Kharma eyed the dead demon from afar. “Big,” he commented. Further huge monsters were milling about very much alive, caged inside the third level. Dawn took care to stay in stealth and to move softly. She didn’t want to be seen by them. Maybe it was paranoia on her part, but she was afraid the monsters might be able to communicate with their brethren. Better if they didn’t see her and her friends.
“So, what now?” asked Dawn quietly. “I believe we should go back into hiding, the noise might lure more of the monsters here. Can you close up our hiding space more, Kharma? Leave a few holes for air and so we can peep out, but close the rest off. I’d rather not be discovered by the next batch of demons.”
Kharma nodded and started his humming. They all reentered their hide-out. The walls started to close in front of them, leaving only little gaps for air circulation. And not a moment to soon, already the distinctive clicking sounds announced more of the demons.
Dawn, who was standing closest to the passageway and upholding stealth mode, had an eye on one of the gaps in the wall. Watching the spiders passing by that closely gave her an eerie unreal feeling. The first one came to a halt in front of the lowered portcullis, close enough to her that she could have touched it. The monster stood there for a while, unmoving, uttering chittering sounds. Maybe it was communicating with his brethren on the other side of the portcullis. Its legs were moving in front of its body.
With an icy pang, Dawn wondered: “They can’t destroy the portcullis, can they?” That would be a catastrophe. She hadn’t even considered such a possibility in their planning. The bars of the grid were made of thick metal, surely that was enough to ward off any attempts at destruction by the spiders. To her relief the grid seemed to hold up. After an eternity, the first spider reared up on the wall, turned its huge body around and started to march in the other direction. “They are leaving,” she whispered. “But we should still wait here for a while, I don’t trust these monsters. They might lie in wait for us.” In truth, Dawn was reluctant to leave the safety of their hide-out. She knew they had to do it. But thoughts of the spiders waylaying them in the passageways filled her with atavistic terror.
Kharma shook his head: “Tribe might die if wait too long.”
Ashamed of her own cowardice, Dawn remembered his friends might be dying while she gave way to her fear. “You are right,” she whispered. “Let’s open the wall and get down to the main cave. But tread softly, they might have left traps or even be waiting for us at the exit.”
They managed to get down the passageway without encountering any obstacles. Dawn looked out into the main cave grateful for her stealth ability. The grey demons certainly had been stirred up now. Over a dozen monsters were roaming the cave in front of them. How could they escape the passageway undetected? And where should they go then? They could hardly march directly into the spiders’ den, now that the monsters were roused. “We need somewhere to retreat and hide. Out of this passageway. We are sitting ducks here,” Dawn whispered urgently. “We passed another passageway branching out from the entrance when we first entered. The one that was half-filled with rubble. It’s situated a bit farther from the action. Perhaps we can hide there and observe for a while. From here, we can neither construct traps with vermin killer tincture nor shoot fire arrows with impunity. At least not if we are planning to survive the experience.”
They obviously had forgotten to consider some things in their planning session. Of course, the demons would not take the caging or killing of their companions with equanimity and go on with their daily life. She hardly knew how many of the spiders were left, after they had trapped or killed ten of their number. She hadn’t bothered to count the monsters during their nightmarish encounter here the first time around. If she looked at the current action in the main cave, more than a dozen for sure. And that didn’t take into account any that were staying in their den, round the bend in the passageway to their left. The elation she had felt after the first part of their plan had gone off without a hitch petered out.
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The companions were forced to wait in the passage for a while. Dawn felt uncomfortably exposed. Her nerves made her jittery and she was hard-pressed to keep motionless. Even Ankou had been affected by the general tension. While his body remained motionless as he was sitting next to her, his tail was lashing wildly behind him. ‘I’m just not made for that kind of nerve-racking situation. I neither have the courage nor the patience for this waiting game.’ She thought wryly.
Finally, the demons seemed to settle down a bit. Dawn crept out into the main cave and scurried from one lime stone column to the next, keeping a sharp lookout for webs and traps on the way. One after another the companions risked entering the open cave. They used the stone columns as cover and did their best to move quietly. Finally they arrived at the half-blocked entrance. Ankou leapt up on the rubble and vanished in the entrance. Dawn waited for Kharma and Lutha to go through first. Her back was itching like crazy, her paranoia telling her the demons were just waiting to pounce on her any moment, but she had a stealth skill. Her friends were more vulnerable than her in the open.
As they entered past the rubble they found themselves standing in an oval cave. Two exits were leading out on the other side. Dawn said: “Let’s take a look at those passages. I’d like to know where those lead to. Kharma flicked his ears and complained: “Forget passages. Freeing tribe important.” “I want to help them too, Kharma. But I’d like to be sure that nothing will stab us in the back while we try to do that. Thus checking unknown passages in our hide-out to see where they lead.”
Dawn disappeared in the exit to the left. It lead downwards and after only a few moments she reached the end. A cozy little cave opened up before her. She saw one of the familiar stone beds. These had also been present in most of the buildings of the ruined city above. Here, the half-rotted remains of some bedding were still present. There was a sort of reclining chair made out of dark wood and a stone table with stone benches. The wall over the bed was dominated by the portrait of a beautiful raven-haired woman with dark eyes and a kind smile. She was wearing a richly decorated gown of dark red material and a necklace and earrings of intensely red, glittering stones. One whole side of the cave was taken up by a dusty stone work surface, a wall held open shelving filled with pots, pans, pottery and everyday knickknacks used in a kitchen. “Someone used to live here and left all his belongings,” Dawn said astonished. “All the other buildings and workshops in the city were empty.”
After a cursory look around she retraced her steps and went down the right-hand passage. This one led into a far bigger room. Work benches separated it into several sections. Alchemical paraphernalia were lying around on the surfaces. In one part of the room a huge circle inscribed with some kind of runes was laid into the floor. Shelves filled with books, tools and storage containers stood against the wall. Everything was covered with dust. Dawn was impressed by the workshop and she itched to take a closer look at everything. Forcefully, she reminded herself that it was not a good idea to let herself get distracted right now. With a last lingering look at the room she regretfully left it behind and returned to her friends.
“It leads to someone’s abandoned home and workshop. There’s a lot of stuff lying around, but it is empty of monsters and there are no other exits.” She reported.
Kharma nodded impatiently and asked: “What now?”
“We try to create traps with the vermin killer?” Dawn replied in a soft voice. “Though I’m not exactly sure how to do it. Construct it on the way through the cave? Drop it down from the ceiling?”
“Ceiling works best,” Kharma decided. “Too much demons on way.”
Dawn slowly stuck her head out into the main cave to study the layout. Tipping her head back she looked up to the ceiling and barely managed to stifle a yelp. Only a few meters away from her position a demon was hanging onto the roof of the cave. Several more were scuttling over the ground in their direction. She turned around very slowly and quietly whispered. “Uh guys, we might have a slight problem here.”