Long weekend, hurrah!
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Chapter 106
RETRACING STEPS
The large cavern was silent save for the constant sound of rushing water, and dark save for a faint glow that came from a tunnel on the far side, where the underground river exited the chamber. That glow began to brighten steadily, finally resolving into several flickering flames held aloft by the companions from Camar.
Shay was the first to step off the river, followed momentarily by Dar. The fighter clanked more prominently now, his breastplate replaced by Valus’s heavy plate mail. Dar also wore the cleric’s shield, and his small arsenal of weapons. Behind him came Talen, helping Allera, with the faerie dragon Snaggletooth fluttering along a few feet behind them. The healer was moving under her own power, but she looked wan, and frequently relied on Talen’s supporting arm to steady her.
Finally, Varo and Malerase emerged last from the tunnel, leaving the river tunnel dark again behind them. Varo wore the magical breastplate that had until recently been Dar’s; the armor looked out of place on the bony cleric, ill-fitting and ill-suited to him. But Dar had pressed the armor on him, using Varo’s own arguments against him, and the priest had ultimately acquiesced.
While Shay headed across the room to check for foes at the two exits, Dar paused by the cavern wall, straightening and cracking his back. The low tunnel, combined with the awkwardness of his new armor, had wrought havoc on his spine and the surrounding muscles. Multiple dousings in the river had washed away most of the dirt and blood that had covered the armor and his clothes, but it could not wash away the tired lines at the sides of his face, or the dark pouches that hung under his eyes. Dar wasn’t old, not really, but at that moment, he looked a good decade or two beyond his years.
A sudden flash of bright energy swept through him; a minor healing spell, but one that temporarily eased his body’s multiple complaints. He turned to see Allera standing there. Talen had gone over to back up Shay, and Varo was engaged in quiet conversation with Malerase, leaving the two of them alone for the moment. The faerie dragon had fluttered up to take a perch on a narrow outcrop of stone on the nearby wall, about eight feet up. It watched the two humans intently.
“Should have saved that,” he said. He almost added,
for yourself, but it was clear that Allera understood the subtext. Her physical wounds had been treated, but her body still bore the marks of her captivity, from her rough-hacked hair, to the brands that still showed faintly against the pink newness of her newly-healed skin. And in her eyes, but those she kept low, not meeting the fighter’s gaze.
“You have been quiet of late,” she said. “For you, at least.”
“What is there to say?” Dar said, coldly.
At that she did look up, and the pain in her eyes was obvious, brimming out on in a shimmer of barely withheld tears. “Thank you, for coming for me.”
Dar looked at her, his own expression a warring medley of expressions, but he said nothing. She started to turn away, but he stopped her.
“I... I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, touching his forearm. He flinched, as though her fingers were the flame of a burning brand. Dar turned his head away. Although she couldn’t see it, in that moment, a thousand cultists died in the eyes of the fighter. Painfully.
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds. Finally, Allera opened her mouth to speak, but she was interrupted as Talen signaled to them from across the room.
“Come on,” the captain said. “The way is clear, for the moment, but the dung monster, or something else, could come along at any second.”
Allera and Dar had moved a step apart, the fragile contact between them broken. Snaggletooth landed on the healer’s shoulder, and let out a little hiss. Allera brushed his neck idly, but did not respond.
With Shay again in the lead, the companions made their way past the wererats’ berm and down the stairs to the second level of the dungeon. They all watched warily the dark tunnel mouths high in the walls, but there was no ambush waiting there for them, this time. The stench of the second level, thick with odors of smoke and piss, greeted them as they emerged into the long, wide hall that the four Doomed Bastards had originally traversed, not so long ago.
“You cleared this level, right?” Talen asked.
“Yes, and the stairs to the next lower level of the dungeon were blocked by a collapse, after we came through last time,” Varo said. He didn’t elaborate on their encounter with the purple worm; that was an experience none of them were particularly eager to revisit.
“If we’re lucky, maybe there won’t be any new guardians then,” Talen suggested.
Dar looked at him. “Are you new here?”
“Which way?” Shay asked. Varo indicated the door down the corridor to their right. “Beyond the door is a long corridor,” the cleric explained. “We go to the right; the entrance to the fungus cavern is at the very end.”
