Shrine of the Stinging Doom

“Are you there, God? It’s me… and I’m covered in jellyfish.”

My statement echoed off the cavern walls, followed by a soft squelching noise as I peeled a translucent, slightly bioluminescent creature off my face. Behind me, Gregory groaned and slumped against a rock that was definitely cursed. His crimson robes were soaked and dripping, his boots squishing audibly. “Rowan. Remind me again why we agreed to fetch the Orb of Calamity from a shrine inside a gelatinous abyss full of jellyfish that have a taste for flesh?”

“Because Nyla said it would be ‘a quick in-and-out job,’” I said, doing finger quotes so aggressively my knuckles cracked.

“I stand by that,” Nyla said from above us, perched all smug and on a precarious pillar of coral, her gown somehow still pristine. “I did say quick. I did not say dry. Or sting-free.”

“You also said the shrine would be ‘mostly dormant,’” Gregory snapped. “But then it tried to eat me!”

Nyla tossed her hair, which sparkled faintly from residual enchantment. “To be fair, you insulted its architecture.”

“I said it looked like a cursed fondue pot!”

“And it heard you. Shrines are sensitive.”

“IT HAD TEETH, NYLA!”

I clutched the orb tightly in my hands and tried very hard not to scream. Again. “All right, everybody shut up. The orb is retrieved. The shrine is behind us. The jellyfish are probably psychic, so don’t think anything rude. Let’s just portal home and take several naps, preferably in different rooms.”

Gregory muttered something about his nap schedule being none of my concern but stepped closer anyway, shaking water off like an indignant dog. Nyla descended the coral with terrifying grace, grabbed the hem of her gown, and wrung it out. I raised my hand to cast the portal.

Nothing happened. I blinked, then tried again.

Nothing.

Gregory squinted. “That better not be a dramatic pause, Rowan.”

“I think the orb is… interfering,” I said, eye twitching. “It’s restricting the usage of this area’s mana.”

Gregory raised an eyebrow. “So it’s like a giant arcane cancel card?”

“An artifact of great power and occasional doom, thank you,” I snapped. “I didn’t realize it came with a magical dead zone.”

Gregory threw his arms up. “Brilliant. Trapped in a damp nightmare full of passive-aggressive sea creatures and sarcastic royalty. Again.”

“Oh please,” Nyla said, glaring. “You screamed when the barnacle blinked at you.”

“I did not scream.”

“You squealed.”

“I made a tactical noise of surprise!”

“Enough!” I cried. “The orb most likely has to become used to being out from underwater pressure. We’ll just have to wait for the orb to stabilize. Maybe half an hour. An hour, tops. Let’s sit and be quiet.”

We sat. We were not quiet.

“I still think we should have left the orb where it was,” Gregory muttered, wringing a jellyfish out of his sleeve like a man who had truly lost the plot. “Let someone else get stung and digested.”

Nyla, who was now sitting cross-legged on a glowing rock like a sea goblin, raised a perfectly arched brow. “Oh yes. How dreadful of me to want to save our crumbling realm from magical entropy. How selfish of me to think maybe, just maybe, an artifact that can slow time and stabilize magic fields might be useful.”

Gregory blinked, caught mid-snark. “Wait. That’s why we came here?”

Nyla rolled her eyes with all the majesty of a woman who used to command armies and now lived with a badger. “Yes, Gregory. The orb is a temporal regulator. Or it was, before it got dropped into a doom pit several centuries ago. If I can reattune it, it might stop the Wild Magic surges in the northern forests. You know—the ones currently mutating trees into sentient, carnivorous topiaries?”

Gregory looked mildly abashed. “I thought you just wanted a dramatic paperweight.”

“Oh my gods,” I groaned. “Did you not read any of the briefing scrolls I left?”

“I skimmed them,” he said defensively. “There were a lot of footnotes…”

The orb pulsed faintly in my arms, like it was judging us.

I took a deep breath, squeezing it tightly like a particularly magical stress ball. “Okay. So Nyla wants to fix the magical flux. Gregory wants to complain. I want to go home. We can all agree those are valid goals.”

“I never agreed not to complain,” Gregory said.

“Oh for the love of—”

A wet, slapping sound interrupted us.

We all turned to look at the cave’s tunnel, one that led down to what we thought was the sealed entrance of the shrine, where a jellyfish roughly the size of a wagon slowly oozed its way toward us. It shimmered ominously. There were many eyes. Too many.

“Nope,” Gregory said, standing. “No. No thank you. We are not doing this again.”

“It’s just one—” I began.

Then it split. Literally.

It blooped like a horrible balloon and peeled into two identical jellyfish with synchronized glowing eyes.

“Oh come on,” I hissed, scrambling to my feet. “Are they duplicating now?”

“They’re trying to flank us,” Nyla said, rising and pulling a dagger from her boot. Gregory started backing away, eyes wide and staff in hand. Magic may not work at the moment but hitting things never fails.

“And we’re still deprived of magic,” I said, patting the orb.

The jellyfish pulsed in unison, and then—because of course they did—they started chanting.

Not loudly. Not in any recognizable language. Just this deep, reverberating hum that shook our bones and made the cave walls vibrate.

