The Archimage Wars: Demon of Annwn

By Philip Blood

The story of The Archimage Wars is an urban fantasy series. The story begins in current time, on Earth, but don't let the time or place fool you! Truth is stranger than fiction and the truth about Earth and what it really going on will confound and amuse you!
Join the lead character, Nick, as he continues his crazy adventure, now heading for the fabled fantasy world called Annwn, as he takes you on a diabolical journey the next of the Ten Worlds. Nick must not only survive, but he must relearn to use the magic he has forgotten if he is to survive the Ascension Quest and unravel plots so twisted and deep you would need an Albus Sorceress to help you find your way through! Fortunately, you will have one to help you figure it all out.
On this journey, you will discover things that are hidden in all of Earth's history, wars, religions, famous people, movies, books, legends, and myths, and while doing so, uncover the truth about our universe! It is not what you think. This novel series will take you on a quest across many strange fantasy worlds, not the least odd of which is Earth. The worlds range from almost Tolkien fantasy settings to modern day technology, and everything in between!
Do you dare find out the truth?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Blood
• Release date: Nov 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311355638

Philip Blood

Philip Blood is a published author currently living in the Los Angeles suburbs. He is an avid scuba diver, a voracious reader of sci-fi and fantasy, a tabletop gamer (from way back), and a computer game junkie with MMOs being the top of his list.Mr. Blood recently finished the third and final novel in his Zone series, this one called Brethren of the Ark and will soon publish book 9 in his urban fantasy series, The Archimage Wars: Warlok of Sheol. Book 1 through 8 are all available now with just one more to come to finish the series. Book 10 will be finished by the end of 2020. In addition, he works on creating Audio Plays for his novels, with five already available and more to come!He also recently went back to his very first fantasy epic series, Cathexis, and did a deep re-write, fixing may of the writing issues of a young author (he wrote it 30 years ago) while leaving the story intact. All four books have been re-written and are now available in ebooks or print versions.Finally, Mr. Blood has begun outlining a new, more traditional, fantasy epic, which he will start writing in 2021. The series is called, Kingdoms of Magic.

Book preview

The Archimage Wars:

Diabolical Book 3

Demon of Annwn

by

Philip Blood

EDITION

3.00

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PUBLISHED BY:

Philip Blood

The Archimage Wars: Demon of Annwn

Copyright © 2016 by Philip Blood

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any short quotes from other Authors, Movies, Writers or Composers works are within the bounds of the Fair Use Act.

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License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, please go to a book seller, and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Dedication:

I lost my mother and father within a short period not too many years ago. I would like to dedicate this novel to them! Not only would I not be here without them, more importantly, I would not be the person I am without their kindness, understanding, and support. I think of them every day.

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Other novels by Philip Blood

SINGLE NOVELS

Dragon Slayer’s Incorporated

SERIES:

NexLord (3) zONE (3)

Dark Prophecies The End and the Beginning

Black Chains Pirate Code

Grim Realities Brethren of the Ark

The Archimage Wars (10) Cathexis (4)

Wizard of Abal Necromancer’s Dagger

Sorceress of Atlantis Conspirator’s Coin

Demon of Annwn Sorcerer’s Ring

Seeress of Yaochi Desecrator’s Sword

Necromancer of Irkalla

Huntress of Tartarus Kingdoms of magic (Forthcoming)

Divinity of Elysium Weapon of Destiny (Forthcoming 2021)

Magus of Nibiru Black Wizardry (Forthcoming 2021)

Warlock of Sheol Doomed Crusade (Forthcoming 2022)

Sibyl of Terra Witch’s Curse (Forthcoming 2022)

The story so far…

My name is Nicholas Albus, let’s pick up where we left off the last time we talked.

