Away We Go

When Thalia opened the door the difference in terrain was glaringly obvious. There was no light or no fields or any kind of plants and instead just cold wet stone. The tunnel was devoid of any mana crystals so the group was walking around in the darkness. When Alara tripped over her feet and nearly fell, Thalia let out a deep sigh. 

“Fuck, I’m going to have use fire magic! Alara, if I let go of your hand and start acting weird I need you to snap me out of it ok?”

Alara grabbed her lover’s hand and gave it a squeeze, “Ok, you can count on me Thalia.”

In the palm of her free hand, a large fire floated just inches above her palm and Thalia’s eyes glowed crimson red. She wore an anxious expression, her eyes dark becoming narrow and shadowed. She almost looked like a different person. Alara gave Thalia’s hand a squeeze and let out a sigh of relief when she squeezed back. Soon they reached a steep stairway that appeared to go on forever. As they walked, slowly Thalia’s grip was becoming increasingly loose. This time when Alara squeezed, Thalia didn’t move. She turned Thalia to face her but the face that stared back at her was devoid of all emotion. 

Expressionless with a murderous gaze, Thalia was about to lose touch with reality. In desperation, Alara scooped the flame out of Thalia’s hand and into her own. At first it burned, then it began to move away from her skin. Alara could tell that her eyes had changed colors. The flame was secure, now to get Thalia to come back. Yotaro hopped onto Thalia’s shoulder and bit her ear so hard he drew blood but nothing. The pair looked at each other, increasingly worried.  Alara aggressively kissed her partner, but that still didn’t bring her back. She caught a glimpse of the mark on her hand then knew what she had to do. She braced herself, then plunged her entire hand into the fire she was holding. She could smell burning flesh and felt the layers of skin peeling back as they burned. Thalia’s mark began to glow. Within seconds, the life returned to her face and she quickly pulled Alara’s hand out of the fire. 

Immediately she began healing Alara’ wounds. “I’m so sorry princess. I can’t believe that you had to do that to wake me up. I’m so, so, sorry.” Tears streamed down Thalia’s face. She looked at the brightly lit flame in Alara’s palm then back to Alara’s face. “I guess that answers that question. Looks like you also have a high affinity for fire magic. Are you ok though?”

“Yeah Thalia I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m just glad that we got you back. I thought for sure we were going to lose you to that darkness for a minute there. I guess this linked pain comes in handy sometimes right?”

Thalia dried her tears on her robe, “Yeah, I guess so. We should hurry, I think we still have quite a long way down this staircase before we reach the chamber room. At that point we may encounter some enemies and we are going to need to conserve our energy. Fire magic consumes a massive amount of mana.”

The group started walking twice as fast down the remaining stairs and in about 20 minutes made it to the chamber room. It was oddly quiet and nothing attacked them. Since there was no opposition the crew decided that they would carry on to the next level. The team repeated this about 10 more times and they did not encounter a single dungeon creature. However, each level got surprisingly more densely covered in those corrupted growths and vines. 

“I don’t like the looks of this Alara. If all these floors are deserted, only two possibilities exist. One being that something much stronger than the natural inhabitants of these levels is lurking around and we just haven’t seen it by random chance, or that someone or something is gathering dungeon creatures. I can only think of one person who would be able to do such a thing. Heda. And if Heda is around, that’s bad news for us. We need to be on our guard at all times, ok?”

“So if it’s Heda what should we be expecting?”

“She still hasn’t forgiven me, so we should expect extreme hostility. I didn’t mention this before, but Heda has a magic unique to herself. Necromancy. I’m guessing that she has cleared these floors and is building an army of undead. Undead are weak to fire and wind magic. If I use fire magic I may not be able to control myself, so I think we need to take a quick break and practice some basic fire magic so we can make our odds of surviving this unscathed greater. What do you say, Alara?”

“Well looks like I can handle fire once it’s conjured just fine, so maybe we need to work more on my understanding of how to produce fire in the first place?”

“That's probably the best way to do this, if you can handle this it will probably save our skin. The first thing I do when using fire magic is imagine my mana as a spark, make it have that abrupt feeling that it will catch fire at any time.”

Alara sat down on the stone floor and concentrated on making her mana act the way that Thalia described. After 20 minutes and no improvements or success, Alara sat down and took a deep breath. “I'm really not feeling it, Thalia. I don't think I'll be able to pick up on this very quickly. I'm sorry.” 

“Don't be sorry. I think that its amazing that you can wield fire magic at all in such a short time. Let's try something different. I'll start the spark for you, you just take control of it. Can you do that?”

Alara nodded her head, “Yes I'm sure I will be able to do that.”

Thalia stood a few feet from Alara and gave her a countdown till her fingers snapped loudly, “3, 2, 1, snap!”

In the instant, a small spark flashed between Thalia’s fingers. In that same instant Alara concentrated her mana on the spark and a large ball of fire erupted between the two women. It was so hot that the fire was no longer red or blue but white. Before it got out of control, Thalia snuffed out the fire with a flick of her wrist. Thalia looked at Alara wide-eyed. 

“I have never seen that color fire before! It seemed hot enough to melt stone. I had no idea you would have such control of your mana. Maybe next time you should lay off how much you use though. I have a feeling that if we tried to control that we would get burnt. I don't think we need to train very much though because we are more than safe if you can use THAT against the enemy.”

“Ok then, I suppose I shouldn't be disappointed then? So, what's the plan now? There aren't any foes to battle or avoid, so could we maybe travel a bit faster? I don't like the idea of being so close to these growth things. They are gross.”

“Well, actually, there is a much faster way to travel, but I'll have to summon an old friend.” Thalia's hand disappeared into her robe and when it emerged it was carrying what looked like a whistle carved from bone. 

“Cover your ears.”

Alara's hands pressed down on her own ears. Then came the sound. As Thalia blew on the whistle and a blood curdling screech came out the open end. It was enough to bring Alara down to her knees and literally cause the rocks of the cave to start shifting. Thalia's ears were bleeding, but continued for a few more seconds. The chaos stopped as soon as Thalia removed her lips from the whistle. 

She turned around and said, “Sorry, I know that was loud and painful. Let's go to the chamber room with all the staircases. She will meet us there.”

The two walked for only a short distance before they encountered the opening of the tunnel. Thalia walked to the edge and sat down, dangling her legs off the side. She gestured for Alara to take a seat next to her.  Alara sat down as close as she could to Thalia and rested her head on her lover's shoulder. 

“Look at just how vast the dungeon is. All the staircases that lead to somewhere or nowhere. I see it as quite beautiful when I think about the thoughts that went into making a place like this.” 

Alara looked out into the void and saw steps emerging from every direction. She thought about the doors and traps that lay hidden and those who only lived because of the safety assured from those traps. It was seriously geniusly designed. When thought of like that, the dungeon really was quite beautiful. She felt Thalia's fingers intertwine with her own, then the gentle touch of those warm fingers brushing against her lips. She leaned towards Thalia and closed her eyes. As Thalia and Alara's lips met, A pair of eyes jutted out of the darkness followed by a body that was larger than any Alara had seen before. The body landed with a thud that shook the ground beneath their feet leaving Alara pale as a ghost.