by Eric Ugland
“The bugs bite!” I shouted ahead to the hirð. “Keep them away from Nikolai!”
I ran to them, but with my left leg not exactly working the way I wanted, it was more of a hop-run-jump thingie. Faster than walking, though I worried I was going to lose my boot in the muck below.
Ahead, much to Nikolai’s chagrin, Skeld and Ragnar stood with their backs to him, trying to keep an eye on everything around them. They didn’t have weapons, so I reached into the bag of holding, I pulled out a spear, and tossed it to Ragnar.
Probably should have warned him first.
He saw the spear at the last minute. Poor guy made an effort to catch it, but he couldn’t get there in time, and the spear just disappeared into the muck. Ragnar gave me a look.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Behind you,” Skeld yelled.
I turned. One of the bug creatures was trying to be all sneaky, and was just within striking range. With a spray of mud and poop, I kicked hard at the creature, catching him in the abdomen. His body seemed to almost wrap around my foot before shooting off into distance. There was a wet smack when it hit the curved ceiling, and a splash when it dropped into the water below.
Slogging to the water, I caught up to my three compadres, and handed out weapons. Spears to Skeld and Ragnar, a sword to Nikolai, one he could barely hold up, and for me, a warhammer. I deposited my beginner’s pickaxe back into the bag, feeling ever so wistful over it.
“We need to move,” I said. “Nikolai in the middle, I’ll watch the back, you two move in front. I’m going on instinct that there’s a door out of this madness somewhere at the other end.”
I’d only taken a few steps when I noticed one of the bugs coming towards us. Slowly, perhaps trying to see how we’d react. I took the moment to throw the identification spell its way.
Coprophagian Kazey
Level 4 Monster
The kazey gave me the heebie-jeebies. It had a long snout with a thin jaw full of very small teeth. Big compound eyes were on either side of its head, orbing out far enough I bet it could see nearly 360 degrees. Its legs went up first, then down, with clawed feet at the end that seemed to be able to grab, almost like they were tiny little hands. The abdomen was fat and turgid with long hairs sticking out from baby-poop yellow skin.
For a moment, we just looked at each other.
Then it charged me.
Right behind him was another one.
“They’re attacking!” I shouted. “Run!”
“Run where?” came Ragnar’s reply.
I chanced a look over my shoulder. We were being swarmed.
Chapter Seventeen
I swung the hammer as hard as I could in a long low arc. The first bug that got hit liquefied. The heavy hammerhead making short work of the creatures coming towards me, towards us. But every one that was sent flying away left room for another two to attack.
It wasn’t pretty, but I was effective with the hammer. Swing, swing, swing, the hammer smashed them left and right covering me with their goop. But the kazeys kept coming.
Looking behind, the hirð were keeping the kazeys at bay, but they were certainly feeling the pressure.
“To the wall,” Nikolai shouted, his voice sharp. “Montana leads, we follow. Get our backs to the wall!”
Almost as one, we moved. I cleared the way while Skeld and Ragnar kept Nikolai safe.
A second later, Nikolai stepped behind me, and had his back up against the wall. Skeld to my right, and Ragnar my left. The bugs began to hold off. Who knows why — maybe they were waiting to see what we would do next.
Much deeper muck had piled at the edge of the wall, giving us a slight bit of high ground. But our advantage quickly disappeared as I sunk back down into the poop.
A kazey came closer, and Skeld shot his spear out, going straight through the creature’s head. But as quick as he had thrust the spear out, Skeld reset, ready to attack again.
Another bug pushed forward. They seemed eager, if cautious. This time, it was my turn.
I made a leap forward with the hammer and drove the kazey deep into the muck, destroying the thing. I followed up with another horizontal swing, clearing a group of the kazeys away in a stunning splash of gore. Their internals now externals all across the poop-scape. I stepped back, not wanting to get drawn out. Nikolai was a single hit from death.
