NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10: Rib Cage Toss
"There is something I've been wondering about" Rum said while they were creeping up on the stone-slab hole into the mountain, the entrance to Jorteg's Dungeon. "Why did you try to send me to join Ermos' Finest Adventurers, when you boasted so much about The Mecha Gnomes' Revenge being good for beginners?"
The party was in a clearing, a piece of grassland situated with the forest to their backs, and the steep beginnings of a mountain ahead. Elrith stopped creeping. She swung her crossbow from her back into combat-ready hands, peering into the dungeon, which was really pointless since all the party could see from their position was a black nothingness inside. The contrast between the bright daylight of the clearing and the deep dark of the dungeon was nigh total.
"I guess I could tell you. Now that you are one of us, and you've been more or less accepted into our party." She surveyed the area with her eyes first, then turned to him. "Ermos' Finest Adventurers used to be the competition, but The Revenge outgrew them years ago. I thought you were a trash mage at your level eight and all, and so I wanted to dump you onto the competitor rather than have you join us. Of course things turned out differently" she tilted her head considering recent events, "and so now – well at least for now – I'm fine with having you on our party. And in the guild." She smiled at him, completely at odds with the savage disrespect she'd just given.
Rum, not one to start a fight needlessly, just shook his head and sighed. "I don't know what to say. But I think that you'll be positively surprised about what I can do for guys in the near future. I created a really powerful and really complicated spell in ONE day – just for your benefit. Now, I'm not suggesting I can do that every day, but just imagine how many useful spells you'll have in a couple of months!"
"I'm looking forward to seeing them" Elrith replied. Her face smiling, her words sounding innocently positive, but somehow Rum couldn't help but feel like she'd just challenged him to show his worth – and betting on his failure. Overall, the conversation left Rum with a bad feeling inside. But I've had worse, just shake it off. Shake it off Rum. You can do this.
"Okay everyone" Elrith shouted at the gathered, apparently having determined the area clear of enemies, or forgotten of their possibility. "Let's take a small break outside the dungeon first, as we normally do. We'll set up a small campfire inside the forest and let's do just a small probe for today, okay? Especially since Rum is new to dungeons." She turned to Rum. "You are new to dungeons, right?"
Rum motioned tilting his head back and forth. "Kinda. I've seen them before up close. There was a vast dungeon in the Axe Mountains that the dwarves of the Smith and the Grinder clans used to enter, to hunt beasts. They called that place The Home of the Ancient Lady. They made big camps outside the dungeon occassionally, and I visited there once. But I've never been properly inside."
"Well" Elrith started with the first bare hint of approval in her voice, "that's better than nothing I suppose. So yeah, Rum's new and so the first two days we'll just have to try and ease him into all the good routines. The safety protocols and our habits that we've established. Nobody becomes a real dungeoneer in a day after all!" She smiled at Rum and the other gathered.
"Alright" Darmon said with eagerness. "I'll go find a spot inside the forest for us. You guys can wait." Their talk walked away, not waiting for an argument.
"Hey Elrith?" Rum said, looking at Darmon walking away. "Does he always wear that armor? Doesn't he ever get tired or hot?"
Elrith eyed their tank along with Rum for a second. "You know" she started replying, "I haven't really thought about that. I don't think I recall him taking it off very often while we're out dungeoneering. So I suppose the answer is, no, he doesn't."
She and the rest of the party sat down waiting. They were all more or less sore from walking, because though Jorteg's dungeon was one of the absolute closest ones to Ermos, it'd still taken a whole five days for them to arrive.
Rum cast Softify on the ground where he decided to sit, his butt getting a sensation similar to that of sitting on a decent enough chair with a thin pillow. Not luxurious by any stretch, but much better than the alternative. Really Rum was feeling quite okay – physically speaking. Something that couldn't be said of his party. True, his legs were a little bit tired, but he was neither sweaty, nor sore footed, nor was he feeling particularly warm like the others. And if anything, this was a day to feel warm on. The bright sun appeared to cook everyone and everything in the clearing. Everyone, that is, except Rum. And all thanks to Cool Body, Clean Body, Restore Body, and Softify, which he'd been using throughout their journey and now. His spells of convenience had altogether been very effective at keeping Rum comfortable, all throughout walking, resting, and the sleeping. Even with no provisions of his own, nor any backpack with gear, this journey had been altogether okay for the wizard.
