Le Deuxième Prologue: Le Monstre de la Merde

There was really only so long one could play tag through the creepy mist of a limbo space with two monstrous children before one got seriously bored. Illyan was nearing that state at this very moment. He was fairly used to playing with younger members of his clan (their children were semi-communally raised) but that usually didn’t last longer than his patience. It was easy to fob them off with one of the thousand distractions in their caravan or chores or another member of the clan who liked children better. Illyan himself was barely out of the years where he was one of the children being raised rather than doing the raising; nobody expected much from him in terms of childcare and he took full advantage of that fact.

It had been several hours now. Illyan was bored.

At one point, Oskar had appeared on the balcony overhead. That at least proved the others hadn’t been immediately killed upon entering the house or vanished back to whence they’d come or something like that. The children at no point had turned into wolves or tried to bite him or anything, either. They’d just run around in the mist and looked oddly distressed for children who were supposed to be playing a game. The younger boy had never once let go of his stranglehold on that soft toy.

They’d introduced themselves, at least. The older girl was Rosette and the younger boy Epinéthée, surname Deniau. Illyan had immediately renamed the boy Peanut. Their baby sibling, oddly, had neither name nor gender that they were willing to convey. Illyan supposed he could respect that.

After about all he could take of tag, the fire genasi set himself on the stoop and called the children over. “‘Ey, loulous. You got a safe place you can go?”

The children exchanged miserable looks, then shook their heads.

“Well, I know a place just up that road there. If you follow along it, you’ll find my caravan.” Thinking that maybe children this young wouldn’t know that word, they added, “My family. They live in a whole bunch of big wagons that move around. They’ll keep you safe if you go to ‘em and say Ti-Illyan sent you. In fact…” He reached up and fished around his neckline. There was more than one string of jewelry there, and a few layers of embroidered silk tunic, but he eventually fumbled out the thing he was looking for. It was a simple leather thong with a teardrop-shaped pendant carved with a series of hatched marks with no obvious meaning. Along one side of the pendant was a thin, iron wire kind of sewn through the pendant, bearing three little blue beads. Illyan pulled it over their own head and held it out. “...Show them this. They’re sure-sure to help you, then.”

Another glance was exchanged.

“We’re worried about Mama and Papa,” Rosette offered. “And ze baby.” Epinéthée nodded, hugging his toy tighter.

“We’ll take care of ‘em for you. Them others looked strong as can be, and I’ve got a few tricks.” He patted the wooden box at his hip, clattering it softly against the other various canisters and boxes which festooned his belt sash. “Why don’t you run along and stay with my family till it’s all done here?”

Rosette considered this for a long time. Longer than Illyan really thought a child as young as her would. The whole time, she stared right into his eyes. That was unusual enough for anyone, let alone a child (Illyan’s eyes were eerie, he was told), but the look in her eyes struck him as strangely… dead. Intense, but glassy somehow. They couldn’t put their finger on it.

At last, she nodded. With one hand, she reached for her brother’s hand. With the other, she reached for the necklace. “D’ac. We’ll go. Please, kill ze monster.”

In perfect sync, the children took a single step backwards without turning away from Illyan. The mist swirled around them, coming between like a drawn curtain, growing thicker and thicker until no part of the children could be seen. They vanished into whiteness.

Illyan got the sinking suspicion that was the last he was going to see of his necklace. He’d be feeling some serious upset about that if he wasn’t mostly feeling unnerved.

The genasi stood and brushed off their seat. Whatever was going on here, he’d really just like to figure it out and get back to his family, himself. Maman would be worried sick if morning came and Illyan couldn’t be found. They were all each other had, when they were traveling.

It was the work of a moment to cross the empty courtyard and foyer. In the dark interior of the house, Illyan was forced to light a little fire at the tip of one finger and hold it out before him like a candle as he moved. The light fell across a house in utter disrepair, totally ruined and totally empty. There was nothing interesting on the lower floor except the strange destruction of a wardrobe in the den. While Illyan was approaching to look at that, his foot caught on something beneath the rug. He stepped back and kicked the rug aside to reveal a wooden trap door with an iron ring in it. The whole apparatus looked like something out of some ancient castle’s dungeon rather than a middle- to upper-class town house. It certainly seemed out of place in a room like this. If it led to a storage cellar, shouldn’t it be in the kitchen?

Illyan left it and ascended. There was nothing interesting on the second floor aside from a great heap of books cast carelessly across the floor of the library. On the third floor, he at last discovered signs that the others had passed through recently. A heap of rust stained the hall in a big sweep like arterial spray, underneath a tangle of linens and cleaning products spilling out from a closet and a broken broom on top like a garnish. Something had happened here, but damned if Illyan knew what. He was starting to wonder if the others hadn’t actually simply vanished. Maybe the Oskar on the balcony had been an illusion. To what purpose, he couldn’t say.

At last, in one of the third-floor bedrooms, Illyan struck gold. First, an empty bassinet which he poked around and failed to find an imperiled baby within. At least there was no blood to indicate a monster had gotten a little snack. There was also a mirror across from the bed, hanging open to reveal the narrowest, filthiest wooden stairway they had ever seen. To their great annoyance, the stairs led upwards. There were clear signs in the dust of footprints, indicating that the group had passed through this way. Illyan was catching up, they thought.

The secret attic was as deserted as the lower three floors. Illyan’s patience was rapidly running out by the time he entered the storage room and discovered yet another sign that the group had passed through ahead of him, who knew how long ago. He was briefly concerned by the sight of the corpse in the box, but it was obvious upon a closer look that the deceased female humanoid was nobody he knew and had been dead for a lot longer than the time he’d been here. Valentina and Sveta should still be okay. Behind the box with the body in it was a section of wall which had been pried open to reveal the new narrowest, filthiest wooden stairway Illyan had ever seen.

This one, however, ran down so far that it disappeared into darkness. Illyan would eat his remaining necklaces if that wasn’t the stairway to the legendary, monster-infested basement.

Before taking the plunge, however, Illyan hesitated. So far, every room in this house he’d seen had been rummaged through by those who had gone before him. That locked room across from the storage room… it nagged at him. The padlock was shut and untouched. It was clear that nobody in the group had managed to open it. It was the sole room still un-searched. It was the sole room in this whole house that was guarded in any way.

Then again, so what? They’d (sort of) found the baby and they’d (sort of) found the monster in the basement. None of their goals were hidden behind that locked door. Illyan had no technical right to be here, snooping around a family’s secrets. It was borrowing trouble to stick his nose in.

With that in mind, Illyan forced himself into the narrow passage and began the long descent into the basement. His hair was a magical kind of effect which was incapable of setting his surroundings on fire, which was a great blessing in this instance. If it had given off any heat, Illyan was sure to have been instantly consumed by burning cobwebs and wood and then suffocated in the smoke. As it was, his nose and mouth were absolutely clogged with dust, the heatless flame at his fingertip barely illuminating more than the next old, rotting step which threatened to drop him straight down this chimney of death. It felt like it took hours to descend that awful stairway. Around him, a strange noise grew and grew until it reverberated like his heart through his chest. A rhythmic chant, wordless and sourceless.

What he found at the bottom was no better. No longer was he within the walls of a rich family’s decaying home. Here, it seemed he was within the bowels of an ancient castle’s dungeon. Beyond the echoes of that ominous chant, the halls were full of the ambient stillness which you only found in places steeped in death. Illyan took a single, cautious step forward.

The motion provoked an answer. Ahead, four shapes turned to face him, a solid beam of light swinging around to fix him in its center. Illyan squinted against its glare, making out the familiar shape of a large tabaxi and two slimmer women.

He grinned in relief. “Finally caught up!”

“Illyan,” Valentina called a greeting, her shoulders relaxing. The glowing shield on her arm slid to a less painfully bright angle, pooling on the stone floor at their feet. “Everything okay outside?”

“Eh bien, just hadn’t seen y’all in a little while and wanted to take a peek. You?” As he scanned the group before him, Illyan’s eyes caught on an unexpected, fourth figure. A harengon woman in a red tunic, whom he had definitely not seen go past him outside. “And who’s this?”

“Xiao Jinghua,” she greeted with a solemnly-inclined head.

