Chapter Eight: Dungeon Delving

Aleixo Montagne offered his hand to Au Puch as he began to stand. No fool, he took the proffered aid immediately and pulled himself up in a singular fluid motion. Montagne’s grip was powerful, instantly bringing to mind the thought of a python coiling around its prey and nearly crushing his bones, but the stalwart assassin gave no indication of the pain. This indifference led to a slight smile forming on the incarnation of Dagon’s face.

Montagne studied him as he slowly pulped the bones in his hand, trying to determine the kind of man that Supay was now. Was he still a weapon to be aimed and fired, or had he grown since last they saw one another? For his part, Supay Au Puch gave no indication that he was in pain but played the part of the subordinate who was happy to meet his leader. He could see that Montagne was annoyed that he didn’t hint at the slightest discomfort from the handshake.

“What’s this? No warm hello for me? Your old friend?” The words were said with a sneer and slightly raised eyebrow. His swarthy complexion highlighted the color of his eyes, dark as they were, and made them stand out in the day’s fading light. Supay had not expected his former employer to appear here and now, and his mind started whirling as to what the cold-hearted bastard might want of him. No, it wasn’t what he would want. It was what he would be expected to do for him. Montagne had high expectations of all of his . . . employees? His crew? Supay wasn’t sure what Montagne considered him in the underling category other than, perhaps, a tool. At best,, he might be regarded as a soldier, at worst, a pawn or a sacrificial lamb; with Aleixo, it was impossible to tell until it was too late.

Au Puch had no illusion about the kind of man Montagne was; he had been one of the man’s primary agents back IRL; for years, he had helped the crime lord kill hundreds of people whose bodies were left buried in forgotten fields long before the break of dawn. Dagon’s very avatar had been the last man IRL to send him out on a hit and was accidentally responsible for his being in the Darkest Knights world at this moment.

Montagne had been the one who wanted to be certain that his enemy, a banker named Valdez, who had refused to launder his money, died before the end of the world occurred. The crime boss had also wanted the banker to die with the full knowledge that Montagne had been responsible for his untimely demise.

The fact that the target had an unused immersion tank that was still viable in his home was the only reason that Au Puch had transitioned from real life to that of a digital existence. He wondered if the crime lord realized that fact. That he had enabled Supay to live when he should have died shortly after the job had been completed, he also considered that his former employer might have expected Supay to go the way of the dinosaurs immediately afterward, along with the rest of the chattel. The fact that Montagne might not be overly pleased to see him had not escaped him.

“Sorry, Lord Montagne,” he stated flatly. No matter how shaken he was, Au Puch would not give an opponent or even an ally a card that could be played against him later. If his voice had trembled in the slightest, then he would have ceded all of his power to the man before him, which was unacceptable. “I must admit that I was stunned to see you here in person. How is it that I may serve you?”

Aleixo let Au Puch’s hand fall from his own. He then proceeded to dust his dark clothing off with his other hand. He completely ignored Supay as he did so. He had no care in the world to all outward appearances, but Au Puch knew better. The dark man before him was a master of feigning indifference. Aleixo had ordered Supay to stove in the head of the unfortunate associate who’d been foolish enough to have stolen from him. Montagne had handed him a golf club to perform the deed, and Au Puch smiled as he recalled Montagne saying that he’d gotten a hole-in-one when the putter had punched through the subordinar’s temple, killing him instantly. They, at least, shared a similar sense of humor, if not other hungers.

“I must say that I was very pleased when I learned that you had survived the end of the world,” Aleixo said smoothly. “It is not easy to find men of your caliber, mi asesino favorito.” He ran a sideways finger from the bottom of his lower lip to his chin, “Nor is it so a simple matter to train men to be like you,” he shook his head and clicked his tongue as he said this. “You are a rare kind of man, Supay Au Puch. You follow orders to the letter. You are dependable and discreet, and most importantly, you have no qualms against killing. To you, the act is reflexive, like breathing.” The last statement was neither an accusation nor a detriment to his character; Montagne had meant it as a compliment, and Au Puch took it as such.

