Chapter 22

Guests in the Hell [https://i.imgur.com/SKCGJwd.png]

“Divines!” Linus murmured under his breath looking at closed in Orla with pity.

Linus and Orla were alone in the room with the tunnel leading toward the surface. Jack and Zaun went through the door to explore what lies beyond this room and they were still exploring somewhere else.

The girl sat on the ground in gloomy silence around her. She had found her spear once again and now gripped it with all her might. Strength, she gained from Hands of Spearman, seemed to soothe her nerves and slightly calm her down.

Linus knew the girl for most of his life and he understood very well what she was going through right now. Behind her rough facade was hiding a large and soft heart. Orla was very compassionate and caring. Even too compassionate. She dreamed to become a strong female warrior, but Linus knew better. The young girl would be more suited to be a mother than a fighter. For somebody so bright there was no place on the battlefield.

Orla saw those young Eldritch as harmless children, but for Linus, they were nothing more than small monsters. It was insanity to even consider mercy in their situation. Linus fully supported the decision of Jake to remove all dangers and get free experience for it.

But that didn’t change the fact that Jack did harm to Orla. Her face was still slightly bleeding, and it had huge black bruises decorating it. Her head was rounded up like a balloon and together with her cut-off nose, she might go for the Eldritch title herself. But all that didn’t hold weight in the mind of Linus. All he was concerned about, was her health and how long it will take for her to heal up, not her looks.

Anger against Jack flared inside him, but he pushed it back down. Anger was not the right emotion to feel right now. Orla attacked Jack first and Linus couldn’t possibly blame Jack for retaliating. He would pierce Jack’s neck if needed, but there was no need to hold grudges. Not now.

Linus remembered the name of their party and a light chuckle escaped his lips.

“Truly fitting.”

Orla glared at him with anger.

Linus just shrugged in answer.

“How are you feeling?” he asked Orla.

“Beter.”

“I know you feel sorry for those creatures, but they are Eldritch. You must remember that!”

Orla glared at Linus with an even more dreadful look.

“If you haven’t noticed yet we are waging war against their kind. By killing them he might have saved human lives.”

“I don’t wish to speak about it.”

“Then stop acting like Jack killed your family!” Linus lost his temper and screamed at Orla for the first time in his life, “This is not the time for some stupid sentiment towards the race which is trying to kill us!”

“I will not lose my humanity even if I have to die for it!” Orla screamed back at him.

“It’s not only your life you are putting on the line here! It’s all of our lives! Who granted you the power to decide what risks we take? Do you think you can decide decisions like that alone? You attacked Jack over some fucking Eldritch! We traveled here to kill them not save them!”

“Jack decided to kill them alone, too.” Orla rebuked.

“No, he didn’t,” Linus tried his best to get his composure back, ” He looked back at Zaun and me, and there was no need for words as we all shared the same opinion.”

“Opinion to kill children of our enemies?”

“Exactly! You don’t know how dangerous they are, do you? You don’t know what they think! That is insanity to not kill them!”

Orla and Linus both shut up measuring each other with angry looks.

“Please, Orla!” after small silence Linus spoke once again, this time a lot more calmly, “We can’t be soft. We have a single goal, and we must work together to reach it. This is not a game.”

Orla watched him for a moment, put her helmet on, and turned her back to him.

“Fuck off!”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Linus smiled as he knew Orla and all her shenanigans. She already forgave them, she just doesn’t know it yet. The girl still needs to calm down before she will be able to think straight.

Linus looked more carefully at her, as the ironclad woman stepped back on her legs and stretched her hands.

‘Not a girl. Woman and warrior.’ he thought to himself.

At that moment Linus and Zack returned from their scouting trip.

“Still alive, lovebirds?” Jack said, “You will want to see what we found.”

“What is it?” Linus asked.

“I just said, you will want to see that with your own eyes. Trust me.” Jack smirked.

“What about our stuff?”

“Leave it for now, take only your weapons,” Jack turned towards Orla and confronted her directly, “Are we good, girl?”

“Never have been better,” Orla answered with her voice still low.