If there is one thing I hate, it is being woken up early, particularly by…

Hang on, before we get started, I supposed I should ask if you remember what already happened, or did you take a long break, or go out for some pizza… in another country, or perhaps you portaled to another world, or maybe you just had a brain fart? Regardless, if one of these things made you forget what you have heard so far, I can bring you up to speed. If, however, you remember all the sordid details of what has already transpired, you should skip to Chapter One and get on with the new stuff.

What? You really don’t remember, OK, so you got hit with a dark memory eating spell, like me. Alright then, let’s do a quick recap.

It all started, at least from what I remember, when I recently woke up on a stone slab in the ancient Egyptian ruins of Karnak, having forgotten every damn thing about my personal history. Somebody hit me with the, aforementioned, dark memory eating spell and I have been in a coma for twenty-four Earth years.

A disgusting little gnome named Pox woke me up, he is a strange servant of mine who died protecting my wounded body and then became a ghost, which was later changed to a phantom, allowing the little fugly creature to manifest when I call and at a few other times.

I call him a ‘creature’ because Pox is a phantom, he is dead, but his spirit is magically endowed with the ability to manifest a hideous body out of the Ether. When I say 'hideous' I mean that once he shows up, he becomes the world’s ugliest, smelliest, little gnarled gnome-like creature: a short hunchback with big, muscled shoulders, misshapen head, a nose as long as a pipe wrench, black beady eyes, and wrinkly dark skin. His body also stinks, and I mean like burnt eggs while his breath is as foul as three-day-old, fermented barf.

This nasty phantom sent me to England, to meet an old girlfriend of mine, Fiona Albus. On the way there, I stopped at Stonehenge and met a tourist, named Hydan Friare.

It turns out Hydan is a wizard and Fiona is a sorceress. Believe it or not (I did not), they told me that I am also a wizard, though I did not remember crap about how to do magic.

I also look like I am in my late twenties, though that is only because of said wizard powers. I am likely more than a thousand years old, give or take a millennium, but you would never notice that by looking at me. I am around 6'2", dark hair, light skin, ruggedly handsome, if I do say so myself, and a performer of prestidigitation, you know, magic. Not the rabbit out of the hat kind of fake stage performance; I am a wizard which means I can change reality with just a thought. Crazy, hey? Yeah, I know what you are thinking, I am some fruitcake escaped from a nearby mental ward. I would agree with you, if I had not seen magic work, firsthand. Hell, I still might be a nut case, but I am a wizard, even if my Crackerjacks turn out to be missing the prize.

You see wizards can affect reality around them, the more powerful they are, the further out they can reach. Of course, some time back I had been hit with a dark memory eating spell, so I have forgotten how to use magic, though I have relearned a little since I was attacked. All I must do to perform said magic is believe in what I want to be real. Unfortunately, about the only time I do not doubt everything and mess it all up is when I get angry, which tends to make me kind of one track minded.

I soon learned there are ten Worlds, each with a different mage race on them, called the Houses. Fiona thought I was a Third, of House Sivaeral, but it turns out I am a Second of her House, the Albus.

Mage Tiers are like a pyramid, with the Archimage being the First and he is on top. The next most powerful are the Seconds, one Tier down, then the Thirds and so on down to Eights. That is where mundanes start, meaning people too far removed from their Archimage to actively do magic. Though Earth is one of the ten worlds, their Archimage was killed, thousands of years ago, and that’s why Earth has no mages, just mundanes.

But back to what happened to me, in England. We were attacked by Necrosouls, think zombies, but faster. They are the soul of some deceased person stuck into some other person’s dead body.

Using a pentagram burned into stone we teleported to Chichen Itza, Mexico, so we could use a portal to go to the World called Abal. That is where I hoped to find my real parents. We ran into a House Tarvos sorceress, named Myrka, and she tagged along, after swearing to help me until I released her from my service. She wants to be nearby when The Dragon comes to kill me, so she can tell her Archimage where the master of evil is located.

