The Part About the Dragon was (Mostly) True

by Sean Gibson

  So it was for Nadinta and her band in Mount Fenneltop, where they soon became lost in the maze of winding passageways that honeycombed the mountain. Even Rumscrabble Tooltinker’s innate dwarven sense of direction failed him as they wound their way through the mountain, turning left and right and doubling back so many times that they soon became hopelessly confused. Sensing weakness, the denizens of the mountain maze pounced, attacking our tired heroes at their lowest ebb. Feral mountain cats whose sense of smell was so keen they could sniff out the fear of a wounded gazelle a mile distant snarled and clawed at them, tunnel goblins brandished crude pikes and swords, and sentient slime slithered across their boots, leaving explosive, acid trails of sludge in their wake.

  Battered and bruised but never beaten, our heroes fought off every attack, turning blade and magic alike on their foes. Borgunder Gunderbor struggled in the tight quarters, but used his massive bulk to shield his companions, withstanding a rain of blows as his fellow heroes sought opportunities to counterattack their vicious foes. Eventually, the mighty band began to get its bearings, and as they worked their way through the maze, a gradually growing source of light led them to a cavernous chamber where they found the maze’s master, a massive minotaur named Mastrato, the ancient Kolethi word for “bloody axe.”

  The minotaur snarled and brandished the weapon for which he was named, which dripped crimson ichor in the flickering torchlight that lit the cavern. He roared a challenge to the heroes and rushed to meet them head on, flanked by a dozen cave trolls, each armed with a spiked club and a thirst for blood nearly the equal of their bovine master.

  Nadinta met him head on, her sword parrying a mighty blow of the axe before she launched into a dazzling display of martial skill, scything her way through the ranks of the trolls while fending off the minotaur. Borgunder strode boldly into the fray, drawing the attention of the trolls while mighty Whiska hurled eldritch death from the end of her crystal-tipped staff. The cave trolls soon succumbed to their combined assault, and not even the minotaur, a legend among its own kind for its size and ferocity, could withstand Nadinta’s deft swordplay, Borg’s peerless strength, Rumscrabble’s precision strikes, and Whiska’s magical acid arrows. The beast soon fell, crying out in pain and rage as it toppled. Its breathing soon ceased, and the heroes stood shoulder to shoulder, surveying the carnage around them.

  They quickly found the minotaur’s treasure room, though they knew that even its loaded chests of gold, jewels, and other baubles paled in comparison to the hoard they would find in the dragon’s lair.

  They paused for but a brief rest and to take nourishment, steeling themselves to continue on to the final step of their quest.

  Their thirst quenched and hunger sated, the heroic band set off with steely determination, intent on finding the dragon and meting out the same justice they had on the minotaur.

  Soon, they swore, the good people of Skendrick would rest easy.

  Chapter 22

  MIGRAINE-INDUCING MAZES AND MUSHROOM-MUNCHING MORONS DO NOT AN EXCITING TALE MAKE

  I’ve catalogued a number of things I hate over the course of this chronicle, including, but not limited to, cackleroaches, orcs (though maybe I’m evolving on that issue), things that make me want to be a better person, sexy underthings (by which I mean lingerie, not attractive creatures found in underground caverns, toward which I’m generally indifferent), swamps (which I really hate), and riddles.

  You can go ahead and add mazes to that list.

  We left the rock behind and made our way into the mountain, where Etty Loo was kind enough to share some mushrooms with us. They really were pretty good, too, which was surprising—I wouldn’t have thought cave mushrooms could hold a candle to forest mushrooms (especially mushrooms from the elven forests of Llamolarolan, which everyone who’s not a Catamite or an idiot knows are the best), but they fried up nicely and made a perfect complement to roasted rock spider (which, incidentally, is a lot tastier than it sounds, though I still wouldn’t recommend them if you have other options, such as pretty much anything, including dirt).

  I guess I should explain that shot I took at the Catamites—the Catamite region is known in some circles for being a producer of fine mushrooms, but really they’re just mass producers of mushrooms that taste like tree bark who are really good at marketing. Don’t buy them. Ever. Go find Llamo brand mushrooms—you’ll thank me.

