Dungeon Explorers (Tales of Magic and Adventure Book 1)

by Max Anthony

  “I agree,” said Rasmus. “I think we’ve only found a tiny fraction of what lies here. It could be that the proposed lich is many miles from where we stand, along corridors we might never find.”

  “And it might be that something else killed those people in the city above. A disease that animates their bodies and drives them to hate the living.”

  “I don’t for one moment believe that it was a disease,” said Rasmus.

  “Neither do I,” admitted Viddo. “Something killed them and turned them into the undead. Something powerful.”

  “More steps,” said Rasmus.

  The corridor ended. Two final rooms were to the left and right, each as empty as the ones which had preceded them. The passage itself dropped away, deeper into the ground.

  “The deeper you go, the harder it gets,” whispered Viddo.

  “I’m not sure that’s a hard and fast rule,” said Rasmus. “This place is so big that it might not conform to the expected behaviours.”

  The steps were smooth and even, but the walls to the sides were roughly-hewn. They were wide enough for Rasmus and Viddo to travel side-by-side and this they did. The wizard dreaded the thought of another hour-long journey into the depths, but was pleasantly surprised when the steps ended after only forty or fifty yards. He was less pleasantly surprised when he found out where they’d deposited him.

  “These are definitely catacombs,” he said. “Or a dungeon.”

  The pair were at the beginning of another long and grey corridor, only this one was noticeably dank and somehow even gloomier than the greyness of the other walls above. The darkness seemed to absorb the light of Rasmus’ spell and he had to increase the power of its illumination to compensate. Sensing a disturbance in the air ahead, Viddo inched a few feet forward, with his hand out in front of him. About six feet along, he met a solid barrier which was invisible to his sight.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” said Viddo. “Another magical spell like the one we saw earlier, to keep things out or keep them in.”

  “That sort of makes me think it’s a dungeon,” said Rasmus. “Do we want to proceed?”

  “Hmmm,” said Viddo, uttering his favourite ‘I am thinking’ noise. “If you’re a prisoner who has been put into a dungeon, you’re likely to have had all of your valuable items taken away from you, apart from those you have managed to swallow or secrete in bodily cavities. We could get lucky and find a gem or two, but I can’t imagine there are any items of great magical power waiting to be picked up.”

  “And we don’t know what creatures there may be inside, which, having defied the ravages of time, await a pair of adventurers, with a lust to do them an injury.”

  “I could have put that more succinctly, but yes there might be packs of undead in there.”

  Neither man was a coward, but they were not desperate to face unknown dangers without the chance of a commensurate reward for their efforts.

  “It doesn’t seem worthwhile, does it?” asked Rasmus.

  “It pains me to say it, but I think we should go back and try the other corridor. Whatever these ancient people kept trapped down here behind this force shield spell, it can remain undiscovered for now, or forever as far as I’m concerned.”

  With that, they turned and went back up the stairs. It was Viddo who heard it first, when they were only halfway to the top.

  “Something’s coming,” he hissed. “Several somethings. Wearing the heavy stuff.”

  “Shit,” said Rasmus. Stairs weren’t the best place to be standing in a situation like this.

  “Kill the light and wait here,” commanded Viddo, darting up the stairs in front of Rasmus. The wizard did as he was bidden and saw Viddo’s outline blur until he was almost invisible against the background of the stone.

  Viddo reached the top of the steps. The noise was faint, but increasing in volume. Whatever it was, it was definitely coming along the corridor towards him. Using his thief’s powers to hide amongst the shadows, Viddo crept along the passage. He could now make out the outlines in the distance of what it was and he didn’t like it.

  He turned tail and ran, hoping that he remained unseen. He thought he’d made it safely to the top of the steps when he felt something clutch at his body, twisting his insides and commanding him to die. In a split second, the feeling passed and he flew down the steps, knowing that luck had smiled on him today.

  “Quick!” he hissed at Rasmus, dragging the wizard down the steps. “Get rid of this barrier. Now!”

  Rasmus didn’t need to be told twice and he cast his spell. To Viddo’s relief, the force shield crumbled on the first attempt and he beckoned the wizard after him.

  “Whatever you’ve got that can block that corridor, cast it,” said the thief. The sounds of plate metal on stone were clear now, coming down the steps towards them.

  Rasmus didn’t ask questions and waved his hands in three quick gestures. He spoke a dozen words. The length of the cast told Viddo that the wizard was working on something powerful. After what seemed to be an interminable wait, a barrier of swirling colours appeared, completely blocking the bottom of the steps. This wall shimmered and flowed through an infinite array of colours, but was not entirely opaque and Viddo could still see through it. A moment after the barrier appeared, something detonated off the other side – an impenetrable blackness hid the steps for the briefest of seconds, before it cleared. No sound reached their ears and the wizard’s barrier remained, unharmed by the spell that had struck it.

