10: The Mithal and the Mages

We were transported by Teletestin to a large cavern, an expanse with floating islands of rock with interconnecting stone bridges. We stood at the base of a platform at the bottom of a gently rising ladder of stone. At its peak, a large gem or rock of some sort shaped like a roughly hewn pylon.

I could tell that the elves among us were in awe. I heard one whisper Evereska under their breath. They looked to each other as if to say this play was both familiar and unfamiliar. Bridges of mortared rock spanned the expanse, cracked and broken in places. Some of the other platforms that branched from the central one we stood on seemed to be crumbling as though they'd taken a serious beating. 

"That one grants immunity to disease," Miresta said as she pointed to one of the floating platforms.

Bhodi chimed in., "And that one turns the undead out!"

As much as I wanted to stand around and survey the landscape, we had a larger problem directly in our path. Just above the pylon-stone-thing, Mithindril was floating in some sort of bubble of arcane energy. Four other mages in similar bubbles were at his flanks and below him, pumping some sort of magical energy into the bubble that Mithindril was in.

'Great. Magic,' I thought to myself as Norah, Damaia and I gave each other concerned looks. 

Carrick piped up, "He's trying to steal the Mithal." 

"So this is the great battle...the one that destroyed Evereska," Bhodi said. "We have to stop him. Before he topples the city and drowns it in the mists."  

"Not Today," Mithindril's voice boomed as he released the bubble from two of the mages. "You two, deal with them. We must complete what has been started."

"Well, time to go to work," I said and stuck my corn cob pipe in my mouth. 

Damaia readied her dagger and slid into a position to get at the first mage. As she unloaded her daggers, Bhodi sprung to his toe tips and glided across the stone as if it wasn't there. He balled his fists and flapped them around in some sort of jerky motion. A massive gust of wind shot from his hands and smashed against the first mage. 

I was too short to see what actually happened to the mage but I heard a scream that started close to us and seemed to get further and further away. That mage had apparently fallen right off the edge of the platform. We never heard the splat. I made a mental note to not get near the edge.  

His buddy also must have been scared because he seemed to shit out fire. Literally. A large beast of fire appeared out of nowhere and seemed to be friends with the other mage still standing there right next to it. 

We all converged on the live beast of fire and started to work it over-it and its little mage friend standing next to it. It didn't take long to make the situation unsustainable for that guy, Mithindril had called him the Conjurer. Once he went down, that creepy fire thing went down shortly after. 

While everyone else was finishing off the fire beast, I broke off and went to one on the left that was still in a shield bubble and still pumping energy into Mithindril. We all surmised that whatever they were doing can't be good. They had to be stopped at all costs. I smashed on the shield bubble with my hammer and it seemed to weaken it. 

"Hit these shield things," I said. "We can break them!"

We all went to work on the shield of this guy on the left except for Norah. She made her way around the back and started grinding away at the other one's shield. All the while, they continued to pump some sort of energy back into Mithindril.

Mithindril looked up and said, "Evoker. Finish them."

The Evoker was released from his shield bubble. And we went to work on him. I grabbed him and slammed him into the wall and smacked him a few times with my hammers. Norah broke off flanked him, working him over with her long sword and some weird spectral thing she'd called from the ether. Carrick got up in the mix and throw some of his laser blasts (he calls them Eldritch blasts) at the guy. Damaia took her opportunities to sneak in some dagger stabs. Miresta was pinging him with her long bow from a long ways out. And Bhodi was lining up gut punches. 

But this guy was made of sturdier stuff. He was slippery too. He kept ducking and dodging. He got us lined up a couple times and dropped a large ball of fire. That slowed us down quite a bit, nearly killing all of us and certainly knocking Bhodi down. But only for an instant. Bhodi seemed to somehow gather the will to come back to consciousness and get back into the fight. Just when we thought we were back in it, the Evoker sent a pulse of lightning through us. And that's when Damaia went down. 

I can't tell you how angry that made me, but I was already enraged. This just made it worse. I plowed into the Evoker with all my might. I smashed him like I was tenderizing meat for the fire pit. I wasn't even aware when Carrick's laser blasts hit him or Norah's longsword slashed him. I just kept swinging. Until my hammers struck stone and I looked up. 

He'd used some sort of magical travel to move quickly away from us to the other side of the platform. I screamed in anger and headed toward him. I heard Norah chant something, a healing spell to Damaia. And she rose.

"Enough," Mithindril said. "This is unsustainable!"

As I approached the Evoker, his body seemed to spontaneously combust, turning into a pile of ash in front me. I looked over to the other one that was left, the one Norah had been working over and the same thing had happened to him. As we all looked up toward Mithindril, he waved his hands and disappeared.

"We've done it," Bhodi said. "We've saved the Mithal. We've changed the course of history for Evereska."

"What now," I said as the group gathered up. "I'm not sure what any of this means. Must be some elven stuff. I'm not very versed in your history."

