by M J Sweeney
Every now and then, one of the worms had a gem or two of some kind stuck in its “out-hole.” The miners would retrieve these, usually with some ribald jokes about whose turn it was. I had to take my turn, but it wasn’t so bad. It certainly didn’t smell as bad as a poisonous armadillo, that was for sure. We collected some garnets and a few small uncut rubies; these would be split amongst all of us later.
Partway through the mid-level mine, I dinged, and was surprised and happy that I had levelled up. When I checked the combat logs, I was a little shocked to see that the worms were all around level 28 to 32, and most of the miners between level 25 and 30. Ligan was out in front at level 41, and I was definitely trailing the rear, now at level 21. No wonder I had levelled up—the experience for me was really good even though we were in a group. It seemed I was getting less XP overall, being in a larger group, but as the lowest level member, I was receiving more for my share. I wasn’t complaining.
There were accidents and injuries, but in my assigned role as healer, I kept applying Breath of Life whenever a worm managed to latch on. It was a simple job, but a useful one. I did have to monitor my mana to make sure I had enough for an emergency spell.
Whenever he could, if a worm’s neck was over-extended, Ligan would jump in with a sideways chop and sever it, causing instant death. It just took a little effort to expose this vulnerability. I didn’t bother trying to use my spear, as I would likely just get in the way. There was little room for manoeuvring in the tunnels, anyway.
On the third level, we encountered more resistance, and had to retreat more than once when larger groups of the creatures attacked. Occasionally, weapons and shields had to be abandoned as we retreated, letting them sucker the items. Fortunately, the dwarfs had spares, and when we returned to the explored sections, the dropped items could usually be retrieved. I noticed Ligan had one extra-large round shield covered under a horse blanket on his pony, but he said that it was for later—special use only.
Slowly, we whittled the numbers down. Ligan explained to me that there would be a large, hollowed-out chamber at the very bottom of the mine, where the queen would be laying her eggs. By eliminating all the male spawn first, we could then attack the queen more easily. I recognised the strategy from my time against the rat-armadillos and their queen.
On the fourth afternoon, we came to the inner chamber. The first thing I noticed was the heat. The floor and walls and air were all definitely getting warmer. The tunnel slowly widened out into a large chamber, its walls pockmarked with smaller holes. We crept closer until I started to see a glow down one end of the tunnel. It didn’t flicker like the flame from the torches the dwarfs carried, but rather pulsated, increasing and decreasing gradually. Ligan motioned us to stop and we crouched down.
“Queen is there, curled around her cocoons.” He pointed. Dimly, I could make out the form of the creature, which was probably at least ten to twelve metres long. Not only did she pulsate, but a hill of small rocks under about ten or so cocoons pulsated as well. It seemed she was heating them up, keeping her eggs warmed somehow. “She’s a big ’un too. No prizes for second place when we go against her.”
We crept back. “We’ll prepare the gear tonight and come back down first thing in the morning. She’s not going anywhere,” Ligan explained.
The next morning, Ligan unpacked the massive round-shield. It was made of bronze with some fancy gold trimming, which was an odd mix I thought, but also highly magical—the brown and yellow cast was also etched with dwarven runes, with a series of red gemstones in two circles. It was clearly heavy, so fortunately Ligan was strong enough and skilled enough to wield it. Noting my curiosity, he shared the shield’s particulars with me.
/ Grimstar / Round Tower Shield of Flame Immunity / Legendary Bronze, Gold, Garnet & Ruby
[+10 Vitality, +10% Maximum Vitality, +50% Fire Resistance, +10% Fire Resistance Cap, +20% Damage Resistance, +20% Deflection, Can Protect 1-3 Teammates in an Arc behind, -25% Movement Speed] (3x Size of a Round Shield, Requires 60 Strength and 60 Vitality, cannot be carried for more than 10 minutes per 10 Strength and Vitality combined without the wielder becoming fatigued)
“Now, here’s the plan. I’m going to tank the thing and take a hell of a beating from up front. While that’s going on, you five bold lads are going to see if any of the male-spawn are left. If they are, you gotta focus on smashing them down first. If there are too many, we’ll have to scarper, but we gotta take this shield with us if that happens, and it may not be so easy. We’ll cross that bridge if it comes. We’ll not need torches down there, as her glow will be enough to see by. It will be dim, but with our night vision, it’ll be fine.” He nodded at me. “Hopefully, if we’ve done our jobs right, all the males’ll be dead. In that case, you five are going to start chopping iron worm-rings from the tail up.” The lads all nodded. Most seemed familiar with what they’d have to do.
