A tallow candle burned at the center of the small table, filling the room with the greasy undertones of rendered animal fat. The chamber was different from the one Rasp had awoken in. It was larger, for one, with enough bunks to sleep at least a dozen. Rasp’s missing companions gradually trickled in, one by one. Once everyone was assembled, Priestess Oreword gave some congratulatory spiel and an offering of food, before she left with Whisper and Bromm to go over the details of the assignment. At the time, Rasp dared not join them — not with Whisper on the verge of taking his head off. But now, seated at the deathly silent table, barely able to breathe around the gradual tightening in his chest, he regretted staying just as badly.
At least he knew where he stood with Whisper. The others hadn’t uttered so much as a peep since learning their fate.
Rasp stirred his food in silence, unable to stomach anything more than a single bite of the soft, yeasty mush. His stomach growled in protest but his will to eat was gone. How could he focus on something so trivial when Faris, Hop, and June were gathered around him, each one slowly coming to terms with the realization that they would never step foot on the surface again? The very thought made him want to disintegrate in a vat of his own stomach acid.
Unlike Whisper, the others hadn’t reacted to the news with screaming or biting. They sat quiet instead, allowing the mounting dread to grow so thick, it was physically painful. Rasp wished someone would yell, throw a fist, kick his head in maybe. Anything would have been better than the all-consuming silence.
Father’s blurry shape pitter-pattered towards him, talons scraping against the polished wood table as he went. The raven dipped his beak into Rasp’s food and regretted it immediately. Father screeched in disgust and whipped his head back and forth, ridding his mouth of offensive flavor. His erratic movements succeeded in splattering the lukewarm mush over Rasp’s face and down the front of his shirt.
“So melodramatic.” Hop’s low voice mumbled from across the circular table. “It doesn’t taste that bad.”
“I beg your pardon? This shit tastes like a mushroom’s butthole,” June disagreed.
The tabletop lurched as Hop caught himself against it, beating his chest in what sounded like an attempt to loosen the mouthful of mush that’d lodged itself down the wrong pipe. “An apt comparison,” he managed between violent, hacking coughs.
For whatever reason, Hop’s polite attempt to not cough his breakfast back up in front of everyone only encouraged June’s descriptive contributions. “I will say this, it’s not nearly as bad as the time I ate a nest full of snake eggs. Raw, mind you.”
“That doesn’t seem entirely abnormal for a bear,” Faris said.
“Who said anything about being a bear?”
“Dear gods. Tell me you were drunk.”
“I wish. Might have helped me forget all the squiggly bones getting caught in my throat on the way down.”
Hop was back to making wet, heaving noises.
“That wasn’t even the worst part.” June sounded rather pleased with herself. Rasp may not have been able to witness the shit-eating grin spread across her face, but he heard it loud and clear. “The whole thing left me as sick as a dog. I was laid up for three days. Had hot chunks blowing out of me from both ends like a brown fountain.”
There was a metallic clatter as Faris dropped his spoon onto the table and pushed his bowl away in defeat. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think she might actually be worse than you.”
It took Rasp several seconds to register that Faris was talking to him. “Me?”
“In all our time together, you never once compared yourself to a shit fountain.”
“I said brown,” June corrected, pausing to chew and swallow a mouthful of bitter mush. “I am a lady, after all. Gotta leave some things to the imagination.”
Rasp didn’t understand. Dread still hung in the air. They were still cursed to die a grisly death trying to defeat an unknown, powerful evil — because of him no less. He was the last person Faris should have wanted to talk to. In fact, he was surprised they were even letting him join them at the table at all. By all rights they should have kicked him out into the hallway to suffer alone like he deserved. And yet, his three former friends carried on as usual, as if he hadn’t thrown away their lives in a reckless bid to outsmart their captors.
Rasp’s knee slammed into the table the moment Faris nudged his elbow. “I’m not going to repeat what you sister called the food,” the faun started.
“Mushroom butthole,” June gleefully obliged.