  The fact that I’m a paid endorser for Llamo has nothing to do with that recommendation; they really are just better. (Am I proud of the fact that I’m a paid endorser of anything? You better believe it—I worked hard to gain the kind of influence over people that would enable me to hock fungus for money. Albeit not that much money.)

  The orc girl left shortly after we’d finished our snack, so we turned our attention to the pathway before us. Unfortunately, about ten yards in, the path forked, forcing us to make a decision before we’d even really begun to work our way through.

  “Well,” said Rummy, “I’m left-handed, so arbitrarily, I choose left.”

  “You’re left-handed?” I replied. “I’d never have guessed—you seem to use your right hand more when you prestidigitate.”

  Rummy grinned. “Ah, only for the stuff you see, Heloise—the easy, obvious stuff.” He waved his right hand back and forth in a grand, broad gesture. “That means people aren’t looking at my left hand, which is doing the hard stuff. Most prestidigitators are pretty ambidextrous.” He held out his left hand, which gripped my coin purse. “Did you want this back?”

  I snatched it away and shot him a look, torn, once again, between being annoyed and being impressed. I smacked him on the shoulder for good measure, a gesture meant to simultaneously punish him and show respect. By the way he yelped and rubbed his shoulder, though, I’m guessing it was more of the former.

  Nadi, who had been (sensibly) ignoring us, was studying both passageways, listening intently, and licking her finger and holding it up before her. After a moment of brow-furrowed concentration, she nodded. “Sorry, Rummy—we need to go right.”

  Whiska snorted. “Based on what? Long-eared intuition?”

  “Well, we know the dragon isn’t coming and going through this entrance,” replied Nadi. “It stands to reason that if it flies in and out of its lair, there must be a fairly large opening up high somewhere. Air must come in through that opening, which means that it should filter down through whichever passageway ultimately leads to the dragon’s lair. As long as we can detect any hint of an air current, we should be moving in the right direction.” She frowned. “Notwithstanding the possibility of having to get through a minotaur before we can deal with the dragon.”

  “Anyone ever fought a minotaur?” asked Rummy. “Or even seen one?”

  We all shook our heads. “I know they’re strong, though,” said Whiska. “Unlike the lot of you. But, not too smart, apparently, except for when it comes to navigating mazes. Still, they’re fierce fighters, and they usually have lesser beasts as bodyguards.”

  “Like rock spiders?” I asked hopefully.

  “More like goblins, or troglodytes. Maybe trolls.”

  “Well, that’s annoying.”

  “Rock spiders are…delicious,” said Borg. “But it feels…like I’m a…cannibal when…I eat them.”

  “I feel the same way when I snack on elf babies,” I replied.

  Everyone looked at each other before taking a step back from me.

  “I’m kidding. You know that.”

  “Let’s just get going, okay?” said Nadi, who didn’t wait for us to respond before setting off down the right-hand passageway.

  “Seriously! That was a joke.”

  Borg stopped and laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. He looked at me and said, after a moment of contemplation, “I was…kidding too.”

  That Borg is all right.

  The passageway curved around to the right before winding back to the left and dumping us into another cavern, this one much smaller than the one in which Etty had found t
he mushrooms. The walls glowed faintly with lichen, but the cavern appeared otherwise empty. Two doorways, one to our right and one straight ahead, meant we had to make another choice.

  “Is someone making a map as we go?” I asked in an attempt to gently share my adventuring wisdom that we should make a map as we go, even though I hated making maps and had no desire to do it myself.

  “I don’t, um…I don’t have a quill,” muttered Nadi, embarrassed, I think, that she hadn’t suggested the idea.

  “I don’t even know how to read,” said Rummy happily.

  “What is…a quill?” asked Borg.

  “I’ll do it, you hopeless fence sitters!” snarled Whiska as she dug in her pack to find quill and parchment.

  (“Fence sitters,” incidentally, is a slang term for a particularly lazy—and populous—type of squirrel indigenous to the Cantora region. They really like sitting on fences, but they don’t like to do much else.)