He turned to me. “Y’see, the top end’ll be too strong to hack through easily, and the tail is just as dangerous. If the lads can pin the tail, then each ring they disable will stop her from thrashing around and rolling on us. It’s slow and bloody work, but it should be okay. Now, your job is to keep me alive. You’re going to have to keep out of range of the mouth-of-flame attack she’s likely to spew out.”
What? Flame? But I’m a dryad! I was still nervous about my lowered Respawn and Divine Favour, not to mention the loss of my Ring of Fire Resistance. Dying now would be a bad move.
I gulped. He continued, “So just run in, heal, run out. If you’ve got time, try and sever a few of her tentacle-suckers. Got it?”
“I think so.” I hope so.
When we marched cautiously into the cavern, nothing much had changed. As we got closer, I realised the pile of rocks was actually a massive amount of iron nuggets—digested and refined iron ore. Interesting. Once we were about twenty metres’ distance, Ligan gave a nod to the group. He rolled his shoulders a moment, axe in one hand, massive shield in the other.
“I’m off.” He trotted forward a small distance and abruptly charged. The giant worm didn’t seem stunned, so she was quick to rear up and latch onto his shield with multiple suckers. The other five miners quickly fanned out to the sides and around the back towards her tail. She started to draw Ligan towards her gaping maw, which must have been almost two metres wide. Surely this can’t work. Her hide was a dull iron, with a reddish ginger toward the folds of each ring. Her maw was a deeper russet red, with dark serrated iron for teeth and a number of pink flesh-like tentacle suckers around the rim, each one at least a few centimetres thick and a few metres long.
I saw a strange shield emblem appear briefly above Ligan’s head, then fade from sight. He stopped moving, as if mired in stone. I could see a little symbol over his health bar on my group symbols, with ‘Aegis of Atropos’ above it.
The queen kept her large maw back a little, the rest of her tentacles trying to gain purchase around the shield’s rim and rend at Ligan’s exposed flesh. He had a square steel helmet atop his head for this encounter, plus steel shoulder guards, while the rest was chainmail. Checking the uneven ground carefully, I sprinted in, up behind Ligan, and laid my first Breath of Life. His health was doing fine so far. I ran back out.
The group behind were trying to pin down her tail, but so far, it was thrashing too much. I could hear more than one impact as they struck, the sound of steel on iron, and a few thumps as her tail lashed out.
Suddenly, she released her main sucker from Ligan’s shield, her muscles bunching. “Beware!” Ligan called. “Rolling!”
The beast, made of iron and weighing tonnes, part-rolled and part-twisted, attempting to crush the five dwarfs behind her. While she did this, her head was down, so Ligan lashed out a couple of hard blows with his axe. I took that as an opportunity and launched in with Charge, striking slightly to the side to avoid Ligan and that great serrated mouth of hers. My spear did penetrate, but boy, was she tough. It registered barely a dip in her health. Quickly, I
pulled my spear out and ran back to the side.
The great worm righted herself shortly, her front end rearing up once more. Multiple suckers latched onto Ligan’s shield again, but he was still immovable. He was also using his axe in short little chops to hack at the tentilia coming around the edge of the shield.
“First ring down!” I heard, “Tail’s still thrashing!”
“Keep at it, lads!” Ligan yelled back. Her pulsating black and red hide began increasing in tempo. I could see her rings light up as the colour went from dull red to bright orange from her tail to her head. Ligan deepened his stance into a crouch, getting right down underneath his shield, the edge on the floor. What happened next was kind of obvious, but impressive nonetheless. Still partly latched on to Ligan’s shield with her long tentacles, her maw widened even further, and a gout of flame spewed forth, expanding out in a cone some six or seven metres in front and the same again wide. The edges of Ligan’s hair and beard were crisped, but he wasn’t bothering to put them out—just hanging on and bracing.
