The rest of the night went quietly. I made it back to camp after the vine monster incident and immediately flopped down onto my sleeping pad. A poke into my side pulled my groggy awareness to find Pest poking me in the side.
He was stripped down to his little shorts and his knife belt. I withheld a grin. His fluffy fur was in prime form, giving him the look of a shaggy stuffed animal.
“Miss Mave is upset,” he said.
“Yea…” I trailed off as I glanced at where she was sleeping. I don’t think it was my imagination that a shiver of cold malevolence seemed to radiate from the blankets and skins that made her sleeping gear. I’d just leave her be for now.
“Might be best if we let her have space right now.” I told Pest. “We will check on her tomorrow morning, okay?”
Pest stared at me for a moment before putting his hands on his hips and giving me a stern look.
“Chairman Viktor.” Pest said loudly and finished with a menacing inflection to his voice. “Where are my coins?”
“What coins?” I asked in confusion.
“Those owed to me. For the pond of warmseses,” he said.
“Are you shitting me? Still going on about that?” I asked.
“I do no shits.” He said and looked around at the stone ground around him.
“I don’t have any coins for you.” I told him flatly and he narrowed his eyes at me.
“Blood trade?” he asked low and with menace, his hands suddenly shifted to the handles of his knives.
[Resisted Intimidation]
“You little fucking extortionist.” I growled at the fluffy little asshole. After a few deep breaths to calm my anger, I reached out slowly and placed my hands on his small shoulders. His fur was glorious to the touch and long enough to sink my fingers into it. “This must be important to you?”
“Trade deals are life,” he said with a firm nod.
“Then… I propose instead of coins or blood we use an alternative method of commerce.” I said.
“What?” he asked with wide eyes and wonder in his voice. Another method of commerce or currency always perked his interest.
“Smothering.”
“What?” he asked again, this time with obvious confusion.
“Yea, instead of paying. I’ll be smothering you!” I snatched him up before plopping him onto my bedroll and laying atop him. He fought back vigorously, clawing and biting, but didn’t draw his weapons. In Pest’s strange hierarchy the chairman position must have garnered me enough respect to only be attacked with natural weapons since no blades pierced my belly.
After a short-lived tussle he must have accepted his fate and stopped fighting back, only shoving and wiggling to find a more comfortable position.
Before I fell asleep atop the little bloodthirsty merchant-warrior I peeked towards Mave’s sleeping roll. Two eyes glistened in the firelight as they watched our horseplay. I hoped that the sparkle I saw in the eyes was amusement, but it may have only been sadness covered with anger.
[***]
The next morning nobody talked about the fracas at the hot spring or the scene that was revealed by the two naked Chosen. We glumly chewed at dry rations while packing up camp. As we continued along the path at the biome border, I grew bored and lagged behind until I was playing caboose in our little train. We had been at it for a few hours and the group had a sense of tension and silence that was eating away at me. So, I decided to pester, maybe unwisely, Mave.
She was close to the front of the group, so I had to pass my companions, who either gave me a smile or a curse depending on who it was. Okay, I only got one smile. It was Carmilla.
As I caught up to Mave, I found Pest draped across her shoulders like a fur stole while he slept. If he got any bigger, he wouldn’t be able to pull that off anymore. I pondered on his age, and if he was fully grown. If he was an adolescent, he could probably gain a foot or more in height and bulk up a little more.
“Hey, have you noticed that we easily have enough rations for this… What… two-week journey?” I asked her.
“No, haven’t given it much thought,” she said.
“For real, how much of that ration bar did you eat this morning?”
“None.”
“Oh, no bueno.” I said and received a look. “I only had a bite, but I feel energized! Granted I have never been a big breakfast person, skipping it more than not. But with all this activity, even I can’t wholly avoid it. But that bite or two were completely sufficient to keep me going.”
“I guess, I haven’t ever really thought much about it. I have only ever needed to take a few barras de turrón on a hike,” she said.
