Chapter 11: Many-Eyed Freak

After a long walk through the forest, we finally came across the dilapidated shack that Finn had spoken about. And dilapidated it was, with half of the boards missing and the other half rotted. It looked like the slightest wind would knock the place down.

If this place doesn't spell out creepy necromancer's murder den then I don't know what does.

We went inside and Finn began to push a bookshelf inside, “Gronan, help me.”

“On it,” Gronan took hold of the other side, and with one pull the entire bookshelf went across the room, next to the desk in the corner. There it was, the hidden room Finn had talked about, and the only part of this shack that had any new boards placed on the wall to help hide it.

“A hidden basement inside an abandoned shack,” I said, “Nothing could ever go wrong here.”

“We'll be fine,” Finn said, stepping onto the ladder. “Maybe.” He went down first. “Gronan, I could use some light down here.”

From his index finger, Gronan conjured a magical ball of light and sent it down into the hole.

Even with necromancers and goblins, a ball of floating light is the thing that feels like the strangest part of this.

Finn's voice echoed up toward us, “Everything looks good here, there's more to it though!”

“Okay, we're coming down!” Hazel yelled into the hole before going down.

Gronan waved a hand toward the ladder. “After you.”

“Such a gentleman,” I went down into the basement. The smell immediately hit me. It smelled like fish and rot. Death. The walls were made out of jagged stone and the room itself was a small square with a wooden door at the end. In the middle of the room were two empty, open wooden coffins.

“Welcome to my creeper den,” I said, pointing at the coffins. “Here is the display of my coffin collection.”

“Where did you get them?” Hazel asked.

“The graveyard of course.”

“The free ones.”.

“The best kind,” Finn said as he went to the door. “We are definitely in a necromancer's dungeon, everybody ready?”

“I hope so,” Hazel said.

“We'll be fine,” Gronan assured her. “Worst case, we throw La'Quet at whatever comes at us and run out of there.”

“Thanks, I'm glad to know I'm wanted.”

He chuckled and pulled out his battle-ax, “You'll make a great decoy, let's do this.”

Hazel opened the door and Gronan's light flew past her into the room. It was a small, square room with a door on the other side. Inside, there were two dead, rotting corpses. Only the corpses were moving. Just then, the world paused:

Zombie

The dead come back to life! Zombies are weak beings and are usually one of the first creatures created by a necromancer. There are many legends that say zombies can make a person into another zombie if they bite them but this has been disproven many times.

I wouldn't have called them zombies, they didn't seem menacing enough to be called such a word. They were lying on the ground, the two of them desperately trying to get up but every time they struggled onto their arm or leg, they collapsed back on the ground.

Even though they were dead, they seemed to be struggling. It was like they didn't want to be down here.

But they don’t have any conscious thoughts, right?

One of them began to use a shaky, decaying hand to crawl toward us. Hazel gave the two of them a swift end by sending an arrow into both of their heads.

“Maybe it will be this easy the whole time,” Hazel said as she pulled the arrows out of them and put them back in her quiver.

“Don't count on it,” Finn said.

Hazel went through the next door and once again the light went past her, revealing, this time, a long, empty hallway with yet another wooden door at the end. We all went inside with Finn in front and Gronan in back just like earlier.

“Take it slow,” Finn said. “There might be a trap in he-”

An echoey click came from under Hazel’s foot as soon as she put her foot down on one of the stone squares. Everyone took in a breath, preparing for whatever was about to happen. A moment passed. Nothing happened.

“Phew,” Finn said. “Like I said, be careful there might be-”

There was a thud. Then another.

“What is that?” Gronan asked, gripping his battle ax hard.

“It seems like it's coming from above us,” Hazel said.

This hallway suddenly began to feel like a death box. “Let's get out of here,” I told everyone. Whatever was happening, I didn’t want to wait and find out what it was.

We managed to get halfway through the hallway when there was a loud crash from behind us. We hadn’t gotten out of this hallway fast enough and I turned to see what had been activated from the trap. It was a true horror that’d surely haunt my dreams. The stone ceiling had caved in and through the dust, I could see something sitting amidst the rubble.

