by Max Jager
At the end of the hall there was a room to the south, so following the only path they could they walked down to that room and found themselves at another crossroads. Again, the path split in all four directions. Mendelen lead the way straight ahead, continuing south to find that the room was just an empty room. So they went back to the crossroads and took the west path. Entering another empty room that had a doorway leading south, to another empty room and door leading further south. Mendelen was starting to question if there was anything left in this dungeon as he lead the group south into the next room. But as they walked through the doorway and into the room they saw something they wish they hadn't seen.
In the room was a staircase leading downstairs, but in front of it was a massive, fifteen foot tall troll. It carried a huge club that was as big as a human's entire body. The massive beast had skin that was so thick it looked like stone was embedded in its skin in various places throughout its body. Its massive size and incredible strength was matched only by its incredible stupidity. The troll, seeing the four humans grunted and immediately ran after them.
Kaden cussed loudly as he turned and started to run, with the other three following mere seconds after him.
"What do we do? How do we fight that thing!" Estellese yelled.
"It is too big to fit through the door. Just run!" Mendelen called back, glancing over his shoulder as they backtracked through the dungeon.
As the troll chased them and neared the door, the beast ducked as if it was going to duck low enough to fit through the door. However, even when ducking the beast was still much bigger then the door and the troll did not stop running. Its leg fit through the door but the rest of the beast slammed face-first into the wall. But the troll was so big, and running so fast, it smashed right through the wall, roaring in pain and shaking its head, but that didn't stop it, it just kept running after them.
"You were saying?" Estellese panickedly questioned. "We need a plan."
"Nothing we have will be able to harm that thing!" Mendelen countered.
"Follow me, I know where to go." Kaden spoke up, before he sped up to lead the way.
"You sure?" Mendelen questioned.
"I'm sure." Kaden replied as he lead the way, running back through the dungeon paths.
"You know where you are going?" Estellese asked.
"I memorized the layout of the dungeon." Kaden answered.
The troll continued its chase, at every door it passed by it ducked again as if it thought it would fit through the door this time, and every time it slammed face-first into the wall and broke through it, with a surprised grunt of pain.
Kaden lead the way to the long hallway they had ran through, running halfway down the hallway before he turned to take that north side-path, and then he ran up through that path.
"Kaden… Isn't this the path with the chest?" Zanath asked.
"Of course." Kaden replied as he ran through the first room, past the destroyed skeletons. Then lead the way into the second room.
"Wasn't the path with the chest a dead end" Zanath questioned.
"Yes." Kaden replied simply. stopping in the middle of the empty room that was right after the skeletons. There was two ways out of this room, south the way they had come from where the troll was barreling towards them. Or west, the room with a chest that was a dead end.
"Why did you lead us into a dead end!" Estellese shouted at him, spinning around at him with a firey look in her eyes that clearly said she was ready to kill him.
Kaden shrugged. "Dunno." He replied. "Sounded like fun." He looked around at the spiky stalagmites and stalactites on the floor, ceiling, and walls. He had thought they were pretty odd the first time they walked through here. After a moment, they heard another loud crash of the troll slamming through the doorway not far from their room, it was almost here. Kaden turned to Mendelen, giving him an expectant look as if waiting for him to do something.
"I am seriously going to kill you!" Estellese shouted at him.
Zanath and Mendelen looked around, trying to think of something. And Kaden just kept watching Mendelen, waiting. "Thiiink abooout iiiit…" Kaden said slowly.
Mendelen looked around the room again, trying to figure something out. After a moment it hit him. "Everyone get into the corner, immediately!"
"What? Why?" Estellese said quickly.
"Just do it." Mendelen called out. With another loud smash, the troll slammed its face through the wall above the doorway and crashed into the room, roaring out in frustration.
The four Alphas ran into the back corner of the room. "Huddle close together, grab onto eachother-"
"And kiss your ass goodbye." Kaden interrupted in a joking tone.
Mendelen shot him a glare. "And grab onto some part of the cave wall. Hold on tight, keep a hold on anyone you can. Whatever you do make sure you are holding onto something." He finished what he had been about to say before Kaden interrupted.
"If we are huddled this close together one swing will take us all out." Estellese countered. But she did as she was told, grabbing onto part of the jagged wall with one hand and grabbing Mendelen with the other. Mendelen grabbed onto a stone sticking out of the wall and Kaden. Kaden grabbed onto an indent in the wall and Zanath. Zanath grabbed onto another indent in the wall and Estellese.
The ground shook with every step as the troll ran at them, getting closer and closer. Once it got within reach it raised its club into the air and got ready to slam it down on the four humans. But then mendores let go of Kaden, and grabbed one of his scrolls.
Mendelen activated the scroll, and threw it out into the middle of the room. Suddenly the entire room was engulfed with powerful gales, blowing everything in the room all over. It was like a tornado had been unleashed, any rocks, stones, and small boulders that had not been stuck to the floor or walls were picked up and sent flying around the room in a circular motion. The troll, like the rest of the stones, was pushed by the strong winds and stumbled right before it could swing. The winds were so strong that the troll was struggling to stand, it wasn't being lifted off the ground and blown around, but it was being pushed around by the wind, sent stumbling in circles around the room, and couldn't keep its footing.
