A pulse of light bursts from an armored soldier, casting the phantom from its shadowy realm. Even as shadows drip from the living silhouette and disperse like so much smoke, the black figure tosses a needle at the man before it. A wall of black bursts from the ground all around to form a spear around the needle, which proceeds to tunnel through the intense illumination coming in waves from the plated warrior. As the soldier of light turns his attention toward the oncoming threat, the shadowy figure renews its assault, for even without its shadowy sanctuary, it is a formidable foe. The tendril of shadow advances at a snail's pace, inexorable as the coming of night, until finally, it gently touches the forehead of the glowing man...
Nyssha sputtered awake against a bucketful of water that had been splashed in her face. Jost openly laughed, not even bothering to hide the bucket dangling from his hand. Yarrel was notably absent.
"Wakey, wakey, princess!" Jost teased, dodging back as Nyssha kicked at him. "Dint think you was gonna go 'n faint on us. Such a delicate li'l flower—"
Approaching from behind, Yarrel gave the man a solid smack on the back of his head, sending him sprawling onto his hands and knees on the stone floor. "Can't leave you alone for a minute, can I?" He glanced at Nyssha's sodden form and cast his eyes to the ceiling and back at Jost, "I told you not to wake her, you blighter!" He raised his fist, and Jost danced nimbly out of reach of his blows. But not out of range of Yarrel's shoe, which flew from his foot and smacked Jost in the face.
Ignoring Jost's cries of pain, Yarrel dug in his pack for a moment and tossed a towel to Nyssha. "I fear I'm going to be apologizing for him as long as you're with us."
Nyssha readily accepted the towel, drying herself off and rising to her feet. "How does he do it, though? You'd think he'd be dead from all the blows to the head, but it's like he just wants you to hit him more."
"Thickest head in all the lands," Yarrel agreed.
"I'll 'ave you know," Jost said, rejoining the conversation, "took years 'a trainin' to get it this strong. Ain't nuthin' crackin' this egg." He knocked a knuckle against his head, and Nyssha and Yarrel both laughed.
When the moment passed, Nyssha asked, "Where did you go, anyway? What was so important you'd leave me alone with this lout?"
Yarrel grimaced, "Well, when you put it like that, washing all that blood off seems like a crime." He gestured at a door behind the altar, "There's a washbasin in the next room."
Nyssha gave herself a glance and made the mistake of smelling herself, and she mirrored his expression, "I think I could do with a wash, too, if you can keep Jost away for a bit."
"Sure," Yarrel shrugged, "but first, what did you see?"
"What?"
"Come on," he pressed, "You accepted a powerful quest reward and then collapsed. I'm sure the gods showed you something while you were out."
Nyssha thought back to the weird dream, "It couldn't have been that special," she hedged, "I mean, it was just a dream, and I wasn't even out that long, was I?"
"It's been an hour," Yarrel said flatly. "And from now on, your dreams are never just dreams. The gods speak through dreams when they can't speak directly through quests and messages. I think it costs them something we can't even fathom each time they send a message."
"Why would they do it, then?"
"Do I look like I understand the minds of the gods?" Yarrel scoffed. "Regardless, it's important to remember your dreams now. There can be clues to our quests in our dreams."
He prodded her in the forehead and asked again, "So what was your dream?"
Nyssha glared at him but told him what she'd seen. For better or worse, she'd thrown her lot in with these oafs, so she was going to have to trust they knew more about this stuff.
When she was done, Yarrel sighed, "Well, it doesn't seem like a clue to our quest. Probably a preview of your new Words in action."
"I can see how that might have been Vihr, but what about—"
Yarrel slapped a hand over her mouth, "Stop! You shouldn't speak your Words so lightly."
When she threatened to bite his hand, he pulled it back, and she could speak again, "What the blight is your problem? I just—" Something behind Yarrel moved. It was a black mass on the ground behind him, like dark tentacles grasping at the light. She grabbed his arm and pulled, "Look out!"
