3

Dark Machinations

Oydd removed the final, rusted plate of armor from Gad and tossed it on the pile. Two copper studs still protruded from the discolored skin, but the rudra left them. The half troll's skin would grow over them in time, like it had the others, and removing them would be far too invasive a surgery while Gad was conscious. And the half troll recovered incredibly quickly from the most powerful anesthetic the rudra could produce.

Oydd began to operate on the trollblood's jaw, just as Scorpion moved into his periphery. The rudra jumped and nearly dropped his scalpel at the sight of the ratling. While the more gruesome side-effects from the witch's experimentation had begun to clear up—including the pustules, the hair loss, and the rancid smell—the ratling still stood a foot taller than before, and the rudra found his visage more menacing, partly due to his withdrawn lips, which made his teeth more pronounced, and his single, bulging eye.

"What is it?"

"I called your name twice," Scorpion answered.

"Oh... I'm sorry, I was... somewhere else."

"What are you doing to his jaw?"

"It was fused shut. Which wasn't really an issue, until a cluster of polyps blocked his nasal passage, and he was unable to breathe. If you'll pardon me, I'll need to work while we talk."

"Do what you want. Seems like a waste, since he doesn't need to breathe anyway."

"I suppose he would survive, but I'm not certain. He is hovering on the brink of undeath and some sort of resuscitation."

"Ew..." Scorpion said. He tossed a small, blood-soaked pouch onto the table. "This what you wanted?"

"Careful. At least put it on a tray." The rudra moved the bag himself to a more suitable location, and drew the string to peek inside. "Excellent. Yes, this is perfect."

"I have a surprise, too." The ratling grinned and placed a bundle on the table, wrapped in black cloth.

Oydd raised a brow as he reached for the package. He rolled it over and delicately pulled apart the folded cloth, revealing a set of twisted, slightly curved horns, each just over a foot in length, emitting a soft, violet light.

"Careful. The ridges on the spirals are razor sharp."

"Oh, my. Where did you..."

"I took them from a dhampir assassin. She was regenerating so fast I had to rip them from her head before I could get her to stay dead. They're Bale's, right?"

Oydd lifted one of the horns carefully in his fingers, inspecting it. "Magnificent."

Scorpion smiled again until he heard Cricket's voice. His remaining eye twitched, and he turned to leave, walking past the insect without so much as a nod, then shouted back to Oydd. "I'll trade them for his arm..."

"We don't have his arm," Oydd said, more to Cricket as the ratling left.

Cricket shrugged. "We'll find it." Cricket watched the retreating ratling.

"He's huge. Like... four feet now!" Cricket scratched a mandible. "Which isn't much, really..."

"He was three feet. He's more than double his original weight. It's a result of the infusion of ogre blood. He's quite lucky she used a species with which ratling's are compatible. You should have seen some of the other... subjects."

"That doesn't sound right..."

"What?"

"You said going from three feet to four feet is more than twice the size." Cricket's face scrunched up. "That doesn't sound right."

"Well, it is."

The insect found his jade khopesh sitting off to one side of the room, near the wall that opened to the exterior. Without the fog, he could see for miles, which still made the insect a bit dizzy. He looked back down at the weapon.

"Did you get a chance to—"

"I did," Oydd said without looking up. A sudden crack reverberated through the room and a blob of troll blood spattered on the rudra's beak. He wiped it off in disgust.

"You know, your tentacles are getting longer."

"Really?" Oydd asked, amused. He absently stroked a tentacle with his clawed hand.

"You don't ever... cut yourself?"

"With the claw? Hmm..." The rudra thought. "They... had a will of their own at first, but it has mingled with my own, and now it's as if it does not want to cut me. I can feel the divine mana coursing through my blood, and... don't touch that!"

Cricket placed the beaker back so quickly that it tipped over and began to spill a viscous green liquid. He stood it back up hastily enough to save half the contents.

Oydd grimaced and placed his scalpel down pointedly. "To answer your question, yes, I finished analyzing the weapon—don't touch that either!"

Cricket hadn't quite touched the black leather tome yet, and considering Oydd's reaction, he decided not to.

"That belonged to the other rudra. It contains priceless notes."

"And?"

"And what?" Oydd taunted, still a little perturbed.

"And what does it do? My khopesh. I mean... how does it do it?"

Oydd took a moment to collect himself, trying to ignore the spilled beaker, but his tone still sounded grumpy. "It's actually quite fascinating. I did wonder how it could be enchanted and have anti-magic properties at the same time. It's sort of a contra—"

"But what about the antennas?"

