Trial and Flame

by Kevin Murphy

  “Dakkon, is there any chance you can move this boulder by expanding ice or something?” Cline asked, desperately.

  “No way,” Dakkon said. “Even if I could get water between that stone and the wall, it’s just too heavy.”

  “Guys,” said Roth. “I think we should seal up the bug-tunnel.”

  “What about saving water?” Cline asked.

  “No, he’s right,” Mina said. “We aren’t getting out of here the way we came in, that’s for sure. If we’re going anywhere, it’d better be toward the water and away from those bugs. We’ll need a good seal on that tunnel to guard our backs.”

  The group walked back toward the branching paths against the gusts of fresh air and, to their fortune, found that bugs hadn’t seemed to take notice of them despite the horrible racket of ice being crushed by a massive rock.

  The archway of solid stone to the right which led to the underground river was half the size of the tunnel in which they stood.

  “I’ve got a suggestion,” Dakkon said. “We’ve been using the water non-stop down here. Creating another full-tunnel barrier…”

  “We can’t know for sure,” Melee said. “Just seal those bugs up already!”

  “I mean we have another option,” Dakkon said. The right-fork tunnel made entirely of stone was not only short in length, it also had a much smaller area that would need to be covered in ice. “I can’t guarantee we’ll have enough water for the full passage,” Dakkon said. “If I’m to be perfectly honest, I’m surprised we’ve gotten as much use out of the wraps as we have.”

  “I’m sold,” said Mina. “Seal up the smaller tunnel. There’s nothing behind us except for a huge rock, anyway. Still, after hearing that loud cry I’d like to take a peek into the next room. Whatever’s there might be worse than the bugs for all we know.”

  The thought of sealing themselves in with something worse troubled Dakkon only mildly. If the shriekers came for them while they were trapped—and he knew they would in time—then they were already as good as doomed.

  “A third option would be barricading ourselves in the tunnel with the boulder,” Roth said. “There’s clearly something in the walls that moved that big rock, though. It’s possible that some of those decorative globes might be covering dirt patches.”

  “No, no, no!” said Melee, rather wildly. “Let’s get in the tunnel and barricade it already! The clock’s ticking and there’s no way I’m going to trap myself in a bug pit!”

  “Even if we’re wildly wrong about your capacity, conserving water might still be important,” Mina said. “There could be dirt to patch ahead, or we may need more way-markers.”

  Roth and Cline nodded their assent, then the party moved into the stone passage. Mina slid to the end of the tunnel and gasped at what she saw.

  When Dakkon turned to Mina to see what the matter was, she shook her head. “Can we all agree that there’s no hope if bugs hit us from all sides down the other tunnel?” she asked. When no one disagreed, she said, “Then, seal it up, Dakkon. We’re not out of danger yet—not by a long shot. Everything we do now, we do carefully.”

  “Triple carefully,” said Cline.

  Dakkon filled the tail-end of the tunnel with a thick plug of ice. The only path now, was forward.

  Little stone globes lined the bottom of the stone hall’s walls like eccentric stone base moulding, perfectly spaced and orderly. The river had been in view from the mouth of the passage, but the size constraints of the stone tunnel meant that only Mina and Roth had had a chance to see into the room that lay ahead. Once they neared the end of the small hall, they could all see that the area beyond the passage was significantly larger than the tunnel they’d just left behind—it was the biggest room they’d seen within the tunnels.

  As Melee, Cline, and Dakkon stepped into the opening of the new area, they were shocked by what they saw.

  “And how the hell are we supposed to survive this?” Melee asked.

  Chapter 12: Gambit

  The room had been precisely, intelligently sculpted to someone’s or something’s own design. The neatly spaced orbs that lined the bottom of the stone passageway’s walls continued around the entire perimeter of the room. Every few meters upward, a new line of wall-studs encircled the room like bands of riveted metal. The ceiling was covered in spherical studs, as well, but made from visilium crystal instead of stone. They stood out in stark contrast to the rest of the room, glimmering blue like precious gems or stars in the night sky.

