Lazybones
Adventurer
We can have Monday cliffhangers too!
* * *
Chapter 130
The room was slightly smaller than the vault where they’d confronted the flameskull, a bare cube with few distinguishing features. The remains of what might have been a stone font jutted from one wall, now cracked and dry. There was one other exit, an uneven slit in the opposite corner that led to another dark passage. An examination in that direction revealed a set of steps that descended in a gentle curve to a subterranean level of the complex.
Kosk licked his finger and held it in front of the opening. “Air moving,” he said.
“Think there might be another way out down there?” Glori asked.
“To save him the trouble of saying it, there’s only one way to find out,” Bredan said.
“Aye, but we’re in no shape for another fight,” Kosk said. “Time to make with the healing, I think.”
That was too good a suggestion to argue, so they settled down for a short rest. Kosk folded his legs under him and sat down so that a wall was at his back and the exit was right in front of him. Quellan unfolded his prayer mat from his pack and spread it out. He knelt and placed his mace and holy symbol on the fabric in front of him, then closed his eyes and began the soft chants of his prayer of healing.
Glori began playing a quiet tune on her lyre. The notes filled the chamber, evoking a place less stark and hostile than the barren interior of the shrine. Bredan drank deeply from his waterskin, then dribbled some water on a rag and used it to clean some of the soot from his face. He grimaced as he touched the fresh burns that hadn’t been fully eased by Glori’s cure wounds magic.
“Are you okay?” Glori asked him. She continued her melody, not bothering with her plectrum, instead flicking the strings lightly with her fingertips.
“Yeah,” he said. “Rather not do that again.”
“Let’s hope that the skull was the worst of it.”
Xeeta came over to them. “You invoked your magic again during that fight,” she said to Bredan.
He looked down at his blackened hands. “Yeah. I didn’t think, I just did it.”
“Perhaps what we do isn’t so dissimilar,” Xeeta said. “My own power is like a river that flows through me. It can be… difficult to control.”
“It seems like it’s coming easier, when I need it to,” Bredan said. “But it’s not something I can just do, like you both do.” He held up his hand and made a vague somatic gesture, but nothing happened.
“It took me three years to learn how to control my gift,” Xeeta said. “It was not an easy process.”
“I can’t imagine,” Glori said. “My master… he wasn’t soft by any means, but he never struck me, or belittled me, or asked me to do anything that wasn’t in my own best interest.”
“You were fortunate,” Xeeta said.
“I, ah… excuse me a minute,” Bredan said. He colored slightly as he got up and went to the furthest corner of the room, standing close against the wall. Glori and Xeeta both chuckled as they saw what he was doing.
“I guess survival trumps modesty, in the dungeon,” Glori said.
“Ugh, now I have to go,” Xeeta said.
“You can have this corner,” Glori said as she got up. “I’ll go bother our resident curmudgeon.”
Kosk barely flicked an eye her way as she crossed over to him and sat down, still strumming her lyre. “I can stop if this bothers you,” she said. “It’s just a habit I have. Helps sooth my nerves to play.”
“I suppose the others can use some soothing after what we just went through,” he said.
“So. Still don’t believe that what you do… this ki business… that it isn’t magic?”
“What I do is based on careful training of the body and focused self-control,” he said.
“So you say, but I don’t think I could run straight up a wall, no matter how much I practiced. Let alone punch through magical shields.”
“Most people have no idea what their bodies are capable of,” Kosk said.
“So can you punch through bricks and snap boards and stuff?” she said, winking to confirm she was teasing him.
“Perhaps, if there was need,” the dwarf said with a sigh.
“Cool,” she said.
“I need to meditate,” he said. “Using my ‘magic’ is taxing. It appears I will need to claim a spot quickly while there are still places free of puddles of piss.”
She snorted a laugh. “Go ahead, I’ll keep guard.” She shifted her melody into a tune that evoked a martial air.