“But you get really cranky when you’re hungry and I don’t want to deal with that. So do us all a favor and eat something, yeah?”
Rasp’s voice caught in his throat before it wriggled free in the form of a hoarse squeak. “I can’t.”
“If you’re going to make me spoon feed you, just know, I’m not going to spare the dragon noises on account of there being company. You’re getting the full experience.”
He couldn’t hold it back anymore. “How?” Rasp blurted out, feeling the wild thoughts churning inside of him start to boil up and spill over like froth on an unwatched pot. “How can you all just be okay with this? I fucked up and everyone’s just acting like it never happened.”
There was a stretch of silence that seemed to go for ages before Faris said, “It was my stupid idea to come here. Not yours.”
“If we’d done it my way, we would have already been dead by now,” June added. “Granted, it would have been the most badass last stand ever. But dead is dead.”
What followed could only be described as an awkward, purposeful pause. Rasp didn’t understand its meaning. At least not until someone struck the table with the flat of their open hand, causing the furniture’s stout legs to shudder in protest. “Ahem,” June cleared her throat in an unsubtle manner.
“What?” Hop said. “Why are you both looking at me like that?”
“This is the part where you say something disparaging about yourself,” Faris informed him.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Why?”
June helpfully provided the answer. “Because even though Rasp may have been the one to strike the idiotic deal, it’s not his fault he was put in that position. We all agreed to come here.” Hop must have needed more convincing, because she followed it up with something more likely to appeal to Hop’s strong sense of self-preservation. “Also it might boost our chances of survival if our second strongest player was fully functioning and not a sad shadow of a man wallowing in guilt. Just saying.”
“Oh,” Hop said. He sounded torn, as if conflicted between doing what was best for the group and satisfying his incessant need to remain factual. “In that case, I was foolish for listening to all of you then?”
“Well done,” Faris congratulated.
“There. See, little brother?” June said proudly. “Everyone fucked up, not just you.”
“Some of us less so than others,” Hop muttered under his breath.
They were letting him off the hook, just like that? Just as Rasp finally felt he was getting a grasp on the unspoken rules of friendship, something like this would come along and turn everything he thought he knew on its head. He had so many questions but he feared if he voiced them aloud, his friends would realize their error in judgment and take it all back.
The start of a second emotional spiral was beginning to drag Rasp under when another nudge from Faris nearly knocked him from his chair. “You really are stuck, aren’t you? She just called you little and you didn’t even rage about it.”
Rasp lifted his head. “She did?”
“It’s only fair,” June replied. “You are littler than me.”
“...I.” His eyes swept back and forth across the candle-lit table, unable to make out anything more than three obscure shadows. They were staring expectantly at him. He could feel it. Except he didn’t know what they were expecting from him because none of this was going anything like it should have been.
“You?” Faris prompted.
“I…” Despite his efforts, Rasp still couldn’t get out anything more than that single stupid word.
“Are angry!” The legs of June’s chair scraped the tile floor as she leapt eagerly to her feet. “I just called you little and now your blood is boiling with rage. Come at me, little brother. Let’s see who can draw first blood!”
Am so confused, his thoughts filled in the words his tongue could not. Rasp slid his chair back and stood, stumbling blindly across the dingy room. He found the exit with his foot first and, after a brief, frantic search, located the handle and yanked the door open.
“Where are you going?” June shouted after him.
“I need some air,” was all he managed to get out before he slammed the door shut behind him. The nauseating brightness of the hallway was only made worse by his mounting panic. Rasp closed his eyes as he sank to the ground, arms wrapped around his chest so tight it was inhibiting his ability to breathe. The rapid drum of his heartbeat filled his ears until it drowned out all other sounds.
Which was probably the reason he didn’t hear the approaching guard’s footsteps. Not even the yelling. Truth be told, he didn’t even realize he was sharing the hallway with another person, not until they started nudging him the toe of their boot.
Rasp smacked the bothersome boot away with a slap. “Stop that! I’m not running away, I’m just…” He didn’t have a good answer for that and, thus, let the sentence die on his lips unfinished.
