I raise my sword to strike again, but a telltale crackling and sudden sound of ozone change my mind. I jump back, unnecessarily, as a blinding flash of lightning leaps from Cerberus’ mouth and into the ooze. Blinking past my damaged vision, I can see it seizing and churning wildly, as though caught up in a windy storm. All at once, it flattens out, as if it had suddenly lost all cohesion. My companion’s mouth crackles for a few more seconds before settling back into normalcy, and letting the deep darkness of the crypt return.
“Fuck.”
“Mmm?”
“That was cool as hell.”
“Pah, it is nothing compared with what I once was… what I will be again.” He eyes me with the last part.
“Right, the cold and fire as well. What happened to them when you… got compressed?”
“Nothing. They are me. The other heads serve as a redundancy, making me harder to kill. One will, three minds. With them, I had simultaneous command of three armies, and few could stand against me on even ground.”
I nod. “I can imagine. Thanks.”
The ooze bubbles slightly, but ultimately disappears, leaving a strange residue on the ground where it was. On speculation, I scrape some of it in to a glass vial I have.
[Lesser Ooze Essence - Alchemical ingredient. Properties: bio-acidic; conductive.]
Hmm. I stopper it and stow it away. In the center of the center of the remaining Ooze Essence on the ground, a particularly large lump stands out. I kick it, while Lauren rummages around in the containers at the back of the room. The large pile gives slightly, but something solid skitters across the stone. I dump a bit of water from my waterskin onto it to wash it off, and pick it up. Some kind of stone…
[Ruby]
I’m unsure how useful that will be, but maybe I can sell it for something? I shrug and stow that away as well.
“What’s in the containers?” I call out to Lauren.
“Not much. Some old scrolls, mostly dust at this point. I touched one, and it powdered immediately. There’s a hunk of metal, and something that might be a pencil? I don’t know. Seems like junk, honestly.”
“Yeah, probably some writing equipment… hold on to the pencil and metal, maybe someone can make use of it.”
Lauren frowns at me. “I’ll leave it by the way out, but I’m not carrying it around.”
I shrug my ambivalence at her and head back down the hall, towards the room with the slabs she talked about. Just as Lauren had promised, the slabs are covered in some kind of writing, but not something I can recognize at all. I want to take a rubbing, but I have nothing to take it on. Zathis could almost certainly tell me what it says, but we can’t get him down here, and the stones appear to be part of the ground. I might be able to break them and ferry them up, but that also sounds terrible. I make a point to memorize as much as I can, fully aware that, even with the extreme, system enhanced memory I have, that I’ll definitely lose a lot of nuance in recreating the unfamiliar characters.
“See? Dumb, useless writing. Come on, I think I’ve got everything from in the other room.”
“Don’t you wonder what they say?”
“Nah. The Dwarves all died, remember? What do we care what they have to say? If we act like them, we’ll end up as shitty Shades as well.”
“Hmm… valid, but I’m still curious.”
“Whatever, nerd.” She meets my frown with a cheeky smile, adding extra saunter to her gait as she leads the way to where Cerberus waits, somewhat patiently.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Cerberus, you can’t read Dwarvish, can you?”
He eyes me for a moment, as though I were making a joke at his expense. Not finding what he was looking for he responds simply: “My kind has no need for writing of any kind. I respect no other enough to learn their ways.”
We start walking down the hall, dimly aware of a patrolling undead blundering about ahead of us. “You don’t have writing? How do you record things? Learn from the past? Mark the passage of time?”
“We have those who remember. They are cared for by us all, and kept safe, and they remember… or they did, before they were taken from us. The administrator saw no need for them, and without them, our history is forever lost.”
“Biological archives, interesting.” The undead seems to notice us, but instead of following the usual undead logic of charging right at us, it disappears around a far corner, as though running away.
“You guys just had to talk.”
“It’s a shitty undead, what’s it going to do? Chatter at us?”
“You don’t need me telling you how dangerous this place can be. Are you even looking for traps, or are you too buys shooting the shit with your new pal?”
… Shit.
“That’s what I thought. To think, you gave me such a hard time when we first hung out.”
“Yeah, after you tried to kill me.”
“Water under the bridge. It brought us closer.”
“You stabbed Kaythe!”
“And I’m very sorry about that. Kaythe forgives me, don’t you?”
“Predator, the violent one addresses me? I am confused.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, of course he forgives you. You only stabbed him a little bit, after all.”
“See?” She says, taking my sarcasm in stride. “He’s a very smart worm thing.”
I sigh, exasperated.
“Enough chatter. Something is wrong.”
Where before, there was a bit of noise coming from down the hall: the odd shuffling, or slight clinking of metal on stone… now, only silence reigns. The stillness hangs ominously in the musty air, quickly ending the sense of levity that had pervaded our group.
We carefully move forward, eyes roving constantly, ears open to any noise, but nothing looks visually out of the ordinary, and only our footsteps interrupt the breathtaking silence.
The corner where we last saw the undead turns left, opening up into a long, vacant hall, which even my sight can’t see the end of. I swap to Kaythe’s eye instead, and manage to just make out a large door at the end of the hall, which seems to be firmly closed. It warrants further investigation, but later.
The absence of any and all undead is the most unnerving part. They went somewhere, meaning there’s probably a trap for us… the question is where.
Halfway down the hall, a left and right hallway break off from this main path. The left hall is wide and tall, where the right one is more narrow.
“Flip a coin?”
“We go right.”
“Or just ask Cerberus, that works too.” Killjoy.
The hallway continues uneventfully despite our efforts to find any dangers, and we reach another left turn. I check the corner, as usual, but can’t quite make out what’s at the end. Something large and dark blocks the lower section of the end of the hall, up to about waist height, but I don’t see anything beyond that through the darkness.
Once again resorting to Kaythe, I look through his eye just in time to see an arrow flying straight towards me, and my vision goes dark as It hits my eye directly. A gasp of pain escapes me as I’m jarringly relocated back to my own senses… my eye is fine, it was Kaythe. I turn in horror to see him writhe on the ground for a few agonizing seconds, arrow protruding, before curling up slightly, and vanishing.
My sword is raised before the arrow even hits the ground. My steps carry me rapidly forward, Energy already a raging inferno in my breast. You dare to hurt what is mine? You dare?
A small barricade bars the way, and arrows whistle down the hall. At my speed, I have no hope of dodging, but I do have an utter lack of concern. The first arrow, I bat aside with my blade. The second, third, fourth, and fifth, I suffer without complaint. Three of them bounce harmlessly off my armor, having hit the solid plates, but my forearm and shoulder are not so well protected. The pain drives me faster, but I can’t grip my sword as well with my left hand anymore. I step, finally close enough to the barricade, and jump, but all friction is lost in my attempt. I fall to the ground, splashing a strange liquid onto myself, but pay no attention to it. Instead, I fly back to my feet and obliterate the barricade, expending far too much effort and Energy on one swing.
I hear warnings from behind, voices I should listen to, but I can’t. I see the one who did it. In the half second before Kaythe was struck, I saw a Wight’s face. Less decayed than the others, and covered in relatively complete leather armor, this bow wielding Wight’s face holds no remorse for what it did, but I’m certain I can change that.