Into the Darkness: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Axe Druid Book 4)

by Christopher Johns

  “We’ll try to be.” Balmur smiled at her from where he stepped out of the shadows. “The drow is going in with us, and then from there, we hunt. But to get in there, we still have the rest of this tunnel and the main one. My thinking is that there are going to be traps. So, I’ll be up front with you checking for them while we move forward. We ready?”

  I assumed my werewolf form. “Let’s hit it.”

  We worked our way slowly down the tunnel, not really finding anything at first, but then we began to see claw marks in the ground. Piles of freshly dug earth covered the sides and center of the tunnel as we moved further. Occasionally, Balmur would call a halt so that we could look for trips and triggers.

  On this most recent stop, we found a wire trap.

  “This isn’t good.” His voice sounded a little strained as he looked the thing over. “No good at all. Fuck.”

  “What?” I leaned over it a little, my balance a little more precarious than I would have expected it to be on flat earth. A sense of vertigo fell over me, and I pitched forward, almost ramming into the wire.

  Balmur was swift and clapped a hand onto the scruff of my neck, hauling me away from the trap and flinging me backward.

  I landed a foot and a half from the line. “I know that wasn’t on purpose,” he stated, “but we need to be careful because I think this area is covered in inconvenient enchantments and traps.”

  “What kind?” Jaken asked, as he came up to our rear.

  “Nasty ones, there’s a cord right in front of Zeke’s left foot, four inches from the floor that looks like a tripwire.” He pointed to a small mote that looked more like dust than wire, then to something else four feet ahead. “Pressure mine, and some kind of log trap. Then there is the enchantment trap that I can just make out as a rune on the wall. I’d have to get a little closer to study it.”

  Before I could even ask, he picked up some dust and blew it onto the wire and frowned. Three more became visible within three feet.

  “Getting through here is going to take time.” Balmur sighed. He followed the line of the wire toward the tunnel wall off to the right of us.

  “Why don’t we just have Zeke fly over and ferry us in his collar?” James spoke softly, carefully so as not to be heard from too far off.

  “The rune traps.” Balmur motioned carefully forward. “My mentor taught me all about them, and they can be nasty little things. There’s no telling what they’re meant to do, and I’m not going to risk having this whole section of tunnel coming down on us because we were in a rush. Chill, and let me work.”

  So, we did. He seemed to find the mechanism for the first trap easily. Putting a small copper coin on the trigger to act as a shim so it wouldn’t strike a pan that it was connected to, then checked the other end before he cut the wire. It was slow-moving, sure, but his attention to the details saved us.

  “See this one here?” He pointed to the last wire.

  I shook my head, and he just rolled his eyes as he traced it with his hand. As he followed it, he traced it over to the hidden mechanism that looked to be a pulley, then up toward the side of the tunnel wall. He motioned for Muu to come over, and the dragon-kin lifted him so that he could collect a small vial hidden behind a hanging stone.

  He put it into my hand.

  Undead’s Lament

  Liquid contents of this vial take on a gaseous form and spreads into a large area. The contents infect those who inhale it with a plague that will render them mindless over time. Their flesh falling from the bones and rotting forever alive.

  One use.

  Ooooh no. That would be terrible.

  “Yeah, you take your time, and the next fuck who says anything about speedrunning this place—I wallop with my axe.”

  The others looked skeptically at me, but I passed the vial around, and it quelled their discomfort with the pace real fast.

  It took us a good fifteen minutes to get to the first rune, and even then, Balmur had no idea what it did.

  Normally, I would have to touch something to look at the enchantment. But I wanted to try to do something with my growing magical senses. I pressed my awareness forward through the darkness and tried to explore what the rune did or held in store for the activation.

  I didn’t get a status for it, or any normal explanation, but I did get a general feel for it.

  Anyone alive who walked through the range of that rune set off an alarm that the caster would hear. Other than that, there was no way for me to break it, but there would be a way to get rid of it. If Yoh were strong enough, he could take my axe and do the dirty work himself, but his low strength might just as easily cause him to fall into another trap and screw us over.