The Dragon is an Ex-Archimage, tossed out of the Ring of Ten for doing a lot of unbelievably bad things, his people were exterminated, his planet laid to waste. He is now the most hunted mage on the Ten Worlds, a real evil bastard, and he seems to be hunting me! No, I do not know why, though I can guess. Maybe I stole something from him, a weapon, or information, who knows? I guess he wants to capture me to get it back, so he needs me alive.

Myrka was sent by her Archimage to track down The Dragon. She and all her people who come from the World called Annwn, use a dark power called the derkaz. Hydan told me that it warps your mind, making you arrogant, destructive, and callous about other lives. If Myrka is any example, he is right.

I went to Abal with Hydan and Myrka only to pick up another mage named Toji by inadvertently saving his life. Now he owes me a life debt and swore to follow my orders for about a year and a half.

While seeking my parents on Abal, we stopped a civil war, which had gone on for over 1000 years. I, eventually, found my mother, The White Enchantress, and she turned out to be Guinevere of King Arthur fame on Earth. She told me that supposedly my father is Merlin, but I later learned from an evil sorceress that my dear mother lied to me about that and my real father is someone called The White Knight. He is also of King Arthur fame and known to most as Lancelot. Learning this changed… everything. I found out I am not a wizard from House Sivaeral, but an Albus wizard, from Atlantis.

Now I had to go to that world, but I had some business on Earth first.

Back on Earth, I ran into a sorceress named Bloodmoon, who told me she is Fiona’s twin sister. Fiona could not confirm or deny this, because she got hit with a memory eating spell, very much like the one that nailed me!

While on Earth I found a professor studying the Houses, though no one else in the academia of Earth believe his odd conclusions. His name is Casey Griffith, and he turns out to be a Hidden Soul, which is a wizard who does not know they are a wizard, so they do not have a House glyph on their cheek yet. House glyphs are needed to perform magic and, once you have one, and your Archimage confirms you are of their House, it can never be changed or hidden from another mage.

So, Hydan, Myrka, Toji, Casey, Fiona, Bloodmoon, and I all went to the Albus home world. On Atlantis I started hunting Morgain, she had been on Abal and murdered someone I really care about, a little saeran girl named Ziny. However, while hunting her, we had run afoul of a new threat, or an old one, depending on how you look at it; some ancient evil being called The Unspeakable, who I later learned is the dark split off portion of the soul of Jenidan, the Archimage of Atlantis.

Long ago, someone talked Jenidan into trying the derkaz ether, a dark power which has the side effect of changing your personality and not for the better. That turned out to be a mistake, so to stop the derkaz from taking her completely, Jenidan cut out the tainted part of her soul like Bruce Campbell cutting off his arm with a chainsaw. Unfortunately, that piece of her lopped off soul is sentient and still corrupted by the derkaz. It somehow managed to make itself into a phantom, kind of like Pox, but this side of Jenidan's soul is driven by the derkaz, yet still has the power of an Archimage.

If I have not been clear, that is Bad, with a capital ‘B’. And if that was not bad enough, The Unspeakable somehow got hold of the secret of how to create a Heart of Stone. This made her nearly indestructible, like a living golem and, even worse, using the Heart of Stone, she can now transfer her derkaz tainted soul to another body, taking over any person foolish enough to touch the Heart of Stone.

I dreamed about that, which is a little piece of my memory returning, where I had stolen part of the secret of making a Heart of Stone from The Dragon. Now I am thinking that The Dragon is likely the person who taught The Unspeakable the same trick.

Unfortunately, my friend Myrka, the Tarvos sorceress, did not know about the whole possession thing. Myrka is kind of a project of mine, you see, she has also embraced the derkaz and is kind of hell-bent on destruction, most of the time. As a simple example, she nearly killed me one time when I got in the way of her blasting an innocent child to bits. She has been traveling with me for some time and I have made some progress with her. She thinks of me as a friend. No big deal, right? Except that on her World having a friend is punishable by death. Anyway, Myrka tried to claim the Heart of Stone for her Archimage as a weapon to use against The Dragon, not realizing The Unspeakable’s soul would claim her body when she touched that magic crystal.

