Chapter 30: Worms in the Deep

"Here they come!"

We'd immediately kicked the metaphorical hornet's nest. The darkness beyond that golden circle of daylight turning into a living thing that roiled with rage before being banished by my light and revealing a dozen gangly-limbed, shorter than average humanoids clutching a variety of curved blades and single-spiked clubs. A mere tealight held in my hand could light up a room like an oil lantern and the mana I pumped into the wood-wicked pillar of wax in my left hand now lit the tunnel all the way to the next bend with clear, strong light. Hell, if the line of sight were unobstructed this baby could have illuminated a whole house.

The first Derro I saw was a squat, twisted creature covered in red tattoos and armoured in some kind of leather armour reinforced with dull blue metal and armed with a short crescent tipped polearm made with a strangely porous looking wooden shaft and that same dull blue metal. I had not expected the circle of daylight would be the epicentre of a six-way intersection of tunnels teeming with the tattooed little monsters. My party dropped down around me and I focused on the figures ahead of me, stepping further into the darkness so my allies would have room to manoeuvre and forced mana into my spell-candle. The Derro closest to me was leering at me. "Two big lights, surface-dweller needs so many lights to see that he can't even hold a weapon." The second Derro was a few feet behind him and he flicked a knife over and over in the air, phosphorescent green fluid coated the blade and I wondered if that was the secret of their paralysis magic. The second Derro looked directly at the first. "Go on, you bring him down, I collared the last, fair is fair." The first Derro tipped his ugly little head in a cruel gratitude and then took his first steps towards me.

Flame erupted from my right hand, naphtha engulfing the first Derro in my path and surging around him to terminate against the twisted figure of the next in line. It was like a Dragon had appeared inside the tiny tunnel and turned its fury upon the madness-tainted denizens.

This was Dragonwick, it was a real step up from my original flamethrowers and the screaming Derro seemed to agree with that sentiment. It was the biggest spell i'd worked yet and I could cast it 6 times with the amount of Naphtha I had imbued this dual-wicked monstrosity with while the spell-candle in my left served just fine for the coup de grace when the second Derro didn't die immediately. I unleashed the left in the form of waxen splash, a gout of burning wax splattering onto the cringing, already badly charred Derro and horribly ending his misery. Behind me Karl and Luna fought a team of three in their own tunnel and to my right the Cleric silently swung his sword-length Rondel from left to right, parrying throwing weapons out of the air as he advanced on a cackling Derro. There was a horrible crunching sound when he stabbed through its skull and another when his black-iron boot smashed its bones. All around us the Derro were rasping orders, croakily calling for reinforcements as we fought like demons. I unleashed another gout of flame, turned to Victoria's tunnel and unleashed a third when she flattened herself against the tunnel wall. "2 experience gained for defeating Derro cultist initiate. 3 exp gained for defeating Derro cultist scout" We didn't think the creatures down here would be more than we could handle, the city guilds had diviners and seers who monitored the danger levels of different regions of the world and they hadn't sent anything more than the routine amount of adventurers. Of course those adventurers had been stronger than us and almost all of them had been killed enroute.

Victoria stepped in front of me and fired off a volley of mystic darts that hammered the Derro advancing on her, one went down beneath the onslaught but the others kept coming. I had wiped my own tunnel so I brandished my longsword, mana now fully depleted and met the first of those crescent blades with all the skill I could muster.

It worked, I didn't get cut with the poisoned blade, I didn't fall on my ass or get stabbed in the neck. Nope, I used the flat of my blade to catch the pole-weapon, directed it into the wall of the tunnel with a flash of sparks and then overpowered the Derro, pinning one hand to his side when he went for a knife and slowly forced my sword through his heart while he tried desperately to keep himself off of the blade.

Karl gave a shout, cutting through the chaos of battle. "Harder targets coming in." Armoured Derro warriors were now beginning to pop their heads up, replacing the easily slain and obviously expendable scouts. It said something about Derro culture that they focused their defences inwards, more afraid of the subterranean horrors that they had been forced to contend with for generations rather than the surface dwellers they were now attacking and enslaving.

A stream of sparks marked the approach of a huge Derro, easily 5 foot 7, towering over his smaller kin as he dragged steel claws against the walls of the hive. The claws were each the length of a long dagger with a slightly longer blade in the centre of the tri-bladed gauntlet. I threw fire and the blades came up and generated a lattice of purple energy between them that ate the flames at the point of impact. I had no mana for another shot yet and Karl and Luna were busy with their heavily armoured attackers. The Cleric had now truly split off from our main group, marching down the tunnel and obliterating enemy after enemy with his sword-length dagger and massive fists.

Victoria held out both palms and the air rippled with that oscillating heat that proved to be the perfect thing to bypass the Derro's claw guard. The bombardment lasted a full five seconds while I constantly whipped my head around looking out for my allies, I had enough mana for a cantrip, nothing for a higher level candle. I had the sword though, and when the microwave stopped cracking the flesh and blistering the skin of the Derro juggernaut I stepped up again. This fight didn't go so well, I tried to use the superior reach afforded me by my longer arms and sword but the claws created that lattice again and it arced to my own weapon, the purple electricity shocked me badly enough that I almost dropped my blade. As it was I still leapt back and cursed as I took 2 points of damage for merely attacking a blocking opponent.

