Chapter 16 of Wayward Ranger by J Scott Miles

IT’S GETTING COLD IN HERE

Aidan wasn’t sure how long they’d slept in the circular anteroom, but when he woke in the dark, he lay on his side with his cloak over him and a face full of wolf fur.

Rolling onto his back, he stared up into the cold darkness and yawned. Soreness and fatigue permeated his body, but on the positive side, his arm and thigh where the giant bees had stung him seemed to have completely deflated from their swollen states.

With a thought and a gesture, he cast his newest spell, summoning a small swarm of oversized fireflies. Then he checked his mana supply and decided to also cast Minor Warmth onto himself to drive out the chill which had settled over the room while they slept.

Sitting up, he saw Tarna had come to lay between him and Elease. The half-elf had moved over as well, though, so they all lay close together in a ragged line. Tugging his cloak more tightly around himself, he briefly considered laying down again and snuggling back into Tarna’s soft fur. Gods. It was so hot in that last corridor and now it’s freezing. Is this the dungeon’s way of making us move on and not stay in here to recover for too long?

The platter of desserts that had been part of their reward for defeating the summer queen lay a few feet away and Aidan reached for one of the sweet-rolls. It didn’t taste bad, but the fresh-baked flavor and soft chew the rolls had when they’d eaten earlier had already begun to go stale.

“It’s as cold as a steel golem’s tit in here,” Elease said with a yawn, as she and Tarna began to stir as well.

“Yeah, I think it’s the dungeon’s way of telling us to move along,” he replied as he caught the infectious yawn the other two had and gaped as well.

“Could be,” the half-elf agreed as she pulled her bag over to her and reached inside for a cloak of her own. “If it is, it’s working. I’m ready to get going. Let’s get through this next corridor before we freeze our asses off in here.”

“Should we pack up all this food?”

“No. Eat what you want and then let’s leave it. I had enough honey flavored crap last night to last me for a long time, and I’m running out of room in my bag.”

Her comment about her bag answered a question he’d been wondering about. It seemed there was indeed a limit to how much her enchanted bag could carry. Which made sense.

The other part of her comment made him wonder, though. She’s calling the time when we were asleep, last night, but I wonder if it was actually night. It’s so hard to tell in here with no sky to reference. It certainly felt like we were hiking through those corridors and fighting with the bugs for hours, but there’s no actual way to tell.

He didn’t have much gear to get together, but he did as Elease suggested and quickly ate another roll and a hunk of cake from their previous food reward. His own sentiment about being overloaded with the richness of the one-note honey flavor mirrored Elease’s. If I don’t have honey again for a long time, I’ll be just fine.

The chill in the air seemed reflected in their moods and movements. His lack of shoes hadn’t been a huge deal, especially not in the last corridor where it had been suffocatingly warm, but now he was really wishing the dungeon had rewarded him with some new boots.

The cloak Elease had pulled from her bag and slung around herself was fur lined and looked very warm, but also very expensive. He would have been lying if he said he wasn’t a little jealous seeing it, although he knew as soon as they met some actual resistance in the next corridor, she was going to have to put it away again so she could effectively use her weapons and new quiver.

“We did the spring and summer corridors,” Elease said as she walked over to the door carved with what looked like dead and fallen sticks and leaves. “That should make this one the autumn corridor, right?”

“Or maybe the Glade King skipped fall and went straight to winter,” Aidan grumbled. “It sure feels like it in here. I’m pretty sure it’s gotten colder in just the time since we woke up.”

Elease nodded. “Either way, are we ready? Let’s get in there, find this Glade King, and kill him so we can get our reward and get back out to the real world.”

Aidan hoped Elease wasn’t being overly simplistic in how easy she was making the final corridor sound. So far, the dungeon had challenged them, but it hadn’t thrown anything at them they couldn’t handle, and he suspected that was by design. The rewards have been tailored for us. It seems reasonable the level of challenge might be tailored to our group as well.