Rum had decided not to offer his conveniences to the others. Mostly because of Elrith's outrage at being magicked. That memory, particularly the corporeal lingering memory in his ballsack, had in large part robbed him of any motivation to ask his party members if they wanted aid by magical means. He didn't want to act pushy after that, and none of them had asked for help. Also they did know his list of spells, they knew what he could do for them. However, after five days of watching them all suffer under the summer heat, and with the roughness of the ground under them clearly taking a toll, Rum again felt the urge to ask. After all, they can just say no if they don't want my help, right? He watched them all massage their feet and wipe away sweat from moist foreheads. Yeah, they must be really stubborn not to want my spells. Here I am sitting, not at all miserable, whereas they all have their miserableness on full display. This is bordering on silly.
Rum looked over at the two people he had yet to offend in any capacity. "Rulli, Gilda, you two wouldn't mind some magical comforts, would you? I could take away some of that heat from your necks, and maybe help your feet if they're sore?" The dwarves gave each other a brief quizzical look.
"No need" Rulli declined.
"I'd love some cooling thank you!" Gilda looked at Rum with a hint of pleading. Rulli stared sideways at his wife, and Rum could only imagine him wondering about his wife. However, as the look of mild surprise turned to consideration on Rulli's face, the dwarf had a change of heart.
"You know Rum, sure, me too. A little cooling would help."
Rum smiled like a child about to open a present, and started rubbing his hands in exhilaration. "GREAT!" he shouted, then went on a bit quieter, "I'm just gonna use the Cool Body spell, okay? I've been using it on myself this entire trip so far, if you haven't noticed. It's pretty effective. Of course I've never tried it on dwarves before, so I'm not sure about how to set the temperature correctly for you people. But you know, let's just try a little bit of mana and see if you feel anything. Okay?"
The dwarves, their faces twisting to dismay at being test-subjects, but morphing thereafter to finding this experiment to be within the bounds of reason, agreed. Gilda went first, and Rum got up and stepped over, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Cool Body" he spoke softly.
A couple of seconds passed, and a tiny weak blue shimmer appeared on her shoulder. Gilda looked over at it, and then up at Rum. "It's not working."
Elrith snorted. "And I thought you'd give us so many useful spells, Rum. Pity this one only works for you though."
The wizard just shook his head at the sarcastic tone, and looked down at Gilde. "Probably just used too little mana. I was being cautious, didn't want to risk freezing you after all. Now, let's try again with a bit more mana." He concentrated on her shoulder again. "Cool Body."
Again a couple of seconds passed, and a slightly more visible blue shimmer appeared. Gilda shook her head. "Don't feel much colder Rum. It doesn't seem to be working. I only sense a little tingle in my shoulder, nothing more."
Elrith sniggered now. Rum sighed heavily. Is this how you're going to act Elirth. For the rest of of our dungeon dive? He'd have to figure out how to make her change her perception of him, away from the incompetent lowbie she clearly viewed him as.
"Okay, this time I'm gonna try with a lot more mana, okay? If it doesn't work this time… well I guess we'll just know that something is different about using this spell on a dwarf contrary a human. Though I'm not sure why there would be a difference."
Rum rubbed his bald head softly, a bit of anxiety entering his expression. He put his hand back on Gilda's shoulder. This time, as if to clarify just how much mana he was dumping into this spell, he shouted the spell out, loud and clear. "COOL BODY!" Again a couple of seconds passed, but then Rum felt the rush he'd been channeling. Magic flooded Gilda's shoulder, and a powerful shimmer spread about across her skin, quickly spreading towards other body parts. Gilda's expression, at first tingled into a smile, abruptly changed to one of utter horror, as half a second later, everyone could see a wet drop from her nose freeze over. Rum quickly removed his hand. Gilda, meanwhile, began shaking awfully, her teeth chattering. Rulli, equally horrified, grabbed for his wife, and immediately sat at rubbing her for warm.
