by RW Krpoun
It took around forty-five minutes to traverse the tube; as crawling went it wasn’t too hard because the stone surface was nearly glazed and largely free of debris, and they could stand and stretch regularly when they encountered tall enough cracks and other intersections, but all had bruised elbows and knees and a growing sense of claustrophobia by the time they reached the other end, which was simply blank stone.
“If everything went right there’s five feet of stone ahead and then the cavern complex,” Derek whispered as he eased to the head of the line. Placing the jade disk Astkar had given them against the wall he read aloud a fairly lengthy cant and then scrambled backwards. For several long minutes the only sign of anything occurring was that the jade disk remained in places against the wall; finally the surface of the disk shimmered slightly and with a faint sighing gust of breeze the jade and the stone vanished, leaving a hole that extended into darkness.
“OK, step one: get into cavern complex, check,” Derek said with satisfaction. “Step two, find the tomb, step three, polish lock, step four, get back to daylight.”
“Twenty-five per cent is not a passing grade,” Shad shook his head, negative as usual. “But it is a start. Let’s get down to the hard part and see what we’re dealing with.”
Their tube opened into a passage that appeared to be a natural fissure improved and occasionally extended by tools. It wasn’t much more than five feet wide, but to Fred’s relief the ceiling was an average of eight feet, giving him axe room.
Jeff lit a torch from his candle and carefully snuffed the latter’s wick while Derek studied the map and notes.
“I really do not want to get lost in here,” Sam muttered.
“If you can find the tube, you’re home free,” Fred assured him.
“Yeah, but finding one specific hole down here could be tricky.”
“Then you’ll die down here in the dark,” Shad snapped, his slender stock of civility worn through by the weight of a mountain pressing down overhead. “Derek and I have skill in navigating underground. We stick together we’ll be OK.”
“Or we could all die,” Sam said nervously.
“There’s that,” the Jinxman agreed testily. “Or I could kill you myself for talking too damn much.”
“OK, we go that way,” Derek pointed.
“How far?” Jeff stretched, his knees popping.
“That’s the funny thing-from the map, the tube we crossed should take us a third of the way there, as the crow flies, so to speak.”
“What?” Shad stepped over to look at the map.
“Look at the map scale for yourself.”
“That was forty-five minutes spent crawling-we could have walked it in not much more than fifteen. According to this scale we should have been at it for hours.”
“Residual magic effect speeding us up?” Fred asked.
“No,” the Shadowmancer shook his head.
“We get lost?”
“No. They used the wrong scale.”
“Well, they locked her up and threw away the key, its no surprise that in the re-copying the map over the years an error could have crept in,” Jeff pointed out.
“Except that the map is drawn to scale and the Assembly bored that tunnel to within five feet of this passage,” Derek pointed out. “If they were working off a flawed map we would have overshot this point by a wide margin.”
Shad was using the base of an unlit candle to measure distances on the map. “We’re not far from the tomb, maybe an hour’s walk, more or less.”
“That’s good news, right?” Sam said hopefully.
“No, its bad news,” the Jinxman passed the map back to Derek. “For some reason the Assembly made this sound like a dangerous job when it isn’t; the last group didn’t have a very tough job here either.”
“But they got paid anyway,” Derek interjected.
“Yeah, exactly. And the odds are we are getting paid, too. Why is the Assembly over-paying for easy jobs?”
“Maybe the Great Field is the real payoff: they get an artifact and throw in the second mission just for the look of the thing. I mean, it stands to reason an underground complex that would require hours to cross would be a big lure to various beasties,” Jeff pointed out. “Secrecy is how the Council defends it. They wouldn’t want squatters.”
“Anyone ask themselves why the Council doesn’t lube the lock themselves? If it is supposed to be their most well-guarded secret, why don’t they pull maintenance?” Shad wondered
“Because that’s all it is to them: a secret. They’re hoarders, not users. Look at our equipment level when we came here,” Derek pointed out.
“OK, good point.”
“Besides…wait, wasn’t there something about other people trying to let her out?” Derek asked Sam.
“Yeah, the Assembly takes them seriously, the Council doesn’t. That’s why the Assembly wants the defenses refreshed.”
“Ok, we’re up to speed,” Jeff stood. “Let’s get this over with.”
“I’m not confident that we’ve been up to speed since we walked out of that hut,” Shad muttered. “The longer we’re here the less I know for sure.”
“There’s the monkey statue,” Derek indicated a point on the map as Jeff tossed his dying torch to the floor and stepped on it until the flames were extinguished.
“Yeah.” Shad looked at the crude carving and then checked the map Derek was holding. “We’re on course and to scale. Jeff, don’t light another torch.”
“I need more light on point.”
“Yeah, no problem. Derek, hit him with a scroll.”
“Might as well.”
“Why are we using up the scrolls?” Fred asked.
“The scrolls last four hours, and we’re not going to be down here much longer than that,” Shad shrugged. “More importantly, they don’t take a hand to use. If there’s anything dangerous down here, its within a half-hours’ walk. Let’s take ten and then bring this deal home.”
“You don’t seem too happy about the way this is going,” Sam said to Shad as Fred and Jeff determined who could urinate higher on the statue.
