“Hold on,” Karfice said, grabbing Garrote by the shoulder to stop him from just wandering off. “We can’t run off just yet. We’ve got some company to tend to,“ Karfice nodded over at the mass of confused, disoriented, and terrified dwarven miners
“Yeah, but…”
“It’s fine. I’ll talk to them. You two, scout the vicinity. See if you can find a better source of light,” Kiva said, turning away from them.
“Aye, aye ma’am. Will do,” Karfice said, giving a mock salute to her back.
Garrote leaned towards Karfice, eyes full of mischief, “How far is the vicinity?”
“Who knows? Let’s go figure it out,” Karfice said, returning Garrote’s dumb grin.
Together, as Kiva worked her magic behind them, corralling the terrified dwarves into one cohesive mass, Karfice and Garrote set out from the elevator, doing their best to push back against the unknowable darkness. Their handlights were, suffice it to say, negligible. As they moved out from the torn steel of the elevator floor and onto the damp, cold stone ground of the cave, moss squelching underneath their feet, they realized just how little they could actually see.
It was ominous, the darkness pressing in on every side just a dozen or so feet from their faces, blurring and obscuring the corners of their vision. Every little bump and slant on the unbeaten path was a wonderful surprise. They could barely even make out the walls, no ceiling anywhere in sight. And at some points, the walls also disappeared entirely, leaving them wandering alone in the darkness, every sound echoing into an avalanche.
“Hey, doesn’t it feel a little odd we haven't seen anything yet? I mean, we got such a warm welcome,” Garrote asked, pushing through a dense thicket of slimy, brown vines hanging down from presumably the ceiling, wherever it was. The foliage and scenery had been changing somewhat at random as they continued on, their limited vision betraying any ability to guess what could possibly be next. At least there was a decent bit of life down there. It was a lot less dreary than he’d expected.
“I know, almost felt like it was my birthday,” Karfice said, trudging on next to Garrote, pushing through the odd hanging plants and into a narrow tunnel, which opened up after a moment. Notably, they hadn’t seen any sign that anyone had ever actually been in these mines, no lanterns or lights, no left behind gear, not even a defined path to follow, which was odd considering they were supposed to be close to the start of the mine.
“Speaking of, when is your birthday?”
“What day is it?”
“Uhhhh…December 15th?”
“Huh. 2 days ago.”
“Oh…happy birthday?”
“Thanks.”
“How old are you?”
“17, a remarkable accomplishment.”
Garrote chuckled, careful not to open his mouth much, “Well, when you’re fighting for your life every day, it’s pretty impressive to last a whole year, let alone 17 of them.”
“What about you?”
“My 17th birthday was a little while ago now, July 17th. A shame we travel so much, hard to keep track of the days with everything else going on. I can’t even remember the last time I actually celebrated a birthday.”
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“Well, we could get a day tracker. Typically I just use the sun and weather to approximate the date, so I never bothered getting one before. But we can work on that when we get back…which actually reminds me we should probably start heading back to the cart. Kiva’ll be mad if we just wander off forever.”
“...yeah. So, which direction?”
Karfice turned around, scanning the area behind them for any familiar landmarks, “Uhhhhhh…well we…huh.”
“Are we lost?”
“Yeah we’re definitely lost. I probably should have been paying attention to where we were going.”
“Don't worry, I know exactly what to do. I’ve been in situations like this many times before.”
“Wonder why…”
“This way!” Garrote said, changing pitch and marching forward.
“This is just a random direction, isn’t it?”
“The best thing to do when you’re lost is just keep moving and hope you eventually figure it out. It’s never failed me.”
“That’s definitely-nevermind, better than just standing here.”
But just as they started moving, the ground began to shake, a tremor nearly strong enough to throw the both of them off their feet tearing through the ground. They crouched low, scanning the darkness for any sign of the sudden disturbance, preparing themselves for a fight. It seemed that they had just been lucky up to this point. They really weren't safe no matter where they went. Then from off to the side, flying out from the darkness as if struck, back facing them, was a familiar figure sliding to a stop in between both of them, eyes locked on the darkness in the direction he’d just come from.
“Trenton! There you are!” Garrote said.
“Eye’s up. We’re not alone,” Trenton responded, not daring to blink for even a moment. He was wounded, gashes all across his body, hunks of skin taken out at random, his right eye gouged completely out, but he was still standing.
Yet as Karfice continued to scour the inky abyss with his one eye, he saw nothing, instead feeling what was to come. The ground shook, thin webs of cracks winding in between their feet. Whatever they were dealing with was massive. This must have been what had attacked them earlier. Again, the ground shook, the cracks only growing, little chunks of rubble falling from the ceiling adding to a cloud of dust quickly growing all around them.
Then, little by little, the room began to illuminate, little creatures hovering in the air which glowed with brilliant blue light, fading into existence like they had always been there. Slowly the room came into focus. It was a tall domed opening in the cave, a circular space almost like an area, just a little rough around the edges. On the ceiling, there were a handful of nigh gargantuan stalactites dripping with an unfamiliar blue liquid. They looked well secured. Behind them, the path they had come through was quickly collapsing, the strain of breaking stone too much for the thin passage to bear. Looks like they weren't going to be running from this.
One great hand burst forth from the stone wall on the far side of the room, a malformed, white human hand many dozens of times larger than it should have been, the fingers twisting and snapping in directions they had no right to move. Then, just to the side of the first, another hand burst from the wall, and another, and another. In all, eight hands emerged from the crumbling stone wall, each one slamming into the earth with the strength of ten giants, forcing the ground beneath them to crack and roll like the waves of the South Ingris, crags jutting out at odd angles.
Then finally, last but not least, in the center of it all, the wall began to crack, giving way to the vile creature's head. It was human-like in structure, but also wrong in so many ways. The crooked smile was far too wide, the eyes were too wide and too many, its neck too long, its skin a pristine, bleached white. It looked down at them, crawling forward out of the wall, revealing its body–a mangled mess of twisted flesh and bone serving as the center mass from which everything else jutted out, almost like a spider. What a grotesque creature, and now blood was even starting to seep out from in between its teeth. But not its own blood. No, of course it wasn’t its own blood.
It opened its mouth, hinging its jaw like a snake. Inside, at the back of its throat, mushed together in a fine paste, was an unidentifiable mass of viscera, red and gory. Yet, even once it had revealed this new construct, the beast did not stop. The mouth continued opening even further, snapping open until it was collapsing back in on itself, the red mass inside of its throat pushed forward towards them. It was difficult to make out what it was for certain, but it looked to be pulsating and expanding, ballooning outwards to replace the head of the creature.
The new orb hovered in the air for a moment, now larger than even the head had been moments ago. Then, all across its surface, hundreds of human eyes of every color emerged, breaching through to the surface and flying out from the main body, only attached to the disgusting orb by their thick strands of red flesh. It kind of looked like a child holding a balloon if those balloons were actually floating eyeballs the size of bowling balls, and the child was a flesh orb protruding from the innards of an indescribable horror. The eyes locked on them, each one twisting independently to stare straight at them.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING!?!?!?” Garrote screamed, looking over at Trenton.
“Great question! We can figure that out once it's dead!”