Beneath the Bookstore

[Mallory]

((Originally posted on July 8th, 2017.))

Text to Sapphire: a boggart just stole my coffee and poured it on a mailman's head. thank **** it was iced.
Text to Sapphire: and last night Safiya and I were chased by a bloody sylvan knight on a black unicorn. we locked him in a callbox on the corner of Penitent and Canal St.
Text to Sapphire: unicorn bolted when we flashed some lights at it. think it's hiding in a car park nearby but that was 10 hours ago.
Text to Sapphire: anyway WTF IS HAPPENING and does your mom-of-this-universe know anything about it???

Text to Mallory: its been crazy here
Text to Mallory: J says the veil failed cause of some trouble on the faerie side
Text to Mallory: blah blah blah something bout a spoiled brat princeling she kissed once so these peeps are coming over here to have some fun
Text to Mallory: she and merai have been taking spells off people all week and fighting back the wyldes that took over some peoples apartments
Text to Mallory: I saw the ****in' wylde hunt yesterday almost run down some old lady

two minutes later

Text to Mallory: think that unicorn is still there?
Text to Mallory: cos we should so go get it

Text to Sapphire: oh no, I'm not going anywhere near that unicorn. I do NOT want to be cursed again. I already broke the one and I'm not in the market for a replacement.
Text to Sapphire: but if you're that bored, there's about a million redcaps between me and an early printing of Sincerus Renatus' work on the Philosopher's Stone. that'll teach me for paying in advance.
Text to Sapphire: I’m at Namba's Fine Booksellers near Hillary Sq. join me if you like, but I'm getting that ****ing book one way or another.

Text to Mallory: Fiiiiiiine no unicorn :’(
Text to Mallory: i'll be there in 20 gotta get some of my gear together first. i made a new mana blade that should hopefully work even with this fae stuff going on
Text to Mallory: and shin guards cause sometimes those little bastards bite

* * *

Sapphire pulled her modified, midnight blue vespa off onto one of the narrow side streets leading to Hillary Square. It had a ton of anti-theft spells worked into it, but she still chained it to a bike rack outside a coffee shop just in case. Things were funny in RhyDin and she was rather fond of her scooter. Hunting down some punk who stole it wasn’t high on her list.

Vespa secured, she glanced around. She waved when she spotted Mallory and jogged across the square towards her, the two mana blades of her own make slapping against her thighs. Other than the weapons, she looked more like she was ready for a round of football in a pair of black shorts, a white tank top endorsing some band named Putrid, her blue hair pulled back in a ponytail, black sneakers, and the shin guards she had been absolutely serious about. They looked more like fish-scale styled armor.

There was also the pair of silver bracelets on her wrists and thick bar ring that fit on the three middle fingers of her left hand, but those looked like some kind of punk, fashion-statement.

Mallory, like most of the people in Hillary Square, was keeping a healthy distance from the front of Namba’s Fine Booksellers. The only exceptions were a number of Watch officers on horseback, chasing and being chased by gnarly-toothed gnomish humanoids wearing long red caps and copper-toed boots, and the odd employee or patron escaping through the smashed double doors or one of the windows.

“Hey,” the witch said, picking the same moment to turn and greet Sapphire that a redcap galloped off on an officer’s barded pony, cackling maniacally while the frazzled halfling legged it after her, blowing breathlessly into his police whistle to no avail. Most of the redcaps seemed to be clambering onto rooftops, bursting through doors and windows (to the sound of gasps and screams), and scurrying down alleyways to disperse through the city; but judging from the riotous noise within the austere old bookshop, it was a solid bet that plenty remained inside.

“Thanks for coming.” There was more than a little surprise in her tone at the fact that Sapphire had, especially decked out for an expected fight. “You didn’t have to, but I’m glad I don’t have to wade into that bull**** alone.”

By comparison, Mallory looked far less prepared for combat. Her high-tops were old and the soles worn nearly smooth, her black denim cutoffs lacked any meaningful pockets, and the bangles on her wrists and rings on her fingers looked purely decorational. Except the sharp, thorny silver ring on her left ring finger, which she habitually pressed her thumb into.

