“HE-HE-HE!” rang the cackling sounds of witches throughout the tunnel. The voices must’ve come from deeper ahead, Rum reasoned. Yet neither him nor his party could be entirely sure. If there were more tunnels dug out that secretly linked up to this one, like the one that had just let the witches and wizards move behind them and block their way back, then there was no telling where an attack could come from next.
The menacing laughters thundered ominously, piercing serious wounds into the spirits of the elves. Anytime now, those evil mages could spring a surprise assault. And even if nothing so extravagant occurred, they could still strike at them from concealed murder holes in the walls; little cracks convenient in height and diameter, with which to stick long spears through, or shoot arrows foul with magic.
Rum’s imagination became acutely aware of all these possibilities, and his eyes looked suspiciously around at the tunnel walls, as if expecting something to spring forth from them. Some of the elves also seemed aware of this possibility, and Rum saw several of them looking up at the tunnel ceiling, scanning the ground or watch the walls both left and right. The atmosphere was tense for a long time.
Yet, this didn’t stop Alkiath from exclaiming with utter awe as they – with positive surprise – managed to escape the tunnel, and poured slowly out into that cavernous main path; that great open space with all its numerous caves and sidetunnels, leading to places few adventurers had visited. And fewer still had survived, Rum recalled, thinking back at rumors that’d been told by one of Amez’ customers. At that time, after mentioning his own visit to the dungeon, the customer had described the relatively recent but dangerous history of this place. Nearly a dozen parties had perished here since it first became known. Perhaps this was the place too, where those unlucky adventurers died. Rum glanced around, and his thoughts became solemn.
“So big!” Udevi exclaimed next to him, and Rum’s attention was drawn to the elf. He looked over at her, and then followed her eyes. Udevi was gazing up towards the tall dark ceiling. That great darkness above was mainly unreachable by their torchlight, though faintly lit contours hinted at where the great open space ended, and a mountain ceiling began.
Around Rum, the torchbearing elves stepped out from their group to bring their lights forward and illuminate those sidetunnels and caves that haunted their immediate surroundings. The weak illumination of those dark holes of the mountain, up high and down low, made Rum feel exposed; as if dark magic arrows would again strike out from nowhere and lodge themselves in his chest. Even if Rum had counter-measures today, the possibility still made him feel all too mortal. What if their next magic arrow carries an even worse spell?
Rum looked around at his elves, watching their curiosity for a while. “This is where it happened” he commented eventually. Their glances all turned to face him. “This is near where they started showing up. A hundred skeletons, or possibly way more.”
Alkiath, looking into the blue for a moment first while taking in Rum’s statement, started nodding seriously. “And yet” he said, producing a small smile, “you survived, you and just 4 other people. Meanwhile, we are 13.” Alkiath’s response felt like an attempt at showing confidence, his words working like an argument for its deservedness. “But I understand” he continued, before Rum could reply, “in here: we must be prepared.” Alkiath starting looking around at his fellow elves. “Remember your formation training, friends? Don’t give those heaps of bones the chance to break it!”
At the mention of a formation, all the elves started moving into one. One by one, the various elves took the shape of a loose square, with 3 elves on either side. Each such side, which Rum thought of as a flank, consisted of 2 standard elves, and was supplemented by 1 elf of special status or capability. At the front, this special elf was Alkiath himself, their leader. At the sides were the shield elves, and at the back was Urvanom, the one elf who, despite being less of a fighter, still had the levels to pretty much work as a shield elf of his own. His extra strength, health and stamina made him capable – by default – to singlehandedly survive a wave of lower level skeletons.
“And where should I go?” Rum asked when the formation was more or less properly established.
“In the center, or wherever you’ll feel most useful.” Alkiath answered, as if he hadn’t really put much thought into Rum’s role during the fight.
“I think I prefer to walk on the side then.” Rum took up position next to one of the shield elves.
“Which way should we go?” Alkiath asked the cavern softly, a contemplative expression overtaking his face. For a few moments the elf leader stood there, eyes analyzing the faint tunnels and caves that were visible from their starting position. Of course, what was a tunnel and what was a cave was not so clear most of the time, and so in the end, there was little to base a decision on. Not in this darkness at least. Thus Alkiath eventually turned, and just looked expectantly at Rum.
“Hmm.” Rum responded, starting to stroke his beard for wisdom. “My past party didn’t really get to go very far before we were attacked. We followed the main path left, but all I can tell you about that direction is that there are many tunnels and caves there, and some up high, where archers hid in the shadows. If I were to give an opinion, I would say going the opposite way of where we were last ambushed might offer more favourable fighting grounds. At least I don’t think it can be much worse than what we faced last time. Though of course I would be more familiar with going left, so there’s also the value of familiarity, which could help tell where the enemy is.”
