Chapter 12

“Provider Two is due ten quatloos,” said Provider Three to Provider One.

Seconds passed.

“Wait,” said Provider One.

Guy carried Ash’s dead body out of the room towards the elevator. Raina and Jamie were trying to console Sheila, who was sobbing. Jake and I were keeping an eye out, not sure if there was more trouble brewing.

As the others loaded into the elevator, Jake paused and pressed a hand against my chest, looking at me.

“Can you do anything?”

“I don’t know, Jake,” I said right away, knowing what the question would be. “You know I’ll try everything.”

He nodded and we entered the elevator.

A short while later we were up on the second floor, in Ash’s room. Raina and Sheila were stationed right outside the room. Guy had his massive sword with him and was standing guard inside the room.

Jamie didn’t have healing capabilities and was sitting quietly in a corner, watching intently. Jake was at the bed with me, doing nothing, but not able to be deterred from being right there.

“Healing spells won’t work because you can’t restore--” he was saying, but I interrupted his sentence.

“I know, Jake!” Then, a little softer, “I know, pal. Give me a minute.”

“What about sending her to the Astral Sea like you did Jamie?”

“She has to be a willing ally, and even though Jamie didn’t want to go, the spell had already been conjured before she could fight it. Right now, Ash isn’t a willing ally, and I can’t send two people, otherwise, I’d do that.”

Jake’s face sank. He was giving up hope.

Suddenly, I had the answer and leaped from the bed.

“What?” asked Jake, hope flooding back into him.

“How much gold do you have?”

“Me? Um, none. Sheila has, oh, I don’t know, she spent a bunch on stuff, maybe a few hundred left. Why?”

“Guy?” I spun around and asked our barbarian.

“Zero. Spent it all on the sword.”

Shit. I knew Jamie had slightly under 10,000 gold left. I rushed to the door and asked Raina. She had a little over 2,000.

I quickly did the math in my head.

“Yes! Quickly, I need all of your gold piled here,” pointing to a corner of the bed as I ran out of the room, with everyone else depositing their gold there.

I returned with my bag and emptied it onto the bed, dwarfing every other pile there.

“Whoa ... didn’t you spend any?” asked Jake.

“Not in a while ... what would I need?”

I began counting and creating piles of five thousand. As I started doing this, Jake caught on.

“Dude ... is it on your sheet?” he quizzed.

I just nodded and kept counting.

“If this works, you’re my fuckin’ hero.”

“What’s going on?” asked both Sheila and Guy at the same time.

“Ritual. He’s going to try and cast Raise Dead. It’s a ritual.”

“Will it work?” asked Jamie.

“It’s not a question of levels, as it’s an 8th-level ritual, it’s a question of cost, and whether or not whatever is controlling the magic in this place is going to play fair. Because all of you are epic tier characters, it costs 50,000 gold to use the ritual, which is why he’s counting gold.”

“So if there’s enough gold, it’ll work?” This time it was Raina who was asking.

“Not that easily. The ritual takes 8 hours to cast, and he needs to remain here the entire time, focused. It’s going to take a lot out of him. I’ve never seen it performed before to that extent, of course. Whenever done during a campaign, it’s just an imaginary 8 hours. Here he’s going to have to pray for 8 solid hours.”

The air was heavy with gloom as I calculated the last amount. We had 50,300 gold, just barely enough.

“Okay, I’m going to need everyone to clear the room so I can concentrate.”

“Bruce, do you want me to--”

I walked over to Jamie and hugged her and then kissed her.

“No babe. I need to be alone for this. Go try and keep the others calm.”

She nodded and left with everyone else, except Jake.

“Hey, I know you’ll do your best.”

“Thanks.” We fist bumped and then he too left, leaving me alone in the room with Ash’s corpse.