The young faerie waved her hand to tell her to think nothing of it, “I was just hanging out. Nothing fun goes on around this place until the sun goes down anyway, you know? Well… except this.” She looked around at the redcap party. This definitely counted as fun.

She drew her lips into a thin-lined frown as she tightened her black satchel around her shoulder. She could at least make that easier to carry. “Do redcaps have any easily exploitable weaknesses? Like spontaneous combustion or petrification when they look directly at alternative-looking girls?”

“Uhh… negatory. Iron should probably hurt them but I did not bring any of that cause…yeah.” She shrugged. It was probably self-explanatory. “I try not to kill living things, but chopping off a limb or two should do it? I don’t think they’re that sturdy, just bloodthirsty. What kind of witch-y powers do you have to use against them?” There was nothing mocking about the question. Sapphire really wanted to know what Mallory could do.

Mallory dipped her head to look in her bag, looking up only briefly at the sound of a small explosion within a stable near the bookstore. The ducks now flapping and quacking their way noisily across the square seemed a lot less put together about it. “I can produce and control a small amount of fire, enough to scare a few people or set them alight; I can create a blade out of available metal, iron if we need it; I can steal someone’s breath; I can drain someone’s body heat; I can blind a few people if they get too close; I can deflect some harm away from us, and heal you a little if I need to; and I can empower my spells with my blood, and… conjure a few other things, if we need to,” she added evasively, shrugging and starting towards the front of the bookstore.

“I mean, it shouldn’t even be necessary, right? These redcaps seem kinda scared already. I’m sure if we make enough ruckus, they’ll make a hole.”

“Uhuh,” Sapphire laughed as she followed a step behind Mallory and to the left, unhooking the mana-blade on her right hip, “sure. Scared.” A group of four redcaps had managed to down one of the Watch horses. One appeared to be starting a fire big enough to cook the horse over while another was already gnawing on its hind leg. “Maaaaybe do the create a blade thing though. You know, just in case? And maybe that steal the breath thing too. That could be cool.”

The blue haired teen grinned as she flicked the underside of her bar ring with her thumb. The surface quickly expanded into a small, round shield. In the other hand, she activated the mana-blade. “I really need to work on a helmet next after I get all the kinks out of my shield.”

“What does your shield do?” Mallory started to ask, when a pickaxe-wielding redcap burst through the front doors and let out a primal scream at them.

There was only a split second where the witch let herself feel the fear of death, that this maniacal being could be her imminent end, before she responded to the threat with fury. Show him something worth fearing. Her right hand closed around the glass pendant on her necklace, and she blew out a draconic roar over it, accompanied by a burst of flame from the pendant.

Though the spell did little more than singe the redcap’s bushy eyebrows, he still let out a terrified shriek and dove into a nearby trashcan, abandoning his pickaxe on the front steps with a clatter. Watching his egress, however, Mallory missed the sound of heavy boots on the roof just over their heads as another redcap crawled to the edge, baring her jagged and bloodstained teeth at the pair of them.

The redcap let out a triumphant howl as she jumped.

Rather than answer Mallory’s question about her shield, a demonstration seemed in order. Sapphire raised it up, bending her knees a little to brace herself. The redcap hit it with a thunk and the teen grunted, pushing up with a burst of mana energy added in for good measure. The shield amplified the power and reflected the redcap’s own momentum back onto the creature. The bloodthirsty fae was rebounded into the air, soaring across the square on a parabolic path to the other side. Her heavy boots were smoking.

Sapphire watched the little beastie soar with unbridled glee. “That was so cool!” Not waiting for Mallory’s appraisal or go ahead, and bolstered by this little bit of success they had enjoyed, she gave a loud war whoop before diving right into the bookstore, shield first.

Mallory gaped at the redcap’s soaring arc across Hillary Square, and followed the ululating fae into the bookstore after a beat, shoving a battered door off its hinges and curling her left hand into a fist. A slow trickle of blood pooled off of her ring finger into the palm of her hand as she looked around.

