by G. D. Penman
That had been a complete waste of time. Martin wasn’t even sure if Speckles could understand the concepts he was trying to talk about, even if the actual words made sense to him. The whole situation was intensely annoying. Communication had always been his weak point as a person, the Achilles heel that held him back from management positions, despite his superior organizational skills and intellect.
This normal town with normal people was starting to make his skin crawl. Martin looked at normal people as obstacles to be navigated and crowds made him uncomfortable. Even here in Strata he was happier in the scary and wild caves than surrounded by other people.
When he spotted Jericho snarling and shouldering his way through the crowd – mostly kneeing his way through the crowd thanks to the height differential – Martin whistled him over. Julia was following in the Martyr’s wake. “Ready?”
“We are waiting for your mistress, all else is ready.”
Martin felt his jaw clenching and forced himself to calmly reply. “Mistress?”
“Your bird. Your lady. Your boss.” Jericho waved his hands to and fro. “Whatever you call her today. We wait on her. Again.”
Julia came around Jericho’s bulk and very deliberately placed herself between the two of them. “She had a very long list of supplies to collect. I’m sure she's just busy.”
Jericho grunted. “Busy spending all the silver we work to earn.”
The woman herself swaggered up with a smirk on her beak. “What's up, losers? Ready to go stab some something or others in the you know where?”
“Ready.” Martin forced a smile.
With Speckles in the center of their huddle, the guild departed Deephaven as fast as they’d arrived. The longer they lingered, the more likely they were to be spotted by other players, and the more likely one of those other players would be tempted by the bounty that the Brotherhood were offering for any intelligence on them.
The gates did not creak when they opened. It seemed that the place had a steady enough flow of bodies coming through that this was no great event, but the guards had to strain to shift the weight of the metal. They were not messing around when it came to security. Probably smart, given the number of monsters out there in the dungeon.
The plain gray stone of the floor stretched out to an equally sterile wall. There were little striations of color throughout it, a hint of silver suggesting silica or quartz, but otherwise it was a grand expanse of nothing. The tunnel cut into the wall was equally simple. A black square in the gray.
The whole place was vaguely reminiscent of Beachhead in Deep One, and that brought a flush of memories with it as the candle-lit glow from behind the guild faded away and the darkness enveloped them all. Anything could be lurking out there in the shadows. Anything could be waiting for them. Martin had to clench his jaw again to keep from grinning. This was where he belonged.
He fell into step with Julia as they proceeded. Lindsay was taking point, using her skills in stealth to compete against Speckles’ magical enhancements, while Jericho lumbered along right in front of the healer and the rat-man. “Did you hear anything useful back in town? Any hints about what is in the next section?”
Julia shrugged her shoulders. “When I asked about monsters, they said they hadn’t been having any monster trouble for a while.”
Martin had no idea what that meant. Was this some sort of safe zone or was there something so dangerous lurking in these dark tunnels that it had scared off all the other creatures that otherwise would have moved on in. That was the trouble with Strata being a living ecosystem. The Archdukes were fixed in place by the system, instanced off for each guild to defeat on their own, but the rest of the monsters were free-roaming. He’d encountered a stray monster on the first floor that they hadn’t crossed paths with again, and it seemed that the whole dungeon was subject to change whenever the Masters felt like shuffling things around.
“Anything else come up? Overhear any of the other players chatting?”
“Not a thing.” Julia’s usual peaceful smile faltered as she stared up at Jericho. “They seemed a bit intimidated.”
If Jericho knew they were talking about him he chose not to acknowledge it with any more than a flick of his ear.
The rest of the deep was genuinely empty. Even the little pseudo-monsters the game liked to throw in just to break up the monotony were missing. Something was seriously wrong, and the absence of creepy little critters jumping out at him was making Martin tense.
On that note, Speckles tossed off his cloak and nearly lost his head. Martin swung for the sudden surprise,, twisting his Creedblade at the last moment so that it skimmed over the top of the frog-man instead of through the meat of him.
[MISS]
Martin had to take a steadying breath while Speckles stared up at him with his big scared eyes. Eventually he mumbled out, “Don’t jump out like that. I nearly hurt you.”
Speckles deflated a little, emptying out his throat sack. “Me sorry.”
“I… I’m sorry. You startled me.”
Jericho glanced back and snorted. “Jumping at shadows and froggies.”
Martin kept his opinions to himself for the moment, but Speckles wasn’t so subtle. When an Anurvan stuck out its tongue, it had good odds of hitting someone across the room. Not to mention the wet, warbling sound. When Jericho’s head jerked around again, the tongue was safely back in Speckles’ mouth, but it was a near thing.
The Deep Gate was easy enough to come across. They hadn’t tried to hide it. If anything, they’d tried to draw attention right to it, and the journey from town to gate was basically a straight line. The obstacles obviously weren’t meant to be architectural. Here and there the guild passed cubby holes where some monster or another would have set up camp, ready to chow down on the over-eager. Up above the main tunnel, Martin’s dark-vision gave him a glimpse of raised walkways where archers or casters could have rained death down on them. All empty.
