The Mother of Monsters

Teyva woke to the sounds of conversation. She tried to take a breath and found her chest restricted, forcing a cough out of her. She rolled onto her side, groaning. Her mouth tasted like stale wine and cotton. She retched, the involuntary reaction to the taste causing her chest to contract and sharp pain to shoot up her side. Her whole body tensed and she rolled back onto the ground, staring up at the dark ceiling. Her [Eyes of the Halls] had expired at some point. Nearby she heard movement, a pair of boots rushing in her direction.

“Mother is awake!” Came Nephral’s baritone. She tried to sit up but winced as more pain shot through her.

“Easy there, you pierced a lung,” Azrael said, “Let the potion do its work.”

“Potion?” Teyva asked groggily, “What potion? And what’s with this awful taste in my mouth?”

“Give it a moment, it’ll come back to you,” Azrael said. Teyva blinked and squinted at her in the dark, trying to make out the object in her hand. It was a glass vial, a lot like the one that- right! She shook her head and let out another groan. It was the potion that Elat had given them before they left.

Teyva let out a groan; “Right, potion, Elat, got it.”

Azrael knelt as Teyva’s vision began to settle. She tried to raise her hands but felt a weight resting on them. She looked down and saw about twenty gold coins clinging to her arms and dozens of eyes looking at her from the tiny gold disks. How many had she lost this time? Teyva closed her eyes and made an effort to slow her breathing.

“That fight was reckless,” Azrael grunted, “We had no plan.”

“You’re right, but we didn’t exactly know the thing’s weakness either,” Teyva countered from the ground.

Azrael let out a long-suffering sigh and shook her head, getting to her feet and walking away. Teyva lay her head back on the ground and stared up at the ceiling. They were still in the oblong room where they’d fought the Wightling. From the looks of it, she hadn’t been moved very far from where she had been up against the wall during the fight. She glanced down at the Mockeries clinging to her arm and sent them a reassuring feeling through their connection. The creatures crawled up her arm and nestled around her neck. Her eyes flicked down to Nephral.

The sphinx was beside himself, his big eyes wide with worry, his tail flicked left and right with anxiousness and it was all Teyva could do not to laugh. She reached out and placed a hand on his head, scratching behind his ears. “I’m fine, I’ll be up in no time, right Az?”

“You should be in fighting shape soon, the potion has been in your system for a while,” She said, rubbing her chin as she stared at the cubbies in the wall. “What were these for, you think?” She asked.

Teyva shrugged, she couldn’t imagine what they were for. Instead, something else occurred to her. She tried to sit up a little bit and called out to her friend; “Hey! What was that during the fight? The shield thing that you did! You got faster too.”

Azrael, who had sat down on a small outcropping of rock cracked a grin; “Did you forget I have an aspect as well, Teyva? The warden. My powers are used to protect, I can create a shield as long as I stand between my enemy and my allies. If my allies are injured I become faster and stronger,” She explained.

Teyva clapped her palm over her face and laughed; “I should have known,”

She lay there on her back for a little while, going over the fight in her mind. The words that the creature tried to speak. Was it a language or just some futile attempt at mimicking a living, thinking creature? She rubbed her eyes with her left hand, adjusting her position to get more comfortable. If she stayed still long enough she could feel the potion at work in her body, slowly healing her internal injuries.

She let out a labored breath, it still hurt but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been at the end of the fight. Charging in and confronting it head-on. They hadn’t been prepared for just how much health the damn thing had. What were these things anyway? She turned her focus to Nephral who was purring against her attentive hand and cleared her throat; “Nephral, you can provide some insights, right?”

Nephral looked up from his pleasure, blinking a few times and focusing on his mother, “Yes, I have a vast amount of knowledge at my disposal, mother.”

“You figured out that the bones were the Wightling’s weak point, right?”

“Yes, mother,” He said.

“What the hell are these things? Undead?” She asked.

“I am afraid not, mother, the undead are formed through necromancy or by intense regret and emotion. These creatures know only the madness of existence. You can see it in their eyes,” He said, shuddering. Teyva thought back to the look in the eyes of the Lesser Wightlings and the Wightling. It was like they were panicked, lashing out at whatever was nearby without any thought, rhyme, or reason. “I imagine they are Aberrations, the product of magic gone wild and collapsing in on itself. Completely insane.”

“How would we stop that?” Azrael asked.

The Sphinx shrugged; “The magic that has gone wild must have a source, destroy it.”

Teyva checked her stats, she was at about ninety percent health. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and brushed off her shoulders. “Sounds simple enough, let’s do that.”

“Mother, you cannot be serious!” Nephral complained, “Whatever it is you fought nearly got you killed!”

Teyva looked over in Azrael's direction and shot her a grin. The Azar laughed and got up from her perch, brushing herself off and checking her weapon. She walked over and helped Teyva to her feet despite Nephral’s protestations. The Mockeries swarmed off of Teyva’s shoulders and back into her satchel. Nephral, to his credit, eventually returned to his spot on her shoulder.

Nephral looked between the two of them, “You two are insane, you do realize that, yes?”

