The Curse of Magic Mansion Ch. 02

"Nothing is nothing here. Whatever magical realm we've entered into, we can't discount anything as irrelevant," Tina said, eliciting a crude, bucktoothed imitation of Jerry Lewis from the redhead, who went even so far as to push invisible spectacles up the bridge of her nose. The older girl, used to the antics, ignored the taunt and ignited her hand. Pressing her palm onto the wood, she was disappointed when the door did not turn to ash at her touch. "I guess I'm not strong enough yet," she said.

"Hey," Jane said, nodding toward the handprint scorched into the wood. "It's not a total loss. We know where to come back."

They moved on.

The dungeon corridor wound on for what seemed like miles until it finally dead-ended into a metal gate beyond which was a short stone staircase leading to a nondescript cellar door. Hung on pegs near the gate were several hooded cloaks. Jane tried one on, but ended up swimming in rough fabric. These were obviously tailored for orc dimensions.

Tina pinched the sleeves where Jane's wrists were, and then had her sister pull her arms close to her body. A flash of blue fire provided decent, if scorched, hem line. Tina did the same for the bottom, where the cloak dragged on the floor, and then hemmed her own cloak.

She was about to remove the door with fire, but Jane tapped her on the shoulder. "Wait," the redhead said. "I've got this." She lined herself up with the lock, and kicked. Iron squealed and gave way, and the gate swung open, banging against the stone wall on the other side. "I've always wanted to do that," she said with a satisfied little smile.

When they were through and the gate was shut, she bent the lock plate so it obstructed the swing of the door.

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Fortunately, no angry orcs had come looking for them. The Wolf stalked through the kitchen, claws clicking on the stone. The scent of girls had been strong here, where the semi-conscious orc mumbled apologies from under a pile of rubble. This creature, however, wasn't its quarry, so the Wolf moved on.

The scent led the Wolf deeper into the dungeon, where its sharp ears picked up sounds that made it salivate with animal lust. But the magister's command was overwhelming, and the beast never strayed from its mission except once, when the scent led it to a door. Its quarry had stopped here briefly. The noise on the other side of the door had a familiar ring to it, and there was something about the smell that oozed out from under the wood that reminded it of its prey, but the Wolf couldn't place either.

A handprint on the door smelled like the older girl. "What was her name?" a part of the boy that was locked away tried to remember. But it was no use. All the Wolf could remember was mating with the screaming young human. All it desired was to bury its knot in the girl again, and the younger one, too. And to bring them back to his master. That was most important. But if the Wolf was determined to mate with its quarry first.

This objective was frustrated when the Wolf came to a locked gate. It tried gripping the bars with its powerful hands, but it was jammed shut. With a deep growl, the beast turned and loped back toward the mansion and its main exit. There was little time to waste.

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Tina and Jane had emerged in the woods. The cellar door had opened up at the base of a giant oak tree, the leaves of which had long ago disappeared and would likely never return. How it still lived was a mystery. Tina would have liked to stay and solve it, but there were more pressing concerns, such as the spider webs high in the branches of the trees that surrounded them. They had remembered the looming danger of the giant spiders from their arrival, and knew they had to seek shelter as soon as possible.

To their great fortune, they spotted the lights of a village on a hill. It was a long and dangerous hike, but they had so far managed to avoid any arachnid encounters. Now, they could see the glow of lanterns just above them. It appeared that the villagers had cleared a swath of land around the village's walls. It was only a few hundred yards to the open field, and the girls sighed in relief.

But behind them came a clicking noise. Jane looked back, but could see little in the darkness.

Another clicking. "Who's there?" called Jane.

Another clicking. And another.

Tina set her hands ablaze, illuminating the forest, and immediately wished she had not. Above them, descending from the treetops were dozens of giant spiders, some as small as housecats, some as large as small horses. All were smooth with bulbous abdomens and long spindly legs.

"Run!" Jane cried.

Tina loosed a panicked volley of fire at the encroaching arachnids, but the attack only seemed to piss the creatures off. "Shit shit shit," she yelped as she sprinted toward the tree line, hot on Jane's heels.

The lanterns grew brighter as the girls neared the edge of the forest. Jane had a good lead on her sister due to her increased strength, but Tina, through desperation, had learned to use her magic to catapult her over the large roots and rocks that stood in her path.