  The crystal studs weren’t the only visilium in the room. Three large crystal stalactites hung oddly from the stone ceiling surrounded by rough patches of crystal. The tips of each stalactite glowed a different color—yellow, orange, and teal. The formation was one they’d come to recognize as being undisturbed, anti-magic core defenders. These three were hanging two meters out of reach from even Melee’s lengthy sword.

  A large mound of dirt, riddled by hive-like holes rose from the ground beneath the core defenders—though not near enough to the stalactite-like crystals so that the party could climb and strike at them. Surrounded by a sea of bones, the mound was beyond the river that divided the room. Should the party desire to get there, they would need to cross. The hanging defenders, too, were on the other side.

  Though the combination of a hive-like mound and three of the anti-magic spires was plenty to deal with on their own, none of it worried them quite as much as what appeared to be watching them from a recess in the opposite side of the room with two oversized eyes. The eyes of the creature were piercing, unblinking, and entirely inhuman. The skin around them was pulled tight in strips, creating unnatural rows of sagging skin between taut ones. Aside from its tan flesh and eyes, the creature’s form was obscured where it lay.

  The group remained frozen, assessing the situation as they stared back at the pair of eyes which had them captive through their own actions. A tense moment passed, then another.

  “The defenders I can understand… but did you see that thing in the wall back there?” Dakkon said, surprised that Mina and Roth wouldn’t have protested he seal them in with whatever it was.

  “…” Both Mina and Roth were silent for a time, then Roth spoke up. “I think this is our best chance.” Mina looked somewhat guilty that she hadn’t mentioned the sizable creature hiding in the wall, but she nodded her agreement with Roth.

  “Why aren’t we getting attacked?” Cline whispered.

  “I think maybe it’s… not threatened?” suggested Mina. “Or it’s learning about us…”

  “That’s comforting,” whispered Cline as the remaining color drained from his face.

  “I don’t want to be that girl,” said Melee, “but I think we’re screwed.”

  “No way. We’ve got this…” Cline whispered. “Right?”

  “As long as we’re not being attacked we’ve got time to figure things out,” Dakkon said. “Let’s take it step-by-step.”

  “There’re three anti-magic guys topside,” said Roth. “So, we know what Cline’s doing.”

  Dakkon nodded. “We don’t know how long they’ll stay down when hit in their eye, since we’ve always finished them off so quickly, but we’ll have to use that window for any magic we want to cast. Barring that—in a pinch—we may have to use the human-shield method.”

  Melee gritted her teeth and spat. “They don’t hit all that hard,” she said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Mina groaned as she shook her hands, remembering the sting of the beam that had struck her. “The trickiest part might be that mound.”

  “Right,” said Dakkon. “My guess is that’s a spawning bed for those shriekers, but since I don’t see dirt anywhere else around here for them to burrow through, it’s probably connected from below. Once we start to fight, shriekers will probably find their way in here through the mound.”

  “There may be a passage behind big and ugly up there in that hole, too,” Roth said. “Otherwise that makes it as trapped as we are.”

  “Can y
ou just blast that mound with fire and cook it all?” Melee asked. “You won’t even need to get close.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Dakkon. “I’ll admit I don’t know for sure, but I doubt we could even glass sand in only three seconds.”

  “Well then, let’s use that water we’ve just conserved to cap it off,” Roth suggested.

  “That could work,” Dakkon said. “I’ll need to get close, though, otherwise I’m guessing it’ll play out like spraying water on an anthill and we’ll be swarmed.”

  In front of them, Cline stared at the river’s rapidly moving water. “I don’t think we can swim in that,” he said. “If you got swept away, who’s to say you’d even resurface somewhere.”

  “We’ll consider that plan C,” Dakkon said, “if plan A and panicking fail.”

  “Maybe we could use the river to our advantage?” suggested Melee. “Roth’s got his spear, maybe he can clip a few of the bugs from this side of the river. Of course, Cline can shoot at them, too.”

