Chapter 10: The Earth Cutter

Garrett awoke to a buzzing of wispy yet comforting voices above him. His eyes snapped open, and saw nine other pairs of eyes staring back at him intently.

"Gah!" the thief sat up quickly…and began to feel light-headed yet again, falling back on the cold stone floor. The recent events came back to him. The pedestal, the specter, and his arm, lying there, separate from his body…he threw up, and then began to shiver as if he were naked and outside in the middle of winter. But he felt two pairs of warm, steady hands. From those hands came the strength to move on, to stand up and fight the bastard who made this nightmarish place. He got up. Then he remembered his arm. He looked over at this right shoulder, expecting to see a bloody stump.

But instead, he saw his normal arm, fully attached and looking as if nothing had ever happened to it. Looking wide-eyed at the Nuerei in front of him, he noticed one of them step forth-Jiarel, the one who had tried to save Fergrin. "Come. We still have much work to do," she said. "Your arm healed quicker than we thought." Garrett gathered the rest of his things. "It healed quicker than I thought, too." Jiarel smiled, the first time he had seen any sign of emotion cross her face. Then she signaled to the rest of her warriors, and the entourage traveled on.

Traveled through what seemed like an endless amount of rooms, doors, and undead. But finally, after what seemed like an hour, two great doors blocked their way. Jiarel motioned to stop and pointed out a much less ornate door. "Through that door is an entrance to get to the control deck of the earth cutter. When you get to the door, take this crystal (she put the clear, faceted object in his outstretched hand) and throw it to the ground. Then my friends and I will create a distraction, during which you must disable the beam. Oh, and take this as well," she dais as she handed him a sword-one of their swords. "This sword belonged to one of my warriors. Use it well. Now go." Garrett took both crystal and sword, thanked the woman, and went on through the small door.

The room was pitch black, and it took even the practiced eyes of a thief to adjust to it. Squinting through the darkness, he made out the shape of a ladder. Might as well climb it. Hand over hand, (he was appreciating the luxury of having both limbs already) Garrett climbed up the ladder. At the top, he noticed a trapdoor. Pushing it, he found it would budge. Again he pushed, and again it remained as immobile as if it were a wall. Swearing under his breath, he reached for his new sword, thrust it through the door, and started cutting. He found the sword incredibly light for its impressive cutting powers, as if it had been dipped in that odd cutting liquid itself. Cutting through the rest of the circle he had created, he shoved it out of the way and climbed through. This room was better lit than the last, and as he crawled through, he noticed the pungent smell of rotting flesh. Holding his sword warily above his head, expecting opposition, he noticed nothing and climbed through the rest of the hole he had made. Then, looking at the various tables in the room, he noticed that the smell had come from various shreds of human skin, body parts, and bodies. Resisting the urge to vomit again, he noticed a door that was strangely ornate. Silently opening it, he peered out into the room. And he saw the earth cutter.

A giant purple glowing crystal hung suspended by massive cables and an equally enormous pillar attached to the ceiling. Looking down, there was a circle of earth and an innumerable amount of zombies and specters.

A sudden crackling noise made the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. Looking up towards the pillar, six gargantuan bolts of pure energy ran from the walls to the pillar. Then the crystal started glowing even brighter. Snapped back into the current situation, Garrett realized that the earth cutter was powering up. Garrett look quickly at the cables, to the pillar, and then to his quiver. He had an idea, but he'd need some help…and some definite skill.

First things first. Reaching into his robes, he extracted the crystal and threw it to the ground as instructed. The crystal shattered silently-and then the door shattered with a giant explosion, throwing pieces of the undead and splinters the size of swords at the rest of the undead. Garrett estimated that at least forty beasts had been destroyed or incapacitated.

And out of the smoke came nine blades, whirling faster than Garrett's eyes could see. They hit the zombies and specters, and within seconds the ground looked like a meat factory.

Garrett watched as one of the warriors, surrounded by zombies, spin around, cutting the beasts in half, then back flipping out of the circle as the zombie remains fell towards each other. Another warrior ducked as a sword passed right where his head would have been, then swung three times, cutting the creature to pieces.

The thief could have watched forever from his safe perch, but another crackle got his attention. Grabbing a rope arrow and a bow, he aimed and let fly, holding on to the payload of the arrow like he had at Lord Carnatin's. The arrow streaked towards the cable, passed it, reached the end of its range, and fell back down, skimming the other side of the cable on its descent. It stopped about five feet above the ledge Garrett stood on. It'll have to do. Using his sword ever so carefully, as the battle raged beneath him, he cut a small hole in the ledge, threaded the rope through it, circled around the hole, and tied it back on itself. Looking up, he noticed that the other end of the rope arrow was now six feet above him. This is cutting it pretty close…I hope it works. Reaching inside his robes, he withdrew three slowfall potions and drank them down as quickly as an alcoholic at a free bar.

Slowfall potions work not by reducing your mass, but by loosening the bonds that gravity has on you. This means that not only do you fall at a slower rate, but you can jump higher as well. Which is what Garrett was attempting to do right now. Jumping as hard as he could, he found the rope just in reach of his fingertips. He grabbed the two inches of rope that was available to him, and was rewarded by not falling back down to the ledge that he had just departed. Grabbing another handful of rope, he pulled himself up to the massive cable, which, upon a glance downward, appeared to be about twenty feet above the ledge. He also noticed that there were only four warriors left, but still a massive horde of zombies and specters.

But there were a lot of body parts.

A high-pitched whine filled the air. Garrett looked and saw that the energy beams had stopped flowing to the pillar and that the purple crystal was glowing as bright as the sun. I'm really gonna have to act fast. He placed a mine on the top of the cable, then pulled three more arrows out of his quiver: burning fire arrows. Notching them all in his bow, he jumped backwards into space, aiming the fire arrows and letting them loose as he plummeted towards the ledge again, this time without the effect of the slowfall potions.

The three arrows streaked towards their destination: the mine. All three of them hit near enough to the mine to touch it with their blast radius.

Which was enough for the mine to explode.

The mine, combined with the explosive power of the fire arrows, cut the cable in half. Garrett dropped the rest of the way down on the ledge.

But at the same time, the earth cutter was fired. A light bright enough to blind the warriors and the thief was followed by an even louder thundering blast. Debris flew everywhere, zombie parts went hurtling past, the light grew brighter, the sound grew louder, until there was one great flash of light…

And then nothing. It was as if nothing had ever been in the place of the necropolis. There were no zombies with their guttural moaning. There was no blood and gore on the stone floor.

There was no stone floor.

There was no necropolis.

There was nothing.

But if you looked closely enough, you could see one red dot. A red dot with swirling energies in it. And if you looked closely enough into it, you could see the figures of two human shapes.

And then it was gone.

And nothing remained.

Chapter 9 / Chapter 11