Chapter Thirty Seven: Zuggy Stardust

Zuglah really thought that they were going to make it. As he ran, Warwick was battered about the back and shoulders, lashed across his arms and thighs. And he withstood it, if only for his friend’s sake. He looked like he was finally clear, or one step from it, when the flaming thorn whip-crack took his feet right out from underneath him. He rotated as he flew, the weight on his shoulder spinning him around rapidly. The result was a very heavy cartwheeling of both men, who were then caught and slowly dragged backwards across the flagstone floor.

Zuglah switched to The Ice Blade and aimed it at the vines gripping Warwick. Denton was completely unconscious, which was frankly for the best, considering the way he had been tackled into the wall like that. The Blade detonated without severing the vine, but instead it began freezing internally in both directions from the point of impact. Warwick thrashed, unable to free himself or his friend.

But the fire was having a definite effect. Many of the vines were much shorter, and most if not all of the leaves were gone. They had been, if anything, deadlier than the thorns. The edges were serrated and brutal, and the surface area like coarse sandpaper. Randall had never stopped aiming his Firebolts directly into the heart of the tree, and they were having a visible success.

Zuglah decided that it might be a good time to rescue the rescuers. He blinked. Just as he did, he caught a glimpse of a jagged bolt of Lightning streaking out of Randall’s hands. Uh oh.

The Lightning traveled through Zuglah and into the tree, turning the flaming, smoking mess into an electric maelstrom. The vines now whipped about at gale force speeds, casting Lightning Bolts off in random directions. Helgavolts wandered about the area, both up and down the corridor, and now flaming vines dropped from above like Boa Constrictors set ablaze. The wind picked up, and the flames no longer confined themselves to the immediate area of the tree.

Still shaking from the effects of the Lightning, Zuglah ran towards the Cleric, drawing his dagger once more. With two mighty swings, he managed to free the Half Elf once and for all. It took both of them to finally untangle Denton, and a sweaty few minutes to drag him clear.

When they did, Randall came over and surprised Zuglah by shouldering him aside. “Your turn. Keep hammering the tree. I’ve got this.” They were both exhausted, but in different ways and eager to trade labor. Zuglah summoned Lightning. Randall’s instincts had been correct; the Lightning was definitely the most damaging to the tree.

Once they were out of range of both vines and fire, and as much of the Lightning as anyone could at that point, Warwick left the Fighter with Randall and walked back to where he had dropped his maul. He shouldered it in that way he had adopted, and walked back unhurriedly to where the tree was almost unmoving. He set to, chopping against the trunk as though he wielded an ax. Within a couple more minutes, the tree stopped moving. After another twenty or so blows with the hammer, there came a mighty crack! and finally even Warwick was satisfied.

He dropped the maul once again, and walked as quickly as he was able over to where Denton was sitting up, drinking water. He would drink nothing else inside a dungeon, the occasional potion not withstanding.

“Look who’s awake.” Warwick knelt down and touched the back of Denton’s hand with one finger. The Fighter’s eyes lit up from within and his mouth poured white, divine Light. In another moment, he rolled over onto his knees and climbed to his feet. His eyes looked clear.

“Okay, so now we know what to do with those big bastards.” He laughed as he retrieved his sword from the base of the Slaat. The fires had mostly died down. Pliesson summoned a Whistling Wind Charm, which carried the haunting melodies of ancient Elven woodwind instruments. And, more importantly, carried the smoke away down the corridor before they could suffocate or stumble blindly into ruin. It was a strangely reflective short rest, accompanied by the tune. The wind was refreshingly clean air.

After the Slaat there were more and different types of plants, from stinging nettles to scalding ivy. And there were poppins. Not the sun-baked, mature poppins grown in rich, volcanic soil, but angry young green bulbs with little or no flowers on top to warn trespassers of the dangers they could be in.

“Stop.” Zuglah had barked the warning before thinking. Everyone froze. With the heel of Redda Mo, Zuglah pulled a coarse brown vine away from the wall, low near their feet. It was weaving its way through the wrought iron fence, but parts stuck out along the wall and floor. Those parts were covered in poppins. Unnaturally covered.

When Zuglah let go of the vine, it snapped back into place like it had been rubberized. Several of the bulbs had oozed a nasty green slime onto the floor and on the heel of his runestick, and the smell was distinct. It had been this odor that had alerted him, even before he could place it.

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He explained that this goo could possibly eat a hole through flesh, the acid was so strong. Denton removed a long machete from his own Bag of Holding, and proceeded to hack a path. They needed to see what they were walking on at this point, anything else was too risky.

They only had a couple of hundred yards or so, but it took them nearly an hour. Zuglah and Randall used copious amounts of mana trying to help clear the path, so much so that Zuglah gave Randall and extra Pot and made him drink it on the spot. This enabled the Wizard to be more liberal with his Blazing Hands, and allowed them to clear a small, claustrophobic staging area directly down the passageway from the meatweed.

The scene did not look good, and it smelled even worse. Zuglah now understood how Lieber Cant had managed to plant so much meatweed and keep it alive for so long: he had filled the entire area with small critters.