“Okay, definitely psychic,” I said, backing into Gregory.

“Are they trying to curse us or court us?” he asked nervously. “I’m not emotionally ready for either.”

“I’ll handle it,” Nyla said, stepping forward and raising her hands in a peaceful gesture. “Let me try diplomacy. I still remember the ancient rituals of interspecies negotiations from the coastal treaties of—” One of the jellyfish immediately slapped her across the face.

There was a pause.

Nyla stood there for a moment, eyes closed, dignified. Then she turned to us and said very calmly, “Kill them. Kill them both.”

“Diplomacy failed?” I asked.

“Catastrophically.”

Gregory summoned a blast of fire—but the magical fizzled uselessly. “UGH!”

“I don’t need magic!” Nyla roared, tackling the left jellyfish. I placed the orb behind a rock and joined the fray, mostly swinging a book around and screaming.

Nyla struck a jellyfish, her dagger flashing once, twice, then vanishing completely into the wobbling mass of translucent flesh. It let out a gurgling shriek—a sound I never thought I’d hear unless I was being punished by the gods—and swelled with sudden fury. Nyla didn’t flinch. She punched it in one of its many eyes.

“Yes! Scream, you spineless gelatinous abomination!” She hissed, driving her elbow into its side and yanking her blade free. “I’ve fought ogres with more backbone!”

Meanwhile, I ran at the other one, wielding my leather-bound copy of Practical Hexes for Lazy Sorcerers like a club. Apparently, the jellyfish did not care about book reviews. It twitched sideways, letting my first swing pass through a puff of steam, then lunged forward with its tentacles splayed.

“Absolutely not!” I screeched, ducking and rolling to the side—directly into a puddle of glowing sludge. “You don’t even have bones, why are you so fast?!”

Gregory, to his credit, had resorted to bludgeoning. He raised his staff and smacked one of the jellyfish appendages with all the fury of a man whose nap had been delayed by seafood. “BACK! BACK TO YOUR SLIMY DIMENSION!” He was able to turn one of the many forming jellyfish into slush before one slapped the staff from his hands and retaliated with a tentacle to the face. Gregory staggered backward and landed hard on his rear. “That’s it. I’m done. I’m out. I don’t fight jello. I eat jello!”

“Then try biting!” I yelled, parrying a jelly slap with my book.

Nyla screamed something in Old Vekkan and vaulted over the jellyfish she was fighting, stabbing it in what I assumed was the brainstem—or at least the place where it looked most offended to be pierced. A pulse of green light shot through its body, and the thing gave a high-pitched whine before collapsing in on itself like a deflated soufflé.

She landed in a three-point crouch. The jellyfish made a sad blurble and dissolved into sludge. “Rowan, how’s your half?”

I was currently pinned under two tentacles and struggling to breathe. “I’ve been better!” The jellyfish above me made a sound that can only be described as murderous satisfaction. Its eyes gleamed, and its mouth—yes, it had a mouth—opened, revealing rows of tiny needle teeth. “OH, COME ON,” I yelled. “EVEN GREGORY DOESN’T HAVE TEETH THAT CREEPY!”

“Hey!” Gregory called from where he was trying to wring out his sleeve. “My orthodontist said they’re distinguished!”

The jellyfish hissed, reared back for what I could only assume was a soul-devouring strike, and—

—Hubert happened.

Our badger, glorious and terrible, launched from somewhere—possibly the ceiling—and latched onto the jellyfish’s face with a sound like a wet vacuum. He screamed. The jellyfish screamed. I screamed.

Nyla stood stock still, blinking. “Is that... Hubert?”

Gregory stared in awe. “Did he teleport again?”

Hubert began spinning in circles on top of the jellyfish’s head, teeth flashing, claws shredding glowing flesh like tissue paper. The jellyfish flailed and spasmed, trying to shake him off, but our badger was determined, furious, and possibly high on the residual magic of the orb. I had no idea how he got here. I didn’t ask. You don’t ask those kinds of questions about Hubert.

Taking my cue, I scrambled up on my feet and grabbed a broken stalagmite. “You picked! The! Wrong! Sorcerer!” I shouted while bringing the rock down repeatedly.

​​Between my rock, Nyla’s knife, the unholy vengeance of a teleporting badger, and Gregory actually attempting to bite chunks off, the jellyfish began to go down one by one. The final one collapsed into a heap of pulsing goo, then gave a final, burbly sigh and oozed into a sad puddle.

For a long moment, there was only the sound of heavy breathing. Nyla wiped her face with a ripped sleeve. Gregory lay flat on the floor, arms splayed dramatically. I stood panting, clutching the stalagmite like it was my own child. Hubert licked his paws, then trotted back to the orb, which had started glowing a soft, gentle blue.

“Is it… stable?” Gregory asked.

The orb gave a happy little chime and floated an inch off the ground.

“I think Hubert fixed it,” I said, voice shaking with disbelief. I picked up the orb and held it close, feeling magic spark in my fingertips again. I raised my hand.

A portal snapped open. We all looked at it, then at each other. We stepped through, one by one—limping, bruised, and very, very done. As the portal snapped closed behind us, I looked at the orb in my hands.

“Well,” I said, “that was deeply traumatic.”