27

“We really can’t get out through these tunnels,” San said as he shoved against the blockage of rocks and debris. He dusted the resin off his gauntlets and looked to Elgava who stood with a torch in hand.

“We’re fucked,” she said.

“Not entirely,” San exited the tunnel, looking up toward the hole in the roof. “We could climb out through there.”

“There’s about fifty feet from the floor to the roof, foreigner. Unless you can jump that high.”

“I really sucked at basketball,” San said. “People always figured since I was tall, I’d be good at it, but I was terrible.”

“Sometimes when you talk, I have no idea what you’re saying,” Elgava said. She shrugged. “Maybe we’ll find a rope or something around here, perhaps built a staircase out of the dead bodies and batto corpses.”

‘There’s an idea,” Bostarion said as he neared them. “I mean finding a rope or something, not building a staircase out of corpses.”

“There is a lot of trash in here,” San said.

“Aye, but there might be treasures too,” Elgava said, nudging a rusted hammer half buried in resin. “A few hundred sars and some new gear, I could become an Adventurer.”

“You want to be an Adventurer?” San asked.

Elgava shrugged. “I have a level now. Never thought I’d have one before. Not much you can do with a level like mine except fight or hunt monsters.”

“I’m sorry,” San said. “I didn’t think about that. You might have had other dreams you wanted to follow.”

Elgava snorted. “Fuck that. What lay ahead of me was getting my narrow ass married and squeezing out babes for some half drunk farmer, like my sisters, like my cousins and every damn one I know.” She looked around at the semi-dark cavern. “This is actually far worse, but it can get better if we survive.”

“If we survive,” Bostarion said. “We don’t have much daylight left, so I’d suggest you start looking for anything that can help. I’ll get a camp set up and make sure the Mage and the Tribal don’t wander off and get themselves killed.”

“Aye, aye,” Elgava saluted.

Elgava walked up to the wall of the cavern and began tugging on something. San watched as she pulled a rusted spear from the wall, she knocked off some of the resin and eyed the dull oxidized blade. She shrugged and walked forward, stopping and then thrusted downward with it. There was a wet popping sound and she grimaced and spat. When she pulled the spear back, there was a fleshy orb stuck to it.

“Smells worse than the fuckers when they’re older,” she said.

Battos eggs, San realized. He scanned the floor and saw many of the head sized fleshy orbs. Bostarion said they needed the warmth to grow fully, but it seemed Elgava wasn’t taking any chances.

San dug into his pockets and pulled out his flashlight. He powered up the light and began looking in the dark corners of the cavern. The walls were thick we resin and old bones of animals and creatures. The heavy rotting stink was still everywhere, but with the opening in the roof, there was some fresh air coming in. The temperature had already dropped too, not freezing, but chilly.

San kicked aside cast off egg sacks and peered behind anything that looked like it might hold something. If it weren’t for the situation they were in and the fact that there were dead animals all around them, San might have enjoyed the treasure hunt. It reminded him somewhat of Mary’s excitement when they would go looking at antiques or garage sales to find a perfect overlooked item. She had a taste for brass, wood, and glass, as she used to say: ’stuff that would look cool in candlelight’.

There was a lot of trash and bone. Nothing that seemed useful. San walked along the edges of the room, staring up at the half devoured creatures that the battos had retrieved. He wondered with a nest this large, how they managed to stay hidden so long. It didn’t seem that something this big could have gone unnoticed for so long. The sheer logistics of feeding the vast amount of workers would have stripped the entire forest and mountains of game.

San came to a stop when he saw a pair of half rotted heads attached to the walls. The gnawed upon skeleton was scattered upon the floor, but San saw the white fur that was still embedded in the resin. He shone his light at the skulls, seeing black hollowed holes staring back at him.

Shrugging, San used his sword to pry the heads from the wall and dropped them to the ground. He used his boots to stomp on the dried out heads, the skulls cracking like dried wood. He crouched down and used his dagger to dig through the desiccated remains. Among the shards of skull were six yellow gems apiece.

“Find something?” Elgava asked. “Gold?”

“Better. Yellow gems,” San said.

“Fuck. No.” Elgava turned and walked away. “You can court death all you want. Count me out.”