  “I don’t know,” said Roth, hesitantly. “It’s got to be at least five meters to the other side.”

  “Sounds kind of risky…” Cline said. “If you wind up in the drink that’s bound to be the end of the fight.”

  “I think step one is an ice bridge,” Dakkon said with a nod. “You guys keep me from getting shot and I’ll see what I can do, then I’ll rush over to work on doming-off the hive.”

  “That’s all well and good, but what’s the plan for whatever that thing is?” Roth said as he pointed his finger at the monster lurking in a nook of the far wall.

  The creature shifted in response to Roth’s gesture, causing the whole party to tense up. It was the only movement the obscured thing had made so far, aside from taking rhythmic breaths.

  Mina stepped in front of the rest of the party and waved to the creature stowed away at the back of the cavern.

  “What are you—” Melee stopped speaking when the eyes watching them tilted sideways as if curious but made no other moves. “Well, that settles it. I’m creeped out.”

  Mina stared back at the creature in the wall. “It really does seem to be waiting to see what we’ll do. It’s like it’s built a test it doesn’t think we can pass and is waiting to watch us fail…” After a few seconds pause, the eyes watching them returned to level. “That makes me really want to beat it,” Mina said.

  “If it pops down, we’ll just have to proceed to plan B,” said Dakkon. “Panic. Whatever happens, make sure Cline is safe so he can keep those defenders from freely shooting us. Keeping him going is our number one priority.”

  When everyone agreed, Dakkon felt a minute twang of relief. So long as everyone was looking out for Cline, there was a chance that no matter how bad the situation got, he could still make it out. For Dakkon, keeping his friend with a single life alive took precedence over everything else.

  Dakkon thought Cline’s name to create a mental link with his friend. When he could feel that the connection had been established, Dakkon shared an alternate plan C. “If things get out of hand, grab the supplies and jump in the water, then I’ll tell the others to follow. If we go down, we’ll find a way to get you out when we all come back.”

  Cline didn’t respond, but Dakkon knew he’d been heard. Dakkon felt guilty for keeping the matter from his other friends. Perhaps if they’d known, Mina and Roth wouldn’t have thought fighting the unknown boss monster was the best way to proceed. Ultimately, though, it was Cline’s decision as to whether or not he would share his unique circumstances with the others.

  Mina was no fool. Given time to arm herself before the fight, she searched forums in an attempt to gather information on what exactly it was they were up against. What she found was less than reassuring. The reason why they hadn’t heard about the acidic shriekers the first time she looked into the mines was because they weren’t supposed to be there. Searching for ‘shriekers’ pulled up a reasonable amount of information. The fleshy worms turned out to be invasive burrowers always led by a cruel and clever creature with an awful trump card—it couldn’t be killed while surrounded by living members of its hive.

  There was more to these swarm queens—as they were called—than merely that. There was no information on how the creatures found their targets, but the fast burrowers were known to develop themselves by infiltrating other hives and quietly assassinating the hives’ leaders. Swarm queens would then quietly feed while adapting themselves. After a week’s time, they took full control of their new hive and incorporated it into their ranks, growing more intelligent and gaining new abilities with each addition to their horde. If there was a swarm queen in the tunnels beneath Klith, that almost certainly meant the creature had already killed off anything around that might be strong enough to challenge it.

  The group had learned more about their enemy and they used their time to devise a strategy. Its special ability meant that the boss had to be killed last. Unfortunately, that made things difficult—but, things might go their way so long as the swarm queen continued to feel more curious than it did combative.

  As unnerving as the experience had been, the unblinking creature didn’t act at all while Mina searched for information, it didn’t act as the group formulated their battle plan, and it didn’t act now. Still, Dakkon had felt small pangs of hopelessness that he was forced to rebury in the back of his mind each time he glanced over to the lurking monster.

