Daerkin’s eyes opened, and his horror grew with every new detail of their surroundings. His memory treated him with flashes of the nightmarish battle they had ultimately lost, of the severe injuries both he and his hatch-brother had sustained. Of watching Bernard being born down under a wave of chitinous insects, shouting fury and firing off thunder in a last ditch attempt as Karson was dragged away, pleading and bleeding in equal measure. The guardman’s last recollection before waking up here had been his helmet striking hard stone.
Perhaps that had been a blessing.
They were bound now in a pitch-black cavern, all of them. Even that owlen they had seen fall in the distance before the attack, next to a turtlekin Daerkin didn’t know. He was relieved to see the chests of his companions continue to rise and fall in the rhythmic motions of the still-living, even if the signs were hard to make out. There were no lights in here – if these bugs had learned to master fire then Daerkin was sure their kind would have been targeted for extermination long before – but his kind had long since gained the adaptations necessary to see in total darkness. Adaptations that allowed him to see just how dire their current situation was.
None of them were bound with ropes. An unnatural fungal growth covered each of them up to the neck, plastering their bodies against the floor as if cocooned. Checking his status, Daerkin noted that his multiple bleeding wounds must have been staunched by this growth, but it was obvious this was not a kindness. For they were not the only ones in the cavern.
Waking nightmares drawn straight from the most horrific tales Daerkin had ever heard about slaver ants lined the walls of the cavern, wrapped in the same fungal cocoons as they. Mushrooms of varying sizes and sizes sprouted from every visible orifice of the poor men and women who had obviously reached the second stage of whatever abysmal fate awaited him. There were humans, lizardkin, a pair of turtlekin, and half a dozen fennekians. The rest…
Daerkin couldn’t even identify the rest. Their skin was bloated and warped by mushrooms that appeared to be in the process of erupting from underneath them. He shuddered averting his gaze from those pitiable few at the rear of the cavern. Then he took a few slow breaths to reaffirm his resolve.
I’m alive. Baerlin's alive. The old man and the boy, too. Daerkin thought, reminding himself of his duty to see all of them through this. We can make it out of here. We will make it out. Now, what was Patturn always saying about capture?
“When you’re taken, first look for your gear.” Patturn had told them in that soft, commanding way of his. Whenever the old bastard got serious, that is. “Then, take out the guards. Burn down their house, and slit throats on your way out. Oh, and save your wards if you’re on contract.”
Daerkin had no weapons, tattered armor, and there were at least four guards at the entrance. Two of the worker type and two of the much larger soldiers. He had nothing to to burn this blasted nest down with, nor any way to slit throats or save his wards. It occurred to him that Patturn’s advice was often like this. Useless.
Much like I am right now. Daerkin thought, reviewing his status page once again to keep his thoughts steady. Bloody useless.
His mana was gone. It also wasn’t regenerating for some reason, no doubt due to this blasted mushroom trap he was stuck in. His health was nearly gone, only five points left. That wasn’t regenerating either, though the constant aches and pains remaining in his body would have been enough to tell him that. But the worst fact of his capture was the prompt he had awoken to. The purple-mushroom cloud prompt that had twisted Daerkin’s guts nearly to the point of physical pain.
You have been infected with Slaveshroom Spores. Your body is being converted to serve the central shroom. Stage 1 of 3. Progression to next stage: 24%.
Daerkin could feel the infection spreading across the skin of his arms, legs, and chest even now. He couldn’t tell if the infection was in him yet, but it was certainly trying to get there. Perhaps his scaled skin was the only reason it hadn’t. Perhaps Bernard and Karson were even further along than he was.
Needless to say, panic was a light word for what the lizardkin was feeling right now. He could not tell time down here, but it felt like hours passed with no change. No change save the occasional prompt showing an uptick in conversion percentage, which wasn’t maddening at all. Daerkin struggled, strained, and even tried to bite his way free of his bonds – all to no avail. A bad gut feeling struck him, and the lizardkin spat out the bit of mushroom he had managed to chew, just in case it was worsening the infection. Glancing around at the noise, he saw that the others still did not wake.
