Page 28

Pushing her way past him, she steps out into a large and surprisingly well-lit space.

The air feels fresh against her skin, and for the first time since entering the caves, she takes a full breath in.

The scene spread out before her is so beautiful, so undisturbed and intimate, that for a moment she’s certain it must be a shrine to some god.

From the darkness above pours an unending stream of water that flows into a glowing green pool.

Though sparkling grains of black sand surround the pond, the water occupies the majority of the space, lapping gently along the shore.

The moss disappears from the walls as soon as the tunnel ends, replaced with huge chunks of sharp white and mint-green crystals.

Though they give off a dim glow of their own, they’re no match for the beam of light shining from the orb buried under the water’s surface.

It’s gorgeous, and the thought of stealing it from its resting place feels like a violation.

Even witnessing this holy space feels sacrilegious.

Loren is the first to echo Jaylie’s thoughts. “Well, that’s got to be it, right?” He jerks his chin toward the orb.

Everyone murmurs in agreement—but no one steps forward. Even Kain looks skeptical, his eyes slitted as he peers into the depths.

Jaylie’s painted lips curl into a wry smile. “Shall we flip a coin?”

Loren laughs, and it’s only half-forced. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? But you have too much luck on your side, and it would surely be one of us who’d have to fetch it.”

“A volunteer, then?” Jaylie asks.

Again, the room is quiet.

Eventually Kain rolls his eyes, lowers his axe to the ground, and steps toward the water.

“Cowards,” he grumbles. Morgana unsheathes a couple of throwing knives strapped to her thighs and holds them at the ready.

At Loren’s questioning brow, she shrugs and whispers, “Just in case. It can’t be this easy, can it? ”

The others nod and ready their weapons as Kain wades farther into the water.

His loose pants billow in the clear pool as the surface rises past his belt and up his bare, muscled chest. It’s up to his shoulders by the time he reaches the crystal orb, the waterfall gushing in a steady stream directly atop it.

Kain gives the party a grin and a quick thumbs-up as he inhales deeply and prepares to dive under.

But it’s at that moment that the orb begins to rise.

There’s a pulsing rumble from below the pool’s surface, sending dozens of bubbles streaming upward.

As soon as the orb peeks above the waterline, the thunderous sound can be heard clearly for what it is—deep, rolling bouts of gleeful laughter.

The sound fills the chamber, echoing painfully off the walls as the giggling grows shrill with barely contained madness.

“Oh, it has been so long since I have had visitors.”

What appeared to be a glowing green orb from under the waterfall resolves itself into the form of one huge, unblinking green eye.

Below the bulge of the eye grins a grotesque mouth full of dozens of thin, needlelike yellow teeth that drip with water and thick saliva.

The monster floats above the pool without the aid of limbs, its spherical body suspended magically in the air as it drifts out from underneath the cascade of the waterfall.

From its slimy folds of green-blue skin sprout thick tentacles that reach toward the ceiling, each capped with a single smaller version of its central eye.

The awful creature makes direct eye contact with each one of Jaylie’s companions, its individual stalks reaching out to peer at them, though it keeps Kain held in the gaze of its continuously glowing central orb.

It takes all of Jaylie’s strength to keep her knees from giving out as her breath freezes painfully in her chest. She’s heard stories about creatures like this, but they’re not meant to live this close to the surface.

They’re supposed to be buried deep in the darkness of the underground far below.

How far down had Jaylie and her party traveled?

These are the creatures of stories that keep children awake at night, that keep adventurers constantly visiting Jaylie’s church to pray for protection.

Here is a creature of nightmare.

A beholder.

“And while it’s so kind of you to visit, I’m not much in the mood to host guests.

” The thing’s lips move horribly around the knives of its teeth as it speaks, its voice shrill and booming all at once.

Again it bursts into terrible laughter that rises in volume until it reaches one continuous screech.

A single dagger finds its way into the beholder’s jaws, sticking in its gums like a discarded toothpick. Every one of the beholder’s eleven eyes narrows to a slit simultaneously and locks on to Morgana.

“You’ll regret that, dwarf.”

