Mage Battle!

"Ready?" I asked. 

Everyone nodded, and moved off, to wait slightly closer to the spider room. I, for my part, took a deep breath and trotted off towards the giant's lair. 

"Shit shit shit shit," I muttered to myself. I was seriously quite terrified. 

Still, there was nothing for it, but to do what I had to do. I kept going until I was next to the doorway. From inside I could hear the giant, still muttering to itself.

With one final intake of breath, I stepped forward, into the giant's view.

"Hello there handsome," I said. "How's your day going?"

The giant simply stared at me for a second, and then grinned, the most horrible grin I had ever seen. 

"Food!" it boomed, struggling to its feet.

I guess I was the local equivalent of home delivery.

"You want me, you have to catch me fatso!" I said, sticking my tongue out at it.

"Food food food!" Fatso reached out at me, lumbering forward horrifically quickly. 

I put all my training to good use, and ran like a bat out of hell up the passageway, my light overhead so I could see where I was going. Tripping and falling now would be the last thing I ever did.

"Food food fooooood!" screamed the giant, his shout echoing off the walls. I was going to have nightmares about this, I could tell.

If I survived.

I glanced back and was horrified to see how close it already was. Time to put part B of the plan into action. 

I case a spark spell over my shoulder, aiming at the monster's head. It missed. Cursing, and only moments away from being dinner, I threw half a dozen more. This time some struck their targets. Two hit the beard, and one the hair, both of which erupted into flame.

"Arrggaggrg!" the giant cried out, slapping at his own head. "Owowowow!"

Despite the flames now engulfing him, the beast kept on coming. However, he was a lot slower, as he batted at himself in an effort to extinguish the fire that was raging through his hair, allowing me to increase the distance between us. 

And now Gisel and the others came into view, waiting along the corridor wall for me. 

"Run!" I screamed. "Go go!"

They started to move as I approached. I grabbed Emma and threw her onto my back as I went by, she wouldn't be fast enough on her own, and once again sent a quick prayer of thanks to Midex for my increased strength. 

Our disturbance had alerted the spiders, which was expected. Now it was time for stage three, or C, or whatever, of the plan. 

We burst into the huge room at full speed. I showered the area with fireballs, as a distraction really, and to sow some chaos, but my main concentration was ahead, where I aimed powerful wind blasts, not designed to kill, but to simply blow the spiders out of our path. 

We were nearly a third of the way into the room, and making good headway, when the giant burst in behind us, his head now a smouldering hairless mess trailing smoke, adding to the chaos. 

Seeing the occupants, the monster roared and laid into the one nearest to him, tossing it across the room into, I was happy to see, one of the green spiders. 

Turning to the new threat, the spiders concentrated on the giant, and with my wind and fireballs blowing aside the ones ahead, we, amazingly, managed to reach the far door unscathed.

This was where the plan had to end. There was no way of knowing what was behind the door, but judging from how little it was ajar, I guessed the spiders had been using the hole in the ceiling to get in and out. Of course, that didn't mean there wasn't going to be another room full of them beyond it, but we didn't have any real choice but to risk it.

Our luck held, beyond the doors was another fairly large, but not as large as the last, room. We burst into it and Gisel and I slammed the doors behind us. Whilst they weren't locked, hopefully that wouldn't matter, as spiders weren't famous for their handle manipulation abilities.

I slide Emma off my back, panting hard. 

"Remind me not to do that again," I said.

"Look, stairs, going up." Gisel pointed. She didn't even appear to be out of breath.

Indeed there were. A wide staircase opposite led to a set of sturdy, closed double doors.

"Let's hope they lead out," I said. 

We walked warily towards them. This room seemed to be made of a better class of stone block entirely. They seemed to be giving off a low, golden illumination, which bathed the area in warm light.

We were halfway to our target when there was a shimmer in the air, and a figure materialised. 

Ah, so invisibility was possible, was my first thought. Or maybe teleportation.

Shit, was my second thought.

The being ahead of us was nothing like the monsters behind. He was tall, I'd go so far as to say handsome even, with black hair tied back in a ponytail. His slim frame was clad in a white top and matching breeches, with knee high, dark boots, and a deep blue cloak. 

See, cloaks! They are so cool.

