Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 12

Silence hung over the Adventurer party as they awaited something more from the disembodied voice of Lord Mare, but it appeared nothing further was forthcoming.

“I’m beginning to think that they just don’t like explaining things around here,” Henrich said.

“Maybe because it’s supposed to be that simple?” Penn ventured a guess, “We’re just Copper-ranks, after all. Merry said we’re supposed to go through the first few floors of this ‘dungeon’ and that’s it.”

Their heads all turned towards Howe.

“Right,” the Rogue said. “Scouting, or something…”

He pulled down the cowl of his mantle, revealing a head of close-cropped sandy hair. After checking over the assorted items attached to his belt, he padded into the ruin. Given the exciting welcome that the Adventurers had received that afternoon, Ludmila was half expecting something to jump out at their Rogue as soon he entered. Howe silently disappeared down the staircase with no such thing happening, however, and the party let out a collective breath.

“So are we going along with Henrich’s plan?” Themis asked, “Just to be sure.”

“If things are as narrow as this,” Kyla motioned to the entrance, “I can’t think of any better way.”

A flickering light appeared from the ruin entrance, followed by Howe, who was holding a torch in his left hand. A long dagger, similar in length and appearance to Ludmila’s own, was in his right.

“It’s clear to the bottom of the stairs,” he reported, wiping his blade on the grass.

“What happened?” Kyla asked, looking down at the long, greenish-yellow smear.

“There was some sort of bug waiting at the bottom of the stairs,” he replied. “I didn’t want to see what it would do, so I gave it a good stab while I had the chance.”

Howe jerked his head to motion the rest of the party forward before turning around to head back down. When they arrived behind him in the small room below, they came across what Howe had described. Cast aside to one of the corners of the chamber was a reddish-brown insect with a flat, oval body about as large as Ludmila’s foot. The same, greenish-yellow ichor leaked out of the single puncture through its abdomen. Half of the party recoiled in disgust.

“Pretty gross, huh?” Howe said with a hint of amusement in his voice.

Kyla’s azure eyes just grew wider the longer she stared at the dead insect.

“What the hell – that thing is huge,” she sounded like she was going to be sick. “Howe, that’s the only one, right? You’re not going to say something like ‘six more of them ran away when I lit my torch’, right?”

“Relax,” Howe replied, handing his torch to Themis, “there was only one. Gonna check ahead again, I’ll be back.”

The Rogue entered the next hall and disappeared around the corner. Kyla was peeking over her shield at the ground nervously – she was definitely in no state of mind to be relaxed. Themis looked around the entrance chamber, holding the torch up near to the closest wall.

“I wonder how long this took to construct,” the Cleric voiced her thoughts aloud as she examined a broken fixture, “and all this only to damage parts of it to give it an authentic feeling...I don’t recognize any of this imagery though.”

The walls of the room were fashioned out of uniform grey stone blocks. Its detailing and fixtures were not of any style Ludmila was familiar with. The majority were defaced and left in various stages of disrepair, leaving jagged protrusions of stone that cast uneven shadows in the torchlight. She agreed with the Cleric’s observation: the time and cost of doing something like this all for the sake of creating an authentic training environment spoke volumes of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s investment into the Guild.

Howe appeared in the corridor once again. He returned to them with relaxed steps, and his grey eyes glanced around the room before he gave his report.

“Hall goes thirty metres to the right,” he said in a low voice. “There’s some sort of tile about halfway through that I think might be a trap – I left a piece of slag glass on it that should catch the light of the torches. The room at the end has another one of those bugs…it’s just sitting there like the other one was in this room when I found it.”

“You’re killing it,” Kyla said as she looked at Henrich’s brandished warhammer. “I don’t want to get anywhere near one of those.”

As mentioned, the piece of glass Howe had placed to mark the potential trap glimmered clearly with reflected torchlight as soon as they rounded the corner. Beyond, they could see what appeared to be the exact same insect sitting in the middle of the next room. They stopped after passing the marked tile and looked towards the occupant of the next room warily: its long feelers waved around slightly, but it did not react to their presence.

“Uh, there’s nothing else in there, right?” Henrich said to make sure.

“Beats me,” Howe returned. “Not like I can walk in front of the thing to look around. Did you want me to kill it for you?”

“No, no. I got this,” the Fighter said, hefting his warhammer. “Does anyone know what these actually are? Abilities? Poison? Rangers should be familiar with this sort of stuff, shouldn’t they?”

“It just looks like a cockroach,” Ludmila said. “A large cockroach. They’re not poisonous, as far as I know. It might run off or fly somewhere if you miss somehow.”