"Well" Rum said, embarrassed but sort-of feeling like he got his point across to Elrith, "at least she's colder now. The spell works on dwarves! We just need to fine-tune the mana expenditure so that we're somewhere safely between frozen nostrils and not blip of a difference." He tried smiling with faked confidence. Rulli looked up at him, a shock on his face. Rum tried to ignore that. "Your turn Rulli, I think I've found the sweet spot now, I definitely used too much mana on Gilda!"
Rulli sat back, his hands frantically gesturing for Rum to cease and back away, while his mouth verbalized what his hands were already saying. "No no, Rum I think I'll be fine. I'll just cool down holding my wife Gilda over here." He leaned in to hug her. "She has definitely received enough cooling, enough for the both of us."
"Okay" Rum shrugged, disappointed, and trying not to mentally think about the embarrassing possibility that he had been mere seconds away from stopping Gilda's heart with his freezing magic. Nobody after all, not even himself, needed to know that he'd almost killed one of their party members before they'd even entered the dungeon.
Putting the near-accidental-kill aside though, Rum laid down at his softified spot, and spent the next minutes cloud watching, while Elrith, having witnessed all of it, eventually pulled out a small dungeon manual from her bag, which she read in. The dwarves meanwhile continued hugging and rubbing each other for the mutual benefit of one being unhealthily cold, while the other was unhealthily warm.
Darmon returned after a while, his noisy armor announcing his approach towards them. At that point Gilda was back to a regular healthy temperature, and the couple had decided to lie down together, cloud watching like Rum did. "I've found a spot" Darmon said to everyone.
The party quickly got up and went into the forest with Darmon, to a spot where they could set up camp. They did so and ate a light lunch together afterwards, mostly buttered biscuits and salty mini-sausages, the others sharing theirs with Rum. After that, they got ready to enter the dungeon.
The party formed in reverse order to how they'd walked to the place. Now it was Darmon in front, serving as the party's shield, or tank as the role was commonly called. Rulli and Gilda meanwhile took up melee support positions right behind him. Rum didn't have much of an idea what he should be doing but chose to stand behind the dwarves. At last there was Elrith, her crossbow friend Martin in a raised in her hands, ready to fire.
It was dark inside, and as they approached the opening Rum recalled that he was really missing a good light spell in his mental spellbook. He must admit he'd never been entirely motivated enough to try and make one though. But right now, as he was about to purposefully walk into hidden danger, and with his eyes probably going to need a long time to adjust to the darkness while he could barely see anything – now he regretted not making that spell. However, before they ever entered between the stone slabs, Elrith poked Rum from behind with Martin. He turned towards her. "Get a torch from my backpack and light it" she said, before following up with "DON'T EVER DROP IT OR LET THE LIGHT GO OUT. Access to torchlight makes mortal difference in a place such as this. It's my first time here too, but I've heard this place, it's full of skeletons. Some of which we might not see before we're practically kissing them."
Rum did as asked. He roamed around in the bag and fished out a torch. He looked at it. He raised his palm besides it. "Channel Bio-Energy." A tiny ball of green energy collected in his palm, and he put it against the torch, where it made a small PUFF! explosion, lighting up the path ahead. Gilda saw what he did, and went down to fish out a torch of her own from her backpack. She held it in front of Rum, who lit up as well.
"Thanks" Gilda smiled at Rum, and for the first time the wizard felt genuinely useful. It was a good feeling to be useful, even if it was just for something as simple as lighting a torch effortlessly.
The party moved onwards into the dungeon. The initial inside turned out very boring though, as it was all just one long but not very wide corridor of stone slabs, mountain rock and dirt. For five, maybe ten minutes, they walked, before encountering their first change of scenery. It was a large double-door, made out of iron and wood, with ornately carved pictograms of what must've been dancing skeletons if Rum wasn't half-blind. Or, perhaps, are the pictured skeletons fighting? Rum thought it difficult to tell really, as the one who'd made the carvings was a little rough on his or her artistic skills. Whoever had made it, they were no Amazing Amez for sure.
"A door?" Darmon just said, a question hidden in his tone.
