"We need you. Is that what you want to hear?" Jaga asked back. "You arrive in the dark and fight off an ogre and expect us to welcome you with open arms? Would we have fared so well in your land?" As he spoke, Mal noted a casual hand signal.
Mal twisted Sako's hand so that her arm locked rigid and spun. His other hand drew his sword and he slashed through the air behind him. Sako's scream as her arm dislocated caused birds to leap out of the trees around them. One of the group, a doughy faced Imperic who seemed to have a love interest in Sako had just barely avoided Malcor's wild slash. What would have been a backstab, instead turned into shattered metal as Malcor's sword connected with the blade and snapped it.
Malcor lifted Sako by her arm and threw her into the backstabber. The move caught everyone by surprise, and then Mal slammed into both Sako and the attacker. His sword poised to spear through both of them. "I swear to Takhissis, if any of you try this again, these two will be the first to die. You should know that our king Dar Rojo has shared his love of Ori with all in Tania. You would each be welcome there."
The others circled him warily, eyeing his sword. It did not move, even a little and Mal let the rage he had felt crawling along at their tiresome pace show clearly in his face. An archer with arrow knocked looked ready to take aim.
"Mal, you are not welcome in this group." someone else hissed.
Jaga told them to hush and turned back to Mal. "You have our mage and our thief. We could use a warrior like you. I had hoped you would enjoy Sako enough to stay but ok. No more lies Malcor. We want the gold and could care less about the daimo. Except for the priest, we are part of a group that seeks to enrich itself. We do not follow Imperius' ways of honor."
Mal twisted his blade so that it scraped along Sako's back. She shuddered. "That makes sense, I guess. None of you quite pulled off Imperic honor, at least not as it had been described to me during my journey here."
Jaga pulled his bracers back to reveal colorful tattoos encircling his arms. "These are the marks of my gang. What is your price to join this quest?"
"I have been completely open with you about my goals. Fame, fortune, and fighting the lich. They have not changed. But, if you want me to join you, I must have your trust. I excel at squad tactics. Always have. It is clear that none of you have adventured in the wilds like this. The ogre we fought that first night, wiped out all but 2 of you. Keeping up with me at even half pace is exhausting all of you. The question you should be asking yourselves, is why I would join with such an ill-mannered party of thieves?"
"We have an inside contact," Jaga answered.
"Excuse me? How is that possible?" Malcor countered.
Jaga ordered everyone to put their weapons down and he sat. "Malcor, it is a long story. Ori is open to orcs who forsake their ways. Some who have forsaken their ways run into problems. My gang, we help them with their problems. They owe us favors. One such orc now fights with the lich. We received a note that if we can get into the cave, he has left us a map in a secret location that will lead us to where the treasure is."
Malcor twisted his sword again, and then released it. Sako drew a shaky breath as did her comrade beneath her. "I suppose you will not tell me where the map is? Or your friend's name?"
Jaga shook his head no, but added, "The treasure is vast. Not just the tribute but the lich has wealth from the eldar times! Think on it! Even if all you do is fill your pockets, you will have wealth beyond your dreams."
Malcor pointed to the two beneath them, "And their wealth, their share will be mine too. That is my price. Plus..."
"Agreed," Jaga pledged over the sudden objections.
"...I will lead this group from here on out. You Jaga remain leader of your gang, obviously. I do not want that. For this adventure though. I am the leader. Agreed?"
"I agree, but Malcor, this is a vote matter. Can you all agree to this?" One by one, the voters signaled by hand yes or no.
Malcor felt surprise that only one person did not vote for him. It was the thief who loved Sako. "I see the vote is," Malcor's sword cut through the man's arm and it fell wetly to the ground. "Unanimous."
The cleric rushed over to the armless thief screaming at his bloody stump and falling into shock. Malcor wiped his sword on Sako's cloak and resheathed it. "Don't ever try your magic on me again."
Jaga nodded. "Agreed! And Malcor, I would have taken his little finger for voting against me. Your plan is to walk to the cave?"