  A heavy sigh escaped me as I looked to my friends, “This could get fucked up, but there’s no way I can touch that thing to disarm it, and I can’t dispel magic.” I brought Magus Bane out into my hands from my inventory, hefting the comfortable weight. “But I’ve got my personal eraser right here. Stand back.”

  The others backed a little farther down the tunnel toward where we had come from, and I turned my weapon until the hammer portion of the weapon was forward. I set my feet wide, bent my knees, and pulled the axe back like a major-league batter before swinging it forward toward the outer circle of the runic symbol. Then stopped abruptly. Shit. That wasn’t a good idea.

  The sound of stone being hit by metal would reverberate throughout the tunnel and give us away. So, I kept my wide stance and softly tapped the rune with the hammer head just enough that a small bit of stone fell away. When I checked the rune again, I could somehow tell that it was just ruined enough to allow us to move through without giving the alarm. But I wasn’t sure if it would raise the alarm if destroyed either. We had to move.

  “There could be kickback from that, they may know we’re here anyhow, let’s go,” I warned and shouldered Magus Bane.

  Balmur stepped in front of us, and we moved forward again slowly, half an hour in, Yohsuke perked up. We had almost made it through the majority of the traps too, damn.

  You guys hear that? I couldn’t really hear anything, sounds coming from our route ahead.

  Hide! He hissed to us and waved us to the side. I threw up a thin veil of shadows, and Maebe threw a wall of deep shadow up in front that hid us as we stood near a tunnel wall.

  Four figures approaching, and what looks like mist, he explained as it was too difficult for us to see right that moment. Vampire bats, levels in the low thirties. Can’t make anything on the mist.

  It was quiet for a moment, then Yoh spoke out loud, “So this is where I had to come to learn more about myself?”

  A moment of silence again. “Yeah, they all died terribly, but that’s because they attacked us.”

  What the hell is happening out there? James asked Yohsuke quietly.

  They’re grilling me, shut up a minute.

  “Yeah, that’s because there is one.” Yohsuke sounded tired. The scent of rotten garbage floated and sifted through the shadows. “Well, if you’re going to be like that, hell no, I don’t want to join you. I don’t care if your master is displeased about my not being a pawn.”

  Hissing sounds, and a snarl sounded from the other side of the shadows just before Maebe, and I dropped our cover, and the fight was on.

  Three vampire bats flapped at Yohsuke’s back, trying to flank and lift him up, the fourth held by the throat as the spell blade growled and sliced into it like it was a kabob. The thing’s health was draining swiftly, ebbing from 70% to 65% and by more and more as Yoh held on.

  James crashed into one of the vampires trying to lift his friend from behind in a flurry of punches and kicks with his flaming weapons slashing and puncturing. His victim screeched and fell onto an Earthen Spike summoned by Fainnir.

  Jaken sprinted forward toward the mist with Righteous Brand raised to strike, but Balmur tackled him onto the ground at the same time as a spike erupted from the ceiling scoring the earth where they had just been.

  “Don�
��t do that!” Balmur snarled impatiently, then rolled off the paladin’s chest into the shadows, before launching himself out from beneath one of the vampire bats and coming out slashing like he was some kind of chef’s nightmare.

  Arrows bounced off the tunnel walls as Jafrik attempted to hit a target, anything really, but he just kept shaking too much.

  Me? I summoned Falfyre. The holy blade appeared in my grasp as the mana cost drained away, and I stabbed forward. The vampire bat in Yohsuke’s grasp caught fire as soon as the sword slashed through his back, the scent of ash spreading. The other vampire bats screeched at me, the vibrations coalescing on me, bringing me to my knees, my eardrums pounding furiously. I let the blade go, covered my ears, and willed it to shoot forward into the farthest one.

  It died, and the other two tried to flee, but Bokaj whipped arrows into their wings with silver coins attached to them. Once they fell, Jaken and I fell on them with holy vengeance.

  They were dust by the time we finished, several of the traps behind them having been triggered in their attempt to run from us.

