Chapter 10

Singing to the herd

The second tunnel had about the same slope as the previous tunnel at first. After about twenty feet down, we hit a slight turn, and we came across a staircase that descended into the darkness.

As we reached the top of the stairs, I could see that they were cut directly into the bedrock. Each step was about two feet out by one foot high and stretched the full length of the tunnel.

“Down we go, I guess. Watch your step,” I said as we headed down into the darkness. Brazier was lit, but they did little to hold back the dark. The staircase was only about a hundred steps down, but it was so quiet. I could only hear our breathing and the clanging of our gear. Every time a piece of gear made a sound, it was like the sound was crashing down on us, loud enough to alert every Caprainki in this Dungeon to our location.

That’s the way I’m sure we all felt as we reached the bottom of the stairs. After another fifty feet, we all heard something and froze. I pushed myself up against the side of the tunnel. Like that would really do much good to hide me, but the ladies followed my lead. We stayed pressed up against the sides of the tunnel for what seemed like maybe five minutes, weapons at the ready and primed to move.

when nothing happened after that first five minutes, we started moving down the tunnel. This time much slower than we were moving before. As we walked another twenty feet into the tunnel, light began to bleed in from the exit of the tunnel. As we got closer, it looked like the tunnel led into a large room. We were looking out from the edge of the last turn before the tunnel ended, about fifteen feet.

The noises became loud enough at that distance that it would cover up any noises we could possibly be making with our gear. I had my head looking around the corner, scouting while Beth and Janet were standing a few paces behind me. Through the outlet of the tunnel, I could see Caprainki’s. I could only count about five of them, but they would walk past the opening and out of view sometimes, which fucked up my count for sure. I couldn’t tell if I was counting the same guy twice or not. I turned slowly away from the opening of the room and walked back to where Janet and Beth were waiting.

“So, what’s going on up there?” Beth said in a whisper. Janet just looked at me like, yeah, same question. I took a breath, then blew it out my mouth.

“Here’s what I saw. There was a bunch of Caprainki walking around in there and a table or two. Looks like it’s the dining hall for them or some shit. I saw maybe five in there, but they kept walking in and out of view. There’s probably more than that, let’s say, six, maybe. That’s what the last group was, six of those fuckers. Think we could take them by surprise if we rushed them?” I finished.

The ladies thought what I’d said over. Beth was the first to speak after I finished my report.

“I’m not big on the rush-in and catch ’em-by-surprise plan. I’m thinking…” Beth proceeded to lay out her plan. Once she was done, I was back around the corner and inching my way slowly toward the tunnel mouth, still hidden in the shadows, but I was steadily approaching the point where I would be visible soon. I reached that perfect point, half in, half out of the shadows, and then it was go time. I stood up, back straight, and started singing,

“ Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga

Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga

I can’t stop this feeling

Deep inside of me

Girl, You just don’t realize what you do to me

When you hold me in your arms so tight

You let me know everything's alright.”

After the first Ooga-Chaka at the top singing volume, the room had fallen quiet. When I started with the first verse, I saw the first Caprainki face look down the tunnel at me. I had nine of the fuckers just staring at me. It was fucking creepy, like actually terrifying, so much so I stopped singing, and they didn’t seem to like that, not at all.

Apparently, they liked singing, or maybe they just liked the song choice, but when I stopped, they got mad. Their eyes narrowed, and they started blowing air out of their noses and shaking their heads. Then one let out that childlike scream of theirs, and that was it.

Then the one next to it let out a scream, and then they were all screaming. The next thing I knew, I had nine Caprainki charging at me, mad as hell. Fuck fuck fuck, time to get the fuck out of here. So I turned and booked it. I ran my fucking ass off right back to the staircase where Beth and Janet were waiting atop.

Beth’s plan was pretty basic. It came down to two things. I would make a big scene somehow that was totally left up to me, by the way, then lead them back down the tunnel to where Beth and Janet would be waiting. I would have to climb the stairs to get to them. Then we would, as a team, beat the living shit out of the fuckers with the high ground.

I didn’t have anything better. My plan was super lame. Run in and just hope we catch them by surprise, real creative Travis. I reached the bottom of the stairs and then started my climb. I was faster than the Caprainkis, and I had a head start, but I could hear their feet pounding the floor down the tunnel behind me.

I was almost at the top when the Caprainkis started up the stairs. I got to the top and started catching my breath. Beth looked at me for a second when I crested the top of the stairs, but then her eyes were back on our opponents. Janet looked at me as I was catching my breath. I met her eyes, smiled, and gave her a wink.

