Chapter 22

The wind buffeted the dungeon mouth like a slamming door after we entered. The voices of our fellow adventurers failed to enter with us. We were entombed in the dungeon with a deathly silence as our only other companion.

“Forward,” Watt said, leading us without pause.

He and Arris both equipped torches. Arris cast out his mana ring and activated each of their torches. From torch ends burst meters of flame that licked at the high ceilings and illuminated the dungeon tunnel.

Veins of ice crawled along the walls. Where the torch flames burned, water dripped. The ground was loose with dirt and pebbles.

“Guys, look,” I said, pointing at a massive footprint in the soft ground. One of us could lay sprawled out and almost fill the fossil. The print came from the entrance of the dungeon and patterned on in the distance.

“Not a Kefvolo,” Erik said. “Not hooves. Must be a troll or something—maybe?”

His guess was as good as mine. All we could discern was that the footprints were a close resemblance to humans, despite the size. The balls of the feet and the toes looked swollen and the gait appeared to be wide and distanced with purpose. As though the creature had been jogging.

“C’mon guys,” Watt said.

The find had made us leery and we pushed on slowly, carefully. For every step we made, another step of darkness was beaten back by flickering torchlight. The tunnel curved forever down at a sight slope. We bristled when we came upon a pack of waking maggots.

Chkththththk!

Watt equipped his battle axe. Arris cast “Garden Spider,” and Erik brandished his kris dagger. The maggots came forward in a flurry of movement. Drool and gloop, dripped from their white mouths. Black mandibles flittered in deimatic behavior.

Watt was the first to strike, arcing his battle axe in pendulous swings, slicing through maggot after maggot after maggot. Erik was leaping from the edges of shadow and torchlight, passing between the slithering monsters. In his wake they were erupting in a separation of flesh that spilled with white gore. Arris’s Garden Spider was chittering above the crowd of maggots and spraying silk upon them one by one. It was striking down with lethal bites at the brains of maggots. I was rushing in and chopping down through maggot heads with the spearhead of my flagstaff. White ooze and gloop was trickling down the tunnel in a mix of gore and viscous plasma. Maggots were rearing back in screeches and death throes and hoarse final moments.

The final few were slaughtered and from the mess we forged onward. We shook the gore from our blades. Arris’s Garden Spider wiggled its legs to throw off the residue, then crawled up the ancienne’s back to rest half on his shoulder and half on his back. It spun a sling of webbing to better suspend itself. I shivered at the multi-eyed spider over the ancienne’s shoulder.

Our torches burned strong and guided us in a bubble of light. Then a breeze tempted us out from the tunnel and into a barren canyon. We could see that the tunnel continued just beyond a pair of burial cairns.

“Disciples of Bekbah,” Watt said, passing off his torch to Arris, and equipping his battle axe.

The rest of us cast our mana bars in tandem. Arris’s Garden Spider leapt to the ground and skittered in place.

Watt tromped up to a burial cairn on the left and shoved a foot into it. Both cairns burst into a flash of blue flames, sending purple flickers of ash to the sky. As the warrior backtracked for some defensive space, the stones of the cairns tumbled down.

Disciple hands exhumed the rest of their own bodies in a frenzy. Up came the parchment-skinned Disciples with sheep’s plucked eyes and fractured skulls.

Oeuuuuahhh!

They garbled their screams with punctured lungs and came at us with broken gaits. They each held a hooked shepherd's cane in one hand, and a fist sized stone in the other. On a second wailing scream, the fists burst into azure flames.

“Up top!” Arris said, pointing at the canyon walls. Hordes of thigh sized maggots dropped from the dizzying heights and tumbled down the ice and rock face. Those that survived wriggled onward toward us.

The second Disciple lifted his cane, and a pool of sloshing yellow light imploded in the space of the hook. Then the monster opened its jaw in several broken pieces to chant a hoarse spell.

“Haunting hunger, hanging flesh. Taunt no longer, give them rest!”

The yellow light at the hook of the Disciple’s shepherds cane burst with the ring of a bell. The incoming maggots doubled in size and burst forth in double time.

Erik muttered a spell and crouched to prepare for a leap. His mana bar drained by a fraction. He leapt forth with a long shadow unrolling from his form as though he were a spool. The ribbon of shadow streaked through the air and passed by the front of both approaching Disciples. The rogue skidded to a halt and in his wake, the necks of both Disciple’s split forth. The skin peeled away from the slash, and infection ruptured from the wound.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The ghoulish skeletons reared back with howls. They grasped at their necks and knocked their heads back to stare at the stars in pain.

The splatting of maggots continued as they fell to their deaths from jagged canyon cliffs. A paltry few that survived the fall came at us fast.

Arris’s Garden Spider met the maggots head on, spinning silk, and biting brains. Erik joined the spider’s side, crouching low and performing long wide swipes of his kris blade. Arcs of splashing white gore erupted from several maggots at a time as he fought them back.

Arris set both torches down and they rolled to a stop. “Oak beard!” He called out and met the maggots coming in from opposite the rogue and spider.

Our strategy was working. I was kept safe, in the middle of our team, focusing first and foremost on our warriors health bar.

Watt clashed with the first Disciple and chopped the monster to pieces. A simple turn of his battleaxe presented the wide blades as a shield against the other monster’s blue-flamed fist. He walked into the Disciple’s unguarded space and headbutted the monster. A loud dry crack echoed in the canyon. He followed that with a downward and diagonal strike, cleaving the Disciple from shoulder to stomach.

“Potion incoming!” I said and lobbed a level 1 healing potion at Arris’s spider, who’d sustained a bit of damage. The spider returned to full health, dealing a final bite to a cocooned maggot.