“Good arguments to know, yet we need to make a decision. What way do you think is the best? You hold the seniority here.” Alkiath put up both hands and pointed them gesturingly in each direction, as if trying to make Rum pick one.
“Hmm.” Rum pondered, stroking his beard with increased speed now, as if channeling the stress of choosing into its magnificent length. “If I had to choose, I prefer the unknown of the right. It might just be my fears of what happened on the left, or it might be my curiosity for whatever I don’t already know. Either way, if I were you, I’d take us right.”
“Right it is then!”
The party began moving, the elves vaguely sticking to their square formation, though the torchbearers did step a bit to the side to keep the surroundings more lit. Rum meanwhile cast Skin Toughen on himself, and went a bit ahead and to the left of the party, trying to light up the way forward and to better reveal the caves hidden up high. Everyone kept quiet now, the only sounds made being that of their different boots hitting the rocky ground, their multiple nervous breaths, and the slow burning of their torches.
WOOSH! Rum recognized the sound immediately. “ARCHERS!” he yelled out, “SKELETAL ARCHERS!” The group of elves all became fully alert in less than a second, a momentary panic washing over each of their faces, as their elven eyes scanned the great cavern nervously. For a while, nobody knew what to do, and the only one who did anything was Rum who withdrew closer to the elves. The arrow that had flown had, judging by the sound of it, landed somewhere dark behind them. Rum however felt sure it had been aimed at him, and come from ahead.
When they’d waited long enough and nothing more happened, Rum dared to take a step further again, but slowly. When two more woosh! sounds came from near above, Rum stopped for a second. One of the elves behind him though drew an arrow. Rum didn’t see it being fired, only quickly glancing back after hearing the bow’s strung wooden moan. As Rum looked ahead into the dark, trying to find the source of the arrows, the elf loosed hers. Several seconds after, everyone heard the sounds of bones crashing against the mountain floor, followed by the sounds of splinters flying everywhere, making small echoes of noise. One such splinter of a skeletal finger came as far as within Rum’s immediately lit vicinity of torchlight, making it clear that it had indeed been a skeleton they’d taken down. But two arrows had been loosened, and that meant there was at least one more skeleton with a bow up there, probably aiming its sharp arrow straight at Rum as he considered this.
“HE-HE-HE-HE!” boomed a voice from behind and above, and Rum turned around just in time to see half a dozen witches and wizards laughing and smiling at them from up high, riding broomsticks at high speed past them. Several of the elves raised their arrows to fire, but Alkiath gestured for them to stand down. “Those arrows will be wasted” he explained, “it’ll be like shooting an eagle out of the sky. Too fast, too nimble. Let them come closer... IF THEY DARE!” The last part was loud and flung after the mages, who were obviously attempting some kind of taunt or scheme of demoralization. Whatever was their play, the elves appeared merely emboldened by the mages showing themselves.
That emboldened spirit didn’t last long though, as Rum heard another familiar sound. It was the familiar rhythm of bony feet, clacking against the rocky ground. It came from a sidetunnel up ahead, one that was barely in sight. The elves, with their generally superior eyesight, noticed them soon enough. “There they are!” exclaimed an elf, pointing to somewhere Rum couldn’t quite see.
But Rum knew better of all of this, and as he expected, within a few seconds came the second source of clacking; of a myriad of bony feet hitting the mountain floor. Then came a third source, then a fourth, then a fifth. From every direction: back, forwards and even to both of their sides out of small tunnels vanishing behind bends, there wandered the army of the dead. As history repeated itself, their feet reached into the noise of a terrible orchestra of death; a thunderous march of war.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“We’re surrounded” Rum commented. “We need to escape somewhere, we can’t fight here, not the in the middle of the open.” Rum started stepping closer to the tightening square of elves. Stopping close to Alkiath, looking into the elf leader’s eyes. “When we last won, we had the benefit of funneling them.” He glanced about. “We should do that here too.”
Alkiath glanced around too. Seeing a small cave, he pointed. “What about there?” he asked. Rum looked, and without saying anything began moving towards it. Alkiath followed, and the elves followed him. Above them, arrows started raining. The shots were, luckily, rather missing their marks for now. But that luck won’t last forever, Rum remarked mentally.
He ran the last couple of meters into the cave, and upon entering it discovered that even if the entrance was rather small, the cave itself was actually quite big. Above around them were many more even smaller caves and tunnels, with carved rock ledges. A couple of small thin paths lead up into what looked like a spiraling set of stairs, though rough in their form they barely deserved to be called stairs. For a half a minute Rum stood there in the center, taking in his surroundings while the elves approached.