“My thought is that our hunger, or whatever mechanic determines consumption of food is pretty lenient.” I said excitedly ignoring the Spanish that I had no clue about, but assumed it meant granola bars. I truly enjoyed trying to figure out mechanics, they were great puzzles, and I was good at it.
“If you say so,” she said noncommittally.
“Yea,” I responded lamely. We walked in silence for a bit before I started lagging behind again, passing to the back once more.
Boredom quickly gripped me once more. This hiking shit was for the psycho’s that enjoyed it. The masochists. I needed a bike or quad or something for my future needs. All this magic and these modern-day folks, there had to be some mad scientist somewhere making modern day shit. I’d bet my left nut that at this very moment some tall thin guy with crazy white Einstein hair and a lab coat was rolling around on a steampunk conveyance of some sort.
I realized though that I did have a method of Norse travel. I had Finley! She even had a self-driving feature and ran on green energy. I would definitely not be leaving her behind again. The rest of these peons could walk, while I rode like royalty.
[***]
One night of our journey lead me to tending to my little knife problem. Deftly stealing Halloway’s own knife one night. Deftly, as in he immediately caught me and bitched the whole time. I carved the bits of melted leather and… well… me, from the handle of my knife. It was gross. I burnt everything in the fire. I had to craft a new grip from spare bits and pieces I carried around with me and some of Pest’s collection of junk but had a manageable tool once again.
I even cleaned Halloway’s knife before I gave it back to him as he scowled the entire time. He had stopped complaining and retreated when I started cutting bits off, so I did have a little peace from his complaints during the procedure. The knife actually looked better than new when all was said and done. The acid had worn off the accumulated bits of schmutz and etched the blade with shiny new mottling. The shines of silver amongst its already lined surface looked kind of badass and must have been an improvement if mending hadn’t taken it away. After everyone was asleep, I sneakily reset its flags to make this the new baseline of mending. While doing so, I caught a new flag.
My INERT has shifted, it was now ANOINTED under Loki’s name. It had other flags associated to the anointed status, only the second I had seen so far. VIKTOR and ACID. That was strange, my name and acid? I had no idea what that could mean. It seemed to have no obvious effect as I played with it. The only problem that remained was an occasional waft of acrid smoke and lingering burnt flesh I would catch from the blade. With not much else to do with the item, I sheathed it and went to sleep for the night.
[***]
We finally reached the point where we had to start climbing the mountain. It was a right pain in the ass and our forward progress slowed considerably. The mountain biome had a steep incline that was covered in loose scree. I had scampered over hills like this through my youth and had developed the talent to get up them naturally. I struggled greatly to articulate just how I did it though.
“I dunno,” I said to Mave, “you just gotta position your weight on the ball of your foot and balance forward, using your hands to brace with little adjustments as the loose stuff slides away.”
“Adjust how?” Mave asked.
“Ehh… Correctly?” I said.
“That is not helpful,” she said.
“Sorry, just kinda a thing I do.” I said with a shrug and fought my way up the hill.
The loose stones and dirt cascaded with each footstep and buried our feet. Each step slipped so we lost half the ground we gained. With a struggle we made it to the first ledge that hosted the trees and bushes that dotted the mountain side. It was only about twenty-five feet up and a struggle to get to.
Halloway and Mave were having a bad time of it. Halloway kept slipping, and on one rather glorious fumble he fell onto his back and rode his shield down to the bottom like an unfortunate turtle. It looked rather fun, truth be told.
Mave was just a city girl. You could tell she didn’t do much slogging around in the woods, no matter how many times she claimed that she went out into the jungles back home. Likewise, she adamantly refused any help offered, her pride too strong to accept it, but she managed.
Dark was able to make headway in the same fashion as me, with pure stubbornness and plenty of expletives.
The true MVP of loose gravel mountain climbing was Carmilla. Her nervous energy and light frame were just the right combination to let her float over the stones. Using both her hands and feet she skittered up the hillside like a Japanese horror movie revenge ghost.