"I don't remember there being a mention of any door?" The Heart-Piercer asked the air.
"Well there is a door there now. What should we expect on the other side, Elrith?" Rulli asked.
Elrith looked thoughtfully at the door for a second, spacing out a bit. "Behind this door should just be a small guard post I think. Expect five, maybe seven skeletons, with swords, shields, and one archer. If the reports are still useful, of course. Never know what these dungeon lords get up to."
Darmon walked up to the door, grabbing an available handle, and tried pushing the door. It didn't budge, not even when Darmon tried giving it an extra push with most of his body.
"Let me help you there human" Rulli said while walking up to Darmon and doing just as he'd said, the both of them together pushing against the door with the handle down.
For a couple of minutes the two males just tried in vain to open the door, no amount of muscle seeming to make it budge.
"Aaah!" Rulli gasped for air, sounding defeated. "This door must be locked!"
"You want me to try opening it?" Rum asked the two males.
"You got a spell for locked doors? I can't recall you mentioning anything about that." Rulli quizzed.
"No. But if it's a matter of strength I might be able to do something."
Rulli just smiled and shook his face. "Nah, I think the door's locked. And that–" he turned towards the door and grabbed his big two-handed axe with both hands, lifting it above his head, "–was its mistake. This door is now going down by force!" As Rulli ended the sentence he roared "AAAR!" and slammed the axe blade down against the wood of the door. What happened next, however, was the most unimpressive attempt to cut open a door that Rum had ever seen, as the axe just created a small crack in the wood and got stuck. Determination subsequently filled Rulli's face, and he tried retrieving his axe. He pulled, with all his muscle. He tried pushing it sideways, attempting to pry out the blade. But it seemed no amount of pulling or pushing could give him his axe back.
"Oh well" Rulli finally said, when his embarrassment started to spread around the room. "It seems we got two problems now."
"Let me try!" Elrith suddenly exclaimed, and everyone around looked towards the rear of the party where she'd been passively observing. "I've been meaning to try out your brother's new enchantment, Rum. It's been five days now, and he said I'd get one full charge's worth about every three days. So that means I have enough to fire off my first magically explosive bolt!" As Elrith finished off her little explanation, she raised Martin, and a big happy girl smile spread across her face, aiming the crossbow a little to the left of where the axe was stuck on the middle-right. Violent blue magical colors flung themselves off The Heart-Piercer's back, slinging themselves up over and under the shoulders, whirling across her arms before gathering at the tip of the bolt in a densely blue elongated shape of pure light.
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Clasp! came the sound, as Elrith pressed the trigger for the crossbow, setting off its mechanism and accelerating in the blink of an eye the crossbow bolt, now more like bolt of pure magic; straight at the door.
Boom! the door went. Splinters flew everywhere, some hitting Rulli, Gilda and Rum who all received small cuts at their exposed body parts, Rulli also having one or two tiny splinters stuck to his hands which were shielding his face from the blast. Darmon, being almost fully clad in armor and with his shield raised to cover his face, just gave off a few pling! sounds as the splinters struck his armor.
As they all recovered from the relatively small blast, they all saw a large hole in the left-most of the two doors, with smaller portions of the right door also damaged. Rulli, quick to think, walked up to his axe and tried to pull it free. After a few good pulls it came loose this time.
What they saw on the other side though was little more than darkness. Gilda, still wielding her torch, went up and tried to shed some light through, but not much could be seen. The area inside was indeed bigger, but otherwise from what they could see there was just more stone slabs, mountain rock and a little bit of dirt.
Rulli decided to start chopping at the hole in the left door, attacking the weakened damaged spots of what turned out to be a very thick set of doors now that they could see its full horizontal depth. After a few minutes of cutting bits and pieces Darmon and Rulli were together able to break off a large enough piece of the door's middle that they were simply able to push open a dwarf-sized hole in the doors. Rulli, the first one to try to hole, went through.
"Aye" he commented, "this door was indeed locked. But the lock's only accessible on the inside. This dungeon lord obviously wants some privacy. But trying to keep us bothersome adventurers out by something as mundane as a locked door? Hah! What a ludicrous idea!"