Miresta chimed in. "Well, my short friend, Evereska is an ancient elven city that was once lost to the perils of natural disaster. It was abandoned after this Mithal was destroyed. The Mithal controlled the climate around the city and once it was broken, earthquakes and storms destroyed it. A heavy fog covered the city after and left the ruins hidden under it."
Bhodi said, "It appears that Mithindril was using the ancient battle between the Phaerrim and the elves of Everska to steal the Mithal. To what end, I'm not sure. But that has stopped. He must have been using this battle as a diversion for his own purpose."

"So that means we are in the middle of the war between the Evereskans and the Phaerim," Carrick said plainly.

Bhodi shrugged his shoulders and said, "We are still not in the right time. Evereska is not yet saved, it appears."

 

A cacophony of clashing metal, yells, screams and crumbling rock echoed in the distance, seemingly moving closer to us. A large roaring sound and heavy pounding careened upward from below us. As we all looked over to the source of the sound, a massive creature with a large, round mouth lined with spirals of razor sharp teeth and not two, but four arms hoisted itself over the side of the western bridge. It looked at us, even though I couldn't see any eyes on it, and took a defensive stance. The battle cry that came from it was deafening. 

From out of nowhere, elves were flying around us like a pack of yellow jackets. They twisted and swirled around our position and landed on the bridge between us and the creature.

"Is that thing the Phaerrim you were talking about?" I asked. 

"Yes," Bhodi said. "These people cannot die. We must help them."

He had a look of recognition on his face. A familiarity that I can only assume was something deep within him that he'd not yet shared with us. As battered as we were he seemed hell-bent on making sure that Phaerrim didn't kill these people. I was surprised because I thought that this was about that Mithal they'd been talking about. This was different. It was personal to him. 

I swear I heard him whisper under his breath, I must save my father.

"Let's get ready then," I said and pulled out my crossbow, aimed and took a shot at that ugly beast lunging at the elves.

Damaia reached into her pouch and sucked down a healing potion as Bhodi tapped me with his staff to invigorate me. I looked over and Miresta was unloading a hail of arrows by now and Carrick was throwing his laser blasts with all his might. Norah stepped back and uttered an incantation, then quickly cursed as though what she was doing hadn't worked. Damaia moved to the edge of the platform we were on and began pelting the creature with daggers, making slits and cuts across its arms and torso. The elves were firing a steady barrage of sword strikes and arrows at the creature, seemingly keeping its attention focused on them.

The creature stopped for a moment and a wash of strange energy seemed to hang in the air. I could see the faces of the elves shift from determination to confusion, some of them anyway. They began to turn on each other as if the creature had willed them to protect it at all costs. 

I slowed my breathing and shot another crossbow bolt into its mouth. It was enough that the creature reared back, breaking whatever charm it was putting on the elves. They shook their heads as if clearing a fog and turned their attention back to the Phaerrim. 

The next thing I knew, Bhodi was leaping off the edge of the platform and seemed to sweep across the air effortlessly. He landed on the "head" of the creature and worked a rope around its "neck" to try and choke it out, or at least slow its attacks down. He managed to entrap two of its arms, slowing it down. 

The rest of us stood for a moment with our mouths agape. Then realized we needed to get its attention to keep it off of Bhodi, now on its back. It was a dangerous move, but impressive. The crew continued to pelt it with arrows, Eldritch blasts, daggers and magical incantations in unison with the elves at its front.

I finally stowed the crossbow and jumped out into the crowd of elves to get close with my hammers. I activated the Arcane Overclock in my arm to enchant my war hammer attack and smashed against the side of it with all my might, just as Damaia's dagger struck it right above my head. It reeled back in pain and Bhodi barely hung on, almost getting bucked off the nasty thing.

As it recovered itself, Bhodi's eyes lit up and he smashed it with his staff. It seemed to falter, shifting downward toward me. I jumped out of the way and as I looked up, Bhodi was punching the top of it as if he was punching a bag hung from a rafter. Faster and faster, plumes of blood and meat sprayed from the top as his fists seems to be digging a hole in the Phaerrim's body.

And the beast fell. Bhodi rode it to the ground with bloody knuckles and a look of satisfaction on his face. As the beast thumped to the ground, Bhodi stood atop it and addressed the elves. 

"You’re safe now. There’s more innocents out there and the battle rages on outside. Go. Save our city. Save our people.”

I saw him give a look to one of the elves in the crowd and a nod as he was addressing all of them. When I eyed the elf he was looking at, I realized that he looked just like Bhodi - or very closely resembled him.

So he did say he must save his father. This guy must be his father. What a mind scramble this must be fo him. We entered a battle that saved a city in which Bhodi was born, which saved his parents. And Bhodi killed the creature that would have killed his father. Fate. It was our fate to be here. There is no other explanation.

Bhodi looked at all of us with a genuine look of awe and gratitude. Then he spoke.

"The Mithal is saved. Evereska, the city we elves used to look to as a beacon of light, is forever changed. History is forever changed. Where do we go from here?"

"To our own time, my friend," I replied. "We must get back to our own time..."