"What about your antennae?"

"I asked you why my clones don't have antennas."

"You most certainly did not."

"I... oh shoot. I was supposed to pass that along." Cricket scratched his head.

"Pass it along? From your shadows? I don't want you passing questions along from your shadows."

Cricket hung his head. "Almost all of my questions come from my shadows. They came up with the floating head idea."

"They have beautiful minds," Oydd snipped. "I don't think you so much as told me they were missing antennae. But it's consistent, I suppose. The blades themselves drain magical energy, rather than simply dispelling it. The enchantment lets you use that energy instead of your own when you create shadows. You did notice, for example, you became much more proficient in making clones right after you stole energy from the ettin? Which..." he pointed Bale's index claw at the insect, "means it is still very dangerous to make too many shadows. You don't know how much energy you have available."

"What does that have to do with missing antennas?"

"The weapons have imprinted on you... or with you?" Oydd paused to consider the wording. "Perhaps the stored energy copies your form when it is stored, not when it is used. Have you tried making clones of different shapes and sizes?"

"It doesn't work..."

"Well... there you go." Oydd picked up his scalpel and turned back to Gad, but the trollblood had already started to stir. He sighed and placed the scalpel down again.

"He won't be able to fight as well without that armor."

"I don't think he wants to fight anymore," Oydd replied.

"He wants things?" Cricket asked in surprise.

"He does. Right now his mind is clouded. It's more... feelings than thoughts. But—"

A sudden shrill screech echoed from outside, and Cricket ran to the ledge. However, an overhanging balcony from above made it difficult to look upward.

"What was that?"

"Sounded like an imp," Oydd commented, unconcerned. "Let the archers get it." His claw suddenly twitched, then began to glow much more fiercely, illuminating the flasks and walls with a sparkling amethyst gleam.

"It hasn't done that before."

Bale's horns burned through the black cloth wrapping them, and turned like the needles of a compass toward the open air of the cavern.

"What are those!" Cricket asked excitedly.

"Cricket, be—"

A violet streak darted across the room as a winged creature crashed into the rudra's alchemical alembic, shattering the glass and knocking over the table. Oydd raised his clawed hand defensively, but Cricket stood dumbfounded, staring at the mess.

Slowly he began to draw his four weapons.

The grey-skinned creature unfurled Bale's mighty wings, with an impressive span of twenty feet, knocking over more instruments and sending the rudra's notes flying into the corner in a whirling gust of wind.

The creature vanished as Cricket lunged for it. His khopesh cut through nothing but air. Mid-attack, the insect guessed at his opponent's trajectory, and altered his three following slashes to cover multiple escape routes. But he hit nothing.

It appeared an instant later behind Oydd, wrapping its arms around his waist. Its lashing tail knocked over a lectern, and then it vanished with the rudra as quickly as it had appeared.

Cricket started toward the rudra's last location, readying a strike, but hesitated, unsure if the rudra were somehow invisible simply for having touched the gargoyle.

He froze and his antennae stiffened, sensing. The gargoyle appeared again, too close to strike with his outstretched arm. Before Cricket could make a move, he found the laboratory ripped away to be replaced by open air.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Cricket looked down at the distant ground as he started to fall, then upward, where he saw the rudra hovering.

Oydd reached out Bale's claw toward the insect, and Cricket suddenly felt himself rising back to the rudra's level.

"It wasn't just invisible!" Cricket shouted. "It can teleport!"

"Yes, I figured that out," Oydd yelled back.

One floor below them, Cricket saw Scorpion standing near an opening. The ratling took up a fighting stance as he darted deeper into the tower.

"Send me that way!" Cricket shouted.

"I'm having trouble holding both of us!" The rudra drifted downward. He started to shout again, but snapped his beak shut with a grunt, and a sudden wave of force propelled Cricket toward the opening on the floor below.

He crashed to the ground, rolling to mitigate the impact, and turned back just as the rudra began to plummet. Oydd placed his own hand in the palm of Bale's claw. His tentacles began to whip about and his descent slowed.

Cricket waited until he was certain the rudra was safe before he ran deeper into the tower after Scorpion. He came upon the mouseling first, huddled behind a doorway.

"Did you see a gargoyle?"

"What's a gargoyle?"

"Did you see Scorpion?"

The mouseling pointed right, down the hallway, then withdrew deeper into her corner.

Cricket stowed one of his daggers and fished around in his pack for a handful of throwing stars as he ran. He heard the sound of metal scraping against stone in the hallway ahead as he readied three shurikens between his fingers.