  “Where the fuck is Muu?” James asked as we looked around. It was a solid question; I couldn’t see him.

  “He is standing over his kill.” Maebe pointed down the tunnel to where the mist had been floating away. “When Jaken tried to go by foot, he jumped after the mist and threw his holy spear. The holy weapon must have struck true because it pinned the vampire to the stone.”

  I narrowed my eyes and tried to see him, but I couldn’t. “We gotta get to him, let’s go.”

  Balmur led the charge to him. By charge, I mean trudge. We had to stop and wait for him to disarm the traps and for me to kill the runes. Then I heard grunting and soft cursing.

  I cast my awareness forward and felt a wall of shadows in front of us about thirty feet out. I shredded it with my will and exposed Muu standing over a corpse with its fangs bared. It looked to be human, with red hair, glowing black eyes, and pale skin. Claws reached out toward our friend and tried to knock the spear out of his hand.

  Muu fought desperately to keep the vampire pinned where it was as his ring glowed blue like a beacon, his eyes closed tightly while he muttered.

  “Balmur, go,” I ordered softly, and the rogue nodded once. I took a breath and threw Falfyre forward, spending the necessary couple points of mana a second to keep the weapon under control. Once Balmur stepped from Muu’s shadow, he spoke softly, too low for me to hear at this distance and jabbed forward with his holy daggers.

  The vampire spat and tried to fight back, but Falfyre slid straight into its open mouth, the body crumbling to ash a second later.

  Good job, bud, I told him softly through our earrings. Stay there, let Balmur work his way back to us, and we can move on.

  It took about ten more minutes for him to work his way back to us, but it was worth it.

  “I hadn’t expected that to work.” Muu shuddered. “I could feel him trying to weasel his way into my head. Don’t look in their eyes.”

  “Dude, I told you that.” Yohsuke pinched his shoulder lightly.

  “And I forgot!” He hissed back. “Never again.”

  A shiver ran down my spine, and I refocused on what lay ahead. There were fewer traps now, but they were much deadlier. One of them had activated a secondary trigger when the first had been disabled that shot an arrow toward Balmur. He dodged it easily but hadn’t bothered to redirect the shot. The arrow almost pegged Jafrik in the head, but Maebe snatched the boy out of the way.

  The arrowhead collided with the stone behind them and splattered a solution onto it. It sizzled, and noxious fumes exuded from the spot. I summoned shadows to swallow the fumes making it so we could breathe. We took our time from there on, investigating each trap a bit more thoroughly than before, thanks to that last one.

  It was slow going, working our way closer to the main tunnel, but worthwhile. There was nothing else to slow us down, and we made it to the other larger tunnel that connected us to the larger cavern.

  The walls here appeared to be covered in dust and spores that looked unnatural, like spider eggs.

  Uh, you guys seeing all this? Jaken whispered through our heads. Those look like spider eggs to you?

  Cool shadows swept out from behind us, I turned to see Maebe grimace. The shadows swept over the walls, and where they went, the eggs disappeared.

  It’s a good thing she married you because she could have killed us all. Muu observed with a pat on my shoulder and grim smile.

  I nodded back, watching before us warily.

  If they sent scouts and don’t hear back, they may suspect something is up. James warned from where he snuck through the tunnel.

  It was twice as large as the previous one and had veins of marble and other different kinds of stone in the walls.

  “May be a good time to have Pebble do a sweep of the area, Fainnir.” I ducked down to speak to Fainnir, who eyed the stone around us suspiciously.

  “No, Pebble is on another mission righ’ now.” He held out a hand and knocked on the stone. A large figure stepped out of it, twelve feet tall and more human-looking in shape than anything he had summoned before stood before us. “This be Gem, she’s here to see us there safely. Doesn’t talk much, but she’s smart.”

  I looked at him pointedly, and he sort of bowed his head bashfully. “While the rest of ye were workin’ this mornin’ and havin’ yer talks and breakfast, I was summoning her. I’m strong enough now to control her and one other, weaker elemental. She be of the Sword caste of elementals.”

