Journey Through the Underdark - Eric EarthScorn Book 1 - Chapter 28 (Patreon)

As Eric formed his spell to open his self imposed cage, the creature remained frozen and watching. Despite the blank body language, something in Sasha’s instincts screamed that it was ready to attack the moment Eric’s spell formed. When Eric did nothing but open the wall between him and the black stone monster, that tension that Sasha couldn’t identify eased.

“Are you Eric EarthScorn?” asked the creature, its body still rigid and unmoving.

Eric glanced at Sasha to be sure she was alright before he nodded.

Again, the artifact was pulled from within the stone body and then extended to the boy to hold. Once Eric placed his hand on the device, the interrogation began.

“Are you Eric EarthScorn?” the creature repeated in its lilting feminine voice.

Only hesitating for a second, Eric admitted that he was, keeping in mind the way the earlier device had indicated this was a lie. To his surprise, this device confirmed his veracity. For a moment, Eric stared into the distance and considered what this meant. He did think of himself as Eric EarthScorn, he admitted to himself that he was son to the monster who hurt his mother. That Erick rejected the man, and all that he was, didn’t change the basic facts of his existence. He was also the son of an ordinary innkeeper, and he was a better man because of it.

When Eric drew himself out of his musings, he noticed the creature had not shifted in any way. Still, despite its statue-like nature, he couldn’t help but feel that something was studying him. Frowning, Eric returned the scrutiny. To his eyes, the creature was flat unmarked black glass-like stone, but deep inside, the body ran with lines of magical force. Each limb had twisting vines of magic that connected into a large lump of magic in the chest. Interestingly to Eric, the head of the creature had almost no magic moving within it.

Without moving, the creature somehow conveyed focused scrutiny, even as it ignored Eric’s examination. The questions continued while the two studied each other, “Do you plan to threaten, harm, or hinder the UWC?”

“No.”

One word, no inflection, a neutral tone with no further elaboration. Eric had decided that until the basic questions were finished, they wouldn’t be able to move on to an actual discussion. The interrogation reminded the boy of his meeting with Judy Terms. It was like how she had been strictly business while using the device but then had carefully teased information out of him once the initial questions had been asked.

Again the creature paused without movement, but it continued on to another question when it had seemingly decided that nothing more was forthcoming.

“Do you have information relevant to the UWC’s mission?”

This question seemed to be the one the creature was most interested in. While the body never moved, the voice was slightly higher pitched.

“Yes.”

Again Eric answered with no further elaboration.

This time the creature shifted and moved, its body relaxed with the release of some kind of internal pressure. To Eric’s surprise, he could see lines of magic moving through the stone, which pulsed as it shifted and moved. The lump of mana within the creature then drifted upward and into the head, and then the head peeled back, and a woman’s face was revealed!

Sweaty and with her hair stuck to her face, the woman seemed to have just removed an all surrounding helmet. Despite the appearance, Eric wasn’t fooled. This woman had been tucked into the body of the black stone behemoth, her head had not been inside the stone giant’s head. This wasn’t a simple suit of armor, no matter how she tried to make it appear to be so. Eric tried to only show surprise, but somehow he wasn’t sure he fooled the wizard inside the monstrosity.

“I’ll have to suit back up once we move out. For now, as it stands, you are under the UWC’s protection until it is determined if your information is valid and useful. If your mind has been altered into giving false testimony, it will not be held against you unless you were the one to alter your mind. If it is later determined that this is a hoax, or an attempt to manipulate the UWC, you will be executed,” the woman said.

The most disconcerting part of the latter half of her prepared speech was that it was prepared. She had obviously said the words before. The Inspector had said those words often enough that her tone of voice had developed a note of boredom. It was the same quality to the words that all workers acquired when they had to repeat a phrase repeatedly. For Eric, it had been ‘Welcome to the inn of Tintown, how can I help you?’ for her, it was a speech about his potential execution.

Smiling, the black stone then flowed back over her head. As before, though, the magical blob hidden within the stone curled up and ducked down below the head. Her display was supposed to make him think that the black stone was some kind of magical armor. Her actions instead highlighted the fact she didn’t entirely trust Eric. At first sight of the woman, Sasha had become even more agitated. The sudden scent of a person coming from the previously scentless threat, only sending her instincts into a further spiral. At the woman’s threat, Sasha had hissed involuntarily, but the woman had completely ignored the large feline-lizard.

“We will have to move to a UWC base for further questions. Judy has earmarked your case herself. Apparently, you made some kind of impression on her,” the woman’s teasing voice said. The voice came from the head of the golem, even though Eric knew it was an intentional deception. Looking closely, he could see a small line of magic connecting the core and the head region, which had to be the source of the trick.

“The commander has my equipment, I want that before we leave,” Eric said, his voice going hard. He had no intention to leave the rat with the magical stone. The young wizard didn’t have a use for it, except for the money it was worth, but purely for spite, Eric didn’t want the commander to profit. If he was lucky, he might be able to help the unfairly jailed warden as well. Not so much for the warden’s sake, but mostly because it would hinder the commander.