Moving as one, all the bugs burrowed down into the muck.
“What the fuck are they doing?” I asked, looking back and forth across the muckscape, trying to find any clue of the creatures or their movement. My mind whirred, running through all sorts of possibilities. Nothing came to the fore. “I think we move. Backs to the wall. Head away from where we entered.”
We went to our right, side-stepping slowly, keeping my torso straight forward, eyes scanning the water around us for any sign of movement. The numbness had basically left my leg, so the poison didn’t last that long, which was good.
A scream echoed out from far to the right, the direction we were traveling, and also the direction Emeline had run off towards.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Nikolai said.
“Don’t say that,” I snapped. “Any time someone says they have a bad feeling, something terrible happens.”
“Perhaps because something bad was about to happen when someone felt that bad things were about to happen.”
“Stop. You still shouldn’t say—”
“You can say you feel no ill omens for what might happen here? The scream, the—”
“Things are most definitely going poorly, Nik, and I definitely feel like shit is just going to get worse, but why the fuck tempt fate to double down the crap they’re about to throw at us.”
Emeline came rushing back towards us, stomping through the muck. As my attention was diverted by the running girl and the realization that the world of Vuldranni had yet to invent bras, some of the kazeys struck, launching themselves out of the poop like missiles.
I barely had time to react, so I just threw myself across Nikolai.
A barrage of impacts rocked across my body, and my body lit up with flashes of pain before numbness took over. Skeld and Ragnar were slumped against the wall, barely moving, hardly breathing. I turned around, slowly, mainly because my body wasn’t exactly functioning the way I wanted it to.
The kazeys were gone. Back into the muck.
Emeline slammed into me, and pushed me in front of her.
Even the act of watching her happened as if it was in slow motion. It was like being underwater.
“Big monster,” Emeline said in between big breaths, “coming this way.”
I frowned at her. “Monster?”
“Why are all of you pissing your pants here?” she asked. “Not like anyone would notice.”
“Fucking bug things attacking us.”
“What? The kazeys?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you were a big fuck-off warrior and your knees are knocking over kazeys? The fuck? Little tots grind out xp by killing kazeys caught in the Osterstadt dumpsters. Worried about losing a hitpoint or two?”
“And what the fuck were you running from?”
She pointed. “That.”
Following her finger gave me a look at something I never wanted to see. Not that I knew it before I saw it, but once I saw it, it was immediately something I wished I’d never seen. A large beast, a rotund almost spherical body squatted over short fat legs with long tentacles dragging behind him, large enough I couldn’t see their end. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a mouth anywhere on the thing. Nor any eyes. Or ears.
A tentacle whipped up from the back of the creature, a giant eye smack in the middle of the pseudopod on the end of the appendage. The monster stopped moving closer to us, and, instead, took its eye and waved it over us slowly. I guess just taking the time to really look at us.
The eye blinked.
It grossed me out because there were definitely nasty things dropping off it. Bits of poop, fe
tid water, and other liquified nasties. The body dropped down in the muck. There was a sucking sound, and then the creature stood up again, its body moving about almost as if… I realized exactly what had happened, the creature had taken a bite of the muck and was chewing it. The mouth was on the bottom of its body.
We were very likely in trouble, and I didn’t have many options available to me. I figured I’d try diplomacy.
“Hey,” I said, “you mind if I do a little spell thingy real quick just to find out your name?”
I spoke softly, carefully, like I would had I run into a bear out on Earth.
No reaction from the creature, so I sent the spell its way.
Vuilighelm
Lvl ?? Monster
“Well fuck,” I said. “You are one big motherfucker, aren’t you?”
No response. But it didn’t move towards us, or seem like it was preparing to attack us.
“Dude,” I said, “we’re not here to hurt you. We are just moving through, okay?”
“That thing is a monster,” Emeline hissed into my ear. “It will kill us.”
I hushed her.