“Good! Then come.”

All four Mad Dogs exited the tunnel room and entered the corridor. There were no doors separating the room from the corridor, instead, there was a thin translucent membrane that they could cross with no problem at all.

Corridor went for some while until they arrived at another membrane door. On another side of the membrane was a big room which didn’t look like anything they have seen before. Strange devices and shining crystals were piled up on all sides of the room. The room was messy and dirty with tables stacked with weird trinkets and text scrolls.

“I think it’s some kind of workshop.” Jack said to the rest of them, “Homeowner must be a tinkerer.”

“You are right,” Linus said after observing the room, “See that table in the right corner?”

Linus pointed at a large table pressed against the far wall of the room.

“There are laid out unlit lanterns, exactly the same as the ones back in the tunnel” Linus pointed out.

Linus and Orla examined devices around them with great interest. All around them were trinkets completely unfamiliar to them. The purpose of those trinkets was a mystery. And, sure thing, they wouldn’t dare to touch anything in this room with their bare hands. Human mages have infamy for not properly setting up safety checks in their workshops. There is no reason to believe that Eldritch mages would be more diligent in this regard. One wrong touch might set up an explosion pulling them into pieces, as mage workshops tend to be slightly volatile. Maybe not slightly. More like extremely volatile.

“Let's go! This is not our main tourist attraction.”

They carefully went through the workshop without touching anything in their way. On the other side of the workshop, they find one more membrane with a corridor behind it.

This corridor was not as long as the previous one and after the short walk, they arrived at a four-way junction.

“Where now?” Linus asked.

“Forward,” Jack said and led them with confidence.

The middle corridor expanded considerably and after a little bit of walk, it opened up into a large cavern.

Mad Dogs stood by the exit of the tunnel in awe and shook.

In front of them stood a magnificent underground city. Or inner belly city as they still were inside of the Fallen Eldritch Forebear.

A large underground expanse was illuminated by countless crystal lanterns set up all around them. Blue light showed many Fallen Eldritch Priests moving around, entering and exiting countless entrances in the ground and walls.

Priests clearly moved with the purpose of attending to their respective duties in their community. They could see one of the priests even sweeping the ground with a grey broom. There were many statues crafted from red beautiful stone and shining decorative engravings all around the cavern walls.

This was the underground Metropolis of Fallen Eldritch Priests.

“We need to go back now!” Linus said, “Somebody could see us standing by the entrance like that.”

“That is crazy!” Orla couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Haha!” Jack laughed satisfied with their reaction, “We have a whole civilization to take on. Start sharpening your spears boys and girls.”

They hurried back to the junction, out of the view of some wandering eyes.

“This is clearly a clergyman’s house. A left corridor leads to the living quarters, with some rooms and even more strange things and unreadable texts, but they are empty, we can check them later. They have beds there, you are going to love it there,” Jack said, “Right now let's go to the right one. And be quiet!”

Jack continued to lead their way, this time he was walking with very slow and silent steps. They were as silent as they could possibly be in full metal armor.

They reached the corner, where the corridor took a crass turn right. Jack stopped and signaled Orla and Linus to peek around the corner.

Linus followed his guide and slowly peeked around it.

Behind the corner, the corridor kept going for a little bit and ended with a round iron door. It was the first door they have seen in this home.

In front of the door stood two figures guarding it.

Figures were made of the same red rock as statues outside in the cavern. Figures looked similar to the Eldritch Priest, only they didn’t have eyes and instead of countless arms, they had only eight.

Round figures stood on four of their arms and in the rest of the four, they held large metal swords.

Construct

Construct

“They don’t even have levels,” Orla whispered to Linus with astonishment.

“Because they aren’t alive,” Linus said gloomily,” I have read about things like that. They are some kind of magical constructs. Only mages with great knowledge can make something like that. As they are just things, we have no way to even remotely tell how strong they are.”

“Well, that is all I got to show,” Jack said clearly happy about himself, “But don’t fret, my friends! I have a plan. Wanna hear it?”

Zaun, Orla, and Linus turned to Jack and listened carefully.