A Fist Full of Sand: A Book of Cerulea (Sam's Song 1)
Page 16
My stomach, now fat and lazy, disagreed with the skipping-lunch plan. It pointed out that skipping meals was fine when the only thing to eat was Rock Lizard Surprise, as in, Surprise! It’s ANOTHER lizard, but fighting goblins was hungry work, and it required sustenance.
“I guess I could have eaten the goblins.” I mused.
“How about rats?” There was a dark shape hopping along the edge of the waterline, just at the edge of my torchlight.
I supposed that was something to consider here in this congested city, which I had not had to worry about with the lizards and snakes and quail I was used to hunting. Still, I pulled my dagger out of my sleeve, and carefully stalked towards the scurrying shape. It rounded a bend. I wasn’t as stealthy as I’d like, holding my torch, but if I set it down I’d be in total darkness. Instead, I peeked around the corner, holding the torch behind me, but all I could see was that the intersecting tunnel grew suddenly narrow and tilted sharply upwards. Beyond, I could hear the twitching squeaks of more rats.
Curious, I pushed the torch ahead of me into the narrow tunnel and crawled in after it. It would have been a tight fit for a small human, and impossible for a dwarf. Luckily for me, I was neither.
I scampered upwards. This must have been a drain at one time instead of a proper sewer, or else I imagine it would be more generally accessible. After about thirty feet, the shaft ended in a longer, open intersection from which several tunnels branched, each oozing out a small tributary onto the moss covered floor.
I crawled out and stood up, unkinking my back, and surveyed the space. The walls were circular; the vertical shaft rose upwards out of sight instead of into the domed ceiling I had become used to, while three other passageways radiated out to my sides. I could still hear the rats, but not see them. I peered down each of the tunnels in turn, but there were no hopping dark shapes, just a small incoming trickle of water.
I took a step towards the furthest tunnel to investigate, and the rotted, moss covered wood beneath my feet disintegrated.
I pinwheeled my arms as I fell, remembering to hold onto my torch, which made frantic strobing shadows dance around the damp masonry. Below me was a squeaking pit of gnashing teeth and beady eyes, into which I was…
…not falling.
My quarterstaff, sticking out of my backpack, had wedged on either end between two more of the rotting timbers, holding me suspended above the pit, dangling by my backpack straps. Underneath me seethed a mass of rats, their fur scabbed and patchy, their eyes glinting dimly in the torchlight. They swarmed around the gnawed skeletal remains of a fellow adventurer.
[Save the Storm Drains: Quest update!]
[Optional objective: Eradicate the Rats]
From what I could tell, the corpse in the pit had once been a dwarf. It was hard to tell pre-mortem damage from the scavenging of the vermin, but I was pretty sure no rodent had snapped the lower leg bones like that. So if he fell through the floor like I did, who replaced the wooden planks?
“But why?” I asked, my voice choking up. My imagination couldn’t help but visit what must have been his last moments: laying there in the shallow, cold muck, his leg an agony of twisted wrongness. How long, since the fateful snap, had it taken him to pass from the initial adrenaline rush, through shock, and the out into the long, swollen suffering on the other side? Had he screamed for help, traitorous hope twisting the dying echoes into cries of non-existent rescuers? Had the goblins come to watch him, giggling and staring, as the torch burned down to nothing? And after that, an endless night, on which the sun would never rise.
I wondered if the rats had gotten to him before or after he stopped breathing.
“They didn’t even eat him!” I wiped a blurry tear from my eyes. I’m not crying. “Even animals kill for a reason! The stupid goblins didn’t even want his stuff, they just wanted, they wanted… they didn’t even want anything! It’s stupid!”
Gleaming amongst the torn remains of a gnawed leather pouch was a pile of gold coins. Colorful sparkles amongst the coinage looked like loose gemstones. His leather armor had been converted into rat droppings, and the clothes and hair had been carried away for nests, but the animals, unconcerned with the artificial wealth of sentient creatures, had left a heavy silver chain wrapped around the neck vertebrae.
I moved my torch down as far as it would go. Along the walls, the drainage from the tunnels made slick, vertigo inducing reflections, as if I were falling upwards, through an endless rippling, dripping shaft. There was something about the way the rats were moving I didn’t like. Some of them scurried with frantic activity, but others sat listless, not even correcting their balance as their fellows clawed and bit at them. I focused on one in particular as it leapt at me, over and over, thrashing madly and squealing as it failed to reach my dangling legs, white foam flecking it’s ill groomed whiskers.