Ryan was another matter entirely and was useless when it came to scaling the mountain slope. His great weight caused him to sink and slide with no significant progress. He couldn’t manage to gain more than a few feet no matter how hard he tried to bull his way up.
As I sat plucking stones out of my boots, Halloway and Dark secured a rope to one of the trees on our ledge and threw it down to him. It took some exertion, but he managed to catch up to us while we took a short break.
From there on we followed a leapfrog maneuver. One of us would scramble up the hill to the next reachable ledge, tie off a rope, and toss it down for the others. Sometimes we had to trail the line, as some ledges were more horizontal than vertical. Dark, Carmilla, and I took turns being the frog.
Carmilla turned out to be quite chatty with me as we rested while Dark took his turn. Apparently saving her from an undignified anime scene had put me in her good graces. On the other hand, Mave’s look when I was talking to Carmilla was a wall of ice. Dark’s look was like a petulant child who just lost their phone privileges.
“Do… do you like vampires?” Carmilla asked me while we watched Dark scale the next hop. She had been smart enough to bring some extra clothing with her and was wearing a simple pair of pants and a tunic. Her hair was knotted into a low ponytail that dangled from the side of her head. It was interesting in its asymmetry.
“About as much as normal, I guess.” I said, “I am not a fan of the stupid sparkly ones though.”
“But they are so pretty,” she said with mouth agape and eyes wide, as if I had spoken profane sacrilege.
“Nah, too much housewife porn, not enough ripping throats out.” I smirked at her, and her face twisted as if she bit a lemon.
“Oh,” she said meekly and wrung her hands together.
“Besides, I was more of a sci-fi and fantasy sort. Books and audiobooks. And less about short-lived movies. A good book series, man you could love them for weeks or months and when they finish it feels like you lost a friend. Movies are an hour or two and skip all the good parts.”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, loud enough to startle her own self before going on more conversationally. “That is how I felt about those books, and the wizard academy books are good too.”
“Carm, how old are you?” I asked as she tugged nervously at her ponytail.
“Uhm. Twenty. Why do you ask?”
“Because I feel like all that sparkly vampire and wizard school stuff it a bit out-dated for someone your age to be into.”
“No,” her brow scrunched again. “They are brand new. I am still waiting to read the last books.”
“Did you watch the movies?” I asked while thinking on how one could classify something thirty years old as pretty new, but she did like the crazy old vampire shit too, so maybe it was new to her.
“What movies? Are there movies?” She asked.
“Yea, for each book, I think they even split some books into two movies. It was all a crash grab so tweens could get more of forehead man and plank. Same thing with wizard kid.”
She seemed to ponder this for a moment before our chatter was interrupted when a coil of rope smacked me in the chest. I glanced up at Dark who was giving me another surly look. I just grinned at him. He wasn’t a very happy camper. He had not brought extra clothing. His current wardrobe had some revealing gaps where the fire had burnt them. Even his samurai armor had a few missing plates and was decorated with singe marks.
Much to my delight, his worst burn wounds had scarred over in the nightly reset. He was pockmarked with them like a Jackson Pollock painting and now looked like a poorly done Halloween costume of a tiger. After figuratively wounding Mave, she had literally wounded him right back.
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Ryan had given her a ration of shit for the friendly fire on his lickspittle, but she gave him the most pointed fuck you look I had ever seen before nodded and walking away.
The day resolved to be a slow steady ascent until late evening found us in front of a right proper dungeon entrance. It had a large entrance, crafted from huge blocks of grey stone. They were large to the point, that if this was the real world, I would have called bullshit on them somehow climbing up this anthill of a mountain. They formed a square frame with an iron banded wooden door that was large enough to drive a wagon through.
A platform jutted out from it, creating a suitable space to set up our camp so we weren’t forced to try digging a foothold out of the loose mountainside or stay on one of the ledges. The closest one of those was downhill and enough of a climb that entering the dungeon was a chore. Leaving the dungeon, portably wounded would have been even more difficult.
