Novels2Search
Ormyr
Deeper 9.3

Deeper 9.3

Caleb’s small eyes squinted heartily against sunset’s rosy rays.

Beautiful though they undoubtedly were, their arrival meant only his doom. He looked downwards to behold tiny, pudgy hands and legs and a massive, pink and purple bouncy ball.

Well, massive compared to him, at least.

The yard was wondrously green and the air that suffused it fresh and lush, despite the gargantuan, twinkling skyscrapers all around. Every which way were sequestered toys and trinkets, even a miniature jungle gym. It was paradise. A paradise soon lost to him, though, as it drew near.

His dreaded foe. His greatest enemy.

Bedtime.

Caleb narrowed bright blue eyes. He would not go quietly, that much was for sure.

Leaping forth with the strength necessary to clear tall buildings in a single bound, as well as a decidedly unheroic giggle, Caleb sped towards the towering plastic slide, whose many sinuous twists and turns dominated the northwest section of the backyard.

Suddenly, though, upon his drawing sufficiently near to it, the slide came alive.

With an all-too-real whine of servos and circuitry, of fusion cells and plasmic turbines, the once playground edifice began to mechanically articulate itself. Its many plastic portions turned to shining, toughened steel, all rotating and revolving and interlocking together, rearing up and over him, so high he had to crane his head all the way backwards to fully behold the form of his dreadful adversary.

A gargantuan, mechanical serpent.

It screamed into the sky, twin cannons belching hot lasers up towards the heavens above, and Caleb cried out and stumbled, falling to his knees and dropping the ball.

As quickly as possible he looked up, blinking rapidly.

But the scene was no more. The slide was just a slide. Cheap plastic, speckled with well-placed nails, scratched up and down by the comings and goings of an over-exuberant child, and his friends. Cold and lifeless. Harmless. Just as it had always been.

Caleb shook his head, bewildered and still blinking.

But that was so…so real! It looked like a genuine Tinker’s creation. Like one of Dragon’s suits, almost. Was it just his imagination? But, his parents didn’t let him watch any TV involving capes, no matter how he plead, so he couldn’t have gotten it from there. A slight pang of pain as he stood made Caleb grimace, and demanded his immediate attention.

He looked down, and his face grew grim.

Two dark blotches, like angry strawberries, colored the caps of his knees blue and red. They were small, barely the size of his own immature thumb, and hardly smarted, yet what they represented was all the more terrifying. Caleb was rarely enough granted the opportunity to play on his own, sans supervision, and this injury no doubt meant his imprisonment for days. Perhaps, even weeks!

His dads were far too protective.

“Caleb.”

Caleb’s head whipped around, towards the backyard door, where a tall, lean, well-built man stood. From this distance, most of the figure’s precise features were difficult to discern, but he could just make out the wavy brown hair and handsome, square jaw.

Oh, no. The enemy had arrived ahead of schedule.

Girding his loins, with yet another unprofessional giggle, Caleb darted behind the slide, whereupon he slowly crept backwards, eager to lose himself in the many twists and turns of the small playground’s blocky architecture. Stalking underneath the red monkey bars, and winding behind the wooden slats of the jungle gym, he hid himself inside a mostly-opaque yellow tube, snickering once more. This hiding place was a stroke of true genius.

“Caleb!”

Caleb frowned, glancing back towards the direction of his pursuer. That was…odd.

Not only had they remained fixed and unmoving in location, their voice was…strange. It had increased in intensity, which was unusual enough, but the pitch had changed, too. It seemed too low, too harsh, too bestial. More akin to a dog’s growl than the speech patterns of his father. He reached out, about to move, then…hesitated.

Could this be a trick? A trap?

Caleb snorted. Of course! Of course, it was. Dad must have called in a friend, some cape with the ability to modulate the voices of others. He was well-used to being pranked by his father. Well, he wouldn’t fall for it, not this time. Caleb crossed his arms, and smiled smugly. He was staying right where he was.

“CALEB!”

In mere moments, Caleb’s demeanor changed.

He shrank back in fear, confidence evaporating, eyes widening, pressing himself against the plastic back of the playground tunnel. No. No, this was wrong. This was all wrong.

Dad never yelled at him. Never.

“CALEB!”

The voice sounded again, deep and dark and terrifying, and much closer this time. Caleb stumbled to his feet, shuddering in fear, racing out the back of the tunnel and into the playground proper. Upon his exit, he was shocked once more.

Night had fallen, and the backyard was plunged into pitch-black darkness.

Caleb goggled, looking frantically around. How was this possible? He’d spent mere moments hiding, yet suddenly, the sun was nowhere to be seen.

“CAAAALEEEEEEB!”

The words were no longer human at all. They were the horrifying howl of a massive, onyx wolf.