  “Having an ability that keeps you alive like that must really warp one’s perspective,” Dakkon thought. What unimaginable niche cases hadn’t been considered in this world? The time had been an odd gift, or perhaps a challenge, from the creature watching them. Either way, they’d do their best to ensure that giving them time to think and prepare would be its greatest mistake.

  “You guys ready?” Dakkon asked.

  “Ready enough,” Roth replied.

  Dakkon walked to the side of the river, watching as the horror in the wall stared back. The water of the river was almost as high as the banks of it. Wanting it to remain as stable as possible, he chose to elevate the structure just enough to avoid the water below—using even more water from his surprisingly deep reservoir. Dakkon looked over to Mina who nodded at him, then she spoke the words that would begin the battle. Mina chanted, beginning to cast a heal on Melee.

  “Shad`ra aard gohd`ra…”

  The glowing tips of the stalactites pulsed yellow, orange, and teal, and Dakkon began his construction of a rough ice bridge that would be strong enough to hold Melee or Roth as either ran across it.

  Cline fired a homing shot at the right-most, teal core defender and began aiming his second shot at the orange one before his first arrow connected. The teal defender attempted to swing out of the way, erratically, but was deftly struck as the arrow altered its course through the air, negating the beam before it was fired. The core defender’s shock caused the patch of crystalline core crawlers on the ceiling around it to lurch awake. After only a second or two, they began to march across the top of the room toward the party.

  Cline loosed his second guided arrow at the orange core defender just as the two yet-unstruck ones fired their shots at the source of Mina’s spell. The colored beams were intercepted by Melee and Roth, who were already braced against their unnatural impact. The orange beam struck Melee’s giant sword and sent it flying to the side with Melee scrambling after it. The yellow beam struck Roth’s sword just beyond the point where he had it braced with his mace. Not as sturdy as Melee’s hefty slab of metal, Roth’s blade was bent and cracked from the shock of the blast.

  The blue light of Mina’s heal covered Melee as she quickly grabbed her sword and returned to the front line. Cline’s second arrow slammed into the orange defender after it tried to dodge, and—once it reeled, stunned—the core crawlers that surrounded it also surged forward toward the interloping party.

  Two of the core defenders were stunned, but the yellow one had already begun to pulse again—responding to the magic Dakkon poured into b
uilding his bridge of ice. Before it had a chance to fire, Cline’s third homing arrow pierced the yellow defender, interrupting its attack. The defender’s entourage of crystal spiders went on the offensive.

  The three groups of core crawlers were each about 20 strong. Two groups converged as they swarmed toward Melee, Roth, and Mina. The last group headed toward their closest threat—Dakkon, who wasn’t even a sixth of the way through completing the hasty ice bridge.

  Cline stayed as far away from trouble as possible, centered behind everyone else. He watched the three core defenders for signs of recovery while picking off core crawlers that tried to cross over the river—dropping them into the roil of water below.

  Roth, having discarded his broken sword, flurried strikes with his mace and single plate-covered gauntlet, knocking spiders that jumped at them into the water. His efficacy had dropped considerably without the reach of his short sword in one hand. At last, core crawlers were able to get through his impressive defense on his left side. Two sank their fangs into his left leg and left side simultaneously.

  Invigorating blue light washed over Roth as he punted the spiders which had gotten through his defense down into the water. His defense was already compromised, and the bulk of the attackers had yet to reach him. He shouted out his concern, “Mina, back up! Melee, I need you over here!”

  Melee had rushed away from Roth’s side to help Dakkon deal with the score of crawlers scrambling for him. With her left hand, she flung Dakkon backwards, interrupting his work, and let out her stunning yawp as spiders leapt toward the pair. The core crawlers in the air froze, dazed as their trajectory slammed them ineffectually into Melee’s body and the ground around her. The ones which collided with Melee fell harmlessly into the river and were swept away. Dakkon quickly pierced the others with his dagger while Melee assumed a prepared stance, waiting for more crystal spiders to jump.

  [You have slashed a core crawler for 244 damage. Core crawler has been slain.]