Sunlight glinted in Nildeyr’s red hair as he looked back at Dorri. Then he looked toward the innocent-appearing pile of stone. Back at Dorri again. For a split second, she thought he’d ignore her and go skipping off in his chosen direction anyhow. She held her breath.
Nildeyr walked backward three steps and then turned and strode to Dorri’s side. The other four gathered up behind her, as well.
“It’s been disturbed recently.” Dorri pointed out the differences in coloration of the stone and motioned toward the narrow gap in the camouflaging wall. “They rearranged it to hide what they were doing, but there’s a way in there.”
Quietly, they crept forward, Dorri and Nildeyr leading the way and the rest keeping back but not too far back. Dorri peered through the gap.
The cleared stone rested around the edges of a hole in the ground. The hole however, had once had straight edges and sharp corners. Much of it had crumbled now, and the broken bits had fallen onto the dust-covered and debris-littered surfaces of pocked and erosion-smoothed but clearly visible steps which led down into darkness.
There had been a building here, Dorri could clearly envision based on the quantity and shape of some of the remains. And it had been, as Nildeyr had suggested, a shed of sorts, or more accurately maybe a front porch—some kind of covering for this entrance into the underground. Whose it had been or how long ago it had fallen in or why, the narrator wasn’t telling her.
But Dorri was quite certain about who had recently dug it back out again. Silent though the narrator remained on the bigger questions, it readily pointed toward the ancient steps, where dozens of recent boot tracks had tramped through the dust and scuffed aside smaller chunks of rubble.
Dorri edged closer, trying to gauge just how deep the steps went. The entrance’s broken edges framed only darkness.
And then, in the darkness, dim light flickered. Dorri stepped quickly but carefully back, out of the makeshift wall surrounding the entrance. She snagged Nildeyr’s elbow and drew him back with her to where the others waited.
“Someone is down there,” Lora murmured, after hearing Dorri’s most concise description of what she’d seen.
“Someone should sneak down and get a closer look.” Nildeyr sounded altogether too eager. “We’ll go.”
A split second later, Dorri realized Nildeyr was volunteering her as well as himself. He glanced at her face and donned a coaxing grin that Dorri had seen before.
“We’re a good team.”
After all the ways we failed at the temple? But Dorri could hardly say that out loud. She glanced around at Lora, looking for a voice of reason to speak up on her behalf.
Lora glanced between Nildeyr and Dorri and smiled. “I have complete faith in you.”
Karon seemed to be paying no attention whatsoever, busying himself instead with the book he of course carried with him, the one which he wrote in each evening and sometimes at odd moments during the day. Spellbook, Dorri had come to assume. Arra merely watched goings-on as inscrutably as always.
Booth frowned. “The rest of us need to move up closer too, then, so we’re close if we’re needed.” But even he didn’t outright say they shouldn’t do it.
Those are your roles, right? Rogue and ranger scouts?
Mouth dry and heart pounding, Dorri led the way into the hole and down the steps.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
You’ve got high AGI and proficiency in Stealth. So, presumably, does Nildeyr. You can do this.
She just wished she could do it without anyone watching, in case she screwed up.
Cold wafted up with the fading light, as if Dorri waded into a pool of darkness. She itched to stick close to a wall, but the rubble was much heavier there.
Better not to kick any loose stones down the stairs.
Dorri’s eyes adjusted, aided by her Sharp Vision, and the view below began to emerge, of dusty, rock-littered floor that gradually cleared as it moved away from the open entrance above it. The stone floor appeared simple but polished. Walls enclosed it, equally simple but also polished smooth. An antechamber of some sort, Dorri guessed, and much better preserved than what remained on the surface.
A dried-up fountain dominated the room, round with a statue of indiscernible features at its center.
[You rolled a 2 for Lore.]
No surprise there. She had a -1 modifier for Lore. Dorri assumed the roll had been to learn something about the statue, but that was the least of her worries right now.
On the fountain’s rim sat a lit lantern, the source of the light flickering through the dim room. A pair of crates had been pulled up alongside it, and two men lounged on them. One leaned forward, elbows on knees, and studied a game board set between them. The other lounged back and munched on an apple. Both wore dirty homespun with an emblem scrawled across their tunics in some dark color.
Dye? Paint? Blood?
The emblem matched the one on the coin Nildeyr had retrieved from the dead the day before.
Scourge. We’re in the right place, then.
Crossbows and quivers of bolts leaned against the fountain’s low wall, close at hand to both men. The one eating the apple was using a dagger to cut it. Dorri wouldn’t be surprised if the other had at least one bladed weapon on him, as well.
To either side of the fountain, stairs curved toward each other and away down into pitch darkness. Dorri closed her eyes and held her breath and listened as if her life depended on it.
It might.
No sounds drifted up the far stairs from below. Dorri signaled to Nildeyr, and the two of them crept as quietly back up the stairs as they’d come down.
“If there are just the two sentries,” Booth said after Dorri and Nildeyr relayed the information, “then we can take them out fast, before they can make noise or run for help.”
Karon nodded. “And if we fail and they come storming up from below, we’ll have enough warning to get out.”
“Or get ready.” Booth lifted his hands. For a moment, Dorri thought he’d crack his knuckles, like he was some high school jock itching for a fight. Instead, after a moment, he lowered them.
A desire to do violence seemed to glitter in Booth’s eyes, though. Dorri couldn’t say she blamed him.
“Throwing ourselves blindly into bad situations won’t help us.” Karon’s tone sharpened. “Tiliers can die as readily as anyone else.”
Tension crackled between Booth and Karon for a moment. Then Booth took a visible breath and inclined his head toward Karon.
Weapons drawn, Booth and Arra led the way down the stairs. Dorri and Nildeyr went behind them, both with bows strung and arrows loosely nocked. Lora and Karon waited a few moments and came last.
It was inevitable, in Dorri’s mind at least, that at least one of the six would fail to move completely soundlessly. You couldn’t make that many stealth rolls without at least one being horrible, and Booth was most likely rolling at disadvantage due to his armor.
As it was, they made far more noise than they should have been allowed to and reached the halfway point of the descent before a voice called up from below.
“Who’s there? Senec, that you?”
Dorri froze, as did everyone around her. Booth squared his shoulders, but Arra planted a hand on his arm and shook her head. Sheathing her sword, she stood tall—and her tall was very tall—and calmly walked down the final steps alone.
Booth waited a mere heartbeat before starting down behind Arra. Dorri wasted no time scrambling down, as well. Around her in the stairwell, other steps shuffled and clothing rustled, but there was not enough time or attention to note each one.
The antechamber at the bottom of the stairs bobbed into Dorri’s view. The two sentries stood from their impromptu seats, staring at Arra. Confusion blanked their expressions, but that quickly shifted toward realization. Both of them lunged for their crossbows.
They’d hesitated just long enough, though, distracted by Arra’s unexpected appearance.
“Nildeyr? Now.” Dorri drew back her nocked arrow and let it fly.
[You used Ranged Attack on Scourge Sentry. 25 hits!]
[You deal 6 damage to Scourge Sentry.]
A second shot, from Dorrias’s left, whispered in unison with hers.
[Scourge Sentry takes 5 damage.]
Nildeyr’s shot gashed a sentry’s arm. Dorri’s struck the other’s shoulder.
Eleven damage between the two of us. Not bad for level two.
With the surprise round over, the slowing sensation of initiative fell across Dorri. A blue square on the tactical map lit at the very back of their party formation.