  Viddo turned to run, but Rasmus signalled for him to wait. The wizard stood calmly and watched as four hulking metal figures reached the bottom of the steps, walking two abreast. They were seven feet tall and each wore a complete suit of plate armour, the metal as black as night. Each of the creatures had the tall hilt of a monstrous two-handed sword protruding from a sheath on their back. Their visors were narrow, but even through the vibrant colours of the wall, the adventurers could see redly glowing eyes. The four figures stopped on the other side of the magical barrier, none of them making an effort to strike at the wall of colours. Behind them, there was something else. It was smaller and shrouded in a cloak of darkness. They could not make out what it was, and it remained behind the four armoured creatures, waiting patiently.

  “Now it’s time to go,” said Rasmus. He walked briskly, but didn’t run.

  “Can they get through that wall?” asked Viddo anxiously. He’d seen pretty much every spell that it was possible to cast, but hadn’t seen Rasmus cast one of those before.

  “It’ll expire after a time,” said Rasmus. “It won’t dispel and if they try and smash through it, they’ll get a very nasty surprise. Though I assume it won’t be a surprise to them, which is why they haven’t tried to break it down already.”

  “How long is ‘after a time’?” enquired Viddo.

  “We might have thirty minutes, or we might have as long as an hour. The powers of magic are random in nature. Certainly, we must not forget our caution and rush headlong into the unknown.”

  “Four dread knights, and that must have been a lich,” said Viddo, though he’d never seen a lich before in his life. “It commanded me to die,” he said. “But I resisted its spell.”

  Rasmus looked at him. “Then you have been exceptionally lucky indeed! It sounds like a similar spell to that which I used on the vampire, only a much more potent version” He knew that the best thieves had an inherent ability to avoid the effects of magic, though it wasn’t something they could rely on.

  “Do you have any spells like that?” asked Viddo.

  “I do,” said Rasmus, though I tend not to use them regularly. “Telling someone to die and watching while it happens feels a bit unsporting. Anyway, that particular spell doesn’t work on people or creatures that are exceptionally strong, otherwise you’d have wizards going around killing gods and deities left right and centre.”

  “That lich wasn’t a wizard though, was it?” asked Viddo. He knew these things.

 
“No, it was a priest of some sort. That blackness it cast against my barrier was an area-effect death spell, but luckily I got my wall up before it got its own spell away.”

  “We might be a bit outclassed,” admitted Viddo.

  “Not necessarily outclassed,” corrected Rasmus, knowing that he was one of the most powerful wizards alive and that Viddo was one of the best thieves alive. “But we are outnumbered and most definitely underprepared. If I’d known we were going to come across creatures like these I’d have made specific preparation. When I ventured out on this trip, I had only memorised a jack-of-all-trades variety of spells. You thieves should count yourselves lucky you don’t have these problems. As long as you’ve got your tools and your weapons, you’re as ready for anything as you’ll ever be.”

  “I suppose,” said Viddo. He knew that a powerful wizard was a hugely dangerous foe and an immensely useful ally, but they definitely had their weaknesses. It was why they preferred to travel in company, such as with a thief or a fighter, so they were with someone who countered their limitations.

  The entrance passage to the dungeon proved to be longer than they’d expected and soon, the colours of Rasmus’ barrier were reduced to an indistinct glow, far behind them. Here and there, huge metal rings hung from stone loops on the walls, their purpose unclear.

  “They must have tied prisoners to these,” said Viddo in passing.

  They reached a doorway and looked inside. There was a barred grille across it, made from old, rusted iron. Viddo gave it a shake and a few flakes fell from it, but it remained in place. There was a keyhole, but the thief was sure it would take him several minutes with his tools to scrape it clean enough that it would work. There was no real need for them to enter – the room beyond was only fifteen feet square and with no way to leave apart from through the barred doorway. There were skeletons inside, slumped against walls and on the floor. They gave no indication that they were about to struggle to their feet in order to attack through the bars.

  “Left down here to die,” said Rasmus. “Their lives forgotten and made worthless.”

  “It’s the fate that awaits us all,” said Viddo. “We should make the best of our time, for in a hundred years there will be no-one speaking our names.”

  “I disagree,” said Rasmus. “I’m over three hundred now, and I intend to live a lot longer yet. There’s so much to see and do! I never get bored with living.”

  Viddo made a harrumphing sound, though he was also over a hundred years old, on account of the fact that he’d once found half a dozen age-reversal potions in some other catacombs he’d explored long ago. These potions reduced the ravages of age on the lucky imbiber and he still had two of them left, hidden in a secret location. Like the wizard, Viddo had no intention of dying any time soon and had hopes that he could find some more such potions before his existing supply ran out.

  They left the room with its contingent of the dead and continued on their way. Where the dungeon had started out with a simple, straight corridor, it soon gave way to a series of branching turns, and it looked to have been laid out in something like a grid pattern. There were more rooms, each with the same bars and each with scattered bones within. Viddo kept to his left-right-left method and Rasmus offered up no resistance. The atmosphere below ground was usually oppressive, but here there was an additional quality of malice.

  “It’s like the hatred that caused them to build this place lingers still,” said Viddo.

  “I think this dungeon is more recent than the temple rooms we saw before,” said Rasmus. “When I removed the force shield from the room with the disguised chest, you saw how everything decayed in mere minutes. The same hasn’t happened here and it may be that there were living people in this area only a few hundred years ago - or less.”