“Enchanté, Xiao.”

“The surname is Xiao. Call me Jinghua.”

“‘Pologies. You can call me Illyan.”

“What happened to children?” Sveta interrupted.

“Well. I tried to send ‘em back to safety but, uh, they did this creepy-creepy thing where they vanished into the mist. I suspect we’ll not be seeing them again. Took my necklace, too…”

“I think they were a lure,” Valentina said. “We found some letters from this really bitchy guy named Strahd who said that the family who lived here was sacrificing people down here as, like, a ritual offering to him. The kids might just be an illusion to begin with.”

Strahd? Illyan blinked. Of all the names he had not expected to encounter tonight, on this side…

Then again, thinking about it, these mists sure were familiar. Maybe he wasn’t on “this side” right now after all.

“We saw portraits of them in the house,” Oskar pointed out. “And we found tombs with their names on them. The kids existed in some capacity at some point.”

“Even so.”

It sure did make Illyan feel good to know that they’d apparently spent the last few hours playing peekaboo with an illusion designed to lead them to their death.

“Did any of you check out that locked room in the attic?” Illyan asked.

Oskar shrugged. “Couldn’t break in.”

“I could pick it open,” the fire genasi said, thoughtfully. “Might be important.”

“I am not sure about the wisdom of continuing right now,” Jinghua admitted. “I would not want to leave anyone in danger, but we are not in good shape to fight anything right now.” Despite her recent return to consciousness, she was still quite weak, her stance far less steady than it had been. Looking around, the others were similar. Valentina alone looked as hearty as when she had walked in. Sveta’s upper chest was a horrifying painting in red and purple. Oskar was not visibly affected due to his covering fur, but everyone had seen the way he had been thrown around. There had to be many bruises and aches beneath his hunting leathers.

“Do we feel safe taking a break?” Valentina appealed to the group at large. “Long enough to recover some spells?”

“We passed lots of spare bedrooms,” Sveta added.

“If there’s anyone down here, they could die while we take a nap,” Oskar said.

“We don’t know that anyone is,” Jinghua pointed out.

“Seems like house has been here long time. Maybe all ghosts. No living people in danger at all.”

“It hardly matters,” Valentina insisted. “If we push ahead to save someone but we don’t have the strength to save them, what’s the point? If they’re injured, we can’t heal them. If we have to fight cultists and we get injured, that’s it for us. We’ll die in one hit. Everything here has been so powerful, even the broom!”

“I ain’t ‘urt one bit.”

“I am fine as well,” Jinghua added.

“Valentina isn’t hurt,” Oskar volunteered. Then, decisively, “We press on.”

Sveta and Valentina exchanged wary looks, but acquiesced. The visible corridor led to the east, trailing off into impenetrable darkness. Their magical lights illuminated it only as far as the nearest turn, after which everything was a mystery. Nobody had the slightest idea what kinds of things they might find in this strange mix of family tomb and dungeon.

First, they found a dining room. The room was bare stone on all sides, its only furnishings a rough, wooden table and benches. The floor was littered with tiny bones that could have come from rats, chickens, or rabbits–the detritus of old meals. These bones crunched beneath their feet as the group spread out across the room, searching for anything more sinister than the smell of rot which filled the stagnant air.

Second, they found a monster. The group found this only after it had lunged out at them from a niche in the southern wall. Within seconds, the room was a flurry of activity, hips and knees banging against furniture as the insect-like creature bit and stung at anyone within reach.

Third, Oskar found himself waking to a horrid smell beneath his nose, a ringing head, and a new stinger-scar on his shoulder. The monster was dead, cut to pieces by Jinghua’s sword on the floor. Illyan capped the wooden cylinder of smelling salts and returned them to their place on his belt sash. He offered a lopsided smile.

“Try to stay awake for the next one, d’ac?”

Fourth, they found that the ominous chanting which they had first heard while descending the basement stairs was louder once they decided to leave the dining room by the northern door. This passage was much like the one which had led them into the dining room. A single, comparatively wide corridor snaked ahead around blind, right-angle turns. The walls were positively riddled with narrow, claustrophobic side-passages like twigs sprouting off a tree limb. One, which could be seen only a few yards away, sank down in a series of shallow stone steps. Apparently, these catacombs went even deeper beneath the ground. The source of the chanting was obviously coming from below. The group trailed towards this, practically in a single file due to the narrow halls.

Fifth, they found more monsters. There was a horrible, chilling scrape of nail on stone. Not nail, perhaps, but the ragged ends of broken bones. From the hard-packed dirt of the floor, bone fingers wiggled up and into the air like thirsty worms seeking rain. They caught, clawed at the dirt, levering up the attached palms, then wrists, then forearms. The dirt creased and bulged and then fell away as the figures beneath it emerged chests-first, heads hanging unnaturally back between slack shoulders. Knees followed, yanking up thighs, then feet, then hips. At last able to amble upright, the heads flopped forward now, dirt pouring from mouth and eye socket, clumps of it tangled in dry hair like the pale weave of dandelion roots. Their bodies were a patchwork of dried, mummified meat clinging to bones. In some places, the flesh had been rubbed clean away, leaving only the brown skeleton behind. The ghoul which rose between Oskar and the staircase peeled half of its own face off as it struggled to emerge from the dirt, leaving only a single, shriveled eye like a molded grape which stared blindly in his direction. Another, in a side-corridor next to him, managed to keep the flesh of its head intact, though it was lumpy and crawling with maggots. Three more emerged behind and beside the group following him, evidenced by Valentina’s shriek of terrified disgust.

“Eugh! No! Too much! We need magic!”

“Retreat,” Oskar agreed. “I’ll stop them.”

“I ain’t leavin’ you behind!” Illyan declared, seconds before a ghoul raked filthy claws across his throat. There was no more argument about retreating.

Sixth, they found that Oskar could move faster than an arrow when motivated. This was discovered when the others had fallen back about thirty feet, far enough that Oskar thought it safe to stop holding the line with jabs of his spear. The tabaxi holstered his weapon, turned, and immediately became a streak of silver which whooshed past all of them, through the dining room, and back towards the stairs. Illyan, left behind, clutched his bleeding throat and gaped. The rest scrambled to follow, the shambling ghouls easily outpaced.

Seventh, in the hall beneath the stairs where they had first agreed to press on, they found compromise.

Sveta cleared her throat. “Valentina is right. We should take rest. No sense in hurting selves and being unable to rescue others”

The girl nodded rapidly. “Yes, exactly!”

“Um, are you alright?” Jinghua asked, eyeing the blood pouring between Illyan’s fingers.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he croaked.

“Alright,” Oskar conceded. “Let’s go back upstairs and sleep this off.”

“Shall I open up that locked room first?” Illyan asked. As he spoke, they moved towards the staircase up and out of these subterranean tunnels.

“I’m worried it might have another ghost in it,” Oskar said, rubbing his chest.

“Let us do after rest, yes?” Sveta suggested. “In case there is ghost.”

“D’ac.”

In hardly any time at all, the group of five ascended the staircase and emerged back into the storage area. It was strangely routine to carefully climb over the nurse’s corpse one by one as they emerged from the passage. Once on the other side, they tacitly moved across the attic and split into two groups. Oskar and Illyan went across the hall into the eastern spare bedroom. Jinghua, Sveta, and Valentina rounded the corner back to the western one. Jinghua eyed the sooty smudge on the windowsill with suspicion, but didn’t comment.

Nobody had a comfortable rest. The beds were so dusty and moldy as to be entirely unappealing to lie on. Oskar spread his cloak out across the one in the not-women’s room and curled up atop it in a surprisingly tight ball, a pile of crossbows and spear next to the bed. The mattress groaned and hissed beneath his weight. Illyan, without any form of blanket or pillow, found the least cobwebbed corner and sat in it, legs sprawled ahead of him, arms folded across his belly. In the women’s room, Jinghua sank into her own corner, cross-legged, chin raised even as her eyes slid shut. Sveta hesitated in the act of doing the same, thinking to offer Valentina a cloak or something to lie on. The girl looked like she would have a hard time sleeping on bare wood.