Shay nodded, and they moved out. They paused at the door while the scout checked for traps and listened for anything that might be waiting beyond the door; that done, Talen pushed it open, revealing only the empty passage extending to their left and right.
“What lies down that way?” Shay whispered, nodding to the left.
“Dead end,” Dar said. “In more ways than one.”
They headed right, down the long passage. They passed one door, which led to a small room where the Doomed Bastards had once taken refuge. The lock that had once secured the door had been smashed, and the door now hung ajar. Pausing just long enough to verify that the room was empty, they continued forward. A short distance further down the corridor, they encountered a second door, or rather the remnants of one; only a broken hinge and a few scraps of wood scattered about the floor were left. Both the walls and floor around the threshold were covered with old bloodstains, but the room beyond the doorway was again empty. There was another door on the far side of the room, which led to the stairs that Varo, Dar, and Tiros had once used to enter the cavern of the purple worms. That was was blocked, now, the stairway collapsed by the worm that had killed the marshal.
“What happened here?” Talen asked.
“We got our asses kicked,” Dar said. “Same as always.”
“We battled a small company of ogres,” Varo said. “The bodies are gone; we encountered a pack of ghouls that had... had their way with the corpses. We also left behind some green slime nearby, last time. Keep an eye out.”
Shay nodded, and led them onward. The scout kept to the shadows on the right side of the passage, letting the light sources held by the others shine on ahead. Their
continual flames revealed that the passage came to an eventual end up ahead. There were three more doorways visible; two on the right, and one at the end of the corridor. Only the first and the last had doors still in them, and those had been obviously battered, and dangled open from bent hinges.
“Somebody’s been wandering around here since we left,” Dar muttered.
Shay reached the first doorway and cautiously looked through it into the dark room beyond. The threshold was charred black; when they’d explored the room before, all they’d found was wreckage scorched by an old fire that had predated their coming. The place smelled of death.
“Allera!” Talen hissed, as the healer staggered against the wall. The dragon, flying a pace behind her, let out an alarmed chirp and landed on the wall above her.
“I... I’m all right,” the healer said, pushing away the captain’s supporting hands. “Just... need a moment, that’s all.”
Shay, distracted, glanced back. So it was that she didn’t see the huge form that materialized out of the shadows of the room, dark and silent.
But she certainly felt the impact of its fist as it smashed into the side of her face. The scout spun around as she was knocked backward, and she fell to her knees, stunned.
Her attacker, an ugly, bloated ogre, staggered out into the light of the corridor. One look was enough to reveal that it was dead, its eyes empty black hollows that fixed on the companions as it turned. Its ragged garments, caked in old blood, had been mostly torn away, revealing a mangled, gashed torso that was covered with fuzzy growths.
The zombie slowly lifted its huge arm to deliver a finishing blow to the dazed scout. Dar was already charging,
Valor bright in his hand; Talen was only a step behind him, turning from Allera and drawing his own sword. But Varo got to the creature before the fighters could close the distance. Lifting his divine focus, the cleric called upon the power of Dagos, filling the corridor with a violet surge of negative energy. The zombie immediately froze, its fist stopping in mid-air above Shay’s dazed form.
Dar let out a low growl as he rushed toward the zombie, uncaring whether or not Varo had it under control. He brought back
Valor, letting his momentum build up for a strike that would rip through the unholy power that animated it, sending it back to death for good.
Further down the tunnel, a low moan announced the arrival of other ogre zombies, one from the empty second doorway, and another that staggered through the open door at the far end of the passage. But they were too slow to be a threat, for the moment.
Shay shook her head to clear it, and looked up at the zombie looming over her. Her mouth trailed blood where the zombie’s fist had smashed her lip, and her jaw dangled at an unnatural angle, broken by the force of the impact. But as she saw the growths that covered the zombie’s body, she immediately recognized the greater danger.
“Dar, no!” she tried to yell, but the words came out as a garbled slur, and she was too late to intercept the fighter as he brought his sword up in a blur, slashing through the ogre’s body, tearing its body open from its crotch to its shoulder.
Unfortunately, the titanic blow also disturbed the yellow mold that covered the zombie, which exploded out into a toxic cloud that engulfed both the fighter and the scout.
