Allison moved down the long hallway behind her shield. As the light from the entrance dimmed, Bruno whispered from behind Allison, “Hold. Delilah, eyes.”
Delilah produced two tiny flasks and reached forward, past Jeremiah, to hand them to Bruno. Jeremiah saw they had forgotten there was an extra body between them now. He resolved to make himself worth bringing along.
Bruno shared one flask with Allison, then upended the flask’s contents directly into his eyes. He sucked air through his teeth and got back into his ready position.
“Clear ahead,” he said. “Good to move.”
As they began to move again, Delilah whispered to Jeremiah, “Night Eye tonic, helps see in the dark. Don’t shine a light in their eyes.”
Jeremiah whispered, “Why not just make a light? I can do that if you want.”
Allison answered from the front, “A light means anyone can see us coming a mile away. Delilah watches the back, Bruno watches the front.”
“Oh,” said Jeremiah. “What about me?”
Without hesitation, Allison said, “Delilah, eyes Jay.”
A firm hand pulled Jeremiah’s head back till he was looking at the ceiling, then a cold liquid poured into his eyes. He gritted his teeth against the stinging and tried to stay quiet as the hand released him. He bent over and rubbed his eyes. When he blinked again, he marveled at the effect: what had been pitch black moments before was now bright as day, though colors were muted.
His rat scouts had relayed only the most basic of information—scurry, turn right, death. Now he saw the dungeon with his own eyes. The cobble under their feet had been worn smooth over the centuries, and the halls were wide enough that Jeremiah could imagine small carts being wheeled up and down the sloping floor. The air was cool and musty, undisturbed by the years, although Jeremiah thought he could sense a rancid edge emanating from further down. The stone brick walls exaggerated the smallest sound, making up for an age of silence.
Jeremiah shivered. They were really doing this.
They crept deeper and deeper, hearing only their own footsteps. Soon, Bruno called a halt and inched ahead of Allison to inspect something on the ground.
“Rat skeleton,” he said. “Picked clean and smashed.”
He looked up and further down the hall.
“Couple of them. Weird.”
Jeremiah knew these rat skeletons well. His pulse quickened as they approached the defenses that had destroyed so many of his scouts.
They heard soft footsteps a moment before a small form appeared around the corner ahead—a goblin! It clutched a crudely-made sword, standing only as tall as Jeremiah’s waist. Its large eyes widened as it pointed a clawed hand toward the party and screeched an alarm.
The goblin died mid-screech with Bruno’s arrow in its skull, but the damage was done. The staccato of multiple pairs of feet emanated from the hall ahead, accompanied by a growing hiss.
The goblins shrieked as they charged around the corner—three, five, eight, soon more than Jeremiah could count. They swung their swords overhead and launched at the party with reckless abandon.
Bruno’s arrows flew with deadly accuracy, dropping the lead goblins to the floor. The rest of the goblin pack trampled their bodies without slowing.
“SIEGE!” shouted Allison. She knelt and planted her shield against the ground, angling it toward herself to direct blows upward.
Delilah pushed Jeremiah aside to make room for her spear, reaching past Allison. She braced to meet the charging swarm.
The goblins crashed against Allison’s shield, attempting to spill around it to reach the blood they were craving. Delilah’s spear impaled two with a powerful thrust. Bruno dropped his bow in favor of twin short swords and began hacking at goblins spilling around Allison’s other flank.
Jeremiah gaped at the efficiency of the bloodbath. There seemed to be nothing for him to do.
More goblins poured around the corner to meet their end on the party’s formation. They crawled over each other to try to breach Allison’s defenses. Small dull hatchets and swords hacked at her armored legs before they were cut down by Bruno or Delilah.
“SALLYING OUT!” roared Allison. She shoved against her shield, toppling the goblins piling onto it, then brought her sword around in a wide sweep. Her blade never slowed as it passed through goblin after goblin.
The goblin offensive stalled while they struggled to time their attacks in between Allison’s swings, only to find her vulnerable moments were covered by Bruno and Delilah. A few blows landed on Allison’s legs and feet, and she swore at the more solid hits, but her armor held…for the most part.
Jeremiah’s reverie at the carnage was broken when a goblin hatchet connected with Allison’s leg. He heard her cry out, saw the blade come back slick and red, and snapped into action.
His master had forced him to drill relentlessly, casting the same spells over and over again until he was at risk of casting them in his sleep. All for a moment like this. Without hesitation, Jeremiah spoke ancient words that, with the proper will, could alter reality itself. He gestured his hand forward, angled toward the ceiling beyond Allison, and from his outstretched palm flew a congealed ball of deep green acid.
The acid splashed against the ceiling and rained down on the goblin horde. The goblins screamed as the acid sizzled through their flesh.