Pulling him had done absolutely nothing, but her pointing finger guided his eyes to the ground, where the tentacled mass of black writhed rhythmically, dancing with the torchlight around them. Yarrel looked all around him, brow furrowed, before he focused on the thing beneath him and... smiled?
"Is it that, right there?" he asked, pointing directly at it. After she nodded in confirmation, he continued, "Congratulations, Nyssha. You've found my shadow."
She looked at him incredulously, and he rolled his eyes at her, "Remind me, what was the power of the Word you just said?"
"You said that it lets me travel through—" As realization dawned on her face, she stared at the blackness, torn between revulsion and curiosity. Looking around the room, she found that every shadow was now a deep pool of black, with only a few of them writhing like the one under Yarrel.
She related her observation, and Yarrel asked, "Which of the shadows are still? What's different about the ones that are moving?"
Nyssha walked over to a broad stone pillar that cast a deep shadow that hardly moved at all. It still moved, though, as a pond with perpetual ripples disturbing its surface at random. The shadow of the altar was similarly docile, but the shadow beneath her own feet was more like the one beneath Yarrel. That gave her an idea of what might be going on.
To test her theory, she took a stray piece of masonry that had long ago crumbled from the wall and held it directly beneath the torchlight, creating a distinct shadow. Holding it as still as possible, she carefully watched where her own writhing shadow ended and the much calmer shadow cast by the debris began. Then, she moved her arm in a slow arc and noted how the rock's shadow danced in all directions as long as it was moving, like a little black flame blown by the wind.
"I think I get it now," she announced. "I think the shadows cast by moving objects are the ones that whip about, and still objects cast a mostly still shadow."
"I guess that makes sense, but I wasn't moving when you freaked out," he pointed out.
Jost suddenly inserted himself into the conversation, "At's cuz you's always movin' yer littlest bits."
Nyssha laughed and eyed Yarrel meaningfully, but Yarrel was not amused, "And what, exactly, do you mean by my littlest bits?"
"Well," Jost began, "Inside ya's a buncha little bits what's always movin' about, like blood an' the like. Maybe each bit 'o blood has a shadow, too?"
That seemed a little farfetched to Nyssha, but she shrugged it off, "Regardless, I'm not inclined to touch the creepy tentacle ones. Should I try touching one of the still ones?"
"Sure," Yarrel replied, "You'll have to figure it out eventually, and there are plenty of shadows here."
"Plus, them culty fellas ent comin' back anyquick," Jost stated with a little too much confidence.
Nyssha's eyes widened as the possibility dawned on her, but Yarrel dismissed her worries with a wave of his hand, "What he means is that all those connected to the corrupt god would have experienced a serious backlash. Usually, their minds just go to mush, but sometimes, they even die.
"But no more stalling—just try that shadow over there," he said, pointing to a particularly sturdy pillar near the rear of the room, "Try going from there to the back room so you can wash up. They're not too far apart."
She took a deep breath and did as he said, approaching the gently bubbling pool of blackness with no small degree of trepidation. She bent down close to the blackness to observe for a moment and could practically hear Yarrel's eyes rolling behind her. Then he gave a sudden gasp of surprise, "Jost—"
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Nyssha felt a boot in her back and tumbled forward into the blackness. There was a rush of cold as she fell toward the floor and the shadow passed over her.
The next instant, her senses were overwhelmed by a screaming that filled her mind as she was engulfed in a darkness so complete, she could feel its tendrils creeping their way into her heart. She sputtered and gulped for air, but there was none around her. Her eyes widened in panic, and she searched desperately around her for some way out.
At her thought, tiny pinpricks of light appeared around her, seemingly distant, yet as she focused on one after another, it appeared suddenly closer, and an impression entered her mind of what lay beyond the light, which she instinctively knew represented a shadow in the world above.