"Yes!" Jane panted as she entered the last hundred yards to the field. "Yes!" And then. "Tina! Problems!"

From the trees in front of them, dropped two giant spiders, each with a body the size of a black bear. Tina launched a fireball at the closest one to her, but it splashed harmlessly against the now enraged creature. "Damn it!" she cursed, remembering that spiders were traditionally resistant to magic.

The spider closest to Jane crouched low, ready to pounce when its prey hesitated, but the girl didn't show it the fear to which it was accustomed. Instead, the redhead roared and charged. When she reached the spider, the creature began to rear up, but it was too late. Jane planted her foot on its head and used its upward motion to vault over the hissing arachnid. For a moment, cloak and toga fluttering as she soared through the cool night air, she felt like a superhero.

A tree branch put an end to that particular fantasy.

"Oof!" Jane felt the wind knocked out of her. The world span as she tumbled to the ground, hitting several other branches on her way down. She hit the dirt, bounced, and coughed, trying to suck in air. As she recovered, she could only watch as the spider drew closer.

Tina, for her part, saw her sister's failed flight and redirected her path toward the fallen girl. The spider nearest her gave chase. Jane's spider had reared up, fangs ready. Near to it was a tree with a thin trunk. Tina slashed at it with a blade of flame. The gamble paid off, and the tree fell into the shrieking arachnid.

Jane was staggering to her feet, and Tina grabbed her wrist on the run. Together they began the final fifty yards to the field, but they had lost too much distance on the main horde of spiders. Something brought Tina's left foot out from under her, and she hit the dirt. Jane tripped over her and sprawled.

Looking down at her foot, Tina saw it was snagged on a sticky ropey mass of silk attached to a spider that had anchored itself to a tree. A blast of flame freed her, but another ropey mass of silk caught her wrist. She burned that off, too. Ropes of spider silk came in ever increasing volleys from the darkness, and Tina burned them all off, watching the horde approach in the flash of each fire burst.

A small spider skittered toward Jane, and she kicked it, sending it flying back into the darkness. Another one, larger, jumped at her, and she punched it so hard it exploded into a shower of goo. Yet another leapt at her from behind, and she caught its legs, span around several times, and hammer-tossed it into the bear-sized spider that had been more cautious in its approach since the demise of its partner.

More silky ropes attached to Tina, eventually immobilizing her. Jane felt panic take hold, but then her sister came fully aflame, burning away the cloak and the clothes she'd changed into after her encounter with her brother. The ropes burned away, too, and the blaze appeared to give the encroaching spiders pause.

"Bring it, freaks!" Though Tina spoke without raising her voice, Jane trembled at the sound as if it would shake her in twain. The spiders were still unaffected. Some of the smaller ones stayed clear, but the larger ones kept closing the circle.

Jane punched as many as she could, but the larger they were, the thicker and harder their carapaces had grown. By the time the wolf-sized spiders made their way to the front lines, Jane was unable to cripple the beasts. The continued assault of a clawed appendages and fangs had reduced the younger sister's cloak and makeshift toga to ribbons. So far, she had also been able to tear away the silken ropes the spiders had attached to her, but eventually she found she was becoming bogged down. A little too much resistance on one arm made her miss a critical hit, and a spider, immune to Tina's fire, reared back and sunk its fangs into her shoulder.

Tina shrieked. There wasn't much blood, but the poison the spider carried had done all the work. Tina's flames sputtered, reignited, sputtered again, and then went out. The only light was that from the village walls, now seemingly lightyears away and obscured by the arachnid horde. Tina felt silk ropes bind her as she fell, woozy from the spider toxin.

Jane flailed about in the darkness, feeling several times the satisfying crunch of collapsing carapace, but the fight was not hers. A rotation to fend off one shadowy fiend opened her to the fangs of another, and she felt her strength leaving her. She lashed out at the next shadow to appear, but when she connected with it, she feared she had broken her fingers. Silken ropes bound her, too, and she hollered for help before an additional strand of webbing gagged her. As the poison took her consciousness, she felt her body being dragged away from the light of the village and back into the forest.