In the brief moment Jaylie has to consider whether she might prefer to flee back toward where they came from, her party leaps into action.

“Motherfucking shitballs, gods have mercy…What in the Hells —” Loren fumbles at the strings of his lute as he rushes to get an offensive spell in motion.

Just as flames begin to gather in the instrument’s bowl again, the beholder turns its gaze on the bard.

“Not so fast,” it chides him. Caught in the cone of sickly green light emanating from the creature’s central eye, the magic Loren weaves at his fingertips fizzles away to nothing.

Loren stares stunned at his lute as his spell disappears.

Jaylie’s heart twists with the sickening realization that they can’t run—if they want to stop Shira’s magic, they need the orb. They need the eye.

And yet despite her newfound resolve, she’s shaken by Loren’s scream as the beholder lunges forward to sink its teeth into his shoulder, tearing through his beautifully tailored coat to the skin and muscle beneath.

At the same time, one of the monster’s eyestalks shoots a sizzling ray of magic toward Kain, who, dripping with water, has just raised his axe to cut into it from behind.

The spell hits him in the chest, and the tiefling seizes as dark magic rolls in agonizing waves down his body.

Inhaling a ragged gasp, Kain shakes off the pain and cuts the blade of his axe deep into the beholder’s skull, severing one of the stalks.

Morgana takes advantage of the momentary respite, peppering the creature with knives as it howls in pain.

Jaylie’s gaze flicks between the bard and the barbarian, both men bloodied and hurt.

For once Loren hasn’t succumbed to dramatics and stands with his spine as straight as Kain’s.

Everyone walks the edge between panic and determination as the reality of the danger of their situation sinks into their stomachs like stones.

At the last moment, while the beholder is still distracted, Jaylie throws her first spell of healing at Kain despite her fondness for Loren.

She’s willing to bet that Kain is their best bet for killing the monster as quickly as possible.

As she wills another spell of healing to her fingertips, the beholder stops screaming and gasps in labored breaths that shake the walls.

With dread, Jaylie watches the beam of green light pan across the wall’s sparkling crystals before pinning her to the ground in its glare.

She swallows audibly as the warmth of her healing magic flees from her palms, leaving her fingers feeling cold.

“Ah-ah-ah,” the monster scolds her, its thickly scaled brow lowering over its eye threateningly. “I won’t allow you to cheat with your healing magic, cleric.”

Jaylie raises her hands before her as a beam of shadow from one writhing eyestalk lances through her chest. Her heart thuds painfully just as her throat tightens.

She gasps in a breath of air at the pain, and her lungs freeze.

With each heartbeat, numbness radiates from her chest and seeps into her bones.

First, she finds herself unable to exhale.

Then, her spine turns to stone, locking her back in a painful arch as she struggles to twist away from the monster.

She tries to take a step, but her feet sink heavily into the sand and refuse to move.

Her eyes roll in a panic until they, too, freeze in place, her gaze forced to behold the creature as it looms over her.

When paralysis fully takes hold of her body and numbness replaces the pain, she watches in horror as her skin is transformed into stone.

She is a statue. Marble. In place of human flesh and the blue lines of veins is smooth white stone threaded with pink and gray.

Although she can’t feel her heart racing in her chest, or the adrenaline and fear coursing through her, her mind rattles against its cage in terror.

She is forced to watch as her companions continue to fight—and bleed—without her help.

Unable even to blink or shed the tears that build like pressure in the back of her head, she witnesses the battle in what feels like horrible slow motion.

“Jay, no!” Jaylie thinks it’s Loren’s voice, but she can’t be sure—he’s out of her line of sight. But the twang of a string snapped in fear confirms it.

The beholder grins at its latest victory, but it doesn’t have much time to celebrate.

Even though Kain’s and Morgana’s eyes grow wide with fear and anger to see Jaylie petrified, they redouble their efforts to destroy the creature.

As Kain’s axe slices off two more tentacles and carves a bloody tear into the beholder’s massive eyelid, Morgana sinks her knives into the monster’s back, using them as leverage to climb up its head.