Cricket skidded to a stop in the middle of an intersection, where the ratling and the gargoyle traded blows.

"Duck!" Without waiting, he threw a fistful of shurikens and they spread as they flew. Scorpion rolled backward, barely dodging one, as two bounced from the gargoyle's stonelike skin.

"Ducking wouldn't have helped, you idiot! I was doing fine!"

As scorpion shouted, the gargoyle appeared behind him, only to be met by a lashing dagger in the ratling's tail. It vanished, dodging the slash, and appeared in front of the ratling, where Scorpion quickly latched onto its face near the eye socket. The gargoyle chose again to vanish into nothing.

Cricket moved to the ratling's right side, to cover his missing arm.

"What is this?" Scorpion spat.

"I've seen it before, but I don't—"

Cricket felt an arm and a tail wrap around him, and instantly he was ripped away from the hallway. He started to swing a dagger, but noticed at the last second he was aiming for Bax's nose, and stopped.

"Hey!" the gnome called out cheerily. He held a lantern up to the insect's face that illuminated a very small, uneven cavern no bigger than the mess hall at the Warren's.

Black smoke billowed from the lantern, and Cricket had to place a hand before his eyes to stop the orange light from blinding him.

"Turn it down!" Cricket reflexively reached out for the lantern, but his hand passed straight through it.

"Oh, sorry, it's not real... I—"

The room went dark.

"Oh, brandysnaps!" Cricket heard the gnome's voice in the dark. "You convinced me it wasn't real."

"Can you do something dimmer, like a mushroom?" Cricket asked.

"Hold on. I can't make something without forgetting something. Let me pick something unimportant."

A tiny, purple luminescent mushroom appeared on the ground between the two, lighting again the small cavity. Cricket saw no exit. The black smoke from the lantern still hung about the ceiling.

"The smoke was real!" Bax said proudly. "I can make smoke!"

A moment later, the violet light of Bale's wings lit the room, but when Cricket turned, he saw only the Mouseling, and the light vanished.

"Crud. Crud, crud, crud. We need a plan." Cricket stood and began to walk around the perimeter.

"Where am..." the mouseling said, curiously inspecting her surroundings.

Bax answered, "We're close. I could hear fighting earlier. I think it's just a little hole in the rock near the tower."

"How did you get here?" Cricket asked the gnome.

"I started here."

Cricket shook his head doubtfully.

Suddenly, a troubled look crossed the gnome's face. "No, that doesn't... did you ask me to forget something?"

"I didn't ask," Cricket said defensively.

"Well, I bet I forgot how I got here. That wouldn't be very important. Sometimes, if I have to forget something, I pick unimportant things."

"It's kind of important," Cricket replied.

Suddenly the mouseling cried out, "Pip!"

"It's okay," the insect tried to console her. "He can take care of himself, right?"

Patches' lip quivered, but she thought over Cricket's words, and slowly nodded. "But he'll be scared without me. I'm really big to him. Like a giant."

"He's made it through worse." He turned to Bax. "How long—"

Scorpion came crashing down in the midst of the group, squashing the mushroom. He jumped back to his feet, looking around the cavity frantically.

"Where are we?"

"Trapped for now," Cricket said, simply.

"If it were me," Bax said, "I would have just teleported you guys off the cliff!"

"You know, he tried that!" Cricket said in amusement. "Oydd stopped me from falling."

"Is Oydd okay?" Patches asked.

"I... well he'd probably be here if he wasn't, right?"

Scorpion still scurried about the edges of the cave, sniffing the air and listening for outside sounds. Eventually he tired and leaned against the wall with a dagger gripped tight in his hand.

"Maybe we should—oo! Patches, do you have the caltrop bag?"

"Don't call it that..." Scorpion complained.

"What's that?" the mouseling asked.

"The, um... the magic green bag."

"It just has leaves now."

"That's because you want leaves," Scorpion responded.

"It's because we need leaves," Cricket argued. "But why?"

Scorpion sighed. "What did you want it for?"

"We need a plan."

"And?" Scorpion asked, annoyed. "Caltrops to the rescue, right?"

"If we cover the ground with caltrops, wherever that gargoyle appears, it will have to step on a caltrop."

"Gargoyle?" Scorpion repeated.

"Yeah, that thing that brought us here."

"Gargoyles are just statues made of stone. They're fictional monsters."

"Then what would you call it?" Cricket asked.

"It was just an imp with some sort of stone skin spell." Scorpion sat silently for nearly a minute, and surprisingly, no one else spoke. "That's not a horrible idea. The caltrops."

"Patches?" Cricket said.