The gate itself was set in the wall, halfway up, so that a little climbing would be required, and so that it was easy to see and tempt people forward to their doom. More cubby holes with no monsters, more walkways overhead, crisscrossing the tall cavern. Side tunnels that presumably looped up to the overhangs. It would have been a great fight, really dramatic and busy, with enough mechanical elements to keep Martin occupied and enough warm bodies just waiting to be stuck that Lindsay would have been in her bliss. Instead, she was lounging against the wall. Or trying to lounge against the wall, at least. She couldn’t achieve full lounging because she was so full of pent-up energy that she couldn’t actually stay still.
“Do you see this face? This is my bored face. These knives.” She shook them in front of Jericho’s face. “They are bone dry!”
Jericho’s voice rumbled and echoed in the empty chamber. “Not one enemy.”
“Nothing! Nada! Zilch! Zero!” She flopped down to the floor with as close to a pout as a beak could accommodate. “Kindergarten is more dangerous than this. A lot more dangerous than this. Kids bite. And they have diseases. This is boring. Martin, make it not boring.”
“The ecosystem of this deep–”
Lindsay blew a raspberry, “How did you think the word ‘ecosystem’ was going to fix a boringness problem? Why am I asking you to make things not boring, you are like the living embodiment of boring. You are like if gray and beige had a baby and it decided that it wanted to be an accountant. If you were a drink, you’d be tepid water. If you were a car, you’d be a soccer-mom people carrier. If you were–”
“Big monster.” Martin cut her off with the soft application of those two words. Lindsay fell into thoughtful silence, so he pressed on. “The ecosystem of this deep has been disturbed by something significantly more powerful than we have expected to encounter. Like the Night Ravager in Deep One, I think we can expect to encounter something big on the next floor.”
“Well, alright then!” Lindsay was back on her feet in an instant. “Let’s go.”
Jul
ia coughed politely. “We need the deep key first.”
Lindsay spun on her heel and headed to the nearest tunnel without missing a beat. “Well, alright then! Let’s get it.”
The hunt did not take long once Martin had them organized. He waited in the chamber with the gate while the others tried their luck with the different tunnels leaving the chamber. Every one of them curved up to lead to one of the walkways overhead. Speckles, with an attention span even shorter than Lindsay’s, did not prove to be an asset. He hopped from bridge to bridge, dashing about like a fool, trying to find the way to the key. Nine out of ten of the stone arches led back down to a tunnel leading out of the opposite wall, while one of them didn’t. Julia was the one to discover it, and she came running back to the main chamber when it became apparent she wasn’t headed that way already.
The guild regrouped and followed along after Jericho in single file, every footstep echoing in the emptiness of the deep. It probably wasn’t necessary to stay on their guard, but Martin couldn’t help himself. Best practice always had to win out.
After looping over the top of the chamber, the tunnel dipped down into a spiral, going lower even than the original chamber, so low that Martin started to wonder if they might hit the next deep by these alternate means before coming upon whatever boss had been holding the key. That was until the glow and the stink started up.
It was like buttery popcorn mixed with something more chemical. A sharpness that made Martin’s eye water. Speckles begged off, saying he would stand guard at the entrance and warn them if any monsters were coming, but Martin suspected that it was the dryness of the air up ahead that was putting him off more than fear. Anurvan skin needed regular moistening at the best of times.
Without their guide they followed on around the twists and turns of the corridor as the light grew brighter and brighter, golden and sweeping around Jericho’s bulk to decorate the wall with dancing shadows.
The chamber opened out abruptly, and the guild spread out into their defensive positions without faltering, like a well-oiled machine. Stepping out to the side of Jericho, Martin could see the source of the light and smell, as well as all the candles back in Deephaven. Molten wax was flowing in a broad underground river. Sooty nubs of wood, tufts of hair and every other object floating along it were alight, dozens upon dozens of wicks burned black, filling the claustrophobically hot chamber with light.
The wax poured down into a waterfall at one end of the chamber, carrying on into the dark beyond their reach, and falling considerably too far for anyone to want to make an attempt at following it to the stone below where it could be heard splashing. The wax itself looked white in the light, but as his eye became accustomed to the brightness, Martin realized that it was actually a tallowy yellow, with hints of pestilent green casting dim whorls over the surface.
A tunnel carried on up-river to the source of the wax, and, with a sigh, Martin headed toward it. Jericho rumbled. “Where do you think you are going?”
“Well, you aren’t going to fit, and the other two are squishy.” Martin had suffered through enough of Jericho’s petty challenges to his decisions to know that it was almost habitual for the man. Like a muscle he felt compelled to flex. “So, I guess I’m walking up the river of wax.”
As he came closer to the wax the heat rolled over him, and he realized just how torturous an experience this was going to be. There was no pain in Strata, but all the other sensations that accompanied pain had been left unblocked. Lindsay knew what it was like to have her body torn in half. Martin knew how drowning felt. Heat was still there, even if the pain of burning was not.
He lifted a booted foot and was about to step into the river when Julia caught him by the arm. “Wait. I’ve got something to help.”