“Play that any louder and you’ll draw unwanted attention,” Kosk said. But she knew that as he went over to join Quellan he was making a gesture of trust that she would warn them if something did appear from below to threaten them.
But nothing stirred from the darkness below while they rested. Quellan completed his ritual, and each of them felt their physical pains ease as the healing magic of his patron deity filled the room. They took some of the food from their stores and ate, washing the cold provisions down with water taken from the many mountain streams that poured down into the valley. Rodan had mentioned that there was a lake on the eastern edge of the valley, a long crescent that froze over during the winter months. There were a lot of wonders to this place, Glori thought as she sat quietly and watched the darkness, strumming her lyre softly.
Their short rest extended out to over an hour, but finally they rose and gathered their things in preparation of resuming their explorations. Quellan refreshed his light spell, and with Kosk in the lead they started down the rough-hewn steps.
The stairs curved back in on themselves as they descended, and they’d completed at least one full circle by the time they reached the floor of another chamber. This one had the appearance of a natural cavern, or at least it did until they got a good look at it.
“Wow,” Glori said.
The cavern looked as though it had been formed from two entirely different places that had been shoved rudely together. To their left, the stone was a volcanic gray that was nearly black. The surface was irregular, with shards of the stuff jutting out that looked sharp enough to cut flesh. In the center of the wall, just visible at the edge of their light, there was a stone bowl the size of a bed, large enough that even Quellan could have fit within it comfortably.
The cavern to their right was a sharp contrast. The stone there was smooth and pale, and studded with clear crystals that sparkled in the light from Quellan’s spell. Instead of a stone bowl there was a depression on that side that held a pool full of crystal-clear water.
Where the two sides of the room met, roughly in the center of the floor, there was a jagged, meandering line of black stone, roughly half a step across. The line extended almost to where the plain stone at the foot of the stairs transitioned to the two unique styles of this chamber. The line split at that point, forming a decisive transition between where they stood and the cavern.
“Trap, guardian, or both, do you think?” Xeeta asked.
Kosk opened his mouth, but Glori beat him to it. “Don’t say it,” she said, shooting a quick look at Bredan. “Let’s at least get a good look first, eh?”
She strummed her lyre and invoked her magic. After a few moments a handful of softly glowing globes materialized in the air in front of her. With a wave of her hand she directed them forward, the dancing lights spreading out to illuminate both sides of the cavern. They didn’t reveal anything new at first, but as they reached the far side of the vast chamber the companions could see an arch of plain gray stone, and within that a set of stone doors. It was too far to make out any details; the far exit was over a hundred feet away, almost at the limit of Glori’s spell. She brought the glowing spheres back, checking the ceiling on the way. The cavern was maybe forty feet across at its widest point, the roof reaching a peak about twenty feet above. The jagged black line that separated the two sides extended across the ceiling as well.
“Hmm, an elemental theme,” Glori commented as her lights returned to her and winked out.
“Do we want fire, which I assume the obsidian and the bowl symbolizes, or water?” Quellan asked. “Bredan?”
The warrior shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“Do we have to choose?” Glori asked. “Maybe the line down the middle represents safety, sort of a balance between extremes sort of thing.”
“Or maybe stepping on the line triggers both traps,” Kosk said.
“All things being equal, I think I’d choose water,” Bredan said. “I’ve already been roasted enough for one day.”
“Spoken like a man who’s never been on a ship on high seas,” Xeeta said. “Water can be just as dangerous as fire, and I am at least resistant to the former.”
“I prefer being burned to sitting around listening to your chatter,” Kosk said, stepping forward onto the dark stone to the left of the black streak.
“Legendary monk patience,” Glori commented, but she tensed with the rest of them as they waited for something to happen. But there was no reaction, even when Kosk took another few steps forward.
“Let’s stay together,” Quellan suggested.
“If there is a trap, it might be better for just one of us to spring it,” Xeeta pointed out.