I ran in and simply patted out a few small flames smouldering on his body. Burning status could be bad, as it caused greater damage from all sources and the chance for smoke damage—not to mention the DoT it was causing on its own. I could hear more clanging to the rear. She started thrashing her tail again, and I heard “‘Ware!” and a solid thump and crash, then more clanging. I struck a couple of times with my spear blade and managed to sever one of the smaller tentilia, then ran back out.
“Third ring down!” I heard. “But so is Kolgar!”
Damn. “Keep at it, lads! Don’t let up!” Ligan called.
Not long after that, she tried to roll again, but Ligan warned everyone clear. Charge was still on cooldown, so I simply ran in and applied another Breath of Life—the first was about to run out. When she wasn’t flaming him, she wasn’t doing too much damage to Ligan, so my healing was having a good effect. If she managed to get her maw on him, it would be a different story, but luckily she wasn’t the type of serpent to do a kind of viper strike with that great head of hers—it was too heavy.
Once again, she reared back for a gout of flame, Ligan crouched down, and the fire raged to either side of him for a few seconds. Her tentacles seemed unaffected by the flame, and only glowed briefly.
The sounds from behind seemed to be getting steadier, so when they called, “Sixth ring down!” Ligan gave a cheer.
“That’s halfway, boys! Keep it up.” The great worm’s lower half now seemed to pin her down, and she was unable to roll. Instead, she kept trying to get closer to Ligan, dragging the dead mass behind her inch by inch. The dwarfs behind upped the tempo, and Ligan started making bigger strikes at her large mouth, twisting his shield to the left and right to allow him to swing at it. I only had to dodge out when she emitted more bouts of flame, so I stayed as long as I could and struck at the more vulnerable tongue. Ligan’s health was still doing all right.
The other dwarfs were close now; I could see them easily hacking at the upper rings. Two would split the thick skin and then peel it back with their picks, and two with axes would hack and chop maniacally at the softer exploded sections. She was getting closer and closer, however, her maw about to engulf Ligan. I slapped one more Breath of Life on Ligan, and cast one on myself, and then cast Heart of Oak for me for good measure. The fight was slow enough that my mana was replenishing, so I ran off to get some distance and Charged again. Critical damage! Yes! The area was starting to fill with cloying smoke.
I stayed in close this time and kept hacking at the base of her tongue repeatedly, the same spot where I’d Charged. I was unable to get fully out of range when her flame gouted—it was too hard to see in the smoke. I took some serious burns on my arms and shoulder, but I kept piercing and slicing with my spear-head. My leather skull cap seemed to be overheating; I was sweating profusely, and felt suffocated by the smoke. Not my idea of fun.
We were all at the head now, the dwarfs hacking and cleaving and most of us smouldering from the fire, but she was finally weakening. Her teeth were crunching on the shield’s edge, but fortunately it was just a bit too big to get around in her weakened state, and Ligan was a bit too steady. Finally, she died, her massive head slumping to the side with a loud clang. Steam rose from the giant body, and slowly the red glow faded.
The miners gave a small cheer, and we ran over to check on Kolgar. He had taken the brunt of the tail slaps. He was lying to the side of the cavern, his neck twisted at a bad angle. Broken. He was dead. Shit. I knew all the miners were locals—no one from Earth—but that didn’t make it any easier. I felt responsible—I mean, shouldn’t the healer have prevented that? Ligan saw my look and shook his head.
“Dead…” Ligan breathed a sigh. “Och. Kolgar…” The other miners put their hands on Ligan’s back, accepting that he felt terrible, and feeling the greater weight of responsibility. “You lads take him up top,” he said gruffly, gesturing at two of the men. “The rest of us will gather the leavings.” They nodded. Then Ligan pulled me into a gruff hug. “Not your fault, lad, not your fault.” He held me back a moment, at arm’s length, looking into my eyes. “I can see you’re hurting… we all are.” He hugged me again roughly, this time I hugged him right back.