Humbled, the assassin lowered his head differentially to acknowledge the praise being heaped upon him. Montagne’s words were equivalent to the Grim Reaper saying that you knew how to swing a scythe. It touched his heart to hear such words about his talent from Dagon himself. No matter how many people Au Puch killed, he would never achieve the volume of murders that Montagne had under his belt. The man did not only deal with death in volume; he was also an artist whom few could appreciate. Granted, Montagne tended to paint only in sanguine colors, but his crimson masterpieces' tones and shading were sublime in his eyes.

“I have learned that our effort to discover the unmaking ritual has become endangered.” The former cartel leader began to hold up a hand to stop Au Puch from asking any questions until he realized that the assassin had no intention of interrupting him. “The gods and monster of this realm have banded together in the hope that they will be able to stop us, but the real danger is the team that Kaali has put together to assist searching those dusky oubliettes.” Alexio spat when he mentioned the names of the gods that were currently engaged in a campaign to destroy the Icthyoid and send Lord Dagon to a digital version of hell.

“We are going to crush their bones into powder and then snort their remains into oblivion,” he growled; the fact that his eyes were alight with power and a snarl had formed on Montagne’s face as he spoke was enough to send a chill down Au Puch’s spine.

----

Clackhissis rotated her body so that she could face Cushing. She could read the conflict that raged within him; it was evident to her that he was excited over their assignment, but he was also afraid of facing the Icthyoid again. The little one, Tes, was quietly creeping toward the stairway. She had decided that in spite of what she’d said, she had no desire to hunt down and search lost dungeons. Korvath had not been gone longer than five minutes, and the little vermin was already trying to escape.

She suppressed the urge to pounce the monster and instead bound into the archway ahead of the kobold. It didn’t matter to her if the pest left the group; she was insignificant to their cause and offered nothing on the whole. As far as she was concerned, if the creature vanished, she wouldn’t join the search party that went looking for her. The only thing that kept her from letting the beast sneak off was that her god had told her that the kobold was necessary. Just as he had about Cushing. They might annoy her; slow her down, or get in her way but she would abide heir presence until they fell in battle. That aspect was inevitable to her Which meant her future was in the runt’s possession; no matter how she felt, she could not let the mongrel slip away. Clackhissis elieved in loyalty and submission to superiors.

The arachnid blocked the egress but did so in a way that seemed unintentional by filling the doorway with her black body. With the exit of Korvath, the torches in the stairwell began to dim as if his mere presence had been enough to fuel them. She knew that if Tes were allowed an opportunity to get out of the dungeon, she would run without reservation or hesitation.

While Clackhissis saw this as no actual loss, she had a profound instinctual reaction regarding letting even the weakest member go. No matter how much she wanted to do this on her own, she realized that her fate and theirs were intertwined. That didn’t mean that it would always be so. Parties tended to have attrition, and the death’s head spider had no doubts about who would be the first to fall. She also knew who would be the last one standing.

“We should go downstairs,” she softly chittered, “To find the core room, I doubt Korvath would bring us to the very dungeon that held the Annully thing, but you never know what we might find to help our mission. We are here, and this is an opportunity to get some supplies.” She then gently nudged the kobold’s back with her center leg, letting Tes know that she would first go down the stairs. “Cushing, you follow behind us as a rear guard. Keep yourself alert. Do not,” she emphasized, “Get caught unawares.”

----

“Sure thing, boss,” he responded as he pulled a torch from the wall. Cushing watched as Tes led them deeper into the dungeon. He hated being the rear guard and suspected that Clackhissis had put him there to ensure the team's furriest member didn't try to make a break for safer parts. The spider had incredible instincts, and the Game Warden trusted her judgment without reservation or hesitation. He had a lot to learn, and she was the perfect teacher. Plus, she came off as super cuddly, and he could tell she liked him.