  “Which way now?” asked Rummy as Whiska sketched a diagram of our path so far.

  “I’m not entirely sure how far we wound around,” said Nadi, “but it’s possible that, if we take the doorway straight ahead, we’ll work our way over toward where the other path in the first cavern led. Maybe.”

  “Not so sure of ourselves when we’re underground, are we, sugarlips?” said Whiska.

  “Sugarlips?” I asked.

  Whiska shrugged. “Bet she likes kissing.”

  “Nadi, do you like kissing?” I asked.

  She blushed. “Let’s keep moving. We’ll take the route straight ahead, unless anyone objects.”

  No one did, so we followed Nadi, who had her sword drawn and moved forward cautiously. Whiska followed with Rummy behind her, and I trailed behind Rummy. Borg brought up the rear. As we stepped into the cramped passageway—particularly cramped for Borg—he leaned forward and whispered. “I know…what a quill…is. I…have one. I just…hate making…maps, too.” I couldn’t see him, but could practically feel his grin.

  “I think you’re my new favorite,” I whispered back.

  We continued on without incident for an hour, winding our way through passageway after passageway and becoming hopelessly lost as each new cavern we entered presented multiple exit options. Finally, we reached one that had an absurd seven exit and entry points and Nadi called a halt. “Whiska, please show us the map.”

  The Ratarian held up her parchment, which was a crisscrossing mess of lines, passageways, arrows showing where we had to retrace our steps, and numerous unexplored paths. It also had a few curse words scrawled on it. As we reviewed our progress and the design of the labyrinth inside the mountain, one thing became abundantly clear: whoever had designed this maze had either been insane or drunk, and probably both.

  “How long have we been going?” asked Nadi.

  Rummy consulted his pocket watch. “A little over three hours, not counting when we stopped so Heloise could take the scorpion out of her boot, the five minutes she spent cursing afterward, the ten subsequent minutes Whiska spent laughing, and the seven minutes Heloise spent chasing her around the cavern trying to beat her with the corpse of the scorpion after Borg stepped on it.”

  I glared at Whiska, who snickered.

  “I’m not sure it’s the wisest course of action,” said Nadi, “but we may need to consider splitting up. At the rate we’re going, it’s going to take us days to explore the whole mountain, and we don’t have enough food to last that long. If we stay together, we might get lucky and find the path to the dragon’s lair in the next half hour, but we also might be stumbling around in the dark for another three days. I’m think we need to separate so we can cover ground faster.”

  “I’ll play Damnation’s barrister,” I said. “If we split up, we don’t really have a good way to contact each other unless Giggles McRatface over there has something up her disgustingly greasy sleeves other than scrawny arms.”

  “Scrawny arms? I’ll shove one of these scrawny arms right up your plump elven—”

  “Save it, Whiska,” said Nadi sharply. She narrowed her eyes at me, and I had the good grace to look at least mildly chastened. “Go on, preferably without the editorial commentary.”

  “We’re going to have a hard time beating a dragon as it stands—if it’s only two or three of us, it’s going to be impossible. Even if one group finds the dragon and manages to avoid detection, they’re going to have a hard time doubling back to find the other group—so, even if they can mark the path clearly, it may not do much good.” I shook my head. “Together, we might get out alive, or we might die. Separated, we’ll definitely die.”

  “That’s a sunny way of thinking about it,” said Rummy.

  I shrugged. “Adventuring’s a rough business, kid.”

  Nadi looked thoughtful. “Heloise is right—we stick together. Let’s keep going for another couple of hours and then we’ll…wait—what was that?” She cocked her head, listening intently.

  “What was what?” I replied.

  “We should…stick together,” said Borg.

  “Shhh!” hissed Nadi. “Listen!”

  It took a moment, but then I heard it too—a hollow pinging sound that seemed to come from inside the walls. I looked at Nadi and raised an eyebrow. She shook her head, looking grim.

  “Is that what I think it is?” said Whiska to no one in particular.

  “What do you think it—” Rummy started to ask before being rudely interrupted by the wall exploding and three huge, bug-like creatures emerging from the hole.

