NOVEL NEXT Chapter Ninety-Eight: Dungeons and...?
Dungeons and…?
I managed to look almost cool and competent most of the way down, but when the ground was approaching too quickly I panicked, tried to shift, and ended up in a roll most of the way down the gravely rockslide. I stood up, dusted myself off, double-checked that I hadn't taken any hitpoint damage and looked up to see my party descending in a much more cautious fashion. Standing here in the morning light I had to admit it was beautiful. The gray spires stood majestic against a clear blue sky, sun just peaking in behind the Eastern cliffs.
The rest of the people in our group got down within a couple of minutes, some of the more reckless of the riders straight up leaping down to the valley, jumping dozens of feet and landing in a crouch or a roll. I guessed that they were reckless, but for all I knew they had abilities that negated fall damage or massive athletic or acrobatic skill scores.
Will and the rest of the party caught up to me and we walked towards the dungeon entrance. Will's group got straight to setting up a perimeter around it, stacking rocks into makeshift fortifications and breaking trenches and holes in the rocky ground beneath. Once again the significantly superhuman physical strength of the fighter types became apparent, as fortifications went up in minutes rather than days. Once again I remembered what had happened back in the forest with the hag's raid.
"Watch the skies," I said, "And maybe make a roof."
"Be careful of burrowing creatures too. Not much that could chew through solid stone, but you never know," Adam said.
"I think Alex is getting pretty close to learning teleportation magic. You should be on the lookout for that also," Anna said.
"Maybe think of some protocols for illusions. Changing my face to look like someone else isn't even that hard," I said. The riders faces fell, from content working, to slowly dawning horror.
"Hey, pals, I know it's been rough for you, but try not to frighten my riders to death?" Will said.
"What, it's good advice," Anna said.
"I'm sure it is. But a little bit of motivational speaking would really have helped the medicine go down," Will said.
A younger member of Will's retinue, a man with a steady smile that had only shaken instead of dropping at our recommendations spoke up.
"We'll do all that, Will, don't worry about it. You're the ones doing the dangerous part here, we'll just make sure you have somewhere to escape if you need it," he said.
"Good lad. Now, dungeonfuckers, ready to fuck some dungeon?" Will said.
"Hell yeah," Anna said.
"When you say 'fuck', what do you mean, exactly?" Adam said.
Will chuckled and went through the misty portal that separated the dungeon from the rest of the world. Sarah followed with a shrug, and then the rest of us rushed to keep up.
I thought back to how Emma had mentioned accidentally wandering into a dungeon, and now that I was through the entrance that seemed unbelievable- first, the passage itself was intensely unusual. For a few seconds I felt like I was stuck in some very viscous fluid, only to suddenly jump ahead, as I found myself in the interior of the dungeon itself. Then, when I saw the dungeon, it was so much more intensely and obviously magical than the world around it, that I had no doubt I was somewhere else.
A stream cut the stone floor in two, shallow, clear and softly glowing with a green light. The constant flow of water left the air damp and filled with the scent of mildew and mushroom. The waterway disappeared into the distance as the tunnel split in two a couple of dozen feet ahead. There were fist-sized mushrooms growing on the walls and by them, many of them bioluminescent, many of them dripping with luminous goop, glowing blue and green, just barely enough to outline the caverns in something that was not quite darkness. I could see my party members ahead of me, as the two warrior types were unsheathing their swords and raising their shields.
"I'm going to fucking die here, ain't I?" Sarah said.
"No you're not, what are you talking about," Will said.
"Y'all are connected, big backstories, long lost friends reunited. I'm just some redshirt here," Sarah said.
"It'd be a lot more tragic if I died. Really get the emotional punch in there. Just reunited with my friends, then blam," Will said.
"Nah, you're the protagonist," I said, "Anyways, we shouldn't joke about that. This place has a narrative it likes to push."
"Through a sieve. And by narrative I mean you people. And by a sieve I mean a literal sieve, where your soft, fleshy bodies are pushed through by the fist of god," Chum said, cheerfully.
"Maybe he'll die," Sarah said.
"Won't stick, ma'am," Chum said.
"Nobody dies. That's an order," Will said, "Thoughts on how we go about this?"
"What does your quest say? We don't have many details about this place," I said.
"Explore the dungeon, kill the toadpriest," Will said, "Not much more in the way of details, just found a journal- lowercase j- by a skeleton, and when I read it there was a quest in my Journal."
"Lazy fucking writing," Chum said.
"Those tunnels look a bit tight for the big toads. Let's expect something more agile here," Anna said.
"I'll seal off the left path, we'll have a couple of minutes going down the right side with no chance of being followed," I said.
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"Thank god for tight hallways and your bullshit overpowered barrier ability," Anna said.
"It's only good in hallways. That's textbook situational," I said.
"Sure thing, barrier boy," Anna said.