To his credit though, Rum thought, the door was pretty thick, so the job of opening it could've been quite hard if Elrith hadn't recently acquired the exploding bolt body enchantment.
The dwarf walked back in again, pointing at Darmon: "Tank first!" Darmon took the hint, and the party formed its newly established dungeon line of Darmon first, the two dwarves second, then Rum, then lastly Elrith. Darmon started by walking through first.
CLANG! Rum suddenly heard from the front. Rum side-stepped to try and see what'd happened on the other side. But he couldn't properly see it all through the relatively small hole in the door, and was only able to spot a massive claymore pushing down on Darmon's shield. But as if to illuminate him Darmon yelled: "SKELETON! TWO–NO THREE SKELETONS! MELEE!" Rulli quickly rushed through after Darmon and from the sound of it started tackling another skeleton to Darmon's side. The claymore that'd been pressing down on Darmon now went up again and hit down again with another massive CLANG!, the strike apparently so forceful it forced Darmon down to his knees, his shield raised above his head for protection. Now Gilda rushed through the door after her husband, and as the room on the other side got lit up from Gilda's torch Rum could see skeleton shadows as well as parts of actual skeletons lunging and slamming their swords against the trio. It appeared to be more than three though, as Rum saw many more soundlessly approach through the shadowy areas of the room on the other side.
"Step aside mage!" Elrith suddenly barked at Rum from behind, and Rum jumped to the side as Elrith started sniping at the various skeletons fighting their warriors inside the room.
Rum didn't know what to do at this moment. As they all knew, he didn't have much combat spells. And against undead, he was doubly useless, as even those spells he could potentially use offensively were not well-suited for magically sustained creatures, and less so for unliving creatures. His spells were mostly useful either before or after combat, and not like right now, in the middle of combat. Also, as he considered casting Skin Toughen on Rulli and Gilda to save them from a potentially successful enemy swing of the sword, he realized he'd have to touch them to do that. And to do that he'd have to squeeze through the narrow opening, past Elrith's sniping, then stop either Rulli and Gilda from actively fighting while he channeled his spell into them. No, that sounded silly and potentially disruptive to whatever fighting they were doings. For now, he'd just let them take care of the skeletons. He might be needed for some healing afterwards though.
The fight continued for roughly two minutes before there were no more visible skeletons left, no more clang or cling sounds were coming from the other side, and no more sniping from Elrith sitting on her knee in front of the hole in the door. Despite the fight having ended, Elrith was still on guard though, aiming her Martin at every piece of the shadows, as if a skeleton could hop out of it at any moment as a last bit of surprise.
Rum was feeling left out, and so as there seemed to be no more enemies he decided to walk up to the hole, careful to hint at Elrith that he was going through it, which only gave a go-on-kinda gesture in reply. On the other side the rest of the party was clearly still on guard, and like Elrith they were scanning the surrounding with their eyes. To their benefit Rum used his torch to help demystify all the dark spaces in the room, letting the party relax more when they saw no more animated skeletons. Rum still saw a ton of skeletons though, the floor littered with their broken and cracked bones and skulls. He picked up a particularly smallish, but still adult, human-like skull, sensing the now orphaned magic lingering in it, the broken remnants of some kind of reanimation spell. Before the magic of the skull could consume all his attention he once again became aware of his surroundings though, and looked around at his party.
"Anybody needs a healing spell?" Rum finally asked the group of three melee fighters, who had come to rest against the wall taking a few extra deep breaths. They probably weren't much tired by such a short fight, but resting when possible in a dungeon is a necessity, not a luxury. So much had Rum heard from his talk with the dwarves of Axe Mountain. Elrith too was relaxing, letting her crossbow hang over her shoulder as she stepped through the hole in the doors to join her party.
"I got pierced by the tip of an arrow! Yes please, a little heal would be nice" Gilda responded. At this Rum was a little surprised she trusted him enough to cast a spell after previously almost killing her. Not that she knew that of course, and not that he knew that either. In fact nobody knew that! He was purposefully squeezing out that memory of himself to make that ignorance certain.