First, the long slit of a shadow cast by a candlestick zoomed close. She didn't feel like finding out if she could fit through such a narrow shadow, so despite her panicked state, she sought another. Finding that to be a small piece of rubble no bigger than her thumb, she moved on.
There were hundreds of tiny shadows in the room, and based on the fact that she couldn't breathe in here, she might run out of air before she could ever find one that was big enough, let alone the shadow she was looking for. It had seemed so simple, so close, when she had first agreed to shadow jump to the washbasin—
Suddenly, a new light rushed toward her, this one big enough to just pass through. She did so, gasping desperately for air as her head passed to the other side. The sudden inrush of warm air caused her to cough as she fell to the ground in a torchlit room. Looking around her, she was relieved to discover that the washbasin stood just behind her. More importantly, none of her limbs had been left behind, and there was no sign of the creeping darkness that had assailed her in the shadowy realm.
After catching her breath, Nyssha got to her feet and briefly searched the room, and finding it lacking a certain spindly, man-shaped nuisance, she began to wash. Her armor dipped into the basin first as she stood there in her underclothes. Jost-less or not, this room didn't seem the safest place to be unclothed, so she hurriedly washed off the blood before donning the sopping clothing once more. The process helped to wash the blood from her arms and hands, so all that was left were her face and hair.
Afterward, the water in the basin was a diffuse red, and she belatedly realized that she probably should've just wiped everything down with a wet cloth. Now, no normal person would use this basin for washing any time soon, though perhaps the blood would make it more appealing for any surviving cultists.
The whole time she washed, a piercing headache had been growing, and now it caused her to grip her head in pain and look away from the light. As she did so, she noticed a blinking light near the edge of her vision. Focusing on that point seemed to drive the pain from her head, and as she looked on, she realized the light was really a block of glowing white text that grew as she read it:
Vocal command recognized: Vihr.
Accessing shadownet...
400+ gateways identified nearby.
Bridge established.
Initiating transfer...
User successfully transferred to Realm 914.
User queried Gateway 38...
Initiate transfer? (Y/N)
WARNING: Accessing undersized gateways can result in dimensional tearing and cross-realm incursions. Proceed with caution.
Transfer aborted.
There were many more entries just like that, with different undersized gateways, all aborted, until finally:
User queried Gateway 217...
Initiate transfer? (Y/N)
Initiating transfer...
User successfully transferred
Her eyes widened as she realized how close she'd come to disaster. At least, "dimensional tearing and cross-realm incursions" sounded pretty disastrous.
But she'd done it! She'd traveled through the shadows, and she'd survived the experience. Reviewing it in her mind, she noted some important details for the future. First, she had to go into the shadow realm with a specific destination in mind, or she was certain to be lost. Or dead, since the second thing she learned was that the longer she stayed there, the more dangerous it would be. There was no air, and the screaming all around her was certain to drive her mad.
Finally, she realized that, despite the panic and fear, she'd had fun. So much so that, instead of just walking through the nearby door, she chose to shadow jump from the basin to the pillar behind where Jost had been standing. She grinned wickedly as she imagined him screaming like a girl as she popped up behind him.
She spoke the word, “Vihr,” and the dimly lit room came alive with dancing shadows. Most were relatively still at first, only moving with the gentle crackle of the firelight, but as she approached each, tentacles bubbled up and seemed to reach toward her. Then, as she moved away, they stilled again. Curious, she approached her intended gateway in the washbasin’s shadow, and just like the others, it came alive when she got close.
Shrugging, Nyssha reached out a hand to touch the shadow-thing, but a sudden loud ping drew her attention to the weird block of text, glowing suddenly red:
WARNING: Denizens of shadow dwell nearest to places of deep darkness.
Limited access to the shadow realm is advised in these locations to avoid shadow incursions.
Proceed at your own risk.