  They had hard shells and pincers, and an array of arms and legs, some of which were insectoid, some of which were more humanoid. Two of those arms/legs had nasty, serrated edges along the sides and ended in a point as sharp as any sword. Their pincers clicked and clacked as they hovered over us, looking menacing.

  “Chitinoids!” shouted Whiska, raising her staff.

  “What are chitinoids?” asked Rummy, brandishing his mace.

  “Those things, you sightless hair muffin!” replied Whiska, gesturing toward the creatures.

  “How do we beat them?” I asked, looking doubtfully at my knife.

  “They’re vulnerable to cold,” replied Whiska as she started to whip her hands around in preparation for casting a spell.

  “Whiska—hit them with whatever you’ve got,” called Nadi. “Borg—take point. Rummy and Heloise—form up behind me.” She raised her sword in a defensive stance.

  “I say,” said the tallest of the creatures, raising its most humanoid arm up to do something that looked an awful lot like scratching its head in confusion. “Do any of you blokes know where we might find the mushrooms?” It spoke the common tongue with an impossibly posh accent.

  “What?” asked Nadi, her sword tip dropping in confusion.

  “Hmmm…perhaps I’m not saying that word correctly—I’ve only recently learned it.” Its pincers twitched in consternation. “Mosh-rooms?” it tried. “Moosh-rums?” It looked at its companions. “Help me out, lads.”

  The creature to the speaker’s right stepped forward. “The fungus, you know? We want the fungus.” It gave us a sly look and lowered its voice to a loud whisper. “We eats ‘em, you know.” It laid a finger, or something that looked like a finger, on the side of its nose and said, “Shhhhh.”

  “Um…right,” replied Nadi at her eloquent best.

  “So, you’re just looking for mushrooms?” I asked.

  “Is that not how I said it?” said the first speaker, looking toward his companions. “I’m quite certain I had the right of it the first time.”

  “You said it right,” said Rummy agreeably. “We just weren’t prepared for you to speak a language we understand. Or, to ask us about mushrooms.” He held his hands out to the side. “Honestly, we kind of thought you were going to try to eat us.”

  The chitinoids looked at each other and then exploded with laughter. “‘e thought we was gunna eat ‘em, ‘e did! Right gorky, innit?” said the creature who had not yet spoken.
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br />   “It certainly is—highly gorky indeed,” said the first chitinoid patronizingly as he patted the other creature on the shoulder. “Now then, any chance you can point us toward those delectable goodies?”

  Nadi looked at Whiska. “Show them the map.”

  “What? Why should we share our map with these shell-faced fungus lickers?”

  “Our faces ain’t shells, you know?” said the second chitinoid. (I’d like to distinguish them in some way other than the order in which they spoke, but, well…they really did all look the same.) “You know what they is?” He looked around and then leaned in, lowering his voice as though disclosing his greatest secret, which seemed to be a habit with him. “They’s faces.” He apparently found this hilarious, as he spent the next two minutes laughing so hard that he began to choke. The third chitinoid slapped him hard on the back, which seemed to straighten out the issue.

  “Gorky,” said the third chitinoid solemnly once the laughing fit had come to an end.

  “Whiska,” said Nadi impatiently. “The map. Now.”

  Whiska looked as though she wanted to immolate Nadi, but gritted her teeth and did as Nadi requested. “There,” she said, pointing to a spot on the map. “That’s where you’ll find your stupid mushrooms, if the orc brat left any behind.”

  “Orc brat?” asked the first chitinoid, making the word “brat” sound more like a delicious sausage than an annoying kid.

  “Never mind,” said Nadi. “It’s nothing to worry about.” She looked to the creature we assumed was the chitinoids’ leader. “Now that we’ve helped you, maybe you can help us.”

  “I don’t know…what gorky…means,” interjected Borg.

  “Get a load of it, eh wot? ‘e don’t know from gorky,” said the third chitinoid, shaking his head incredulously. “And ‘im a talking rock, ain’t ‘e?”

  “I’m not entirely sure I know either,” I volunteered, “though I can infer something from context.”

  “Gorky,” said the third one. “It’s mental, right? Like, someone ain’t got no sense.”