Young Writers Society

The air seemed to get strangely warmer, the phantom cocked its head just a bit, and Felix caught a glimpse of a smile in the darkness of its hood.
It knew what Rune was.

As the misty ship came closer, a shadowed figure walked out of a tent a the stern, as soon as he stepped down, the oarsmen stopped, and the ship drifted aground.

Felix sent a mirror duplicate of himself down to meet the shadowy figure, meanwhile, he crept around the cove and hid in the ruins of a lighthouse tower.

His duplicate drew a sword and called to the figure, (now on the beach) to present their name, why they’re here, and if they know they're not allowed.

“I know the rules. I come anyway.” the figure withdrew his hood and Felix saw his face, pale, with bright green eyes, and a smirk.
“Your magic doesn't fool me, warrior. Come out, and we shall dual.”

Felix crept down to the gray rocky beach, he noticed the oarsmen were still at their places, and then he noticed what had felt wrong about the whole ship, none of the oarsmen were alive.
He gasped and before he was able to hide the pale man had whipped around to face him.
“Were you from the continent, you would know me.”

“And I suppose you say I would be begging for mercy” Felix replied
“Oh no,” answered the figure “you be asking to die, shall we dual?”

Felix rushed at the figure and drew his sword to the man's neck. The man grabbed Felix’s arm with surprising strength and through some means pulled Felix down to his news.

“My name is Galdr, and you did not beg for death” Felix slipped out of Galdr’s grasp and lunged
at him again before he could react, Galdr dodged the sword but Felix knocked him down.

Galdr was up in a flash and now he too brandished a sword.
“So when you die you shall be my servant”

“I will not die till the end of days” Felix replied
“I am a necromancer, prophecies and the end of days do not apple to me” Galdr smiled. as he said this.

Galdr still had his smile, even in another world, only a recreation of the maze, some form of Galdr was here.

“Rune, let me deal with him, he’s too strong” Felix didn't like Rune, but if he tried his powers on Galdr, even as a ghost, something bad would be far too likely.
Felix inched forward and Galdr stopped coming closer
“At long last, we meet again. Does your prophecy still protect you here?” Ghost Galdr drew a black sword and thrust it at Felix who deflected it with his knives and lunged sideways so he and Jennifer could surround the phantom, hopefully, she would pick up on what he was doing. He realized then what had just happened.
This wasn't a real Galdr, Galdr would never have attacked first, or tried for a quick kill by stabbing straight.
The maze didn't know everything, which meant this phantom wasn't the same as Galdr.

Felix wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried.

Jennifer watched as Rune tried to do something to dispel the ghost. Felix then proceeded to warn Rune against that as Felix engaged the phantom in battle. The ghostly man was using some kind of black sword that looked entirely too close to the soul destroying blades of the underworld, although this one lacked the telltale shimmer that would've identified it as one of those.

Felix was trying to flank it from one side, and she could see that he probably expected Jennifer to attack from the other side in order to surround the phantom. She thought over it for a moment and decided it would be better to remain where she was just in case but she didn't want to leave Felix completely alone on his own either. So, she focused, hand dropping in dramatically in temperature as icy mist swirled around them. She flicked her hand, a icy blade flying in the direction of the phantom and impacting it on the side, knocking it to the side as the frost then spread all through its body, slowing the creature down considerably.

Felix could hopefully take the now much weaker phantom down without too much trouble.

So that was why Felix didn't like him.

Rune felt guilty, for a moment, when he remembered his earlier pettiness about Felix being forced to spend time with a necromancer. The arrival of this necromancer ghost—a ghost he technically wasn't supposed to touch, according to Felix—suggested that Felix's stubborn dislike of him and his magic was rooted in some kind of trauma.

But the guilt quickly went away. That was a good excuse. He had to admit that much. Still, Felix could move past it. Rune had moved past his trauma. He didn't hate monster hunters because they hunted monsters. He didn't hate every guild member just because guilds had a tendency to turn him away.

This wasn't his battle to win. Rune got that. He also understood that there was probably a reason why he wasn't supposed to use necromancy on a necromancer ghost.

(Which, when he thought about it, was very similar to what he was.)

But Rune had other tactics other his sleeve.

He could play support. Jennifer had slowed the other necromancer down. Add in how he had gone directly for Felix instead of waiting for Felix to attack first, and it was clear that he would be the perfect victim for a good distraction.

Rune cleared his throat.

"Actually," he loudly said, taking a step towards the ghost, "I think prophecies and end of days do affect necromancers. You could say that they don't affect you because you're all powerful, but you can't exactly control a person if they're not dead yet. That's not how necromancy works."

He let out a sigh.

"You're giving necromancers a bad name." He shook his head. "Shame on you."