“Alright, same order as before,” Elease said when he didn’t answer her question about being ready. “Tarna up front, then you, then me.”

Aidan nodded and stepped up beside Tarna at the only door in the room they hadn’t been through yet. When he pressed his palm against it and pushed, there was resistance. Neither of the other doors had given any resistance at all, but beyond that, there was something odd about the resistance he felt. It wasn’t the type of resistance he would expect from old or worn-out hinges. It was less consistent, and more like there was someone or something on the other side of the door pushing back against him.

Getting a firmer stance and readying his weapon, he put more effort into his second push and the door finally moved.

As soon as a small crack formed along the edge of the jam, he got an unwelcome face full of what was making it hard to open the door. A gust of icy wind curled in through the narrow opening, fluttering his cloak and sending a shiver through his body. He let the door snap shut again and stepped back.

“Come on, let’s do this,” Elease prodded from behind. “Waiting isn’t going to make it any better.”

Aidan knew she was right, but he’d woken a tad surly and wasn’t in the mood for her prodding. Despite that, he bit back the retort that came to him and instead put his palm back against the door and pressed even harder.

The door eased open, and again Aidan got a face full of icy wind. Pushing through it, he shoved the door open and stepped into a truly bleak landscape, or corridor, or whatever they were supposed to call these spaces.

Trees lined the edges of a stone path like before, and they were even reminiscent of the trees that had hemmed them in along the stone paths in the two other corridors. However, here they were gnarled, dead versions of what they’d seen before. Every trunk and limb of the impenetrable thicket above and to the sides of the path was withered and completely devoid of life.

Even the dried shriveled leaves that blew and crackled in the wind were various shades of brown. Not one held even a hint of the beautiful oranges and yellows that someone who had spent time in a deciduous forest in the autumn might expect.

Likewise, there were no charming, comically large fireflies or glowing mushrooms to light their way, just a depressing half-light coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. The illumination reminds me of being inside a thick fogbank when it’s impossible to tell where the sun is at, or what time of day it is.

“Well, this is depressing,” Aidan said as he stepped into the corridor, allowing Tarna and Elease into the room behind him.

“It looks like you might be right,” Elease replied. “I think we’ve bypassed autumn altogether and skipped straight to winter.”

“Yeah, this is definitely late autumn at best.” Aidan agreed. “At least that means we shouldn’t have to deal with any more of those vines or intoxicating flowers in here.”

“Look at you finding the bright side,” Elease chuckled. “The only thing I could come up with to put a positive spin on this is that at least it’s not snowing.”

Aidan groaned. “You did not just say that. That’s as good as taunting the gods or fates or whoever made this dungeon. Now, even if they hadn’t planned to torture us with snow, they’ll have no choice.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Elease scoffed. “Get over yourself. The gods aren’t going to intervene directly in our affairs and change the dungeon based on what we want or don’t want. If any of them are watching, which is highly unlikely, given we’re a couple of nobodies.” She stopped herself and rocked her head from side-to-side. “I mean, you’re a nobody, and you might be doomed to remain that way. Especially if we hadn’t found you. Tarna and I are still at the beginning of our adventuring careers, though, so I wouldn’t expect any of the gods to have taken notice yet.”

Aidan groaned again and rolled his eyes as he let his fireflies wink out. He wasn’t sure if Elease really believed half her bluster, but even if she did, he was in no mood to listen to it. Tarna seemed to be of a similar mind, because the wolf huffed and padded away, her fur rippling in the wind.

“If any of the gods are watching, you can bet it’s from a pile of comfortable pillows with a horn of wine and a bowl of salted nuts,” Elease continued. “They’re not going to trouble themselves to bring a blizzard just because I dared to say the word, snow.”

“Forgive me, your highness,” Aidan snapped, having reached his limit. “But I don’t think you know nearly as much about all this as you claim. Miss, I’ve only really been in one other dungeon. And I’m not nearly as old or high level as I like to make out.”

