Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3250591" data-attributes="member: 143">I will post again this afternoon, which will conclude Book 1 of the story. * * * * * Chapter 71ESCAPEThe bee crawled forward.  Varo, recovering quickly, stepped smoothly aside, letting it pass to the far side of the hive.  The cleric rejoined the others, who had watched the encounter at the mouth of a shaft on the far side of the cavern.  “You have more luck than sense, cleric,” Talen said.  “Knowledge is a weapon as strong as any sword, captain.  This may be useful.”“Are we getting out of here or not?” Dar asked. With a final telling look at the cleric, Talen removed his pack, and began taking off his armor.  Allera accepted the burden, rolling up the fine blacksteel suit, tucking it into the straps of his pack.  Setarcos handed him a coil of rope, one of two they’d found in Banth’s very well-stocked laboratory.  None of them wanted to think about the uses that the wizard had put the silk cord to, but if they could use it to escape, it was well worth taking.  “I’ll signal down when it’s safe to come up,” he told them.  “Keep an eye and a hand on the rope; two tugs means it’s safe to come up.”  He mimed tapping the hilt of his dagger against the adjacent wall.  “I’ll tap if I encounter anything.  One tap means it’s okay, keep coming.  Anything more than that, trouble.”“What should we do if you run into something up there?” Allera asked. “Throw lots for his armor,” Dar said.  The others looked at him; nobody laughed. “I’ll be fine,” Talen said.  “Remember, one at a time, and help each other where you can.”The captain took off his swordbelt, and drew his glowing magical sword.  Taking a sharp knife from Setarcos, he cut away at the leather scabbard, until he had torn away a foot-long strip.  Sliding the sword back into the scabbard, he slung the belt across his chest, so that the glowing blade shone softly ahead of him.  “Careful that doesn’t foul you,” Dar said.Talen smiled.  “Worried about me after all, mercenary?”“I just want to get out of here.  If you fall, then that means I gotta make the climb.”“Just listen for the signal.”“I don’t think I can do this,” Kupra said, looking up the shaft.  “Yes, you can,” Allera said.  “I’ll be right behind you, don’t worry.”“It’s not so bad,” Setarcos said, looking up the shaft.  “The slope isn’t quite vertical, and the shaft is rough, with lots of handholds.”“All right,” Talen said, checking his gear one last time.  “I’m ready.”  “Good luck,” Allera said.  The captain nodded and entered the shaft.  The rope trailed up after him, uncoiling steadily.  Setarcos remained in the shaft, watching after him, although the twists in the tunnel made him impossible to see after about fifteen minutes.  The first rope approached the end of its length; Dar fastened the second to the end of the first.  He tied Talen’s pack to the end of the second rope, along with the heavy bronze bowl. “We don’t want to lose that,” Varo said.  “I know, I know,” the fighter said, without looking up. The second rope had only gone through about half its length when Setarcos indicated that he’d felt a tug.  The monk started up, and Kupra moved into position, prodded by Allera. They made their way up.  After Kupra, Allera got the tug, and went up.  Dar and Varo shared a look.  “After you, warrior,” the cleric said. “No, I’ll be last.  What?  I’m a better climber than you, and stronger.  And if the bees decide they want to mess with us after all, I’m better equipped to handle them.”Varo looked at him.  “Very well.  Good luck, Dar.”“Just get up there.  We’re leaving.”“Of course.”Varo got the signal and climbed up, leaving Dar alone.  Varo had taken Aelos’s staff, slinging it through loops across his back.  The fighter remained at the base of the shaft, holding onto the rope, listening to the buzzing of the bees. Finally, the rope tugged on his grasp.  The mercenary made his way up. The climb was difficult, especially with the darkness, and since Dar hadn’t taken off his own armor, or left his heavily laden pack.  But Setarcos had been right about the handholds, and the fighter made his way up to where the first segment of rope met the second without difficulty.  There were occasional ledges, and he paused to pull up the end of the rope, leaving Talen’s pack and Varo’s damned bowl there before pressing up further. A few minutes after that, he heard a faint tap from above.  He waited.  A minute passed, and then he could hear something crawling down the shaft.  He couldn’t see it, but he could smell it coming closer. “Damned bees,” he muttered, wrapping the rope around his bracer, and pushing himself into a niche in the side of the shaft.  He drew his punching dagger.  The bee drew closer, until its smell was overwhelming.  Dar felt something soft brush his arm, and he tensed... but then it was past, the sounds of its passage receding.  Dar let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.  A short distance further, and the shaft straightened, heading upward at about a seventy-five degree angle.  He hardly needed to use the rope now, and paused to drag up the end of the rope and its burdens.  The bowl made a loud clanking noise on the rock with each tug; he’d wrapped a blanket around it, but apparently it had come loose. “If the rope breaks, there’s no way I’m going down after it,” he muttered to himself.  “Damned priests and their magic...”But the bowl made it up without mishap, and he laid it in a secure niche before pressing on.  He could see a light up ahead, and soon Varo’s face, illuminated in the glow of the continual flame.  It took him only a few minutes to reach him; the shaft leveled out there, and opened onto what looked like a cave just beyond. “The bowl?” the cleric asked. “Yeah, good to see you to,” Dar said.  He gave the rope a tug.  “You can pull it up the rest of the way.”  He made his way past the cleric, into the cave. A cool breeze met his nostrils, and for a moment he just stood there, breathing deeply.  “Hey, where is everybody?” he asked.  “Up here,” came Allera’s voice from ahead. He moved around a bend in the cave, and then he saw the most welcome sight he could remember seeing in his life. Stars.  He crawled forward—the end of the cave had a low ceiling—and emerged on a rocky slope blanketed in dense brush.  Talen, Setarcos, and Kupra were there with Allera, standing in the darkness together in shared silence.  They’d made it.  They’d escaped Rappan Athuk.</blockquote>

Verification