Chapter Forty Two - Enter the Lich's Mountain
They walked slowly at first with the priest trying to heal the thief's arm. They all held their breath, even Malcor did, but after a mile turned into two and they reached a rough wooden bridge over the river, they began to relax. The needle-like towers looked made from melted wax, smooth and glossy mud. Any number of the lich's soldiers stood at their top but no one challenged them.
When they reached the cave's mouth, they found a small war party guarding it. "These are a test," Mal said. "We attack without hesitation or mercy." He charged slamming into the group, his sword already wet as the hapless goblins screeched and scrambled for either cover or weapons. By the time the rest of the party caught up, Mal had dropped or stunned half the war party. Tiny creatures half his size, Mal turned and caught a sword thrust into his leg forgetting in his battle rage that he no longer wore his paladin armor. His counter cut through the attacker and left the war band's leader standing alone and cornered. The unmistakable look of fear and terror gave Malcor pause, "Have I become so formidable?" he wondered. He lost initiative and the leader turned and ran into the cave's mouth. An arrow chased after it but either missed or failed to kill.
Mal wiped his sword on a corpse's dirty cloak and resheathed it. The blood rage slowly chilling and bringing back clarity. Jaga laughed as he pulled a small coin pouch off a fallen enemy and then spat when it was full of garbage. Malcor gave them a moment and then led them into the cave. "Jaga," he growled. "Find your map. Send the thief ahead of us. I want our group's light to be seen and I want the thief to stay in advance of it. If he sees anything, he is to leave a chalk mark on the wall, either side... and continue if possible. From here on, everything is a trap or ambush."
The thief, still exhausted and sore from the march and simultaneous healing, grumbled but with Jaga staring him down, he quietly slipped ahead of the party. Sako augmented the two lanterns with faerie fire and they marched into the cave. After several minutes, they came to an intersection. The straight through passage had a chalk mark along it as did the left side. They turned right. The passage sloped downward and after several hundred feet became slick and wet. After meandering side to side, a small stream ran along the floor and on several occasions party members lost their footing. Not seeing any chalk marks, they came onto a ledge and found the thief crouched down.
The ledge overlooked a vast room. Like the passages, the chamber bore the lich's telltale work of melted and glossy walls. Water had long since pooled and began to fill the center. From this height, it was impossible to get a good read as to how far down or how big the chamber really was. Jaga knelt down by the thief and they exchanged words in their language. Malcor asked the archer to shoot an arrow across the chasm. "Lets see how far it might be to the other side. Can you light the arrow?"
Moments later, a flaming arrow arced out into the room. It seemed to burn forever and then turned down falling. Just as it did so, they got a brief glimpse of the far side of the room and a large passage that continued from where they stood. Meanwhile, the thief had rigged a climbing rope and secured it to Jaga. "The map is close," he said. "Wish me luck!"
Jaga lowered himself down over the ledge with the thief and others holding his line secure. After a few moments, he called back up, "I found it. Give me just a few moments."
"What is that?" Malcor asked.
Sako shrugged, "What is what?"
Malcor signaled for quiet and Jaga called up asking if everything was okay. "Look," Malcor pointed. "The water flow is increasing. Something h
as changed." The water puddled in a place on the side ledge before falling down into the pool below. The surface suddenly rippled, shaking. Even though they could not feel it tremble. "Something is coming," Malcor called to Jaga. "Hurry up!"
"Got it!" Jaga signaled and they began pulling him up. Just as he reached the edge of their position, another vibration hit and they felt it this time. The water stopped flowing.
"It's coming from behind us. To the sides!" Malcor ordered. As they scrambled, Jaga did not quite make it up and Malcor grabbed his security line and pulled with all his might. Jaga fell ingloriously over the ledge dragging through the muck just as a large tube full of teeth shot past them into space, and then plunged down into the pool. Malcor's arm strained to hold Jaga' weight and then the priest steadied Malcor as his feet began slipping in the muck.