Clackhissis was a monster the likes of which he had never seen before. Sure, he'd grown up on old black-and-white B-movie vids as a kid. He had seen THEM, The Giant Spider Invasion, and Tarantula a million times before moving onto more modern takes on the giant creature flicks such as Spiders, Lavlantula, Big Bad Bugs, Arachnia, Arachnicide, Ice Spiders, The Giant Spider, right on down to the so awful it is amazing Big Ass Spider. Shoot, he’d even watched Arachnophobia at least thirty times, but the best spider movie was, without a doubt, Eight-Legged Freaks. It had been the perfect blend of doofiness mixed heavily with terror. Mostly doofiness, though. His spider made all the others look like a potato with broken toothpicks for legs.

Clackhissis had shown him that those old films and TV shows were just “children’s tales,” as she would say. The god’s hand spider, which he considered her to be, was the real deal. While she wasn’t thirty feet long, she was the most terrifying thing he’d ever seen. He realized that she struggled against her nature every moment. She was always on the hunt, always on guard against other predators, and working not to kill him or Tes.

He'd realized all that the moment she'd pounced on him when he had been chasing after Tes. Yes, she'd pinned him down and driven her spear-tip-like legs into his shoulder. Cushing could sense her hesitation but also her underlying drive to kill. He did not doubt that she would kill him and Tes if her control slipped for even a moment. Thankfully, as a gamer, he'd be able to come back. Tes wouldn't. She would be dead forever, and so he found himself in the unenviable position of having to make sure the kobold didn't bolt and that if she did, the arachnid didn’t kill her for attempting to leave.

Regardless, the spider had much to teach him, as did Tes, he suspected. He planned on making the most of every minute with the two of them. Tes, naturally, was not the kind of monster he’d planned on working with; his expectations were a little higher, but she seemed a good sort. He nearly laughed when his full attention fell onto the kobold. She was trying to creep around the spiral staircase as Clackhissis kept urging her forward with a not-so-subtle shove with her leg every several feet.

“You’re doing great, Tes,” Cushing encouraged. She glanced back, seemingly thankful for his presence and encouragement, and gave him a big doggie smile. The way that she did it made him want to give her a treat. He caught himself. He couldn’t afford to think of her as a dog, no matter how furry she was; she was a monster, and no matter how helpless the kobold seemed, she was just as dangerous as Clackhissis in her way. He was about to say something he knew would annoy the spider when he watched her freeze. She had gone from a brisk skitter along the ceiling to complete immobility. He instantly realized that her freezing in place meant she’d sensed danger. Trouble was, as they used to say, afoot. He couldn’t help but think that since the spider was sensing danger directly via her vibration-sensitive footpads.

"Clackhissis," his voice was soft, barely a whisper, and her name was stated as a question, as in "What's going on?"; thankfully, she not only heard him but had understood his meaning.

“There is movement above,” she chirped.

“Korvath?”

“No, many feet. I recognize the footfalls.” Cushing held his breath in anticipation of what was coming. He exhaled long and hard when Clackhissis said the words he dreaded, “Icthyoid, I assume, at least twenty, give or take a leg or two.”

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----

Aleixio Montagne flashed Au Puch a dark smile. His eyes burned into the back of the assassin’s head as he suddenly became more than just a man. What stood before Supay was, without question, the living, breathing incarnation of Dagon. Dark energy swirled around him, and his hair practically stood on end. The man’s eyes burned like Hell’s hottest embers, and his skin crackled with power. It chilled Au Puch’s blood to see the transformation that had taken place in the man. One moment, Montagne was seemingly just like him, an ordinary man, and the next, he was very nearly a god, brimming with power.

“I have sent troops ahead to intercept and, if possible, destroy them.” His voice burned Au Puch’s ears as if acid had been poured into his aural canals. He pointed a fixed finger at the killer, "I doubt they will succeed,” his features darkened, and a grimace formed on his once handsome features, “I leave it to you and this squad to complete the job. You have never failed me before, and I do not suggest you start now.”

