On one side of the vast cavern were different piles of blue ore shaped into a kind of pylon. There were hundreds of them arranged like a bizarre rocky orchard. Each blue ore pylon emitted a blue ray of light that shot out to the far side of the cavern.
These beams of light struck what I thought was a huge round lake in the floor. But the dark waters that sucked up the lights were something else entirely. They were clouds. I was looking down into another realm. Red lightening flashed deep within these clouds.
It wasn’t a lake at all, but a portal. The blue ore must have been feeding it somehow. Maybe, even keeping the portal open?
The other section of the massive cavern was empty. Just flat featureless ground that stretched out to meet the walls. A huge archway led to a sloping tunnel, and from my vantage point I could make out the far entrance. It looked to lead outside.
Then it hit me. I was inside the Demon Spine that loomed over Ashbrook. The Demon King’s domain.
What to do? I checked my quest log, but the message had not changed. I looked over at the strange forest of glowing blue pylons. Those must be keeping the portal open. If I could stop them, would the portal close and cast the Demon King back to the Demon Void where he came from?
There was one way to find out.
I ran across the chamber until I reached the closest pylon. It towered above me. The entire thing emanated a low hum and pulsed a blue light up toward its top. From there the light shot straight out to vanish into the large portal in the ground.
Not certain of what would happen if I touched it, I backed up a few paces and summoned a full quiver of arrows. Then I aimed and fired.
The arrow struck the pylon at its thickest point and instantly the ore cracked and shattered. Its light winked off and the beam which fed the portal stopped.
Huh, I thought. This is going to be easy.
Something at the corner of my eye snagged my attention. At the last moment, I dodged and rolled along the ground.
Someone charged over the spot I had been in and then crashed heavily into another pylon, which in turn crumbled and its light winked off.
I shook my head and looked at the person who just tried to kill me.
My jaw dropped in shock.
It was Thorm.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
For a moment I stared at him, stunned. What the heck was he doing here?
He was hunched over from his charge into the pylon and stood.
His face had warped to the dimensions of a potato, with the remnants of a blonde mustache smeared across his jigsaw face. What remained of his bright armor had broken and the metal shards fused with his bloated flesh. One arm had elongated to touch the ground and his great broadsword stuck out from the ball of meat that had been a fist. All his flesh was laced with thick black veins.
This was not Thorm. Not anymore. It was his old avatar now under the influence of the Demon King.
Before I could take solace in the fact the real Thorm was prancing around a field chasing pigs with a wooden sword, this Mutant-Thorm vomited a geyser of black fluid at me.
I scrambled out of the way as the horrid liquid splashed where I had stood.
Keeping back, and circling to his side, I assessed the situation. There was no way I could take him on my own. Not even close. This mutant version of Thorm was far more powerful than the real Thorm had ever been.
I needed to stay out of its way and destroy the pylons, of which there was so many. It would take awhile. And the entire time I needed to keep Mutant-Thorm from bashing me or vomiting me into an acidic puddle.
Mutant-Thorm raised his huge sword-fist and charged.
I Shadowed and dodged to the side. The mutant swung wildly, and looked about in confusion, unable to see me.
I ran through the pylon orchard to the other side, then took aim with my bow and fired into one of them. It shattered and its blue light beam winked off.
There was a roar, and I turned to spot Mutant-Thorm lumbering toward me. He knocked over two pylons in his haste and their beams went off.
Hey, I thought. I may be on to something.
Back into Shadow and instead of dodging I ran right past him. When he reached the spot where I had stood he swung the sword-fist against another pylon which collapsed. Another beam died out.
Okay, this might be fun.
For several long minutes I played this suicidal game of peek-a-boo with the lumbering monstrosity. Each time I fired at a pylon, he’d come running over like a bull in a china shop, knocking pylons over, and then swinging at the spot I had vacated.
He was doing a better job at destroying them than me.
Soon, over two thirds of the pylons were blue rubble on the ground. The light feeding into the portal had dimmed significantly.
But once I shot at the next pylon, the ground shook violently. Mutant-Thorm fell over, crashing into more pylons.
The shaking continued.
When I hit the next pylon, the shaking intensified so much I had to keep my sure-footed ability continuously active.
A chat request popped up on my screen.
Annoyed, I opened it as I dodged another charge from the Mutant-Thorm.
Mudhoof was on the screen. “Vee! You’re alive!” He looked to be running.
I rolled out of the way of a sword-fist swing and went into Shadow as I scrambled around a pylon.
“Where are you?” I whispered. Mutant-Thorm thumped by, one huge eye scanning around for me.
“Coming to you now!” Mudhoof said.
I looked around and spotted him in the distance at the very far edge of the cavern. Feign ran along beside him, robes billowing about.
I was about to offer a grateful response when I spotted two other figures appear from a side tunnel behind Mudhoof. They ran at top speed to catch up to the minotaur and mage.
It was the centaur-samurai and the stone mage.
“Look out! Behind you!” I shouted. On the screen, Mudhoof spun about, but I didn’t see more because Mutant-Thorm had heard me.
The contorted monster blindly slammed his sword down at the spot my voice came from.
I jumped but not before the huge knuckles of his fist glanced heavily off my back. The contact sent me sprawling in a heap along the ground where I crashed against a pylon.
As I tried to get me senses back, the ground heaved and shattered before me. I scrambled back grasping at the ore pylon for balance, my sure-footed ability switching off having used it too many times that day.
A chasm gaped before me and the pylon I hung on to suddenly crumbled. Shouting in surprise, I slipped over the edge.
With both my hands I clung to the chasm edge. Behind me came a roar. Mutant-Thorm, having regained his balance spotted me and charged.
This would not end well, I thought morbidly. I pulled myself up, but I wasn’t fast enough.
When Mutant-Thorm reached the chasm edge he raised his meaty sword-fist to smite me for the last time.
The ground he was on suddenly shifted and with a mighty crack, broke off. It dropped straight down, taking the monstrosity with it. Even as he fell, the thing took a swing at me.
I had to heave my body up and curl my legs under me as the sword clanged mere inches from my butt.
Then I saw the Mutant-Thorm vanish into the dusty darkness of the chasm, roaring all the way down.
I finally got myself up over the ledge and crawled a safe distance away. But what was really safe anymore?
A glance toward my friends told me they were joined in full battle. Mudhoof, armed with his uber ax, traded blows with the centaur who wielded a long handled halberd. Feign was back pedaling away from the stone mage who cast boulders at him. As the boulders shot forward, Feign summoned a large wedge of ice in front of it, deflecting the rolling projectile enough to miss crushing him. But I did not know how long either one of them had.