The voles and larks, fieldmice and gophers that he had been smelling hadn’t been nearby neighbors or curiously hungry foragers, but rather feeding stock. There was a small, thin carpet of tiny bones and pelts, as well as a half dozen recently killed or slowly dying animals. It was a sad little scene and, to Zuglah’s mind, completely unnecessary. There were a myriad of creatures that he could have chosen to guard this portal, and none of them would have come at so high a cost. It made him rather angry.

“This is stupid. What a cruel waste. Everyone, please stand back. Over there.” Zuglah didn’t wait to see whether his friends complied. He was going to take care of this, right now.

Zuglah sat down on the flagstone, Redda Mo laying across his knees. He closed his eyes, focusing on placing himself inside of his Summoning Circle. It was not as easy or instinctual as the luminescent rune that allowed him to displace his body to another location, and it took a greater force of will. Zuglah was not a natural Summoner.

He had an angry idea aimed towards the meatweed, an image forming in his mind of his large, hairy companions and their soporific effects attacking the weeds and varmints. Those details became script written in glowing letters around the outside of the Circle he inhabited in his mind’s eye. On his palm appeared a large, blue-bodied cave spider with yellow legs and dripping yellow venom. He could feel the weight of it. Zuglah tossed the spider onto the ground, and it raced towards the meatweed. Zuglah began pouring mana into the Circle.

He could hear shouts of alarm from his friends, but he didn’t turn his head as he opened his eyes. The scene was exactly as he had pictured it; hundreds of large, yellow and blue furred spiders. Sleep Spiders.

They poured down the hallway, carpeting the floor, the walls and the ceiling. This was what he had needed to concentrate on, and into it he dumped all of his mana. Every drop. They were the size of his double fist, large and meaty enough to make the weed attack them. They bit and stung any small animals they crawled over, whether alive or dead, injecting them with a dose of the sleep serum that they had been summoned with.

His companions were all laughing and cheering, but Zuglah did not relent. He allowed the flow of arachnids to slow, but not stop. He smelled wet, hungry dogs. He also smelled vile sickness. He waited.

The meatweed must have all perished, or been put to sleep, because the thick stone wall opposite the iron fence began to move all at once. It seemed that this ambush was timed to appear just as they were recovering from battling the weeds. Zuglah silently counted the number of small woodland creatures that had been sacrificed for this one encounter. As the trap unfolded, Zuglah poured on the Spiders. More Spiders. Bigger, this time.

The wall revealed two hidden recesses, each one containing four Gnolls. The rabid, drooling canines barked and howled, barely enough mind within to grip a sword or a club. The stone wall moved from the ceiling down, so their faces and teeth, bloodshot eyes and fleabit ears were the first bits to show. The savagery turned to snarls of rage, then fear and pain, as the cracks allowed scores of the yellow and blue Sleep Spiders to climb in with them.

The sounds of their vicious infighting were brutal and deafening. They were trapped with absolutely no space to move, much less swing a club or bite down. Yet they managed, and by the time they were fully released from the wall, seven were dead and the last one sleeping deeply. Denton dispatched it immediately.

Everyone rushed forward, laughing uproariously. They clapped Zuglah heartily, even Randall. He tried to reply to their japes, but his tongue felt leaden, and too big for his mouth. He was having trouble concentrating.

Pliesson pulled him around, and helped him open a Pot. As soon as he had it swallowed, the potion’s effects were immediate and sobering. He had utterly drained himself, and he had dismissed how scary the stupefying effects could be. It always left him feeling like he’d just been utterly defenseless.

It was Pliesson who spotted the entrance down into the Cauldron itself. It was a black, dark hole through which no light or sound issued. Pliesson had said that he’d noticed the Spiders disappearing downwards, but Denton cautioned them all that they could not count on anything below being incapacitated. Pliesson conjured up several glowing spheres of light and dropped them into the hole. They bounced and rolled and revealed a small, square stone room bare of any furnishings. With a nod, Denton jumped down.

The ten foot drop was too high for Pliesson, so Redda Mo graciously allowed him to hold on to one end while Zuglah lowered him down. Randall and Warwick didn’t have too much trouble, being able to hang and drop much easier than a rotund Driole body would allow. The height was nothing for Zuglah, and he landed lightly.

The moment that he did, the walls started coming down. All of them.

Most of the soft, white globes of light had rolled up against one wall, and when the walls had dropped completely, they resumed rolling. The group held their breath as they watched the three globes roll to a stop. A clawed, green hand enveloped the sphere and brought it to a hideous, tooth-filled maw. A pair of large, rubbery lips spread wide in an ugly, jagged smile. The teeth bit down on the orb, which shattered and disappeared immediately. A foot, just as green and clawed and ugly, came down and crushed the other two orbs. The darkness was absolute.

“Attack.” The rubber lips and jagged teeth mangled the word, but could not lessen the venom that dripped from the command. From the darkness, Zuglah could see small bleached-white arrows emerge.

“Better get down,” he advised. “Here come the darts.”

Sometimes having Ultravision was more of a curse than a blessing. He wasn’t sure how he was going to tell them.

There had to be better than fifty Goblins, waiting in the darkness.