The water rippled a bit, and a kazey head poked out.
The Vuilighelm’s fat tentacle whipped around in a blur, and slammed down on the creature. The tentacle popped back up, a goodly chunk of the kazey hanging beneath. There was a crunching noise from the tentacle, and kazey bits dropped into the murk. The dude had a mouth full of nasty-looking teeth on the flat of the end of his tentacle. This Vuilighelm was one ugly monster.
Feeling was starting to come back to my body.
“Tell you what,” I said, “we’re just going to leave. Lots of these little guys for you to eat around here.”
I gave a swift kick into the muck, making a guess and hoping I’d get lucky. A lot of poop came up, but a kazey also flew out, its stupid legs waggling and flailing. The Vuilighelm tentacle snapped the kazey right out of the air, and I got to see the tentacle mouth and teeth in action, a horror in its own right.
I started to move. Carefully, slowly, just walking like it wasn’t a big deal, keeping my weapon low in a completely non-threatening way.
The Vuilighelm’s tentacle eye watched us move, but the body didn’t shift.
Another Kazey poked its head above the surface, and like lightening, Vuilighelm was on it, his tentacle smashing down on the creature and snatching it up, munching on it.
“I think we’re okay,” I whispered. “Maybe he’s used to people coming in here to add fuel to the braziers.”
There was a pressure on my brain suddenly, as if something was trying to push into it in some manner. The Vuilighelm eye was focused directly on me, and the creature moved its tentacle eye closer and closer, and I decided to take a chance, and I forced my brain to relax and let the pressure in.
“MORE!” a voice roared into my head with impressive force. I couldn’t help but take a step back and wince.
Chapter Eighteen
The others around me did as well.
“Oh yeah, totally fine,” Ragnar said through clenched teeth. “Just great.”
“You want more, uh, kazeys,” I said to the Vuilighelm. “Right?”
“MORE!”
“Okay, I’ll take that as a yes.” I looked at my comrades. “Let’s go digging for kazeys.”
I didn’t wait for the others because I figured they’d be disgusted. Instead, I just started digging into the shit. Any time I felt something solid, I’d grab it and throw it into the air. Sure, sometimes it was nothing but poop, but more often, I’d have a kazey leg. As soon as the kazey reached the air, the Vuilighelm tentacle would gobble it up.
Skeld was doing something similar, but using his spear instead of the more disgusting means I engaged in. Every few steps, he’d fling another kazey out of the poop and into the air.
Even Emeline got involved, despite her lack of weapon which forced her to mirror my tactics.
Nikolai stepped forward, but I shook my head, indicating he better make a move towards the other end of the room. The spot where I bet there was some form of exit.
Ragnar, ever the one to avoid as much work as possible, grabbed Nikolai’s rotting shirt, and pulled him along, acting as guard to the man.
It was gruesome work, but at a certain point, my brain just sort of shut off, and the motions became routine. I lost track of the time we were doing it, and the number of creatures we fed to the Vuilighelm. But at some point in the revolting endeavor, I felt a strange caress on my back.
“FRIEND,” came the roar into my brain.
Clearly, Sidney had had little training in indoor voices. Or indoor psychic emanations.
“FULL,” he roared.
I stood up, my back screaming in protest. After a little stretching and some involuntary groans and sighs, and I was as good as poo. Given, you know, I was covered in the collective feces of the prison.
Emeline was on her knees in the muck, exhausted, while Skeld leaned on his spear.
“There’s a door back here,” came Ragnar’s yell from the other end of the room. “And clean water!”
The Vuilighelm kept its tentacle on my back, seeming to usher me along. Sure enough, as we walked, I could see Ragnar and Nikolai standing on a platform well out of the feces. There was a staircase leading out of the muck, and, at the back of the platform, a heavy wood door. I basically ran there, just desperate to get out of the poop water.