No further maggots fell from the canyon cliffs and we carefully picked off the rest. We all grinned with the success. Our practiced strategies made us work beautifully together. Even Arris’s spider danced in a backwards twirl, before clambering back up to the ancienne’s shoulder.

Without a word we exited the canyon and followed the still curving, downward sloping, dungeon tunnel. Arris returned Watt’s torch to him and the two led the way.

“What the-” Watt said, spotting a few disturbing pods.

Black ribbed pods were haphazardly amassed along the walls of the tunnel. Between them ran the giant footprints of the mystery beast.

“Guys hold up,” Erik said and flipped over his left sleeve. He cast his mana bar before him and sent 2 points into the rune. The embroidered rune of gold and silver threaded shadow, presented an illusion of itself which twirled with a glow of gold and silver.

“Hmm,” the rogue said. “No level 1 or level 2 traps.” He let his sleeve fold back to his wrist. Then he flipped his dagger, caught the point and rapped at one of the pods with the kris handle.

I braced myself for some sort of attack, or explosion, or something. After a moment, nothing happened. Erik put his ear to the pod, held a finger to his lips, begging for our silence, then motioned for us to listen.

We all put an ear to the pods and heard gentle scratching.

“Only one way to find out what these are,” Watt said. He equipped his battle axe and performed a powerful chop through another one of the pods. The shell broke with a crunch. Something squirmed and buzzed in the brief moment of invasion and sudden torchlight. The warrior kicked aside half of the split shell.

“Is that a giant fly?” Arris said.

“Well two halves of a fly, technically,” Erik said.

As one we all spun in place to look upon the multitude of ribbed pupa that polluted the tunnel.

“Son of Felke,” Arris said under his breath. “If we crush all of these, we’ll spend all our energy and make almost no headway. I mean—look how many there are.”

He moved onwards, leading with a torch that still leapt with tall flames. We followed him for several dozen paces before he stopped.

“They just keep going,” he said.

“I don’t like ignoring them,” Erik said.

“Well, we haven’t disturbed any of them so far,” I said. “Look how far we’ve gone. Not a single one has broken through to attack us.”

After deliberating, we decided to move on and keep a keen ear to any potential pupa threats. The pods stretched on endlessly with the tunnel.

Arris’s Garden Spider was losing it, growing more and more anxious. It was squirming in its sling and the ancienne had to cradle it to his chest in order to pacify it.

Zwzzz, Zwz, Zwzzzz

“Halt!” Watt said and brandished his battle axe. A large glossy fly burst from the pupa behind him. He swung with a roar, but missed the agile fly. Lep cast his mana ring before him and said, “Fire Spear!”

He launched the flame flickering spear at the fly. The molten tip melted right through it and the spear sailed through half a dozen pupa. Acrid burning smoke rose from the holes in each one.

“Nice!” Watt said, having seen the awesome spear for the first time. “Very cool, mage!”

The next fly that burst forth was leapt upon by Arris’s Garden Spider. The giant fly struggled with furious buzzing against a wrap of spider’s silk, until Watt killed it.

For every subsequent burst of pupa and ambushing fly, our Garden Spider sprang to action. We praised the little guy each time and he seemed to enjoy the attention, basking in our cooing tones.

We soon go into a good rhythm of dealing with the giant flies. They came up from time to time, and Arris absorbed their remains in his Ancienne’s Nature bar. They no longer broke our stride or slowed our progress. We delved deeper into the dungeon’s ever curving, ever sloping tunnel.

We came to a halt at a large cavern where four burial cairns burned with orange and yellow flames. Watt approached them with grim purpose. The rest of us cast our mana rings out wide and prepared for the battle ahead.

The cairns trembled in a burst of purples flames. Stones tumbled to the ground. From the shallow tombs crawled Disciples of Bekbah,

“Hand of Flames!” Lep called out.

From the source of his mana, a massive flaming hand was born. It careened toward one of the Disciples with a foundation of flaming embers for fingers and palm. Lep puppeted the hand from afar and grasped the Disciple, lifting the monster up, and slamming it against the dungeon wall. He held it there in a grasp of searing heat and flame. The Disciple writhed and shrieked until crumbling to death. Lep’s Hand of Flames then cooled and crumbled to ash.

Another Disciple tripped over the ensnaring spider’s silk and slammed to the ground. It grabbed for the spider, catching a leg, and smashing the insect with a blue flame-clenching fist.

I lobbed a potion at the spider but it was too late. An X of bone-ish marks obscured the spider’s health bar.

“Oak Beard!” Arris called out and rushed the Disciples. Above him, ensconcing his form, raged the ancient tree figure. It’s glowing green beard whipped about without volume. Bared teeth gnashed without volume. The ancienne’s ghostly green fists beat repeatedly into the Disciple.

The other two monsters charged Watt. He waited for them with a strong defensive stance. A shepherd's cane came striking down and he easily parried the attack. From beneath came a flaming blue fist that smashed into his ribs, staggering the warrior back. His health drained clockwise by around 5 points. I leapt forward and stabbed the spearhead of my flagstaff through the eye of the Disciple. I pulled the blade back and it fell to the ground with a terminal respiration.

Watt and I turned to fend off the last Disciple of Bekbah. Instead of coming at us, it froze with an outstretched hand that slowly fell to it’s waist. Watt feigned an attack to draw it near, but still it stood, as though frozen. A blade glinted in the torchlight from the Disciple’s chest. The blade withdrew and the monster slumped to the ground. Erik stepped forward with a wicked smile as he wiped his blade of dry matter on his sleeve.