She had overestimated the redcap’s terror earlier, but they were running from something. One went sliding on his belly between Sapphire’s feet, taking an opportunistic swipe with his wickedly pointed claws that only made a horrible scratching sound over her shinguards. He spat in disgust, leered at Mallory, but when the witch kicked at him, he only swerved to get out of the way as he beat feet through the open doorway.

“What are you doing here?!” There was a man in the remains of what had once been a fine Victorian outfit, stepping over a collapsed chandelier in the middle of the high-ceilinged bookstore (and a twitching redcap pinned underneath). He brandished a coat rack at another of the bloodthirsty fae creatures, shooing it out through a broken window, and turned to stare hard at Sapphire and Mallory. “It is dangerous in here! You should leave!”

Signs of the danger were evident in the bitemarks all over his arms, dozens of torn and tattered books still toppling off of shelves on the upper balconies to the floor below, and the recently doused remains of at least three distinct makeshift bonfires. A number of the vicious beings could be heard cackling and snarling their way around the upper levels and on the other side of a haphazardly-barricaded “Employees Only” door.

“Don’t worry, sir.” Sapphire flipped off her mana-blade so she could set her right hand on her hip and strike an appropriate pose. “We’re,” she coughed, her throat tickled by the smoke from the bonfires, “professionals.”

What kind of professionals was really unclear. They didn’t really look like professional anythings. But the faerie youth couldn’t lie, she could only fudge the truth. “We are here…” dramatic pause. She was clearly enjoying herself, even as she swatted away a redcap that got to close to her shield, ruining her pose for a moment. “For a book! Serious Renaldo’s work on the Philosopher’s Stone,” another pause as she tried to remember if she got that right and then shrugged, “or something like that.” She flashed the shopkeep her most engaging, glamour touched smile. “We need you to tell us where it is.” She looked around at the mess. Hopefully it hadn’t been burned.

The man’s eyes glazed over a bit, and he didn’t seem to notice the redcap that lunged at his legs and started gnawing on his ankle. Instead, Sapphire’s glamour effectively bewitched him and gave him one task: help the pretty young girls however he could. “My apologies, ladies. I’m afraid I don’t know of anyone named Serious Renaldo.”

This would make things a lot easier. Whatever misgivings Mallory had about the use of magic to corrupt the will were pushed aside in the name of expediency. And she was a paying customer, anyway -- she even had the receipt to prove it!

She sent the redcap away from him with a swift kick to the rump and laid the folded piece of paper open in front of him. “The Perfect and True Preparation of the Philosophers Stone According to the Secret of the Brotherhoods of the Golden and Rosy Cross, by Sincerus Renatus.”

“That’s totally close to what I said,” Sapphire muttered under her breath.

Something heavy moved underground, loud enough to shake the broken glass scattered across the bookshop as it echoed up from the other side of a reinforced door, marked “Rare Books and Special Requests,” the same one the bookseller pointed a slender finger towards. Whatever it was, the remaining redcaps were scrambling away from it, tracking muddy footprints from a splintered hole in the floor in the back of the shop all the way to the front door. Or front windows. Or whatever other exits they could find or create.

“You’ll need these,” the man said, offering a key over to the witch.

She considered the key. She considered the loud noises emanating from underground, which was apparently enough to terrify creatures that had been less-than-impressed by a battlemage and a blood witch. Then she snatched the key and booked it for the door, calling breathlessly back at the man: “Thanks so much, now get the hell out of here!”

The man complied with ease, and Mallory turned to watch his exit while she struggled with the book vault’s complex lock. “That was pretty freaking cool, Sapphire.”

The teen had taken up her position on the witch’s left, watching the man make his way safely out of the store with that glazed, happy look in his eyes. If he got tackled by a group of recaps after that? It wasn’t her problem. “In Magical Ethics they said it’s wrong to use glamour to the detriment of others, but I think what is considered detrimental is completely subjective.”

The irritating smoke that was tickling her throat earlier was gone. The air smelled sweeter over here. Sapphire sniffed it, glancing around, adding on in a more distracted tone: “I even wrote a paper on it…” Something wasn’t right. She placed her hand against the door first and then knelt down and touched the rubble strewn floor, brow furrowed in concentration.