I held out a hand to her, and she grabbed it and pulled me into line with the two of them. Before she let my hand go, she squeezed it, then put both her hands back on her axe, returning her focus to the Caprainkis, now almost at the top of the stairs.

The first ones came into strike range, but we still waited for a second longer and then brutally engaged the enemies before us. The stairs were wide enough for four Caprainki to attack side by side.

They wouldn’t really have enough room to fight if they did that, so they were coming at us in waves of three. The three that we clashed with first all had a sword and shield combo, like Beth was rocking. The Caprainki’s before us had interlocked shields slightly. They were still jogging up the stairs, but they were not keeping the same rhythm as they did before. It was like they had recently been trained to do this shield-locking thing but were failing at it. There were openings all over the place. It was kind of a mess. You better believe we took full advantage of that shit.

I struck out with my spear, aiming for the neck of the Caprainki in the middle of the group. It was carrying its shield too low and seemed to be a little winded from jogging up the stairs.

When I stabbed out, its eyes opened wide, and the spear plunged through its neck. I then turned my spear 90 degrees to the side and ripped my spear out of the side of its neck. Its eyes fluttered, and the Caprainki fell to its knees. I took that chance to kick it mid-shield and sent it back down the stairs onto the heads of its friends. While I was killing my Caprainki, Janet had brought her axe down on the Caprainki in front of her. Its shield was up to block, but because of the position it was in, it slipped and fell backward on impact.

We were still alive for now, and at least Janet had given us some breathing room on her side for the time being. Beth had started with a shield bash. That left her opponent stunned, just long enough for Beth to stab out with her short sword right into the Caprainki's throat. She then copied me and kicked it back down the stairs.

We just waited at the top. They were gathering themselves for a second attack, and it was probably a promising idea not to let that happen. I started walking towards Beth's kill, spear raised in front of me, gripped with both hands. I then kicked Beth’s kill, which had fallen more toward the center of the staircase, down the stairs.

It managed to trip one Caprainki on the way down before it continued on to the bottom. Janet’s kill had finally made it to the bottom of the staircase after its fellows had disentangled from it.

They were still struggling with the one I’d kicked. It had crashed into two of them and one had got its feet tangled up. The Caprainki kept grabbing at his fellows to try and steady itself. So, when I kicked Beth’s kill down, it hit the Caprainki that had gotten tangled up and took it down again. Another Caprainki took its place shortly after that. At this point, they were ready to make another attempt at us, but their momentum was definitely gone from their initial charge.

I stepped back to the top of the stairs and got into a fighting stance as they came at us again. This time, we faced an axe wielder. Another short sword and shield combo and the last on Caprainki in their line had, and I couldn’t believe it, a lightsaber. Well, it was a blade made of black light with purple lightning running through it. Maybe it was, I guess, plasma, or maybe Mana now? Anyways, it was a fucking light saber, and saber would be a good word to describe the shape of it.

The shape was that of a cutlass and had a hand guard. The whole thing was flickering, and purple lightning kept crackling through it at what felt like random intervals. The edge of the weapon was hard to make out in this low light, but the purple lightning helped me define the edges of the blade.

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Every time, the purple lightning crackled through the weapons. I could tell Beth and Janet were feeling some trepidation about dealing with the dude with the light cutlass. I yelled at Janet to switch places with me. We had just enough time to do that before the Caprainki were on us.

The group of three studied us warily, two steps from the top, weapons at the ready. Janet was in front of the short sword shield combo Caprainki, while Beth was facing the axe wielder.

The axe wielder was the first to go on the attack. It swung horizontally at Beth. The blow was more at her thighs, and she had to step back to avoid the blow. When the axe had passed by, she lunged forward and landed a stab with her sword on her opponent.

It was a deep cut, and it ran down most of the Caprainki's bicep, causing it to be left wielding its axe with one hand. The Caprainki, with the short sword and shield combo, acted a second after the first and swung at Janet in a vertical strike that came from behind its shield.

The surprise of the attack's origin only gave Janet a second to react. Janet, using no skill whatsoever, reacted with the only option that seemed available from the stance she was holding and the position of her axe. She swung up to try and block the attack. Then she swung her axe back down to try to split her attacker in half. Janet only caught the edge of its shield but sliced a good third off, taking a couple of fingers off the Caprainki with it.

It wailed that horrible childlike scream in Janet’s face. While that was all happening, the light-cutlass guy had waited for his buddies to attack, and once the chaos of battle had begun, the Captain gave an exploratory stab out at me with the light-cutlass.

I jumped back a little, concern clearly on my face, in dealing with the strange weapon. When the Caprainki saw my reaction, I think I saw it smile. I couldn’t really tell with the goat head and all, I wasn’t up on my goat body language.