The moment Myrka touched the Heart of Stone her body became possessed by the soul of The Unspeakable, who then used Myrka to grab my father’s unconscious body. She then escaped with him through a portal, going off World. Just before she left, she offered up my father as bait, giving me two months to exchange myself for him. If I do not show, she promises to kill him, turn him into a necrosoul undead slave, and send him out to kill me; peachy.

Everybody wants a date with me. Most of them want to kill me, though some of them want to vacuum out my brain to see what knowledge, or thing, I stole from The Dragon and then kill me. The fact is I still do not remember what I stole, maybe his favorite nose ring or something.

I am an Albus Second, though I’m an illegal bastard of two other Albus Seconds. That makes Jenidan is my Archimage, but she is not going to be any help with my current problems. During her battle with Draok (that is The Unspeakable’s ‘speakable’ name if you dare use it) Jenidan was seriously wounded and is now in a coma, healing herself from within; unfortunately, no one knows how long she will be out of it.

You would think these little issues would be enough for any sorry ass wizard with memory issues to deal with, but no. My stunningly beautiful, sort of, girlfriend, Sorceress of the Second Tier, Fiona Albus, is in dire straits. It is technically illegal for me to mate with Fiona because we are of the same Tier, not to mention the same House, and if we have a child it will break the Archimage Accords since this child would be a Mage Bastard. Regardless of this, it seems we have been an item at various times in history. Right now, Fiona is in danger; she fled Atlantis, chased by her twin sister, Bloodmoon.

Of course, just to confuse you, Bloodmoon turned out to be someone else, meaning she is not really Fiona’s twin sister, even though she looks just like Fiona. In fact, before going into her coma, Jenidan told me that Fiona does not even have a twin sister! We think Bloodmoon is a secret mage spy, who has been taking on the appearance of other mages to steal things from the various mage Houses. In this case, she had made up the persona of Bloodmoon and played the part of a twin sister of Fiona. We think Bloodmoon blocked Fiona’s memories so Fiona could not remember that she does not have a twin sister.

Since it is impossible for any mage, except one of the nine remaining Archimages, to alter their body with magic, we suspect Bloodmoon is really The Dragon. Or Bloodmoon could be one of the other Archimages, we are not sure.

When Fiona started regaining her lost memories, Bloodmoon decided to do her in before she remembered she does not have a twin sister. But Fiona portaled from Atlantis to Earth and Bloodmoon followed her off World. I do not know where they went on Earth, or what happened, but I headed to Earth to see if I can help Fiona.

The good news is, since Fiona is regaining her memories, she should have some access to her mage powers. She is a Second of House Albus, making her a kick-ass sorceress. The bad news is The Dragon is an Archimage, the top tier for a wizard, which makes him even more powerful than a Second-Tier sorceress, like Fiona, or me, for that matter.

Oh, and by the way, at the Winter Solstice, I am also scheduled to fight a sword duel with one of the deadliest katana whirling bitches in the ten Worlds, Hotaru, the Archimage of House Bakemono's freaking Executioner! I do not stand a chance.

There is some good news, though; it is extremely unlikely I am going to survive long enough to show up for that duel, so, as Bill Murray says, I have got that going for me!

After the big battle with The Unspeakable's army on Atlantis, I portaled back to Earth. You see, Earth is called the Battle World and has been so for a few thousand years, ever since the human’s Archimage, Gaia, got killed. Without an Archimage to hold their rules in place on a given World, the other Houses can run rampant and this is what happened on Earth. It is why Earth is so messed up, with so many nations, religious views, wars, mythologies, lost civilizations etc. All these crazy things come from the other nine Houses and their various Worlds. Each of the other nine Worlds has sent mages here to fight and control what they can hold on Earth, doing it all from the shadows, while keeping the poor Earthlings in the dark. In other words, Earth is really screwed up!