She never got the chance. With a businesslike air, Valentina heaved the whole, rotted mattress off of the bedframe, leaving behind only the bare wooden slats. She climbed happily onto these and immediately sprawled out on her front, one arm curled beneath her head. Before long, she was snoring softly.

Each came to consciousness with the feeling that hours had passed, but no rest had been achieved on an emotional level. The house was just as dark and silent, the mist outside just as thick and ominous as when they had gone to sleep. All of their joints ached from spending hours on hard wood. Strangely, no one was hungry. Altogether, it was impossible to tell how long they may have slept. When they reconvened in the hall, Valentina and Sveta gladly acknowledged that their morning prayers had refreshed their magical reserves. The dawn light from Valentina’s renewed spell was somewhat fooling everyone’s circadian rhythms into thinking that they had awakened before the sun. Despite the lack of hunger, everyone was cranky.

The next problem was the lock. Illyan squatted down in front of it, bringing out a wrapped cloth bundle from one of his pockets which contained a series of delicate wire lockpicks. The others watched with barely restrained impatience as he took his time selecting the right tool and lining it up with the lock. The performance of several minutes ended in a single second. With a click, the padlock fell free. With a shrieking slither, the chain did as well. Illyan stood up and took a step back from the unlocked door, tucking his lockpicks away. He gestured grandly at the door.

“Someone else first, s'il-vous plaît."

With a rolling grunt, Oskar stepped forward. He inched the door open very slightly, enough to peer in with his one, green eye. The room inside was as lightless as the rest of the house. Oskar’s pupil dilated to fill his entire iris, giving him a strangely youthful look. He could just barely make out the ghostly shapes of furniture within the room, and other, less-identifiable shapes scattered across the floor. He stepped back and blinked heavily until his eye re-adjusted to the light spell. Wordlessly, he shook his head.

Valentina took his place, aiming her shield so that its light fell through the crack into the room. As she lifted it, the edges of her light slid up and over the empty scream of a skull discarded on the floor.

“Oh…” she whispered. The girl threw open the door, allowing her light to sweep across the whole space.

This was another bedroom, but a far more decorated one than the other spares on this floor. This room had cheerful wallpaper in geometric shapes and a fluffy rug, as well as cozy quilts piled up on the unmade beds in the corner. A wooden rocking horse regarded the group with gimlet eyes from a corner. In another stood a perfect, tiny replica of the house they had spent hours searching, clearly scaled for dolls. Among the toys left strewn across the rug were a series of small, yellow bones and two skulls. One of the skeletons still clutched a familiar soft toy to its flattened ribs. Illyan had been looking at that exact toy for hours as its owner shuffled away from his tags in the mist.

For a moment, the group gazed upon this gruesome sight in silence. Valentina silently reached up and traced-the symbol of the Morninglord.

Almost before she had finished, the dust was swirling in the same way it had down in the nurse’s bedroom. It coalesced into two forms this time, each no taller than a fencepost. The features, also like the ghost of the nurse, were a caricature in outline. Where hers had been a screaming mask with dark holes for a mouth and eyes, these ghosts had dark holes where their cheeks ought to be, the shapes of their skulls picked out in bold lines. Tiny, sorrowful eyes peered out of deep divots in their eye sockets. The wrists which emerged from spectral clothes were as thin as fingers. One still clutched the soft toy within his arms.

Unmistakably, these ghosts were the children who had pleaded for their help outside. Rosette and Epinéthée Deniau.

These ghosts did not attack on sight as the nurse had. They instead regarded their own remains, scattered around their feet, with apparent sorrow. Their free hands linked together between them.

“We died ‘ere,” Rosette whispered. “Mama and Papa locked us in.”

“We were so ‘ungry,” Epinéthée added. From the looks of his frame, the boy would normally run towards the stocky. It was somehow even worse to see how small and weak his arms were compared to the width of his torso. His sister was taller and more willowy naturally. Her current appearance was such that a strong breeze seemed as if it would blow her away, even if she had been made of flesh rather than dust motes.

“They starved to death,” Sveta guessed. “Cultist parents left children to die.”

“How awful,” Valentina sighed.

Illyan went down on one knee before the children, his face solemn. “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything you might need to pass on?”

Rosette’s ghost looked down, then up, clearly unsure. She gripped her brother’s hand tight. “Can you take us to Mama and Papa? We want to be with zem. We don’t want to… to be…” Her voice trailed off into a choked sob.

Illyan thought about the tombs the others had found, with these children’s names on them. A family tomb in the basement. They nodded. “We can do that, sure. We’ll set you down all snug so you and your brother can go with the ravens like you should, d’ac?”

Rosette nodded. “D’ac.”

Illyan hesitated to rise. “Rosette, d’you still have what I gave you outside?”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “I ‘aven’t been outside. Ze door was locked.”

Illyan and Oskar shared a look. The illusory bait theory seemed all but certain.

She and Epinéthée watched in solemn silence as Illyan and Oskar got to work pulling the quilts off of the beds and rolling up each into a careful bundle of bones. Sveta, Valentina, and Jinghua waited outside, keeping watch. As Illyan maneuvered the bones of Epinéthée’s arms to free the soft toy beneath, he noticed a tag sticking out of one seam. It was sewn with fine, red thread into a marquee shape. The words inside read, Pas de Joie, Pas de Joric!

The unexpected name hit Illyan like a bolt of lightning. “Joric?!” he barked.

Oskar looked over. “What?”

Illyan displayed the tag.

“What does that mean?”

“No Joy, No Joric.” As he answered, the genasi crumpled the tag back into his fist.

Oskar’s expression did not change. “...What does that mean?”

“A slogan of some kind. Joric is a name.”

“And this… means something to you? Do you know this Joric?” Oskar stumbled over the name for a moment, pronouncing the j as a y and a short i–YOR-ick.

“I know a Joric,” Illyan emphasized. In his mouth, the j was a soft zh sound and the i long–zhor-EEK. “Can’t be the same one. Can’t be.” Even so, they scowled fiercely at the stuffed toy, as if it was somehow responsible for the name it bore. Toys. What a frivolous use of talent. Illyan had something cooking back home that would put this thing to shame. In the end, the toy went into the quilt bundle along with Epinéthée’s remains. The child-sized quilts made for the lightest, most brightly-colored shrouds in history. Even Illyan, who had hardly any more meat in his arms than the starved children, had no trouble lifting one to cradle it to his chest. Oskar’s went across one shoulder like a felled deer.

The two were nearly across the threshold when it happened.

“You are taking now?” Sveta asked.

“Should we not?” Oskar replied.

“I thought we leave for now and come back once tomb is safe. Keep arms clear for fighting.”

Oskar looked at Illyan. “Do you think?”

“Leave ‘em?” Illyan wasn’t sure.

“You are leaving us?” the ghost of Rosette asked from behind them, urgently. Her voice rose with distress. “Don’t leave us!” Epinéthée’s skeletal face crumpled into a rictus of sorrow.

“Just for a little while,” Oskar tried.

“No! You can’t leave wizout us! Take us with you!” Rosette demanded, stomping her foot. “You can’t, you can’t!”

Before they could take another step, the spectral siblings let go of one another and flew forward. Both Illyan and Oskar were hit by a strike of cold ache that pulsed from heart to head. In a flash, it was over. The pain vanished along with the children’s ghosts.

Another look was shared, this one equal parts bewildered and trepidatious. Neither was quite sure what had just happened or why. For some reason, the idea was strangely irritating to Illyan. Why did those kids think they could just do whatever they wanted? Illyan was here to help them!

Whatever, it was over now. Illyan straightened up and marched out of the room, into the hallway. “Alright, c’mon, everyone. We got bodies to drop off and a basement to search, us. Allez.” They made sure to lead the way through the storage room, glancing back often to check that the others were staying in line behind them. Oskar seemed to be lingering near the back, oddly. He was usually nearer the front. Illyan was gratified by this. He was right to follow Illyan’s lead! Illyan was older and probably knew a lot more than him.

“‘Ere, now, careful goin’ over,” they instructed the others as everyone climbed once more across the chest containing the nurse’s body. Oskar took the climb in one spring, swallowing hard and making sure not to look down at her remains. The nurse was left there, contorted at the bottom of the chest, endlessly watching as the light of the group’s spell dwindled down the secret staircase. Darkness fell over her like a final curtain.

