by Eric Ugland
“Door!” came a shout from Vreggork up front.
I came around the corner, and there was, in fact, a door. If it had been wood, I’d have just run right through the thing. But it was made of stone, so I skidded to a stop, maybe slamming into the door a little.
Bear had her hands on the door. There was a loud knocking sound, but she managed to get it open.
Behind, I heard the crash of deepteeth trying to force their way through my shield barrier.
“Inside,” I snapped. But everyone was already moving because there was really only one way to go, so I didn’t need to say anything. But it made me feel a little better to say something. Until I realized no one needed a reminder to go into the room, and then I felt a bit foolish.
I got into the room, deposited Tarryn on the floor, and shoved the door shut behind me.
I leaned on the door, and Bear threw orbs of light into the air.
Gold glimmered back at us. Gold and a whole bunch more.
“The treasury,” I whispered, my inner loot-gremlin stirring. But it was as I said those words that I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. There’s usually only one way in and out of a treasury. “Forget the loot, find another door.”
“Forget the loot?” Ragnar asked. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’d like to get out of here without going through the digestive tract of one of those things,” I said. Conveniently, that’s when the first of the deepteeth workers slammed against the door.
I leaned into it, wedging myself against the stone, feeling repeated hits from the creatures on the other side.
The rest of the group spread through the room. It wasn’t a small space, but it was fairly narrow for how long it was. There were graduated levels from flat floor, stepping up in segments about a yard at a time for a total of three levels. Each level had plenty of tables, which looked like wood, but probably couldn’t be wood, considering all the other wood we’d seen was barely still existing. There were stacks of coins most everywhere, gold and silver by the look of it. Some chests, some sacks of things, a few barrels of gems, and, at the far back, a rack of weapons that had a purple glow to them. All cool, but it didn’t take long for the reality to sink in: the only way out was back through the door I was currently holding shut.
Thud. Thud.
It was like a middle schooler learning to play the bass drum. Off-tempo and with varied pressure.
The others gathered back around me, and we stood there. Finally, the deepteeth fuckers stopped thudding. Everyone remained still.
“No one sneeze,” I whispered.
Chapter Fifty
Several eyes shot over to Wulf, and suddenly I knew who to blame. It wasn’t his fault he sneezed, so I couldn’t exactly be rationally angry at him. Even though I wanted to.
I took a few tentative steps from the door, and then stood up straight.
“Damn,” I said, “we’re in a tight spot.”
“Maybe taking some gold would make you feel better?” Ragnar asked.
“I mean, yeah, but it’s not like we can buy our way out of here can we?”
“Maybe there’s a magic weapon here to fuck up those things, whatever they are.”
“Deepteeth workers,” Bear piped up.
“Oh,” Ragnar said. “Yeah. We’re pretty fucked.”
“You know them?”
“No, but a name like that means they’re pretty badass and there’s probably, you know, soldier variants. Otherwise, they’d just be called deepteeth.”
“Didn’t think of that. Damn, we’re in a tight spot.”
Almost absentmindedly, I started grabbing gold and chucking it in my bag. Also the silver. And then I just swept it into my bag by the armful. Ragnar and Skeld hopped up at that point and started getting in on the action.
Now, I know it seems like I was just trying to steal all the treasure I possibly could, and while that’s mostly true, I was also thinking. I was going over possibilities. If these were workers, then maybe there was a queen that controlled them. That could certainly explain how and why the creatures had reacted as one to the sneeze. And if there was a queen controlling things, that meant I just needed to kill the queen. Well, I needed to cut through all the workers, the potential soldiers and whatever other classes of deepteeth might exist, then find the queen and kill her. Easy.
Minor problem really.
I thought about one of the many abilities I possessed that I hadn’t yet tried out.
Battle Frenzy - Once per day, you are able to enter a frenzied state where damage dealt is doubled and damage received is halved until you are out of combat. Be aware, in this state, you cannot distinguish friend from foe and will attack anything you perceive as a threat or a weakness.
Sure, it meant there was a chance I’d kill all the people in my party, but that was rather remote, right? Probably remote, at least. If they had a safe place to stay, out of sight and out of mind, maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to kill them in my slayer state. Or whatever it was called. I waved Ragnar over, thinking I should go over the plan with him first, before busting it out for the rest of the group.
“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice down. “New plan.”
“Or a plan,” Ragnar said.
“I’m going to go outside and kill everything.”
“Interesting plan. I do see, perhaps, a few things that might go wrong.”
“I’ve got an ability to help me do something like that.”
“Outright slaughter?”
”I mean, that’s basically what it is, so, yeah.”
“And you think you can use it to take on this whole, what, nest?”
“Nest is probably a decent term. Seems like ants, right?”
“Do you have ants like this back on Girth?”
“Earth. And no. Well, kind of? Smaller.”
”If these things were smaller, then it would probably be a decent plan. Go squish them with your big fat feet.”
“I don’t have fat feet.”
“You could walk on top of snow with those boats.”