“Is it that bad to have these?”

“If the Cults find out you have yellows and can use them, they’ll kill you and take the gems. Only their priests and holy ones can use them,” Elgava said. “Everyone knows that.”

San placed the one dozen gems into the plastic bag with the four he had remaining. He looked at them and shrugged. Life was dangerous enough as it was, what was a little more danger? He knew he could use the gems to make different fires and different strains of yeast. What else did the fire want to be, what else could the alcohol become?

“There’s gold too,” San said, shining his light upon small oval shaped chunks of hammered gold.

“Well, there’s the lad I know and love!” Elgava cried, crouching down and picking up the chunks of gold. “Worry not, we’ll split this all even. Fifty fifty.”

“Thirty-three each,” Bostarion said looking down at Elgava.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

“Any gems found belong to the Baron,” the Mage said as San tucked away his plastic bag. “Any other treasure will be taxed one fifth.”

“Fucking taxes,” Elgava muttered.

“Is that gold?” the Mage asked, crouching beside Elgava.

“I found it first,” she hissed.

“We’re all in this together,” Bostarion said.

“Fuck you guys,” Elgava said. “I was getting half of this, now I’m only getting one fifth?”

“What about the Tribal?” San asked, glancing toward the unconscious man. There was a fire burning and the man had been placed beside it.

“Fuck him,” Bostarion and Elgava stated.

“Anyone find anything useful?” San asked.

Bostarion sighed and looked around. “Nah, there ain’t shit here but shit and trash.”

“Perhaps we can excavate one of these tunnels,” the Mage said.

“There’s usually only one way in and out of a batto nest,” Bostarion said. “Those fuckers, if you’re right, blew the entrance. We’re fucked.”

“Well that Guardian had to come out somewhere, these tunnels seem a bit too small for that big guy,” San said. He didn’t see any other exit that would have been large enough to accommodate the creature. Unless it manage to somehow squeeze itself through the tunnels and snake its way to underneath their camp. “Maybe it was guarding something else than the queen.”

“What would it be guarding besides the queen?” the Mage asked.

San shrugged. “I’m not the batto expert here,” he said.

“The queen’s all they think about,” Bostarion said. “They’d only be protecting her and her young.”

“The queen commands them, right?” San asked. “Otherwise it wouldn’t have come out of the nest and attacked us.”

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“Aye, she can make them do things,” Bostarion said.

“So there’s either another way out of here or the Guardian was guarding something else,” San said.

“That’s a strange leap of logic,” the Mage said. “It also doesn’t help us, unless there is another exit from here.”

San shrugged again.

“With our luck, it’ll be buried under all the rubble,” Elgava said.

“With our luck.”

Everyone looked to the large pile of bricks, rock, dirt, and snow. The mound reached about fifteen feet high, leaving another forty or more feet to the opening.

***

San jerked awake, he sat up quickly and cast around. The fire burned low beside him and the night air was chilly and rotten smelling. He took a slow breath and blinked.

The Mage sat across the fire from him, his dark eyes peering at him.

“Nightmares?” he asked.

“Yeah,” San said. “The Nox attack. I keep seeing the yellow eyes.”

“You killed a Mage in that fight, yes?” the Mage asked.

“Yeah,” San said slowly. “He was doing something, made everyone want to just rest and give up. I managed to shoot him when he wasn’t looking.”

“A poor Mage then,” the man said dismissively.

San didn’t say anything, instead looking out into the dark cavern. They had moved their camp into one of the tunnels, the cavern left them too exposed and no one was positive all the battos were dead.

“I-“ San began but stopped as there was a loud crash within the cavern. He reached for his loaded pistol and with the Mage edged toward the entrance of the tunnel.

Bostarion and Elgava jerked awake, seeing the two of them moving, they grabbed their weapons and wordlessly joined them. Only the Tribal was fast asleep.

There was another crash and a rumble. San looked up toward the ceiling of the cavern.

“I think it might be collapsing,” San said.

“Fuck. Been pure shit knowing you all,” Elgava said.

A cluster of bricks visibly fell from the ceiling, the hole widening slightly. San peered at the hole, seeing towering dark shapes that seemed to cluster around the hole. The stars seemed to waver for a moment, as if something moved in front of it.