Hardly a surprise, Baerlin took more of a beating than I did. The lizardkin thought with a fond and resigned sense of pride for his unconscious hatch-brother. If I were only as strong as he was, maybe we woulda been able to fight our way out.
Such thoughts were folly, but they nevertheless swirled around the lizardkin’s mind as more time passed. Daerkin did his best to push them aside, forming more and more potential – and ever-more-unlikely – escape plans as backups should an opportunity to act present itself. Eventually, much to his own surprise, one did.
First, the two soldier ants left their guard position. Marching off towards some signal only they could hear, and leaving behind two workers. Workers he wasn’t in any position to fight, but hey – it was at least a believable battle for him. If he could manage to get free. Daerkin redoubled his efforts to do just that, trying not to let his lack of success get to him.
Though he would never admit it, Daerkin had just about resigned himself to being a spore-lizard when something rushed up and slew the two workers. The lizardkin’s jaw dropped open. Rescue? Had Patturn and the guild been following them this whole time? Had they somehow seen they were in trouble and taken up arms?
No… That’s not Patturn. Daerkin thought, and he wished he could rub his eyes to verify the truth of what he was seeing. That’s a… some kind of skeleton? Why are there undead down here?!
It would be just his luck to trade a slow and inevitable death for a quick and brutal one at the grim hands of the unliving. Then he watched the brutish skeletal form finish with his captors and… eat them. Two ravenous mouthfuls at a time. The foul monster’s chest even opened up, thick ribs bending inward as more meat was shoved directly in.
Not a quick death, then. Daerkin amended, doing his best not to vomit at the sight. It was easier than he would have liked to imagine himself being gored like that. Maybe it’ll go after more of those buggers an’ leave us the blight alone.
That hope died when the undead turned its monstrous visage on them and began striding into the cavern. It raised its shield defensively, and Daerkin noted the thing was covered in the same chitin as the ants. Though he had never known skeletons to be bloody craftsmen of all things, the lizardkin couldn’t imagine where else the undead might have acquired such a thing.
The undead raised its other arm, holding aloft a dripping dagger of some clear metal Daerkin couldn’t identify, and a swift wind of confusion cut through the lizardkin’s rising fear. Was the thing’s arm… undulating? Had the undead grafted another creature onto it to serve as a replacement limb? Was that what was in its stomach? He could see something wobbling about in there, and his imagination treated him to an entire carnival worth of horrors. Any one of which might be his final fate.
“Baerlin.” Daerkin croaked as best he could manage, his throat nearly parched dry. “Bernard. Karson. One of you lot, wake up! We’re about to be the evenin’ meal an’ I don’t want to die on a mushroom plate!”
He watched as the undead stopped moving, glaring down at them with crimson orbs of vilest malice. The liquid inside the undead’s stomach shifted… and became a pair of lungs. It bloody grew a pair of lungs. Just like that – in an instant! Daerkin couldn’t believe his eyes, blinking like a mad fool unable to see his own feet after last call, and yet it wasn’t over. A pair of lips grew next to the lungs, forming on the surface of the liquid as his keen eyes reported a mouth – and even a throat! – connecting back to the lungs. All of it hanging suspended in the menacing creature’s chest.
Then, with a haunting rumble that caused pure terror to vibrate from the tip of Daerkin’s tail to the ground-down horns on his head, the undead abomination spoke.
“Okay… Which one of you tasty, captive sacks of flesh are in charge around here?”
The towering skeletal brute’s jaw moved back into a freakish grin, its expression a terrifying, twisted thing that clutched at the lizardkin’s heart and nearly stopped it. The walking nightmare reached out a black hand towards them that emanated with the power of death itself, fingers outstretched as if to rip their very souls from their bodies. As his companions stirred back to consciousness, that horrifying tableau was the very first sight they saw.
“Because I am here to bargain.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Gel? What did you say to them?” Sean asked, his left hand outstretched in what he had hoped would be a reassuring gesture. “Because that one looks like he’s about to faint.”
