Octophobia

Spire's Spite Chapter 41

Fritz groaned, the floor rocked and he spun dangerously on the cool stone. He struggled fitfully, grabbing onto the ground lest he be thrown off. He was dewy with sweat and an oilcloth blanket lay over his body. He searched for Sid and Bert, groggily turning his head to where he could see them eating some bear meat and whispering worriedly, their words reached his ears as garbled nonsense and he had to focus to comprehend what was being said.

“Urgh this stuff is foul,” Bert g...

Spire's Spite Chapter 40

Fritz immediately breathed a deep lungful of crisp, cool and wonderfully fresh air, something that was denied him in the smokiness of the cave they had taken shelter in. He listened to the quiet of the forest, paying close attention for the crunching sound of snow under boots or padded paws. He could pick up nothing save their own soft footsteps. Even the wind was subdued, now a gentle sigh as if the sky had spent all its rage on the howling storm and now lay sleeping, dormant once more.

Spire's Spite Chaper 39

They sat by the fire in companionable silence for about ten minutes before Bert brought back another trunk and then joined them by the fire’s warmth.

“One more log,” Bert said shivering. “That’s it. Getting too cold out there.”

Fritz walked over to the tunnel's entrance and stuck his arm into the bitter, shearing wind. He pulled it back almost immediately, his hand stinging from the cold bite of the snowstorm.

“No. I think not, Bert,” Fritz said seriously. �...

Spire's Spite Chapter 38

Sid stared at Fritz angrily in accusation. Bert laughed, raising his hands and clenching them into fists as he turned to face the low growl echoing through the stone tunnel. Over the noise of the growling Fritz could hear the scrapes of claws against rock. Kneeling Fritz rooted through his pack, seizing upon his amber glowstone and pulling it and its swirling yellow light out into the open, banishing the black of the cave around them.

The deep, low sound intensified as its source was il...

Spire's Spite Chapter 37

Fritz’s now-dry boots stomped up the cold rock of the stairs, he listened for any danger as he climbed and heard nothing save the shrill whispering of the breeze as it wove between trees and his own quiet footsteps. His head and body breached the top and he strode up into a small, quiet clearing. Around him, he saw tall, thin trees with patchy white bark and deep-green needle-like leaves waving in bright rays of sunlight.

Patches of vibrant blue pieced the dark green blanket of the ca...

Spire's Spite Chapter 36

Bert and Sid sat with their backs resting on the grey stone orb, waiting for Fritz to speak.

“My, oh my, what choices I have. Well first there’s Gloom Strike; the Ability that Steve used to stab Bert. It does some extra damage and obscures the attack made, making it hard to notice. I would know I’ve been on the end of it. It’s truly terrifying” Fritz explained.

Bert nodded excitedly and Sid shrugged then gestured for him to continue.

“Then there’s Lethargy. A c...

Spire's Spite Chapter 35

Sid checked on Bert first as he was the one who had taken the most wounds, when she had run to his side to give him the health potion in the fight he had waved her off saying something about Tough Skin and Vitality keeping him okay. 

She had done as he asked but was now worried that it had possibly killed him as he was now floating face up in the water.

Looking at his condition, his ragged clothes and burnt and blistered body she could see he was still slowly breathing. He op...

Spire's Spite Chapter 34

Fritz and his crew rushed forward to meet their enemy, now they knew the threat they were up against the fight went a lot smoother. For one Bert didn’t melt his fists, nor lose the black chisel in the snail's guts. For two Sid didn’t waste another conjured arrow when the snail retreated into its shell after having a hole drilled through its spongy rust-red flesh by her initial wind-infused arrow.

The battle felt rather rudimentary once they had the creature’s measure. Bert was abl...

Spire's Spite Chapter 33

The giant snail’s skin was not the lumpy light grey of its smaller cousins but a bright rust-red riddled with salt-white cracks. Its flesh was slimy and sticky, covered with a thin layer of cloudy mucus. Three thin stalks unfurled from its thick, tuberous body as it left its quartz-coloured shell. The stalks undulated and mustard yellow egg-like orbs slid up their length and swayed this way and that as if searching the area for Fritz. Two long, fang-lined tendrils extended from under the sh...

Spire's Spite Chapter 32

The hammer and chisel made easy work of the green glass wall and they were running up the stairway behind within moments.

The stairs brought them up and into a Well Room of square pale stone bricks. The room was strewn with pillars topped with shallow basins half filled with glowing water, which reminded Fritz of bird baths, not that Bert or Sid knew what they were as what was the point of such a thing in a city of perpetual rain. Fritz had seen an illustration of one once in a book and...

Spire's Spite Chapter 31

“The belt,” Sid and Fritz said together, meeting gazes then looking away awkwardly.

Bert chuckled then asked, “Why the belt?”

“Well it’s the strangest of the equipment and we have a vague idea of what the might ring do and I’m sure that in time you’ll find out what your garments do,” Fritz reasoned, stretching to grab the belt and hand it to Sid.

She took the belt and put the know-note to its white scales, then writing glowed into being as if carved by fire...

Spire's Spite Chapter 30

Fritz broke into a crawl, scrabbling to the green glass wall where he had seen the silhouette of what could be a Treasure chest. He didn’t get far, the spinning and vertigo rushed back with a vengeance and he flopped onto his belly.

“Bert,” He cried out. “Bert a chest, look!” Bert spun, then turned to the section of that seemingly melted green glass wall Fritz was pointing at.

“Well, I’ll be climbed! There is something there isn’t there?” Bert exclaimed, grinning...

Spire's Spite Chapter 29

“What do you mean? Plan two?” Fritz said scathingly through panting breaths, his spells having taken a huge portion of his stamina. He cursed himself for not aligning more points into Endurance, he’d gotten carried away with his new Advanced Attributes and that had blinded him to the necessity of stamina.

“You’re the scout, Fritz, find us a route to victory,” Bert commanded with cold confidence in his comrade while searching the circular room for the disappeared but...

Spire's Spite Chapter 28

Fritz slept fitfully.

The events of the previous floor tormented him with the image of Steve’s shattered face. He saw his mother's broken body lying in a pool of blood.

A pool of scarlet that expanded with sloshing waves, covering the wooden floorboards, filling the room and rising to his ankles. The once cosy sitting room was flooding with the endless sanguine tide, he was up to his chest, his neck, over his head, then he was drowning.

Not drowning in the freezing water o...

Spire's Spite Chapter 27

Fritz felt the icy power burn over his mind, body and spirit. His grey-barked willow grew taller, its bark darkened and the shadows its branches cast deepened into crooked lines of night. Such simple and subtle changes rendered the willow harder to make out in the rain, but Fritz could feel it there more solid and more Powerful than it had ever been before. Than he had ever been before.

It was like a door in his mind opened, he could feel the rushing and racing of his thoughts ...

Spire's Spite Chapter 26

“I am a Wizard,” Bert said projecting honesty, but Fritz could see the telltale creases in the corners of his eyes that warned him to disregard everything he said as lies. Sid gasped, not being able to read Bert’s trickery.

“You got access to an Arcane Path? Aren’t they impossibly rare unless you climb the Tower Arcane and are very lucky, or meet a whole lot of hidden prerequisites?” Sid asked awed. Fritz stared at her in bafflement, she couldn’t be falling for this obviou...