“What is that?” San asked.

“Trees,” Elgava said, squinting. “Fucking trees.”

“No that isn’t a fucking tree,” San said. “It’s that thing I saw the first night out of the komai.”

There was another crash.

“Best we back away from here,” Bostarion said, there was fear in his voice as he saw the smearing light. He could see the near humanoid shape, the figure of something they could not entirely see, but it was there. “It’s big, we’ll be safer in the tunnel.”

Everyone agreed and headed back into the tunnel. A moment later there was another crash and a loud rumbling that filled the entire cavern. The Tribal sat up, eyes wide with horror.

“Shit,” Bostarion said.

It began with the clattering of stone and debris, then it began increasing like a hailstorm. Loud cracks, booms, and thunderous rumbling. Then there was a loud thump that shook everyone and the entire cavern’s ceiling collapsed.

San was the last into the tunnel and he saw a shape descending with the cavern roof, the dust and debris coalescing around a massive humanoid shape.

“Fuck,” San said.

The dust, debris, and falling rock clattered everywhere. The others rushed into the tunnels, followed by a billowing clouds of rancid dust and debris. Small stones pinged off of San’s armor and he heard Bostarion curse as he was hit.

They all crouched to the ground, coughing and gagging.

“Quiet,” San hissed. “That thing came down.”

Immediatley everyone shut up, eyes wide. The fire billowed and stuttered, then finally was snuffed out. They were plunged into darkness. The only noise was the whimpering got the Tribal and muttered prayers from Elgava.

“You saw?” the Mage whispered.

“I saw it coming down, I think its what collapsed the roof,” San said back in a low voice.

“What is it?” Bostarion asked.

“I have no clue, but it’s human shaped, with four arms, and what looks like a giant square head, maybe forty feet tall.” San said.

“Fuck,” Elgava whimpered.

“Blessed Mother!” the Tribal cried out. There was the sound of scuffling and the man seemed to have been dog piled and his mouth covered as the next words were a low muffled sob.

“Shut the fuck up,” Elgava hissed. “You wanna die, bastard?”

“Quiet,” Bostarion said.

They sat in the darkness, straining to hear anything. San could feel his heart thundering, the harder he tried to listen, the sound of his heart beat seemed to drown out everything. He could feel something, something moving out there. San remembered seeing the creature coming toward their camp the first night, it had moved through the trees without disturbing them.

Was it some kind of creature that could phase through objects? Like a ghost or something?

The sound of crumbling brick caused everyone to hold thier breaths. More brick clattered about and the noise of something moving in the darkness pulled all their nerves taunt. Could it see them? Were they hiding in the dark for no reason? San didn’t know, the creature had moved easily through the night, perhaps it could see in the dark. If that were the case, they would all be dead before they knew what was happening.

San tensed and strained his ears. He could feel the footfalls more than he could hear them. They were coming closer to their position. Fire in the Night had kept it at bay before, perhaps it would again.

It might work, if he could see anything. The bioluminescent fungi had died once the cold entered the cavern, leaving the entire place a dark and lightless pit.

“Aw, fuck,” Elgava whispered. “The fire didn’t go out completely.”

There was a soft muttering of curses as San began to smell something burning. Smoke tickled his nose, but he couldn’t see any light or flame.

“What is that?” he asked softly.

“I think one of the packs is starting to burn,” Bostarion whispered back.

“There’s gunpowder in all our packs,” the Mage replied.

San moved slowly, his hands roaming the floor of the tunnel and he hissed in pain as his bare hands touched something hot. In the darkness he peered at it and saw the red glow of embers from the fire. He felt around and felt a cloth bag that held some food was smoldering in the ashes of the fire.

He quietly told the others and the managed to shift away from the smoldering embers. Outside of the tunnel, more brick clattered and a strange keening noise began to fill the cavern.

San moved slowly and as quietly at he could. His hands roamed across everything he could touch, feeling the packs they hard carried, discarded resin, and the rocks that littered the cave. He finally found his own pack and slowly began to unzip it.

“What are you doing?” Bostarion whispered.