Not only that, but there are no Earth mages left, not one. This is because all mages of Tier Seven or higher die if their Archimage perishes. This only leaves Eighths and below, which are the people without enough magic in them to be tied to their Archimage, or to consciously affect reality. In other words, they cannot really do magic. Earth is now inhabited by these lower descendants, which the other mages call 'mundanes' since they cannot use magic to affect reality. In lieu of magic, they have developed technology, far beyond what the other nine worlds have made. After all, the other worlds do not need technology, they have magic.

Ever since The Dragon, started trying to capture me, I have become the hot ticket to capture or kill. This has made me the second most wanted mage on the Ten Worlds, with The Dragon being first.

I think the logic goes like this, if The Dragon wants to capture me alive, then every other mage wants me dead, well, everyone except my extremely limited set of friends, Toji, the honor-bound Bakemono wizard, Myrka, a Tarvos sorceress and derkaz crazed killer, Fiona, my girlfriend, Hydan, the Friare Third tourist, who just loves to get shit faced, and Professor Casey Griffith, a Hidden Soul.

So, to recap, after stopping the Unspeakable from taking Atlantis, she escaped in Myrka’s body and took my father as a captive, giving me two months to come to Myrka’s world, Annwn, where I am to exchange myself for my father. I headed for Earth to help Fiona with The Dragon and find out what I can about this new World, before heading there to rescue Myrka and my father, Lancelot.

Which brings us to this moment in time and the Demon of Annwn…

Chapter One

As naked as the day that I will die

-The Rolling Stones

If there is one thing I hate, it is being woken up early, particularly by a wrinkly skinned little bastard with a bad case of body odor.

I awoke to Pox shaking me by my arm, and I thought, Oh shit, not again!

I tried to leap up while my right hand moved to draw my trusty Bowie knife. I am busy panicking because I figure Stewart, the Hunter from House Hentan, must have found me again and is, no doubt, attempting to slit my throat or something.

My arm was brought up short as I reached for my waist sheath and I heard chains rattling. I opened my eyes only to find I am chained to some type of torture chamber table, made from metal grating. I have rusty old manacles attached to my wrists, which connect to chains that are bolted somewhere beneath the metal table. The table and I are within a medieval-looking stone chamber and, most annoying of all, I am buck naked.

What the hell? I thought, I mean, I have just recently returned to Earth, after a long stay in a fantasy world… no, not Middle Earth, the world is called Atlantis. But now that I am back on Earth, I expect a nice shower in a decent hotel, maybe a greasy hamburger, at a fast-food joint, smog, toilets which flush, you know, civilization, with all the comforts of a modern world, yet here I am, in some medieval torture chamber. Screw this!

Pox shook my arm again; the little creature can really be annoying.

Then the little loathsome leech whispered in my ear in a cautioning tone, Be quiet, Master, or you will alert your captors and they will come and begin the torture!

I went deathly still, mostly because I swooned from the stench of Pox’s breath and partly because the idea of being tortured sounds like an awfully bad way to start my day.

Tortured? I hissed in a disbelieving voice.

Pox answered, Yes, Master, you only have moments to escape!

His breath hit me like mustard gas and I nearly passed out again; one whiff of his breath might kill a mundane! Hell, it nearly knocked me out and I am a wizard. No, I am not some robe wearing old guy with a gray beard and pointy hat, or some kid who waves a wand around, I am a real wizard, as in a Second of House Albus.

Pox, go find a pool full of mouthwash and dive in! I ordered quietly, there is no sense in alerting my torturers that their victim needs torture.

Sorry, Master, no time for that now, you must escape!

I turned my head to avoid his obnoxious breath and that let me look around the chamber. I immediately noticed I am in catacombs. I figured this out from the pockets of stacked bones inset into rectangular alcoves which line the walls of the two dim and rough stone passages I can see leading out of my chamber. The room's four stone walls are lit by two torches stuck in old wrought iron holders.

Can you remove these manacles? I whispered to Pox.