From the pitch black midnight it emerged, coat the color of obsidian and eyes glowing like blood-red lasers in the dark. Thick droplets of grey-white drool dripped from its open, fang-encrusted maw while it eyed him hungrily.

“Caaaaaaaaleeeeeeb…” it crooned.

Caleb turned tail, and ran into the night, faster than he’d ever run before.

The playground disappeared behind him, his feet taking him great leaps and bounds, more so than should have been physically possible. The world stretched and warped on all sides, tall buildings pulled like taffy in the abyssal night.

But the wolf was even faster.

“Caleb!” it cried out, as it gained on him.

“You have to wake up!” It teased, knowing full well that this was no dream.

Caleb was weeping, stinging tears streaming down his puffy face. The wolf’s breath was warm and rancid on his ears, and raised fine hairs all up and down the back of his neck.

And then it was upon him.

With a roar like thunder, and an explosion of white-hot pain, Caleb was slammed flat on his back, onto the cold, hard ground. The nightmarish creature gazed ravenously down at him from above.

“Caleb,” it cried again, even as its long tongue hideously caressed his cheeks. “Please! You have to wake up!” Caleb sobbed, hyperventilating, overwhelmed by the fear, and pain, and sadism of the wolf.

“Stop!” he wailed through heaving sobs, “Stop, please!”

But the wolf ignored him.

“Please, milord!” It mimicked, mockingly. “Please wake up!” The wolf raised a paw tipped with claws like savage knives, and grinned fiercely down at him. Then it growled, and attacked.

With a single slash, it split him from pelvis to clavicle.

Caleb screamed in pure, abject terror, as he felt his guts pour out, as he felt the blood gush from him, as he felt–

“CALEB!”

“WAKE UP!”

With a shuddering cry, Caleb awoke to reality.

He gasped, taking mammoth, heaving breaths, drenched in sweat from tip to toe, head swiveling madly back and forth. In an instant, a gorgeous Hard Light Armor adorned him, and his hands seethed with white light, and he grabbed the furry scruff of the figure standing over him, murderously throttling it, readying himself to immolate the wolf in one fell swoop–

“MILORD! STOP! STOP, IT’S ME!”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Blinking haltingly, the glow dimmed, and Caleb came back to himself. The vision of the nightmarish, slavering wolf dissipated, and gradually morphed into an altogether more familiar figure.

Rover’s eyes were wide, white, filled with half fear and half joy as Caleb gripped his pelt so tight it tore the skin. From off to the side, he noticed an equally petrified Quarrel. Hands shaking mightily, he released the lycan, and staggered back.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” Caleb stammered, still reeling.

“Fucking Priest, nearly shat myself,” the archer murmured, still eyeing Caleb cautiously. But the wolfman was elated.

“Oh, thank the Gods,” Rover whispered. A strained, nervous chuckle escaped the lycan’s lips. “You’re–alive! We’ll–we’ll be alright! We’ll be alright, won’t we? We’ll be alright, everything’s going to be alright, everything’s going to be alright, I know it will, we’ll–” his desperate pleas petered out into quiet, anxious mutterings, as he rocked slightly back and forth on digitigrade legs. Rover was disheveled, scraggy, off-balance. He could barely stand, eyes disconcertingly red and inflamed.

The silver-moon talisman embedded just above his collarbone twinkled with the quiet glow of pale moonlight.

Just…just what had happened?

A sudden flare of pain made Caleb moan, and he clasped his head with both hands tightly, squeezing until it almost felt fit to pop. He’d developed a splitting migraine, one he recognized all too well, the tell-tale sign of mental manipulation. The extent of it, though, was entirely new to him–even pitted against Sothoth’s most fearsome mindrenders, he didn’t remember suffering anything close to this.

It was excruciating.

“You…ok there? Milord Inquisitor?” Quarrel asked him, tentatively. “You think–”

“I’m fine,” Caleb snapped, interrupting the archer and causing her to shrink back nervously. Nervously? No, that…that didn’t make sense. Quarrel shouldn’t have responded to him with fear, she never did, only anger, only unbridled rage–

The pain in his head flared up once more, and he fought hard against it.

“What…happened? Where are the others?” Caleb ground out through gritted teeth, each word a conscious struggle. He knew he shouldn’t be taking out his frustration on his fellows, but he just couldn’t help it. He was on edge.

The splitting headache made it hard to think straight, and that dream had unsettled him more than anything in recent memory. He’d never seen such a backyard before, yet it’d felt so…right. So familiar. Just who was that figure, who’d called out to him, standing at the door?

He wanted so desperately to know.

“You don’t remember, then?” Quarrel asked, quietly. She nodded in Rover’s direction. “Neither does he.” She was silent a while, but before Caleb could question her once more, Quarrel spoke.