In the tomb, Illyan barged forward as soon as they emerged from the staircase. One finger stabbed into the air, lighting a little red candle-flame at the tip which illuminated their surroundings. “Which one is Rosette’s?” they called back.

Valentina all but fell out of the stairway behind him, struggling to keep up. “Um, I don’t remember. Mine was… George?”

“I’ll figure it out, me,” Illyan decided. “Attendez-moi.” So declared, they marched for the closest alcove. It didn’t take long before they had found the correct tomb, labeled with the girl’s name and lying with its lid askew. They gently lowered the quilt and its precious contents into the bottom of the coffin, then clasped their hands briefly in respect before hefting the lid into place. It was certainly an effort to move the heavy slab, but they persevered. As soon as the stone lid ground into place, there was a feeling like a change in air pressure all around Illyan and he startled. The last few minutes seemed… strange, somehow, in hindsight.

He emerged back into the main passage, where the others were standing in an uncertain clump.

“All good?” Sveta asked, once he was close.

“Tous bien. She’s at peace,” Illyan nodded. “Uh, Oskar?”

“He has not come down,” Sveta said. She glanced at the stairway.

Barely illuminated by the fringes of the light spell’s halo, a shape lurked on the bottom riser. Half of a whiskered muzzle and one round, golden eye could be seen peering around the corner. One gloved hand clutched the corner as if to brace against anyone trying to pry him away. The two rounded ears had been laid flat so as to be invisible among the fluffy, silver mane. It seemed a little fluffier than usual, actually…

Uncertainly, Valentina called, “You okay, big guy?”

A deep, ambivalent rumble was her answer.

“You gonna… come down?”

Another rumble, trailing off into a hesitant word. “...Dark.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s. Dark,” Oskar bit out. He didn’t budge.

The uncharacteristic hesitance momentarily silenced the group. In nearly every situation so far, Oskar had been at the front of the charge. He had shown no hesitation in the face of horrifying ghosts. He had even been in this exact place just the other night, with no visible issues. His attitude simply made no sense.

Illyan thought on the last few minutes, when his own attitude seemed to have drastically shifted without his noticing. How it had gone away as soon as he had laid Rosette to rest.

“Think I know what might be ‘appening, me,” he said. Smiling as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, he asked, “You need someone to ‘old your ‘and?”

Without hesitation, Valentina approached. Her smile was as bright as the breaking dawn, innocent and encouraging. She lifted a hand and wiggled the fingers in offer.

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Six and a half feet of solid, muscled hunter shifted. Lips peeled back to reveal thumb-length, pure white incisors, the broad bridge of the nose above creasing ferociously. The rumble deep in his chest was like the distant approach of a landslide. He loomed over the diminutive human girl in a way that would have engulfed her entire body in shadow had she not been producing her own light--not only did Valentina’s head barely clear his shoulders, but those shoulders and ribs were each easily the width of her body. When he reached out, it was clear that his hands were of a size to easily wring Valentina’s neck with a single one.

Instead, it moved to clasp her offered hand. The fingers wrapped nearly around her entire palm, but they squeezed tightly.

As if every part of this was perfectly natural, Valentina turned to gently tug the tabaxi forward. Tentatively, Oskar followed. Step by step, the pair paced through the claustrophobic, dark catacombs, lit by the cheerful flicker of Illyan’s flame. The others silently pointed in the correct direction as they passed. Sveta made an encouraging coo.

“Good kotyonok, very brave!”

Oskar’s answering snarl rang through the confined space. Illyan snickered.

Valentina shushed them all and kept leading step by slow step. Together, they approached the open coffin reserved for Epinéthée Deniau. Illyan lounged against the corner, keeping his light in the hall for the others while watching Valentina and Oskar with gleeful schadenfreude. Oskar took a few seconds to gather himself before he was willing to release Valentina’s hand in order to lower the shrouded remains. Then, in a flurry of frantic motion similar to a child fleeing a room after blowing out the light, he seized the tomb lid in both hands and hefted it into place with a clap like thunder. Instantly, the fur all over Oskar’s body stood on end, a shudder shaking through his frame. When it passed, his ears crept back up out of his mane, his fur and nose smoothing out, snarl fading.

The look he aimed at Valentina was sheepish.

“Sorry. About that,” he said, obviously embarrassed.

Illyan grinned from the doorway, not entirely kindly. “That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while, ami.”

“It’s all done now, no worries,” Valentina cut in.

With a chuff, the tabaxi turned away and stomped out of the niche. Illyan followed, sniggering. Valentina swanned along in the rear.

Regrouped in the corridor, the group turned their thoughts to their next steps. Knowing what awaited them, they proceeded through the empty dining hall and turned towards the warren of passages which had previously been filled with the undead.

Sure enough, once again their approach was greeted with the sticky, scraping sounds of the dead clawing their way out of the ground. Once more, creaks and groans filled the air along with the ever-present chanting. Valentina’s free hand pinched her nose shut. Oskar, on the other hand, inhaled the scent of rot deeply.

“Ghouls,” he growled. “They’re not intelligent. Holy light should hurt them.”

“And edged weapons?” Jinghua asked.

A glint of savage satisfaction colored his voice as he answered, “And those.”

What followed was something halfway between mosh pit and nightmare. In the tight spacing, though they stood back-to-back, each member of the group was essentially alone against their respective foes. Oskar and Sveta, the unfortunate ones, ended up each at a junction beset by two ghouls. Illyan and Jinghua found themselves trapped in the center of the formation, unable to squeeze past to meet any of the ghouls in combat. This meant that Oskar and Sveta were similarly unable to retreat. Valentina alone was in a position to scramble around a corner, freeing up just a tiny bit of space for them to maneuver within. As she danced to safety, the light of her shield swung unpredictably, lighting up the battlefield in strobes. Illyan, similarly, was forced into flicking bits of fire at the ghouls around the bodies of his companions, causing his light to pulse and flash in sickening dissonance. Sometimes in conflicting light, sometimes in flashes, sometimes in darkness, Sveta and Oskar braced themselves against the clawing fingers and the gnawing, blunt teeth. Through it all, the loud chant of the cultists remained rhythmic and ringing above the groans of the ghouls.

Jinghua managed to squeeze free and into the space Valentina had vacated. The ghoul ahead writhed and shrieked beneath the onslaught of Valentina’s thrown daggers, leaving the harengon free to focus on aiding Oskar. She slashed and stabbed through any opening, the point of her sword further shredding the strips of jerky which these ghouls called flesh. The ghouls lunged back at her, raking ragged nails and sharp bone down her arms. The scratches flared with infected heat near-immediately. Jinghua paused to shut her eyes and circle her ki in order to dispel the impurities in her blood. When she had finished, the scratches paled and lost their heat.

Oskar was not so lucky. He came to this time with a touch of Valentina’s hand to his chest. The scar left behind was ragged nail marks across his shoulder.

Illyan was unimpressed. “Really, ami, could you try to stay awake for just one fight?”

Aside from Oskar, the group was mainly unharmed, if tired. The only thing left was to descend into the deepest bowels of the catacombs.

The room at the bottom of the stairs rang with the sourceless chanting, so loud that it thrummed in the pit of the stomach. This room was tiled with flagstone along the floors but with hard-packed earth walls. The perimeter of the room was dug into with eighteen chest-height niches. The center of the room was dotted with iron candle holders driven deep into the stone, long gone dark. As Valentina’s halo slid across the space, its edges crawled with fleeing centipedes that writhed into cracks in the stone floor or upwards to hide in the wall niches.

In immediate, unspoken agreement, everybody scattered across the room to scan the contents of these little apertures. For a moment, the room was full of soft calls of such phrases as “rat skull” and “statuette” and “oh my god, I think this is a severed hand”. It didn’t seem as if any of the relics in these makeshift shrines were anything more than just junk. Valentina began to reach for something that looked like a magic wand, only to stop short at Illyan’s warning bark.

“Wait! Wait, wait, don’t touch it, that one looks magic.”

