Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

a hundred-and twenty-degrees Fahrenheit. My Heads-Up Display showed the temperature in this cavern: a lovely 93 degrees c, enough to cook a normal human alive. Even as that wonderful thought passed through my mind, a Hyperthermia ring jumped up in my display: blank, at first, but slowly filling with red.

“We’ve got about five minutes to figure this out before this place roasts me,” I said, as sweat poured down my face. “No pressure or anything.”

“Mmm. Roast Hector. Don’t suppose we’ve got any ketchup?”

The bumpy thermals twirling up from the lava were a pleasure cruise compared to the spiny tunnel, the heat lifting Karalti’s wings with hardly any effort on her part. As she glided past the door, I twisted to keep it in my line of sight. There were six carved runes engraved on the surface, with hollow channels waiting to receive mana.

“Can you read those symbols?” I asked her. “They might be Solonkratsu.”

Karalti winged over and flew back, pulling into a slow glide as we passed by again. “Yeah, kind of! They’re words of power. But they all say the same thing.”

“Which is?”

“‘Breath’. It’s different Words for the same little-w word. Breath.”

“Hold steady.” I craned my head and zoomed my vision in on one of the flanking statues. The stone dragon had his wings folded and his head bowed. He presented an ornate goblet in his clawed hands—a goblet with a metal wick. “It’s a statue puzzle. We have to light these statues with your breath weapon.”

“All six statues? That’ll use up half my charges!”

“I know, but the alternative is a lava bath.” My hyperthermia ring was already a quarter of the way full, and I was starting to shiver from the heat. “I don’t know if we have to do them in some kind of order. Let’s try one and see if it stays lit.”

Karalti flicked a wingtip and coasted toward the statue with the goblet. Her chest swelled against the saddle, and she let out a thin, controlled plume of brilliant white flames. The sticky Ghost Fire lashed over the goblet and the statue’s chest, kindling the wick to life. The statue’s blank crystal eyes lit up—and so did one of the runes on the door.

“I don’t think it matters,” I said, hooking my feet under the saddle straps. “Let’s do a circuit, and make it fast.”

“Gotcha!” The dragon swooped forward, trusting me to hold on as she slingshot along the line of statues. She blasted them, lighting wicks on a lantern, a crystal, and a knife. She swung back around at the end of the canyon, torching the last pair of statues—and the door slid out of its frame and began to slowly roll sidewards into the wall.

“That... was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Which immediately makes me kind of suspicious.” I was trembling now, panting from the heat that crawled between my skin and the surface of my armor. I leaned with Karalti as she banked and winged over, soaring toward the opening door. It was lit from behind, revealing a glittering white tunnel. “What the fuck is that?”

“I dunno, but I sure hope I can land on it. You’re boiling and I’m exhausted.” Even though we’d only flown a short distance, Karalti’s stamina had dropped sharply between her hunger and the stressful, intricate maneuvers she’d had to perform to get us this far.

I zoomed in on the rapidly approaching tunnel—and winced. “No. Stay in the air. That’s web. And I’m pretty sure that whatever spun it is big enough to eat a dragon.”

Chapter 5

As we got closer, I revised my opinion. The tunnel wasn’t lined with web. It was way, way grosser than that.

“Right, so... at first, I thought maybe this was made by giant spiders. But now I am like, ninety-nine percent sure this is fungus.” The steam that billowed out past the door carried a damp, earthy scent, like mushrooms mixed with burned plastic. “Whatever the fuck it is, don’t touch it.”

Karalti rumbled, soaring into the humid tunnel. As the tip of her tail passed the threshold, the door thumped behind us. I glanced over my shoulder to see it rolling back into place. Sticky white strands lashed out over the warm metal, almost as if the tunnel itself was sealing the exit behind us.

[Warning: Mana levels are dangerously high. You are at risk of mana poisoning!]

“Well... it’s magical.” My skin crawled as I looked around. The fibrous strands looked like living cotton candy, a hollow cocoon that undulated as we flew past. They yearned towards Karalti like hairs reacting to static electricity, reaching for her wingtips. “And it really wants to eat us. Can you Bioscan it?”

“Yeah. Hang on.” I felt her gather her mana, then cast it out into the tunnel like an unseen burst of sonar.

[New herb discovered: Dragonrot] Dragonrot (Parasitic Fungus)

While technically not a monstrous entity, Dragonrot is one of the few lifeforms capable of striking fear into the hearts of Archemi’s apex predators, the Solonkratsu.

Dragonrot is a Stranged, semi-sentient fungus that thrives in moist underground environments populated by magical creatures, mana-poisoned waterways, and freshwater cavern systems. The fungus targets arcane megafauna like dragons, swamp hags and Stranged leviathans. After infecting a creature’s bloodstream via wound entry, the fungus uses the mana in the host’s body to replicate.

Dragonrot is almost never found in active Solonkratsu settlements. Dragons experience an instinctive revulsion toward the fungus and scorch the walls of their cavernous dens to kill spores. The presence of this fungus is strongly associated with damp underground locations containing dead dragons and-or decayed mana.

This fungus is intrinsically harmless to humans and non-magical creatures and cannot infect them, but the spoiled mana it thrives on can cause mana poisoning and rapid death. Dragons infected by Dragonrot via blood contact will incubate the fungus for