Deventh sighed. He had completely lost sight of Ardmy, who had, perplexingly, gotten ahead of him.
As he stood at the intersection of a myriad of branching tunnels, he checked in chalk the direction from which he came. He cursed to himself, however, as he came to the realization that the patterns in the rock looked familiar. He had been in this cavern before, but he could have sworn he had left a trailing mark. He then heard Ardmy’s voice call out from behind him.
“Deventh, what are you doing? Hurry up, I think I found what we’re looking for.” His voice seemed to come from three directions at once, and Deventh had trouble deciding which one to follow. Something was off, but he couldn’t trust his senses.
“Perhaps Anna was right,” he said to himself as he stifled a yawn. “My lack of sleep must be getting to me.”
Despite not knowing whether he had taken it before, he started down the middle tunnel. He checked behind himself often, half expecting the room to shift and change. As he progressed, the space darkened until blue mushrooms provided the only source of light. Whereas only the dripping of water from stalactites had filled the silence before, a dull roar now increased in volume. This tunnel was different.
“Water?” Deventh wondered aloud as he tilted his head to one side. He couldn’t help but smile as his anxiety faded. He had been wondering if he would ever find his way out of the tunnels, feeling as if he’d been following his friend’s voice in circles for hours. Yet, when he checked his timekeeping device, only thirty minutes had passed. The slight change in environment bestowed upon him a renewed sense of motivation.
Not long after, however, a new uncertainty gave him pause. Beyond the roar of the water, something else clicked rhythmically like hooves on cobblestone. It echoed from the walls as it grew closer. Soon, his ears picked up another faint and gentle sound: short, snorting breaths.
Deventh’s pulse quickened. He was prepared to fight a woolly boar before when he had the advantage of range and height, but in the cramped confines of the tunnel, he doubted whether he possessed the strength, cleverness, and insanity required to take one on without the use of poison.
Pulling a dagger out of its sheath, he resumed his trek forward until a third noise, in contrast to the others, filled the cave with its presence. A roar of sorts, it fell somewhere between the shout of a man and the squeal of a pig. Never had he heard such a disconcerting cry, but a sudden movement left him with no time ponder the thought further. He stepped to the side, pressing his body against the wall as a furry shape blurred past his position in a massive charge.
Deventh hesitated as the creature stopped to turn itself about. Genuine awe struck him when he grasped the sight of the creature — the man-pig. Covered in thick, shaggy fur, he possessed the head, tail, and rear hooves of a boar, but the hands, arms, and torso of a man. Shirtless and spattered with dirt, he wore only trousers which hung loosely on his hips. The man-pig gave another eerie roar before he charged again, and Deventh sidestepped once more to avoid the impact. The creature grew wise and took a swipe at him, connecting with his face.
Deventh winced and fell back against the wall. He brought his hand up to his eye as a finger jabbed at it through the opening in his mask. At that moment, a faint blue glow emanated from the prongs on his utility glove, and the grizzled face of a man appeared before him along with a furless hand in the shape of a fist. Unprepared for the sudden appearance of a second man, Deventh took the brunt of the hit straight to his cheek. Had he not already been pushed up against the wall, he would have stumbled back; instead, he allowed his knees to buckle, and his body dropped to avoid the second fist.
The man howled as his knuckles split against the hard stone. Deventh looked up expecting to see a human face, but as the glow of his glove dissipated, he instead gazed upon the man-pig as it waved its pained hand about.
Pieces of the puzzle were beginning to connect. With a careful step to his left followed by a short hop, Deventh managed to avoid more punches. It didn’t attack like a feral beast. Its moves were planned, calculated. This only served to reinforce Deventh’s suspicions, and as he continued to dodge blow after blow, he placed his hand to his face.
The faint glow emanated once more, and the form of the man-pig blurred and dissolved. Fur disintegrated, tusks sloughed off, revealing the face of the man he had seen before. Blue, intelligent eyes stared back at him along with unkempt, long brown hair and a shaggy beard which, at one point, was obviously a well-trimmed goatee. Darkness and movement obscured the rest.
He came in for another swing, but Deventh caught the blow with his free hand. It was clear the man was weak and malnourished, thus, without too much effort, Deventh used the momentum to pull him forward and step behind him. He kept control of the man’s arm, and once he had locked it behind his back, he pinned him to the wall.
“Easy!” Deventh shouted into his ear, fighting against his frantic writhing. The creature had begun to regrow its fur and pig’s head, and Deventh realized there was something more than just a spell causing the illusions. Rather, a constant magical effect held them in place, one which needed concentration to maintain.