Elease clamped her mouth shut and glared at him.

For a fleeting moment, Aidan felt bad about his comment and the biting tone he’d used. That feeling quickly fled, as Elease continued to glare at him.

Her overconfidence annoyed him, and in this at least, he knew better than she did. He was certain gods took an interest in mortals sometimes. He wasn’t sure how far up the divinity tree Nanaya was or if she’d already lost interest in him after saving his life and giving him that boon, but regardless, she was proof the gods could, if they chose, intervene in the affairs of mortals.

Their quibbling had distracted him and Elease, but thankfully not Tarna. She barked a warning as soon as the first six-foot-tall stick-bug dislodged itself from its camouflaged position amongst the trees and attacked.

Three of the huge bugs, which were vaguely reminiscent of the much smaller versions Aidan had occasionally seen in the forest back home, slowly closed in on them from different directions. He was glad the creatures didn’t appear to have any magical abilities or any of the troublesome sprites accompanying them and seemed to be straightforward melee threats as they came in swinging their club-like arms.

As he’d predicted, the first thing Elease had to do was toss back the ends of her cloak to get it out of the way for her to use her bow. She pulled out an arrow, nocked, drew, and fired with incredible speed, but her arrow just dug into the nearest of the bugs and stuck doing little noticeable damage.

“These damn things look as dried up and dead as the trees,” she said as she nocked and fired another. “What I could really use are some flame arrows.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t see any of those lying around, so unless you’ve got some stuffed away in that pack, I’d suggest you get out those blades of yours.”

She gave him another annoyed look, and he was pretty sure she’d been about to stick her tongue out at him before stopping herself.

Tarna latched onto the closest bug’s leg and shook. It didn’t seem to like that, although it made no noise or growls of protest as its branch-like arm came down on her head. The wolf yelped, but didn’t let go.

Despite her obvious annoyance at Aidan’s suggestion, Elease had stowed her bow and new quiver in favor of her blades. She attacked the bug beating at Tarna, chopping at it just like she was cutting dried limbs for the fire.

While Elease and Tarna worked on the first bug, Aidan turned to the other two. With his back to his companions, he did his best to hold off the encroaching bugs by swinging back and forth in long arcs. The few times his spear tip made contact, the blade bit and came away with splinters of desiccated bug flesh. I’m not sure these things are even alive. We haven’t seen anything undead in this dungeon yet, but maybe these things are like zombie bugs.

The two he was holding off batted at his waving spear, but they weren’t fast enough to make use of the openings between one end of his arc and the other. Then they got smart and circled in different directions. As they split, he wasn’t able to hold both of them off nearly as effectively and he knew it was just a matter of seconds before, regardless of how slow they were, one of them would break through.

“How’s it going back there?” he hollered.

“Just dandy,” Elease shot back.

“Well, I’m running out of options with these two. I’m not going to be able to keep them off us for much longer.”

Elease grunted. “These damn things don’t even react to being hit. Just chopping at them isn’t working. We need to do something else. When I say go, we all disengage and run toward the doorway we came through.”

“You’re ready to give up already?” Aidan asked in surprise.

“Of course not,” Elease spat back. “I just need a few seconds to try something different. These things aren’t fast. If we can put some space between us and them, you two should be able to hold them off while I prepare a surprise.”

Aidan didn’t know what kind of surprise she had in mind, but he was up for trying just about anything, so when she yelled “go,” he disengaged and ran back the way they’d come.

They hadn’t made it very far into the corridor in the first place though, so they were only able to put about thirty yards distance between them and the slow-moving stick bugs before it was either go back into the anteroom or turn and fight again.

He had no way of knowing what would happen if they left the corridor and reentered the anteroom. The door might close and lock them out of the last level, forcing them to leave the dungeon with only what they’d collected so far. Or the bugs might just follow them into the room and continue their assault there. Or nothing bad might happen at all. The door could close, and they’d just be allowed to open it again when they were ready.

