"Caius, I believe we may die here, my friend."
'How astute, Nicolaus!'
How the hell did he manage to be so nonchalant about this?
This thing was certainly a broodmother, which meant we were wrong, and also about to die.
With a skeleton rushing at us much faster than I would have liked, my mind went blank. I didn't know what to do. My time was running out quickly. If this thing was Prominent, we were already dead.
Except, we weren't dead. This thing seemed slow, now that I was paying attention. Surely a Prominent would have been here already, even if physical strength or speed wasn't their strong suit.
That didn't mean I wasn't scared, of course. But it was strange. With every second bringing it closer to us, I changed my gladius to the bear arm, flames still ignited. It would eat my mana, but I doubted something stronger being here.
And then it was upon us. I rolled to my left, but given I had never done it before, I messed up a bit, and was on my back.
The skeleton had ran past us on accident, into the hallway, we entered through.
'No way that thing is intelligent.'
I used this moment to get to my feet, and as I did, it stepped its way out of the hallway, locking its empty eye sockets onto Nicolaus, who had dodged the opposite direction I had.
The skeleton brought its hands high above its head, going to slam them into the ground.
Nicolaus seemed to have some kind of foresight, stepping to the side at just the time this happened, and finding a spot to shove his spear into the skeleton's side.
A little piece of ivory bone fell onto the ground.
Through this dance of theirs, the skeleton had turned its back to me. I took the chance. Running forward, I leaped into the air, and slammed my clawed hand into its spine. Spines? There were several, all intertwined.
With my flaming claws hitting as hard as they could, several pieces of bone came flying off. I may not know how to fight, but I could hit hard.
The skeleton managed to let out some kind of scream. I had no idea how, considering it had no vocal cords. It flipped around to face me. My flames persisted on its back, which I'm sure was a good thing for me, but it made it look more menacing, being lit with a trail of purple flames.
Instinctively, I started backing up. It took step after step towards me, picking up pace.
Nicolaus used this moment to use that same attack he had used during his assessment. Quick as the wind, he lunged his spear forward, sinking it into the broodmother's spine. A second later, a large boom echoed through the underground cavern.
The skeleton rattled, but seemed mostly unaffected. Unless you consider being angry. Then, it was very affected. It spun around on a dime, swinging its fist the entire way.
It slammed straight into Nicolaus, who had just barely managed to bring his spear up to block.
The blow sent him flying, at least halfway across this room.
That left me alone with the bag of bones.
'Great.'
It turned it's sinister gaze back to me, continuing it's march. Raising a singular hand, it brought it down in a wide swipe.
Not sure how to dodge, I brought my bear arm up to block.
Similar to Nicolaus, I also went flying. Not nearly as far, but I was knocked into the air.
I landed on my ass, which hurt, but I was able to get myself back up quickly. The good news? It seemed that any contact with my flames would cause them to spread.
I could now see the purple flames on its hands, slowly changing the pristine white to a charcoal black. The flames on it's back seemed to have grown larger, too.
My arm was screaming from the hit, so I had to be careful. I didn't want to do that again.
The broodmother's assault was relentless, and it was almost upon me again. I had this planned out. I just needed to dodge in the direction he wasn't attacking.
'Simple? Simple.'
It brought it's hands into a fist and raised it above it's head again, similar to how it started with Nicolaus.
'Not simple!'
I dove to my right as the bony hands slammed into the dirt behind me.
I landed into a roll and pushed to my feet immediately. The skeleton still had it's hands in the dirt, so I lunged forward and slammed my claws into it's shoulder.
My arm protested, shocking me with pain. I think it was broken
The blow itself was not very strong, having little effect. But it added to the flames, which were quickly spreading. Almost all of that monstrous spine was engulfed, and the flames on its hand were almost up to the elbow.
It let out a low, guttural growl, before lunging up in a burst of speed. It's arms were pushed out to the side, closing in, as if it were about to hug me.
'There is no way I can dodge this. Shi--!'
*Thunk*
A phantom spear, made of whirling sound, slammed into the perfect forehead of the alabaster monster, stopping it in it's tracks.
I looked behind me, only to see Nicolaus, who had already summoned another sound spear.
I could only spare this glance a second, quickly switching back to the skeleton.
In the half second I looked away, it had already started running again. This time, however, I saw a way to dodge it's attack. I wasn't completely surrounded. It brought one arm out in a wide swing, and all I needed to do was jump backwards.
As I did, Nicolaus ran in past me, making use of the opening created by it's miss. His spear found it's mark on the skeletons jaw, nearly knocking it off.
Turning it's ire to Nicolaus, I jumped in to add more fire, slamming into it's right femur.
My arm once again shouted at me, but this was necessary.
The flames looked ravenous now. The right arm was now almost all the way up to it's shoulder. What was once on the spine now covered most of the ribs and shoulders. The left arm was down to the elbow. And this attack to the femur only added to the onslaught. Everywhere the fire burned had turned a dark black.
Surely it was almost dead?
And it was.
The beast made one last attack at Nicolaus, completely missing, leaving itself wide open. Nicolaus found his room to attack, and hit it right in the spine, stabbing through the ribs.
He knocked the spine off the creature, and the rest fell apart, crumbling into a pile of bones.
We looked at each other, and I let out a little laugh.
Quickly dismissing my magic, leaving me with about a quarter left, I said to him, "Did we just do that?'
He seemed surprised with himself, "I... I believe we did."
We both fell to the floor, exhausted.
I asked, "If that was a broodmother... It seemed a bit stupid didn't it? Not smart enough to gather bodies and hide underground."
It was certainly powerful, but not Prominent levels of power. Maybe Innocuous?
He thought for a moment before saying, "I am inclined to agree. Anything smart enough for that would have at least kept some of it's minions here with it, for protection."
We sat for a few moments, resting, before I ruined it by saying,
"We should go. We don't know what else may be down here."
I stood up, gathered the skull of the broodmother, and reignited my hand.
After exploring the edges of the room, we found another pathway, this one too small for the skeleton to have fit through.
It had a slight incline, which was reassuring.
After a few minutes of walking, we emerged in the mouth of the cave. We had escaped the cavern.
There was something peculiar about the cave, though. It looked like someone had been here recently. There was an abandoned campfire, something that looked like food crumbs, and a place where it looked like several rocks had been moved. For a sleeping bag, perhaps?
Exploring, I found a small piece of fabric attached to the wall. It looked like it was something of a banner, but it was torn. From what was left, it looked like a star that was inscribed in a circle.
But that was only half of it. I found now sign of the rest of the banner.
"Nicolaus?" I held up the piece of fabric, "Know what this is?"
He came up to me and took it out of my hands, "Not sure. We'll show it to the Magister."
Was the person that had camped her responsible for that broodmother? Maybe they had gathered the bodies? And what was that sigil?
'Why can't my questions just be answered for once? Better yet, why does there have to be questions? Make it simple, man...'