“Okay.” Rhynehart spread his arms and looked at the drow halfling beside him. “Tried the easy way. I guess he’s all yours now.”
“Guess so.” Cheyenne summoned a crackling sphere of black energy in her dark-skinned hand. Purple sparks flashed from its center and reflected in the FRoE operative’s eyes.
Rhynehart stepped back.
She sent the first blast at the fake boulder on their right. The thing splintered and fractured, and a dozen shards of oozing green something sprayed across the dead grass in front of her. It sizzled and let off thick columns of reeking black smoke where it landed, but Cheyenne and Rhynehart were well out of the line of fire at this point. Still, she was careful not to step on any of the smoking remains as she moved toward the house.
Her next black energy spheres were right on the mark with the first two conspicuously positioned gray stones. The stones exploded on impact and sent sickly green smoke into the air. Cheyenne waited for the smoke to clear before she moved forward again, but it didn’t. The green aura hung there, churning, like it was waiting for some unsuspecting idiot to walk through it.
I’m not an unsuspecting idiot, but I can’t see where I’m going anymore.
Rather than walk around, she sent several spheres crackling through the pillars of smoke. One of them hit another stone and exploded in a spray of shimmering green. The more she fired, the faster the green, billowing columns cleared out of the way. Chunks of dead earth erupted where her spells hit, and at one point, she couldn’t see anything but a green wall.
Cheyenne blasted away, clearing the air between them and Q’orr’s front door while adding more damage to the guy’s already-destroyed yard. With her last blast, the smoke cleared, affording a glimpse of the door. Loose earth rained down in front of her, and then all the green fizzled away, revealing a massive crater in the black ground where the five stones had been.
Rhynehart snorted. “Think you got it all?”
“Shut up.” Cheyenne summoned crackling black orbs of energy in both palms this time and walked toward Q’orr’s dilapidated front door, scanning the ground and the outer wall and the roof in case the guy had planted anything else.
Another wheezing cackle came from the other side of the door, and it made her pause. “That was a lot more explosions than I expected. Missed the best part, though. They normally scream. Probably got ‘em on the first round.”
The door squealed on its hinges when it opened, and what looked like a tiny, hunched-over old man peered at them. His face was shriveled like a rotting apple around two bright-orange eyes, and two rows of yellow-stained but razor-sharp teeth jutted from his narrow face in an eager grin. The guy’s skin was the color of a rotting apple too, with a little more orange beneath all the gunk. Either he hadn’t bothered to wash himself in a very long time, or all the work with black magic had the decaying effect on his body as much as the area around his home. Cheyenne figured the latter.
Q’orr’s chuckle cut off when his gaze fell upon the drow halfling and the crackling orbs of energy spitting purple sparks from both hands.
Cheyenne nodded. “It’s time for round two.”
“You! No!” Q’orr slammed the door shut, and a harsh scrabbling sound rose from within the house.
The half-drow launched a powerful energy sphere at the front door, and it splintered into a thousand pieces. Q’orr shrieked from inside, followed by crashes and the clatter of him scurrying. Cheyenne surged toward the house and dodged aside to avoid something long and black hurtling end over end through the doorless doorway. It struck the ground behind her and erupted in a strobing flash of yellow light and more thick smoke.
“Get out here,” Cheyenne shouted. “Before I come in after you.”
“Bite me!”
With a snort, the halfling walked up to the doorway and sent another orb of black energy into the house. It crashed into something against the back wall, and Q’orr screamed a long and surprisingly varied string of obscenities.
“I’m serious, Q’orr. You’re done. It’s over. We’re taking you—”
The inside of the house erupted in a bright orange-green flash, and something crashed through one of the windows. Whatever was inside the house caused enough reactive force to make the tattered curtains billow through the broken window, and they flapped violently.
Cheyenne leaped onto the concrete porch and hit the open entryway with another orb. At the same time, Q’orr chucked a leaking bottle of something glistening and black at her. The drow halfling ducked to avoid a faceful of the black sludge. Drops of it sprayed her, and when they struck her scraped shoulder, she screamed. The black drops ate through her flesh, filling her nose with the scent of cooked meat and making her entire arm feel like it had caught on fire.
“Ha! Not so scary now, are you?”
Cheyenne whipped her head toward the orange-brown thing standing there in tattered rags, and he crashed back against one of the cluttered tables near the wall. He fumbled for another large vial.
The drow halfling didn’t give him time.
Out in the destroyed yard in front of Q’orr’s house, Rhynehart had darted forward when he heard the half-drow’s scream. He stopped, reconsidering charging inside behind Cheyenne.
The small dwelling erupted in flashes of purple and black light again and again. Q’orr’s shrieks rose above the crackling hiss of Cheyenne’s magic crashing into walls and furniture. One of the sizzling orbs of black energy hurtled through the smashed window and arced into the sky before disappearing over the cliffs.
Rhynehart caught a brief glance of lashing black tendrils flipping in every direction through the doorway. Q’orr shrieked and launched himself across the house, making the rotten siding shiver on impact. Cheyenne stormed after