He shook his wrinkled misshapen head, causing his long nose to wave back and forth like a ship’s boom. From my reclined position, this gave me an unwanted view up his nostrils, where I spotted bits of crud and unspeakable goo, the sight of which turns my stomach.

He snorted by way of negative exclamation at my question, which sent a booger the size of a snail shooting out of his left nostril like it was issuing from the maw of a cannon. The booger headed my way, hit my cheek, and stuck. I nearly tossed my cookies. Meanwhile, I almost missed when he replied, No, Master and neither can you, they are sigil marked.

Then what good are you! I snarled while trying to wipe the booger off my cheek and onto the metal grating by turning my head and craning my neck down. Once I got it off, I lifted one manacle carefully to take a look-see and, sure enough, embossed right into the rusted metal is a magic sigil. A sigil, like this one, can hold magic put into it by a mage and, if they put in enough, it will protect these manacles from my power over reality. Therefore, it will be damn difficult to believe this manacle is in some other state, like broken.

Pox then whispered, Do you remember where you are, Master?

My mind is starting to work, and I dimly recall what happened.

I had recently returned to Earth from Atlantis via a magic system called a World portal. When I arrived, I was immediately ambushed; there must have been mage hunters waiting for me at every single known World portal on Earth. Yep, I am still number two on the mage hunter hit list, so everyone wants to punch my ticket. Go figure.

I had been foolish enough to come through the Chechen Itza portal and my ambushers had immediately whacked me over the head. All I remember is fading into existence and then a hint of movement behind me, quick pain and then blackness. In hindsight, it is easy enough to figure out what happened, the hunters had waited in ambush, seen my image appear and then just got behind me. As soon as my image manifested into a real body, they ‘whacked’ me on the head. I assume they then either took me back into the portal or Five-Point Traveled. Either way, they took me somewhere else, in fact, likely to these musty old catacombs where I now found myself strapped to this metal table.

I assume my friends came through the portal after me, found me missing, and then started searching. They either waited too long to check the portal or Star to see where I was taken, or they managed to follow me but lost the trail of my abductors on the other end.

And so, here I am, attached by sigil protected manacles, ready to be tortured. I am assuming my captors want to know what I stole from The Dragon so they can get their grubby hands on whatever it is. Unfortunately for them, and even more for me, I have no recollection of what I stole from The Dragon, so this might be a long night for yours truly.

Now that I have gone over all of this in my confused noggin, this whole fiasco is really starting to piss me off. I mean, this is like adding insult to injury. I am being hunted by The Dragon. I am scheduled for a suicidal duel with the Bakemono's Executioner. The Unspeakable wants to kill me and convert my soul into an undead necromage, however, instead of any of those heavy hitters stepping up, I got hit over the head by some pissant god-damned mage hunters out to make a name for themselves in the Ascension Quest. To hell with them, I have got much more important people who want to make me as dead as a Monty Python parrot!

I started believing the manacles at my wrists are stressed and going to break, but I know the damned sigils are protecting them and keeping me from easily changing their reality. However, I am not done. I wonder if my captors thought about protecting the bolts under the table where the chains are attached? As a matter of fact, those bolts are close to me, right under my back. So, I concentrated on them breaking and felt satisfaction when I heard metal snapping and chains falling to the floor. Fortunately, my feet are not manacled, so I got up. Now I have two chains dangling, one from each manacled wrist; I figure they will make nice weapons.

OK, Pox, which way out of here? I demanded, though in a quiet voice.

Make a Traveling Star, Master, quickly! Pox hissed.

I scowled at the little rat bastard, In case you forgot, I have a little problem with my memory, as in I DON’T HAVE ONE! I don't know how to make a damned Traveling Star!

Pox pushed his hands downward in a quieting gesture, Quiet, Master, or they will hear you!

He is right, so I bit off my next exclamation. I snarled at the wrinkly-assed Pox and then turned and headed toward one of the two ways out into the catacombs.