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The Wolf hadn't needed to do anything except approach the mansion's grand foyer. Silently, one of the magister's faceless servants appeared and opened the great wooden door, shutting and latching it behind the half-man-half-wolf as it lurched out onto the cobblestones.

The air was thick with odors of rot and swamp, but from somewhere in the trees, the werewolf heard a distant scuffle. On a hill, just inside the tree line, flashes of flame interrupted the dark. The Wolf sniffed the air. This was most definitely its quarry. At full tilt, it bolted into the forest, its gleaming eyes and heightened senses locked onto the battle.

By the time the Wolf arrived, there was only a scorched patch of earth and a handful of mangled spiders. Drag marks led deep into the forest, and, nose to the ground, the beast followed the scent embedded in them. The farther it prowled, the more it got the sense that eyes were watching. The smell of arachnids grew steadily, but nothing descended from the trees to challenge the Wolf, even when it approached the sealed entrance to the spiders' lair.

The Wolf sniffed around the great flat stone that sealed the spider cave, but eventually gave up trying to find a way in. Patience would work in its favor. Where there were spiders, there would inevitably be humans that knew how to hunt them. The Wolf turned back toward the village. There, it knew it could wait in the shadows, listening, watching, and waiting.

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The village's name was, on the official register, Oxcart. It wasn't a particularly imaginative name—any Oxcartian would tell you that. Nor was the name particularly accurate. No one in living memory could remember the town having an ox. There were a few horses, cows, chickens, and hogs, but no oxen.

Still, the villagers stuck to the name out of sheer stubbornness. Theirs may have been the only town for fifty miles, but they were a proud people. Yes, orcs and spiders alike occasionally carried off the townsfolk, and yes, there was the creepy mansion on the other side of the forest, but if they were going to be subjected to the whims of fate, they would be remembered as Oxcartians. Unlike those in many of the other towns, they had gone so far as to give themselves names. Some of the other villages had been raided by orcs and pillaged by goblins so many times that, to soften the blow of losing friends, they had taken names such as Male Villager and Female Villager.

But Oxcart was different. Oxcart had a champion. Granted, the hero of their city was a rogue and a thief, but what was a few missing items here and there compared to safety and security? Plus, she was an elf. She was the only elf anyone knew of, and Oxcrtians had learned from experience never to look a gift horse in the mouth, as sometimes they were merely hollowed out wooden shells filled with rapacious gnomes. And the elf had driven the gnomes from the village, so she couldn't be too bad.

Nirella, champion of Oxcart, defeater of gnomes, finished her ale at her usual table in a shadowy corner of the Dented Flagon. Her green hair, cut into an alluring bob, complimented her skin, a dark reddish brown the color of strong tea, under which were lithe sinewy muscles. Her grass-green eyes watched the young barmaid approach.

"Another, milady?" the barmaid asked, reaching for the champion's empty flagon.

"Nirella," the elf said, touching the girl's hand. "Please."

The barmaid blushed. "Another? Lady Nirella."

Nirella ran her long, nimble fingers along the soft inside of the barmaid's wrist. "Just Nirella," she said. "What's your name sweetie?"

The barmaid turned even pinker, and said, "Candace."

"Well, Candace—"

"Hey!" roared the innkeeper. "You keep your mitts offa her! You can't be satisfied seducing one of my daughters? You gotta take both?"

"Charisma isn't a junk stat, old man!" Nirella shot back, rising from her bench. She wasn't tall, but she wasn't short, either. Her elven thinness and lack of armor, save a pair of leather bracers and greaves and a leather harness that held her two razor sharp daggers, made her appear fragile, but everyone in the inn knew that was a trap worth avoiding.

"You're a junk stat!" the innkeeper roared back. The bard stopped playing his lute, and a shocked gasp went through the tavern.

"Father!" Candace said.

Just then, a junior guardsman burst in, the top of his helmet clipping the doorframe with a loud thunk. "Champion! Come quickly! Giant spiders! A battle in the woods to the south!"

All eyes went to Nirella.

The elf kissed the barmaid. "Wish me luck," she said.

"Good luck, milady," Candace said. With a satisfied smile and her nose in the air, she turned and walked through the tavern, past her father, and into her private chambers, the soles of her shoes resounding crisply on the wooden floor in the stunned silence.

When the chamber door shut, the guardsman said, "Champion, we don't have time for this! Anon!"