“The fire,” San said. “The Power kept it away last time in the woods. If we can get the fire going, maybe we can chase this monster away.”

“Or it’ll kill us,” the Mage’s voice responded.

“Maybe. But it won’t be long before it does find us. This cavern isn’t so big we can hide forever.”

No one argued with that.

“Elgava,” San said. “Can you cast your barrier again?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“We’re going to get this fire lit, but once it is lit, that monster’s gonna know where we are. It might try to attack us,” San said. “I need that barrier up as the fire gets lit.”

“It’s not that strong,” Elgava said. “I can hold it for only a few seconds, but anything big hitting it will destroy it easily.”

“I can assist,” the Mage said.

“How?”

“I am a Mage. I can provide her mana as she uses her Power. It can make her barrier stronger and last longer.”

“Really?” San was surprised.

“It is a skill that I have learned and mastered,” the Mage said. “One that all Mages must know so that great magics can be cast.”

San nodded in the darkness. “Okay,” he said. He opened his pack and pulled out the stainless steel water bottle. He also pulled out the small bag of tinder and kindling he carried with him.

Bostarion moved around, bringing out wood and pulling together the embers of the fire.

“We’ll need to act quick,” the ranger said.

“One of these days I’m going to have to find something that’ll start a fire faster,” San said. The remainder of the bottle of Courage was still a high proof alcohol, but it wasn’t guaranteed to ignite fast.

San took a deep breath. “Ready?” he asked.

“Good to go, San,” Elgava whispered back.

Bostarion blew on the embers while San tossed the tinder and kindling atop of it. He then splashed the Courage onto the dried sticks. The fire flared as the alcohol ignited and the kindling and tinder caught fire.

“Fire in the Night,” San said and the fire blossomed with blue. The sudden roar of the fire caused the remaining dried wood to ignite.

There was a loud screech that filled the air, a rumble of bricks and pounding footsteps.

“Barrier!” Elgava screamed and San turned to see a massive twisted fist slam into her barrier. The invisible shield shuddered and flared, but the Mage had his hands around Elgava’s heads. A faint blue glow crossing between his hand and her temples, a look of concentration and straining on the mans’ face.

San picked up a torch and shoved it into the fire. The oil soaked rags and wood flared to life and he pushed himself toward the barrier. Elgava was pale as she strained to hold back the pummeling of the monster.

The barrier shattered as San reached them. He thrust the torch out before him and the fist that had been flying toward them, jerked back. San staggered out of the tunnel, waving the fiery torch before him.

In the light of the torch, he saw the creature fully. He had only seen the outline as it had descended into the cavern. It’s body finally revealed in the clouds of dust. Like Wolfram, this creature could be invisible, but it still left a mark on the world.

San stared up at the monstrosity, his hands trembling as he saw glittering scaled flesh. Iridescent colors, like motor oil in water, wavered and sparkled as hand sized scales reflected the torchlight. The creature was tall, but narrowly built. It was like a man who had been stretched to an impossibly length and covered in scales.

The head was a massive rectangular thing, a massive hinging jaw and scores of eyes dotted the block. It was attached to an impossibly thin neck and shoulders, the arms are multi-jointed and hung nearly to the ground, two sets that ended in oversized mitts with black talons at the end. The legs were bowed and the knees inverted, allowing it to crouch low and scream its rage at San.

“Begone!” the Mage shouted.

There was an explosion as a catalyst rock slammed into the side of the monster’s head. An eruption of flesh and scales formed and the monster screamed in pain. It skittered back, terrifyingly fast and very agile. The iridescent scales flickered and parts of its body began to vanish.

Bostarion rushed out of the tunnel with another torch, followed by Elgava, still looking pale and sweating, who carried a crossbow.

The monster screeched at them and the Mage threw another catalyst rock. It detonated and the monster turned and fled. San watched as it dragged itself back through the now expanded hole in the roof, knocking down more debris and torn up trees.

No one said anything as they stood there, the torchlight illuminated a small patch in the darkness. They couldn’t hear the monster anymore; the only noise was the crackling of the fire and the sputtering of the torches.

“Hetvana’s cunt,” Elgava said. “We make more torches and we keep a fire burning all the fucking time from now on.”

No one disagreed with her on that point.