Sure enough, the older human amongst the captives had gone pale as a white sheet. His wrinkled skin was nearly the same color as Sean’s bones, and before Gel could respond the old man began exclaiming angrily in Sean’s direction. The slime warrior had no idea what was being said of course, but both Gel and the lizard-looking one took in a sharp intake of breath. The lizardman began furiously whispering and glaring at his companion, and the slime’s dagger pointed menacingly at the one who had spoken up.
Gel began speaking in that weird language again, and Sean felt his irritation at being left out of the conversation rise another notch. He took another step forward and was about to speak up, when his attention was forcibly diverted. Whatever limits on range and material penetration his pulse sense had, that last step had brought all of the captives into it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Bernard you wyrm-fucked old fool, shut your dried-up flaps!” Daerkin snapped out the side of his mouth as quietly as his irritation and sheer disbelief allowed.
“Why should I?!” Bernard half-shouted back, making no attempt at all to keep his voice down. “Look, it’s coming at us! Now just get me out of here and do your jobs before this foul thing kills us! I will not be done in by a bon—”
“Use that word one more time.” Gel warned in a tone that somehow belched malice. “And I’ll roast you screaming over an open fire, meat.”
The old man glared hatred at the undead, but – skies be praised – didn’t tempt the still-advancing creature as it brandished its transparent dagger towards him. It seemed Bernard had finally read his prompts. Or finally noticed the practically invisible weapon the undead was pointing at him in the cavern’s near-total darkness. Whichever it was, Daerkin was grateful the old bastard had finally shut up. Even if he still felt like he wanted to claw off his own scales. Insulting a monster right to its face? While helpless and bound before it?! How could anyone so smart be that stupid?
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Why are academics always such fools? Exhaling slowly, Daerkin tried to reassert some calm into the situation.
“Look. As I was trying to say, right before you woke up the undead here–” Daerkin paused, then adjusted his tone to what he hoped was a more moderate one. “I’m sorry, I did not catch your name good uh...”
“Gel.” The creature’s disturbingly visible stomach announced, even as the rest of its body shambled ever closer to Bernard.
“Right. Gel. Gel here wanted to bargain. Not to eat us. So I suggest we give Gel a good reason to do the first, and none more of the latter!” Daerkin snapped, before making eye contact with Baerlin and adding a bit more incentive for good measure. “Because my hatch-brother and I are in the same position as you.”
He hoped he hadn’t revealed too much about their capabilities with that last sentence, but it was hard for Daerkin to imagine their bargaining position getting any worse. This ‘Gel’ creature clearly didn’t need them, except maybe to sate its hunger, and they would likely be lost without its help. Worse, if they couldn’t come up with something enticing to offer, the undead might simply leave them to their fates. In many ways, that nightmare ending was probably the worst of the lot.
Bernard’s eyes widened in understanding, and the old man looked over at Karson. The poor boy had woken up… and then promptly fainted at the sight of what Daerkin imagined had been the sight of two burning red orbs slowly making their way towards him. A part of the lizardkin felt sorry for the lad, and he could see guilt register across the older human’s face as he looked at his young ward. Daerkin seized on that feeling.
“Karson doesn’t deserve this end. So how about we try talking this out.” The lizardkin prompted, before realizing that – if he wanted this to end without any of them dying, it was far better that he do all the talking. He turned back to the creature advancing on them before it could reach Bernard. “I am the one in charge here.”
Bernard let out a huff, but Baerlin nodded in support and so did some of the others Daerkin didn’t recognize. The owlen from earlier, and two fennekians whose names he still didn’t know.
“What is it you want from us, good Gel?” Daerkin asked, doing his best to imitate his merchant grandfather’s famously amicable tone. “Let us start with that.”
Daerkin watched a pair of eyeballs peek out from behind the creature’s lungs, and he could have sworn he saw them gleam even as he fought to keep down his own lunch.
“I want…” Gel rumbled in a voice like a falling boulder. The creature was almost atop Bernard now. “Recompense.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The slime warrior was captivated. His every conscious thought slipped off to the side in favor of watching the rhythmic crimson pulses before him. At the networks of blood feeding these living corruptions of the natural order. Sustaining them. Keeping them from the eternal embrace.