A massive ball. But not just any ball, a ball of meat. Raw meat. There were arms and legs and other random body parts that made it, all of it rotting and bloody. That wasn't the worst part though. That was attributed to the fact the thing seemed to almost pulse like it had a heartbeat. Like the whole thing was alive.

And then I saw the appendages twitch.

“Run!” Gronan yelled.

We did. The ball of meat followed us, using its arms and legs to push off the ground and make it roll faster.

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Hazel and Finn were at the door first. They pulled but it didn't budge. “It's locked!” Finn screamed.

At that moment, it felt like this would surely be the end. I understood then that this must be the stage that most Adventurers die off at. Right when their real journey started, they were stabbed or shot or crushed by a ball of meat. Before they really got to enjoy the perks of being an Adventurer. And we would soon join that high percentage of unfortunate Adventurers.

“Get out of the way!” Gronan shouted, holding his ax in both hands.

They did and I pressed against the wall to let him pass me. He swung his ax hard into the door, smashing through the handle. He pushed his entire body into it and it swung open freely.

The siblings quickly made their escape. I was the last one in here. I glanced behind me. It was a big mistake, I saw it right there only a foot from me. I felt my body try to freeze up and just let this thing steamroll over me. I didn’t allow it. Instead, I broke into a full sprint.

I could hear the meat squishing on the stone, the bones cracking and snapping as the body parts were forced into the ground. I could practically feel it taunting me, wanting me to trip, to let me get consumed by it, to make me become a part of it.

I made it through the door. Behind me, it sounded like a watermelon being crushed, meat flew everywhere and bits of chunks and blood got on all of us. I stared at the chunks that covered me, this was just what I could see but I could feel a sickly wetness on my back.

I heard someone begin to scream in utter terror and I began to wildly fling chunks of meat that had landed on me. The smell of rot was all-consuming and the feeling of touching the slimy, wet meats that came from all sorts of body parts was absolutely disgusting.

A cold hand touched my shoulder and I jumped back. It was a skeleton, it was grabbing onto me and was going to stick one of its bony hands into my stomach.

What the hell am I thinking?

It wasn’t a skeleton, just Hazel. She flicked a piece of meat off my shoulder. I realized then that I had been the one screaming. I felt heat flush over my cheeks and I found I couldn’t meet her gaze. “Sorry,” I muttered.

“It's okay, we made it through.”

She was right. The smell, the feeling of the meat on me. All of it meant we had made it out. We were alive, I was alive. We weren't part of the misfortunate Adventurers.

Not yet, that is.

“Oh great,” I heard Finn say exasperatedly. “We're not out of this just yet.”

I looked around and saw another creature of terror in the middle of the large, round room, we now found ourselves inside of. “Oh hell,” I agreed. The world paused:

Sightseer:

A monster designed to see everything around it. If only its crab arms weren’t so weighty so it could effectively block attacks.

The monster had seen us already, there was no way it wouldn't have with the uncountable amount of eyes surrounding its face. Its two arms seemed to be made out of massive crab claws that were sharpened into blades and its legs seemed to be made out of a creature similar to a dinosaur like a velociraptor. It stared at us with its many eyes and roared with its massive mouth in the center of its chest.

I watched Gronan charge toward the monster, battle-ax in hand without a moment of hesitation. I was right behind him. I had been so sure I was a goner just moments ago but we had persevered. If that trap didn't take us down, I felt like one single monster wouldn't either.

I felt the wind as an arrow flew past me. It landed right in one of the monstrosity's eyes.

Its gaping mouth let out a roar and braced itself as Gronan arrived, swinging his ax toward the creature right into the creature’s crab-arm.

I had made it to the creature but wasn’t allowed to attack as the monster swung its other crablike claw toward me. I was just barely able to dodge it. I took that moment to lean in and swung my sword with both hands. It tried to jump back but Gronan's ax kept it in place and my sword scraped through its side

It pushed Gronan off and he stumbled. In that stumble, the monster swung toward him. Even with its massive claws, the thing was quick. It grazed Gronan's stomach just before an arrow hit another one of its eyes.

I went to swing at it again but it roared, sending spittle flying all over me and into my eyes. I swung anyway and felt it strike something. I squinted through my wet, blurry vision and made out I had hit its crab-like sword. It was trying to push against my blade but it was surprisingly weak. With ease, I pushed against it and forced its crab blade into the ground. It tried to retaliate with its other claw which I noticed had a chunk missing from Gronan. Before I even had to react, Gronan lunged and lodged his blade into the same spot he had chopped into before.