“Perhaps, but I’d feel better if we didn’t get too spread out,” Quellan said.
One by one they followed the dwarf into the cavern, staying clear of the separating line and the pale stone on its other side. Xeeta, again bringing up the rear, was the last to cross the divider. Kosk, in the lead, was about twenty feet from the stone bowl when suddenly a massive column of flames erupted within it.
Heat rushed out from the huge pyre, and the companions reflexively retreated a step back from it. None of them stepped onto the dark divider, but when Glori looked down at it she could see that pale glowing runes had appeared along its length, shining as if embedded within the stone. Glancing up, she could see that they extended all the way across the ceiling as well.
“Something’s happening!” she warned.
“No kidding!” Bredan said as he drew his sword.
“Retreat is blocked!” Xeeta shouted. They turned to see that the opening that led to the staircase was now gone, replaced by a smooth stone wall. The tiefling confirmed that it was real a moment later when she smacked it hard with her rod.
“Other side,” Kosk warned, his voice level and controlled, as if he’d expected something like this all along. The companions looked over to see that the water in the pool had begun churning wildly, as if someone had thrust into it with a giant invisible oar.
“Oh, man,” Bredan said, just before the first guardian revealed itself.
The fire continued to surge, as if the bowl had been filled with logs soaked generously in oil. But even as Bredan spoke the flames moved. Tongues of fire became a tendril that extended out of the bowl, stretching until it touched the floor of the cavern. The tendril thickened until it was strong enough to support the full weight of what was obviously a magical creature, an entity of pure energy.
None of them were surprised when the roiling waters of the pool responded in an echo to the fire-thing’s appearance. The water, spinning until a whirlpool had started to form, suddenly rose up into a tidal wave that splashed up onto the floor of the cavern. It clung together in defiance of the laws of physics and began to surge toward them. On the far side of the room, the fire creature did the same.
“Elementals!” Quellan announced. The look on his face was sufficient warning of the danger they faced, in case the obvious threat of the odd creatures was not enough.
* * *
Chapter 130
The room was slightly smaller than the vault where they’d confronted the flameskull, a bare cube with few distinguishing features. The remains of what might have been a stone font jutted from one wall, now cracked and dry. There was one other exit, an uneven slit in the opposite corner that led to another dark passage. An examination in that direction revealed a set of steps that descended in a gentle curve to a subterranean level of the complex.
Kosk licked his finger and held it in front of the opening. “Air moving,” he said.
“Think there might be another way out down there?” Glori asked.
“To save him the trouble of saying it, there’s only one way to find out,” Bredan said.
“Aye, but we’re in no shape for another fight,” Kosk said. “Time to make with the healing, I think.”
That was too good a suggestion to argue, so they settled down for a short rest. Kosk folded his legs under him and sat down so that a wall was at his back and the exit was right in front of him. Quellan unfolded his prayer mat from his pack and spread it out. He knelt and placed his mace and holy symbol on the fabric in front of him, then closed his eyes and began the soft chants of his prayer of healing.
Glori began playing a quiet tune on her lyre. The notes filled the chamber, evoking a place less stark and hostile than the barren interior of the shrine. Bredan drank deeply from his waterskin, then dribbled some water on a rag and used it to clean some of the soot from his face. He grimaced as he touched the fresh burns that hadn’t been fully eased by Glori’s cure wounds magic.
“Are you okay?” Glori asked him. She continued her melody, not bothering with her plectrum, instead flicking the strings lightly with her fingertips.
“Yeah,” he said. “Rather not do that again.”
“Let’s hope that the skull was the worst of it.”
Xeeta came over to them. “You invoked your magic again during that fight,” she said to Bredan.
He looked down at his blackened hands. “Yeah. I didn’t think, I just did it.”
“Perhaps what we do isn’t so dissimilar,” Xeeta said. “My own power is like a river that flows through me. It can be… difficult to control.”