“Probably,” Teyva said.

“Definitely,” Azrael added.

Azrael joined her as they made their way back into the passage. Teyva made sure to cast [Eyes of the Halls] before they went any further, the last thing she wanted was to survive one wound only to step on a trap like an idiot. They’d have to return to the split in the path and head north to go down further into the cavern. From there they went further into the depths. Teyva’s [Eye’s of the Halls] giving her clarity. She glanced over at Azrael a few times, wondering how she was able to navigate so effortlessly.

“Hey, Az.”

“Hm?”

“Do Azar have night vision or something?” She asked.

“Not at all,” Azrael said, stepping over one of the glowing traps as Teyva pointed it out. Teyva went silent and left the unasked question hanging in the air. Azrael glanced back at her with a dry smirk and shrugged. “Again, you forget I have an Aspect too. The Warden is a guardian, a watcher, how do you think I was able to navigate the cave that I found you in. What, did you think I was using your luminous head as a lantern or something?”

Teyva looked away and Azrael chuckled as they rounded another bend in the tunnel, the angle becoming steeper. They descended until Teyva spotted an opening ahead of them. She came to a stop and dropped to a knee, nodding in the direction of the end of the passage. Azrael did the same, narrowing her eyes and frowning before looking over her shoulder at Teyva.

“No more surprises,” Teyva said and opened her bag and drew out one of her Mockeries, letting it scuttle over her fingers before urging it to fly towards the new room. It landed just at the entrance, climbing to the top of the archway and peering inside. Low chitters began to come up from the bag as the creatures spoke amongst themselves trying to understand what their kin was seeing.

“What do they see, Nephral?” Azrael asked the sphinx. The cat glanced at her then looked toward the path. The feline’s expression was a mixed one.

“Several of the small ones and one large one, they say, the large one is different though they cannot articulate how,” He said, his tail flicking with mild agitation, “I am not keen to see you fight yet another one of those nightmares, perhaps we should turn around here?”

Teyva and Azrael exchanged looks and then looked at Nephral. The sphinx’s ears drooped and he let out a beleaguered sigh. The feline hopped off of Teyva’s shoulder and stood with her as she began to create more Mockeries, refilling her bag ahead of the fight. Azrael on the other hand inched closer toward the entrance, trying to get a better look inside for herself. To both of their surprise, the creatures didn’t react when she got as far as the opening to the room before retreating.

Azrael knelt next to Teyva and filled her in on what she saw to clarify the information the Mockery gave. There were six lesser wightlings inside and one full wightling. The full one was not as broad or large as the one they had fought in the cubby room. It did not have claws either suggesting it might have some sort of long-range ability.

“Maybe a caster of some kind, or it relies on speed,” Azrael said.

“Either way if we can get a few instances of Chilling Weakness on it and I can get within range it won’t be able to do anything,” Teyva pointed out.

“There is a whole lot of risk with that plan, it has plenty of exposed bones. I suggest we take it safe and try to draw them into the hallway. They aren’t reacting to our presence and the entrance seems to be smaller than the Wightling itself,” Azrael reasoned, “Perhaps we could just, pick them off?”

“Pulling, okay I can get behind that,” Teyva said. “I guess all we can do is try it out and see what happens. Do we have a backup plan?”

“Well funneling them into the hallway should let us deal with the Lessers one at a time, so that won’t be a problem. If the Wightling itself decides to join the fight I’ll need you to focus on it while I deal with the little guys. Can you do that? Don’t waste your mana on supporting me.”

“Got it,” Teyva said and got to her feet.

Having given up on convincing the two women to turn back, Nephral alighted on Teyva’s shoulder and hung on as she marched down the hall behind Azrael. As they reached within a few feet of the door Teyva was able to make out the shapes of the Lesser Weightings wandering around the room. Azrael drew her sword and readied herself, ducking a little to give Teyva enough space to fire off a shot. Teyva held out her free hand and cast [Pale Bolt] on the first of the creatures. The streak of white light hurtled through the air and caught it in the side, ice crystals splashing across its exposed ribs.

The reaction was instantaneous. Six garbled shrieks of confusion and rage erupted in the room as all of the Lesser Wightlings began a manic rush towards the opening. Azrael stepped back a few paces with Teyva moving behind her. While the creatures rushed, the two women focused their attention on the hunched dark figure in the rear of the room. The seconds ticked by, heartbeats that felt like an eternity. Yet the great beast did not so much as budge.

“Okay!” Teyva called, “Looks like it’s holding its ground! One at a time!”

“Gladly!” Azrael called back over the screams of the monsters.

It was a slaughter. With the two women fighting in unison in a narrow hallway with one creature at a time they carved through the six monstrosities that were defending the greater beast. After the last of them fell and dissolved into a puddle, Teyva lowered her blade arm and wiped her chin.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” She boasted, kicking one of the bones.

“Excellent work, now for the big one. Can you get some information on it?” Azrael asked.

Teyva crept forward and used her Journal, her eyes going wide.

“Oh, this might be tough.”