Lyrth unsheathed Vendryck, surveying the amount of room he'd have to fight. "I'll deal with the trolls. I'll take brawn over brains in a fight any day," He flashed a brilliant smile at Harry, "This should be fun,"

He turned back to his brutish opponents, grimacing. They were each a solid 10 feet of quivering gray flesh, glistening with an uncomfortable amount of moisture. The monsters had scraggly mops of filthy black hair, through which sickly green eyes glowed dully. Thick yellow fangs jutted from mouths that seemed more toxic than the Alchemist's Bog in Wistermont. Lyrth curled his lip at the stench emanating from the beasts. It was times like these that he cursed his good sense of smell. One wouldn't think constructs would have such an abominable odor, but here they were.

Lyrth charged straight at the trolls, preparing himself for another arduous battle.

"Suit yourself," said Harry with a wink. He stretched out his arms and let out a yawn. Jumping up and down he did a little jig to get himself a bit warmed up, before sizing up the three serpents that he was going to have to battle.

He took a few steps forward before turning back to see how Lyrth was doing. Lyrth looked to be taking the time to case his environment before charging. That seemed like the sort of thing a reasonable person would do.

Looking between the trolls and Lyrth, Harry decided he'd let him make the first move. He could exactly taunt the snakes to come closer until them and he didn't particularly feel like actually charging the snakes at the moment.

Galdr laughed at this and threw his arms in the air, this scared Felix more than anything in this maze so far.
Felix drew lunged again and attempted to sink his knives into Galdrs left arm, anything to stop what would happen next.
His attempts were futile there was a shriek and a more unearthly yells and several ghostly figures practically flew over the maze walls around him, Rune, and Jennifer they brandished black blunted swords which were the only visible solid part of there being.

Felix’s mind was swept back to that moment on a snowy beach when those same horrible beings swarmed over the sides of Galdrs ship, that moment when he had truly doubted the prophesies, and then the ravens had soared out of the sky and plucked Galdr of the beach, seemingly never to be seen again.

Felix retreated a couple of steps to stand beside Rune, There were no Ravens here.

“Forget what I just said -you didn’t do what I said anyway- anything you can do to help would be appreciated”

Jennifer almost audibly groaned as more ghosts started flying in. She'd been expecting the fight to be over by this point, but this damned necromancer construct was already summoning help. It looked like she might just have to actually step in at this point forgetting about the possibility of being surprised from behind. After all, there was no point defending that side if the two people she was supposed to be defending went down to these ghosts right in front of her.

Letting out a sigh, she drew her daggers and waited, prepared to strike should Felix and Rune end up in more trouble than they already were at the moment.

Rune looked at one of the ghosts.

"You specifically told me to let you deal with him because he was 'too strong'," Rune pointed out, doing air quotes with his fingers. "I thought that meant you didn't want me to fight him—you never said anything about not taunting him."

He was still drained after everything that happened so far in the maze, but he could handle a ghost or two. He focused, letting his magic spread out past him and into the ghosts. Death called to them. His healing magic wasn't moving as quickly as he would have liked, but the ghosts were starting to become less tangible. They wouldn't have much of a hold on the physical world soon.

Lyrth charged full speed ahead at the trolls, yelling at the top of his lungs. He prayed they’d be a bit taken aback and give him a moment to get under their guard- no such luck. The first reciprocated his charge, launching about 600 pounds of mottled grey blubber and muscle more quickly than Lyrth had formerly thought possible. It lifted a massive club and swung in a wide, wicked fast arc. He rolled between the creature’s tree trunk legs before leaping to his feet behind it, hastily muttering the command word for Vendryck to split into two scimitars. God I hate when you do that. Vendryck’s voice now emanated from both weapons, overlapping like an echo. Lyrth grimaced apologetically and slashed low across the creature’s calves, hoping to sever the thick cord-like tendons of the troll. He braced himself for the stiff rebound of rock-like troll flesh, but to his surprise, Vendryck’s blades cut through skin like butter. It wasn’t quite enough to sever the tendons, but it did elicit a roar of rage and pain from the putrid beast.

Lyrth grinned, forgetting for a moment the second monstrosity behind him. With a sickening thunk, the nail studded club of this abomination collided with his skull. Lyrth’s world spun for a moment as he stumbled to the side, crying out in pain. Panicking, he dashed haphazardly a few more feet into the maze before leaning against one wall. Aware of the quickly approaching trolls, he struggled to calm his breathing and push down his nausea. He could barely think, but head injuries had to be treated almost immediately, else they’d cause lasting damage. Tears pricking his eyes, he pressed sharply against his skull where the pain was the most evident, “Ellicevitae!”