“Vox betrayed us.”

Caleb frowned. The last thing he remembered was standing in the all-white corridor, the threshold that led to Dungeon’s second floor. He’d been just about to confront Quarrel for her actions when, suddenly, a blinding rage had overtaken him, followed swiftly behind by an all-consuming pain between his temples, that made him collapse to his knees.

After that…nothing at all.

“I don’t understand,” Caleb winced, gently massaging his aching skull. “What do you mean, he betrayed us? How did we get here?”

“He Mastered me,” Rover whispered. Caleb whipped towards him, startled at what he saw. The lycan stared right back, with crazed, feverish eyes. “Hot iron spikes inside my limbs, worms dancing across my brain. Dancing apart, dancing together. Tangled in strings,” he gibbered, madly.

As the wolfman cackled, teeth clacking and lips flapping, all sanity abandoned, the look in his eyes made the seasoned, blooded Immolator shiver.

“A sovereign shade, a stilling light, a blood-red storm,” the lycan chanted, in a voice cracked and creaking. “A queen of death, a legend’s last breath, a prince, ancientborne. A changeling slain, a future overcame, a second golden morn.” Rover tilted his head back and giggled at the open air.

“Three escape the crawl. Three, at the end, stand tall. What was before, shall be once more, three to rule us all.

Then, altogether abruptly, a measure of him seemed to return to reality, and his face contorted in sorrow and shame.

“I couldn’t help it, I promise,” Rover begged Caleb, to the latter’s bewilderment, “I couldn’t stop! I’ll be strong, father! I swear it, I swear! ” He wept, unceremoniously breaking down into floods of tears. Caleb felt a great swell of pity rise in him at the sight.

He didn’t know what deeds the lycan was apologizing for, but he’d seen these symptoms before, time and again. Rover’s psyche was warped, perverted, perhaps never to fully recover. Being severed from the direct control of a high-level Master was too much for most minds to bear. Even now, his Brute Blessing was likely the only reason the lycan retained some semblance of cognition.

He worships you, you know?

Despite what he’d said to Hero, Caleb had experienced such a thing upon the Frontlines. Multiple times, in fact. That gut-wrenching melange of awe and fear in the eyes of those whose closest friends and family he’d burnt to cinder as they went feral, mutated by the abhorrent Spawn of the Birth Titan. The stomach-churning scent of roasted man no longer affected him, but the terrified, traumatized thanks of those whose lives he’d forever ruined nauseated him, every time.

And now he’d ruined another.

Rover’s fate was as much due to his own inaction, his own distraction, as it was their companion’s betrayal. The naive, hopeful Therian would never be the same, and it was all his fault.

Worship.

What a fucking joke.

“You…need not apologize…” Caleb whispered, assuaging him halfheartedly, his words barely audible, and doing nothing to arrest Rover’s choking sobs.

“He cut you in half from behind,” Quarrel stated, flatly. The archer was kneeling on the ground, bent over, picking through the items in her bottomless rucksack. “You were nearly split open.”

Caleb gulped despite himself, her description bringing to mind unwelcome memories of his nightmare’s end. The archer shook her head.

“I didn’t see it myself, of course. Just the aftermath. Wasn’t Mastered, but wasn’t in much condition to see anything at all, what with being smashed against the wall, half my bones crushed,” she continued, dryly. “Still, I hardly thought you’d make it back to the land of the living, milord.” Then she jerked a thumb in the still-weeping wolf’s direction.

“We owe him both our lives.” She chuckled. “After Vox attacked, we got teleported here.” She shrugged. “Some-fucking-how. Don’t ask me. Didn’t see that part, neither. Far as I’m concerned, the World Titan can go sodomize itself, none of this shit, so far, has been above-board.” She grimaced.

“Needless to say, I couldn’t move an inch. Rover was the one who accessed my pack. Without the healing draughts, or a second too late, we’d have been dead as doornails. Silent as the Simurgh. Fucked,” she cursed, though it seemed a somewhat empty gesture.

Then she turned towards him, seeming to hesitate briefly before speaking. “Listen, I…I know it’s probably not much consolation, but I wanted to say so, anyways,” she smiled sadly at him. “Sorry, ‘Crat.”

Caleb gawked at her.

Quarrel chuckled again, then grimaced. “Yeah, can’t fault you for that one,” she winced, rotating a shoulder, slowly. “Not that I’m a treat to be around normally, I mean,” she said, chuckling again, “nor that I don’t have my fair share of problems with your kind, but…” Quarrel shook her head, still wearing that sad smile.

“Fuck, man. Fucking Masters. Can never tell you’re being fucked with ‘till its already too late,” she said, sighing and turning to walk away.

Caleb blinked rapidly, struggling to process the woman’s words, and their implications. He glanced back for a moment, starting towards the broken, muttering Rover, before thinking the better of it and looking around.