Standing on the edge of the platform I gazed around at the darkening lands beneath. I could make out a few details like the three different biomes. I couldn’t see Volstad or the water beyond. I half expected to hear an eagle screech and get a map update notification, but no such luck. The view was still pretty. All the artificial repetition and weird idiosyncrasies of the biomes didn’t mean much seeing from this height.
“Good job Loki.” I said quietly. “Is this how the gods look at the earth? All of it right there, but unreachable?”
The darkening night didn’t answer, so I turned back to the simple camp we set up, just a campfire and our bedrolls, and went to prepare something to eat. We had to drag fallen tree from the lower ledge with our rope, a big part of that effort was done with Ryan’s monstrous strength.
Our campfire blazed merrily away and I was using the last of the good meat with some herbs and wild vegetables I had scavenged along our trip. After days of rations intermixed with quick and dirty seared meat, it was a veritable feast and everyone seemed to enjoy it.
It was enjoyed even more when Halloway slyly dug a small bottle out of his kit and gave us all a small shot of something wholly abysmal. But taste aside, it did put a good warmth to the cheeks. It was a good night for the most part. Quiet conversations and comradery. Mave’s ice wall melted a small bit, she was cuddling with Pest again and letting some smiles alight the corners of her mouth.
So akin to my wife I left behind, trying to be hard and failing minutely. I took a moment to reminisce before bringing my attention back to the girl. She was far from her normal happy and singing Mave I knew, but the extra two shots that Halloway slipped her seemed to help knock her brittle edges off for that night.
[***]
The next morning, we geared up for our dungeon dive and I had a thought. Grabbing something from my rucksack I snuck up to Halloway.
“I have a present for you.” I told him.
“Hey!” He jumped with a start.
“Boo.” I said with a chuckle.
“The hell do you want?” He asked suspiciously.
“This, might help you out in there.” I said and offered him my kabuki mask.
“Fucker,” he said and glared at me. “You think that’s funny?”
“Yep.” I said with a grin as he snatched the mask out of my hand. “Don’t want to melt that pretty face of yours again, now do we?”
“Joke or not, I’m still taking it.” He said and slipped the mask on.
“If you guys are done fucking around, let’s move.” Ryan grumped.
“Yes sahib.” I said and snapped a shitty salute to him.
I was still chucking to myself as we stacked up at the dungeon door. The party line changed a little, with Dark and I switching spots. I was going to hold the line with the great Gloria in hand.
As Ryan pressed against the door a surprise greeted us.
[Party: Do you wish to enter the dungeon?]
[Requirement: Party Minimum: 6]
[Y/N]
“Six?” Dark asked.
“Shit.” Halloway said.
“It will be fine,” Ryan said, “Just accept and let’s move in.”
“I don’t have a good weapon.” Dark complained.
“What? You got a fine spear!” I told him. As the savviest at crafting skills, I had taken a crack at repairing his spear. It wasn’t that bad.
“Fine? It’s got a damn branch sticking out the side of it!” He nattered on.
“It adds mystique!” I insisted. Having removed the spearhead from his broken spear, all it needed was a fine shaft, so I had made a pole out of the best limb I could. If it happened to have one small limb with a few leaves still attached, was that so bad?
“Viktor, would you stop fucking around and just fix his goddamn spear?” Ryan barked at me.
“Fiiiiiiine.” Like a cranky teenager. I took my hatchet and quickly trimmed off the limb. After a few scrapes with the blade to plane it down, it was good to go. “There you go, good as new.”
“Okay. Let’s move.” Ryan grumbled and the party consented to enter.
“Should make that a drinking game.” I muttered quietly.
“What?” Halloway asked, having overheard.
“Each time he says, ‘Let’s move’ we should take a drink.” I said and he gave a snort. “We wouldn’t even make it through the doorway.”
I shifted focus to the task at hand as the door swung open to reveal the dungeon. Huge stone blocks formed a corridor. Wooden torches burned with merry little flames as they lit the corridor with their dancing light. They were held in sconces evenly spaced along the walls. I inspected one.