One of the bunch felt more revolting than the others. Concentrated filth coursed through the owl-thing’s body, the stain of Life mana, but it was weak. A trickle instead of a stream. A trickle he would end soon.
He longed to sever the cords keeping them tied to this world. To rip out their arteries and wade through the ensuing spillage. To watch the fading light leave their eyes as the final chill took them. To–
– Sean fought his way back to the surface of his own mind. He caught his blackened hand as it stretched for the throat of the one who had felt closest to death. The old man who had finally stopped talking. Who now watched him with a mixture of revulsion, fear, and a final resignation. The rest of the captives watched on in horror, certain they were about to see their own fate played out early on the dying man.
How do I know he’s dying? Sean wasn’t sure where that fact had come from, but he was dead certain of it. He also had more important questions right now.
“Gel?” Sean asked again, a bit more forcefully this time as he took a firm step back from the old man. He couldn’t shut his pulse sense off, but he found that focusing on something else pushed the allure of pumping blood back. “What’s going on?”
“Well, he uh… he insulted you. In a… rather degrading way. Degrading to the both of us really, but mostly to you.” Gel grumbled, and the slime sounded truly offended. Maybe even a little embarrassed. “Don’t worry though, I am defending your honor! Now move us just a little bit closer back and I’ll make an example of him to the others.”
“Hold up. He insulted me? How?” Sean was genuinely puzzled. Both because that seemed like an incredibly stupid response to the question of “If we agree to help you out, are you willing to answer some of our questions and not attack?” that they had agreed upon, and because he really had no idea how you would insult the undead. “How degrading are we talking?”
“Something you don’t even say in rough company.” Gel responded, the slime now dead-eyeing the old man from within Sean’s chest. His dagger had gained a slight, menacing upturn to its angle. The meaning of the threat was clear even though Gel had finished actually talking.
“Alright, let’s just… start this over.” Sean said, fighting the urge both to kill all of the oh-so-tempting living humanoids in the room and what he felt was his first real headache creeping in. He had been trying to do something good here. “From the beginning, I mean. Which one–”
Gel cut him off. “Fine, fine. But not until he apologizes.”
“What?”
“I’m serious.” His bonded companion said, still glaring daggers at the now sneering old man who appeared to have either accepted his fate or decided that they weren’t smart enough to notice the change in expression. He was wrong. “What he said wasn’t right, and I want an apology before we help him.”
“Was it really that bad?” Sean was still confused on that point, but if this old prick had really decided to go down that road then maybe making an example of him wasn’t the worst idea.
“It was. You know what slurs are, right?” Gel asked. “Those ‘words you don’t say’?”
“Yeah.”
“Well he used the one for skeletons.” Gel still sounded offended, but he had Sean’s curiosity roused at this point. He hadn’t even known there were slurs for the undead.
I guess it makes sense for there to be some, given how common we appear to be here.
“Alright, well what did he actually call me? Does it translate?” Sean pressed. “The actual word, I mean. I promise I won’t be offended.”
“You should be! He–”
“Gel, seriously. What was it?”
The slime sighed inside his mind. Then, with great apprehension – and another threatening side-eye at the old man – Gel told him.
“He called you a ‘boner’.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Daerkin watched on in equal parts horror and fascination as the undead ‘Gel’ appeared to be having a conversation with… itself. It had backed away from Bernard, which was a good sign. But then it had stopped talking. Now that he felt like his wits were starting to come back to him, Daerkin was able to piece together more details of the creature’s form.
It appeared to be some sort of slime-skeleton hybrid. Or maybe a skeleton-slime hybrid, he wasn’t sure. The lizardkin had never been much to study the evolutions of monsters. Reading was Baerlin’s private hobby, while his revolved more around women and cheap booze. Not for the first time, he wished his hatch-brother could still speak. With his arms bound, Baerlin was even more mute than usual.
With nothing else to do, the group of captives simply watched their potential rescuer / murderer continue to animatedly stare down at – and then away from – its own stomach. Unknowingly, they all collectively shared the same thought.
Is it… arguing with itself?