"Now we know what made the tunnel, and why it is not guarded." Sako said wryly. "Was that a snake or worm?" A loud splashing and thrashing from below told them the beast had landed in the pool. "Jaga, did you get the map?"
"I have it," he said still dangling from Malcor's grip on the rope holding him over the pool.
"Do we have to cross this room?" Malcor asked.
"I haven't had time to look at it."
Sako sent her faerie fire down and called back, "The pool... is full of them! They are swarming up to us. Uh, two minutes before they get here?"
The worm had interrupted the water flow which returned finally with a vengeance. It slammed into Sako, who was caught by the fighter next to her. The shelf they stood on began to crumble.
"Cleric! Any inspiration from your god?" Malcor demanded. He pulled Jaga back up.
The priest closed his eyes and began praying, but with their footing fast disintegrating, Malcor had to choose. "Back up the tunnel!"
They turned and tried to scramble up. The worm had left a trail of slime not quite washed clean by the water. It made it impossible to get any traction. They had barely made it ten steps back when the ledge collapsed raining rock and debris down on the swarm. The priest indicated that with all the commotion, he had lost any inspiration that may have come.
Malcor sighed and noted all eyes on him. "You are all going to hate my plan." He grinned. "But, I do have a plan." A third vibration shook through the stone around them. The worms would soon reach them. "It's too bad you have not been able to trust me yet, this plan requires a lot of trust. For right now, we wait. When the time is right, you will all follow me. Or likely die. We cannot fight the worms like this in this place. I cannot guarantee this plan works, but it gives us a chance!"
Another vibration shuddered the ground making them almost lose their footing. "Hold it just another moment," Malcor screamed as the noise grew around them. "Follow me!"
Malcor turned and ran towards the chamber just as a huge worm's head slithered into view. Sensing food, it opened its mouth into which Malcor leapt. He caught a sword-sized tooth and spun to the side as the razor maw started to close in on him. His sword leapt up as he invoked "Coming undone... all that is made..."
The worm bit into his sword and then shrieked in agony as Coming Undone stabbed into its mouth roof. Someone else, others, slammed past Malcor's legs and then they began to fall back down. Malcor strained to keep the worm's mouth open but when the worm bumped into others as it fell backwards, he lost his footing and hung by his sword and the tooth. Even that grip vanished when they smashed into the water. Lost in the darkness, Malcor chose to slip into the ether. Seeing the worms from the River felt disjointed and odd. There bulks rippled the flow but seemed to move around his team mates in the eddies and currents swirling around their massive bodies.
At least three others had made it into the worm. The worm enwrapped them like a cocoon of grass when viewed from the River. "My Queen," Mal prayed. "Help me fulfill this quest and bring you glory!" The worm tried to swallow him and Mal cut even more deeply into its flesh. When he did so, the worm began thrashing about and opened its mouth to drink. Mal had never teetered between the two worlds like this and found new appreciation for Dar Shara's dance on the razor's edge of the River. He cut again and the worm choked stopping the water and began swimming. Mal hoped it was to the other side as its nearby fellows, perhaps sensing something wrong, tried to bite at it. Fearing he would drown, Mal counted to three and then cut with all his might. The worm coughed and then vomited them up and out. Mal cut again and again until it stopped moving.
With water quickly filling the void of the worm's mouth, Malcor called to the others to come towards his voice. Heaving with all his might, he forced the dead monster's mouth open. From his unique perspective, he saw at least three crawl past him. Their wounds leaving pink swirls in the River's flow. Then, he crawled out in the water. With relief, he found the water no deeper than his knees. He sat back, water lapping the stoney shore around him. "Anyone able to make light?" he asked the darkness.
A dim glow of a ring on Sako's hand answered his question. "Sako here," she said. "Miraculously. Anyone else?"
Several grunts and groans answered them and she brightened her ring. Jaga, the archer, the cleric, and, "You're a tough bastard," Malcor said as he helped the thief stand. Their party of eight had lost three members.