The whole place shook again, sprinkling their hair with dust from the wreckage above.

“Hey,” she sprang up, frowning. Maybe this wasn’t a great idea. They could turn around now, but where was the sense of adventure in that? The lock clicked open. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

“What the **** is Kansas?” asked Mallory as she shouldered open the heavy door, revealing Namba’s book vault and the vast, overgrown grotto beyond.

“It’s a --” the sight of the grotto left her speechless.

Boughs and clumps of silken moss dangled from glittering stalactites as numerous and massive as Leviathan’s fangs; green and pink and violet pixies flitted among them, pursued by a bulbous blue spider the size of a sheepdog; the stone floors were wild, uneven and tiger-striped by rivulets of rich black mud, broken up by luminous crystalline spires and pools of murky white water.

Signs of the redcaps’ passing littered the alien landscape, in the form of muddy footprints, splintered pickaxes, discarded boots and bones, and the iridescent blood of whatever poor creature or creatures they’d taken the time to slaughter during their panicked egress.

Mallory wasn’t looking for signs of the redcaps, though. As soon as she’d gotten over her amazement, she began picking through the shelves of books sealed in airtight boxes, arranged alphabetically according to owner, up to the shelves’ abrupt broken end where the back of the vault had evidently collapsed into the cavern below.

One shelf ended with Ana Maria Ruiz. The next one began with Samantha St. Sebastian. At least a few of the entries in between seemed to be bobbing along a murky stream directly below them, nearly fifteen feet straight down.

Mallory narrowed her eyes. Then she sat down on a slanted section of floorboards, sliding her butt closer to the edge until her feet found purchase on a pulsating amethyst outcropping. From there it was a quick, albeit slippery, path to the grotto floor.

“You coming?!” she called up to Sapphire.

“What?” Sapphire started, waking from a dream. The air was thick with a magic that called to her like nothing she had ever known. She had just watched a flower turn into a hundred tiny sprites and... oh right, Mallory’s book. Got it. Time to slash, kill, destroy.

She glanced around at the cavern below and that murky stream, backed up a few steps, and then got a running start to her jump. A brief glimmer of transparent wings appeared at her back, slowing her fall enough that she was able to land in a crouch next to the water. They were gone when she straightened up and looked around. In the strange illumination of the faerie cavern, Sapphire shone faintly with her own inner light: the strength of her innate power and magic increased as they wandered into Elsewhere. “Do we have to go fishing?”

In an effort to brush off her shirt, Mallory smeared white-gray stone dust in two streaks across her outfit. She frowned at it, then squinted again at their immediate surroundings. The faerie lights, and even Sapphire’s own illumination, were hard for her mortal eyes to peer through and made the shadows around them dance strangely. “And bait the hook with your fingers?” She curved a smile over at Sapphire, and extended a closed hand. “Let’s have some light while we linger.” Her fingers unfolded like the petals of a blossom, and a warm golden light arose from within, blindingly bright if examined too closely.

She curled her left ring finger around an invisible thread, and the light floated off to one side of them, lighting their path ahead as they proceeded down the murky stream. “Is this Faerie?” she asked Jewell’s sort-of daughter curiously. “It’s a little, um… damp,” as she pulled her sneakered feet out of a shimmering puddle that released the soles with a wet pop.

“Cool trick.” Even if she could see in the dark fairly well, that didn’t mean she didn’t welcome the light. Sapphire stepped spritely through the mud as if walking on firm ground, shield half raised as they followed the stream. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, and she fingered the mana-blade handle at her side as she looked around. And looked. “Maybe? It’s definitely not RhyDin. It kind of feels a little in-between. Woah, watch that,” she gave the witch a tug closer for a moment to avoid a certain puddle of mud that also had some shiny teeth that it flashed at Sapphire in a snarl for helping its meal escape.

