Chapter 77 - An Old Acquaintance

Tilting her head back, her collar undone exposing her slender neck, Sarah let the amber liquid slide down her throat burning the entire way down. With a grimace on her freckled face, she slammed the wooden shot-glass back down on the table. Marissa, the auburn-haired woman sitting across from her, mirrored her movements with a shot-glass of her own. Each side of the table had an equal number of empty shot-glasses, this last one making six each.

"Nope... You, you win... I can't do another one." Sarah said as she shook her head side to side, her sandy blonde hair swinging loosely.

"Oh, c'mon, we were just getting started." Marissa ribbed her, looking completely sober.

Tonight, had been a complete bust, not because they hadn't found anything, but because they had never started to begin with. Marissa's bubbly attitude worked its magic on Sarah's foul mood, eventually convincing her to let loose and have some fun. It had been years since Sarah had an opportunity to completely relax, even though she was in the middle of a rowdy bar filled with dirty men eyeballing them. For a reason she couldn't explain, she felt safe around Marissa, felt like she could let all of her stress melt away.

At the end of the night, she could finally say that she had found a friend. It wasn't that she didn't have 'friends' back in Lenova, it was just that most of them were her colleagues in the Academy, not really people she could be herself around. And to add to that, most of them were men, so she felt she had to always be on guard around them.

Sarah continued to shake her head, she might not have been able to hold her liquor like the woman across from her, but she knew when she had reached her limit. She wasn't sick to her stomach, but the room had taken on an unnatural tilt. She gripped the edges of the table, using them as support as she hefted her wobbly body up and out of her chair.

"D…. do ya know what time it is?" She asked, trying desperately not to slur her words. "Never mind, it's late, I should really get going."

Marissa hurriedly got to her feet, catching the inebriated woman before she fell as she took a step away from the table.

"You're hands, they're so cold." Sarah said as she felt Marissa's freezing hands. "Here, let me..." She cupped both of her hands in her's before bringing them up to her lips and blowing warm air into them.

Letting Sarah humor herself, Marissa smiled at her antics. "You're drunker than a skunk."

Marissa pulled her hands away then wrapped her arm around Sarah's waist. Acting as her support, she led Sarah toward the front doors. "C'mon, I'll walk you home."

With a sudden realization washing over her, Sarah couldn't help but gasp. "Oh, my gods, I forgot. The inn is soooo far away!" She then started to giggle, sounding like a mischievous schoolgirl.

Marissa pushed her way through the crowd of men, earning sharp glares or lustful stares in return. Her narrowing her eyes was all it took to cause those men to back off and let them pass. Opening the doors, the familiar chilly air assaulted them, the cold wind stinging their skin.

"You don't have a coat!? Here, take mine, I'm hot anyways." Sarah shouted out, the alcohol affecting her volume, as she started to strip off her mantel, her hands fumbling with the smooth copper buttons.

Marissa started to laugh and placed her hands over Sarah's. "Stop it, you'll freeze to death. I'm fine."

"But..."

"I said I'm fine." Marissa insisted as she pulled Sarah along through the snow, helping to steady her staggering footsteps. "I do appreciate it though."

They made their way slowly down the dimly lit streets. The full moon from earlier in the night was now hidden behind thick clouds, cloaking the city in darkness. Sarah was latched onto Marissa, afraid to let go lest she fall. She was impressed with how strong she was, she was tempted to ask if she would just sweep her off her feet and carry her like a princess. That thought sent her into another fit of giggling as a warmth crept up her face, turning it even redder than it already was.

"What are you laughing at, missy?"

"Oh, nothing...." Sarah said before realizing where the voice had come from.

A group of men walked out of a dark alleyway, their silhouettes barely visible. Even with the amount she had drank, she could still make sense of what was going on. Marissa on the other hand could see everything perfectly well, her eyes were glowing a fiery red as her teeth grew to resemble ivory daggers. Before she could pounce on the men daring enough to attack them, she was surprised by a sudden push from the woman beside her.

"Go, run!" Sarah stammered. "I've handled worse than this."

After her selfless statement, she started to loudly recite a spell. Her slurred words caused the men to halt their steady advance, they may not have been the most educated of men but knew enough about magic to recognize a spell. Sarah could feel the familiar electrifying feeling of her mana welling up inside of her, moving towards her hands as the spell continued to build. With the final word of power leaving her mouth, the spell leapt from her fingertips and shot towards the men.