She obediently stopped and frowned. “That’s why I wanted it.”

“Might not be safe, cher. Lucky you, Ti-Illyan’s got just the thing!” With quick movements, the fire genasi began to pluck various items from his over-loaded belt and fit them together. The main components were two short, wooden handles which were carved with a series of arcane runes. The symbols looked somehow similar to the embroidery along the edges of Illyan’s clothes. Into the ends of these, at right angles, he fitted two thin metal rods. A twist at the ends of these telescoped each out until they were the length of Illyan’s forearm. More wires, these flexible copper, were affixed to the other end of the handle, connecting them like opposite ends of a flail. Even more wires trailed into a box affixed to one hip, with more carved runes and levers which Illyan busied himself flipping. Finally, a length of wire trailed from this box up to a pair of goggles hung around the genasi’s neck, which he lifted to cover his eyes. The copper rims around the lenses had yet more runes and yet more tiny, moveable parts which he busied himself fiddling with.

At about five minutes into this process, Sveta, Oskar, and Jinghua melted away. “We will check other room,” the woman excused herself, quietly, as if hoping not to be heard or challenged. They quickly filed through a doorway in the western wall. Valentina shot them desperate looks as they left.

Take me with you! her eyes pleaded.

All three avoided her gaze. Her plea bounced uselessly off of their temples. Valentina was left lingering politely as Illyan went back and forth between the levers on their goggles and the levers on the box. They held the long rods out in front of them, gripped by the wooden handles and crossed into an X shape a few inches out from their body. The tip of their tongue appeared, caught between their teeth. The contraption in their hands began to make the slightest audible hum, so tinny and high-pitched that it seemed as if it was not actually a quiet noise, merely one beyond the normal hearing range of humanoids.

Within the goggles, visible only to Illyan, a certain visual effect began to appear on the lenses. At first, it seemed like a haze, like rising heat or small ripples through water. Then, the haze began to darken into murky colors. In his vision, the rods in his hands became surrounded by this ethereal aura that was more texture than light. It wasn’t a steady effect. The “aura” faded in and out, depending on how the rods were crossed, how tightly Illyan was gripping them, and so forth. With the utmost of care, he proceeded to sweep the perimeter of the room, aiming his rods at each relic within its niche one by one. At first, he spent some amount of time before each one, biting his tongue in concentration, fiddling with the calibrations on the various devices, trying to produce a response. By the thirteenth, it was almost a cursory sweep. When at last he came to the wand before Valentina, fifteen minutes had passed, and the genasi’s shoulders were slumped in defeat. With a despairing gesture, he yanked the goggles back around his neck, sending the copper wires bouncing and once more revealing his two-toned eyes.

“Diagnosis?” Valentina asked.

“Absolutely none,” Illyan pronounced, “of these tas de merde are magic.”

Valentina beamed widely at him. “Illyan, were I not a holy woman…”

Interrupting her, the other three came clattering back into the room.

“Is dungeon,” Sveta reported. “Only corpses, no living people.” She held up a plain gold ring between two fingers. “Which is why is okay to take this. Archeology, yes?”

Jinghua nodded solemnly. Oskar very subtly rolled his eye. Sveta tucked the trinket into her satchel and patted it consolingly.

“Ain’t no magic ‘ere,” Illyan repeated.

“There’s one more room ahead,” Oskar noted, leveling a wary gaze at the broad doorway in the western wall. It was so deep as to be considered a short passageway, dark and open with no door to block it, so deep that the light from Valentina’s shield couldn’t pass all the way to the end and reveal the room beyond. The light refracted around strange, shadowy shapes just beyond the edges of sight. The chanting was clearly coming from whatever was within.

“Are we ready?” Valentina wondered.

“We’re almost done,” Jinghua said, serenely.

“We push through,” Sveta decided.

As one, they advanced through the wide doorway. It only took a few steps for the strange refractions from within to make sense–the floor was covered in shallow water. Though Sveta and Jinghua alone among the group wore slippers, neither hesitated to wade in. After only a short way, the flooded corridor was blocked with an iron portcullis with no visible opening mechanism. The metal was rusted across its surface, too dull to reflect light the way the slick-black waters did, but not crumbling into pieces yet. Sveta’s cautious rattle of the bars revealed that however long it had been left to decay, the barrier was still solid.

With a matter-of-fact air, the woman tucked her wooden staff beneath one armpit and sank into a squat. Both of her hands disappeared beneath the surface of the water, which was about two feet deep by this point. She fitted them into the tiny gap beneath the gate’s lower edge, then heaved upward.

The portcullis lifted only a little, with a furious squeal.

To Sveta’s left, Jinghua took up the same position. To her right, Valentina. Oskar, about to move forward, found the space he was intending to occupy totally taken up by his over-eager companions. The large tabaxi hesitated, then hovered awkwardly behind the line of ladies, hands half-up as if to catch something.

With all three lifting together, the portcullis shrieked resentfully up to shoulder-height. The lfiters ducked beneath to the other side, then allowed Oskar and Illyan to scoot between them. Standing behind the shortest, Valentina, Oskar fitted his hands beside hers and gave the gate the final push upwards it needed to click into place just above the humans’ heads.

The water remained a constant depth on this side, around thigh-deep. The sound of the chanting made it clear that whatever kind of space they had just entered was extremely large. The sounds of disembodied voices and the group’s splashing echoed over and over through the chamber. Valentina’s light and Illyan’s flame each only illuminated a circle of dark water around their thighs in all directions for dozens of feet. Even overhead, the ceiling soared to a sudden height beyond the little bubble of magical light. Valentina sloshed a few steps forward, hefting her shield to light up the nearest wall. The floor folded up into a dry pathway around the perimeter of the chamber, five feet or so wide. A few more steps took her to the corner, where they were finally able to gain some sense of how large a space this was–the chamber seemed to be sixty or so feet across and twice as long. Valentina slogged up onto the dry area, her white skirt clinging to her legs like the tail of a mermaid.

The others waded further in, following the path of her light across the water. In the lead, Oskar and Jinghua were the first to discover another raised platform at the chamber’s center. Like the perimeter walkway, it was high enough to emerge from the water, and made of smooth stone. Atop the platform was a stone altar covered in indistinct detritus. Jinghua hopped the two feet up in one easy motion, meaning to take a closer look at the altar.

Immediately, the sound of the chanting ended like a blown-out candle. In the unsteady light of fire and dawn, ghostly shapes coalesced around the perimeter walkway. A startled Valentina found herself standing amongst them. A dozen humanoid-sized figures in black robes appeared in an evenly-spaced circle, hands lifted, hollow hoods pointed at the center of the room where Jinghua stood before the altar.

Recognizable words issued from these figures.

“One must die! One must die! One must die!”

Immediately, Oskar leaped to join the harengon on the platform. He let rip a defiant roar at the chanting ghosts. Unperturbed, they continued.

“One must die! One must die! One must die!”

Oskar’s snarl faded as it became obvious that these ghosts, unlike the ones from before, were not going to move, attack, or possess anybody. They only stood there and issued their ultimatum. Valentina, on the walkway, cautiously poked at the nearest figure. Her finger sank weightlessly into its outline, to no visible reaction. She broadly shrugged back at the others.

“Nobody else go up!” Illyan barked. Then, at the two on the platform, “Don’t get down, neither! It only started once you stood there, who knows what they’ll do if you leave without one dyin’.”

“Chant did not change when Oskar went up,” Sveta noted. “Still only ‘one must die’, not ‘two’. They do not mean you.” She sloshed away through the water, squinting down at its surface. The hand holding her staff kept it up and clear, while the other dipped down to sweep spread fingers through the water next to her legs.

“Any one?” Oskar wondered.

“There’s an altar here,” Jinghua observed, calmly. “This must be where the cult performed their sacrifices to Strahd.” She and Oskar looked at one another. The only two on the platform, unable to leave. No one able to come up to help. An altar, stained with blood, inches away.

One must die.

“Just stay there,” Valentina called out. “We’ll figure something out.”

“There was nothing alive in this whole place, ‘cept us.” Illyan bit his lip. He glanced down at a box on his hip, then away. He shifted his weight from one hip to the other and folded his arms. “You don’t think we’ll ‘ave to…?”