“It seems like it’s coming easier, when I need it to,” Bredan said. “But it’s not something I can just do, like you both do.” He held up his hand and made a vague somatic gesture, but nothing happened.
“It took me three years to learn how to control my gift,” Xeeta said. “It was not an easy process.”
“I can’t imagine,” Glori said. “My master… he wasn’t soft by any means, but he never struck me, or belittled me, or asked me to do anything that wasn’t in my own best interest.”
“You were fortunate,” Xeeta said.
“I, ah… excuse me a minute,” Bredan said. He colored slightly as he got up and went to the furthest corner of the room, standing close against the wall. Glori and Xeeta both chuckled as they saw what he was doing.
“I guess survival trumps modesty, in the dungeon,” Glori said.
“Ugh, now I have to go,” Xeeta said.
“You can have this corner,” Glori said as she got up. “I’ll go bother our resident curmudgeon.”
Kosk barely flicked an eye her way as she crossed over to him and sat down, still strumming her lyre. “I can stop if this bothers you,” she said. “It’s just a habit I have. Helps sooth my nerves to play.”
“I suppose the others can use some soothing after what we just went through,” he said.
“So. Still don’t believe that what you do… this ki business… that it isn’t magic?”
“What I do is based on careful training of the body and focused self-control,” he said.
“So you say, but I don’t think I could run straight up a wall, no matter how much I practiced. Let alone punch through magical shields.”
“Most people have no idea what their bodies are capable of,” Kosk said.
“So can you punch through bricks and snap boards and stuff?” she said, winking to confirm she was teasing him.
“Perhaps, if there was need,” the dwarf said with a sigh.
“Cool,” she said.
“I need to meditate,” he said. “Using my ‘magic’ is taxing. It appears I will need to claim a spot quickly while there are still places free of puddles of piss.”
She snorted a laugh. “Go ahead, I’ll keep guard.” She shifted her melody into a tune that evoked a martial air.
“Play that any louder and you’ll draw unwanted attention,” Kosk said. But she knew that as he went over to join Quellan he was making a gesture of trust that she would warn them if something did appear from below to threaten them.
But nothing stirred from the darkness below while they rested. Quellan completed his ritual, and each of them felt their physical pains ease as the healing magic of his patron deity filled the room. They took some of the food from their stores and ate, washing the cold provisions down with water taken from the many mountain streams that poured down into the valley. Rodan had mentioned that there was a lake on the eastern edge of the valley, a long crescent that froze over during the winter months. There were a lot of wonders to this place, Glori thought as she sat quietly and watched the darkness, strumming her lyre softly.
Their short rest extended out to over an hour, but finally they rose and gathered their things in preparation of resuming their explorations. Quellan refreshed his light spell, and with Kosk in the lead they started down the rough-hewn steps.
The stairs curved back in on themselves as they descended, and they’d completed at least one full circle by the time they reached the floor of another chamber. This one had the appearance of a natural cavern, or at least it did until they got a good look at it.
“Wow,” Glori said.
The cavern looked as though it had been formed from two entirely different places that had been shoved rudely together. To their left, the stone was a volcanic gray that was nearly black. The surface was irregular, with shards of the stuff jutting out that looked sharp enough to cut flesh. In the center of the wall, just visible at the edge of their light, there was a stone bowl the size of a bed, large enough that even Quellan could have fit within it comfortably.
The cavern to their right was a sharp contrast. The stone there was smooth and pale, and studded with clear crystals that sparkled in the light from Quellan’s spell. Instead of a stone bowl there was a depression on that side that held a pool full of crystal-clear water.
Where the two sides of the room met, roughly in the center of the floor, there was a jagged, meandering line of black stone, roughly half a step across. The line extended almost to where the plain stone at the foot of the stairs transitioned to the two unique styles of this chamber. The line split at that point, forming a decisive transition between where they stood and the cavern.
“Trap, guardian, or both, do you think?” Xeeta asked.