“OH, HELL YES!” said Allison, and pressed ahead. Those goblins not killed by the acid rain were cleaved down in moments as she pressed forward in strong, controlled steps.
Delilah shouted into Jeremiah’s ear over the screeches of the goblins. “Again on three!”
“ONE!” Something flew past Jeremiah’s head far back down the hall, into the crowd of goblins.
“TWO!” There was a flash, a bang, and a rush of air as fire erupted into the hallway, immolating a group of goblins. Those beyond the fire backed away, but those closer to the party crammed tightly together, their fear of the flames driving them to clamber over each other.
Jeremiah cast his spell just as Delilah shouted “THREE!”, and once it again it rained acid, this time into the densely packed goblin mass. Their screams were deafening. Jeremiah reeled at the stench of so much melting flesh. The furthest goblins fled, while any who survived the acid were cut down by Allison. Bruno kicked his bow up into his hands and began loosing arrows after the retreating goblins, dropping one after the other until they had all disappeared.
The entire fight lasted only moments. Allison finished off the last few and stood atop her conquered foes, drenched from head to toe in blood and drawing deep, controlled breaths. There was silence but for the sound of their panting.
“Heh,” Bruno gave an uneasy laugh. “Hehe! Hahaha!”
The break in tension was contagious and soon all four of them were whooping and hollering in their victory. “That!” shouted Bruno, “was fucking spectacular! Raining acid? That was the most heinous thing I’ve ever seen!”
Jeremiah took it as a compliment, heady with giddiness at his first combat victory. Then he remembered the event that had inspired his attack. “Allison! Are you alright? I saw you take an axe to the leg!”
Allison raised her visor and grinned. “Psh, flesh wound. Let me show you my scar collection sometime, I’ve got some that put Bruno’s nicest tattoos to shame.”
They laughed, but Delilah insisted on inspecting the wound. The axe had left a shallow gouge between the armor plates on Allison’s thigh.
“Superficial, but it’s likely to get infected,” said Delilah. “We’re better off taking care of it now.” She wiggled a small unguent bottle at Allison.
Allison nodded and showed only the smallest of tics as Delilah used her fingers to push the milky white unguent into the wound. Jeremiah noticed Bruno turn away and pretend to keep watch. When she was done, Allison shifted her weight onto the wounded leg and grunted. “It’s better. Thanks, Delilah.”
Jeremiah’s relief was cut short by the echoes of more goblin screeches from up ahead.
“Alright,” said Allison with grim authority, “we’re moving on. These goblins don’t have anything we want.”
Jeremiah gazed at the exposed skull of a dead goblin, its flesh melted off by the acid. “No,” he sighed, “I guess they don’t.”
Jeremiah marveled as they continued on. The party had just endured a potentially deadly ordeal, and now they were carrying on like nothing had happened. A smile bloomed on his lips as he thought of the praise he had received from companions. In his first life-or-death fight not only did he survive, he did a damn good job! Maybe he really could be a useful ally, even without undead.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The hallway began to curve downward, the air chilling further as they descended. Spatters of blood on the ground marked the goblins’ retreat, alongside a few goblins that had succumbed to their wounds.
The hallway leveled off into a wide corridor with large alcoves the left and right. “Ah, storage,” said Bruno. “Was wondering what this place used to be.”
Jeremiah peered into one of the hollows and imagined it loaded with crates of dried food, hogshead barrels of wine, and stacks upon stacks of cheese.
“They used to hang salted meats down here,” said Delilah pointing to long metal runners in the ceiling. “Must have been a real fancy place upstairs.”
“Hey Al,” Bruno said, “this place might be bigger than we thought.”
“Could be,” said Allison, focused on her slow march forward.
There was a pregnant pause before Bruno spoke again. “That was an awful lot of goblins for a front guard. Should we consider whether this place is a Warren?”
“It’s crossed my mind,” said Allison without looking up. “If anyone wants to make the call that this is a Warren, say so and we bail right now.”
There was a bit of nervous shifting, but no one explained. Jeremiah felt compelled to ask. “What’s a Warren? How is it different from…whatever it’s normally not?”
Bruno answered. “Goblins normally live in Hollows. They’re led by a chieftain or whoever can keep them in line. They breed like rabbits, and they go from infant to dangerous in less than a year.”
“If left unchecked,” continued Delilah, “the population will continue to grow, assuming enough space and resources. After the hollow reaches a certain size, one of the females will transform into what’s called a Matriarch. Massive, powerful, and worst of all, she exerts a kind of mental control over the other goblins. They become meaner, more organized. She can also breed even faster than normal females. That’s when a goblin problem really gets out of hand—you can get hundreds, or even thousands of them. That’s why it’s important to take care of Hollows quickly, before they can develop into Warrens.”
“So if this is Warren…” Jeremiah said, guessing he knew the answer.