Good gods, he was running away, wasn’t he? Maybe not from the nightmare of battling underground monsters, but his friends, at least, and their olive branch of undeserved forgiveness.
The door opened and shut behind him. A set of clacking hoof steps approached, ignoring the angry shouts from the guard as the person they belonged to eased onto the floor next to Rasp. Rasp’s heartbeat started to take off again. Forcing a slow breath, he drew his knees to his chest and cinched his arms tight around them.
“That was something,” Faris said, finally. “Never thought I’d see the day you turned down a fight.”
Rasp forced the words past the growing lump in his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“I was impressed with your restraint, actually.”
“You know I’m not talking about the fight.”
“I know.”
“Why aren’t you being a dick about it?”
“Would that help?”
Rasp realized it was probably meant as a rhetorical question but, nevertheless, he felt like some sort of verbal berating would actually make him feel better. Waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop was downright insufferable. “Maybe.”
Faris sighed. It was a deep, bone-rattling sound. “Two days ago I was on the verge of exhaustion, running from a group of witches who would have killed me the moment they caught up to us. My brilliant solution was to ignore common sense and take refuge in a haunted underground city. Where, after you single-handedly got us free of a deranged cult, I led us right into a nest of carnivorous plants. You’re not being a dick to me about it.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t feel great.”
“I,” Rasp started, feeling the words begin to form within his head. “I think I get what you’re saying now.”
“Good. Because I’m trying not to fixate on it.”
“And you’re right, by the way.” A small flicker of his old self returned as Rasp felt an involuntary smile tug at the corner of his downturned mouth. “This is all your fault. I don’t know why I’d started to think otherwise.”
“What? No, that’s—”
“Say no more, Dingle. I heard your message loud and clear.” He turned and planted his hand on Faris’s broad shoulder, fighting to keep the guilt from bleeding into his strained smile. “I forgive you.”
It was hard to tell given the obnoxious glow of the algae covered walls, but Rasp was pretty sure Faris was staring at him in what was surely heartfelt gratitude. “I’m so glad you decided not to be a dick about it.”
“You certainly don’t make it easy for me.” Rasp slid his hand from Faris’s shoulder and slumped back over his knees. “Thanks for not being a dick, either. I don’t know what I did to make you want to be my friend, but I thank the gods each and every day that you haven’t come to your senses yet.”
Apparently all the emotionally vulnerable crap was just as hard for Faris, because his response came in the form of a noncommittal grunt.
Rasp preferred it that way. “Now what?”
“We should probably go back inside the room. Our guard friend here doesn’t look too happy.”
Rasp tilted his head and squinted, realizing he’d forgotten all about the guard. Having given up on the shouting, the dwarf’s hazy shape loomed over them, muttering unintelligible things under his breath. “I mean, that’s a good start,” Rasp said. “But I meant as in ‘now what do we do to keep from dying’?”
Faris heaved to his feet, offering an entirely unhelpful solution. “I suppose we could try the ‘keep living’ option.”
“That’s an option?”
The faun bent over and helped pull Rasp upright. “Unfortunately it comes with the downside of having to pre-plan and think things through ahead of time. Finding out what sort of beast we’re dealing with, for example, would be a step in the right direction. From there, we can discover potential weakness and determine a viable strategy for taking the beast down without getting anyone killed.”
“Disgusting. Who in their right mind would go through all that effort for something that may not even work?”
“People who fancy living, I suppose.”
“Ugh.” Rasp shuddered. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re one of those people.”
“I try to be when I can.”
“Tell you what, Dingle, you can do all the planning for the both of us. Just point me in the direction of the monster and tell me what to do.”
Faris directed their steps back towards the room where the others were waiting. “That is an example of poor planning.”
“You’re an example of poor planning.”
The guard swung the door open in front of them. Faris led the way through, issuing one final sigh as the pair slipped from the bright-ass hallway into the dimly lit room that smelled like singed hog fat. “Can’t argue with that logic.”