Immediately, his mind cleared and the pain was dulled. The trolls were upon him. In the split second he had, he uttered yet another incantation, aware that he was drawing on a rapidly emptying store of magic. How many times had he called on it in the last day? Too many. It wasn’t powerful by any means, but it took a lot of energy.

A sphere of darkness enveloped Lyrth and the two trolls. He breathed deeply, grateful for the respite from light and for the trolls’ apparent lack of darkvision. This fight was just beginning.

Harry watched Lyrth as he charged at the trolls. It was pretty impressive considering that he happened to be a fairly regular mortal. The kid certainly had quite a bit of potential in this sort of thing.

Deciding, he'd put off the snakes for long enough, Harry walked calmly upto them, casually sidestepping around the trolls as he approached the massive serpents. They immediately did the usual hissing and staring routine that such monsters tended to employ before two of them attacked.

Pausing to let out a quick yawn, Harry waited until the very last millisecond before launching himself upward, causing the two snakes to whack into each other. It was one of the oldest tricks in the book and it somehow still worked. Monsters just never seemed to learn.

Behind him, he could hear Lyrth crying out in pain before several spells were uttered. Perhaps he should dispose of these snakes quickly and turn to help Lyrth after all. Those were rather large trolls and Lyrth was outnumbered.

With that thought in mind, Harry twisted in the air, floating above the snakes, and aiming for that third, no disoriented snake. He flew at it, smile firmly in place.

Beside Felix, Rune seemed to be trying to push back against the constructz Felix could feel a change in the air as Rune focused, however, whatever Rune was trying to do he wouldn’t be able to do it if those ghosts got to him.
Gathering his wits, Felix prepared for what he hoped would be his final attack, he was getting tired and his head was beginning to hurt again, but he took out his daggers and surveyed his opponents, his mind working faster than his body.
Galdr had retreated to the back wall, another thing different about this construct Felix thought the real Galdr would never have let his army fight when he wasn’t in the fray. The newly arrived constructs looked to be around ten fully formed and a few apparently affected by Runes magic were disappearing in and out of floating dust and rocks covered in rags, there were still a few coming over the walls, but they were small and far between. And they all had a blunt curved weapon of some kind.

Deciding Galdr wouldn’t be expecting an attack right now but realizing his main priority was protecting Rune, Felix charged at the first construct. The skeletal being swung a large sword from above, rather than block this Felix charged forward and grabbing the sword and hand he pushed forward until the construct was knocked off balance and sent to the ground where it shattered into dust. Another one this time with a knife in each hand proceeded to lunge at him, dodging to the side and throwing his own knife at the constructs back Felix worked his way through the constructs one by one.

Taking down one more Felix could feel his strength draining, now only three constructs stood in front of Galdr, he checked behind him to see there was now a fair distance between Rune and the remaining constructs.
Felix ran forward and as the constructs raised their weapons he jumped to and from the left wall and over the constructs, landing he ran up to a surprised Galdr and in a single dagger thrust-

Galdr, now grown to a hulking size held Felix by the neck as his useless dagger fell to the floor.

There were three ghosts left. Felix had taken care of the rest. Rune could feel his body screaming at him to stop using his powers, but he couldn't rest when there were still enemies to face. He turned his attention to the three. His clothes felt loose against his body now. He had to be just ribs underneath his shirt.

Rune took a deep breath.

With a burst of magic, he willed the ghosts to fade back into death.

And then he saw that the now much larger necromancer ghost had Felix in a choke hold.

It was Felix's battle to face, but he wasn't going to be surviving it if Rune didn't do something. Felix's fallen dagger was useless. Rune had no physical fighting skills of his own. There was only one thing he could do, even if it made the rest of his body go skeletal for a day.

Rune turned his attention to the other necromancer.

"Hey!" he shouted, and the ghost turned. Likely not because he considered Rune a serious threat—this was Felix's challenge, not his. But it had been enough to surprise and distract him, and that was what Rune was hoping.

He couldn't make the ghost vanish, but he could make him grow smaller.

Rune let his magic wash over him, willing his ghostly body to return to its original form. When the other necromancer realized what he was doing, he tried to fight back by summoning more constructs. But Rune was sapping his energy too much for him to do, so his magic connected with the only other dead thing in the room: Rune. Rune could feel him trying to control his body now. It was like an itch Rune couldn't scratch.

His thighs turned to bone, hidden away underneath his pants.

"Nice try," he said, barely keeping his balance, "but death doesn't want me, either."

With a burst of magic, he sent the necromancer ghost back to his original size—collapsing to the ground right after the ghost dropped Felix during the size change. It was up to Felix to finish this off.

