Iceblade Ascendant

18: DOOMBLADE

As soon as the brass-wrought elevator cage reached the top, the metal gates folded down with a mechanical clacking and slid away into slots in the stone. The four of them stood in a semi-circle, weapons readied, and surveyed their surroundings. They had emerged up into a vast, cavernous chamber, lit by a hellish red glow, massive chunks of crimson glowstone embedded in the rocky walls. Instantly there was a monstrous roar and they came under attack from huge blasts of flame being fired from above.

"Scatter!" Jaewyn commanded, and automatically they split up, dodging the fireballs. Not that the fire would harm them, she thought smugly, although Kalethe being a Sky Elf was not immune to the flames. A quick glance revealed brown-skinned, humanoid shapes standing on rocky ledges, their arms moving in vicious gestures as they fired the flaming bolts toward the elves. The figures were somewhat familiar, with pointed ears, but something about them was very wrong. There were more creatures advancing on the chamber floor, scaly, six-legged, dog-like beasts with spiny growths sticking up from their backs and with slavering jaws filled with needle-like teeth.

"More Atlantyan experiments huh." Zephyrle twirled her blades, side-stepping a fireball as it exploded into the wall behind them. "And those others standing up there..."

"They look like the dogs from the Grath training room... I think they're called Skulkers, I saw a sketch of one back in the lab. But those others intend to roast us," Thalleron stated. "Good luck with that..." He started trading shots with the humanoids, bright green blasts of energy pulsing upward.

"They can try," Kalethe snarled, hefting Isaku. He rushed forward toward the skulkers.

"Destroy them," Jaewyn told the others as she followed Kalethe, swinging her sword in a wide arc. Arnjo and Isaku carved twin bloody paths through the skulkers, slashing left and right, burning, incinerating, freezing and frosting over with every strike. Flames and ice crystals were spilling everywhere. Like dancers the two warriors spun and slashed, unintentionally operating in partial unity, a maelstrom of fire and ice. The dog-like creatures didn't stand a chance against the storm of blades, cut apart and strewn across the floor. Soon they were surrounded, but it didn't faze Jaewyn in the slightest. Confident in her fighting ability and that these animalistic foes were beneath her, she moved effortlessly and with elven grace, her shining blade glinting and bringing swift death.

Casting the occasional glance upward toward the ledges upon which stood the disturbing, humanoid figures, Jaewyn tried to piece together the clues as to what seemed familiar about them. Their ears were pointy, therefore they were elven, although each of them sported a shaved head, and their skin was brown, far darker than any Beltharin. Their eyes glowed with crimson light, suggesting they were indeed Beltharin in the act of manipulating the energies required to form magical projectiles. Instead of using staves, however, like Thalleron, they each wore a Pulse Talon. Fireballs also suggested they were Fire Elves, as the Beltharin who had gained their Pulse Talons could manipulate their bloodfire into creating such projectiles. Also, the humanoids wore little clothing on their bodies, only really covering their vitals. She could see that scraps of silk and leather hung from their muscled frames, as if they'd recently been wearing Beltharin clothes but had ripped them open.

Were these the missing Deepmoss Mystics?

She sliced down another skulker as it lunged at her throat, her gaze wandering to see how the others fared. They surely were learning to be a good team, as Thalleron and Zephyrle had moved to deal with the humanoids without question.

The thief had vaulted up the wall and was making her way from ledge to ledge, somersaulting and spinning her blades, a whirlwind of Beltharin starsilver. She seemed to flow from one opponent into the other, dodging their clumsy melee strikes whilst simultaneously taking their legs out from beneath them. Swift slashes across the neck put them down. Others lit up by Thalleron's emerald flames tumbled to their deaths, landing on the floor with a sickening crunch.