Official Pest Control Manuel, Chapter 13: Myphlers - Monster Hunter Guild Pest Control department
Myphlers infestations need to be handled with great efficiency and speed. Like rats, these stone-eating creatures can breed with extreme speed. They can replenish numbers in a frustratingly short period of time. They are often found in large colonies to start with, making them more complicated to deal with than many of the pests found across the city. They work as a group in very effective ways. Their ability to eat stone means they can create exit points through most structures, so rooting them out entirely is very difficult.
Suppose you encounter a colony of these creatures anywhere outside the maintenance tunnels. In that case, you should immediately contact the following so that urgent action can be taken to prevent the spread…
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The world took a hazy, grey quality for Jake a few moments before consciousness returned. Physically, he felt weak, as if his muscles didn’t have the strength to lift him from the cavern floor.
He turned his head, noting a powerful headache as he did, and could see that Silt and Ell were still unconscious. Drak was sitting up slightly, leaning against the cavern wall and gingerly examining the hydra bite.
Jake took a deep breath and tried to push himself into a sitting position, a wave of nausea flashing over him. None of them was in good condition and he had no clue if they were any nearer getting out of the tunnels or simply heading deeper into them.
“Hey,” Drak said, his voice soft and lacking the usual vigour. His colour looked paler than usual.
“How’s the wound?” Jake asked. He decided pausing before standing up was the best route to avoid passing out again.
“Bit of a mess,” Drak admitted.
Jake reached into one of his pouched and found a long bandage which he tossed carefully to his friend. The dragonkin grabbed it, winced and then set about binding the wound with it.
“What happened?” another voice asked and Ell tried to push himself up onto one elbow. He failed and lay back on the cavern floor.
“We were nearly killed by a hydra,” Drak replied.
“That explains all the aches and pains,” Ell said, shaking his head. “How did we escape?”
Jake recounted briefly what had happened in the cavern.
“I see why those beetles are so valuable now,” Drak added, unable to keep a little sadness out of his voice.
“Just glad you had it,” Ell replied. “I know you wanted to use it for other things but it definitely saved our lives.”
Jake nodded. “I know. There’s no way we would have escaped that hydra without the boost it gave me.”
“What’s all the noise?” Silt asked groggily. Curled on one side, she opened just one eye to glare at them.
“We were just celebrating being alive,” Ell said.
Drak grunted. “For now.”
“Any idea where we are?” Jake asked the half-elf.
She closed her eyes for a moment. “We made it back up a few levels and we need to keep heading roughly east. I think there’s a main access tunnel along there that all levels will lead out to. We can use it to get back to the surface.”
“That’s good news,” Ell said, obviously trying to be optimistic and a little cheerful after their brush with death.
Jake finally summoned the courage to stand up and leaned against the cavern wall for a moment as his head spun. He then looked around and saw an exit from the cavern with the signature bright light of the maintenance tunnels visible.
“Think that might be east?” he asked Silt.
She raised her head a little, glanced in the direction of the exit and nodded. “Give me a few more minutes rest, then we will get started.”
After a short while longer, Silt stirred herself. She was unsteady and looked like she had both a cold and a fever at the same time. Her movements were a little jittery from the electricity, but she stood up and gestured to the cavern exit.
“Time to go, I’m guessing,” Ell remarked breathlessly, pushing himself up using the cavern wall and following her, stumbling the first few steps.
Drak shrugged and did the same, leaving Jake to bring up the rear.
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Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The four walked or staggered for a while with no conversation, each of them too exhausted from the fight and their injuries to do more than put one foot in front of another.
“Are we heading slightly upwards?” Ell asked, sounding a little more breathless than before.
“I think so,” Silt replied.
“That’s good, right?” he asked his optimism from earlier seeming to have been lost somewhat. A probable concussion and maybe a cracked rib or two would do that to you, Jake reflected as he walked.
“Yes…” Silt replied.
The tunnel ahead of them split into two and Silt took a left. This tunnel was wider than the previous one.
After another short distance, they reached an access door. Silt stopped and studied the strange markings over the door for a moment.
“This is good,” she said, taking a moment to lean against the tunnel wall.
“Where does it lead?” Jake asked.
“No idea,” she replied. “But it could be access to the street and finally a way out of here.”
“Then let’s go,” Drak said. He, too, had been leaning against the tunnel wall and pushed himself upright, wincing as he did.
Silt turned the door locking wheel on the access door for two rotations. There was a click and the door swung open a little, causing her to stumble back a half-step. She muttered something but checked around the door to see what was there.