Mendelen quickly grabbed Kaden again as the four humans struggled to hold onto the wall. If any of them let go they would without a doubt be swept up in the windstorm.
"What is the plan?" Estellese shouted out over the sounds of rushing wind. The winds were so strong, and were pulling the four alphas away from the wall. They were all struggling to hold on and not be pulled off into the windstorm, but with her broken ribs holding on was excruciatingly painful. Her eyes were starting to get watery.
"Hold on and hope it works." Mendelen replied. "Whatever you do just don't let go."
The troll continued to struggle and stumble, until eventually the winds pushed it to step on a sharp stalagmite on the ground. With a roar of pain the sharp stone stabbed through the troll's foot. The wound on its foot made the troll stumble even more, barely able to stay on its feet as the wind pushed it all over the place. Until eventually, it fell and was swept up in the whirlwind. Flailing about, the troll tried to grab onto something, anything to ground itself again but it was fruitless. It was pushed and thrown around, and around, it eventually veered just a little off course from all of its flailing and slammed into the spiked wall. It was impaled by several stone spikes, and in an instant its body went limp and the ground below it was covered in blood.
The whirlwind continued a little longer, with the four humans barely holding on. When it finally came to a stop the four of them all let go and collapsed to the ground. They were all panting lightly for a moment. "We killed it…" Mendelen panted out. "Take a moment to relax, we are safe."
Estellese quickly wiped a few tears from her eyes, and took a deep breath, cringing in pain. Even breathing was starting to hurt very badly now. She considered asking for a potion, but shook her head. No, they needed those potions. She recollected herself and wen
t back to acting as if she was unharmed. "No thanks to Kaden." Estellese argued. "Can we kill him now? I'll gladly-"
"Hey." Kaden interrupted. "I said I know where to go. I said nothing about getting us away from big and ugly. Plus, we lived, so clearly I did the right thing."
Estellese sat up and clenched a fist, giving him a death glare. But Mendelen spoke up. "Let it go Estell. We need him." Mendelen stood up and brushed himself off, then held out a hand to help the others up. "Now that we caught our breath, lets get moving. I saw stairs leading down behind the troll, that probably goes deeper into the dungeon. But there is one path we didn't check on this floor so lets check that first and then go down the stairs." He said.
"Sounds like a plan." Zanath said, taking Mendelen's hand and pulling himself onto his feet.
Estellese also grabbed Mendelen's hand and pulled herself up. "Alright…. Side path it is." She said in a rather irritated tone while Kaden got up on his own.
"Formation everyone." Mendelen said, before leading the way back to the second crossroads, the one right before the troll. He lead the way to the east this time, the one way they hadn't gone. They walked into the first room, which only had one door leading east, so they walked into the second room which also only had one door, going south this time. The four of them were on edge, expecting an attack at any second, but none came. Walking south into the third room they found another treasure chest, in an empty dead-end room.
"Careful, could be a trap." Zanath said. However by the time he said it Kaden was already standing in front of the chest with his hands on it ready to open it. "Or not, go ahead."
Everyone stood back as Kaden opened the chest, and when nothing happened the rest of the group walked over to the chest to see its contents. He pulled out three more ingots of the same metal as the previous ones. A spikey mace that seemed kinda heavy, and a small cloth bag that like the chalice they found earlier gave off this weird vibe, as if it was radiating energy. Muttering quietly to himself about the chest having more junk he put the ingots into the cloth bag, and was surprised to realize that the bag only got a little bit heavier, and that the ingots took up almost no space. Puzzled, he looked inside to see that the ingots had shrunken to be about one fourth of the size they had been. He reached in and took the ingots out only to see that they were still normal-sized once out of the bag. "Huh…" He mused.
"Well, that'll be useful." Mendelen said as he took the bag and ingots from Kaden, then put the ingots back in the bag. "Zanath pass me all the loot we put in your bag. Anything we don't need to use is going to go in here." He said. Zanath quickly passed him the rubies, ingots, and gold nuggets so Mendelen could keep them in the magic bag. Then Mendelen handed the mace to Estellese. "This is good guys, we are getting our feet on the ground. We are getting armed. Lets keep exploring the dungeon, when we get out maybe we'll be well armed enough to have a better chance of survival out there. Lets go." He instructed as he slung the bag over his shoulder.
The group nodded, they may be exhausted but their moral was a little higher at least. They went back into formation and followed Mendelen back to where the troll had been. They looked down the stairs and the room below seemed to be clear, so they cautiously walked down the stairs to the next floor. They found themselves in another empty room, this one had a door leading to the north.
Once everyone had reached the bottom of the stairs, the group walked north into the next room. "You've got to be kidding me…" Kaden murmured in a quiet voice. As they walked into the room the natives of the room came into sight. Three of those lion, ram, snake hybrid creatures they had run into before. The beasts turned to see the humans as they walked in, the three of them began to growl quietly and slowly walked towards the group, ready to fight or chase if needed.