Supay had expected the man to vanish in a display of light and sound but was stunned to see Montagne turn away from him and go to the new lieutenant. He had to admit that it was something of a letdown. He had expected something more prominent and more impressive from the right hand of LORD DAGON, but he also understood he was not worth wasting such displays of power on. Montagne had no need to impress him in the slightest. He already knew the man’s sensibilities, attitudes, and standard reactions.

No one failed Montagne, not if they did not want to suffer countless hours of agony before expiring. With him, death was not a mercy; it was more of a dream, a fantasy that seemed impossible ever to come true. When it did come, it was only long after his victims could not suffer any more than they had and no longer cared about their fate. No, his mercy came when he ordered a death and had things done quickly and cleanly. Those were the lucky ones.

Au Puch quickly checked his weapons and gear and prepared to head out on his own, knowing that the Icthyoid would be right behind him. Au Puch wanted to see his opponents before he engaged them. He always scouted his marks; he didn’t like surprises. He shrugged; what kind of opposition could he expect from a spider?

----

Clackhissis wasted no time. The spider slipped over the top of the manling and began to apply her silk to the stairway's walls, floor, and ceiling. Her abdomen bobbed up and down as her rear legs guided the thread from her body to where she wanted it placed. She worked quickly and with a purpose. What she created was not a work of art but a nearly invisible wall of silk with stronger strands than steel.

“Do not touch this,” she warned them, “This is all sticky webbing. The slightest contact will hold you in place, and you cannot break free.” She then urged them further downward by waving her legs at them to move ahead. Every ten to twenty steps, Clackhissis would take a moment to set up a trip line or another wall of web. She intended that they pay for every inch of ground they took towards their party.

Clackhissis knew that this would not harm them much, but if they were lucky, it would slow the Icthyoid down a good bit, providing time for her to plan. She had taken out almost a dozen of the vile warriors by herself before the manling had blundered into her well-deliberated battle. Up until then, she was doing fine. Twenty was worrisome but doable, so long as the man and the mongrel kept out from under her feet.

She had to admit to herself that she had been fortunate enough to have chosen the time and place of that earlier battle and had ample opportunity to set traps to deal with them as they came. Things were very different now. Very different.

She was on the run, had little time to prepare, and was saddled with not one anchor but two now barely viable warriors in her party. Clackhissis shrugged her body. The shadow spider would need to make do with what she had to work with, and while it was a stretch to believe it possible, the pair might surprise her. While the kobold seemed to be a lost cause, Cushing carried a glimmer of hope within him. If nothing else, he was a Gamer, and that meant that he had potential that others lacked.

They continued down the steps until they came to a large archway cut out of the stone walls but framed with large granite squares that were onyx in color. Tes had stopped before entering the darkroom, and Cushing had stopped a step behind her. Clackhissis crawled over their heads, keeping off the ground per her usual mode of Operandi. She scuttled down the entrance wall and focused her eyes on the aperture.

There looked to be the remains of a door from long ago as the spider noted hinges. Clackhissis had learned about corridors and doorways since her first encounter with them as a hatchling on her way to face the Bast King in the Other World. She studied the door and could discern no traps on the floor, but she had to admit that while she could set traps, she could not find them so quickly. There was a difference between being able to design something and noticing that very same thing somewhere else. Besides, her traps were very different from those created by two-legged individuals. From what she could see, the room beyond was vast and empty. There was no indication of movement, nor did the room reek of death and decay. It felt empty and unused for some time. So far as she could tell, it was safe.

Clackhissis studied the layout of the room. It was large, even by her size standards. Given that she had gone from being so minuscule that a simple hand slap from a human would have killed her to her current size, that of a pony, her perspective of what constituted significant was ever-changing.

