Fast and agile, Vesma darted between me and Kegohr as she ran winged sprites through or sliced them down with the long blade of her spear. A whirlwind of movement, she seemed to be everywhere at once, just like the sprites. Small bodies fell around her, and the fire of their wings died as they hit the ground.
A winged sprite flew straight at my face, claws extended, and I hit it with a blast from my Stinging Palm. I cut it in half before it could retaliate. As the two halves of the sprite tumbled to the ground, another creature dove toward me. I launched a second series of thorns at the creature, and it spiraled out of control. Before it could return to me, I summoned a Plank Pillar that sent the sprite up toward the ceiling and impaled it on a stalactite crystal.
Kegohr flailed at the creatures around his head and snatched one just as another singed his furry head. Then, Vesma jumped up behind him, used his shoulders for leverage, and vaulted into the air. Her blade swept around in a wide arc, and a perfectly calculated attack caught the final three winged sprites.
At last, we stood amid a scatter of monster corpses.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Kegohr beat out the smoking ends of his hair. “Another victory for Team Fire Cave!”
“That’s the best name you have?” Vesma asked. “Team Fire Cave?”
“You got anything better?”
“I couldn’t have anything worse.”
“You sound like a master,” I said. “If that master didn’t want to admit to not knowing an answer.”
“I need something to drink,” Vesma changed the subject. “I’m parched.”
The heat of the tunnels and the exertion of the seemingly endless fights had left us all dehydrated. Vesma and Kegohr had already consumed the water they’d brought with them. I hadn’t known how long we’d be in the caverns, so I’d taken the more careful tactic of rationing my water. Except I’d used everything down to the last drop after the first encounter with the dajis.
Unsurprisingly, there were no wells or streams down here in a Vigorous zone of fire—not streams of anything other than lava, that is. I wasn’t slowing down yet, but it wouldn’t be much longer before dehydration started taking its toll.
“We’re nearly at the heart of this place,” Kegohr said. “Then, we can all head back up to the guild for a nice cold glass of something. I fancy goats’ milk, all lovely and creamy.”
“Beer,” Vesma said.
“Just water will do me,” I said. “But I’ll take whatever they’ve got.”
We walked on down the passage, weapons still raised. A minute later, it opened out into another cavern.
The light here was brighter than in the rest of the tunnels. At the back, flames leapt from a lake of lava, and their smoke vanished up a gap in the roof above. In front of the lake stood two pedestals of smooth, black rock. A core glowed on one pedestal, the object much like those we had taken from fallen beasts but larger, brighter, and blazing with white heat. On the other sat a weapon that had been haunting my dreams for months. A blade etched with fine lines that glowed with an inner light and, together, comprised the image of a dragon.
Nydarth. The Sundered Heart.
At last, the end of our mission was in sight.
Before I could storm across the room and take my prize, two creatures emerged from a tunnel behind the pedestals. Each was the size of a rhinoceros, with hulking shoulders and long, clawed feet. Their heads might have belonged to gigantic rottweilers, and rows of razor sharp teeth gleamed in lean snouts. Blue flames flickered in their eyes as they glared at us. The orange glow from lava-fissures in the walls bathed long barbs that ran along their spines.
“Hellhounds,” Kegohr murmured. “There just had to be hellhounds.”
“You’ve met these things before?” I asked as the hellhounds’ menacing rumble filled the cavern, so low and loud that it made my teeth vibrate.
“No, no, no.” Kegohr shook his head. “No way I’d have lived through that fight on my own. But I’ve seen them from a distance. They’re real monsters.”
“What martial technique do their cores give?” I asked. Maybe I should have been focusing more on the threat, but I was eager to learn another technique while I was here.
“Burning Wheel,” Vesma said.
“No chance we could go back, come another day with more people?” Kegohr asked, still focused on the danger of the situation.
“What other people?” Vesma asked. “Who would come for this?”
Muscle rippled beneath black fur as the hellhounds prowled slowly toward us. Each step they took left a burning footprint. Drool ran from between one’s teeth and hissed as it hit the floor.
It didn’t matter to me if there were other people we could bring or not. We’d come this far, and I was determined to complete my quest: to rescue Nydarth and her sword from the depths of the Ember Cavern. If I could earn a few cores in the process, that was a bonus.
Fortunately, I was starting to have the beginnings of a plan.
“Play this one defensively,” I said to my friends. “Like you did with the Dajis. Keep them occupied as much as you can. I’ll do the rest.”
Kegohr and Vesma both closed their eyes for a moment and concentrated on the Vigor within. Then, shields of flame appeared on each of their left arms. They raised their weapons, stepped forward, their movements in perfect sync.
The hellhounds roared, and the sound echoed in mighty reverberations throughout the cavern. I winced at the assault on my eardrums, but the deafening noise wasn’t the end of their attack. An azure-colored fireball no bigger than my fist burst from their maws. Rather than shoot forward like a salamander’s fireball, the spheres of flame spun end over end. They expanded as they rotated, until they were like flaming whirlwinds.
The twin fiery storms cascaded around the cavern, and Vesma and Kegohr lifted their Flame