“If this turns out to be a Warren,” said Allison, “You turn, you run, you don’t stop running till you’re miles away and in a fortress.”
Delilah shuddered. “My teacher’s sister’s husband was part of the Red Ridge Mountain group.”
Bruno glanced back. “Seriously?” Seeing Jeremiah’s confusion, he explained. “Bunch of damn-near legendary adventurers delved the Red Ridge Mountain Warren. They had mages, healers, warriors, specialist spelunkers, the whole lot. The only guy that came back was one of the porters. He said it was some kind of SUPER Warren that had hundreds of thousands of goblins. That place is still active, isn’t it, Allison?”
Allison frowned. “Technically, in that no one has cleared it out and killed the Matriarch. But it’s been years since anyone has encountered more than a couple of goblins out there. Some people say a plague must have wiped them out, but these things live in absolute squalor and almost never get sick, so I doubt it.”
“I think there was a catastrophic collapse,” said Delilah, “See the Red Ridge Mountain geological zone is notori-“
“Quiet,” said Allison, raising her hand. She cocked her head, listening to the depths.
Jeremiah strained his hearing. After a few moments, he became aware of a low grinding emanating from the darkness below them. Was it growing louder?
“Let’s go,” Allison said, checking each alcove they passed for lurking goblin ambushes.
They left the storage corridor behind to continue their descent through the cool stone passages. Allison’s wariness ratcheted ever higher as the grinding grew louder. Jeremiah found his eyes fixating on every shadow as though it were a goblin sneaking up on them in the low din.
Allison stopped so suddenly that Jeremiah ran into Bruno in front of him. “Get ready,” Allison growled, setting her sword and shield.
Ready for what? Jeremiah didn’t dare ask as the grinding echoed up the stonework, now unmistakably moving toward them.
Out of the darkness beyond the range of Jeremiah’s Night Eyes materialized an enormous wooden wall, advancing inexorably on their position. It filled the square corridor completely. There wasn’t even space for Delilah’s spear to poke around the top or sides. Jeremiah’s jaw dropped as the wall rumbled toward them, seemingly heedless of the adventuring party in its path. Then he realized the wall’s surface was bristling with crossbows. As the wall closed on their position, crossbow bolts began to pelt Allison.
The party ducked as Allison angled her shield to protect them from the volley. She exchanged her sword for the battle-axe at her side. “I’ll breach. COVER ME!”
Allison launched herself the last dozen feet toward the wall, Bruno and Delilah falling into step to cover her flanks. Jeremiah stared after them for a split second before urging his feet to follow. He wasn’t sure how he could help, but he did not want to be left behind.
Allison reared back as she neared the wall, and swung her axe against the wood with a battle cry. Several small windows opened as her blade rebounded, and a riposte of spears and daggers thrust at her armor. Allison spun away and Delilah drove her spear into an open window, withdrawing it covered in blood. Bruno loosed a few arrows, but the windows closed as soon as Allison was beyond reach.
Jeremiah shouted, “Acid!” and launched an acid ball over the party’s head to splatter against the wall. Allison raised her shield against the splashback, but the ball of acid merely slid off the wood without so much as marring its engraved surface.
“It’s been alchemically treated!” shouted Delilah.
Allison swung her axe again and again, but was barely able to cut splinters from the wood. Each attack left her open to the stabs of the wall’s defenders. Jeremiah could hear the goblins behind the wall chittering with excitement and cheering with each successful breach of Allison’s armor.
A daring set of hands waited for Allison’s swing and seized her shield, pulling her against the door. As Allison braced her foot on the wall to yank it free, a cruel blade sank deep into the underside of her knee. Allison screamed as the blade twisted, then brought her axe down and severed the attacking arm. With a final wrench she was able to free her shield, but as she tried to adopt her stance, her leg gave way. She dropped to a knee with a grunt.
A triumphant shriek from behind the party filled Jeremiah’s heart with dread. He turned in seemingly slow motion to see a single goblin (how did we miss him?) plunge a lit torch into a small barrel. An instant later, an explosion immolated the goblin and spread toward them, flaming oil engulfing their only avenue of retreat. The goblins behind the wall cheered, and it began closing in on the party again.
“Ideas?” shouted Bruno. His continuous stream of arrows helped dissuade the small windows from opening, but did nothing against the advance of the wall.
Allison raised her shield and slammed against the wall, trying to brace her good leg against the smooth cobble floor. Immediately, knives and spears appeared, looking to punish any gap in her armor. Delilah thrust her spear toward the attackers’ windows, only to have them snap shut and reopen again like a macabre festival game.