Name: Torch
Material: Wood
Durability: Average
Value: Above Average
FLAGS: EVERBURNING
That seemed like a valuable flag and I added it to my list. Coincidently while in my paused inspect space, I could still use the system so looking through flags and my recorded runes was still possible.
We shuffled into the corridor and started our delve. Passing through the hallway I tried to take a torch, but it was resolute in its desire to not be mine. I grumbled about unlootable scenery and we proceeded into a room. Halloway hesitated at the threshold of the room and carefully checked before entering. We were a little trap-shy after the last few days.
Finding nothing apparently deadly he entered the room, and we slipped in afterwards. The room held a stone block that was carved with flowing lines twisting and circling resembling a fog coming off water. Runes were carved between the lines spelling out an unreadable tale.
I inspected the stone.
Name: Carved Stone Plinth
Material: Sedimentary Compound
FLAGS: NONE
Atop the plinth stood four figurines carved out of wood. An eleven-point elk with its rack of sharp antlers lowered and its strong legs pawing at the earth ready to charge at an unseen opponent.
A raven that was so delicate and realistic, you could discern each one of its feathers. Its wings spread wide to catch the air as its talons reached out to latch onto some morsel.
A bear, standing on its back legs with arms open ready to give a warm hug. However, its snarling mouth and huge jaws told a story of danger that would make it a very unpleasant embrace.
And finally, a wolf, proud and tall calling to its brethren with an unheard howl.
Each statue stood about a foot and a half tall and had a geometric base. All the intricate lines and shapes perfect down to the smallest detail. Rolling an inspect across them revealed basic properties of a mundane object with a value of treasure. Very pretty, but otherwise just statues for display. The elk revealed itself to be a stag, and I didn’t know the difference between the two.
Ryan made a beeline for the treasures and immediately snatched up the wolf. A loud thud reverberated through the room, and I looked back towards the exit. The door had slammed shut.
“Uhhh, we just got locked in.” I said.
“It’s fine, that just means everything else is locked in here with us.” Ryan said offhandedly. Well, wasn’t he a confident one.
“Okay, then you can lead the party though the possibly trapped and monster infested corridors, yea?” I said flippantly.
“Just shut up and do your job, coward.” Ryan snapped back at me.
“Whatever you say, boss.” I replied a little shortly. I didn’t get all bent out of shape being called a coward. Cowardice was no big deal in my mind. Sometimes a guy had to flee to survive a situation. It was an inborn survival trait. As long as you weren’t abandoning your loved ones, I considered it a completely valid tactic. I just happened to not utilize it much, since I was too belligerent and stubborn to flee from shit.
Pest skittered out from whatever legs he had been hiding behind and climbed onto the stone plinth to lay claim to a statue. He chose the bear, which he sort of resembled. This caused Dark and Mave to dash forward and lay claim to their own prizes.
They both went for the raven, but Dark won and Mave ended up with the stag. She didn’t seem to put out with the beautiful animal as she took it, but she gave Dark a look like she wanted to rip his eyes out. He wisely didn’t look at her as he retreated and fawned over his prize as he presented it to Carmilla.
“Let’s move.” Ryan announced and made way towards the hall, tying his statue to his belt with a leather strap. I locked my eyes with Halloway and lifted my hand to mime taking a drink. He smirked at me and shook his head.
I looked back to the plinth and inspected it again. I had a rough rune to alphabet translation mapped out and wanted to see if I could decipher the words engraved into the stone. In inspect mode, I could stare at the stone and use my todo list notes to take all the time I needed to figure it out.
Again, the translation of the letters came to be in English words, not in whatever dialect that Norse used. I’d have to ask Loki about that phenomenon. I did have to puzzle out some words that weren’t separated by spaces, but it wasn’t too difficult with context clues.
The translation came out to be:
I, Halstein, writes runes.
Raised this stone in memory of animals of power.
No man shall remove the ‘figurine’, or blood will wet this stone.
Raven, two parts of Odin raven-god, Huginn-thought one is called and Muninn-mind one is called.
Wolf, Fenrisulfr strongest among them, whom tasted blood of Aesir, patiently waits to be loosed from his fetters.