Whatever the outcome might have been, they didn’t find out. They stopped just before the door, where Aidan and Tarna took up guard positions facing the shambling sticks while Elease threw off her bag and started rummaging through it.

The first thing she pulled out was the nearly empty bottle of elven wine that she’d shared with him the other night beside their fire. Then a few scraps of cloth. And then her fire steel. Aidan thought he saw what she was trying to do, although the wine seemed out of place.

She quickly tore the cloth into strips and poured some of the wine onto each one. Then she used her fire steel to throw sparks onto one of the wine-soaked scraps. To Aidan’s amazement, the cloth and wine caught immediately. Damn, I knew that stuff was strong, but to burn that means it’s like grain alcohol strong. No wonder I was buzzing after just a few sips.

The bugs were on them then and the time they’d bought by running for Elease to make fire was at an end. Aidan turned back to the line of dried-up stick-bugs and slashed with his outstretched spear, causing the bugs to slow their advance.

A moment later, an arrow flew past him with a burning scrap of cloth attached. He was surprised the flames didn’t go out in flight, but it remained lit long enough for the arrow to imbed in the center most bug.

Unfortunately, the bug didn’t burst into flames at first contact with the burning cloth, but the makeshift flaming arrow sure got its attention. Its weird stick-like head looked down at the flames and the arrow, completely losing interest in Aidan or Tarna. Strangely, it still didn’t make any noise, though.

Another arrow went past Aidan and stuck in a second bug. Then a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. When each bug had two arrows in it, Elease announced she was out of flaming projectiles.

All three bugs swatted at the flames with their club-like limbs, but they weren’t very dexterous and at such close range, the arrowheads had lodged deep into their dried bark-like hide. They managed to snap most of the shafts, but not to put out the flames or dislodge the arrow heads and burning rags.

With the bugs distracted, Aidan took more careful aim as he swung his spear, using its long broad-leaf tip like a glaive. The epic quality steel bit deep into where he thought the bug’s neck must be, but it didn’t go through.

The thing looked up at him as he yanked his spear free, and it tried to block his second chop, but all it managed to do was send his strike higher into what might have been its face. His second blow bit deep again, but more importantly, the force of it sent the bug’s head tilting over sideways and in so doing widened the gash his first strike had created.

Elease and Tarna had capitalized on the distraction of the fire as well. Elease had her blades out again, and like him, was using the advantage to be more precise with her cuts.

Yanking his spear free once more, Aidan could tell his bug was definitely feeling the effects of the damage he was doing. It staggered, trying to keep him in view, while also looking down at the flames which had actually taken hold along its dry combustible body.

Aidan sidestepped, making the bug turn as well if it wanted to follow him with its gaze. As the thing drunkenly lumbered around, he wound up and swung. Like his last shot, his second didn’t hit where he’d wanted, but it did knock the bug’s head further to the side, so much so that the thing staggered and fell.

With the flames starting to do their work and his bug just twitching on the ground, Aidan moved around to engage the third bug, which was still very preoccupied with the fire crawling up its body.

Kill: Desiccated Stick Guardian, level 13. Experience 75. Upgrade-points 3. Non-harvestable corpse. Loot-drop none.

Aidan thought the kill notification had come from the bug he’d left dying, but he couldn’t be sure, because another notification followed close on its heels as the bug Elease and Tarna were working on fell to the ground without its head or left arm.

The three of them stepped back from the third bug, which was fully engulfed and awkwardly flailing. From a few yards away, they watched it and its already dead companions burn like grotesque campfire.

“It’s weird,” Aidan said. “The thing is burning to death, and it still hasn’t made a sound.”

“Good. I don’t want to listen to the damn thing shrieking as it dies anyway, do you?”

“No. I guess not.” Aidan replied.

He didn’t want to let the bugs’ deaths go completely to waste either though, so once they got the third bug’s kill notification, he stepped over to the nearest burning corpse, stretched out his palms and basked in its glorious warmth until its flames eventually petered out.