Healer's Nightmare

Mara's fingers dug into Venom's scales as the transformed serpent streaked through the corrupted landscape. The wyrm's massive body cut through reality like a razor through silk. Each beat of Venom's powerful muscles sent tremors through Mara's body, her healed scars burning beneath her skin. The endless blur hypnotized Mara, and nausea built in her stomach.

"What the—" Finn gripped Venom harder.

Massive boulders erupted from the sable earth, their rugged surface bristling with spikes that caught light like freshly whetted blades. 

Venom's burst into a sharp shriek that tore through the forest as the spikes penetrated its belly. Its blood vaporized on contact with the air, creating clouds of crimson mist. The wyrm's body swayed like the cracking of a whip, and Mara felt herself losing her clutch on the scales. Time stretched like the flow of molten glass. The blood-red sky wheeled above her, and the black sphere watched her plunge and roll on the black soil.

Pain and black powder obscured her vision. As her sight sharpened, Mara's pupils widened. The black-clad attackers in their black masks only revealed their eyes. From the center of their stretched-out palms forged more projectiles, and they rushed towards her in a ceaseless stream. A flash of blade slashed through them, turning them to dust. Finn stepped in, his fingers coiled around his strange sword. He glared at Mara, then redirected his eyes towards his prey.

"Stay back!" Finn ordered Mara before slicing through the hail of stone bullets with a single strike. Finn resumed his counterattack, pushing through the repeated fusillade the stone-carvers launched. 

"A little help here? These stone-carvers know when to stop!" Rosemary sought Finn's assistance, pushed back by the attack.

Finn glanced back and realized that the enemies weren't only increasing in number but also in the intensity of their assault. He swerved the weapon's hilt, creating a wave that swept across the area and deflected the stone-carvers' attacks. The attackers fell like flies, and a stampede of brilliant vermillion flames gushed in as a finishing blow.

The stone-carvers burnt well, a bit too well, instantly turning into ashes, except for a corpse or four.

"Thanks, Venom." Finn said with a smile more moist than his previous sardonic ones. The injured wyrm replied with a slight nod at Finn.

Mara exhaled relief, and so did Rosemary.

But someone amongst the incinerated survivors raised their shivering fist. From it, a white radiance escaped from the gaps of the knuckles.

Ripples ebbed in the earth, and poles burst forth from the ebony canvas. They assembled in a ring of thick, rocky pillars. Each glowed with a white, ghostly gleam. They merged at an unscalable height, and the ground shed its black shade for the fader white, forming a prison not for the trio only but also for the wyrm, who had reverted to its tamer form.

"Why can't I summon my chains?" Rosemary asked as her fingers curled.

Finn swung his sword, but the usual energy that surged from his maneuvers refused to emerge. He strode towards the bars and tapped it with the blade. His hand recoiled as if a shock bit through his arm.

"Damn it!" Finn cursed. "Looks like they've found a way to use the Ethereal Marble somehow."

Before Mara could register another movement, the pillars expanded, severing them from whatever source of light they had. The base sank with them like quicksand, but its pull intensified, and gravity pinned Rosemary and Finn to the stone-cold disk.

Mara felt her bones as they were on the verge of cracking. After a gruesome minute or so, the bars receded to their origin. Mellow stripes of light danced on the three and beyond the dark roars tore through the silence. Venom jumped onto Finn and coiled around his arm.

"Wolves?" Mara asked her allies.

"Even worse." Rosemary replied.

"Wargs! I'm sure of it!"

Mara's eyes widened, only to find her conviction disproved.

What the hell is that?

The steel-grey beast boasted to be larger than two wargs stacked up on one another. A pair of heads spawned from each of its shoulders, putrid blood dripping from their curved fangs, rabid foams of crimson spewed from the corners of their mouths.

They lunged at the cage, but glowing chains of white choked them, stopping their jaws inches away from the bars. A masked figure in black emerged from the shadows, his eyes glinted in bright amber.

Mara felt her feet freeze at the spot like her allies as she heard the roar.

"Where the hell are we?" Mara demanded the answer from the figure, who tended more to the beast than the prisoners.

"Looks like you answered your own question." The man spoke in a frigid voice.

"We have no business with your kind whatsoever." Finn said.

"You may not, but we do." The man punctuated his words with a sigh. "We've been keeping an eye on you, Wyrmwood, and your little pet."

"What do you want? I thought stone-carvers were mostly interested in Innates, rather than us Hellbounds."

"No, no. We're still digging deeper into our highest funded field of research, but we're always looking for alternatives. And you seem to be the perfect subject, especially that token of yours."

"And that's why you've been binding contracts with the Clairvoyant Demon and spying on me? Not to mention you freaks have already found out a way to use the power of the Ethereal Marble."

"Wyrmwood, we'd go to unimaginable lengths to accomplish our goals. Even if it means binding our fate to the damned," the man said with a dry grin. "And you? You'd be a valuable stepping stone for us to reach there."

"Why do you need a token? You can just sign a freaking contract."

"Well, well. We have our reasons. Reasons you'll never understand."

Another hooded figure rushed into the scene and whispered into his fellow stone-carver's ear. He nodded and remained silent for a while.

"Tell them I'll be there. For now, take care of them. Lead them to the inner dungeon and take care of my precious little boy for me, would you?"

The beast's master transferred the leash and blended into the shadows. The beast threatened the captives with its roars; however, only Finn didn't flinch.

The guard waved his hand, and a familiar white glow flashed into existence. As the pillars retracted, Mara pushed her heels back, but she felt them weld to the ground.

"Follow me." The guard dictated, "Dare to run and you'll have a price worse than death to pay."

Finn let a grunt escape before the beast turned with the guard. Slowly the trio followed him through the arched corridor lined with torches.

"What do we do now?" Mara whispered, her voice softened for the first time she spoke to Finn.

"There's nothing we can do. The Abyss-howler's much faster and can shred us apart if we show the slightest hint of defiance. We will follow the rascal and the mutt for now."

They arrived at a point where the corridor branched into three different routes, and the guard led them to the one on the right. After fifty steps or so, they found themselves before some rusty iron gates.

Behind the gates, several cells bled into her sight. The damp air carried a stench of rust and death. Each compartment was sealed off with bars of ethereal marble. Behind a few lay scattered bones. Some had prisoners, and some had sleeping wargs, goblins, orcs, and abominations she couldn't name.

As they reached the far end, the guard gestured with his fingers and drew a circle in the air.

"Get in," the guard commanded as the bars retracted.

The three followed his order and crept into their new home. The bars sprung back into place.

The guard laughed and pulled the reluctant beast with him before it let out a final roar that shook the floor.

Mara fell to her knees, a tear burning across her cheek.

Why does fate have to be so cruel? Why? Why!

She thought about the events that occurred in the past few weeks. First she had to stain her hands, which she used to heal, then Lily's demise, the one she sacrificed everything to save, and now this? Was this the despair she was doomed to suffer?

Rosemary knelt and slung her hand on Mara's shoulder, gripping it tightly.

"Everything's going to be alright." Rosemary confronted Mara, though her warm voice seemed to quiver. "I'm sure Finn and I will find a way out. Won't we, Finn?"

Finn responded with silence.

"Finn?" Rosemary asked again.

"I don't know, okay!" Finn exclaimed, his words ringing with a hint of uncertainty for the first time. "We've messed up! There's nothing I can do against the Ethereal Marble. It nullifies all sources of Artifact and Hellbound magic. My token and sword are just useless right now!"

Mara shivered, but she wasn't sure if it was the coldness of the cell or the overwhelming despair.