Bear, symbol of berserkir, oft disguised gods, sinew part of the tether binding Fenrisulfr until Ragnarok’s call.
Stag, Eikthyrnir one is called, from his horn fall drops into Hvergelmir, whence all waters rise.
As soon as I exited my inspect mode Pest pulled on my pant leg and looked up with bright shiny eyes. His bear figurine clutched to his body like a long-lost friend. It wasn’t bigger then he was, but it definitely wasn’t something that would easily fit into his rucksack, and with the eyes of the group around us I wasn’t going to jimmy it in at this moment.
“Chairman Viktor…” he trailed off coyly.
“Yea, yea,” I said and snatched up the figurine tying it to my belt. He happily marched along beside me as we resumed through the hallway.
“Viktor, you scout ahead, since you are so good at finding traps.” Ryan ordered.
“Yessah baws.” I drawled as I took the lead.
The corridor continued for a span before hitting the wall. Nothing obviously dangerous jumped out at me in the torch lined corridor of large stone blocks. I took a slow approach, slinking along like a cat burglar in a silent movie.
At around halfway down the corridor I glanced behind myself and noticed that my group was spread out behind me with a good few paces between each person. It was almost as if they wanted to avoid anything hazardous that I might set off. So much for party unity. The little bit of it that we had. This really wasn’t what I had counted on when joining a guild. When I made my way off on my own, I would not be joining another.
I continued forward, a little recklessly if I was being honest. I was irritated and didn’t feel like going stone by stone with a probe stick while getting bitched at for being too slow. I confidently strode forward not a care in the world. The only solidarity I had was Pest at my side. But the way he kept glancing at the bear figurine hanging from my belt, his motivations were suspect as well.
I came to a T intersection in the hallway and spun around.
“Which path shall we take oh fearless leader?” I loudly asked the barbarian with a deferential bow and hand flourish.
He opened his mouth to respond but whatever he was about to spew at me got cut off by a deep thrum that translated through my bones. Along with the thrum the whole world began to vibrate. Earthquake? Pest grabbed my leg to steady himself as the vibration turned into a tremor.
I saw Carmilla grab hold of Dark as the others tried to brace against the walls of the hallway.
Another deep boom resonated, and Pest and I stumbled to the left. The earthquake hit a new intensity and the room shifted to the side, the stones right in front of me sliding out of place with a sound of crushed gravel.
My section of hallway slid to the side, quickly cutting me off from the others. Just before they were completely gone from my sight, I saw that they had shifted and stumbled in differing directions. This was bad. As the age-old adage said, you don’t split the party!
The rumbling ended abruptly as another loud boom reverberated through the stone. The sudden halt of the sliding room made me stagger again and I tripped over Pest. We went down together and took a quick breather to get our bearings. We were a little shaken up but not hurt.
My section of hallway now had only a single direction to choose from. I stood up and dusted myself off.
“Guess it’s just you and me my guy.” I said to Pest who frantically darted around and sniffed at the new wall that blocked the way we had come from.
“Company is split.” He said slightly distressed.
“Don’t worry bud, we will link up to them again. We just got to go that-a-way.” I told him and peered down the short hallway.
I advanced as the hall took a sharp turn to the left. More cautious now I peeked around the corner to see what awaited us. More bricks and another short hallway. This continued for four or five turns in the seemingly most boring labyrinth maze ever made.
But what awaited me at the end of this snakelike maze? Jackshit. A longer hallway that came to a dead end.
“The fuck is this bullshit?” I said in irritation.
“I see no shit.” Pest said from beside me as we stared at the wall.
“Yea, me either!” I snapped in frustration. I started inspecting everything but only saw more stone. I pulled on the torch sconces along the hallway. Nothing.
“Loki damn it!” I cursed and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. “The flying fuck do I do now? Wither and die in this twisty fucking hallway?”
“No die, healed every night!” Pest said reassuringly and pat my knee.