After a moment we disengaged and so I turned to apply a couple of heals on the remaining dwarfs, waited for my mana to recharge, then applied a couple more. I got a few slaps on the back, and Ligan thanked me. “Well done, lad. You helped a great deal, and you showed courage charging in like that. Well done.” My interface dinged with the completion of the quest, and once more there were horns and fanfare. I was level 22.
But I didn’t feel like celebrating. All of a sudden, the whole thing felt hollow. Why this levelling up business? To collect loot? Get powerful? Stupid addictions. It was all useless unless I found deeper meaning—or meaningful friends to share it with, like the dwarfs. I felt a flash of this inspiration travel through me, from my head to my toes. Life was shit without friends.
After nodding my thanks, and still deeply bothered that Kolgar had died, I wondered if there was anything I could have done to save him. I collected some of the queen’s blood, and the others searched her rear. We didn’t have the tools to pierce enough of her hide to gather other ingredients, unfortunately. At the tail end, they found a few rubies of large size and a couple of diamonds. A good haul. Ligan estimated the size of the iron filings that nestled around a number of large eggs. “Eleven eggs…” he mused aloud. “We’ll have to drown them.” They were a bit bigger than the size of a human head, and a dull purple colour, with swirls of red and dark grey. Not very attractive, but interesting.
Later, he explained that if the eggs were immersed in water long enough, they cooled and hardened the shell so much that the worm inside basically fossilised. They were also a collector’s item, and would fetch quite a good price on the open market. On top of all that, they were considered a part of our bounty. The processed iron ore, on the other hand, belonged to the mine. It was considered quite valuable, but the cost of a life, plus the hassle to collect refined iron from tunnel-worms seemed too great to me.
We lugged the eggs up to the entrance after finding a couple of discarded wheelbarrows on the second level. They were heavy.
That evening, the dwarfs mourned their fallen comrade and sang a few chants in his name. I played the lute as accompaniment, soft and in the background. I didn’t formally know any dwarf tunes (I’d picked up a few minor ditties, playing in the tavern, but nothing like this) so I thought I should ask Ascard to learn some. The dwarfs seemed to appreciate it anyway, noting my sympathy.
The next morning we awoke to a rude surprise. All of the loot was gone, except for ten of the eleven heavy eggs. All of the collected gems and iron filings that Ligan had stored in a lock-box—including the lock box itself—had just disappeared.
“Thieves!” Ligan fairly shouted. The other dwarfs were running around a bit wildly, while I picked myself up, still bleary-eyed f
rom lack of sleep. With a sinking feeling, I got up and joined the ones looking about. There was no twitching from my leaves, so clearly my early alarm system didn’t work against anything non-life threatening. Ligan was checking his own alarms—the trip wire and bells had been clearly dismantled.
“Asshats! What’ll me wife say now?” One dwarf was pulling at his beard forlornly.
Belatedly I checked my coin pouch and found nothing taken. It had been fairly secure wrapped around my middle… but partly inside was tucked a folded note.
“Sorry. Stole the loot. Had to, bosses orders. Sorry. Elz”
When I showed Ligan the note, he read it and grunted, eyeing me off a little suspiciously.
“I’m really sorry. I think I brought that down on you. In their revenge against me, they took your stash… How much? I can repay…”
Ligan was shaking his head, his suspicion quickly melting. “No, lad. Don’t take the blame fer that. A thief steals somat, he can’t blame the boss who ordered him to it, nor the one who’s merely standing by.” He scratched his beard. “Buck up, lads.” He raised his voice to include the other miners. “We got our mine back, and that’s the main thing. We’ll get her workin’ again post-haste and line these halls with so many thief-traps, no blighted asshat from Geras can ever steal our fair-earned labour again!”
The group gave a half-hearted cheer, while Ligan clapped me on the back.
“C’mon, there’s work to do, let’s pack ‘er up.”
We packed up camp and began the return journey to Geras. I was in some doubts as to my next course of action. Return to Geras? Go somewhere else? Track down Elz? Lacking anything better to do, I simply went with the dwarfs. I needed to complete more training at the Bard’s College, I needed more jobs, as I still had next to no money, and I needed to decipher the rest of that script.