"We don't know that they are dead," Jaga noted. The sounds of worms shrieking and fighting echoed and reverberated all around them. "And that is an effective way to let the entire mountain know something happened here."
"Do you want to wait for them?" Malcor asked. "This is a dangerous place." Small worms no larger than his arm had latched onto the corpse and began chewing into it. He pointed, "No doubt others will come. I'd rather fight the big ones than a swarm of the babies."
Jaga looked at the corpse and at the survivors. The priest shook his head negative. "We'll leave and tie a rope down. If they make it, the rope will help them escape."
The water around them took a long time to remove the worm's blood and juices. When finally clean, they turned to the next task - climbing up to continue the passage. Step by step and only with great difficulty, they eventually reached it only with Malcor supporting and partially throwing the thief the last bit. Like the other tunnel, muck and a flow of water made it impossible to retain hold or find a climbing perch for longer than a few seconds. When they finally reached the top, Malcor's hands and arms ached. "Aren't thieves supposed to excel at climbing?" he said rubbing feeling back into his arms. The thief frowned back but said nothing.
They resumed their former march with the thief on point ahead of their light. Unlike the first tunnel, this one had multiple side branches obviously chewed by worms and they stuck with the main passage. Eventually, the water flow stopped and the overall tunnel became increasingly refined and dry.
When they came to a mostly level widening in the tunnel, Malcor called for a halt. All of them had suffered wounds. All of them felt a guilty mix of relief for having survived and dread wonderment at what may have happened to the lost three. Malcor found himself ravenously hungry and ate into his field rations. Sako obsessively scrubbed blood and mucus off her hands not realizing all of their clothes had turned purple from the worm blood.
"Check your gear and Jaga – that map, figure out where we go next."
Jaga pulled a wax-sealed tube out of his pack. It had been crushed but survived intact, if damp. It showed a circle with a water symbol. It showed a series of lines and an "x". Jaga explained, "Assuming this circle and water was the worm chamber, we are in the right place. It looks like we continue to a six way intersection. Then we have to be very careful. This mark here means that all six of these passages are guarded. And, then there is this smudge here.” He held it up from different angles. “We had agreed that, if he could, he’d mark possible traps or dangers. This looks more like some kind of note to me. Hmmm.” He stroked his facial scruff and thought about it. “Well, we should plan on there being something in each of the passages, past this intersection.”
“And after the noise, we should plan on the intersection bei
ng guarded,” Malcor instructed the group. “That was rough and we lost important members of the group. We cannot assume they survived, but we cannot rule them dead either. Hope for the best. Lets use the markings to show them where we go. We are still too close to that place for me to feel good about resting. Lets hope we find a place less exposed soon.” So saying, he stood, stretched and made ready. When Jaga did so too, the others grumbled to their feet.
Their path took them past several branches that either appeared unused or unrealistic for moving large sums of treasure. One thing though quickly became apparent – the farther they progressed, the darker and grimmer their surroundings became. At first, it was just a rat skittering away from them but as they continued they started to see gnawed bone fragments and then overt signs of necromancy. At one side passage, they found a room full of rotting goblin and orc corpses stacked against the walls and propped up by wooden beams. Maggots chewed their way through the corpses and several bore the signs of bone and organ harvesting. The cleric shuddered and urged them to move on.
They walked through the flickering lantern lit corridors until Malcor finally called for a break. The others collapsed in cold sweats and dove into water and food rations. The thief came back looking haunted and exhausted. “I can’t continue with this level of vigilance much longer, not without rest.” Jaga nodded and asked Malcor if they could encamp.
“This is far from ideal, but I agree. I will take watch. You all rest.” Several eyes raised at him but he reassured them, “My training and my constitution have already been tested. I can function for several days without rest. Unless I call for help, I want all of you to sleep and rest.” He picked up a lantern and walked up so that they could see him but his lantern light left them in shadow. He drew his sword and relaxed his stance.
Malcor's Story Page 30