After his exploratory stab, it seemed like he had gained some new confidence in our fight. It was definitely time to make him shove that confidence up its own ass. I took a step forward and lunged out with my spear straight at the creature's heart.

It hopped back down the stairs a little. I continued my advance on the enemy. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a spear coming at my head. I dropped to the floor to dodge the spear thrust, but in doing so, I got a slash across my legs from the light-cutlass. My eyes went wide as I saw it hit my leg. But then, it just passed through it.

The next second, I was back on my feet and ready with my spear to attack again. The Caprainki with the light cutlass came at me again, and I stabbed as he swung. I tried to dodge the sword, but I wasn’t going to make it.

I saw the light cutlass hit me in the side, but I couldn’t feel it. I was too focused on killing this fucker. So when it saw that I was going to continue my attack through the hit, its face fell, and I saw fear grip it right before my spear went into the Caprainki’s eye.

As I hit, I got stabbed by a spear in the arm. I ripped my spear out of the skull, let out a scream of pain, and retreated. My arm was bleeding and shaking, but I was too scared to drop my guard and check on it.

It was at that moment that Beth had finally gained a crucial advantage in her fight. The axe wielder had overextended, Beth had dogged the attack, then kicked the axe into the wall. The Caprainki couldn’t hang onto the axe, and it fell from its grip.

Beth was on it with her sword flashing out. Two quick stabs to the chest, one in the throat, and one in the eye. As Beth withdrew her blade, the Caprainki started to fall to the ground. Beth then kicked it in the chest, and it went flying down the stairs into a spear wielder.

They both went down and landed in a pile on the floor. The Caprainki let out one of its screams. As it hit the ground, we heard a snap ring through the tunnel. Janet, now with a bit more room to work, gave a big swing to the sword and shield Caprainki that opposed her victory.

As the Caprainki tried to block her swing with its sword held out in front of its shield angled across it. Janet’s axe slammed into the Caprainki. The sword crumpled, and the shield splintered.

The axe then slammed into the Caprainki's chest, blood flew, and then it was thrown down the stairs at speed. Our remaining opponents had spears and were hugging the walls so as to avoid any more falling bodies. The light-cutlass guy saw his friend get blown away. His eyes went wide, and there was an opening.

Distracted for a moment and with no spear-wielding Caprainkis nearby to stab me, I darted into range and struck out with two fast strikes, both to the Caprainki's chest. I reset, and after noticing the Caprainki was in shock, I stepped into range again and slashed its throat.

The Caprainki’s hand shot up and grabbed its neck, but that wasn’t going to stanch the blood, no fucking way. The Caprainki dropped the light-cutlass and brought his other hand up to its neck. Its eye was glazing over. As I let it drop to the floor, it proceeded to bleed out, twitching every now and then.

The last three, well, two really, the last Caprainki that had taken a tumble definitely broke something. It had gotten back to its feet but looked like it had broken its arm and collarbone. You could see the bone was poking through the skin. Didn’t look like he was eager to get back in the fight.

They took a moment, but then they attacked again. Beth used her shield and blocked a spear blow that was aimed at her neck. Janet then swung her axe, hitting the shaft of the spear mid-strike, knocking the spear from the Caprainki's hand.

It looked like she was going to take a hit for her defense of Beth. The remaining Caprainki near the top of the stairs stabbed at her. So I had to step in. I knocked the spear off target, then brought my spear across in a horizontal strike at its face. I hit and took an eye out as the Caprainki howled that childlike scream.

Then, I struck out again, this time my spear, and struck its neck. Right after my strick landed land. I had to hop back and throw myself against the wall to avoid a spear that came out of nowhere. The Caprainki spearman I’d been fighting turned, and started, running away, back down the stairs. It didn’t make it far before I drove my spear down into its back, killing it.

I tore my spear free, and the Caprainki rolled all the way to the bottom of the staircase. The last one had already given up when its fellow had tried to run and died. The body had hit the ground next to it, and it had taken off running as fast as it could. All fucked up as it was. Janet ended up being the one of us who caught it, driving an axe blow into the back of its skull, ending the battle.

We made our way back to the staircase. I took all the spears, and Janet took the axe and added it to her collection. Beth found two shields that weren’t totally fucked up as I grabbed the light-cutlass. It was just buzzing away on the floor. I picked it up, and there was a button on the handle. When I pressed it, the blade vanished. So fucking cool! After what felt like no time, we looted the bodies and started walking back toward the room that had started all of this.