  He looked up at the large elemental, who patted his head gently. She looked to be made of the surrounding stone, but there were precious gems, veins of platinum, silver, and mithril as well as veins of precious and semi-precious stones in her body, even some sharper-looking ones sticking from her hands like fingers. Her eyes looked like brightly polished coins of onyx, and her mouth was small compared to her brothers’.

  “Good job,” I whispered hoarsely, the elemental regarding me curiously, before patting me on the head. It was like when you see a child very obviously petting a dog way too hard, but the dog loves the child and seems to know they don’t mean any harm by it, and they’re happy anyway. Picture that with a grown-ass man and a giant baby. With sharp fingers and little strength control. “Ouch! Shit, man.”

  “Friend,” she grumbled at me, her small mouth quirking up at the sides oddly in a smile.

  I nodded and tried to smile back at the unnerving creature before turning back to the others and motioning that we should move.

  While we crept forward, I asked Fainnir, “What’s Pebble doing?”

  “Scouting the way,” he replied mysteriously, and I grabbed his shoulder softly to stop him. He sighed. “Donae worry. This trust thin’ goes both ways, you reckon?”

  I should have said he hadn’t earned it yet, but the truth was that he had. He’d been working hard to try and help us as he could with our direction.

  “Okay.” I thumped his arm, and we set off again. “But if you have new abilities like this, you need to say something, okay? What is it that you have planned?”

  He shook his head before replying, “Hopefully somethin’ tha’ we won’t be needin’. If what I learned ‘bout vampires be true from the legends o’ the elder dwarves what schooled us, the less information I share, the better.”

  I looked at him oddly, then remembered Muu’s reaction to the vampire earlier. “They can weasel information out of people if they ensnare them with their gaze?” He nodded and I closed my eyes in thought. Shit. “There’s not enough time for me to make a ring of mental protection for you, so we need to keep you safe.”

  He nodded and pointed forward, the others having made it a little further from us and looked to be closing on the mouth to the place we were headed to.

  We crept forward slowly, our eyes falling on a dimly lit chasm with our goal rising from the gloom on the other side. There were no bridges we could see on this side. Dim light filtered from cryst
als similar to those of the ones over the drow city somewhere above us.

  Amber light made the place look like some sort of boss castle in a video game.

  It looked like a castle, like a proper castle, but made entirely of steel. How, I couldn’t tell you, but the walls looked to be riveted together, that or they had been welded. Maybe some kind of ancient society that had the metallurgical skills necessary to do this had abandoned it? Maybe it was all some sort of spell. There was a single large tower that rose higher than the light allowed us to see, and some of the other details were fuzzy from this distance.

  I took a deep breath and gagged immediately, bile rising into my throat. It reeked in here.

  Shut up. Yohsuke side-eyed me, then shook his head. How are we getting across?

  I shrugged, before analyzing things closer. A fifty-foot expanse of ground with white bone and smatterings of crimson littered all over it preceded the chasm, and from where I stood, it looked to be about eighty to a hundred feet wide.

  Some of us could fly, and I could ferry people over and have Kayda do so as well, but it was a matter of us being safe enough to do so. If we were to build a shadow bridge like we did in the lava chamber, we would be easy pickings if anyone was watching for us. Who knew if they didn’t have something waiting in the deeper shadows above the light, and I was too far away to really sense anything with any certainty.

  Can’t you just mist yourself over it? Muu asked quietly.

  Yeah, you’re one of them now. James shrugged and motioned forward.

  “If all of you are attempting to choose how you get across,” Xaenth drawled softly. “I may be of assistance.”

  “Mae and the boys, you guys want to be here on this side, or over on the other side near us?” Jaken motioned to the entryway, then the other side of the chasm as he spoke.

  The boys looked to Maebe, who seemed uncertain, then decided. “Here. The other side is much too close for me to retain my strength near so much of the fell metal.”

  Servant slunk from the entry to stand next to the boys, “I will watch their backs. All of you go.”