‘Gel’ froze suddenly, and every single one of the captives tensed. Some held their breath, waiting to see which side of the ‘argument’ had won – and what winning meant for them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For a moment, Sean couldn’t process the sheer absurdity of what he had just heard. The word sounded strange to him, even though it was in English. It was so out of place, for a moment the slime warrior didn’t know what to do. He stared down at the old man, his jaw dropping slightly open in incredulity. Gel mistook his sudden silence as confusion.
“It means ‘one who bones’.” Gel explained, clearly trying to skirt lightly around the topic even as his tone was helpful. “But it really means ‘one who is only bones’, basically that you’re not even worth the dust of your– what are you doing? Sean?”
Sean couldn’t help himself. He began to laugh. It started as a soundless chuckle, his jaw clacking lightly back and forth. Before long he was leaning back into it, laughing like a mad skeleton. The clatter of his rumbling bones echoing about the cavern as the captives watched on in a mix of horror and confusion. Confusion which slowly gave way to a look of quiet hope in many.
When his mirth finally died down, taking all of the remaining tension with it, Sean straightened up once more. He felt like wiping a fake tear from his orbs for effect, but decided against it. Instead, he glared down at the old man who winced back.
“Tell him if he calls me that again, we’ll eat him without hesitation.” Sean instructed his friend. Funny as that was for him personally, he had no desire to allow the insult to go unanswered. That would set entirely the wrong tone here. “Same goes for the rest of them. Nod if they understand.”
“On it.” Gel said, translating his words into that strange, harsh-sounding language that Sean assumed was the ‘Peasant’ tongue the slime had mentioned a while back. They got a round of nodding heads in the affirmative with a particularly vigorous one from the lizard-looking one who had spoken earlier, which Sean took as a good sign.
“Now tell them we’re happy to cooperate, maybe even help them fight their way out and escape – so long as they help us and don’t try to stab us in the back. Because if that’s how they want it, then we’re just as happy to let them be ant food. See what they say to that.”
“Hey, woah now. Ant food? What about–”
“No no, I meant tell them they’ll be ant food. If they do decide to refuse, then we’re just going to eat them.” Sean clarified to his friend, and he wasn’t entirely surprised to find that he meant it. “Oh, and tell them we want some kind of exotic meat from each of them, too. Plus a favor to be paid later, and–.”
Sean pointed at one of the captives at random. “That guy’s left eye.”
“Done!” Gel said brightly, as abject horror dawned on the one Sean had singled out. Pained looks of sympathy crossed the faces of the rest of the captives.
“I was kidding about the left eye, Gel.”
“Oh.” The slime begrudgingly translated that last bit, and the lizard man coughed up something that might have been a forced laugh. Sean just shook his head.
Whether it was his last vestiges of humanity, his own nature, or just the desire to have some actual allies around here – Sean had wanted to help the first intelligent life they had come across. Especially that bird thing, because he still recalled its part fighting against the undead monster chasing them. Even so, there was no sense wasting time on those who didn’t want to be helped.
As his uncle would have put it: “Don’t get yer hand burnt savin’ stupid from sizzlin’. Some people can’t be helped an’ they’ll drag you down tryin’.”
Gel continued talking with the captives, and the lizard-looking one who appeared to be in charge began speaking as well. Sean noticed that one also made exaggerated indications with his eyes in the slime warrior’s general direction for the benefit of his fellow captives. Sean was no linguist, but he felt like he could read the implication there even before the slime translated it.
Don’t fuck up our one shot out of this, idiots.
When that same lizard man spoke up a second later, Gel gave Sean the rundown.
“He promises there will be no more insults and says they’re happy to comply.” The slime reported with a note of satisfaction. “Calls himself ‘Daerkin’ and wants to know how they can help. Sounds a bit eager.”
Gel listened as the lizardman, Daerkin, continued to speak rapidly.
“Ohhh, interesting. Maybe we should wait to eat the old guy. Apparently they’re being converted right now?”
“Converted?” Sean asked. “How? And into what?”
But he already knew what. Even if there weren’t examples growing all around the room, they had run into one earlier.
“Oh. Well, no wonder they’re all uppity.”