Next Chapter: Diving Deeper
Chapter 9: Diving Deeper
(Sorry for the delay again, this chapter was a week late due to a week long stay in the hospital.)
-Chapter 9: Diving Deeper -
As the Alphas walked into the room their eyes set on the three hybrid creatures in the room. One of these things had caused enough trouble... Facing three at once… Would be dangerous.
Mendelen thought over what scrolls they had left. Kaden's teleport scroll, his own barrier, and Estellese's death grip. Nothing that could easily bring these down like Zanath had done before. "Alright, everyone we're going to-" He started but before he could finish Kaden had already sprinted off after the leftmost creature.
"Sprint off and act like an idiot. It's what he does best." Estellese grumbled.
Mendelen shook his head. "Let him do his own thing. New plan, Estell take the rightmost creature, Zanath with me on the center one. Lets hope Kaden knows what he's doing. Plan is to pick them off one at a time by outnumbering them, so just hold out until me and Zanath kill ours." With that Mendelen and Zanath ran towards the hybrid creature in the middle.
"Got it" Estellese replied. She tightly gripped the battle axe she had taken from the last chest and ran towards her assigned beast, but she treaded with caution. Her injuries slowed her down and weakened her, she knew that, and as she watched the snake-tail she could tell that it moved too fast for her. It moved too fast for any of them to keep up with. She was going to have to be careful with this one. The lion part of the beast roared out loudly and pounced at Estellese, but Estellese quickly threw a spinning roundhouse kick at the beast, striking it in the side and knocking it out of the air. The beast hit the ground on its side and skidded a few feet, but immediately rolled onto its feet and with a roar of anger lunged for Estellese again. Her ribs were searing in pain, she spun back around as fast as she could to face the beast again but it was too late. As soon as she saw it the beast tackled her to the ground and immediately moved to sink its teeth into her throat. But before it could bite her she dropped her axe since the beast was too close to hit it with the axe and slammed a fist into the creature's nose, causing the beast to yelp in pain and recoil for a brief moment. But it turned its attention right back to Estellese and took in a deep breath, with her pinned underneath its paws it was getting ready to spew more flames.
Estellese immediately thrust her right arm up to grab the beast's throat, shoving its head up so that it spat its flames up into the air. Growling in frustration the beast started trying to struggle to get its throat out of her grip, it began clawing at her anywhere it could reach, and suddenly Estellese heard a hissing from her left side. She turned to see the snake-tail reaching around the side, the snake's head head pulled back and suddenly lunged forward at her throat with lighting fast speeds. Estellese cussed loudly and thought fast, taking her left arm and thrusting it down its throat to prevent it from biting her neck. She screamed out in pain as she felt the snake's fangs sink into her arm, and felt the claws of the beast tearing away at her, and felt the weight of the beast on top of her broken ribs. It all hurt so much her head was spinning. Estellese grit her teeth, trying to bear through the intense pain, as she slammed her arm that was inside of the snake against the ground, slamming the snake's fangs deeper into her arm, but keeping her arm pressed firmly against the ground to make sure the snake was pinned and wouldn't be able to bite her anywhere else.
And then, she focused on the scroll she had in her pocket. A red aura surrounded her and the beast, one for each of them, but the aura of the beast looked as if it was being sucked into Estellese's aura little by little. The beast started struggling and trying to pull away, but Estellese tightened her grip on its throat, squeezing so hard that her nails broke skin and the beast started to bleed. "You're not going anywhere now." She growled, fighting through the pain, trying very hard not to scream as the beast clawed away at her, as the snake repeatedly bit and yanked on her arm in a mad attempt to pull her arm out of its throat. As the beast's aura grew weaker and weaker, its body grew weaker and its attempts to fight and pull away grew feeble, its loud roars and growls became quiet whimpers and yelps. Until eventually, the beast's aura was gone and it lifelessly col
lapsed to the ground. Leaving Estellese lying in a pool of her own blood, her body torn and mangled from the beast's claws, with silent tears she couldn't hold back running down her cheeks from the sheer pain as she laid on the ground. She laid there for just a moment, before shakily standing back up, barely standing but standing nonetheless. It was then that the second part of the scroll started kicking in, her wounds all began rapidly healing from the life force she had drained from the creature. She checked her pocket hoping the scroll would still be there, it saved her life, but it was nothing more then ash now. It would not be there to save her again.
Although, she did wonder why nobody had come to help her. Usually the team was right on top of that. She looked around for the others, only to see that they were not in much better positions.
Kaden jumped back narrowly getting out of reach of the snake-tail to avoid getting bitten by it. As soon as his feet touched the ground the lion head took in a deep breath and billowed out flames, forcing Kaden to turn and run to the side to get out of the way of the flames. He shifted a little, running at an angle to try and strike at the beast from the side. As he got close he swung his sword down at its back but the beast tilted its head back and blocked the blade with its long horns. The snake-tail whipped around and lunged for Kaden's shoulder with lightning fast speeds, but Kaden was quick to jump back again and get out of its reach before it could hit him. He couldn't get a single hit in on the beast, it was too fast and had too many defenses for him to strike it, and its constant attacks were forcing him to stay on the defense.