”Don’t mix your metaphors.”
“You probably give cobblers nightmares.”
“Can we get back to the plan?”
“It’s not exactly a plan so much as you hoping you can kill everything in one fell swoop.”
“I’m pretty sure it will work.”
”That’s not a plan, though, my duke.”
“It is a plan.”
“It’s a hope.”
“Better than anything you’ve come up with,” I said.
“I have the lowest intelligence score of any of the hirð. Why the hell would you look to me to come up with a plan?”
”Intelligence is not the same as creativity. And you shouldn’t live your life by the numbers. Be better than the numbers.”
“Says the man who lived his first life without any numbers whatsoever.”
“Which means I know things.”
”You didn’t know your feet were wide.”
”Can we not go into that again?”
”Not sure we can avoid them.”
“The plan.”
”Fuck it, my duke. I don’t have any idea how that’s going to work. So, you know, go down swinging.”
I nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“You’re a fool, you know that, right?”
“I’ve been accused of it many times.”
I ruffled the fur on his head, and he glared at me. Then I walked over to the door and put my ear against it. I couldn’t hear anything.
“Listen up,” I said. “I have a terrible plan, but it’s the only thing I can think of to get us out of here.”
The party looked at me. I could see Ragnar muttering to Skeld.
“I’m going out alone, and I’m going to try and kill everything out there with a pretty noxious ability I have. You all need to stay in here, with the door shut and try not to make any noise. Because I think if I know you are here, I might try and kill you all as well.”<
br />
Lots of blinks. Then a bit of looking at each other.
“Would you forget we’re here?” Skeld asked.
“It’s possible,” I said. “Probable? I don’t know, honestly.”
“As a plan, it’s incredibly stupid,” Tarryn said. “But it could work.”
Amber frowned. “How could it possibly work?”
“I’ve seen him fight,” Tarryn replied. “He’s not, I mean, I saw him dismantle the army of the corrupted, and I assume that was without this skill he’s got.”
“It was. If someone has another idea,” I said, “I’m not exactly keen on this current plan, so I’d be happy to listen.”
“I could cast invisibility on all of us,” Bear said, “and we can sneak out of here.”
“Unless someone sneezes again.”
“It was an accident,” Wulf said, glaring at me.
“I know that,” I said, “but it’s something that can happen, right? Invisibility does nothing for sneezes. And do we even know if these creatures hunt by sight?”
“They have a lot of eyes,” Amber said.
“Sure, but it’s dark down here. They’d need lots of eyes to see anything.”
“Going out there and trying to kill everything is a fools errand,” Bear said. “Even if you do survive and manage to kill a lot, there’s always the chance you won’t have killed absolutely everything, and something will still be hiding, waiting to ambush us. And then, it will kill us all, and you’ve gone through all the trouble for nothing. Unless you just want to kill a bunch of things for the XP and whatever, then it doesn’t really matter. But if you’re trying to get us out of here, all of us alive, the ‘kill everything’ approach is stupid and will not work.”
“It could work,” Tarryn said. “Duke Coggeshall has some real fighting chops.”
“But is it what will get us out of here safely, prepared to finish this quest?” Bear asked.
“You think we should just sit in here and starve?” Tarryn asked.
“No. That’s ridiculous.”
“Stop arguing,” I said. “Let’s keep thinking on this. We’re not in danger of starving.”
I reached into the bag, pulled some rations out, and set them on the ground.
Skeld and Ragnar were the first to tuck in, pulling the food out and setting things in piles.
I walked to the far end of the treasury to look at the weapon racks. And to think. Sometimes I just needed a little time on my own. There was more in back than just the taller weapons I’d seen. There were a few racks of spears, one of swords, and one of miscellaneous pointy things, all of which were going to go into the bag as soon as I had the chance. But there was also a stack of bright and shiny metal shields. They were rectangular, with a slight curve to protect the body. I did a quick count, and came up with twenty. Then I noticed a chest, made of stone and fortunately open just a tad. Inside, I could see metallic fabric. Pushing the lid off revealed a big bunch of chain mail.
“Magic users,” I called out, as quietly as one could call out, “anyone got identify magic item spells?”
Both Bear and Tarryn started walking over, each one shooting the other with dark looks.
“What do you want me to do, boss?” Tarryn asked.
”I am at your service, your grace,” Bear said, at nearly the same time.
I groaned. “Can we save that nonsense until we’re back at Coggeshall?”
“What nonsense?” Tarryn asked.
“Fuck it,” I said. “One of you identify this shit, and tell me if there’s anything spectacular. And the other tell me why these tables are still here if they’re wood.”
For a second, I thought the two might fight over who got to do what, but then spells started flying around, and the two worked calmly. There was nothing particularly impressive, magic-wise, some +1 halberds, a +1 bardiche. The armor was similarly magical to a small degree, which explained why nothing had deteriorated. Magical weapons seemed to be immune to basic breakage and destruction.