Eric was in a particularly angry mood after having to hide away for days on end.

This time the woman didn’t pause or hide behind her stone facade. The enormous onyx exterior dipped in agreement, and then she began to march. Sasha phased into the darkness again at the woman’s passage, her mind filled with images of her knocking around a doll-sized black stone person.

The pair walked to the commander’s office, picking up a couple of soldiers to escort them as they left the prison area. The two escorts never spoke, but the pair had been surprised to see Eric and were clearly terrified of the black monstrosity. That Eric seemed unconcerned, did not comfort them. They more than once turned to glance back at the two.

When they reached the administrative area, a place that Sasha had reluctantly continued to stalk on behalf of Eric, one of the pair trotted ahead to inform the commander.

When they arrived, the commander was standing behind his desk, his face pale white and sweating. His hands visibly shook as he looked to first Eric and then the black monster as it approached.

“This boy is an informant for the UWC, please collect his things. I will have the paperwork for your government delivered shortly,” the woman hidden in stone said.

Licking his lips, the commander hesitated for only a second before he pasted on a smile, “Unfortunately, the boy’s things were stolen when he escaped. We are still looking for the culprit. Rest assured, when we know who stole his things, they will immediately be returned to him.”

If Eric hadn’t known the commander had his things in his desk, he would have wagered that the man was only afraid and not lying. He sounded confident, and he never looked away as he lied. But Eric did know, and he could prove it.

With a vicious smile, Eric said, “You’re lying. You stole my equipment, the focus stone is in your desk there. You first tried to kill me so you could steal it, and when that didn’t work, you hoped that I would starve in your cell. When I escaped, you just blamed your warden and got your second in command to change the logbook.”

At Eric’s pronouncement, the commander’s eyes bulged, and his hands raised for a moment before he turned to look at the stone behemoth looming over his desk and him. Eric had expected the man to admit his mistake, maybe bluster a bit or threaten, even lie again before handing over his stuff. He was caught, and he knew it. But he didn’t, he just looked to the stone creature, his eyes boring into the behemoth.

When the woman reached to remove her truth-telling stone, the commander began to cast a spell. His attack was short-lived as the black creature moved in a blur of strength, the black fist slamming into and through the commander’s head, ending a foot deep within the wall.

Eric jumped at the sudden explosion of sound, the movement of the stone woman so quick that the fight was over before he even knew that it had begun.

When the two escorting soldiers entered the room, Eric was too stunned by the violence and death to move. At that moment, if any of the three in the room had wanted to kill him, he wouldn’t have seen it coming. Luckily for Eric, the violence seemed to be over for now. Neither of the two soldiers seemed interested in fighting the monster that had killed their commander.

“A violation of the treaty has occurred. Please contact your second in command. I have questions for him,” the woman said, her voice cold and unfeeling compared to the lilting tones of before.

Both of the soldiers scrambled from the room. Hopefully, to get the second in command, but possibly just to be away from the killing machine in their midst.

“You killed him,” Eric said, his voice sounding distant to his ears.

Eric hadn’t imagined that the woman would kill the commander out of hand like that. It had been quick and almost reactive.

Smoothly, the glass monstrosity moved around the desk, pushing the corpse out of her way before she went through the drawers. Finding Eric’s pack, she opened it and rummaged through it, holding up the focus stone tubes when she found them then returning them to the bag.

“Yes. He violated the treaty. The UWC is oath-bound to protect an informant. The moment you petitioned for the UWC, you should have been protected by that man,” she said in a bored tone as she slowly sifted through the commander’s desk.

When she was through with the desk, she pulled the corpse from the ground and dropped it on the table and began to search it. Somehow, Eric didn’t think this had been her first murder.

“What about if I had lied about having information?” Eric asked, his voice seeming to come to him from a long tunnel.

The faceless creature paused for a moment, the head tilting up to look at Eric and then wordlessly looked back down to the headless corpse. No further words were needed to convey the punishment for lying.

There was a long delay where the woman said nothing as she waited, and Eric stood awkwardly without comment while trying to bring his world back into focus. Eventually, the rushing sounds in his ears faded, and he felt like his mind was no longer running in circles. After ten minutes or so with no one returning, the black creature straightened and marched from the former commander’s office. Finding a soldier standing in the hallway, she asked for the second in command.

The sweating soldier, a young man not much older than Eric himself, stuttered before answering. The lieutenant colonel had gone missing, and the boy had been assigned by his watch leader to assist the Inspector while they searched for him.

A snort and chuckle of dark humor came from the woman as she said she understood but that she would no longer need his assistance.

“Report to your watch leader and tell him that the UWC will have a report for this incident sent soon.”

Then the woman turned away to face Eric. Sasha remained in the shadows even as she knew the creature could see her. She would protect her Kitten even as her instincts screamed that they should run.