Mallory caught hold of Sapphire’s shoulder as she stumbled closer, and extended a hand out towards the puddle on reflex, thumb pressed against her thorny silver ring… but whatever the creature was, it seemed to lack any means of drawing them in from afar. “Could use a blade right about now,” she seemed to say to the air itself, pausing to rest her hand on a massive glittering stalagmite; when she drew it away, a crude silver knife rested in the palm of her hand.

“Lucifer Maximilian Ryder,” she said as she drew a careful step away from Sapphire to examine another sealed box mired in chromatic muck. “That’s a RhyDin name if I’ve ever seen one. Check this out, though,” she added, jabbing her knife at the puddle, then lifting her gaze to several more like it. They were silver, like the first, though faintly hued at least a dozen other colors, collected in shallow puddles and pools and running in oily rivulets over the surface of the stream. The stone floor and walls were worn smooth here, with the exception of several broken stalagmites and their scattered remains. The ceiling was lower here, likewise smooth, and nearly clear of moss.

“Weird,” Sapphire paused, circling slowly as she looked up at the sides and roof of the cavern, nose wrinkled.

The witch glanced over her shoulder at the dusty rays of light spilling out from the bookstore above, about a hundred feet behind them and nearly out of sight; then she slipped past Sapphire, her footfalls quiet as she spotted a trio of boxes, somehow scattered clear across the wide tunnel from the stream on the other side. “Eugepae!” Whatever that meant, she seemed pretty excited about her discovery, and was already cramming one of the small boxes into her satchel.

“You got it?” she asked Mallory over her shoulder as she approached the one wall, running her free hand over the smooth stone. “Weird.” She nudged one of the remaining boxes of books with her foot, “Hey, you think maybe we should grab these too? If the Veil gets fixed, all this stuff might disappear.” Without waiting for an answer, Sapphire flicked at her shield. It retracted back into a bar ring as she bent down to rescue poor Lucifer Maximilian Ryder’s books.

And got a glance of her reflection in one of the puddles.

“If you want to hunt down the owners for a reward, be my guest,” Mallory replied. “Sounds like a pain in the ass… anyway, this city is full of weirdoes…”

Sapphire’s silver reflection stared rather intensely back at her, most of the colors strange and indistinct but the eyes a very bright blue. It blinked innocently, when Sapphire wasn’t blinking at all. When Sapphire frowned at it, it smiled. Then it peeled its lips back, slimy threads of flesh stretching across its wide black maw, and let out an ear-piercing shriek as it pointed right at her.

A chorus of shrieks erupted from the metallic slime-puddles all around them, and the warm halo of light from Mallory’s spell flickered out as she clapped her hands over her ears and winced in pain. Sapphire fell back, landing on her butt in the mud as she tried to cover her ears and pull free her mana-blade at the same time.

What seemed like an eternity of these piercing wails only went on for a few seconds, stopping when a rumble rippled their reflections into disarray. Dust fell from the ceiling behind them, moss shaking loose from stalactites, but not above them: as Mallory whispered a few words and sent out another ball of light, its warm rays reflected off of slick mucus coating several broad swaths of the tunnel.

The rumbling stopped, and something shifted on a sandy surface in a dark stretch of the tunnel ahead of them. Mallory grimaced, then flicked her wrist to send her spell spiraling out at it, bursting into a blinding light when it impacted with a creature’s slimy hide.

It was at least the size of a city bus, slug-like, covered in smooth gray flesh that pulsed when it moved, sending polychromatic ripples across its bulbous forms. It had a pair of coal-black eyes on stalks, which drew back in pain when the light burst in its hideous face. It stretched open its slimy maw, lined with row after row of horn-like teeth, filled with thrashing tentacles, and let out a bellowing roar as it surged forward.

“Run!” Mallory’s desperate cry cut through the end of its roar, as the witch turned and bolted for the only exit she knew, tugging on Sapphire’s arm to urge her along with her as she went.

“Oh ****!” The young faerie scrambled to her feet with Mal’s help and kept pace with her as they retreated back towards the bookstore and RhyDin above. Poor Lucifer Maximilian Ryder was never going to get his book now.

