“That is annoying,” sighed Jim, as we formed a small shield-wall before Beldrak.
“Serves you right for using such a conspicuous scout,” said the wizard. Then he started to chant. It was high time because the bear was already on us. Two lizard-monsters followed it, straight out of some nightmare.
The bear was roaring now, its claws biting into our shields, while the two troglodytes – I assumed the lizard monsters were troglodytes – tried to flank us.
I let the bear rage, for now, trusting my shield and armour to protect me for a while longer, and used Shatterspike to open one of the troglodytes from loins to the throat. The creature had hard skin, but no other protection, so it died screaming. Jim meanwhile injured the other monster, and Beldrak finished it off. Then we turned towards the bear.
It was an immense beast, and if it had used wisely the distraction its masters created, it could have killed all three of us. But this bear probably had enough experience fighting against swords to know how much the things hurt, and it remained cautious. That cost the critter its life.
I screamed at the bear at the top of my lung to distract it and lunged forward. Jim dropped his rapier and shield, took his halberd, then threw a few savage thrust towards the monster. Beldrak hurled motes of fire in quick succession, I withdrew under their protection, and now the bear was hopelessly trying to reach us, but the glittering point of Jim’s halberd stopped the beast in its tracks every time.
The animal tried to run away at last, but we didn’t let it. In the end, when the bear started to climb the wall of a vent, I finished it off with a javelin.
“Bears are usually much more dangerous than that,” I mused as we sat down to catch our breath and eat a bite or two. “Remember that druid back in Káed-forest? That one mad me sweat more.”
“You have gained a lot of experience fighting all kinds of monsters,” remarked Beldrak. “And you and Jim spar almost every day. That has an effect too, I surmise. Also, as far as humans go, you are stronger than most.”
“The bear was much stronger still. If it had been braver, it would have ripped us into pieces.” Thankfully, the beast hesitated, and so we could deal with its masters. ”By the way, these are the troglodytes, right?”
“Yes,” Beldrak confirmed. “They have a terrible smell, don’t they?”
We have been sitting more than twenty paces away from the corpses, but whiffs of their odour still twisted our noses.
“I thought kobolds were bad, but this gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘stink’,” I allowed. “Are they eating rotten fish, or what?”
“And here I thought you like rotten fish after you explained to us that garum spice of yours,” grinned the wizard. “But you are spot on. Troglodytes love rotten flesh for some reason. Be it fish or something else. However, the smell is more than that. They have glands that produce this terrific fragrance. It is quite useful for them too. There aren’t many that are willing to deal with the smell. Everybody tries to avoid them as much as possible. Thus, troglodytes are rarely harassed by mercenaries like us. At least as long as they stay out of the way.”
“Don’t you have a spell that could shield our noses?” Jim asked. “I almost threw up when I first sniffed these bastards.”
“No such spells in my book, sorry. Though you have a point, if I knew these critters were going to be here, I would have learnt something to go against the stink.”
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After we have eaten and recovered our vigour, we set out to explore the caverns. A veritable web of entangled corridors and ducts sprawled under the fortress. Even Beldrak had trouble making sense of it. What’s more, there were chambers where we did not dare to thread, as dangerous-looking mushrooms puffed their seeds into the air, and Beldrak surmised they would poison, or even kill us.
“My little spider could climb in on the walls,” he growled unhappily. “That is if I still had it.”
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“There is no helping it then, you will have to bind a new one to yourself,” Jim said. “We will spar while you prepare.”
We pulled back to the upper level, and on our way out, woke and killed the sturges that we have spotted before. I hoped this would be the last time I ever saw the damned beasts.
After Beldrak was done with his ritual and had his new familiar ready to explore, we went back to the caverns. One of the mushroom-filled chambers held a sword that bore Durgeddin’s mark, and the spider also saw a dwarven skeleton that wore a finely silvered helmet.