Or, that was what was supposed to happen. Instead, her spell fizzled out as she lost control of the mana inside her body. Little sparks of bluish light crackled from her extended fingertips, completely harmless as they extinguished themselves in an instant.

"Shit!" She cursed as the men started to laugh, breaking out into a run.

They were wasting no time in their attempt to capture the two wayward women. One man reached out to grab Sarah, his dirty hands clawing out towards her, hungry. A small fist rocketed out, crushing his nose like a grape, blood erupting out of it and staining the snow crimson.

"The bitch broke my nose!" He bellowed, covering his face with both his hands.

Marissa couldn't help but smirk as she watched Sarah from behind, her hands balled into fists, held up in front of her in a wobbly fighting stance. Two more men rushed her, a little more wary after seeing their comrade's unfortunate injury. She kicked at one's groin, aiming to make his member useless, only to have her foot grabbed by the man and throwing her off balance. The other man caught her in a bear hug from behind, pinning her arms to her side.

Had she been sober, she would have been able to truly use her magic, preventing her from having to resort to her less than satisfactory fighting style. She thrashed about wildly, like an animal in a trap. Unable to move her arms she snapped her head back, connecting with the man's jaw and knocking him off of her. Marissa watched on as Sarah's limp body slumped to the ground. She had managed to hit the man so hard with the back of her head that she had knocked herself unconscious.

The man she had hit rubbed his jaw and spit out a tooth onto the ground, grumbling to himself. Turning their attention to Marissa, the men fanned out and surrounded her, leaving her no way out. They tightened the circle around her, the ones in front of her finally getting a good look at the face of their next victim. Two men nearly stopped their methodical approach, they were so confused. The small woman in front of them had her eyes closed and her nose pointed up into the air, a smile plastered on her pale face, taking in deep breaths like she was smelling something delicious.

"I'd almost forgotten." She said, opening her eyes, allowing their crimson light to pierce the darkness. "I'd hadn't eaten a single thing all day."

...

"We've finally made it. Gods, if I wanted to spend this much time underground, I would have stayed in my lab." Professor Kal grumbled as he stretched his back in front of a pair of plain looking wooden doors, while Trist trotted around, sniffing at anything that caught her interest.

He hadn't wasted any time on his decent into the dungeon, using the predatory tufts to bulldoze his way through. Even the notoriously hardy death knights, fell to the frail looking creatures with but a touch of their long stinging tentacles.

At first, he had tried to speak with the more intelligent of the undead, holding out hope for an explanation of the dungeons from an inside source. Ultimately, he was disappointed with what had happened. Not even one gave him the time of day, they all instantly attacked him just as the lower undead had done, without exception. What faced him around every corner was just a snarling mess of what was once highly intelligent undead.

After several floors of the same thing, he had given up on trying to find a specimen to talk to roaming about the floors of the dungeon and had placed his hopes on the doors in front of him. The four troublesome adventurers that he had questioned some time ago, held only limited knowledge of the lich locked inside this room. Luckily, he had run into a few more along the way down, they had been kind enough to fill him in on the specifics, especially on how to open the door.

He moved his hand over to the copper knob that boasted a healthy, green patina. He turned it once to the left, then twice to the right, wiggled it four times in a circular motion before yanking on it hard, pulling it toward him. He let go and waited, holding his proverbial breath. He was beginning to think that the information that he had wrested out of the reluctant adventurers might not be accurate, it was unthinkable that he had made a mistake.

Waiting with his withered hands on his hips, he was relieved when the door clicked and sunk into the wall, sliding to the left and revealing the entrance behind it. A large room waited for him, very similar to the one that housed the overgrown corpse-fly maggot. Large braziers housed orange and yellow flames that grew brighter as he made his way into the room. In the center of the room stood a massive throne sitting atop a five-tiered platform, its foreboding ebony granite shimmered in the brightening light.

The throne itself was made of human bone that had been meticulously arranged in such a way that not even a hair could slip between two of the bleach white bones. Shrouded in an impenetrable darkness, a voice boomed from the macabre cathedra. "Who dares enter into my dominion!"

Professor Kal took another step forward, the fires in his eye sockets burning in curiosity. "Old Kushim, is that you?"