell broke loose. From the other room, back from where Megan was resting at Death’s Door, the dead suddenly started to swarm. A wave of black boned skeletons surged in from the opening between rooms in a rush and were on Skeet and Dino in an instant. Both of them were immediately pushed down to the floor, overwhelmed by the sheer press of bodies, and countless more dead continued to push and surge from that entrance.
Immediately, I dropped my weaves of death which I was using to study Mongo and Tiffany. Working against the sickening curl of magic backlashing from the flows terminating so suddenly and improperly, I lashed out with fire and pushed back at the dead. Spots swam in my vision and I felt as if I was going to puke at any moment, but I stubbornly held my focus and continued to fire at the hole between rooms.
“Heartblade isn’t destroying these!” Crystal yelled from off to my side while Jess ran to work magics on Dino. Tiffany bounced over to where Skeet had been swarmed and began to work her magics over his body. “Skeet’s dead!” She yelled out, in anguish.
“What the hell?” Mongo was blinking and trying to understand the situation, and that’s when the dead began to swarm from the other opening in the walls; the one leading to the room he and Skeet were staying in, and then ultimately to mine and Crystal’s makeshift home. Wearing nothing but her bare skin and jewelry, Crystal leapt forward to intercept the dead and stop them from swarming from that side like the others had. We’d been awakened while sleeping, and Crystal had completely quit caring about modesty of any sort in front of the others, so she was almost bare; and yet she fearlessly positioned herself between the dead and the rest of us.
“Dammit!” I was sweating and already feeling the strain. Breaking one flow of magic, and then opening another one while the first was still unraveling, was a sickening and gut-wrenching phenomenon. “Mongo! Snap out of it! Hold the door! Hold the door!” I was screeching at him, panic filling my voice like never before in my life. If the dead somehow breached the door, we’d be hit from all directions at once, and in the shape we were currently in, we’d all perish.
Nodding stupidly, Mongo lumbered over and leaned up against the door with his massive frame. I don’t know if anyone or anything was actually trying to force it open; I was too busy with my own troubles at the moment. The swarm of black-boned dead was relentless from both side openings and I knew we couldn’t hold out for more than a few brief moments. Swaying on my feet, I forced myself to work yet another weave of magic. In my sickened state, dark spots swirled across my vision and I found myself growing faint from the effort.
Coughing and gagging, my stomach rebelled, and I hacked up the contents of my last meal as I stumbled to my knees. I don’t know what miracle of desperate will allowed me to finish my weaving, but I somehow managed to manipulate the stone shower that I’d created. Ripping it apart with my magics, I split the shower in half and blasted it left and right across the room. The stone fragments shattered dozens of dead, and unfortunately blasted a deep bloody chunk out of the back of Crystal’s shoulder as it slammed into her on the way past. When both stone halves were in line with the openings in the wall, I shaped them into sturdy stone bars and used them to block off entrance to the room we were in, much like a jail cell.
My head was spinning. My stomach was in knots. I tried to unravel the fire I was using slowly, but the sickness from the backlash was too much for me. First the weave of fire I was using to destroy the dead snapped, forcing flames and heat to explode in all directions, and then the weave of earth which I’d forced to move and shape the bars shattered. Magic coursed and flowed wildly back into my body and I was hit with a torrent of agony and illness.
Darkness once more descended over me.