As Rum walked up to Gilda he could see that an arrow was indeed sticking out of her chest, but thankfully most of it had been blocked by her chest armor. Gilda herself just grabbed the arrow, nudging it out carefully. A little bit of blood was indeed visible at the very tip of the arrow, so it was clear it had penetrated her skin if only slightly. Rum didn't bother waiting and just put his hand on her damaged chest area, which happened to be the upper part of her left titty. "Restore Body". A green little misty light flew from his fingertips and into her chest. She sighed in relief.
"Thank you Rum" she smiled at him. Rum felt glad, and blushed a little bit. I'm useful again! Getting a little carried away by this nice feeling, he decided to offer his full package of spells. "Anyone would like a cleaning spell? Get rid of your sweat? Maybe a bit of cooling? I'm sure I know how to avoid what happened last time! Also, I could cast Softify on your shoes. Maybe not on your Darmon, since that could inconvenience your armor protection, but for you Gilda and Rulli I think Softify could really make all this walking better!"
Gilda just smiled and shook her head. Rulli shook his head too, his smile a little fainter. Elrith just gave him a I-dare-you-to-suggest! look, and Rum rapidly closed that avenue. Darmon meanwhile just ignored the question and decided to walk past Rum, staring at the open space ahead, at the end of which was two tunnels. The right tunnel had a door. It was just a single door, and much smaller than the one they'd just squeezed through. But this one was made of metal, and it looked thick, heavy, almost impenetrable.
"We have two options" Darmon started, "but really I think we only have one. Since this door was locked, we can presume that one is too. But also this: there's no keyhole, though we don't even have a key so it wouldn't help much if there were. We probably can't destroy it either. So what do you think?" Darmon looked at The Heart-Piercer. "Should we take the newbie a little further still?"
Elrith considered for a short second. She smiled. "Yes!" her exclamation came out somewhat enthusiastic. "We've barely started, Rum can take another fight. He barely even got to see this one, literally holed up on the other side." Rulli sniggered at that, while the other two just grinned.
"Okay then" Darmon replied, starting to walk down the left tunnel, the rest of the party following swiftly in their by now established order. Rum considered that the joke at his expense might've just been that: a small joke. Nevertheless, he thought to himself, it would probably help my self-esteem and general esteem if I could involve myself a bit more next time.
As they walked, with Rum still carrying his looted skull in his left hand, and his torch in his right, he decided to voice a question:
"Hey, Elrith?"
"Yes mage?"
"When do we get any loot in this dungeon? I mean, you guys didn't pick up anything after that fight we just had. Why not?"
"Not everyone finds skulls valuable enough to take as loot, mage." Rum heard Rulli and Gilda snigger in front of him.
"I'm just keeping this for research!" the wizard defended. "But why didn't you take the swords, and the shields? That metal got to be worth something, right?"
"Oh we will" Elrith responded, "but no point dragging it all the way with us here. Highly valuable loot we might take right away, so that it's not misplaced by the enemy while we are doing other parts of the dungeon. But less valuable loot, and especially heavy loot like the claymores and shields: those we wait to pick up until we're finished."
Rum nodded along. The rest of the walk continued in silence. A handful of minutes passed before they saw anything more than stone slabs, mountain rock and dirt, but when they finally did stop, they had entered a natural cavern the size of maybe one or two large houses. It was difficult to estimate, with all the darkness and the limited reach of their torches. However, as they crossed into the great darkness, it took almost no time at all before Gildas torchlight uncovered the beginnings of a wooden bridge ahead. Taking a few more steps, it became clear this was a rather short bridge, crossing a shallow river some meter and a half below. Darmon stopped half a meter from the wooden planks, and everyone else stopped as well. Collectively gazing into the gradually darkening distance of the other side, some of the keener eyed of them could faintly trace what looked like the continuation of the tunnel.
"I'm a little suspicious" Darmon said, as the others behind him formed a half-circle of curious faces. "If this dungeon lord is any smart – and by the rumors of it Jorteg certainly qualifies as smart – then I think this spot might be an ambush. We're gonna try and cross the bridge" he gestured lightly with his spear tip, "but be prepared that skeletons might come rushing for us. Somebody should try to keep the mage safe if that's the case."