[Hunting check: Success]
[Disease identified: Rabies]
I didn’t need telling. I’d seen rabies before, and watched the progression of disease from Oh it’s just a little bite, see, it’s not even infected to I’m sure it’s just the flu, totally unrelated, I’ll feel better in a few days to fevered madness and inevitable death.
My no longer hungry stomach was making wobbly little summersaults inside me. I hooked one arm securely around my backpack strap, and reached the other upwards towards my braced quarterstaff. Once I got ahold of it, it would be a simple matter to swing my legs up and over onto the wooden beams.
As I shifted my weight, the end of the quarterstaff shifted on the algae glazed stone, slipping down an inch before catching again. My stomach went from summersaults to frantic revolutions, like a rat trapped in out of control exercise wheel.
Don’t think about rats. I told myself. Anything but rats.
Trying to think feather light thoughts, I examined the scaffolding by which I hung. If I could do a very slow and steady pull up, I could grab the edge of the next wooden beam… with the same hand I was holding the torch with… No. I was agile enough, by way of being so light that I didn’t have much bodyweight to lift, but a steady one handed pull up was beyond me.
Stupid dumped Strength.
There was really only one way out. And if it didn’t work I was going to know just how the dwarf felt, after all.
Taking a deep breath, I dropped the torch, grabbed my delicately wedged quarterstaff with both hands, and with a sudden pike, I jerked my legs upwards and over my head. In my hands, the quarterstaff came loose, leaving me for a moment hanging in empty air above the re-agitated rats nest, without any point of contact between me and a solid object. The falling torch guttered blue and made rearing monsters of leaping rat shadows. Now if I swing my legs over like this… I was relying completely on spatial sense memory of where I was in relation to the mossy planks.
[Dexterity check: Success]
One of my legs went up and over the timber, wrapped, and held. Before I could slide off, I pulled the quarterstaff up and laid it crossways on the boards, and used it’s distributed weight to push myself to my hands and knees.
Ha!
My hammering
heart joined the tumbling squad that was all of my vital organs at the moment. Under my knees, the sabotaged planking lurched and began to give. Without waiting to see if it held, I rolled back onto my bootheels and jumped as hard as I could for the closest stone tunnel. The trapped flooring disintegrated beneath me, fouling my leap. I clawed at the air, willing myself forward, and the tips of my fingers brushed the very edge of the stone aperture.
[Jump check: Success – 4 circumstance penalty due to difficult terrain]
It was enough. I grabbed, hung on, and scrambled into the tunnel, splashing in the seeping stream. My quarterstaff tumbled below me, lost to the pit. The rats shrieked and screamed, whether at the fire in their midst or of their prey getting away, I don’t know.
And speaking of fire…
I hastily pulled out my second torch, and scraped flinty sparks onto it before the light from the first one went out. I sent a silent swell of gratitude to Old Man Recker as his torch kindled quickly. I took a couple of deep breaths to calm down, and then, pulled forward by some grim, horrified curiosity, looked back over the edge at the nest of death I had almost succumbed to.
My newfound calm did not last long. My quarterstaff lay propped upright along the slippery stone wall, and one of the maddened rats was climbing up it. It wouldn’t reach all the way to my tunnel, but rats could jump. Can they jump that high?
I didn’t stick around to find out. I turned and ran down the new passageway.
This tunnel was almost completely level, which accounted for the slow moving water. I hopped back and forth over the stream, and paused only when I came to a knickpoint where the entire tunnel shifted upwards by about one foot.
I reached my hands into the cold water, and sure enough, there was a small erosion where the stream hit the sewer bed beneath it. In the shallow bowl underneath were a few out of place pebbles and some coins. Four tarnished silver and six grubby coppers, to be exact. Nice!
After this I slowed my run to a more sustainable lope, figuring I’d probably outdistanced the possibly pursuing rat. Voice twice more pointed out places to check for collectables, one a loose stone, and one a pile of rags. I wasn’t sure what was so interesting about carved prayer beads or the dead, but apparently really rare beetle I found, but Voice got very excited and insisted that Ingenium could use them for all kinds of magical crafting. Into the pouch they went.
I turned back towards the tunnel, which seemed to go on forever, but some sixth sense paused my footsteps.
[Perception check: Partial success]
“What’s that?” Without moving my feet, I swung the torch wide. About twenty feet away there was the barest horizontal break in the air, like a long spiderweb strand caught in the breeze.
I stepped very carefully, felt a slight pressure against my ankle, and realized that in my focus I had completely failed to notice the first, closer tripwire. With a slight twang, it parted company from its anchor on the wall, and above me the ceiling of the tunnel began to crack and give way.