Senseless with fear--real fear was something she wasn’t really familiar with--Sapphire completely forgot about her mana-blade, but she reactivated her shield. As if that could do any good against… whatever the hell it was chasing them! “What is it?” she gasped out, sparing a glance over her shoulder. A sudden burst of speed could be attributed to the fact that it was gaining on them despite its size and girth.

“A lesser polychromatic shimmerworm!” Mallory shouted back as she leapt over a puddle and found enough open ground to do what she really needed to: run the crude silver blade over her left hand. “I read about them! They’re really -- ****!”

She threw herself into the cave wall, out of the massive worm’s way as it surged into their path, rebounding off of its body with the assistance of a flickering shadowy mass when she clenched her bloody fist. The creature struck the crystalline spires underneath the bookstore with far more force than a mere city bus, shattering them and splintering the makeshift ramp of floorboards they’d descended from, putting their only escape that much further out of reach.

The path ahead was rougher for the worm, though, choked with rock formations, flooded pits, fungal stalks, spiderwebs, and surprisingly resilient moss. Jagged rocks had inflicted a dozen minor wounds across its soft body, now leaking bright magenta blood, and it struggled to turn around in tighter quarters.

Sapphire landed in the stream, her shield providing some protection from the shimmerworm’s body. She sat up after it passed, sputtering, and stared at the massive creature now squarely in their way but currently busy making a 75-point k-turn. Fear had retreated out of necessity, leaving the thrill of an unplanned adventure behind. This was so much cooler than picking off a few redcaps!

“I don’t think we can go through it.” She also didn’t really want to. The thing was huge. “Or around it.” Even if they could get around it, they didn’t know what else was that way, but it reeked of Faerie and venturing further into Faerie was generally a super terrible idea.

She stomped out of the stream, dripping water and mud. “We better head back the way it came.” Sapphire was slowly backing away. “What can hurt a polychrome worm? Because we should try to slow it down if we can.”

Mallory whispered into a small wellspring of blood in the palm of her hand, bubbling out into three serpentine wraiths with lupine faces, growling and snapping their teeth as they circled her heels. She wiped damp hair out of her face with a muddy hand, grimacing at the muck, and at the irritated roar from the shimmerworm as it busted through a stalagmite in its path, freeing its route once more. She didn’t much like Sapphire’s plan, but they’d already run out of time to argue.

“Kill!” she said to her hounds, and they leapt onto the creature’s bulbous hide and dug in. They’d be scattered to bits in moments, but moments were precious when you were trying to outpace a ten-ton killer worm. She was already running, leaping over obstacles, slipping and scrambling to right herself as she raced back the way they came, following the tunnel downstream. Her summoned orb of light raced along after them, illuminating the growing darkness ahead of them.

“I have no idea what kills it,” she hollered over her shoulder at Sapphire, “but I am open to suggestions!”

The blue haired girl stared stupidly at Mallory’s work as the wraiths attacked the worm, an out-of-place grin on her face. “Sooo cool.” Her companion’s movements prompted her own and she shook her head free and turned, stumbling over a broken stalagmite as she took off running back the way they had come, remaining a few steps behind the witch.

She made a swirling motion with her right hand as they ran, gesturing at the stream on her left and then making a splattering gesture towards the ground. The stream rose up, flooding across the cavern floor behind them and freezing across the ground. “Hopefully that’ll slow it down!”

The roar that shook the cavern and made them both pick up speed did not sound promising for that hope.

“Can you blow things up?” she shouted breathlessly to Mal.

“Maybe?! Not usually!” the witch shouted back as she slid down a massive stone slab, slick with water from the stream and whatever other fluids flowed into this part of the cave. Things started to smell rancid and steadily got worse, which was not promising.

The sound of the shimmerworm skidding across the ice and crashing into cave walls was promising, though Mallory couldn’t get a good look back at it, with her arcane light only illuminating the path ahead. The tunnel was getting smoother, rounder, narrower, filthier, and steeper, which meant they had to go slower.

She could hear the beast gaining on them again, slithering across wet stone and thudding through the few obstacles in its path, hissing in what sounded to her like a combination of frustrated rage and anticipatory hunger.