We moved ahead and I chanted the spell, cutting off the left passageway before we had the chance to turn our backs to it. We went right, stepping into a much tighter hallway, wide enough to have two people walk side-by-side if they were willing to scrape the walls with their shoulders. We walked single-file, Will leading, followed by Sarah, then the rest of us in a more fluid arrangement. The stream was now directly underfoot, ankle-deep, and felt cool, but not freezing. As we ventured deeper, fewer and fewer mushrooms were around, until, eventually, it was too dark to see properly.
"Light?" Will said.
"Any of you have some sort of a darkvision ability?" Sarah said.
"Sure. It's not great for the environment though. Couldn't tell if something was camouflaged here," Chum said.
"Being on the bad end of an ambush is an engagement tactic too," Will said.
"Yeah, that would be the bad one," Anna said.
"I can't cast most spells if I can't see the target. Might be worth it," I said.
"It's not like you two are exactly quiet," Adam said.
"Alright, which one of you wizards can light our path?" Will said.
"Can you make the fire between me and whatever's ahead?" I said, turning to Anna.
She frowned, thought for a moment, then muttered the syllables that cast a spell. A bright flame the size of a toenail burst out of nothing a dozen feet ahead of us. There was nothing in front of us but more cave. A tight, cloying feeling seized my chest. Nothing wrong was wrong, wasn't it?
"I have to focus to move it. I'll drop it if we're in a fight, but then there'll be a lot more fire to see by promptly," Anna said.
"Okei, doesn't look like there's anything here, let's keep walking," Sarah said, striking the pommel of her sword at the stone to her right, as if to test if it's truly solid.
The first strike was stone. The second strike was a meaty plap. The yellow eye opened to our right, then another, and none of us had the time to react before the giant toad standing next to us, perfectly blended into the stone opened its mouth and surged forward. Sarah leaped back, but there was simply nowhere to go, and the toad turned its head vertically, and grabbed her in its mouth. There was immediately the sound of metal crumpling, as her armor broke and was crushed by the massive stone jaws. She started screaming within seconds.
Will was the first to react. Not even bothering to take the time to slash at the creature, he dashed forward and leaped on its back, with just enough space to maneuver, he pulled at the upper jaw of the toad. He pulled with both his arms as Sarah was screaming, but the beast didn't move.
Adam began walking towards the fight, raising his hands in quiet contemplation, reminiscent of the little I'd seen of him in the featherworm fight. Whatever angle he was looking for wasn't materializing, however, and after a few seconds Anna pushed him aside and threw sparks into the toad's eyes.
This infuriated the creature and it croaked in pain, loosening its grip on Sarah somewhat, but also jumping and thrashing around, slamming Will against the cave walls and roof, hitting him hard enough that without his helm he would definitely have had his head smashed in.
For fuck's sake, I had dozens of spells. One of them had to do something. Nothing clean came to mind, so I went for something unpleasant.
"Will, get ready for a buff," I said, "Fus!"
My spellbook flew ahead in front of me, snapped open in the firelight, pages flickering until the sigil for Overcharge appeared. I just hoped Will's stats were already enhanced enough that this spell that'd push him to the limit would be enough. The incantation felt like it took forever.
"Vie-Auf-Vit-Cro-Vyl-EX!" I called, and a green energy burst towards my friend. He screamed a manic scream that turned to laughter. He was still tossed around for a few more seconds, and then, grasping tightly on the toad's mouth he grabbed a dull stalactite with his feet, removed his right hand from the toad's mouth, and actually held it down for the moment necessary to retrieve a chunky hunter's knife from his belt. He then jammed it in under the toad's upper lip with his right hand, creating a secure handhold, and freaking the toad out even more. But it could hardly thrash any harder, and with the new leverage Will managed to pry its jaws open wide enough that Sarah flapped out of its mouth and onto the floor, unmoving.
The very same instant that that happened, Anna shouted a truncated fire spell and a gout of flame hit the toad in the still-open mouth and as it gagged and scream-croaked, it gave me just enough time to flip to icicle and shoot a barrage of ice shards the size of snow-shovelblades into its open, gaping throat, slashing it to ribbons and producing a flood of ichor and blood.
Will was the first to rush to Sarah, but as my spell ran out, the shock to his system, combined with his injuries was bad enough that his legs first shook, and then he collapsed next to her. I rushed over to them.
"Health pot. Left-most satchel on belt," Will said.
I found the potion and rushed to Sarah. She looked like she should be dead, all of her limbs pointing in wrong directions, her armor crumpled in the places where she'd been grabbed by the toad, so tight that it clearly bit into bone. But she had a Journal and likely a boosted physique, so I assumed she was alive. I flipped open her helmet, and saw her unconscious face, and so I fed her the potion. I knew if she healed sealed in the armor it'd be bad, but I also knew that if we wasted time getting her out of it she would almost certainly die there and then. There was a breath. Then a confused 'huh?' from her. Then, the sound of bone kitting, breaking, pushing against crumpled steel. Then she screamed again. I was already struggling to tear away the pieces of the armor when the healing began, but it was just too damn tight, the metal too fused into her for me to break it away with my bare hands. I didn't know what to do.
And that was the best case scenario.