It was distracted with Gronan now. I used the opportunity to quickly swing my sword upward. It saw it coming but could only move a bit before my blade sliced through its eyeball-filled head, slicing through and causing a white liquid to ooze out of several of its eyes.

Its eyes seemed to almost go wide when a blur came from behind. It was Finn, he ran past the creature, slicing into its back. In less than a second, the creature pushed Gronan off and moved toward Finn.

I tried to keep the monster’s attention by swinging at it but missed and Finn yelped in pain as the creature sliced into his back. Finn rolled onto the ground and threw a dagger. It went straight into its mouth and it let out a guttural roar.

“No!” Hazel yelled and sent two arrows into the creature's head just as I swung again, slicing deep into its side.

Gronan let out a loud grunt and swung his ax in a large arc. The creature deftly turned back around just in time to put its arm up again and Gronan’s ax went into the same spot once more. This time, though, Gronan cleaved right through the crab-arm and the blade went straight into its shoulder. The eyes the thing had left opened wide and its roar went up an octave higher.

I didn't let it have a moment of rest. I lunged forward and pierced it in its side. My sword went cleanly through the rotting skin into its mouth and into the other side of flesh.

Finn was already back up and near the creature. He stabbed two daggers into the back of the monster and held onto them.

We were boxing it in with our blades. Black ooze was pouring out of its massive mouth and nearly half of its eyes were sliced open or had arrows sticking out of them. It was on its last leg.

It pulled away from me, catching me off guard by how easily my sword slid out of its body. Just then, it swung its one arm at me. I didn’t get out of the way fast enough and I felt a sharp, tearing pain as the edge of it went across my chest. I stumbled and fell, my sword clattering beside me.

Gronan pulled out of the monster and went for another strike but the monster let out a low gurgle. Just before Gronan was able to force his ax down, something launched itself from the monster's mouth onto his chest. He was forced backward and onto his back as something I could only describe as a molding octopus began to suck onto his chest.

It was such a grotesque and strange sight to see that I almost couldn't help but laugh. This eye, crab monster had spit out an octopus. If I had seen something like this back on Earth I would've thought I had gone insane. Hell, maybe I had.

But then the humor was lost as Gronan began to scream and blood began to pool around him. Hazel immediately ran to help Gronan. I couldn't focus on him, the big guy was important, if it could spit out more of those things we could've been in big trouble.

As I grabbed my sword and got up, I saw Finn seemed to have the same thought, holding tight on his dagger in its back. It was trying to swing at him but couldn't quite reach. Finn took his opportunity. He pulled up on the daggers, carving two large lines, then sliced across the back of its neck.

The creature's head leaned forward, its black blood squirting all over Finn as he backed away. Its body teetered and began to fall but it caught itself on its one arm. The gurgling sound came again.

I didn't let it put out another one of those small things.

“Take this, you many-eyed freak!” I held my sword and swung down on the creature's half-decapitated neck, finishing the job. The monster’s face hit the ground, rolled slightly, then stopped. Its eyes looked around wildly, trying to figure out what had just happened. And then the eyes stopped moving, all of them stared ahead, no longer seeing anything.

“Ahh!” I heard Hazel yell. I looked up and saw Hazel had managed to pull the creature off of Gronan and it was now on the ground upside-down beside her. The bottom looked much like an octopus's bottom with its many suction cups. The only difference was its middle, which seemed to have a large leech mouth.

Gronan was on his feet quickly, blood trickling out of his chest. He lifted his ax and heaved it down, cutting the octopus monster in half.

The room fell silent, besides our heavy breathing. We all looked at each other.

“Is it over?” Hazel asked, holding her bow as her eyes darted across the room.

There was a wet, sliding sound coming from the hallway we had come from. All of the meat and blood that had exploded through the door was moving and forming a shape. The ball of meat was reforming but now in this room, the legs and arms twitched and came back to life. The monster we had just defeated began to bubble and dissolve before it too began to slide across the floor. We all watched in horror as the dead monster touched the ball and was sucked inside and became one with it.

Are you kidding me?