Their room was massive and clearly made to serve a host of substantive and comparable proportions. She was still getting her bipedal measurements down but would have guessed the room to be at least four hundred feet long and two hundred feet wide. The ceiling was precisely the kind she preferred. It was at least one hundred feet off the ground, but its surface was not flat but rather hewn stone, leaving numerous crevices and cracks for her to exploit if she took to the air to fight. Clackhissis did not want to contemplate what kind of “Boss” used to dwell in this great hall.

The room was littered with broken furniture, shattered stones, and scattered bones. She took no small amount of comfort from the cobwebbed corners, their presence reminding her of her home in the Death’s Head weald. That seemed so long ago and far away that it might have been a dream. She had changed so much in so little time that it didn’t feel real. Survival made you grow up fast or die slowly; her universe had no middle ground.

The chamber was too large, as was the entrance. By Clackhissis’s estimation, no more than two Icthyoid warriors would easily fit through the door at the same time. They would come through quickly to use their superior numbers as advantageously as possible. She could use that. She could turn that around on them and use their numbers against them if she acted wisely. If Clackhissis could manage to bottleneck them at the entrance and keep their numbers limited to just a few at a time, then they might stand a chance of making it out of their situation alive.

“Tes,” her voice echoed off the walls of the room they had found themselves in, “Go in and see if you can find another way out. There may be a hidden passage or even one that is not so hidden.” The arachnid hated the idea of letting the little one look for alternative paths to the outside. The kobold entered, and the human followed her inside; at least he didn’t need constant direction.

When her teammates passed the open doorway, Clackhissis began to coat the arch with her silk. She was going to fill the archway with her webbing. It would use a great deal of her silk, but creating a barrier of nothing but her stickiest webbing that was a foot thick would slow even the most determined Icthyoid, and every second that she could slow them down was another second that she had to plan.

“Clackhissis,” Cushing called urgently, “I think I know where we are.”

She didn’t stop what she was doing, but she did focus her attention on him. She waved a pedipalp in his direction, which was her way of telling him to continue. Sometimes, he wouldn’t shut up, and at other times, he acted as if he’d forgotten he had a tongue.

“I’ve played enough games to recognize a boss room when I see one,” having taken her prompting correctly, he began to ramble, “I used to play this MMO called Dark Age of the Vampire, and my party wandered into a very similar room. We were beset upon by a giant molten Malrog nearly immediately.” Cushing began to speak faster, “This thing tore us apart, but we rallied and took it down in the end. I never saw so much magma, erm, or is it lava? No matter, regardless of how much molten rock there was, we got so much loot it was wild. Oh man, the XP was given out like penny candy. There was a ton of XP,” he said as his hands formed a shape to indicate a considerable pile. He pretended to pick up a coin from the massive imaginary horde before him and placed it in his pocket with a wink and a nod at the spider.

“What does that have to do with this room?” Clackhissis instantly regretted her decision to prompt Cushing to speak. Clackhissis’s mind raced as she tried to think of a way to interrupt him as she continued to spray her webbing even though the doorway was now practically filled with her webbing.

“Well,” he continued nonplused, “This is a Boss room. I’m from where you fight a brutally powerful monster and reap big rewards for defeating it. It’s a spot where all the best stuff is hidden.” He let that last bit drag out a little, and Clackhissis realized he was waiting for the arachnid to take his bait. She didn’t disappoint him.

“Why,” she just about shuddered as she asked, “Does that matter? And, what is a Boss?”

“It matters, my dear Charlotte, because where better a place to hide the secret location of the dungeon core? A Boss is a big monster way stronger than anything else you’ll have faced in the dungeon. They’re usually overpowered, so they can take on a strong group as a singular MOB and give the players a run for their money. You never want to face a boss alone. That is just a suicide run. Bosses are big, mean, and are overpowered. On the plus side, they tend to have lotsa loot to distract ya, yada, yada, yada, and their death usually creates a way out of the underground lair.”

Clackhissis froze and stopped spraying webbing, “A way out?”