Lyrth gritted his teeth and leapt at the unharmed troll, taking advantage of its confusion in the darkness. He dashed to the right, raking Vendryck’s blades across the troll's exposed abdomen. The beast roared, swinging its club wildly in the artificial darkness. Lyrth danced out of reach, the weapon just barely missing his ribs. The other creature joined in with the mad swinging of clubs. Lyrth backed into the edge of the sphere, and a mischievous twinkle sparked in his eyes. This could work out better than he had hoped.

The first troll that had charged at him (Lyrth elected to call it Snag) caught the second (now named Duff) on the shoulder, eliciting a bewildered grunt of pain from Duff. A moment of silence. Then a furious bellow emanated from Duff, and he barreled in the general direction of Snag. The two exchanged blows for a few moments as Lyrth took a few hurried breaths. He was contemplating waiting their fight out and taking on the victor when he felt the telltale tug of magic running dry at the back of his neck.

“Rekhh,” he cursed, aware that the dizzying effect of pulling too much magic and his only semi-healed concussion would have a disastrous combination. He jumped back into the fray, hoping to take out at least one beast in the darkness. In the short time the two creatures sparred, Snag and Duff had taken a considerable amount of damage. Snag bled from a cut on its head that looked suspiciously like a cracked skull and its non dominant wrist looked at least a bit broken. Duff’s left collarbone was clearly broken, and it sported a multitude of small cuts and bruises . Still unable to see in the dark, they fought on in confusion, snarling.

Lyrth flitted between them, slashing and cutting both creatures into a frenzy. Mostly, he avoided their massive clubs and clashing bodies, but every so often a blow would catch him off guard. Breathing heavily, he circled them until he was just behind Snag. Muttering a prayer to whatever gods could reach him here, he shot off, getting a running start before leaping onto Snag’s shoulders. In the blink of an eye, he drew his scimitars across its thick neck, sending gallons of brackish blood pouring over the ground and Duff. He leapt off of the creatures back in time to avoid the thunderous crash of its body. It let out one final roar of anger before crumpling to the floor.

Lyrth felt his vision blurring again, as his lack of magic neared the danger zone. “Rekhh, Mahht, Ptar’s holy-” He was cut off by Vendryck’s panicked warning, “The other one, you blasted idiot!”

Lyrth rolled sideways, barely avoiding Duff’s vicious attack. The troll seemed to have come to some sort of understanding, that Snag had been killed by the small thing in the dark. Sensing he was reaching some sort of damning threshold, Lyrth dropped the darkness spell and spun to face the massive thing approaching.

Slowly at first but then in a near-instant Rune had reduced Galdr to his original size. Seeing his moment as Galdr was momentarily focused on Rune Felix grabbed his dagger and threw it up directly at Galdr whose head turned to dust as the dagger hit it, quickly followed by the rest of his body.

Felix breathed in deeply and then let out a sigh of relief and collapsed against the wall. He looked at Rune.
“I suppose I owe you a great deal of gratitude, uh thanks. I suppose your sorcery can’t be all that bad if you don’t use it for evil.”
Feeling there would be an awkward silence, and not wanting to continue the conversation he started walking toward a side wall currently opening into another passage.

“Come on, we should get out of here Lyrth and Harry are probably waiting for us” Then he realized they probably wouldn’t wait before rushing back into the maze to ‘rescue them’ so he quickened his pace and with a hand to his side where his wound had started to ache again despite Harry's healing.

Jennifer

With an audible sigh of relief, Jennifer sheathed her daggers as the ghost in front of her finally fell. It seemed like the battle was over. She took a good look around for good measure, just in case anything tried to get up or manifest again to attack. The coast was finally clear. She double checked behind them. Nothing. It looked like they could move on. Maybe the end of the maze was close.

She watched as Felix sped up, possibly in a hurry to get out of this place. She followed behind him silently. On one hand, getting out of this maze would probably be good, but what came next was guaranteed to be far worse.

Harry

Harry landed right on the head of the third snake, sending a jolt of electricity through it with his hands. He wasn't holding back unlike he usually would, knowing these were not living creatures, but rather magical constructs that relied solely on Felix's memories. The resulting electric shock fried the snake to ashes in seconds as Harry found himself falling through a pile of ashes before he managed to convert it into a somewhat graceful landing, sizing up the other two creatures.

He didn't waste time, seeing as Lyrth did look like he could perhaps use some help and that they'd been in this maze for quite some time.

Harry slashed upward with his hand, letting an arc of electricity fly, his signature dark cyan flashing through the air with deadly potential as it pulverized the creature on the left with little effort.

The celestial turned on the last snake left standing. If he didn't know any better, he'd have almost though the construct was hesitating, as if it knew whatever attack it attempted on Harry would be useless.