"So, how long have you been a Battleblade?" asked Rhionda, as they stood holding torches in the catacombs watching the twins probe the ancient stonework for hidden passages. The group had covered just about every square inch of the catacombs under the ruined abbey and found nothing more exciting than the burial niches of the monks who had been interred there centuries ago. Now they stood in an obvious dead end, but Jasper was Absolutely Certain there must be a secret door hidden somewhere in the blank wall that faced them.
"Only a couple of months," admitted Buntleby. "My mentor Spontayne suggested it might be a good way to put some of the spellcraft he's been teaching me to practical use."
"You know a lot of spells?" asked the young fighter.
"A few," admitted Buntleby. "Not that it matters much with this bunch, though. I'm here primarily to fling
magic missiles at any monsters we meet up with and otherwise stay out of the way while you warrior types take care of business. Then, of course, I'm responsible for detecting any magical properties of any treasure we might come across. And that's pretty much it." He shrugged. "My life as a Battleblade, such as it is."
Kip and Skip poked and prodded at the stone walls with various instruments, while Jasper stood over them and offered a steady stream of suggestions despite the fact that he had little solid advice to give. "Try over there, lad. No, a little higher up. Hmm, maybe over to the right a bit." Frollick, meanwhile, took advantage of the opportunity to take a hefty swig from his first skin of dwarven ale.
And while the rest of the Battleblades were thus occupied, Ozzie the osquip skittered back along the corridor they had just traversed, sniffing his rodent nose at the stone walls. He stopped suddenly, squinted his beady brown eyes, and poked his head into a narrow crevice hidden in the shadows near the floor. Ozzie's six legs skittered frantically as he tried squeezing his body further into the crack. With the grating sound of iron-hard teeth on stone, he chewed his way through the narrow opening between cavern wall and floor and popped out on the other side. Buntleby caught sight of his companion's ratlike tail just as it vanished from view.
"Hey, guys, over here!" he called to the others. Jasper looked irritated at the interruption, but once he realized the situation he was over there in a shot to oversee the examination of the new wall. "Try over here, lads," he suggested. "Maybe down there a bit." Before long, one of the halflings had found the hidden switch that allowed a section of the wall to pivot along a central axis. There in the torchlight glow sat Ozzie, nibbling contentedly on a few loose pebbles as he waited for the others to find their way into the corridor he had discovered.
"Well, now, who's a good boy, then, Ozzie?" cooed Buntleby, rubbing the back of the osquip's leathery-skinned head. Ozzie hissed in delight.
"Good work, Kip, Skip. Now then, this way, Battleblades!" said Jasper imperiously, striding off down the corridor to the right as if he knew exactly where he was going. Just out of curiosity, Buntleby peered down the left branch of the corridor. It looked absolutely no different than the right branch. Shrugging, he followed Jasper and the others.
Soon the party was gathered in an excited huddle around the twins. "We're getting close!" declared one of the halflings, proudly holding up what appeared to be a small rock. "Look: beholder droppings!"
[5]
"That's a rock, Skip," argued Buntleby.
"Kip!" corrected the irate halfling. "I'm Kip! It should be perfectly simple, even for a perfectly simple human like yourself: Kip, headband; Skip, no headband." He tapped his headband for emphasis. "And it may well look like a rock to an uneducated observer like yourself, but trust me, Bumblebee, it's beholder droppings." He flung the rock (for it was only a rock, and the halfling well knew it) to the ground. Buntleby opened his mouth to object to the new nickname, but then just shook his head and let the matter drop. Better not to let them know of his irritation; it would only encourage them.
"Look alive now," ordered Jasper to the Battleblades, then turned and sent the twin scouts down the corridor. He and Frollick followed with weapons drawn, leaving Rhionda, Buntleby, and Ozzie bringing up the rear.
"Now wait a minute, I'm confused," whispered Rhionda to Buntleby as they followed the others. "I thought Skip was the one with the headband."
"Apparently, it's the other way around," shrugged the wizard. "I can never keep the two of them straight." Unnoticed by either of them, at the front of the party and well outside the radius of torchlight, Skip removed the distinctive headband he'd been wearing and surreptitiously passed it with a grin to Kip, who put it on. They both snickered at their long-running joke.
"'Perfectly simple human,'" sniggered Kip, adjusting the headband.
"'Bumblebee.' We'll have to remember that one!" added Skip.
Suddenly, the uniform stonework of the underground tunnel gave way to natural stone. "Looks like this's as far as them abbey monks got with their catacombs," remarked Frollick, examining the walls with an expert eye. "Must've penetrated these natural caverns when they was diggin' this corridor. Betcha it leads to a whole unnerground cavern network. No tellin' what all's down 'ere." Then a wicked grin appeared in the midst of his shaggy beard. "The plunderin' potential jus' grew a bit on us, Battleblades!"
"This is Most Excellent News," remarked Jasper. "Lead on, scouts!"
"What about the beholder?" asked Buntleby. "Do you think it's around here somewhere?"
"Prolly," replied the dwarf. "Leastwise I hope so!"
"Well, don't you think we ought to plan out our strategy?"
"Pshaw!" scoffed Jasper. "Our strategy's the same as always: flashing blades and mighty thews! You just stay out of the way and you'll be fine."
"But what about its powers?" continued the wizard doggedly. "It's my understanding that a beholder's eyes--"
"Now listen here, Bumblebee," interrupted one of the halflings. "I don't--"
"Do you guys hear that?" interjected Rhionda, interrupting the halfling's interruption with one of her own.
"Hear what?"
"That buzzing."
[6]
The Battleblades stopped their arguing to listen.
"I don't hear anything," groused Jasper, cupping his hand over his ear and cocking his head to the side. He even squinted, as if that would help his hearing any. The halflings stood in rapt attention as well, each straining their senses to see if they could detect any odd noise. "Wait a minute! Did you say buzzing?" asked one of the twins.
"Yeah, kind of a low buzzing sound," replied Rhionda.
"Feh!" spat Kip (or Skip). "It was probably Bumblebee here, then!"
"Ha! Good one!" chuckled Skip (or Kip).
"Now look here, you two," began Buntleby. "I've had--"
The wizard didn't get to finish his sentence, for at that precise moment he was pierced in the back by the sharp tip of a grayish tentacle that uncoiled from above.
[7]
NOTES
5. While beholder droppings actually do tend to harden into a rocklike consistency and appearance, death kisses leave no droppings behind. This should come as no surprise, given that the creature feasts solely on blood. Instead, after the death kiss' digestive system has extracted all possible nutrients from the blood, the liquid waste remains are dribbled out of a series of pores on the creature's underside. This liquid waste retains a washed-out red color, and may have contributed to the death kiss' nickname of "bleeder."
6. While death kisses make no vocalizations (not surprising, since their ten tentacle-mouths lack vocal cords), their electrical-based metabolism occasionally gives off a low-level hum, somewhat akin to the noise of a fluorescent light or power line.
7. Because of the buoyant tiusium gas inside their spherical bodies, death kisses fly at Speed 30 feet with good maneuverability as a free action. They also have the equivalent of a permanent feather fall effect on them at all times. Death kisses often drop down upon unsuspecting prey from above, frequently catching their victims flat-footed.