And with that, the roguish elf strode out into the night.

When the guardsman led the champion to the tall but modest stone wall that kept the horrors of the forest at bay, they were met by the guard captain. He wasn't really a captain, as there were only three guards for the village, but all the other towns had guard captains. Why shouldn't Oxcart have one? And besides, he had been the only one left after the orc raid a year ago. Someone had to keep order.

"You just missed it, milady," the captain said, pointing out to a spot along the tree line. "Giant spiders, at least fifty by all the commotion. And a wizard, maybe two. Novices."

Nirella sighed. She hated fighting giant spiders. Their guts had a way of staining clothes, and soda water was nearly impossible to find. "Fireballs?" she asked.

"Aye," the captain said nodding. "A shame, too. They almost made the field."

Nirella didn't know why she bothered, but asked anyway: "And you didn't think to mount a rescue?"

"Cap'n sent me," the junior guard said. "Said, 'Go get the champion,' so I got you."

"Aye," the captain said. "That you did. Good lad."

Nirella sighed again. "Alright," she said. "I'll go get my cloak."

The junior guardsman extended his right arm, thrusting her midnight cloak at her.

"And my potions."

The guardsman's left arm thrust her satchel of potions at her.

"I didn't see you carrying anything," she said irritably. "Where were you hiding those?"

The guard shrugged.

"Fine," she said. She threw her satchel across her shoulder and donned her cloak. "Lock the gates until I return."

"BAR THE GATES!" the captain bellowed to the guardsman manning the village's large wooden gate. Nirella jumped, startled. The captain turned to her and said, "Good hunting, milady."

"Uh huh," Nirella said, and then leapt from the wall, cloak fluttering in the night air.

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Above, on the wall, the Wolf heard the junior guardsman ask, "Do you think she'll come back?"

"How the hell should I know?" the captain said. "Let's go get an ale."

The Wolf grumbled in irritation. It had slipped into the village shortly before the gates had slammed shut, and now it was trapped. Slinking off into the inky darkness, it found a place to hide. At least, it knew, all it had to do now was wait for the quarry to return to the village. The Wolf, as well as Nirella, did not relish the thought of fighting spiders.

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Nirella dashed silently through the forest, her midnight cloak making her a shadow among shadows. The drag marks were easy to track, and were not out of place, but the wolf tracks concerned her. It appeared, when she arrived at the entrance to the spiders' lair, that the wolf had come and gone—back toward the village. At least the gates were barred, she thought.

The giant stone that sealed the cave was too heavy even for a team of spiders to move. Lairs like this always had a switch or secret lever that would open the main door. Urunga, Viceroy of the Gorilla People, had kept the key to his Super Secret Tree Castle (No Girls Allowed) under the doormat. Mobtar, Overlord of the Centaur Confederacy, had kept the key to his Stables of Debauchery in a fake rock. Nirella thought back on the stables and shuddered as memories triggered a warm, tingling feeling in her belly. She ran a hand up her sides, but stopped herself. Now was not the time for indulging in past adventures. Obviously, spiders had no opposable thumbs, so a key was unlikely. Nirella felt along the rocks bordering the giant entrance boulder.

Aha! She put her weight on a loose stone and felt it give. A rumbling shook the ground, and the boulder rolled back, exposing a dimly lit tunnel that led deep into the earth. A deep breath to calm the nerves was all she needed to get started.

Nirella moved through the winding spider tunnels like a ghost. Spiders were focused, voracious creatures, but they were easily fooled, and the roguish elf was able to slip past the guards with no trouble at all. As she moved past the obligatory frontline security, she became concerned about the lack of spiders in the spider cave until she heard a roaring chorus of clicks from farther down the tunnel. Urgency pushed her forward, and she continued until she came across multiple doors in a ring, all leading into some kind of central atrium. Spiders packed the area past the doorways, and she couldn't see beyond them. Traveling around the ring, she located a small access tunnel.

Climbing into it, she found that it led upward and into the earthen rafters of a large arena of some sort. It reminded her of a subterranean version of the ancient elven coliseum at Llewllingatiwn. Dangling from the ceiling were two bound figures.

Nirella's heart skipped a beat. Damsels in distress! Oh, happy day!