The man threw his head back, knocking Deventh on the nose. He winced and cursed, but he managed to maintain the pin he held against his assailant.
“I said, easy! I’m not going to hurt you unless you keep this up!”
“Liar!” the man yelled, trying to push against the wall with his free hand. “You fucking gnomes are going to pay! I’ll kill every last one of you!”
“Gnomes?” Deventh replied as his brow furrowed. In his momentary confusion, he wasn’t prepared for the man to strike again. His vision went black as motes of bright light popped into and out of existence in front of him, and he cupped his hand over his nose.
While he was distracted, the man managed to escape his grasp and leapt away with a stumble. Deventh sprung away from him and noticed him panting and brandishing a dagger.
Deventh immediately reached for his belt. His hand found the empty spot where his own dagger should have been, and he realized why the iridescent sheen seemed so familiar. An overwhelming sense of unease gripped his chest, but he stared steely-eyed at the man-pig and held his hands up with palms facing out.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but you need to put the da—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the creature took a lunge at him. He stepped back out of reach.
“Die, you filth!” the creature squealed with another failed lunge. Deventh shoved him aside.
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The man-pig stumbled over a rock and fell to the ground. He yelped, and the dagger skittered across the floor out of reach. A slew of curses poured out as he grabbed his shin, and in his muddle he’d left an opening for the Dronvar to pin him under the weight of his knee.
With one hand, the Dronvar forced his head against the ground. With the other, the same hand that had paused the illusion, he placed his knuckles against his assailant’s temple.
“Look at me,” Deventh said, but the creature didn’t listen. Instead, he clawed at his arms and face, attempting to remove his mask. Annoyed and frustrated, Deventh drove his thumb into the soft spot between the man’s collar bones, a pressure point that had proven useful to him many times. He coughed and choked as his airway was closed off abruptly. Hands clasped around his throat, his incapacity allowed Deventh to focus on breaking the illusion.
"Look at me!” he commanded once more. As he regained his composure, the man looked at Deventh, the waxy gloss disappearing from his eyes. His eyebrows raised in shock, and his mouth hung open.
“What is this? You’re not a gnome?” he asked with ragged breath.
“No,” Deventh said, keeping his hand on the confused creature’s temple. “I’m not, nor have I seen one since I entered this cave. If I let you go, are you going to attack me?”
The man shook his head as much as he could muster under Deventh’s grip.
“Good.”
Deventh stood up and backed away. The man rolled over onto his hands and knees and coughed, thankful to be able to take in a full breath. Shaking, he stood up and winced. He grabbed his shin once more and cringed as the dark red stains of blood reflected the dim light on his hand.
“Who are you?” Deventh asked. He had collected his dagger and sheathed it as the man acknowledged his question.
“Julien. Julien Montrose,” he answered.
“Well met, Julien. I apologize for the cut; I wasn’t trying to harm you.”
“No, the fault is no one’s but those damn gnomes,” Julien said as he sat down on a nearby boulder. Bringing his knee up to his chest, he tore a loose scrap of cloth from the bottom of his trousers. He wrapped his bloodied shin and tied off the ends. “I should be thanking you, anyway. If it weren’t for you, I would have never realized I was under an illusion. That’s a unique glove you have.”
“Thank you,” Deventh said, revealing a smile as he put away his mask. “But we aren’t out of here yet. If there are gnomes, then we need to take care of them, otherwise their magic will have us roaming around chasing geese.”
“I’m in no state to fight. I could hardly defend myself from you.”
“I didn’t mean you. There’s one other who came with me, but I lost him. Not sure when. I thought I was following him here, but it would seem that was an illusion as well.” Deventh brought his hand up to his chin, which he pinched between two fingers while resting his elbow in his other hand.
“Do you think you can find him?” Julien asked, now seated cross-legged. Steam rose from his snout and drool dripped from his lips.
“Yes.” He said as he lined up his thoughts, forming plans and ideas with branching paths until he found one to settle on. “I hope. Do you know your way around?”
“No, I don’t even know how long I’ve been here. Feels like months, and every time I walk down a passage I’ve never seen before I end up in the same place.”
“Then you and I will have to keep moving forward. If we run into a dead end, we’ll backtrack to the entrance, and hopefully we will find my friend on the way.”
“And if we find the gnomes instead of your friend?”
“Then I’m not bothered by the prospect of killing them.”