Winter’s Balm was a blessing, a spell that lingered for a solid ten minutes. Once it was cast, the white-blue glow faded from sight immediately and Martin felt the same as normal, yet when he blinked his eye shut he could see it there written in the darkness – Winter’s Balm. Stepping out onto the wax didn’t burn him now. It still felt as hot as hell, and he wouldn’t be hanging around any longer than he had to, but his health wasn’t being eaten away by fire damage so he was going to call it a win.
He took off up the river, feet slipping beneath him as he traversed the uneven surface hidden beneath the wax. He felt some things give away beneath his stomping feet that might have been bones, sharp edges that might have been weapons or just jagged stones. It was impossible to tell without digging around, and he already had a goal in mind.
Walking through the wax was harder than moving through water. Despite the blessing, it still behaved like hot wax, so each time he lifted his feet it sucked against them, and every moment he had any part of his body out of the wax, the coating left behind began to harden.
The chamber he had entered through had now disappeared around the curve of the tunnel, and the persistent light of the little wicks bobbing in and out of the wax prevented his night vision from adjusting well enough to see what was ahead. The smell was overpowering. Wax was in the mix, but also burning hair and something like paraffin. The path sloped up as Martin moved in deeper, and he found his feet slipping out from under him with almost every step. He really did not want a face full of wax.
After the slope the path evened out again, but a blink showed Martin that he was getting close to the vital five-minute mark on his blessing. He’d definitely be able to slip and slide back down that part faster than he’d climbed it, but even so he had to be careful. He need not have worried, as around the next bend was the source of the wax flow.
Whatever the beast had been in life, now it was crushed so tightly against the stone that Martin couldn’t see much of what it was. Dead and buried so long that stone had formed around it? Immune to heat, drenched in lava and left to harden like some concrete mantle had been set over it? There were so many possibilities for this newly made fossil. The expanse of dusty pale scales in front of him had split open at a join to unleash the corruption and decay within. The wax had once been this thing’s innards, now gone to rot and ruin, sloshing over Martin’s boots as it drained like a giant pustule.
The closer Martin came, the more sources of wax he could see. The dead beast was peppered with pin-prick holes where the yellow-tainted wax oozed out to patter on the stone, but all around it, through crevasses and cracks, more wax flowed in. The walls were streaked with it. The floor was an elevation map of the flows and their sources, both current and dried up. One steady stream of wax was right above the central line of the river, trickling down to make a little waxen stalactite. An inverted candle extending down from the crack in the stone, lit at its tip with a guttering flame that sprang to life and was extinguished over and over by the same flows that fueled it.
It was that flutter of light that showed Martin what he wished he had not seen. He was looking up at the crack, trying to ensure that he didn’t pass underneath the trickle of wax, when the light flared bright for a moment and he caught a glimpse of what was suspended above him. It took his mind a moment to decipher the tangle of fur, scales and limbs. Corpses were packed tight into the gap in the rock. They had been packed so tight that there was no room for air between them. Crushed into their new, awful shapes by some compacting force that had rendered bone and form meaningless. Wax flowed from the mouths and hollow eye sockets that lolled open.
Beneath his own furred pelt, Martin’s guts roiled. He had to close his eye to get his nausea back under control, and that was when he saw that there was only four minutes left on his blessing. Time was up. He needed to turn back or risk the fluid that was even now crusting up his shins from burning him.
He gave one backward glance before departing, and then froze. Something was shimmering in the cavity of the grand corpse. There wasn’t enough time for this. He took a step closer. There really wasn’t enough time for this.
He ran the rest of the distance, sloshing wax up to splatter on the walls in his haste. The shimmer of
metal was there, just at the limit of his reach. For Jericho it would have been as simple as plucking it out, but Martin’s arms were shorter, his reach more limited. He shoved his hand into the flow of wax and beyond. Pushing with his whole body against the pressure of escaping fluid and cramming his whole arm into the dead thing, up to the shoulder. His cheek was pressed to the side of the decaying corpse and he was horrified to realize how warm it still felt. All the tattered giblets that his hand brushed against were moist, like this thing was still alive. For all Martin knew, it was.
Trying to push that last thought out of his mind, Martin concentrated not on the slippery texture of the things he was trying to avoid touching, but on the sensation of his fingers brushing over something solid.
He closed his hand around it and yanked it out, feeling the reassuring smoothness of metal between his clawed fingers before breaking into a run.
The slip and slide down the slope into the main river of wax was no problem in itself, and it probably cut thirty seconds off his journey, but it did leave the backs of his legs and his tail clotted with wax. Wax that started to harden as he ran, slowing his movements. Pressing back against him with every step. His whole body was weighed down with wax by now, from the droplets clinging to his whiskers all the way down to the thick layer coating his legs. The river was a subtle trap, but an effective one.
Martin could see where the tunnel opened out into a cave. Salvation was right there waiting for him when he slipped.
The wax building up on his legs was clinging to the fur across his front much more thickly than on the backs of his legs, so one moment he was just taking a step and the next that imbalance of weight flung him forward.
His whole face was under the wax before he could get his hands out and push himself to his feet. The hard object from inside the corpse was now sealed inside his fist by the cooling wax, and his other hand was crabbed, yet there was still a little sharpness to the claws.
[Skaife has suffered 3 fire damage]