The other three party members besides Rum glanced at each other. After a short pause among them, Gilda announced that she would stick close to Rum to protect if necessary. As such the party advanced, everyone except Rum armed and ready for whatever might be coming. Considering that Rum was carrying the skull, he considered he might have to throw it of in an emergency – not that he was good at throwing though.
Rather predictably, but to everyone's deep discomfort, there was indeed an ambush. As Darmon set his first foot on the short bridge one could hear the first little sound of metal being scraped against rock, and the quiet shuffling of dozens of bony feet. In a matter of seconds, as Darmon was close to the other end of the bridge, and the rest of the party were all on or about to go on the bridge, the sound of shuffling turned into the sound of running skeletal feet. Soon, from behind: Rum spotted half a dozen skeletons, all running for him, Gilda and Elrith. Taking a quick look at the other side Rum saw the fainter outline of at least just as many skeletons swarming Darmon and Rulli. This was it: a battle had started, and Rum wouldn't even be able to stand on the sidelines now, even if he'd wanted to, he was sure he was trapped. Gilda positioned herself in front of the bridge from the direction they'd come, while Elrith quickly stepped in position behind. Once there, The Heart-Piercer quickly lifted her Martin, aimed, and fired a shot straight into the skull of the nearest skeleton, felling the creation in one hit.
Rum, trying to make a quick decision as to how he were to participate, just ran up Gilda, grabbing her shoulder and yelling "Skin Toughen!", pouring so much mana into her that the complexity of her entire skin smoothened out a little, removing wrinkles, but giving her a slightly rugged surface. As a side-effect Gilda's fingers also became just a slight fatter, inconveniencing the dexterous grip she had on her one-handed axe. Only Gilda noticed this though, however, she was too concerned about the battle ahead to waste words complaining about it.
Rum ran back onto the bridge to position himself a bit closer to Rulli and Darmon who were now fighting in way too much darkness due to both torches being at the party's rear. What Rum saw as he came closer, and what suddenly became clear to both Rulli and Darmon, was that they were surrounded by way many more skeletons than they should be forced to handle. As many as four tall claymore wielding skeletons, with breastplates no less, swung their thick long blades downwards in arcs, hammered down upon Darmon's armor and shield almost rhythmically, turning him into something akin to a blacksmith's anvil, as Rum watched the pounding continue ceaselessly. Next to Darmon, Rulli was not doing much better. The dwarf, as a two-handed axe wielder, was not ideally suited for defending against a as many as five skeletons surrounding him with swords and shields. This fight is not going to progress well.
Suddenly, Rum heard the sound of more running skeletons, and as he turned to look at Gilda and Elrith, a small swarm of dirty milky whities ran up towards Gilda, reinforcing four skeletons already fighting her. Gilda is in serious danger of being outflanked, Rum perceived with horror, and if she is downed, we'll not jsut lose our rear torch – Elrith will be massacred, before that all swarm me. For a few seconds Rum uncertainly beheld the fighting, acting quite stunned and unable to understand the best course of action. Yet, he had to do something. He forced himself to analyze the situation: Darmon is having a hard time standing up. The relentless hammering of those giant claymores keep smacking him down. He shifted his eyes. Rulli is unable to cut down any of the skeletons as he's desperately trying to defend. He 180 degrees on his spot. Gilda is in an increasingly desperate situation, she has already been stabbed twice now, and if it wasn't for Skin Toughen, she'd be bleeding out on the ground. He shifted his eyes again. Elrith is doing fine, but her situation is conditioned on Gilda's survival. Rum processed it all, as fast as he could. In the end, and unable to just observe anymore, Rum concluded a plan of action. First on his agende: he cast aside his to-be-researched skull.
"Skin Toughen! Muscles Grow! Body Thicken!" he yelled the incantations one after the other. The mage started growing, pouring massive amounts of mana into his spells. This is life-or-death, no time to conserve myself. I have to act – and act with force. His first priority was to save Rulli who, contrary to his spouse Gilda, didn't have any spell protecting him. Also, if I try to save Gilda first then Rulli will probably not be able to see his fighters. I'm carrying the only torch lightning up the fights on this side, and if I move, he'll get stabbed to death in the dark.