Distantly, in the far corner of the chamber, Sveta shouted, “Got it!”

“Got what?” Valentina asked.

Instead of answering, Sveta stooped, staff once more tucked beneath one arm. She cupped her hands beneath the water and lifted out a dripping handful, which she carried as she splashed back towards the others. Solemnly, she offered up her hands towards Oskar and Jinghua on the platform.

The silver-furred humanoids looked at it. Then each other. Then Sveta.

“What is this?” Oskar asked.

“Tadpoles!” Sveta answered.

The two squinted at her hands once again. As more water dripped out, even in the dim light, Oskar could make out little wiggling motions against her palms. Jinghua saw nothing except murky water faintly lit by the distant spell-light.

Sveta lifted one knee out of the water, the leg going sideways in order to slide it up onto the raised platform. The hem of her blue dress flopped around and dripped like a landed trout. She leaned forward to bring up the other leg in a similar manner. No awareness of the supreme awkwardness of this maneuver showed upon her face. Once finished, she rose up from her knees as if nothing had happened and sashayed towards the altar. The handful of water and tadpoles were poured onto its surface. Then, with a remote, abstracted air, the woman brought her hand down to squish three tadpoles beneath her palm.

At once, the chant ceased. The figures on the walkway dissolved back into the darkness. Valentina, who had been standing in the center of one with her arms out as if wearing it like a dressmaker’s doll, dropped her pose sheepishly. Oskar folded his arms.

“I could have squished them. You didn’t have to come up.”

“Did not matter. Only one to die, no matter how many on the platform, da?” Sveta perfunctorily wiped her hands on the dry waist of her dress. Without any further discussion, she hopped back down into the water.

“We didn’t know that for sure.” Oskar followed, with a larger splash. He waded swiftly after her. “Where did you find the tadpoles?”

“Were over here. Standing water, must be bugs, da?”

“I haven’t seen any.”

“I will look again.”

She outpaced him, once more sweeping her hands through the water, watching the surface intently. Oskar stopped, letting her go ahead. It wasn’t long before Jinghua joined him. Illyan, meanwhile, climbed up onto the platform. No more ghosts appeared or demanded a sacrifice, so he began inspecting the altar. Valentina, meanwhile, moved around the perimeter of the room, making sure that her light was pointed inwards so that the others could see while she ran an exploratory hand along the walls.

“Nothing else up here,” Illyan reported.

“I don’t see any other exits,” Valentina added.

“There weren’t any in the dungeon, either,” Oskar said.

“If there is nowhere else to go,” Jinghua concluded, “this is the end of it.”

The others began to naturally drift into a clump, vaguely positioned between Illyan on the central platform and Valentina on the perimeter walkway. Sveta alone continued to poke through the water, almost at the periphery of their circle of light. She squinted, trying to find more tadpoles, but only finding disturbed water. There was algae here, floating on the surface. It got thicker towards the back wall. She waded in that direction.

“It doesn’t feel like we solved anything,” Valentina protested.

“We put them kids to rest. That ain’t nothing.”

“There has to be more,” Oskar insisted, his voice dropping back to a growl. “There has to be more information on Strahd. We know these people had contact with him. They have to have known where he was!”

“Right, Strahd,” Illyan repeated, pausing in what he was doing and turning towards Oskar, a few feet away and below him in the water. “You said that before. This cult were friends of ‘is?”

“We found a letter,” Valentina explained. “It sounded like they were making sacrifices to him. That was the catty letter asking them to stop contacting him.”

Oskar said, “I have to know more. I’ll search this house top to bottom. There has to be something else in that secret study about him.”

The algae Sveta was tracking eventually congealed into a lumpy mass. Aside from the plant matter, there were bits of broken wood and even trash floating here, gently nudging at her legs. A few insects buzzed in the darkness. Sveta cautiously put out a hand to feel along the wall, finding that the stone of it crumbled apart in sharp shards. There was a moist, dirt-walled niche of unknown size. It was from this niche that the algae and other debris seemed to be coming. She could just barely make out the outline of a mound…

“If you’re looking for information on Strahd,” Illyan said, even more slowly than he usually spoke, “I might ‘ave some, me.”

“What?” Oskar turned a glare on the genasi.

“Well, I mean, I know where he is. It’s where I was born. I know some stuff everybody from that area knows. What kind of information are you after?”

Sveta took hold of her quarterstaff by the end, extending it before her to jab at the hulking mound within the niche. The tip of it sank in with the resistance of pushing something through mud. This shape extended far taller than Sveta, likely even taller than Oskar, and wider than both her arms stretched out to the sides. When she poked it, a shiver ran through the whole thing, sending ripples through the water in every direction.

A clump of algae near Sveta split open with a sound like pulling your shoe out of the mud. From within it, a red eye emerged.

Sveta was too startled to make a facial expression in return.

“Anything,” Oskar said, in tones halfway between fury and desperation. “Tell me anything you know.”

“Maybe you oughta come find me in the daytime,” Illyan replied. “Swing by my caravan and we can ;ave a chat about that old devil any time you like.”

“Everyone!” Sveta shouted. “I found monster!”

The other four whirled around to see a large, stinking shape emerging from the niche in the back wall. In the wavering light, it looked like a vaguely spider-shaped animal, with four thick limbs which its bulbous torso hung between. The head part had very little in the way of mouth or nose, only two glaring red eyes. It seemed to be crafted of filth, with its lower side made of mud and tangled roots and its upper side all but covered in moss, algae, and other pieces of trash. Bones both animal and humanoid poked out of its lumpy sides, as well as clumps of hair and feathers and ragged threads from outfits. Maggots wiggled through its mud and flies buzzed around its body every time it moved. Those movements also caused a wave of stinking, rotting-fish smell to roll across the area. It towered far above the pale woman before it by a factor of two.

In eerie silence, the mound lifted one dripping, filthy leg and stomped Sveta. A great splash went up, a waist-high wave rolling all the way out to where Oskar and Jinghua stood. Luckily, the size of the thing meant that it did not move swiftly. Sveta, even as close as she was, was able to step aside and let the blow pass her by. It tried again, this time landing a glancing blow which rocked her in place, while Oskar and Jinghua fumbled to ready their weapons and charge to her aid. Valentina set off down the perimeter path at a dead sprint, skidding to a stop where it terminated at the corner. The walkway did not run across the back wall where the niche was.

Once close, the girl reached out to touch Sveta’s shoulder below her in the water. “Mine to receive, and happily mine to give.” The bloody bruises across Sveta’s skin vanished in a wash of sunlight. This done, she clamped that hand over the lower half of her face and whined. “Eeeeeeugh, what is this thing made of?”

“Is shit?” Sveta suggested.

“Smell it and see!”

“I don’t have time for this,” Oskar snarled, sprinting forward with all of his shocking speed.

As if sleepy or perhaps simply not very intelligent, the mound of filth swayed in place without moving even as Oskar plowed into it spear-first like a jouster. Jinghua’s arrival provoked a similar non-reaction. It seemed to be hurt by their blows, but it was extremely large and clearly didn’t care about a few chunks being taken out. With dopey single-mindedness, it continued to try to stomp on the little creatures which were hemming it back into the niche. It lifted a leg to aim another couple of swipes at Oskar, who similarly side-stepped them with ease. The splashing was soaking the three still in the water from head to toe, despite the shallowness of it. Mud flecked and spotted their fronts as the monster moved.

Then, at last, the tight quarters of her companions to either side prevented Jinghua from moving quickly enough. A filthy leg made of debris and plants slammed into her from above like a mudslide, sending her crumpling beneath the water. The others watched, stunned, as she did not rise.

All of a sudden, the shit-monster was much less funny.

“Fuck! Don’t get hit!” Oskar roared. He reached beneath the water and seized Jinghua by the arm, hauling her up until her airways were clear. Her eyes blinked away streams of filthy water, stunned but awake, one arm hanging too-loosely from the shoulder socket. She regained her feet, if unsteadily, beneath Oskar’s guiding hand.

Valentina, on the walkway, lifted her hand towards the sky.

“An enemy must be worthy of engagement!”