“All clear,” she said, taking a step back and swinging the door open fully.
On the other side of the door was another cavern, but this one was bland and empty, apart from a single iron ladder set into the far wall and vanishing through a hole in the cavern roof.
“There had to be ladders, didn’t there?” Drak muttered, holding his wounded side.
“Of course, there is,” Ell replied. “This might take a while.”
Jake paused. He heard a noise. An unmistakable noise.
“You hear that?” he hissed to the others.
“Hear what?” Drak shouted, sounding a little baffled.
“I heard it,” Silt replied, her voice equally subdued. “The clicking sound. The first creature from the tunnels.”
“It’s still following us?” Ell said with fear in his voice. “Why?”
Silt pushed herself to move as quickly as her battered body would allow her to cross the cavern and reach the ladder. “Why does anything down here do what it does? We just need to get out of here.”
Drak paused by the door and reached out to pull it shut after them, hoping to slow the creature down. Just as the door nearly closed, something blocked it. A clawed paw inserted itself into the space before the door could close. The density essence the creature had used earlier allowed it to stop the door without damage.
Then it let out a howl and ripped the door from the hinges, throwing it back down the tunnel behind them. For the first time, they got a clear look at what had been pursuing them.
It was a little shorter than Jake but with a hunched posture that hinted at a greater height. It has black eyes with tiny pinpricks of red that they had first seen in the tunnel where the beetle had been killed.
It had pale white leathery skin that looked nearer the colour of bone with some slightly furry patches that looked almost a little mangy. It has more fur on its head, but the muzzle was bare and nearly skeletal looking. Its muzzle looked like a cross with a bird’s bead and sharp white teeth could be seen.
For some reason, it reminded Jake of pictures he had been of plague priest masks from the last major plague outbreak a city had experienced.
The creature reached out to one of the tunnel walls where there was bare stone and pulled some of the stone away. It drew it from the wall and formed it into spikes that hovered above its paws, each spike glowing faintly green. Unlike the usual consistency of stone, this looked almost like wet clay. It started to shrink as the creature condensed it and made it more solid.
“We need to go!” Silt shouted, turning to the ladder and starting to climb.
The others moved close to the ladder, and Ell started to climb. Silt paused momentarily, raising her hand as if to try to use her essence, but nothing happened. She was simply too exhausted to do anything without killing herself.
Abruptly, there was movement from behind Drak. The tiny Myphler that had attached itself to the dragonkin way back appeared from the folds of his coat and perched for a moment on his shoulder.
To their shock, the tiny creature hopped down into the middle of the cavern, between them and the large red-eyed creature. The Myphler raised a paw and a small green geode appeared. It had a very faint green glow and seemed to undulate as if the stone was moving.
The other creature looked at the geode and abruptly, it increased in size and the glow brightened. The movement within the crystal grew, small pieces of crystal moving up and down in a way that more resembled a piece of machinery than a natural crystal.
Jake was mesmerised by what they were seeing. The two creatures studied the geode without looking at each other or anything else in the room.
“Are they talking to each other?” Drak wondered in a stage whisper that wasn’t really that quiet. “Chatting about the quality of the stone around here or something?”
The geode seemed to flash for a moment as if reacting to Drak’s voice. Jake reached out and grabbed Drak’s arm, gesturing for him to be quiet. His friend gave a slightly sheepish smile and mimicked zipping his lips.
The geode continued to move with the occasional slight change in colour and brightness. Then abruptly, it formed into a perfect square and flashed once.
The creature picked the stone spear from the air, turned it around, and ate the thinner end. It gave the four of them a slow once-over with its glowing red eyes and turned to leave the room. It offered the Myphler one last look that somehow reminded Jake of the looks his mother would give him when his experiments went wrong as a kid.
Then it simply walked out of the room. The eerie clicking noise that had followed them through the tunnels was utterly absent.
“The bastard,” Silt said, watching the creature walk back along the tunnel. “It didn’t need to make that noise at all!”
“What just happened?” Ell asked, looking utterly baffled.
“I’m pretty sure my little friend here just saved our necks,” Drak said. He bent down a little and held out a hand. The Myphler raced over to him, hopped up into his hand and returned to his shoulder.
Jake studied the little creature, strange ideas forming in his mind. But that was for another day. Now they just needed to get out of these tunnels.
Silt started to climb and when she reached the grate in the cavern ceiling, she gave a little shout of triumph. “It’s an exit!”
Minutes later, the four of them were standing on a street somewhere, enjoying the feeling of fresh air or at least fresher than was found in the tunnels. They were out, finally.