No, not that way! Pox hissed in a desperate, yet soft, voice.

So, I reversed course and headed for the only other way out.

Not that way either! Pox squeaked in a terrified voice.

I stopped and jabbed a finger at my little nightmare as I exclaimed in a whisper, with some exasperation, Pox, there are only two ways out of this chamber! Now, which one should I take?

Neither, Master! he answered and, I swear to you, part of me wants to strangle him with one of my dangling chains.

I am also getting one of those headaches which always starts when I talk to Pox. I took a breath and tried to practice having patience, which really comes hard for me. OK… and I know I’m going to regret asking this… but why can’t I go out either of these passages?

Because the corridors are full of bones…

I interrupted him, I can see that!

…and your captors are necromancers! Pox finished.

My eyes went wide; necromancers raise the dead! Bones are, technically, the dead. Crap!

But I really have no other choice, I must go out one of these corridors, so I picked one at random and then said to Pox, I’m going this way, so just shut up about it!

Pox’s body dissolved and I am on my own.

Entering the hallway, I glanced left and spotted another doorway, which enters a chamber. I crept over to the edge of that opening and peeked inside. I spotted three mages, all of whom are kind of facing my direction. They are talking to a fourth person who has their back to me. I can tell the three are mages because they have glyphs on their left cheeks, in this case, they are Dokkalfar mages, bearing the glyph of a strange looking skull.

Then the fourth person turned slightly, and I ducked my head back, it is that bastard Stewart Hentan! What the hell is he doing here talking to Dokkalfar mages down in some dank catacombs? Well, the obvious answer is, they captured me and are selling me to Stewart for something.

I decided to go the other way when my foot knocked into an arm bone hanging out of an alcove, which made it scrape across the stone floor. The voices went silent in the room and then Stewart’s voice demanded, Where is your prisoner!

I did not wait for their answer; I turned and ran back into the torture chamber. Pox manifested again and grabbed my arm, exclaiming, Not that way, Master!

It’s the only other way out of here, Pox!

That is when he pointed out the opening toward the skeletons which I can now see climbing out of their alcoves!

Undoubtedly, the three necromancers behind me are busy raising these skeletons from their longtime resting places in the alcoves so that they can apprehend their escaped prisoner… me.

I hustled my skinny bare ass toward the far opening. I snatched one of the lit torches from a holder on the wall as I went by. Once out into the hallway, I see lots of skeletons climbing out of their catacomb graves!

I started running and within fifty feet I had to start smashing my way through emerging skeletons, which hurts like hell on my naked unprotected body!

Then one grabbed me by the left arm.

I used the chain on my free hand, whipping it around and smashing it down onto the bony arm of the skeleton grasping my left forearm. The weighty chain smashed through the old and brittle bones with a satisfying crunch. It is a good thing I hit that skeleton’s arm right then, its grip is tight and has already started cutting off my circulation.

After I broke off the arm bones that left the skeletal hand is still attached, gripping my arm.

I went back to running, holding my torch out and to the side like some naked Olympian athlete entering the stadium during the opening ceremonies.

Fortunately, I outpaced the range of the necromancers, so no new skeletons are climbing out of the alcoves ahead of me but, unfortunately, a whole clacking clicking mob of the bony bastards are chasing me up the passage.

I came to a four-way intersection of halls and lifted my torch higher, trying to see which way to go, but I cannot tell which way is better. I randomly chose to go left. After going just thirty feet down the new passage I spotted a mass of skeletons charging toward me, so I reversed course and ran back toward the intersection. As I approached, I yelled out: Pox, you misshapen maggot, manifest and tell me which way to go!

Pox appeared ahead of me, in the intersection, coming right out of the air, his body taking shape like metal shavings pulling together out of the Ether by magnetism. He fully manifested and then pointed to his right, which is be the way I would have gone originally, if I had just continued straight.

I ran my naked form past him and, as I made the left turn, I glanced