“Elves!” Alkiath shouted when their group stepped past the cave mouth. “Form a line! Block the entrance with swords, shields and arrows!”
“It’s a deathtrap” Rum mumbled to himself. “HEY ALKIATH!” he yelled, a concern in his voice. “This isn’t a defensive position, this is a deathtrap! I think they might’ve wanted us here.” He ran up to Alkiath who was watching the approaching skeletons. Reaching the elf Rum physically made the elf turn around, and he pointed hurriedly up at the little caves and tight tunnels above, all of which were much darker and spookier now that Rum’s torchlight had moved with him to the cave entrance. “I don’t know where those lead. If they can reach us from up there, we could be massacred!”
“COMPOST!” Alkiath shouted. Stressed, he looked around. They didn’t have time for a new strategy now. Numerous skeletons where descending upon their cave, albeit slowly, but still there were no other nearby space they could reach without fighting their way through a thick force of skeletons.
Interestingly though Rum noticed as he watched the army, this time the skeletons didn’t come in phalanxes. Instead these skeletons seemed to be much more haphazardly equipped. Swords, shortswords, axes both small and large, short spears, and even crossbows. There was no order to their weapons, and the few shields were of all kinds of shapes. This time it seemed, they weren’t facing a disciplined and coherent unit, but a rather a large disorganized hoard. Seeing as this also made their enemy less predictable, Rum didn’t consider this much of a win. It might’ve just been his imagination, but it also felt like there were more skeletons than last time.
An elf strung his bow, and fired at the first skeleton reaching the vicinity of the cave. A second after, Urvanom fired two fast shots after each other, taking down a couple of claymore wielding skeletons who’d gotten ahead of their fellow troops. Following this the entire front of elves, except for the two holding their large shields, began shooting down skeletons.
Rum walked to behind the elves. “I’m going to give you all magical protection” he explained, as he began touching elf after elf, mumbling away “Skin Toughen”. And then, just as the first skeleton came into melee range and was cut down by one of the shield bearers, so Rum felt the all-too-familiar thud! in his back, quickly followed by an intense pain. He turned around, his arm grasping at his back. There he felt it, the arrow. He pulled it out brutally. “Trinity of Healing” he muttered, touching himself, as his eyes scanned the rock ledges and the small caves of the deathtrap.
His eyes saw 5 skeletal archers with bows strung or about to be strung, and 8 or more skeletal archers marching out of the various holes up high, about to get into positions on various rock ledges. As Rum’s mind raced to figure out what to do, the skeletal archers looked to be waiting. Are they preparing for a volley? Rum increasingly felt a despair brewing in his body. Finally deciding to act, rather than wait until a smart idea came, he grasped at his own mana, and flung it forward towards the ledges. Mana took time to spread, and so it was that Rum did not reach his targets in time before a dozen or more of them began the first half of a 2-stage volley. Half a dozen arrows flew towards Rum, and he only managed to dodge half. 2 arrows struck his left thigh, while 1 arrow struck his right knee. Without thinking he began brutally pulling the arrows out, one after the other, before hurriedly casting “Trinity of Healing” on himself. His expediency was remarkably timely, because the second stage of the volley followed, and as Rum followed their aim, he saw that the target was Alkiath, who was currently busy cutting down a couple of skeletons who’d managed to come close. Without thinking Rum lept into a sprint, reaching Alkiath just in time to receive 4 arrows to his back and right shoulder, 2 arrows completely missing.
Rum fell down after that, but only to his knees. Feeling his mana having reached their target, he turned back and up, screaming: “DISRUPT SKELETON!” One skeleton suddenly just stopped, and then promptly fell forward, crashing hard against the mountain floor after at least 5 meters of rapid descent. Then followed another, and then another more. Before Rum was finished, only 2 more arrows had been shot, one missing him and one lodging itself painfully in his right foot.
When the last skeleton of the archer ambush was dealt with, Rum fell down again on his left knee, his flickering torch almost touching the ground from the general exhaustion weighing on his arms. With a couple of breaths, and then an injection of willpower, he wrested the arrow from the foot of his other knee. Unable to reach properly behind himself for the other arrows, he just cast “Trinity of Healing”, filling it generously with mana and letting the arrows move themselves out.
“Aaah” he sighed, eyes caught on the caves and tunnels, wondering if another platoon of skeletal archers would show up.