It was in this moment that the slick tunnel floor gave way to a ten-foot drop, depositing them in the low, circular chamber that could only be the creature’s den. It was covered in streaks and puddles of its silvery mucus, with bones of widely varying size littered among them, and more than a few redcap skulls. The stream formed a wide, shallow pool at the far end of the chamber, half-filled with gray mud and with no apparent exits.

“****.”

Sapphire had been looking over her shoulder, tracking the proximity of the large worm in alarm--nothing that big had the right to move that fast--when they hit the drop. She tumbled, ungainly and with a shout, into a pile of bones and mucus. She wasted no time scrambling to her feet, gathering up all the liquid within reach (hey, mucus and mud are liquids!) to create a wall of ice across the entrance they had just fell through.

Unfortunately, it was thin and could probably only stop a ten ton monster for about .02 seconds. “Any ideas?”

She grunted when the beast slammed into the wall she had formed up above. Stress fractures spread across the ice, “Agh!” Sapphire dug her heels into the ground and forced the wall to hold by a combination of will and water manipulation. The shimmerworm backed up and threw itself at the wall again. The teen bit at the inside of her cheek.

Mallory looked around the chamber, struggling with her rising panic, her heart pounding hard enough for her to hear its steady drumming. She curled her left hand into a fist, blood welling out of the wounds as her fingers tensed… and opened it again. She still had the knife. “I can control this.”

Then she shouted at Sapphire: “Shatter it right in its big ugly face, on three! One!”

Boom! The worm slammed against the icy barrier, cracks spiderwebbing across it as the upper corners crumbled away. Sweat poured down Sapphire’s face from the exertion of holding the wall.

“Two!”

Mallory tore the twisted glass pendant off of her necklace, curling her bloody hand around it until her thorny silver ring bit into her flesh…

“Three!”

The faerie broke the wall apart into giant, razor sharp shards of ice, which she sent hurtling towards the shimmerworm as it reared back, preparing to throw itself against the wall one more time. Its momentum embedded the ice even deeper into its hide than planned.

As the ice torn into its face and mouth, the creature shrieked. In its blind fury, it threw itself against one side of the cavern and then the other, causing the ground beneath them to quake. Sapphire stepped back, winded. The shrieks echoed off the walls, and her body trembled in time with the ground.

“Hey! ****face!” Mallory shouted over the din, drawing the ire of the wailing, thrashing creature. It let out another roar, slithering forward into the chamber and picking up speed.

She didn’t wait long. Swaying on her feet, she steadied herself to blow a long breath over the veritable wellspring of blood flowing from her left hand, and the fiery glass pendant now bathed in it. A small flame billowed out towards the shimmerworm’s wounded head, and with a deep pulse like a heartbeat, it grew wider and hotter.

The worm let out a horrific shriek, foul steam rising off of it as its mucus melted away and its soft flesh seared and cracked apart, the wounds spreading deeper into its body as Mallory fed her life force itself into the spell.

Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

As the smoke cleared, all that remained was the witch, still swaying on her feet, and three quarters of a dead shimmerworm, blackened and leaking bright blood and swollen like a balloon from the incredible heat.

The grim line of Mallory’s lips twisted into a nasty smile at the sight of it.

Sapphire peered over her shield, having brought it up to protect herself from the oppressive heat. The water-aligned faerie didn’t particularly care for fire. She lowered it completely when she saw what was left of the shimmerworm. “HAH! Oh yeah! That was so ****ing awesome!” She pumped her shield into the air. “Take that bitch.” Caught up in the thrill of victory over a worthy opponent, Sapphire danced over to the burnt and bloated carcass and delivered a swift kick to its side.

The lesser polychromatic shimmerworm promptly exploded.

Mucus, blood, guts, and gore erupted in every direction.

Mallory sputtered, wiping as much as she could away from her face, as the shower of viscera shocked her back to her senses. She held up a handful of violet-streaked steaming mucus and grimaced.

“I have got to stop adventuring with your family.”

((Adapted from live play with Sapphire Ravenlock! Thank you, Sapphire! Written in connection with the Midsummer Mayhem SL.))