To one end was a chain hanging down with a handle, and I pulled it. Clean, clear water came pouring out of the ceiling, washing me off. I stripped down to nude, and I pulled that handle again and again until I was finally cleansed of all the filth I’d bathed in. It was terrible in so many revolting ways I’d prefer to never think about again.
The creature seemed amused, watching us wash the gunk and grunge off, but made zero hostile movements. The gross old guy was fat and happy for the moment.
I dug out some clothes for me, getting down to the last of the stuff I’d purchased in Arenberg. It didn’t exactly fit, but was close enough for government work. As a duke, I figured that meant me. The bigger problem was armor. At least for me. Nikolai and Emeline only had their prison rags, and those certainly weren’t worth anything for our dungeon crawl.
For the moment, though, that’d have to do. I wanted to get into the dungeon. And fast. Everyone but me looked like shit. At least not in the literal sense as much, since the showers.
I pushed the door open just a little, and peeked outside. I saw a hallway made out of dark stone, just like everywhere else I’d seen here. A fair distance down the hall, there was another door coming in like a t-junction, and then another door opposite that door, and, waaaay down was just darkness. I could tell there was an end to the hall, but I couldn’t make out anything there. Clanging and banging came from one door, and relative silence from the other.
“Okay,” I said, putting on my best glare for Emeline, “no running and screaming this time. We have to move quietly to get the fuck out of here, okay?”
She frowned at me, but then gave a slight nod.
And then we left the poop zone.
Chapter Nineteen
The doors opposite each other were just a little annoyingly off. I opened the one that didn’t have the loud clanging and banging behind it, and it was stairs going up. I could hear the faint tromp of boots and the yelling of guards.
Wrong way.
I turned and checked the other door. As soon as it opened, the noise inside stopped, and an intense dry heat washed out and over us. Looking through, a brilliant orange light came out, and as soon as my eyes adjusted, I was looking at a forge. And a smithy. And a smith. A ridiculously muscular man without a shirt stared at us, a heavy-looking set of tongs hanging loosely in one giant mitt. He had a super square head on top of a body that seemed like it was nothing but muscle.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Montana,” I replied instinctually, “just, uh, passing through. Are you, uh—” That’s when I noticed the
chains. They were hanging down from the ceiling, and went under the man’s oft-singed beard and attaching onto a collar around the man’s neck. It looked painful. “We are, well, escaping.”
“There is no escape,” the man said.
“Yeah, I don’t believe that.”
“This is my rescue party,” Emeline said.
“Some rescue,” the man replied. “There is no escape from here.”
“Going through the oubliette to the dungeon,” I said.
“That is real?” the man asked, his eyes going a little wide, hope very evident.
“It is,” I replied, forcing myself to believe I was telling the truth. “Just, well, I’m not exactly sure where the oubliette is.”
The man was just about to say something, but then he stopped himself. “If I tell you,” he said, speaking slowly and carefully, “you will take me with you.”
You have been offered a quest by [NAME UNKNOWN]:
A Potent Rescue
Trapped for decades, a man asks for your help in escaping the prison.
Reward for success: Directions to the Oubliette and [unknown]
Penalty for failure (or refusal): None
Yes/No
I looked to Nikolai, who shrugged.
“Okay,” I said, selecting yes.
The man grinned. His teeth were a reminder that neither dental hygiene nor technology had advanced much in the land of Vuldranni. The dude reached up and pulled the chain. Up high, I could see the anchor point in the ceiling.
“First step,” I said.
I walked over to the chain and pulled. Hard. For a moment it was just pressure, but I could feel, somewhere along the chain, one link was starting to go. There was a hard ping, and the weak link exposed itself. The chain fell from the ceiling.
Another big smile.
He took the chain far closer to the forge than I’d want to go, and chucked it in. After a moment of the intense heat, the chain was short enough not to get in the way. He still had a collar around his neck, but that’d have to be something we dealt with later. He tossed the tongs to the side, and picked up a big sledge.