“No, remember what Halloway said? In the dungeons the nightly reset doesn’t affect us if it passes while we are in here.” I reminded him.
“Oh!” He announced and put a hand on his chin, contemplating deep thoughts, if his scrunched-up face was any indication.
“One other thing,” I said while readjusting myself on the uncomfortable floor. “What happens if you… fall? Will you be gone forever, or will you respawn with me through the bond?”
“Oh!” He said again as his eyes went wide and his face fell.
“Yea, and do you follow me when I respawn, or will you be trapped in here while I rush to come rescue you in vain?”
“Okay,” he said solemnly and patted my knee reassuringly. “Plenty of meats here to survive while waiting.”
“Are you…” I squinted at him and shifted around uncomfortably, “…saying you are going to eat me?!”
“Waste no trade goods!” He announced and poked me in the belly. “Much meat here.”
“Listen here you little shit,” I said, “that is incredibly rude to eat a friend. Furthermore, my body will dissolve when I respawn.”
“Oh,” he said sadly, his prodding finger falling to his side.
“Fine, you can eat me while I last.” I said with a sigh.
“Deal!” he said and held out his hand for a shake. I gave him a limp shake in return. Making a deal for my dead meat with a little ferret man. What has my life become? I again shifted around on the floor.
“Why is this so damn uncomfortable?” I announced. I scooted to the side trying to find a better position, as I shifted my hand ran over a sharp divot in the floor. It was difficult to see because of the bland texture and subdued torch light.
The shape was round with flat edges, an octagonal shape. With a grin, I took the bear statuette from my belt and pressed it into the divot. With a frown I found it repulsed, like two magnets of repelling polarities. It twisted in my grip until it faced the wall and then snapped into place with a sharp click.
A deep thrum that was becoming a theme of this dungeon vibrated through me again and was followed by a grating noise as the wall lowered into the floor. Beyond was a large room the size of a gymnasium with high ceilings to match. It was shaped like the base of the figurine, an octagon and had a couple torches lining the walls casting sparce light. In the center was a pool of darkness as some sort of pit dropped into the floor.
“Bear with me here, but I think we have to go that way.” I told Pest.
“Yes,” he said simply, not understanding my awesome joke.
I hesitantly entered the room and Pest followed behind. A scrabble of noise had me glancing back as the stone door began to close. Pest hopped off the quickly closing door barely making it before becoming door jam. Getting trapped in was, apparently, another theme of this dungeon. However, the culprit of this trap was giving me a shameful grin while holding his prized bear figurine.
“Really?” I asked him as we were sealed inside.
“Mine.” He said with his big pleading eyes, like a cat trying to seduce treats from you. Grumbling, I took the wooden bear from him and tied it to my belt once more.
The pit in the center of the room, from what I could see, was a gentle slope downward like a large bowl. I could just pick up faint shuffling and chuffs of noise in the blackness. No blue eyes of draugr glowed, but I still imagined a small horde of the creatures at the bottom. They could just be wearing sunglasses or something, right?
“Pest,” I asked quietly. “I can’t see down there. Can you see how many are there?”
“One,” he replied, and I felt a surge of relief. My relief was very short lived, however.
With a hissing whomp, that startled me, a torch spontaneously lit high up near the ceiling of the room. Another lit, then another and another. A whole series of them sparked to life around the room.
Grunting noises brought my attention back to the pit, at the bottom of the bowl it was filled with leaves, moss, and foliage. Atop this salad of nature was a giant ball of dark brown fur. The terrible tribble shifted and swayed in place, and I was slightly puzzled as to what exactly this creature was. Just as I was about to inspect it, it shifted.
Coming atop four powerful legs with a drunkard’s sway, a large head with long muzzle and fuzzy ears looked towards me. Groggily blinking its eyes clear it peered at me.
Then, it roared. A deep primal roar that shook the bones and triggered the lizard brain deep down inside of me. Dread settled down heavily onto me, a pit forming in my chest, my neck and shoulders tightening, and my face going cold. The big fuck off bear said hello.
“Awww. Fuck.” I complained.