Jeremiah began to cough as the oily smoke filled the hallway. Delilah had abandoned her spear and was frantically combining vials. Bruno was pressed against Allison’s back to help her push against the wall. But it was gaining on them, shoving them back toward the flames an inch at a time. Jeremiah shied away from the heat of the flames, trying to breathe through the sleeve his robe as he began to cough harder. They were all beginning to choke on the smoke, which stirred something in Jeremiah’s memory.
He hurried through the words of power in between coughing fits, puffed out his cheeks and blew. A cloud of yellow gas emanated from his mouth and settled on the floor.
Jeremiah shouted, “Hold your breath!” He blew again and again, willing more of the yellow gas into existence. It billowed across the floor, seeping past the edges of the wall. The victorious shrieks from behind the wall turned to coughing, and became strangled and wet. Jeremiah continued casting.
Finally, the goblins’ coughs gave way to chokes of pain. The pressure on the wall relented. Jeremiah quickly conjured a counterspell, his lungs crying out for oxygen. The yellow gas around their knees began to dispel slowly, far too slowly. Jeremiah resisted as long as he could before collapsing to his knees, gasping for air.
Jeremiah blinked, realizing he must have blacked out for a moment. His throat burned from the residual gas, but it had not reached his lungs. He continued gulping down air, relishing the relief it brought. Behind him, the woosh of a mini windstorm snuffed out the remains of the fire as Delilah finished her admixture and tossed it onto the flames.
There was no laughter with this victory. Jeremiah rolled onto his back, still panting, barely aware of the rest of the party taking stock of their wounds and equipment. Eventually, Bruno appeared overhead, offering a hand. He pulled Jeremiah to his feet.
“Brilliant,” Bruno said, slapping him on the shoulder. “Even better than the last one. Can’t wait to see what you pull out next.”
Jeremiah gave a weak grin. “I’m just glad it turned out that gas wasn’t flammable.”
Bruno’s hand fell away. “Me too.”
“We should just have you fill the rest of the dungeon with gas,” said Allison. “Would save us a hell of a lot of work.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “Can’t. That would take way too much focus.”
“Focus?” asked Allison. “Like, you’ll get bored?”
“Not quite. Casting takes a massive amount of directed willpower. After a big spell or too many small ones, it gets harder to will things to happen. Like reading a very boring book—eventually you just can’t force yourself to concentrate on it anymore. Or on anything, really. Once your focus burns out, it becomes tough to differentiate what’s important from anything that just catches your attention.”
“As someone who has read a lot of boring books,” said Delilah, “I now fully understand magic and am ready to begin my training.”
“I’m terrified to think of this party with two mages,” said Bruno with a mock shudder. Jeremiah laughed, but at the same time felt touched at Bruno’s wording including him in the party. “How’s our girl?” Bruno asked, turning to Allison.
“She‘s alright,” said Delilah, “It could have been a lot worse if a ligament had been cut. I put a healing accelerant on it for now and numbed the area. It’ll be okay by tomorrow, but don’t overexert yourself.” She spoke the last with a touch of sternness.
Allison shifted weight onto the leg with the merest of grimaces and nodded. “Fuck, that hurt. That was actually a new place to get stabbed for me.” She began moving gingerly through a series of combat stances. “More importantly, though, what the hell is alchemically treated wood?”
Delilah’s eyes widened. She darted over to the wall where it still blocked the corridor and began inspecting it. She scratched it, smelled it, listened as she tapped on it, touched her tongue to it, even produced a metal file and, with effort, managed to scrape off some shavings.
“This,” she said, turning toward them, her face bright, “is Ironwood! Strong enough normally, but has received further alchemical resistance treatments as well! And it’s over four inches thick!” This conclusion she announced with a flourish.
Bruno crossed his arms. “I know Ironwood is rare, and alchemically treated sounds interesting, but how do we get past this thing?”
“Get past it? Oh, no no no!” Delilah gestured toward the wall as if revealing a work of art. “This is a custom-built fortress door! These little windows are for repelling attackers, as we saw. The workmanship is excellent, and the treatment is top notch. Lady and gentlemen, this thing is worth a lot of money! Especially to whomever had it commissioned!”
Jeremiah felt Delilah’s enthusiasm tug at the corners of his own mouth. “How much are we talking?”
“No way to know for sure until we get it appraised and see if we can find the original client. But if we manage to take it back to Dramir, we could be looking at quite a bit.”
Bruno clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Now you’re talking! Grab some rope and let’s get it out of our way for now. Then we’ll just push it back out the entrance when we leave!”
The other three gave Allison a break, and spent quite a while rotating the door flush against the wall. Despite being on small wheels, the immense door had required several dozens of goblins to move it, and Jeremiah felt nearly as exhausted after the effort as he had immediately after casting the gas.
Delilah continued to run her fingers over the ironwood’s surface, admiring different aspects until Allison barked at her to get back into marching order. Energized by their victory and the promise of future wealth, the party delved deeper into the dungeon.