We grouped up at the entrance to the large chamber and looked in. It was empty of Caprainki for now, not a soul in the room. There was a pot on a cook stove, much like the first we’d seen. There were cots that almost filled half the room, and some tables and chairs spread throughout the rest of the chamber.

As we walked farther in, against one part of the wall, near the beds, was a pile of three treasure chests stacked nice and pretty. It was like they had given us a present. It was too bad we’d killed all the Caprainkis cuz I could have hugged one of them right now.

My loot hamster was fucking vibrating in anticipation, and a smile spread across my face. Then the pain hit me, out of fucking nowhere, pain, and not a little pain either. This pain was like someone had thrown boiling water on my stomach and my legs, right where the light cutlass had passed through my body. I screamed my fucking head off as my legs gave out.

I was on the ground screaming and convulsing in pain. Beth and Janet ran over, but they didn’t know what to do, so they just kind of watched me writhing in pain. After a few seconds, Janet was kneeling on the floor next to me. I only knew all this later by the way.

Janet was yelling my name. Beth was just chewing her fingernail with a panicked look on her face. I gained enough sense to squeeze out between screaming and grinding teeth,

“Fucking Senzuketa Bean, God damn it! Give me the fucking Bean. Fuck!” “Fuck! I got it! Hold on.” Janet told me.

The next second, I had a Senzuketa Bean shoved into my mouth. Then, there was a second one, and the relief was almost instant. It took about ten minutes, but when the first fart rang out, I gasped in relief.

I started crying, and at the time, I wasn’t even aware I was doing so. After about another five minutes, I was sitting up. Janet had given me some Mana kissed water to drink and had a hand on my back rubbing back and forth.

Beth was pacing with a concerned look on her face. She would stop to look at me every so often and then just shake her head. I sputtered as I let the water bottle fall from my lips.

“Fuck! What the fuck? That was the fucking worst pain I think I’ve ever fucking felt in my life”, I said in a hoarse voice from hoarse screaming.

“What happened? Are you ok? You looked like you were about to cream your shorts over the treasure chests over there, and then you just sort of looked like something was wrong, fell to the ground, then you started screaming and convulsing”, Janet said, tears starting to fall slowly down her face.

Beth looked almost mad at me with concern as she chimed in, “Yeah, shit, that was scary, Travis, like holy shit, that was scary.” I had to agree with her, so I told them,

“I know. I’m really sorry, guys, that this was so crazy. Honestly, I’m not actually sure what happened. One moment, I felt fine, and yeah, I was really excited about the chests. then, out of nowhere, it was like someone poured boiling water on my abdomen and leg. It was the worst, “ahh,” even thinking about it, that was just, damn, yeah, like I said, I’m sorry, guys.”

I pulled up my pant leg and checked on my wounds. The skin was bright pink from my ankle to just under my knee.

“Fuck, I think it was from the lightsaber thing,” I said, and my eyes opened wide. “Wait, I saw that hit you, but it looked like it didn’t affect you at all,” Beth said. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I got hit twice, once in the leg and once in the stomach. I thought I was dead, but then nothing happened. I guess it was a delayed thing”, I thought out loud.

“Well, your okay now, right? Like, can you stand, or do you need a sec?” Janet asked with a concerned look. I felt, overall okay, still a little weak, and when Janet helped me to my feet, my leg was a little tender and a little weaker. After a few moments of checking if I could stand, I told Janet I was good, shook my head, and blew out a breath.

“Fuck that sucked, blehhhhh”, I said. Then my eyes landed on the chests again, and I forgot most of my pain. My loot hamster dropped his crutches and was doing flips. I took a step toward the chests and winced. Maybe smaller steps, I thought to myself. I worked my way over to the chests.

Beth rolled her eyes at my one-track mind, and Janet just smiled and joined me at our newly acquired loot. The chests were stacked with two as the base and one on top. The two on the bottom had old-school padlocks on them, straight out of a pirate novel. The chest on top had no lock and was just closed. There was no clasp on it or place to lock it, even if you wanted to. I pulled the chest off the top of the small pile. It was about three feet by two and about one and a half feet tall, while the other two were twice the size.

Janet jumped in when she saw what I was trying to do, and together, we got it on the ground and popped it open. The chest was made of well-worn wood, and the lid of the chest had been heavier than I thought it would be at first sight. Still nothing for my new strength stats.

When the chest was open, most of what filled it was two small pouches, something that looked like a first aid kit, and some furs. When we pulled them out, they turned out to be three cloaks that were super soft and about four feet long each. It was a pretty nice find, and we didn’t even know what was in the small pouches. It could be money! I grabbed one of the pouches while the ladies were still checking out the cloaks and started to open it. I untied the cord that held the small pouch closed and pulled it open.