The area around them, though perhaps not quite so much as the jungle had before, still gave off quite the oppressive atmosphere. They stood inside a massive, open cave, a gargantuan cavern doubtless deep beneath the earth. Strangely, though, the entire megastructure seemed artificial, formed not from natural dirt or stone, but rather of a sickly-looking grey cement that lent the whole hollow a cheap, ugly look to it.

A concrete tomb.

It was featureless, completely featureless. There were no trees, no grass, not even any artificial stalactites or stalagmites. Just leagues upon leagues of perfectly flat ground. Miles above them, small, green lights served to only barely illuminate the floor far below. It was giant, and empty.

Save, that is, for a single point of interest.

Far off in the distance a great temple, a goliath ziggurat, wrought of the same grisly, grey material rose so high upwards that it almost scraped the cavern’s summit. Upon its precipice, even from this distance, Caleb could make out words, giant letters formed from that same green lighting.

SAVE THE SPIRE.

“Not fucking good.”

Quarrel startled him, the woman having suddenly appeared at his side. She gestured nonspecifically, at the area all around them. “Wide, open spaces. Empty areas. Plenty of room. Never a good sign. Means a big fight.” She itched at her scalp. Then she laughed, hollowly.

“Mean’s were fucked, probably. My tank’s out of gas. Rover’s long gone. And we barely handled the first floor, even all together. Then again, shit’s exotic, so who knows?” Quarrel said, sighing. She seemed completely exhausted, totally and utterly drained.

“Where are the others?” Caleb asked. She shrugged.

“Had to guess, they’re off on their own, too. The three of them, together, just like us.” She laughed once more, just as darkly. “Hero’s fucked, if so. No doubt about it. Vox was pulling his punches all along, I’d bet my life on that. And with a Mastered Thaum on his side? Poor ‘Crat doesn’t stand a chance.”

Caleb grit his teeth and cursed, worry morphing to anger and frustration. Here he was, standing right here, helpless, whilst the only companion he’d grown fond of over the course of the entire delve might be dead, or worse, Mastered. Who knew what cruel tortures the traitorous Master was capable of?

He’d already lost Rover, and he’d soon lose Hero, too.

Caleb clenched his fists tight, face still stricken with fury, and light started to seep from in between his fingers.

Quarrel noticed his distress, and sighed again. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?” she asked. “I shouldn’t have said that. Here, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’re each on their own.”

Caleb’s demeanor softened somewhat, but his tension, and anxiety, remained all too strong. Very hesitantly, Quarrel sidled up next to him. She reached out a hand, as if to pat his arm, then snatched it back.

“Look,” she repeated, not making eye contact, “what’s done, is done. Best we can do, now, is try to survive. We make it to the next threshold. If any of them remain alive, we’ll meet up there.” Caleb nodded, slowly. It felt better, having a plan.

“Do you…,” he said, then paused, closing his eyes for a moment.

“What do you imagine our chances?”

Quarrel tried hard to smile at him, but the thing just came out as a grimace. She licked her lips nervously, eyes darting back and forth, clearly carefully weighing her words.

“They’re, uh…” Quarrel hedged, wincing. She massaged her forehead. “Frankly, milord, they’re not great.” She gestured towards the quasi-catatonic Rover. “He’s useless. I don’t mean to offend, but he is. Maybe…he can fight? But I certainly wouldn’t count on it.” She shrugged. “As it is, he’s more or less deadweight.”

Caleb’s frown deepened, but he nodded in agreement. “We’re not leaving him behind,” he said, in a tone that brokered no argument. It was…it was the least he could do for the young warrior.

Quarrel gave him a long, indecipherable look. Then she glanced down.

“Right,” she said, quietly. A single hand crept absently towards her pack, then retreated.

“I’m barely above useless, myself. I’m a rogue, effective in combat against biological opponents.” Quarrel spread her arms wide, emptily. “This is a wide, open area. Thus far, the dungeon’s denizens have almost all been mechanical. This whole scenario has fucked me, hard,” she spat. She chuckled, for one final time, but that, too, was empty.

“Well, at least we’ve got you,” she finished, lamely.

Caleb closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, doing what he could to drive the tremulousness from his hands, and voice. He was the Fury of the Frontlines. He was the Immolator. He would not abandon those who needed him. He would not allow any harm to come to his friends. He would not die alone, forgotten in the bowels of the World Titan.

He owed Father Ian a debt, and he would not die before repaying it.

“Very well,” Glare said, his form flaring with light momentarily. His reserves were drained, but far from empty and the swell of luminescence filled him with vigor and resolve. “Onwards, then. To the Spire, and beyond.”

“Onwards, indeed.” Quarrel echoed.