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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3201579" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 50 BENEVOLENT SQUALORAelos’s light revealed that the monster was a bulbous creature with a squat torso the size of a wagon, with an ugly mottled hide that was the color and consistency of a sewer pit.  A huge maw littered with teeth split the summit of its torso, and several tentacles jutted from its body; two long tendrils that ended in wide flaps of leathery hide, and a shorter stalk that appeared to support several beady eyes that peered intently at the intruders that had come upon its sanctum.  Talen tried to lift his sword, but the creature’s long tentacle had pinned his swordarm.  The creature turned him upside down as it brought him close to the eye-stalk, shaking him slightly as it gave him a closer look.  “Let me through!” Dar said, all but shoving Allera into a trash heap as he burst from the passage, unlimbering his club as he came.  But Varo leapt forward to block the fighter from charging the creature.  “What in the hells are you doing?” he yelled. “I don’t think it means him any harm,” Varo said. “What?  You’ve got to be kidding... look at it!”“Talen!  Are you hurt?” Varo asked.  “Um... no, I guess,” the captain said, as the creature lowered him back to within a few inches above the ground—right side up—although it did not release him.  The creature’s huge mouth opened up, and a rumbling like an earthquake issued from somewhere deep within its body. “Wachoowanteretwolegsmellfunny”“It speaks!” Aelos said.  “After a fashion,” Allera said, shooting a dirty look at Dar as she rose from the nearest mound, brushing filth of her cloak.  “I am Allera,” she said, holding up her empty hands to reassure it.  “This is Dar, Varo, Aelos, and the man you are holding is named Talen.  Could you release him, please?” The creature looked at her—an eerie sensation, given its alien nature.  Then it released Talen, dropping him a bit roughly to the ground.  Its two long tentacles flailed at the air, and Dar likewise held himself ready for the situation to turn, his club gripped tightly in his hands.  As it moved, the filth that caked its body dropped off in fat lumps.  “Did it say that we smell funny?” Dar asked. “Dar, please, at least it is not attacking us,” Varo noted. “What is your name?” Allera asked. The creature made a noise the resembled a consumptive hacking up a lung.  “Uh... I think I’ll call it Max,” Dar said.  “I knew a Max in the army, he kinda smelled and sounded like this guy.”Allera shot him a look, then turned back to the otyugh.  “We do not intent to hurt you,” she told it. “Twolegstastyhungryhelps?”“I think it’s asking if we want to be a meal,” Dar said, not taking his eyes off the creature.  “I think we’ll have to pass,” Talen said, rubbing his swordarm.  He kept the weapon low, but ready to strike if the creature tried to grab him again. “I’m afraid we aren’t very appetizing,” Allera said.  “But I know where there’s a lot of good food... fresh, too.  We could bring you some meat, in exchange for safe passage.”“Um, what’s she doing?” Dar said in a whispered aside to Talen.  “Is she saying what I think she’s saying?”“She’s the diplomat,” Talen whispered back.  “That thing had a tight grip.  If you don’t want to be a meal for it, I’d suggest you follow her lead.”The otyugh watched them all, but its eyestalks focused on Allera.  “Twolegsmaketrade?”While the healer continued to talk to the creature, Varo turned and looked at Aelos.  “A benevolent creature amidst squalor?” he said to the cleric of the Father.  Aelos, surprised, looked thoughtful and nodded. It took only a few more brief exchanges for Allera to negotiate and arrangement with the creature.  It seemed to know little about the dungeon beyond the cavern, not surprising, given that it was too big to navigate any of the exits.  But it did show them one of the low rat tunnels that was mostly hidden behind a pile of refuse at the end of one of the branches of the cavern, a tunnel that it said led to, “Sumudderplace.”Dar protested, but eventually agreed to help Varo drag several ogre limbs, hacked from the corpses back in the outer cavern, through the tight passageway.  The otyugh accepted them eagerly, tearing into one of them while the companions watched with queasy stomachs.  In exchange, the creature dug through one of its mounds with its tentacles, and pulled out a metal disk that it dropped onto the ground at their feet. “Twolegshinymetaldangly,” it said. Dar took a rag and wiped off some of the filth from the disk.  “This is mithral!” he said.  Turning it over, he could see the mounting brackets where leather straps could be fixed.  “A shield.”“Magical,” Varo said.  “It may have belonged to the elf whose body we found in one of those ogre sacks,” Talen said.“Thank you for your generosity, um... creature,” Allera said.  “If we come this way again, we’ll be sure to bring you more... food.”As the otyugh turned to its meal, the companions retreated toward the passage that the creature had indicated.  “Another tight squeeze,” Talen said, as they reached it.  “What just happened?” Dar asked, as Talen took the lighted staff from Aelos, and probed the entrance of the tunnel with it.  “Did we just make friends with a ball of trash?”“Any friend at all is better than none, in this place,” Varo said.  “It’s going to be crawling again,” Talen said, looking up at them.  “But the tunnel appears to be unobstructed.”  Handing the staff back to Aelos, he lowered his body until he was lying on the ground, and he started into the tunnel.  “These low tunnels... something bad is going to happen in them, I know it,” Allera said. “Something bad is going to happen no matter what we do,” Varo said.  “At least this way we are moving to confront our destinies, and not cowering in a corner waiting for it to come to us.”“A cheerful thought,” Dar said.  “You’re up, angel.”Allera followed Aelos into the tunnel, followed by Varo.  Once again, Dar brought up the rear.  This tunnel was longer than the others they had negotiated earlier.  They crawled on for over a hundred feet, pausing occasionally to rest and to listen for any sounds of dangerous creatures ahead or behind.  But other than the shuffling noises that they made as they moved, the cramped tunnel was as quiet as the grave.“Gods, how far does this go on?” Allera asked.“Opening up ahead,” Talen whispered back.  Aelos nodded, and passed the word down the line. Wary of another attack, the fighter emerged from the tunnel into another cavern.  This chamber was big, maybe sixty feet across, with irregular crevices situated at uneven intervals around the perimeter.  The floor was covered with gravel and small stones, and there were a few uneven mounds of debris visible within the radius of their light.  The familiar stink of Rappan Athuk hung over the place, but after the otyugh’s chamber, the stale air smelled almost pleasant. Talen drew his glowing sword, driving back the darkness another dozen paces, but still leaving the far side of the chamber draped in shadow.  Aelos turned to help Allera out of the tunnel.  The healer nodded in thanks, and took several deep breaths. Neither of them noticed the shadowy form that crept along the wall toward them. Talen continued to stare out into the darkness.  He heard nothing except for the sounds of his companions behind him, but there was something, a deep instinct, that whispered of something wrong.  Then he saw the eyes, points of red that hovered in the air at the edges of the light.  “Danger!” he hissed in warning.  He lifted his sword, but even as he saw the humanoid creature charge into the light, another materialized out of the shadows behind them, leaping onto his back, digging its claws into his neck.  The captain screamed as life energy was sucked out of his body. “Talen!” Allera yelled.  She and Aelos rushed to his aid, but a third wight surged forward out of the shadows to block them, its claws extended eagerly to tear into the healer’s chest.</blockquote>

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