From the darkened ceiling of the subterranean cavern, a beam of light slanted down. It resembled nothing so more as an early evening sunbeam coming in through the window at suppertime, yellow and filled with floating dust. This light cast an accusing finger down upon the slimy heap of a monster, drawing every eye in the dim room like a spotlight. A huge patch of algae on the thing’s back suddenly dried up, browning and flaking away where the sunbeam touched it.

Silently, Jinghua aimed a flurry of swipes at the lumpy mass, carving off chunks of plant matter. The heavenly spotlight of Valentina’s spell faded, leaving them once more striving in the dim light of her shield.

Sveta added her own gentle, white glow to Valentina’s shield-light, summoning it across her whole body and aiming a great whack at the mound’s head. It reeled, stunned beneath a blow much harder than what her arms alone should have been able to deal. Splatters of mud flew in all directions, staining her pale skin and blue dress. Oskar and Jinghua’s weapons also caused the mud to fly. Bits were carved off and flung away, landing with tiny plops in the water.

From the platform at the center of the room, Illyan loaded his crossbow with unfamiliar hands. He picked up the trick of the mechanism quickly, and fired off a bolt which sank into the mound and out of sight. With increased confidence, he loaded another.

This time, when he pulled the trigger, the thing jammed. The bolt split with a snap, half of it shooting down and piercing the top of Illyan’s foot. The genasi shrieked and hopped back, shaking the bolt free of his boot. The tip had thankfully only gone a few centimeters into flesh. He was able to stand on it as soon as the rush of surprising pain passed.

Meanwhile, Sveta was crushed beneath two great, muddy stomps. She weathered the first just barely, but a follow-up swipe sent the woman wobbling to one knee. Aside from the sheer weight of the blows, some of the detritus lodged in its body was sharp, too. She straightened back up, streaming blood from a bitten lip and a slashed hip. Her bloody teeth were bared with effort. The swing from her staff took out another hunk of the monster’s muddy limb. Jinghua followed up by hammering the gap, hacking away at the solid core of the monster’s limb until it was almost severed. The monster buckled where it stood. A silver knife flew out of the darkness, sinking into the creature’s face only inches away from its red eye.

The harengon bared her own squared teeth with effort, continuing to attack. The fur on her face and head formed a thousand tiny spikes that bristled like a hedgehog’s. She took a series of furious swipes and stabs at the mound’s oozy sides, to all of the effect of trying to kill a puddle by splashing in it. For just a moment, it seemed as if Jinghua’s next strike must hit, but a wave of dirty water slapped her in the face and her sword went wide. Frustration was in every line of her usually-stoic face as she scrubbed the mud away from her eyes with her wrist.

“It’s too strong,” she insisted. “We must retreat.”

“It’s being hemmed in,” Oskar pointed out. “If we move back, it can follow.” While they digested this, he added, “You go first. I’ll stay and keep it pinned.”

“Do not be hero,” Sveta began.

“I’m not! I will follow!” he insisted. “I am faster than any of you!”

Jinghua raised a skeptical brow, but nodded. They had witnessed how quick he was to flee when they had first encountered the ghouls. Valentina, on the walkway, nodded as well, frantically. Sveta held out for a few more moments, matching the tabaxi glare for glare. At last, she inclined her head.

Oskar faced his foe, spear in hand. The others began to cautiously back away.

The plan was stalled before it could even begin. As soon as Jinghua stepped backwards, it pounced. Both front limbs pummeled her back beneath the water. This time, her form went limp, remaining on the bottom and rolling slightly in the currents. A thread of red blood unspooled from her temple where it had impacted the stone floor.

Oskar and Sveta renewed their attacks, spear and staff hammering from both sides, but the creature gave a single desultory swipe which sent Oskar down to join Jinghua.

Instead of running away, Illyan splashed off of the platform and dashed forward, injured foot limping slightly. He awkwardly tucked the crossbow beneath one armpit, freeing both hands to fumble with a box on his belt. From within this box, he drew a long, slimy creature which wriggled between his gray fingers. Reaching Jinghua, he went down on his knees, submerged now to the chest in the churning water, and felt around until he found her temple. To it, he applied the creature–a leech, which latched onto her bloody temple and began to suck. Before long, it was a fat little slug of a thing. Illyan murmured, “There, now. Ti-Louie will get all the bad blood outta you, cher. Balance them humors right up.”

With his hands now fisted in her tunic, Illyan hauled as hard as they could. Between his skinny arms, injured foot, and general confusion, the genasi barely managed to get his companion's face above the water, much less drag her out of danger. Both were still well within striking distance of the mound.

Jinghua’s eyes indeed fluttered open, big and liquid and hazy. She remained half-reclined in Illyan’s grip, surrounded by water, mud raining down on her face. In the dim, moving light of Valentina’s shield, the monster seemed a dark bulk as tall as any building as it thrashed slowly around above her. Just barely, lit by an aura of moonlight, she could make out the forms of Sveta and Oskar in the water with her, fighting to hold the monster back. To the side, her eyes landed on the sunlit form of Valentina. Behind her glowing shield, she stood like a ship’s figurehead, blonde curls tumbling and white skirt flying. Her blue eyes darted across the battlefield, mind whirling with despair.

The weight of those strikes, the pain which could not be withstood… Even one more that landed Oskar, Jinghua, or Sveta would render them senseless. Valentina had no more magic. All she had was her own two hands and her wits, like she’d always had.

Illyan had magic left. Enough to strengthen one of them enough to endure another blow, maybe. Maybe not, though. And certainly not two. If he used the last of his magic now, he would have none left for if someone lost consciousness again. If Oskar lost consciousness, who was there left to carry him to safety? He or Illyan could take Jinghua right now, but if Illyan had to carry both Jinghua and Oskar… Well, he simply couldn’t. If they couldn’t get Oskar back up, there was no point. He’d fall into the water and drown before anybody could drag him to safety.

Her eyes fluttered shut as if to contain the feeling surging through her body. Adrenaline, fear, her whole self screaming don’t. Don’t let them be hurt. Don’t just stand here. Don’t watch this happen. It was a thought that skimmed endlessly across her mind, unable to be absorbed and internalized.

One of us is going to have to fall.

The thought rang like a gong, with a creeping echo just behind.

It might be me.

She wasn’t hurt. The logistics of carrying unconscious companions to safety was the same for her as for anyone else. If Illyan used his last healing invention now, to prevent rather than to reverse harm, it would be wasted. They’d lose too many people to carry, one way or another. There was only one path forward, only one scenario that would lead all or most of them to safety. She could delay her own fall, but she couldn’t prevent it entirely. It might be her.

She didn’t open her eyes when she shouted, “Illyan! Wait until one of us goes down! It’s the only way!”

She kept them shut when she felt the rushing approach of something heavy and wet from above.

It was her, after all.

Before Jinghua’s bleary eyes, the monster aimed a swipe at Valentina. The girl’s whole body flared with the dawn, her voice rising.

“Wake!”

Her shining body vanished beneath a mudslide. Though the creature closed its eyes against the light, all it had to do was let its limb fall to crush the girl beneath it. Her light was snuffed, her voice vanishing sharply. The chamber fell into almost total darkness.

With its other limb, the mound flailed out blindly, eyes still shut. It caught Sveta on a backswing. A broken branch speared deep into her clavicle in a splatter of dark blood. The light from her moonlight aura scattered as she sank beneath the black water. The only light left in the entire chamber was the diffuse glow of Illyan’s hair and the reflection of it in the red eyes of the mound. The room fell into a ringing kind of silence, the only sounds the violent slap of water and the buzzing of invisible flies. The three left standing gasped for breath, coughing out muddy water with every exhale.

There was absolutely nothing funny about this anymore.

Beneath the water, visible in the total darkness of the room, a mote of light sprang to life. It grew, spreading like spilled ink through the water, glowing vivid white. It grew, grew, as it approached the surface, finally exploding like a white-hot meteor spraying water in every direction.

Sveta, standing now and lit from within, snarled like a feral beast. Her pale hair was plastered across her face, the points of her ears sticking through, her blue dress clinging to every inch of her body. She wrenched the branch from her chest with one hand, the dark wound sealing up into a silvery circle just above the swell of her right breast. Red lips were peeled back from stained teeth that suddenly seemed as sharp as Oskar’s fangs. It seemed impossible at the moment that Sveta could ever pass for an elf or a human, not with that fey bloodlust in her eyes.