  “It’s astounding to think what might have happened here. There may have been wars waged for centuries all across these tunnels and caverns. Parts of it might exist that are even older than those temples. We on the surface could have lived for little more than the blinking of an eye in comparison to the history under the earth.”

  “What happened to your dismissive opinions about digging tunnels too long and wasting time making rooms too large?” asked Rasmus.

  “I still hold those opinions,” replied Viddo. “But that doesn’t mean I am unable to appreciate the extent of what we have found. I am simply glad that I will not have to spend the entirety of my life with a pickaxe, chipping away at a rock wall, before I die, exhausted and unfulfilled, only for a thief and a wizard to walk through my endeavours in less than twenty seconds.”

  “I did tell you that there are more ways than just a pickaxe to cut through rock,” said Rasmus. “If the necessity arises, I will provide you with a demonstration, though for now I would prefer to keep that particular spell available in case we need it for something more practical.”

  “Do you think that the lich came upon us by accident?” asked Viddo, suddenly changing the subject.

  “I can’t imagine that it would have been looking for us,” said Rasmus. “Having seen it, I am not convinced that it was responsible for killing all of the people in the city above. While these creatures are powerful, I think that it would be beyond the capabilities of single one to kill so many. It might be able to destroy hundreds, but eventually it would get overrun and pulled to pieces. I am sure that liches also need to spend time studying or communing with their dark gods in order to top up the spells they cast.”

  “In other words, there’s something else down here, that’s even more powerful?”

  “I don’t know,” said Rasmus. “Whatever happened seems to have happened so long ago. If I were a creature or being of almost unimaginable power, I am not sure that I would wish to spend an eternity in the same place under the ground. I would wish to explore and to expand my knowledge beyond these confines.”

  “We have no idea how such a being might think, nor know of its desires,” said Viddo. “However, I am sure that I do not wish to come across it.”

  “I agree. There is nothing that I fear, but I am not stupid enough to seek out a battle that is heavily weighted against me. Particularly when I’m down to half my original number of spells, and with many of my protective preparations spent or incomplete.”

  As they talked, they kept a wary eye out and Rasmus kept his light spell low. If there was anything down here, it would doubtless notice the light and thereby be warned of their coming, but Rasmus needed at least a glimmering in order to see where he was going. The dungeon, which had first appeared to be only large, turned out to be enormous and the pair were hopeful that the lich and the dread knights would not be able to find them.

  They had not expected to see life down here, but they had been concerned that they might find large numbers of the undead. So far, there had only been unanimated skeletons – thousands upon thousands of them were spread through the rooms they passed. In some of the cells, the skeletons reached nearly to the ceiling, as though the original living men and women had been crammed in so tightly that they’d had to stand on each other’s shoulders in order to fit. The floors of many cells were concave, with foot-wide square holes in the centre, as if to serve as a drainage point for the human waste that would certainly accumulate.

  “This could have been genocide,” whispered Rasmus. “An entire people crammed into here and left to starve.”

  “Or the builders of this dungeon may have been intolerant of criminals and locked them up in vast numbers for minor crimes,” suggested Viddo. “These ancient people may not have thought in the way that we think. Cruelty and death might have been a way of life for them.”

  “I see little to celebrate,” said the wizard with a shudder. “I think I prefer the temple rooms, even with their fifteen feet high abominations. The sight of so many dead upsets me.”

  Viddo opened his mouth to ask Rasmus when he’d started to get so sensitive, but closed it rapidly when he realised that he felt exactly the same. His long career in thievery had
placed him in many parlous situations, but he wasn’t a wanton killer and liked to think that he only stole from evil men, or evil creatures. He wasn’t the sort of thief that would pickpocket random strangers and congratulate himself on his success, although he had been slightly more unrestrained when he was a younger man. Not everyone’s perfect, he thought to himself in his oft-repeated justification of his misspent youth.

  “My barrier spell has probably expired by now,” said Rasmus.

  The pair hadn’t been dawdling, but the warning added some extra impetus to their stride. They also had the early sensation of concern that this dungeon was far larger than they had wanted it to be. While it increased their chances of escaping what they thought of as their pursuers, they didn’t want to be stuck in here for longer than necessary - not least because there was no sign of any treasure, nor of an exit to the surface, neither of which they expected to find in a dungeon.

  Just when the concern had built up into a nagging of worry, they found steps downwards. What they had imagined to be a dead end was not, and a square hole in the floor housed a series of steep treads leading below.

  “It stinks down there,” said Viddo, noting the presence of a pungent odour which wafted through the opening. He was already quite sure what it was and put a finger to his lips so that Rasmus would remain silent. The wizard was equally familiar and didn’t need telling that it was time for caution.

  The only alternative was to backtrack, which neither of them desired. They descended, with Viddo in the lead. These steps were roughly-cut and dangerous. Rasmus had to put an arm on one wall to steady himself, though Viddo was agile enough that he didn’t need to worry unduly.

  There weren’t many steps, but with each stride down, the magnitude of the odour increased, until it became cloying and overpowering. Had these two been weak and inexperienced adventurers, they would have been driven to their knees by the scent, or perhaps even run away in uncontrolled fear.