Sorcerer in a fantasy world
Chapter 105

Chapter 105: Chapter 105

"Huh, that was easy." Marpet the Mariupl declared.

Iris tackled me into a hug, "You did it. You made him look so easy." She squeezed me tight, "You’re so amazing."

Umbra also joined in, "Hey, you’re always taking him. Back off."

Before Iris could retort, Morgana lifted them off me, "Give him some space. He just destroyed the terror that defeated us all."

"Not me." Umbra bit back and stuck out her tongue.

Morgana rolled her eyes, "Fine not you."

I doubted Morgana cared what Umbra thought as she then stole a kiss off of me.

"Hey!" Her lover Iris exclaimed. "No fair."

"You bitch." Umbra said rather crassly.

"Enough." I said, raising my voice. I was slightly embarrassed at how they were acting in front of the druids but also, "We in a fucking graveyeard of skulls. Act with some decorum." I said with a tight edge to my voice.

They celebrated my victory, but I still remembered my bitter defeat from Jack. Annihilating him didn’t heal the wounds he’d made, but I had prevented him from inflicting more.

"Focus. Làidir is still in danger." I added.

"Of course." Morgana replied and nodded with a sorry bowing of her head.

"You’re right. How could we?" Iris asked rhetorically and with a little self pity and loathing.

"As you command, my master." Umbra affirmed.

We hurried once again chasing after Làidir.

We came into an open area and what had likely been an abyss had a lit stone staircase from the top where we stood to many hundreds of feet below where carved was an altar and I saw through dim light some humanoid figures.

Làidir and Agere clashed half way down the staircase. For whatever reason, Jack hadn’t stopped them and Agere had decided to no longer run. I realised that if Jack had been successful in stopping us he could have flanked Làidir and perhaps that had been their plan. But why not finish Làidir and face me together? I would never find out.

"Hurry, we have almost caught up." Morgana said and her commanding words shook us all out of our stunned pause at the sheer sublime scale of our surroundings.

We were a few steps down when a pillar of mana burst out from the altar below. The pillar soon split off into thousands of tendrils that shot off into the catacombs all around.

"What just happened?" Iris shouted.

I recognised this kind of foul magic. I’d associated it with Maradon. Spells to reanimate the dead.

"I’ve never seen it’s like." Marpet cried.

"I’ve heard tale..." Said one of the human druids.

"I can’t tell the spell, but it is dark Unseelie magic." Morgana answered.

"Someone is raising the dead. All of them." I told them. "Someone powerful. I would guess Clavile himself. Though I do not sense his presence here yet."

"We cannot stop here. We will be trapped with the dead around us." Umbra shouted, thinking with clear logic about the perils we were in.

We tried to rush down and catch up to Làidir.

Caught on a narrow stone staircase with an abyss below and a huge open cavern all around we were assaulted by waves of skeleton undead, floating fire spewing skulls attacked us from all directions.

"They’re surrounding us." Iris shouted in panic.

"Stay calm. Use your fire, my love." Morgana replied back.

That was all that could be said before the pale tsunami of the ancient dead crashed into us.

We fought back.

When we damaged them, broken skeletons became floating skulls or smashed skulls became headless skeletons. Either way they kept coming to attack.

I did not care for this distracting horde. I wanted to growl with frustration. I tried to fly above them on a plate of metal. But the flaming skulls were just as much a hindrance as the skeletons below.

I sent storms of lightning and slapped them with walls of metals. But they either survived, were replaced or adapted to my tactics. Nonetheless I pushed us forward spell after spell down the staircase despite the numbers pitted against us.

The Druids did little, and Umbra too her magic was little suited to facing the dead. But they kept each other alive. Marpet, however, was surprisingly brutal. He wasn’t just all talk. Using spear and some kind of sunlight spell he broke the bodies and burned the souls of the risen dead. He dextrous jumped between them and made up for what the druids and Umbra failed to kill. The Druids instead supported him.

Tara along with Marpet dealt with any problems Iris, Morgana or I missed. She dealt with any problems with a brutal display of skill and steel.

Iris was the true force against them. Her flames incinerated them with ease. While I carved our path ahead, she destroyed the charging hordes coming from the stairs above.

Morgana held back the skulls coming from above. She smashed, threw and otherwise blocked the countless skulls. Their numbers worked against them as she threw them into one another like there were bowling pins to be knocked down or a particularly easy game of pinball.

"No!" I heard Làidir shout from far below.

Then she exploded with fury and magical surge. She wiped out everything living within fifty feet of her. She also took out the staircase beneath her. She flew up to us and started destroying in a near reckless rampage.

I could also see that Agere was gone. Not dead, but far below having successful escaped.

We’d been too late. But he had taken us to the heart of the Unseelie operation in Elkilbour.

It took awhile. It bought time for whatever was happening down below to occur. Some kind of ritual I guessed. But we eventually destroyed all the reanimated dead with our combined efforts.

I went to speak to Làidir, but she spoke first, "Let us finish this. Then we can talk."

"Okay."

So, I flew us over the broken part of the staircase and we landed at the altar ready for our next confrontation.