She aimed a double-handed swing at the mound with her glowing staff. The site of the impact exploded like a geyser. The tendons along the backs of her hands stood out like wires, the strength in them clear.

In a guttural voice, Sveta bellowed, “Run!”

Illyan, transfixed, was startled into obedience. He snatched the leech from Jinghua’s temple and scrambled through the water, half-using his arms to propel him until he reached the walkway and Valentina’s mud-covered body. He deposited Ti-Louie onto her neck, leaving the leech to wriggle in search of skin while he seized her beneath the armpits and hauled for all he was worth. His feet slipped on the muddy stone, the pierced one stinging and throbbing. Agitated, the lower ends of his hair flickered wildly in time with his bun. His head went back, breath stalling in his throat as he strained to shift the dead weight of the cleric and all her pounds of armor. Even with all of his effort bent to the task, they barely moved at all.

Oskar, meanwhile, was visibly on his last legs. His hands on his spear did not tremble, but his mouth hung open with his pants for breath. He visibly wavered at Sveta’s command, looking between the foe before him and the escape behind. His eyes fell on Jinghua. As shaky as he was, the harengon was still shakier. Her eyes failed to focus, the tip of her sword drooping heavily though she held it in both hands. She looked as if a too-strong push from the water would topple her back beneath it. Never mind another blow from the shitmonster.

Mind made up, Oskar threw one arm around Jinghua’s waist and bolted. The petite harengon was taken right off of her feet. The mound gave a parting swipe across their backs. Oskar stumbled and recovered. Jinghua was not so lucky. The weight of the mud jolting her spine snapped her head back. Her body became dead weight in Oskar’s arm, head lolling. The tabaxi kept running. Every bound ate up the distance, and within seconds Oskar was blowing past the altar platform and arrowing towards the chamber’s entrance. From this side, he could now see the mechanism which controlled the portcullis embedded into the wall beside the doorway. If he activated it now, they’d be locked on the wrong side.

Behind him, the furious meteor that was Sveta blew out once more beneath an avalanche of algae.

The tail of the fattened leech lashed wildly between Valentina’s jaw and shoulder. The cleric’s eyes fluttered open in a riot of frothy, scummy water. Driven seemingly by pure instinct, she pushed forward and out of Illyan’s grasp, falling to where she could thrust her hands blindly through the water until she found Sveta’s body. Together, she and Illyan splashed and stumbled a retreat in a messy tangle of limbs, each half-pulling on each other and Sveta.

Half-awake, Valentina’s panic was like a pulse in her throat. She was out of magic. She was out of healing spells! She was a vulnerable body full of pain and fear and a single stomp could wipe her off the face of the Forgotten Realms. All she could do was cling to Sveta with slipping, stiff fingers and shove herself and Illyan towards the chamber exit. All she could do was pray to the Morninglord that he would deliver her from danger once again and allow her to see another dawn far away from this lightless, subterranean oubliette. Her lips moved soundlessly.

It seemed as if they would never escape. At some point, Valentina stumbled and the red glow of Illyan was no longer beside her when she rose. All of her focus narrowed to the task of escape. The water around her grew shallower, easier to move in. It took hours. Days. At last, Valentina’s body collided painfully with an iron pole. She sprawled, blinking water out of her eyes until the dark space resolved even slightly into sense. An iron pole. One of the candle-holders in the reliquary. She had gotten Sveta out of the ritual chamber.

“Sun of righteous… Sun… Lord of…”

Mouthing breathless, half-voiced prayers, Valentina rolled onto her hands and knees. Her palms shoved at Sveta, rolling her onto her back, poking her fingers up to feel the lack of breath in her friend’s body. She gathered her knees beneath her for leverage and pushed. Pushed. Laced her fingers together, one hand on top of the other. Pushed.

Sveta choked. A bubbling fountain of brackish water poured from the corners of her mouth. She coughed, sucked in breath. Her eyes remained closed. Valentina drew in her own, almost equally unsteady breath. Both hands came up to fling her wet hair back from her face.

She was too tired to jump as something huge came splashing down the passage into the reliquary. With a great squelch, the something hit the stone floor and rolled apart into two smaller shapes. The huffs of labored breathing coming from one had a familiar timber, a growling undertone. Oskar levered himself upright, mane lank and positively pouring water all over. Beside him, Jinghua lay still, her chest barely moving.

In a strange way, kneeling on the floor in the darkness surrounded by all of these bodies, Valentina was reminded of where she grew up. The nights spent in darkness, listening to the breaths and movement of the girls around her, hardly visible but palpably present. Knowing there was no solitude, no privacy, nothing just and only for her. That the only escape would be another dawn.

She met Oskar’s searching eye and knew he saw the truth in her face: Valentina was a powerless child, without her magic. She had no way to keep them safe from the approaching monster.

Behind them, in the passage, Illyan looked desperately from one end of the hall to the other. On one side, the reliquary chamber, silent and dark. Four soaked and trembling bodies strewn across its floor, two of them barely breathing. Oskar looked back at Illyan, tapetum lucidum glinting in flat green circles from the light of the genasi’s hair. On the other side lay the ritual chamber, the vast pool of shallow water across which a shambling mound of a monster charged. Only the sticky, slushy sounds of its soft body pulling apart could be heard as it moved. The sloshes and splashes of water drowned out the buzzing of flies with every motion. Those red eyes remained fixed on the reliquary chamber as they grew closer and closer.

Quick as thought, it filled the entryway. There was nothing stopping it from crossing this passage and entering the reliquary chamber in the next moment.

Between Illyan and the shambling mound, the iron portcullis stuck out from where it was locked into the ceiling.

There was no other way to seal the passage. The lever which controlled it was on the side with the mound. Illyan hesitated for a single heartbeat.

Then, he sprang.

Their hands caught on the lower edge of the iron grate, whole body dangling, legs curled up behind them like a shrimp. The portcullis creaked beneath their weight…

…and held.

Illyan and the shambling mound held baleful, red eye contact. Flies buzzed in the six inches of space between their faces. The stink of rot and slime clogged his nose and throat.

There was a rush and Illyan knew no more.

For Oskar, the rest of the night was flashes with very little connective memories in between. Each was a vivid, sensory image flavored with fear and desperation.

The first flash, Illyan’s body dropping from the portcullis and vanishing beneath the water and a mudslide of fetid monster. The rotting smell of it, the tiny splash and sizzle of his fiery hair slipping underwater. How tiny the little ember of a genasi was against the large bulk of the creature swatting him down. The total rush of despair, knowing that he was the only fighter still standing.

The second flash, running up the shallow stairs into the narrow maze of corridors, hearing the mound shambling behind him. Glancing over his shoulder to watch it roll over Valentina, a shaky, tilted glimpse of an advancing wave of mud. He was the only one standing. Who knew how many of the others were dead by now.

The third flash, standing at the top of the stairs, stringing his longbow with trembling hands. Despite the fragmentary nature of his memories, the moment felt sharp and hyper-real. His body was shaking with how real it felt. He wasn’t afraid. This was just another beast. He had killed plenty of those. He’d kill this one as long as he kept his head.

The fourth, fifth, sixth flashes. Running through the narrow corridors of the catacombs. Through the dining room. The squelch of the creature following him. Bow in hands, pausing to swivel, fire, and then keep running. The arrows bristling from its face.

The seventh flash, an arrow sinking deeply into the shambling mound’s red eye. The wet sighing sound of its body coming to rest, half-melting into the stone floor.

The eighth flash, sinking to his knees on the floor, the bow falling from his exhausted hands, only to find his body sinking instead through thick, white mist which closed over his head.

The next breath Oskar took was scented with moonlit hills and dark clouds. His eye adjusted into focus. Before him was the rolling road towards Daggerford. The carcass of the carnivorous deer he had hunted for the local farmers was heavy on his shoulder. All of the exhaustion and pain he had felt was gone from his body.

The mist on the road ahead had evaporated without a trace.