“What!? ARROVANI!” Alkiath screamed, and Rum turned to see the elf called Arrovani stagger backwards, 3 skeletons following him, one of which had a bloody axe lodged deep in the elf’s neck. Alkiath, along with Royath who seemed to have looted a skeletal warrior’s big longsword, quickly cut their way through the front of undead and to their elf friend.
“Damn” Rum mumbled, and got up to his feet, running towards the scene. He was just in time to witness Royath behead the skeleton which had cut into Arrovani’s neck. Stumbling backwards unsteadily, Rum managed to grab Arrovani before he fell to the ground. With a quick gesture of “leave this to me”, Rum ushered Alkiath and Royath to return to the battle instead. There’s no time to spend on the wounded. Unless you are the healer of course. Accusingly, Rum looked over at the nearby glancing elves, shouting: “What did I tell you about DYING!?... DON’T!” Rum dragged the elf, drowning in his own blood, away from the fight. Laying him carefully down on the ground and sitting gently on top of him, Rum looked Arrovani in the eyes. “Don’t worry new friend, it’s but a scratch for me to fix. Would’ve been much worse if they cut your head off, I don’t think I can fix that.” Like the worst doctor in the world, Rum subsequently grabbed the flesh-lodged axe and ripped it free, blood gushing out immediately. Unfazed by the blood pouring, Rum just put his hand to the flow, and with an authoritative voice spoke his magic words: “Trinity of Healing”. The wound closed over several seconds, a moment which Rum spent admiring his own magic, as the skin grew itself back together. Soon, Arrovani stopped gurgling and coughing on his own blood and began instead heaving for air. Rum clapped the elf on the shoulder and smiled to him. “You’ve learned not to die now, yes?”
“YEHS!” the elf managed to say in a gasp, barely any air to his word.
Rum sat up from the elf. “Great!” he said, before helping the elf to his feet, the man still struggling for air. “Now as soon as your lungs are up to speed: you’ll have a feat of collective survival to finish.”
The elf looked at his friends fighting as he finalized filling himself up with a healthy amount of oxygen. A skeleton caught his eyes, and he wanted to fight it. Taking his last big breath, the elf sprung forth into a jog, jumping to the ground before the enemy where his fallen sword lay. Grabbing the blade, the elf warrior swung it upwards in a cut that sent the undead staggering backwards.
“Remember not to let them cut your head off!” Rum yelled after the renewed warrior. “I can’t fix that.”
As Rum turned around to survey the upper parts of the cave with his eyes, he heard a voice that gave him an instant feeling of deja vu. “ARROVANI!” shouted Alkiath with concern, and Rum turned back just in time to see Arrovani stagger back again, no skeletons after him this time. However, as the staggering elf turned about, a small look of helplessness was revealed to cover his face, and the reason became immediately apparent to Rum. Out of Arrovani’s bloodied right eye, a thick bolt stuck out.
Rum stared into the one eyed elf for a moment, incredulity on his own face, before gesturing at his hurt new friend. “Just come over here” he said, his own eyes still filled with incredulity. “You know what” he commented as the elf reached him, “I really think that you should’ve brought a helmet. And a proper one at that.” Rum fixed the elf up again, a process slowed down by the need for extracting the bolt with magic without dismembering his eye. “That bolt pierced deep.” Rum sighed, “But I think my spell will be able to restore you fully. There’s just a minor risk that, well, for the next few days I think: you might experience some absence of brain matter. But don’t worry! It’ll just be an annoyance! After all, most of your brain will still be fine and intact.” Rum tried to give the worried elf a big smile while finishing healing his wound.
The last piece of flesh coming together, Rum grabbed the elf by both shoulders. “Now don’t let anything hit your head. Not any part of it.” Giving him a friendly supportive clap on the shoulder again, Rum then gestured for the healed up elf to return to the fight, which Arrovani eagerly did.
With the elf sprinting back into the fight, Rum took a good look at the frontline. He saw that nearly every elf was now struggling in various melee fights, trying to keep the skeletons away. Yet, the line held its blockade of the entrance, and that’s what’s important, he mentally concluded.
Satisfied nobody else was currently dying, Rum turned about to survey the deathtrap cave. As it happened, this was just one of those finest of moments; the moment when 2 platoons of skeletons decided to enact a joint course of action. Over 20 arrows pointed down at Rum and his elves. Over 20 arrows strung strong, and pointing from every single ledge position high above him. Indeed this was that finest of moments, when all of these skeletons simultaneously decided to release their strings, creating in the process the largest volley Rum had ever witnessed – at least from the position of victim.
“Damn” was all the syllable Rum was afforded, before death rained down upon him, and he had no tricks up his sleeve to stop it in time.