"Rulli! I'm COMING!" Yelling, Rum stormed towards the skeletons who now had Rulli surrounded on all sides. Only having one hand free to use however, Rum needed to do something that wouldn't be a waste of initiative and time. In quick reasoning he decided to grab one of the sword-and-shield skeletons from behind by the rib cage. Then, using his massively increased strength, he pulled the skeleton away from the fight by the ribs, lifting it up in the air a little, before, still by the ribs: he threw the skeleton to the other side. There it landed straight into two other skeletons about to join the rapidly closing circle around Gilda, giving her a brief respite.
Rum's first act of aid didn't give Rulli any advantages though. Rulli was still desperately trying to dodge stabs and using the top middle of his axe to push his enemies away by pushing at their shields. The dwarf's tactic was only staggering them for a couple of seconds at best. As properly reanimated skeletons like these were quite strong beings, Rulli himself, despite also being strong, was not about to overwhelm their individual strengths anytime soon.
Seeing this inadequacy, Rum decided to use the skeletons own advantage of focused encirclement against them. Since they choose to ignore me, why should I not exploit this? He ran behind the next skeleton, also grabbing this one by the rib cage, and threw it over the shallow river. This time though, his throw only managed to knock the skeleton against the side of the bridge, sending it skull-first into the river. Even so: his tactic was working, and as Rulli was catching up on what Rum was doing, Rulli used his staggering knock against the skeleton's shields to ideally position each skeleton for Rum's next rib-cage-toss, and one by one in quick succession the remaining three skeletons were thrown into or over the river, helping to also temporarily knock down three other skeletons on the other side.
Rulli finally liberated, the dwarf was now in a position to help Darmon who was at this point being hammered unconscious bit by bit. The dwarf ran up to the claymore wielding skeletons and planted his two-handed axe in their skulls, managing to take down two skeletons before the other skeletons caught on to the tactic, and reoriented themselves, swinging their claymores in wide arcs at Rulli's direction. Rulli dodged barely. "DARMON! DARMON!" The dwarf roared. "GET UP AND FIGHT!" The armored adventurer tried to stand up from a kneeling position, but as he did so, he appeared as-if severely drunk, swaying back and forth, and stumblingly leaning on his spear not to fall over.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Rum had decided to come to a rescue. Here he found a Gilda nearing the breaking point of exhaustion, and barely visible from the swarm of skeletons surrounding her. Worse than, she was currently being stabbed on repeat, swords and spears poking at her exposed skin every few seconds. She was clearly bleeding in multiple places too, but nothing that looked too serious, as far as Rum could gauge. My Skin Toughen is keeping her alive.
Rum didn't have time to count, but he guessed there were at least a dozen skeletons surrounding the undying dwarf, and possibly closer to fifteen. Seeing as he only had one hand free there wasn't much he could do, and he couldn't risk being swarmed and leaving the other side of the bridge completely without light either. Thus he decided that since the other side of the bridge now was doing quite well and likely winning, that side could need some more skeletons to fight. So Rum, standing as close to the bridge's middle as he could, repeated his earlier trick, and started grabbing and rib-cage-tossing enemies one by one over the river to where Rulli and Darmon fought.
It took precious minutes, but slowly the swarm around Gilda thinned out, and Elrith's continuous firing of crossbow bolts helped taking several few skeletons too. In the end, Gilda was left with just five skeletons to fight, and at this point Rum joined Gilda proper by grabbing skeletons, lifting them up in the air, and then slamming them down against the ground, making them easy pickings for Gilda's axe which crushed their skulls one by one. It took only another couple of minutes now before Gilda, Elrith and Rum had completely cleared their side of the river of skeletons. On the other side the fighting ended just a handful of few seconds later, finished off by a bolt from The Heart-Piercer, who by now could deservedlyy be renamed The Skull-Piercer.
Rum ran up to the other side, waving his torch around to see if there were any more skeletons coming. They heard nothing, and saw nothing. The battle is... Rum exhaled... over.