The two had traveled in relative peace after they agreed to wander together. While the illusion placed on Julien had yet to wear off, it seemed to be affecting only his body for the time being. Still, Deventh couldn’t help but feel on edge. He had yet to find Ardmy, and he worried that the longer he waited, the greater the likelihood was that he wouldn’t find him.
“So,” Julien’s voice echoed through the chamber from ahead. “Your friend, what does he look like? You never mentioned his name or his looks.”
“He’s got auburn hair and a goatee. Roughly the same height as me. He should be easy to hear, if not spot,” Deventh chuckled to himself. “He’s a Gildvar, named Ardmy. One of the few I know personally.”
“So, you’re close, then?” Julien asked. The dim light of glowing vines creeping along the wall illuminated his curious expression, or as curious an expression the face of a beast could create.
“Not quite. We enjoy each other’s company, is all.”
“I see. Is he the one who dragged you in here?”
Deventh paused. He hadn’t thought about it until now, but he had been the one to enter first. He’d assumed Ardmy’s voice to indicate that he had followed him in, but he never looked back to check. The new revelation of illusions at play doubled his uncertainty, and a twinge of guilt settled like a rock in his stomach.
“No. He didn’t even want to enter.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“And you two are friends?” Julien wanted to chuckle, but thought better of it, instead letting out a heavy sigh. “Well, far be it from me to comment on how others handle their relationships. How did you two meet?” He stepped over a hole in the floor, through which the soft, faint sounds of running water could be heard.
“He was being framed.”
“By you?” A snorting laugh slipped from Julien’s snout.
“No, by a competitor. Ardmy is an alchemist, and someone decided to use that against him and try to frame him for poisoning some meat in a market.”
“Why?” Julien asked, his curiosity as piggish as his form. ” I don’t see alchemy as being a cutthroat business.” Deventh chuckled, surprised by his naivety.
“You would be shocked at how remunerative the medicinal smuggling industry is. Most pay no mind to it, since they believe they do more good than ill. That doesn’t stop cravens from peddling their snake oils and saltwater tonics.”
Julien paused, the echo of his footsteps disappearing into the depths of the glowing tunnel. He turned his head back to Deventh and pierced him with a questioning gaze.
“So Ardmy wasn’t involved in this industry?” he asked, resuming his trek forward as he turned to face ahead.
“No, in fact, the man who wanted to frame Ardmy had a bounty on his head. He was selling a cure-all, claiming it to be blessed by priests and popes. In reality, it had additives which ended up causing a rather colorful assortment of maladies in those who took it.”
“And you were involved, how, exactly?”
“I was after the bounty. Luckily, I managed to find the man as he was in the midst of trying to incriminate Ardmy. Someone had been poisoning the town’s meat, and he tried to plant evidence that would have implicated Ardmy with the crime. He wasn’t even aware he was being framed until I had told him, having found his name among the false evidence.”
“He must have had quite the series of emotions hearing all of that! So, you two hit it off, then?”
“He bought me an ale and said I could come to him for any alchemical needs whenever and wherever. He has a knack for finding rare ingredients within Nelthemar. Since then, we’ve shared a lot together.” Retreating into his thoughts, Deventh fiddled with a loose hinge on his glove. He never thought much about their friendship, but as he recounted how they had met, he felt a pang of nostalgia, as well as comfort. These quickly turned to guilt, however, when he recalled the initial reason they were here. The deafening quiet was soon broken by the rush of running water.
“Well,” Julien said as he approached a curtain of vines glowing with a pink luminescence. “I hope we find him, then. Before the gnomes do.”
Deventh nodded. He took note of the tiny rainbow flecks reflecting onto Julien, muted by the glow of the vines. They appeared to be coming from the room on the other side.
“After you,” he said as he pulled back the vines, clearing the way forward.
Deventh stepped through and froze in his tracks. His gaze didn’t wander across the geodic walls. He didn’t admire the shimmering light reflecting from them, refracted through a massive crystal beneath a small crack in the ceiling. He didn’t gasp at the sight of water seeping from a patch of crystals into a spring which overflowed into a rocky stream.
Rather, all of his focus had fallen upon the bloodied body of his friend Ardmy, lying face first on the cold floor.
“Deventh?” He heard his name called out, but the sound of his pulse thumping in his head muted the voice. He held his forehead in his hand, trying to drown out the noise and focus, but he found himself in the grasp of wispy memories. He remembered the room in all its glistening splendor; He had been there. He remembered his hand on the Gildvar’s shoulder, and his arm around his neck. The rest appeared in flashes; the swipe of the blade, the pouring of blood, the life fading from his eyes – Deventh remembered all but the words that were said.