Nyssha gasped and pulled her hand back as if she'd been stung. She did not want to discover what it felt like to have her light feasted upon by shadow creatures, as Yarrel had described. She silently thanked whatever god had given her that warning, and began wondering how to fix the situation she was now in. There were shadows all around her, including covering the doorway. She would have to pass through them to get out, unless she could find a way to unsee the gateways. But that shouldn't be too hard, right? If the Word made them appear, then the Word should make them disappear.
She spoke the word again, but nothing changed. Looking at the mystical ledger in the corner of her vision, she learned why.
Vocal command recognized: Vihr.
Accessing shadownet...
50+ gateways identified nearby.
...
Vocal command recognized: Vihr.
Shadownet access renewed. Countdown reset.
So there was a time limit to her shadow abilities. If there was a countdown, then she should be able to wait it out, but the problem was in how long the countdown might be. If it was a few minutes, great. Hours? Annoying, but manageable. She just prayed it wouldn't be a days-long countdown. If only there was a way she could see the countdown—
Tiny golden text appeared above her little ledger, and she sighed in relief at what she saw:
Shadownet Access - Time remaining 4:19/5:00
...
Countdown panel toggled ON.
Countdowns active: 1 (Shadownet Access)
So she just had to wait four more minutes, then she could leave this place. Waiting out the timer was certainly a chore, but it was far better than being devoured by monsters.
When the timer hit zero, she was more than ready to be moving on, and she hurried out the door to greet her companions once more. Jost was lying face-down, apparently unconscious, near the pillar she'd used to shadow jump, and Yarrel was sitting on top of him, pinning him down.
"How did it go?" he asked as Nyssha approached, "Is it everything you expected?"
Nyssha described her experience, and Yarrel jotted down the capabilities and limitations of the Word in his notebook before commenting, "That seems really useful. Do you think you'll be able to bring someone with you into the shadows? That would make our newest quest a lot easier."
"A new quest? Why didn't I get it?"
"I'm sure you did, but if you're busy, the system hides it from you until you're ready. Just think 'Quest Log,' and it will appear."
Sure enough, as Nyssha thought the words, the world around her dimmed and glowing text appeared before her face:
Quest Log (2 Pending)
1. Quest Received: Godkiller (Part 2)
DESCRIPTION: You have joined a group of Godkiller candidates and have embarked upon the path of power. Use your newly acquired Words of Power to support them as they seek to destroy the evil gods scattered throughout the land.
Completing quests labeled [Godkiller] will advance this quest and provide additional rewards.
QUESTS COMPLETED: (0/4)
REWARDS:
- Limited Title [Godkiller]
- (1) Enchanted Item
- (1) Weapon Skill (Uncommon)
Do you accept? (Y/N)
2. Quest Received: Keenwar Keep [Godkiller]
DESCRIPTION: A wicked power has established a foothold in the ruin of Keenwar Keep. Infiltrate the keep and eliminate the evil gods that dwell therein.
LOCATION INFILTRATED: (0/1)
DIVINE ENTITIES ELIMINATED: (0/2)
REWARDS:
- 40 gold pieces
- Increased reputation with Farrin ruling council
- (Variable rewards depending upon performance)
Do you accept? (Y/N)
Nyssha greedily accepted both quests. The gold reward alone would have been enough for her. As a street thief, she only ever dealt with silvers and coppers, so forty gold pieces was a fortune to her. On top of that, she'd get an enchanted item? Even the simplest enchanted item could fetch hundreds of gold. She didn't know what good a title would be, but she was certainly excited to find out.
She gave Yarrel an eager smile as he stood up and dusted off his pants. "I think I'm going to like this quest stuff," she said.
"You ent seen nothin' yet, Princess," Jost said as he slithered to his feet.
She looked to Yarrel and raised an eyebrow. "As much as I hate to agree with Jost," Yarrel started, hoisting his pack and smiling back at her, "it's true. The rewards have only gotten better since our first quest."
With that, Yarrel gave her a pat on the back and led the way as they made the long, dark journey back to the surface. All the while, Nyssha daydreamed of riches and power, and for once, her dreams didn't seem so farfetched.