Her explanation was as casual as she could make it, but her words seemed to only generate more unease. Kyla raised her shield again and kicked Henrich on the side of his boot. The other fighter shook his head as he stepped forward to face off against his opponent.

When he got within a few metres of the cockroach, it raised its head and feelers towards him.

“Why are you waiting!” Kyla pushed him from behind, “Kill it, kill it killitkillit!”

Henrich chuckled incredulously as he was edged forward and smashed it with an overhead swing. A second insect detached itself from where it was hiding inside the room and flew at him. He threw his arm out, slapping it out of the air with his shield. It bounced off of the wall and careened down the hall to where the rest of the party watched.

The cockroach skidded to a halt on its back near Kyla’s feet, stunned and twitching erratically from Henrich’s reaction. The other Fighter let out a shrill shout and kicked it back towards the room. Henrich was jounced slightly as it bounced off of his leg and he turned to swing his weapon down to finish it off.

Howe mumbled something while shaking his head, walking off to investigate further.

“Easy,” Henrich smiled lightly as the party entered the room. “What. Why–”

“We’re switching sides,” Kyla said as she pointed her steel longsword at him. “Keep that weapon away from me.”

Henrich looked to the head of his warhammer, which was dripping ichor. He laughed as he kicked the insect corpses out of the way.

“Just how are you going to survive like this?” He asked her as he stepped over to stand on her right, “There’s far worse than bugs.”

“Those aren’t just bugs,” she scowled at him. “You’ve just never…never…never…”

Kyla’s words trailed off as she glanced at the dead cockroach and quickly looked away again, shuddering.

The second room was nearly identical to the first; an identical corridor extended out from it, turning in the same direction. Ludmila wrinkled her nose as the pungent odour of the smashed cockroaches filled the air. Thankfully, Howe appeared again within a few minutes.

“Two traps, I marked them the same way. Another room…with another roach.”

“Let’s just move,” Penn said quickly. “This smell is horrible.”

The party skirted around the traps, which put them not far away from the next room. As with the previous insect, this one did not react to their presence in the hall.

“So if the last hall was two,” Henrich mused, “does that mean that this next one will be three?”

“You’re up again,” Kyla nudged him. “Keep putting that bug masher to work. Don’t send one at us this time.”

“What?” Henrich replied, “Nuh-uh. That last one that flew at me looked like it was trying to bite. Three at a time will definitely get me – I haven’t been bitten by a bug that big before, but I’m not keen on feeling what it’s like if I can help it.”

“Then let’s just kill it from here,” Kyla’s voice became even more shrill. “Ludmila, just shoot it – you can hit it from this far away, right?”

The room was only ten metres away, and the target wasn’t moving. An archer that couldn’t land that shot couldn’t rightly be called an archer at all. She pulled an arrow from the quiver at her waist, nocking it and releasing it at half draw. The arrow buried itself in its mark and the cockroach was carried away by the arrow as it bounced off of the floor and out of sight. A rustling sound was immediately heard and the expected additions skittered into view, coming towards the party at a startling speed.

Kyla froze, holding up her shield out towards the darting insect headed her way. It jumped up and fastened itself onto its wooden surface, and Howe reached out to stab it with his dagger, pushing it off as it thrashed and died.

Henrich met the charge of his opponent, bringing his weapon down and striking a clean blow. Maybe a bit too clean. The remainder of its corpse continued in the direction of its momentum, tumbling past the members behind who quickly stepped out of the way. It came to rest on the nearest marked tile and there was an audible click.

“Uh…what does it do, Howe?” Penn asked worriedly as a grinding sound started around them.

“Hell if I know!” He snapped, “It’s built into the structure, it’s not some hastily rigged thing. If it was, I would have disarmed it instead of marking it.”

The party relocated into the now-cleared room. Flipping their formation around, they eyed the vacated hall from where the grinding sound continued. After a minute, the sound stopped and panels on either side of the corridor fell to the floor with a clatter, spilling a great amount of cockroaches into the hall.

Ludmila sighed and nocked a fresh arrow. As she did so, she mused over how pointless the action seemed against so many small targets.

“What happened? It’s too dark to see what’s there.” Penn peered into the hall over the shoulders of the front line.

“A lot of things happened,” Ludmila replied. “Do we have any way to clear the hall all at once?”

Everyone turned to stare at her with a horrified expression. Themis leaned forward into the corridor with her torch and the shining mass reacted, scurrying away from the light.

“Hieeee…”

Kyla did not look well at all.

“I don’t have any spells that can affect large areas yet,” Penn offered, “but I do have a vial of Alchemist’s Fire if it’s needed…”

“Eh? Wouldn’t that be a waste?” Henrich’s voice sounded pained at the notion, “This is just training, so using items is a bit…”

“They aren’t attacking right away anyways,” Howe said. “Maybe they don’t do anything until we do, like the others?”

