Chapter 8

The level they were on now looked more like a tunnel dug through clay than anything else. The floor and ceiling were unfinished, but smoothed, clay, and the walls looked like rammed earth. The atmosphere was dank and dark; it was a good thing that they had that spell which let them see in very dim light. They had hardly stepped off the stairs when they were attacked by a mix of goat-men and spitting dogs.

Sue pumped out the moving fire walls as fast as she could, and Jack screamed out his war cry with every breath. It was close, the way the magic acid was sprayed all about them, but they had little trouble with the goat-men. Jack leaped from dog to dog, chopping off heads with his long sword. He had to have his health repaired several times when it fell very low, but Sue was able to keep up. Their experience was climbing and their skill was improving, but the fight was not as easy at this level as it had been when they were closer to the church.

On top of everything else, attack by bands of different monsters at the same time were more difficult to combat because the best technique for fighting one type of monster might not work as well against another type of monster. Some of their most difficult battles came when the monsters were significantly resistant to fire. Sue and Hat were working on a spell to get a lightning wall, but they had not been successful so far.

Oh, Shit! Now, they were really in trouble! There were 6 monsters that were spitting images of The Butcher. If they were as tough as he had been, the two heroes had to be ready to run for their lives. These monsters did not use weapons beyond their giant fists. This was some help, since it meant that only one at a time could approach for a fight. Jack backed into a doorway with Sue right behind him. This way, she was protected, but she could see well enough around Jack to use her spells.

Jack hacked away with his long sword while blocking with his shield. As long as he stayed in the doorway, he was afforded some extra protection, and he was able to keep the monsters away from Sue. Jack was tiring fast, since he could not let up a moment as he hacked at the monster in front of him. Sue kept pouring restorative spells into Jack and he swung his sword or blocked with his shield, but he was still being slowly worn down. The only difference between fighting these monsters and The Butcher was that these monsters did not have his magic cleaver. That would probably have been enough to send the fight in the other direction.

Finally, Jack was able to defeat his current foe, and he was about to collapse from fatigue. Sue's spells just were not able to keep up with the drain on his resources. She saw what was happening and threw up her impenetrable shield before another of the monsters could attack. Jack had to rest, so Sue build a box from her shields for them to take shelter in, while Jack took a nap. When he woke up, they ate a light snack and returned to the fight.

Uh oh! More trouble. While they were resting, more monsters had gathered at the doorway. These added monsters were the spitting dogs. They had to come up with a defense against the magic acid that they spit, or all was lost! Dammit, why did things have to keep getting more and more complicated?

Sue and Hat spent 2 solid hours brainstorming a spell to block the magic acid while Jack slept. They came up with a shield wall that was transparent, but would stop the liquid shot out by the dogs. The shield needed to be transparent so that Sue could keep an eye on Jack and heal him when he needed the help. The shield would not stop spells, but it was impervious to solids and liquids, so it should serve for this special job. Sue would try it out as soon as Jack woke up.

Sue pushed her new shield up against the old, stops-all shield and dropped the old shield. As soon as they became visible, the onslaught began from the monsters on the other side of the shield. They did not realize that a shield was there, since they could not see one. Very soon, the giants were banging their fists on the shield and the dogs were splashing acid against it. Now that Sue could see what she was doing, she sent out her moving fire wall to roast the dogs. The giants were unaffected by the fire wall; apparently, they were resistant to fire.

Sue erected an impenetrable shield behind the dogs so that they could not escape while she was burning them to death. Sue had complete control of the situation at this point and burned the dogs to a pile of ashes by the time she had released her fourth moving fire wall. Once the dogs were eliminated, Jack was able to work on the giants.

Jack's long sword did a good job of chopping big pieces of flesh out of the arms and torsos of the giants, so that he was able to fight them, albeit, one at a time. Jack still had to stop for a rest twice during the fight; damn, those giants were tough! They needed a way to slow them down. Ideally, they should be frozen in place, but that was too complicated a spell for Sue to handle at her current level of experience, so they would have to come up with something else.

Another brainstorming session including Jack, this time. He suggested nooses to loop around the monster to tie their legs and arms, but that would require close attention from Sue. Hat suggested a living vine that would use its own "intelligence" to figure out how to capture its target. Sue could pick a target and loose the vine; it would then be responsible for finishing the task while Sue went on to something else. Jack did make a contribution: the name of Tanglefoot for the spell.

The first swine to be caught with Tanglefoot completely ignored the two heroes as he struggled to escape from the vine. Sue saw this and threw a Tanglefoot spell at the remaining swine. It only took a few moments for all of the swine to be lying on the ground frantically trying to get loose from the vines. It was almost at his leisure that Jack was able to chop their heads off. It usually took four chops before the neck could be severed, but it was remarkably easy, though very tiring, once the swine were so completely distracted.

They spent several hours fighting more of the giant swine and the magic acid spitting dogs. Eventually, Jack had to call a halt—he was completely exhausted.

Sue transported them to their room in the inn where they made themselves presentable and went down to the common room for an ale and something to eat. Tonight, the supper was a whole roast pig, and Sue almost blasted it with an exploding fireball before she caught herself. That would, indeed, have been embarrassing!

They ate supper and talked for a while before returning to their room for an exciting game of "hide the weenie." Strangely, each one always felt that he or she was the winner.

That night, Sue was introduced to the concept of spells getting old and wearing out. The specific instance was during the middle of the night when she felt a sharp pain on her left ass cheek. Sue woke up immediately and looked for the cause of the pain. She found it in the form of a very large bedbug that had decided to dine on her buttock. She banished the creature to the fireplace which had a small fire still going before renewing the spell on the bed which kept such unwelcome beasties from visiting the humans. Sue believed that she had learned a valuable lesson at very little cost, so she was almost sorry for the bedbug she had destroyed.

The next morning, they had a filling breakfast and transported back to their last location in the church cellars. Some person or some thing had cleaned up after the fight. This was a little disturbing, and would continue to be so, until they could find out who or what was responsible for tidying the place up.

Sue and Jack were wandering around this level making sure that they had eliminated all of the monsters when they heard the tromp-tromp-tromp of marching feet. Sue used a new invisibility spell on them so that they could safely observe what sounded like a marching army.