Kosk opened his mouth, but Glori beat him to it. “Don’t say it,” she said, shooting a quick look at Bredan. “Let’s at least get a good look first, eh?”
She strummed her lyre and invoked her magic. After a few moments a handful of softly glowing globes materialized in the air in front of her. With a wave of her hand she directed them forward, the dancing lights spreading out to illuminate both sides of the cavern. They didn’t reveal anything new at first, but as they reached the far side of the vast chamber the companions could see an arch of plain gray stone, and within that a set of stone doors. It was too far to make out any details; the far exit was over a hundred feet away, almost at the limit of Glori’s spell. She brought the glowing spheres back, checking the ceiling on the way. The cavern was maybe forty feet across at its widest point, the roof reaching a peak about twenty feet above. The jagged black line that separated the two sides extended across the ceiling as well.
“Hmm, an elemental theme,” Glori commented as her lights returned to her and winked out.
“Do we want fire, which I assume the obsidian and the bowl symbolizes, or water?” Quellan asked. “Bredan?”
The warrior shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“Do we have to choose?” Glori asked. “Maybe the line down the middle represents safety, sort of a balance between extremes sort of thing.”
“Or maybe stepping on the line triggers both traps,” Kosk said.
“All things being equal, I think I’d choose water,” Bredan said. “I’ve already been roasted enough for one day.”
“Spoken like a man who’s never been on a ship on high seas,” Xeeta said. “Water can be just as dangerous as fire, and I am at least resistant to the former.”
“I prefer being burned to sitting around listening to your chatter,” Kosk said, stepping forward onto the dark stone to the left of the black streak.
“Legendary monk patience,” Glori commented, but she tensed with the rest of them as they waited for something to happen. But there was no reaction, even when Kosk took another few steps forward.
“Let’s stay together,” Quellan suggested.
“If there is a trap, it might be better for just one of us to spring it,” Xeeta pointed out.
“Perhaps, but I’d feel better if we didn’t get too spread out,” Quellan said.
One by one they followed the dwarf into the cavern, staying clear of the separating line and the pale stone on its other side. Xeeta, again bringing up the rear, was the last to cross the divider. Kosk, in the lead, was about twenty feet from the stone bowl when suddenly a massive column of flames erupted within it.
Heat rushed out from the huge pyre, and the companions reflexively retreated a step back from it. None of them stepped onto the dark divider, but when Glori looked down at it she could see that pale glowing runes had appeared along its length, shining as if embedded within the stone. Glancing up, she could see that they extended all the way across the ceiling as well.
“Something’s happening!” she warned.
“No kidding!” Bredan said as he drew his sword.
“Retreat is blocked!” Xeeta shouted. They turned to see that the opening that led to the staircase was now gone, replaced by a smooth stone wall. The tiefling confirmed that it was real a moment later when she smacked it hard with her rod.
“Other side,” Kosk warned, his voice level and controlled, as if he’d expected something like this all along. The companions looked over to see that the water in the pool had begun churning wildly, as if someone had thrust into it with a giant invisible oar.
“Oh, man,” Bredan said, just before the first guardian revealed itself.
The fire continued to surge, as if the bowl had been filled with logs soaked generously in oil. But even as Bredan spoke the flames moved. Tongues of fire became a tendril that extended out of the bowl, stretching until it touched the floor of the cavern. The tendril thickened until it was strong enough to support the full weight of what was obviously a magical creature, an entity of pure energy.
None of them were surprised when the roiling waters of the pool responded in an echo to the fire-thing’s appearance. The water, spinning until a whirlpool had started to form, suddenly rose up into a tidal wave that splashed up onto the floor of the cavern. It clung together in defiance of the laws of physics and began to surge toward them. On the far side of the room, the fire creature did the same.
“Elementals!” Quellan announced. The look on his face was sufficient warning of the danger they faced, in case the obvious threat of the odd creatures was not enough.