Apart from his eyes, which were a shocking white, with pinpricks of red in the centre, his face had a chiselled, well-formed human appearance, with skin of a midnight black, and the pointed ears of an elf.

"So, you've escaped my little menagerie have you?" he asked, in smooth tones.

"Who are you?" I asked. "What are you?" 

"He's a dark elf," Gisel hissed.

"Nearly correct goblin child," he said. "I am half dark elf, half… something else. The name is Isakar." He gave a slight bow.

"Let us pass please," I said.

"How well-mannered of you," he responded. "Unfortunately, I must ask you to return to your room. My pets need you for their nursery. It's nothing personal you understand."

"It's pretty personal for us," I said.

"Touche. In any case, you will do as I say."

"I think not." I conjured a fireball, letting it hover over my upturned palm, in an implied threat.

"Oh, you humans and your little spells." He laughed.

Not the reaction I was hoping for. Still, I didn't just wish to throw a spell at him unprovoked, it didn't seem right somehow. My hesitation nearly cost us all.

With no warning at all he lobbed a ball of dark magical energy at me. 

Only my enhanced reflexes, and recent training, saved me. I blasted myself to one side with my wind jets, and cast my fireball back at him. 

Isakar simply batted it away. It crashed into the wall, where it exploded. 

Oh, that wasn't good.

"Nice try lad, but you're going to have to do a lot better than that. Oh, you too!" This last was directed at Gisel, who had thrown three knives in quick succession. He had dodged two of them, one aimed at his head, the other lower down, and caught the third! 

We are in trouble here, I thought. Still, if I was going to go down, I was going to go down fighting.

I let loose. "Fire Bullets!" I screamed, casting a dozen or so of my mini-fireballs in rapid succession, at full power. Simultaneously, Gisel threw several more blades.

At least this time we made him work a little bit. He held his hands out in front of him, shouting out a short command. My fireballs veered away, exploding around the room. Gisel's daggers simply dropped to the floor.

I kept up the attack, casting my Wind Blade spell at him, for variety. He was ready though, and simply jumped to one side, dodging them. And in return, I was attacked by some kind of ice storm. 

Now it was my turn to dodge, as razor sharp shards of ice ripped through the air around me. One sliced my lower leg, drawing blood, and another embedded itself into my thigh, which, let me tell you, hurt a shit load.

"Fucker!" I screamed. From a kneeling position, I loosed a fusillade of Fire Bullets and Wind Blades back at him, casting both spells at the same time. 

A wind blade caught him in his side, causing a bright gash of red to show against the white of the fabric, but he managed to avoid, or somehow deflect the rest. If I survived this, I'll have to learn how to do that, I thought.

Gisel had used my distraction to manoeuvre round to his rear, despite the risk of getting caught in the crossfire, and used a short lull to leap at him, both daggers in outstretched.

As fast as she was, she wasn't fast enough. Isakar turned and, with an amazing show of dexterity, kicked her in the side. 

"Oof!" I heard her groan, as she was knocked halfway across the room, sliding along the floor and into the wall, where she lay still.

"Gisel!" I cried, and once more threw all I had at the man. This time, despite our relatively close proximity, I used Fire Storm, blasting away at the enemy until he was engulfed by a cloud of smoke and dust. 

It went quiet, and I ceased my attack, slowly standing back up. Had I got him?

The smoke eventually cleared, and my heart sank. Isakar was standing in the middle of a small, glowing crater, grinning like a maniac, apparently almost untouched, although his top was slightly smudged, I was glad to see. With that and the blood from my earlier attack, he'd have to have it cleaned.

"That was really well done," he said, calmly. "However, playtime must come to an end." He raised his hand and I was picked up by some unseen force and blasted across the room, to crash into the wall with a bone jarring crunch.

My breath came in gasps now, as I slid to the floor. Something inside of me had broken, and I wheezed, trying not to black out in pain.

Slow footsteps approached, and I made an effort to stand, to cast a spell, but my body wasn't having any of it. I did manage to look up though, at those white eyes, staring down at me.

"As much as my pets need food for their eggs, I think you're too much trouble to keep around. It's a shame, you were the best opponent I've had in a long time. If you were older, more experienced, this could have gone another way. Never mind."

He raised a hand, and a dark glow formed around it. 

Ah well, maybe Midex would give me another shot. I doubted it though.

"Goodbye," Isakar said.