Cushing nodded at her. There may no longer have been a “boss mob” in this dungeon, but if a way out presented itself after the foremost defender’s death, they just had to figure out how to make the exit present itself or find it before the Icthyoid arrived. Thankfully, the alien invaders were moving from floor to floor and not just charging down the stairway after them. Their efficiency was a boon to her and the party. The fish-mouthed monstrosities provided time they would not have had by searching each floor for them.

They would suss out the truth of where they were once they ran into more of her web walls and tripwires, but until then, she wished them the best of luck in their floor-by-floor searching. The thought that the core’s secret location was nearby gave her some hope of finding an exit. She was certain that if she were a core, she would want dungeon delvers out of her lair as soon as possible.

“See if you can find the place the core belongs,” her chittering voice reverberated in the chamber, “That’s where I would put my secret object.” It was a hard call to make. The mystic artifact could have been hidden anywhere, and they had no idea what it looked like. For all they knew, it was secreted away beneath a floor stone.

Clackhissis did not want to lose another dungeon to the Icthyoid, even if it meant her death. She knew they would claim it, and then their taint would infect it. From there, their madness would spread across the land. She would not let this place go if she could help it. Something nagged at the back of her mind whenever she thought of the arrangement of the dungeons that Korvath had shown them. Deep down, she was connected to the Monstrous Realm that Kaali presided over—as all monsters were—and she sensed the Icthyoid spreading like rot through the roots of a great tree. She instinctively knew that the Monstrous Realm could not sustain more. The dungeons were on the precipice and in a precarious position. She wasn’t entirely sure what would happen to Kaali’s Realm if the rot continued to gain ground, but she sensed that the consequences for the world would be dire.

Her focus then turned to Tes.

She had never let her attention slip from her and had followed the kobold’s movements through her vibration-sensitive footpads so that she always knew where the runty stray was; she just hadn’t applied all of her concentration on her until now.

“Tes, continue searching for an exit. Cushing believes there may be a hidden passage back to the surface, or,” Clackhissis tried to continue her orders but was cut off once more by Cushing.

“A monster safe room!” His voice was jovial, indicating that even now, he had no clue what was coming for them. She had no idea what he meant by a “safe” room, but by her estimation, there was no safe place in the dungeon. Somehow, this fact didn’t seem to affect the odd Game Warden, which was no surprise. He seemed oblivious to most things. A second later, Cushing’s mouth made a strange “O” shape, and his eyes went wide with mirth, “I’ll bet there’s some sort of monster rec room around here filled with gold and board games!”

Not for the first time since meeting Cushing, Clackhissis wished she could roll her unblinking eyes. She had seen the humanoids perform that action numerous times but had never understood why until she met Cushing.

“Focus! We are under siege, Game Warden! Not all of us are immortal, and those coming may have weapons that can kill even a gamer such as you!” Cushing gulped, dropped his idiot persona, and began toeing the line.

The man was trying. He took a toll on her. The longer she was around him, the more irritated she became. Thankfully, he was not as aggravating as Tes. The kobold was scrabbling over the walls, looking for some hint of a secret door or hidden tunnel. She, at least, did her job in silence. For Clackhissis, it was just the fact of Tes’s existence that made her fangs ache. The kobold was barely a meal and was barely passable as such. For the arachnid to truthfully respect the kobold would involve the act of a god to change her perspective. Seeing how Kaali had already involved himself, it would take much more for the spider to even consider Tes as anything other than a broken web line. Her presence weakened the overall strength of the group.

Clackhissis looked at the webbed doorway. She knew that it would do little more than slow her opponents down by scant seconds. Even now, she could hear them lumbering down the stairs. They made no pretense of stealth; confident in the superiority of their numbers, they stomped their way ever downward towards the carrion call of death. The only thing undetermined was whose deaths were being called for, those of her party or the Icthyoids; she knew the Icthyoid’s suspicions as to who would die but had her thoughts on the matter.

She had little time to tell the others of the plan that was forming in the back of her mind. Her idea had practically come to her when Cushing started calling her name; time was up. The enemy was at the silken gates.