I bounced the Talarian Sandals against the stone and dove forward.
[Dodge check: Failed]
The mortared stones hit me first, pummeling me face first down into the muck. Without the supporting keystones, the archway at the top of the tunnel collapsed, spilling heavy dirt and debris on top of me, turning into mud as it hit the water.
[-4 Hit Points: Bludgeoning damage]
[Hit Points: 6/12]
I lay buried under the landslide, the breath knocked out of me, and tried to move.
[Escape Artist check: Failed]
Only my left arm was partially free. I flopped it helplessly in the water, but was unable to reach either the surrounding rubble or even the torch, which had bounced off and was laying on its side by the waterline, anchored by one of the medium sized rocks.
I coughed at the settling dust, blowing droplets of muddy water onto my cheeks.
I took a deep breath, as much as my constricted lungs would allow, and tried to squirm free again, but my limbs were pinned by the wreckage. I let out my breath in whoosh, making more splashes than before.
Blocked by the cave-in, the stream was backing up, the water level beginning to rise.
[Strength check: Failed]
Wiggle room indeed. My own panic level was rising with the water, in slow seeping increments. Concentrating, I tried to move one muscle at a time, looking for the one that gave. I could twitch my hips a little, so I did, and tried to inch my way forward. The lower half of me moved just enough for more rocks to settle in.
[Escape Artist check: Success]
The water level was coming up. It was over my left eye already, covering my cheek, and creeping towards my nostrils. From the banks, I heard the torch begin to sputter and spit. Gritting my teeth, I tried again, exerting everything I had.
[Escape Artist check: Success]
I strained until stars burst behind my vision, and my legs moved a bit, finding some purchase under the rubble. Finally, exhausted, my muscles gave out and I gasped for breath. This time I got a mouthful of water.
Turning my head, I coughed and spat it out, but had to hold my neck twisted all the way around to put my mouth above the surface. The torch flame was hissing like an angry cat now. The muddy water tickled my throat, and I tried to keep myself calm, tried to control my breathing, I mustn’t hyperventilate, I must use my air sparingly…
Pursing my lips, I sucked in another breath, and did my best to wiggle out of my own skin. Be like the snake, I thought. Leave behind what you don’t need. I don’t need this backpack, I don’t need anything which holds me here. I don’t need…. I need…. I need air!
Another shift in the rubble, and I moved forward by an inch or so. I turned my head for another breath, but this time, my mouth did not break the surface.
Inside me, panic dug little goblin claws into my guts, squeezing and rending, pushing out the last of my breath. Just before I inhaled the icy liquid stream, I managed to clamp my jaws shut.
[Constitution check: Success]
Inside my chest, my rebellious heart thumped, wasting precious oxygen, refusing to be calmed.
I managed to fight my aching lungs for control one more time, and won. I shifted my numb shoulders, and then my numb hips, and composed myself for one last heave. This is it. The torch, down to a candle flame now, cast dim reflections on the walls that looked from underwater like shattered ghosts.
[Escape Artist check: Success. 5/8]
I gained another inch, but the water gained more. I strained uselessly towards the surface, the last of my breath trailing out in wobbly little bubbles. No!
The torch went out.
I don’t want to die. I thought, as if it mattered. Is this how the dwarf felt, alone in the dark? He had days to think about this, maybe. I wonder if that’s better, or worse.
I had failed. Icy black tendrils of water crept through my hair, into my clothes, freezing my t
endons. My lungs were about to override my best intentions, and when they did, I supposed I’d think nothing at all, rational thought overwhelmed by my body’s last experience.
[Constitution check: Success]
If the last thing I had left to me was thought, then, I would compose my thoughts. Voice was cursing, futilely, in between sobs of frustration.
Hey. I thought. It’s ok.
This. Knowing you, having adventures, having fun. Purple spots of non-color burst behind my eyelids, and I fought for one last coherent cognition. Even now, it was all worth it.
[Constitution check: Failed]
I inhaled.
On my finger, the little aquamarine tingled and burst into life, and the icy water turned to bubbles in my mouth; pure, cold, sweet bubbles of air.
I didn’t answer, too busy gasping at the water that turned to breath as I inhaled.
Chapter Eight
It took the better part of an hour to free myself from the cave-in, by which time the water had risen another two feet, and I was numb and stupefied from the cold. The rocks kept settling on me as I squirmed free, and though amazingly I had no broken bones, my arms and legs were scraped raw and bloody from their unearthing.
[Hit Points: 3/12]