“Maybe I can hit them with a hook, and pull them out,” I offered uncertainly. “Conjure one of your disks, so I can stand over the mushrooms.”
“Or, I can just burn a path for us,” said Jim. “You will never get that hook right from this distance. My method will be faster.” He barely finished talking, and he was already casting one of the new spells he learnt in Golden Grove, which summoned fire in the size of a campfire. It was a magical fire that did not need material to burn as long as Jim was maintaining the spell, and the tiefling scorched a wide path to the sword first and then to the skeleton wearing the silvered helmet.
After our greed was temporarily sated, we went on to explore the caverns. Curiously, we have not met any other troglodytes for a while. It seemed that the two we met, and their pet bear resided far away from the rest of the tribe.
What we did find, was a dwarven cemetery, with untouched, richly embroidered graves.
“Suspicious!” I said. “Beldrak, do you see any magic?”
The wizard did not feel the need to answer, he already started to chant his usual ritual, before I finished my question. We patiently waited.
“Nothing,” he announced after a quarter of an hour. “The graveyard is completely devoid of magic.”
“But not the tombs, eh?” I asked. “You said once you can’t feel magic through stones.”
“The tombs are obviously warded somehow,” agreed Jim. “Neither the orks nor the troglodytes robbed them. There is no way in hell that they would leave the dead lying in peace on their own accord.”
“Well, the orks might,” mused Beldrak. “But the troglodytes would probably dig them up just to find out how dwarven bones taste.”
“I am somewhat curious what spooked the stinky monsters,” I said. “And also, if no one else had robbed these graves before, maybe…”
“No,” said Beldrak.
“But aren’t you intrigued?” I pleaded. “Also, we are here to find Durgeddin’s legacy. What if they buried him with his last weapons?”
“Then we are out of luck,” the wizard answered firmly. “I am not against robbing graves in general, but I will be damned if I disturb the peace of my own kin. Also, if it was too dangerous for a whole tribe of troglodytes, it might be too dangerous for us as well. These graves will stay as they are, and don’t think you can go behind my back in this matter.”
“I never even considered,” I lied. “So what do we do then?”
“Beldrak reads the inscriptions, then we move,” yawned Jim. “My old man always used to say that being a soldier is the most tedious job there is, with all the ‘Hurry up and wait’! If I ever see him again, I will tell him to try his hand at adventuring, and then talk about boredom!”
I just smiled. I liked being a soldier, but in truth, serving as a mercenary in this world was usually less tedious.
Beldrak indeed spent an inordinate amount of time going through all the inscriptions and making sketches about the pictures and symbols etched into the stone graves. When he came back to us at last, he was grim and gloomy.
“Have you learnt anything of value?”
“No, nothing of import. Just a sad chronicle of the defenders’ last years. It seems they were able to hold out for quite a while. They kept the orks out, and they could even spare the time and the effort to bury their comrades as they died. It ends abruptly. The defenders died in twos and threes, month after month. Then, after the Gossamer of 768 there are no more graves. I assume the orks did take the place by storm in the end.”
“Is Durgeddin buried here?”
“If he is, he lies under a different name.”
Leaving the graveyard presented us with a choice. We could continue either to the west, where widening corridors led deeper into the caverns. Or, we could try our luck in the east, as there was an exit on the eastern wall of the cemetery –closed down by a heap of mould.
“This could be the way to the territory of the troglodytes,” I mused.
“It seems they were as afraid of orks as the orks were of them.”
“I don’t want the troglodytes in my back,” frowned Jim. “I think we should go and clear out their territory now before we explore what’s in the west.”
“That’s settled then,” sighed Beldrak as he sat down with his back against a grave. “I will have a smoking break, and you dig.”
“Or, you could make yourself useful by using some fancy magic,” I pointed out.
“It’s no fun if I solve all of our problems singlehandedly” he declared pompously. “Come on lads, that door ain’t gonna dig itself out!”