I looked across the treasury, specifically at the door. It was nearly the size of the hallway outside, and it was heavy and stone and clearly could withstand an attack from the deepteeth motherfuckers. The workers at least. If there was just some way to take the door off the hinges, then we could just use it as a giant shield and battering ram, and force our way down the tunnel until we found the next exit. But in order to really pull such a maneuver off, we’d also need a second door we could use as a rearguard, so we couldn’t be attacked from behind. Which would probably be a problem we’d need to address once we pushed through the industrial complex.
But the hallways were all standard size, so a bulldozer sort of thing might be a tactical advantage. Especially because pushing was something I excelled at...
I walked over to one of the tables and took a good look at it. It wasn’t quite wood, despite appearances, but it didn’t seem like stone either. I gave it a hard knock with a knuckle.
A low thud.
“Metal?” I asked.
“Wolfram,” Tarryn said. “Very heavy, very dense, very hard..”
“Valuable?”
“If you can find a way to work it, maybe. Not sure what the uses might be.”
“Armor?”
“For someone like you, maybe, but I doubt anyone else here could move that table. Armor out of it would weigh down all the but strongest of soldiers. I will say, the woodgrain the Mountain Kings carved into it is beautiful work.”
I ran my fingers across the table, feeling the ridges and grooves. So the Mountain Kings had to have known how to work it. I knelt down and saw that the legs weren’t welded on —they were friction set just in holes.
It took some work, shifting the table back and forth while keeping my foot on the base. But eventually I got the tabletop off, and it thunked on the floor. Tarryn was right — it was seriously heavy. I was actually having a hard time with it, which was a novel feeling of late. I maneuvered it along the treasury until I was right by the door.
“Open it,” I said.
“The door?” Amber asked.
I just frowned at her.
She opened the door.
Nothing was on the other side, though there were a few scratches on both the wall and the door.
I got the table through the door, and set it down in the hallway on the other side. It took up nearly the entire width of the hallway, and about half the height. We couldn’t take the door off, but we could use the tables. Maybe get four of them, two to the front, two to the back, and we’d have created mobile safe-room. Fucking bugs wouldn’t be able to get us.
Not wanting to make noise, I picked the tabletop back up, and brought it into the treasury.
Amber had the door closed before I could ask her to do it.
“New idea,” I said. “It’s one that isn’t entirely based on my ability to go on a killing spree, so you might want to hear it.”
I gathered the crew around, and explained the general concept.
There were a few confused looks, some disbelief, and then a few nods. Because, you know, any idea was better than, I guess, the first thing I offered up.
We took the four tables, connected two to make the front shield, and two to make the back shield. Then we grabbed four heavy gold disks to give us wheels. It took a bit of impromptu engineering. While Lee probably would have done it better, between Skeld and Tarryn, they got it figured out. We used some of the magical pole-arms for axles, since they wouldn’t break under the ridiculously heavy load. Then I passed out shields to everyone who could carry one to provide a little side protection if it was needed. And then, because it didn’t quite fit through the door, we had to reassemble the whole thing out in the hall, keeping eyes out for the damn deepteeth.
Then it was time to roll.
Literally.
Chapter Fifty-One
Our rolling fortress was heavy, and it moved like it. The gold wheels had a bit of a squeak until Tarryn cast a grease spell on them, then they moved qu
ietly. But it was still tough. If I wasn’t pushing, the entire rest of the group could only just keep it moving.
Passing by the first door, I really wanted to go inside and poke around. There could be loot inside, cool ancient technology or long lost magics. And yet, I knew we had no time. The quick chat with Eona had been an eye-opener. I had to motor. So instead of going looting, I put my shoulder against the shield wall and pushed harder. A moment later, I heard the tell-tale screeches and clicks coming from up ahead. I peeked through the tiny gap between the table-shields, and saw deepteeth workers streaming down the hallway towards us.
“PREPARE FOR CONTACT!” I shouted.
I leaned against the front and got my feet situated so I was ready to receive their charge.
They hit, and hit hard. It knocked me back a step.
But then I started to push.
Step after step, I pushed. I tapped into internal reservoirs of power, and put them into my struggle. And though I felt intense pressure from the other side, as well as some scrabbling and scraping at the metal tabletops, our ramshackle contraption held.
I started to hear popping and crunching, and then goop from crushed bodies and limbs seeped under our shield wall. The creatures had some measure of intelligence though, and the deepteeth workers pulled back once it was clear they couldn’t do anything to the shield. That in the hallway, we were just going to crush them if they tried.
Instead, they waited for us at the industrial complex, where the room opened up and the big assholes could attack us from the side.
I stopped pushing when we were just at the edge of the wall.
The creatures attacked again, but the shields held.
“Ideas?” I asked, yelling to get above the din of the attack.
“Fireball?” Tarryn asked.
“You think that’ll take them all down?”
“I think it might buy us enough time to make it to one of the hallways on the other side of the room.
“Don’t suppose any of you have figured out which one leads to the outside.”