“Where do they even get so many of those things, anyways?” Henrich looked for a way through, “Is some place in the Sorcerous Kingdom drowning in cockroaches?”

“C-can’t we just keep going?” Kyla whimpered, “We’re supposed to be headed further in, anyways. Maybe there’s another way out.”

A long flight of stone steps led down out of the room. Like the tomb’s entrance, it curved away and out of sight. Howe started to make his way below, but stopped when he looked over his shoulder and found Kyla following immediately behind him.

“Uh…a little space? It’s dangerous if I don’t check things out first.”

“Don’t make us wait in that room with those things!” Kyla complained, “Twenty–no, ten seconds! Ten seconds should be enough of a lead, right?”

“...Fine, but if you see me stop up ahead, you have to stop at that distance as well. Don’t just walk all over me when I’m checking things out.”

At the bottom of the stairs, there was another room with another cockroach waiting for them. This one was far larger, however: over a metre in length.

“Bloody…” Henrich brought his hammer to bear again.

“Now here’s the question,” Howe mused, “Is it just this one in the room since this is the first room of this floor, or are there three others in this room because it’s the fourth room so far?”

The Fighter stopped his advance to look around nervously.

“There’s no way three things that big can hide in a room this small,” he said.

“I swear you’ve never had to deal with these before,” Kyla stared at the giant cockroach nervously. “They can hide anywhere.”

“We still have to move forward,” Henrich returned, “unless you want to go back up and through the others.”

With no further voices of dissent, he walked forward again. The cockroach looked up at him with its compound eyes, mandibles working silently.

“You know,” Henrich said as he glowered down at the cockroach, “do we even need to attack these? It’s not like we’re going to be chasing every little thing we see out in–woah!”

The cockroach jumped up at Henrich, bowling the fighter over. Its legs clung to the fighter’s legs as shining mandibles gnawed on the edge of the round shield he had brought up in reaction. Howe, who stood the closest behind him, reached out and jabbed the insect in the abdomen. The injured insect released its hold and started to scurry off.

“Someone shoot that thing before it gets away!”

If attacking one drew others nearby, Ludmila dared not imagine what happened if this one ran away into the depths of the tomb.

“「Magic Arrow」!”

Penn cast a spell as Ludmila released an arrow. A flaring dart of magical energy shot out alongside her own attack, both struck the fleeing insect one after the other. Its smooth, giant form collapsed onto the floor with a scraping sound.

“Was that a good idea?” Themis asked after the group let out a collective sigh of relief, “mana is limited, and Ludmila shot it too.”

“Better safe than sorry,” said Kyla. “Imagine if it ran through three more rooms? We’d get buried in these things!”

“Is what we’re doing really all there is to it, though?” Ludmila looked around at the damaged features of the chamber, “Maybe they’re going easy on us to start with, but all we’re really doing is walking around killing things. I thought they would have more in mind for us – this seems less like exploring and more like…cleaning.”

“Yeah, it does seem more like something that Adventurers usually do,” Henrich said after thinking it over, “but what you said about going easy on us is probably the right idea, since none of us know each other. Why else would they space things out so we can talk after every fight?”

Once again, the Fighter’s insight lay at odds with his frivolous personality. Either he was possessed of a great deal of situational awareness and knew how to act accordingly, or his usual attitude was simply a façade. Being able to make quick assessments and making sound calls based on them was something that accompanied a Fighter’s usual role in an Adventurer party, so it seemed he was well-suited to his career choice.

“If that’s the case,” said Howe, “we need to get our act together. They might give us a bad assessment if they think we’re fooling around too much.”

The Rogue stepped away and disappeared into the next hall. Henrich turned to face the other party members.

“He has a point,” his gaze ran over the faces of the women looking back towards him. “We need to pick things up. Half of our frontline almost collapses every time we start a fight and our attacks are being wasted without coordination.”

“I’ll just hold off on casting spells until they’re called for,” Penn looked down. “It’ll save on mana, and Ludmila is supposed to be running Centre Guard anyways.”

“I joined the Guild before everything happened,” Kyla said. “I didn’t think I’d be doing this when I signed up.”

“You and me both,” replied Henrich as he waved the head of his warhammer pointedly, “I joined for the same reason most people did here – to earn bounties off of Undead out in Katze. Now we’re best friends with them. Since you were with the Guild before, you should know that what they’re offering now is way better than the life we signed up for before, right?”

“I get that,” she replied sullenly. “It’s too good to give up. Just give me some time.”