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I suppose I deserved it after killing two and a half of his people without a scratch but I took it personally and blasted him with Psychokinetic ram. The Derro didn't pass whatever save or check he needed to and his 5'7 frame slammed into the tunnel wall and crumpled to a slumped position on his ass, more scouts and warriors were coming but they would'nt get here in time. I hewed into his arm with my sword, dark-green blood oozed out of his wound and he tried to swipe at me with the other gauntlet, I jammed my sword into the blades, locking us together then I kicked him in the head and then chopped down on his other arm, only then, both arms destroyed did the Derro make a noise, instead of a scream of pain or horror at the loss of basic bodily functions he let out a roar of pure frustration at the loss of his killing arms. "Surface dog! The Great Blind Wyrm will devour your entrails, sunder your bones within his coils and entomb your hives!"

I brought the sword back one more time and sliced most of the way through his neck, I was immediately rewarded with 10 experience split between myself and Victoria, more experience occasionally trickled in, fractions awarded from my allies killing scouts and these new armoured warriors. I was enjoying the victory when Victoria took the iniative once more, stepping in front of me and meeting the newest group of attackers with the wave of microwave induced pain she specialised in. Unlike the Juggernaut this next wave faltered and retreated, scampering away from the pain and death she directed their way. "Get below, secure the slaves for transport. We're under attack."

Karl's arm whipped and weaved like an angry snake, flecks of blood hitting the walls and floor as they dripped from its barbed and sinuous length. "That settles it, smaller group than we'd feared, we can wipe them out if we press on."

I shook my head, not so sure about the whole thing.

"It could be a trap, we're only just in the door of their lair, If we tunred tail and tried to run now we'd make it out with no problems, If we go deeper and they're stronger than they look then they could take us all" I wasn't suggesting we retreat, just use a bit of caution as we delved deeper into the belly of the beast. After all, we hadn't seen the secret weapon yet, the tools or magic used to sneak into villages and take entire settlements without casualty. Everyone not currently burning Derro to ash with their white fire looked at me with interest. Karl spoke first, seeming to respect me "What should be do then Jack?" I didn't have a specific plan, I just didn't want to get to cocky, if we died, who would rescue the hostages?

I cleared my throat. " I think Its like that story about the hunters and the buffalo."

Everyone turned up their noses in disgust except for the Umbani who was steadfastly continuing down the corridor he'd chosen as his very own path of destruction. We made to follow him because he was the most dangerous thing down here so far and it was best to keep him in sight but everyone was still looking at me like I had just made the Aristocrats joke with a completely straight face. "Ew, I don't think its like the Buffalo story at all." That was Victoria, followed closely by Luna. "He's from a long way away, I'm guessing he means a different Buffalo Story."

I nodded quickly, taking the out and immensely curious about what the hell their Buffalo Story was.

The tunnel took us down far deeper than any of my spelunking adventures had yet, opening out into a wood-reinforced chamber that was full of huge, bloated caterpillar type creatures. Each one was the size of a cow and leaking a viscous green slime that a man in ragged clothing was scraping up with a shovel and feeding into a furnace. The Umbani was hunched down against the far wall, straining his massive shoulders in an attempt to lift something. I approached while the others investigated the room and rendered medical aid to the hollow eyed, raspily breathing slave. "They left me behind, said I was dead weight, lungs hurt."

The Cleric pulled again, he had his gauntlets hooked into a wooden gate made of the same porous wood used in the construction of the Derro's weapons and the panelling/ reinforcements of this room. "Can't you smash through it?" I asked, seeing as the massive brute was trying to wedge his fingers into a crack in the door and wrench it open when it looked much simpler to just plow through it.

"No, its been reinforced with something and they've used an enchantment to boot."

The giant's gauntlets glowed white with concentrated energy and the edge of the door responded with harsh purple. "In service to the white fire I demand entry!" The seemingly feeble wooden door held though it shuddered and the energy field oscillated wildly.

Then the field dissipated and the door raised portcullis-style into a groove carved through the rocky ceiling.

The cleric was raising up to his hunched stature, rondel clutched in his gauntlets when a pallid tentacle with wormlike segments positioned at intervals of about a foot each. The tendril wrapped around his waist, squeezed hard enough that a rib cracked like a gunshot in the confines of the tunnel and then flung him against a wall. The wormlike tendril doubled over on itself and then pushed a spaded yet wormlike head into the room beyond. "No, NO please Overseer, I swear, I'm working. I'm still working." The Creature revealed itself as a massive anaconda sized worm with purple ichor leaking from a series of little holes around its eyeless but pitted head.

The cleric rose with a sharp intake of breath and white fire ignited across his armour, it visibly burned his flesh but the fluids the worm had covered him in seemed to burn off much quicker. The slave we'd rescued screamed in fear and ran for it, the worm's pitted face erupted in pressurised streams of purple ichor that coated the slave as he tried to run, the slave screamed and collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut and the worm turned to us as Derro closed in from behind us, filling the corridor and boxing us in.