"I don't want to give it to you."

"Can you do it?"

Patches searched through her densely packed satchel until she found the green velvet bag squished near the bottom. She opened it up and pulled out a bright red leaf.

"It just has leaves," she said again.

"Let me try..." Cricket coaxed. He held out his hand in a non-threatening way.

Patches eyed him suspiciously but handed him the bag. "Sometimes it has green leaves."

Cricket waited until the mouseling withdrew her paw, then eagerly looked inside. "Nice!" He turned the bag upside down and began to spread caltrops around the floor. After a while, they stopped falling out, and he turned it right side up to let it 'recharge', but eventually the ground of the cave had a fairly even coat.

"I can also make it dark," Patches said.

"I don't think that will help. It started out dark, but his wings lit up the place," Bax replied.

"Wait," Scorpion inched toward the group, deftly navigating the iron spikes. "How would you make it dark?"

"With that ring we made. I can let out a little of the magic."

"Magical darkness can stop even sources of light. It's more like smoke," Scorpion clarified.

"I can make smoke," Bax offered.

As if in response, Cricket began to cough. "No, we need less smoke. Magic darkness is better."

Patches' tail began to wag excitedly and she dumped out her bag. After a few minutes of sorting through trinkets, she said, "I left it somewhere. Can I have the leaf bag back? Sometimes it's in there."

"I have it, remember?" Scorpion patted the pouch at his side.

Cricket handed over the green bag, ignoring him and Patches reached inside, pulling out the black, obsidian ring.

"Hey!" Scorpion opened his pouch and furiously looked around for the ring, unsuccessfully, where he thought he had left it.

"Oh, that's weird," Cricket said.

"It is?" Patches whispered.

"Yes, it is. Rings don't normally come out of the caltrop bag."

"Stop calling it that!"

Patches flinched at the ratling's volume, but placed the ring on the ground in their midst and began poking it with her paw.

"I'll just let a little out. Then, if he comes back, he won't be able to see, and we can attack him."

"Will I still be able to see him?" Cricket asked. "I mean... Oydd says I can see heat. Will that still work?"

Patches didn't answer, and Cricket turned to Scorpion.

"Don't look at me. I think so?"

The mouseling poked the ring one last time and the room suddenly went totally, irredeemably dark.

"Nope." Cricket said sadly. "Ow!" he yowled.

“Don’t move!” Scorpion sighed. "We should have just done the caltrops or the darkness. Not both."

"That's a really good idea," Bax joined.

"Oh... ow... It cracked my shell."

"You'll live."

"You don't understand. I just molted."

"I hate to say it," Scorpion added, "but if he comes now, we're toast."

A long silence followed.

"Okay," Cricket said calmly. "Everyone on your knees, and feel around for caltrops. We'll put them back in the bag for later."

"I don't think that will work," Scorpion said. "Patches, have you ever sent anything away in the bag?"

"What do you mean?"

"I think that answers my question."

"I don't think I can help scrounge about," Bax said with concern. "I'm kind of clumsy."

Cricket took charge. "Okay, Scorpion and Patches, you slowly work around yourselves and make a pile of any caltrops you find, then I'll start putting the piles back in the bag."

"That's not going to work."

"Well we can't just pile them up. It's a really small room with an awful lot of caltrops."

Scorpion sighed. "Fine."

The three began groping around in the dark on their knees making piles. After about ten minutes, Cricket started stuffing the piles back into the bag.

"Uh-oh..."

"What?" Scorpion asked in alarm.

"Well..."

"What?" he repeated more sternly.

"Well, you were right. The bag got full pretty fast, and then... well it's not good. It... it burst. Um... it's kind of shredded."

Patches started to cry—a loud, but not exaggerated cry that left her breathless. Cricket could hear the large tears as they splashed against the floor of the cave.

"I'm sorry. We... we all thought it would work."

Oddly, Scorpion didn't take the opportunity to argue. Rather, with a very sober tone he said slowly, "The caltrops do have to come from somewhere. My uncle used to have a bag that could only take things from people who needed it more. So it was really a curse."

"How would he know that?" Cricket asked.

"He was clever."

"Did you ever see the bag?"

"He just told me about it. But it did some scary stuff."

Patches' crying slowed, replaced by quick breathing.

"Stop, you're scaring Patches!" Cricket reached out in the dark to try to pat the mouseling, but just got the tip of her tail at first, then accidentally hit one of her eyes.

Eventually he found a patch of fur and started to pet her, and she seemed to calm down a little.

"It's been a while. I don't think he's coming back."