“We’re way behind the curve on this operation,” the Jinxman rubbed his jaw. “Something really feels wrong.”
“Standing on your tiptoes is what is wrong,” Jeff announced as the two returned to the group.
“I really had to go,’ Fred observed blandly.
“You cheat like Derek in a board game.”
“I do not cheat!” the Shadowmancer snapped. “I lose nearly every board game we play.”
“You just don’t cheat very well.”
“Dear Lord,” Sam sighed as the bickering rose around him anew.
“Intersection,” Jeff hissed over his shoulder, then felt stupid because he had a bright ball of light hovering over his head: who was he going to sneak up on?
“Turn right,” Fred advised after Derek whispered a reply.
“OK.”
The intersection was actually an irregular chamber that was about twenty by fifteen; from the look of the walls it had been a natural open pocket that had been enlarged by tools rather than magic. As the Night-grifter stepped into the intersection and turned he found himself facing a Goblin who was swaddled in a mottled cloak of gray and black.
“SHIT! CONTACT!” Jeff bellowed, instinctively shooting the Goblin in the face with his hand crossbow, the poisoned bolt punching through the creature’s forehead with great finality.
Fred roared like a berserk ox and raced into the chamber as more Goblins leapt forward from the shadows and other entrances. Jeff side-stepped to his left to allow more Talons to join the fight, dropping his crossbow on its lanyard and drawing Blackwand.
Derek shoved past a badly startled Sam and darted into the chamber, adding his light and his bow to the fight.
“Get in there and kill them!” Shad roared into Sam’s face as he dragged the dazed Bard into the fray. Releasing the smaller man Shad threw two knives at the Goblins pouring out of
the other tunnels and then drew his sword.
Jeff parried the short cleaver-like weapon the Goblin was using and ran Blackwand’s point through his foes throat, twisting the blade as it went in to do more damage. “C’mon, you little runts, let’s dance.”
Derek roved up and down the short melee line using Nightkiller, as he had just christened his enchanted bow, to snipe off Goblins as openings presented themselves. With Jeff, Fred, and Shad engaging in melee there wasn’t much danger in being flanked, although Sam was fighting with a Goblin had had gotten past Jeff before the Talons had managed to spread out.
The Shadowmancer saw the flicker of power, not really light but more like what he saw when he drew power from the absence of light, and then a sickly green bolt of energy flashed across the chamber and struck Jeff, wringing a shout of pain from the Night-grifter even as his light winked out. He yelled “Sniper!” and in a single skilled motion he never could have done back home, drew and released. He was rewarded with the sight of a second greenish bolt hitting a Goblin warrior in the back of the head.
Shad caught a Goblin cleaver on the rim of the new shield he had bought in the City-State, his old one having caught too many blows to fully trust, and leaned into a thrust, the point of his sword punching through the creature’s leather armor, breastbone, and heart.
Ripping the blade free, he stepped back and checked the line: Fred was finishing off the last of the Goblins with what was a bit more effort than was necessary-the rage made him more than a little homicidal. Jeff was leaning against a wall holding his chest with his left hand, but there wasn’t any blood so Shad wasn’t too concerned. Derek looked OK, and Sam was seated on the floor clutching his bloody rapier, blood trickling down his face from a scalp wound. As he was looking Derek expended a scroll to get Jeff’s light going again.
Nodding to himself he wiped his sword’s blade on a handy Goblin and sheathed it; fishing out a charm he healed a nasty gash on his left calf before activating two armor charms. “Fred, check yourself, then check the Goblins.” In his rage Fred might not notice a wound. “Jeff, where are you hit?”
“Magic Missile to the chest,” the shop teacher said through gritted teeth. “Burns like acid.”
“OK, hang tight.” Two charms put the Night-grifter to rights, and Shad added two armor charms as well. “Derek, you hit?”
“Nope.”
“OK, here’s an armor charm, we need to double up. Jeff, as soon as you’re able search the Goblins.” Kneeling by Sam the Jinxman slapped the Bard’s shoulder. “Are you going to live?”
Shaking, Sam pointed to a dead Goblin. “I killed him.”
“Good, that’s what you’re supposed to do.” A charm cleared away the scalp wound. “It was you or him.” He added two armor charms.
“I killed him.”
“Yeah, it sucks to be him.” Losing interest Shad stood and went to heal Fred and give him two armor charms.
“Man, it was like the Mines of Moria for a minute there!” Derek exclaimed as he pulled arrows from his victims.
“There were sixteen, all told,” Jeff observed, passing a greasy pouch of coins to the Shadowmancer. “Including a shaman or mage or whatever you call a Goblin spellcaster,” he added rubbing the hole in the front of his coat of plates. He had already replaced the damaged plate. “I’ll never make fun of a Magic Missile again.”
“Man, remember our first fight? A half dozen gave us a heck of a fight. Plus I think these are bigger,” Derek grinned as he sorted out the coins from the pouch.
“Cave Goblins,” Fred finished cleaning his bearskin. “Usually tougher.”
“Raiders?” Shad asked.
“No field gear other than mugs, no rations, no canteens, not even spare oil for their lamps,” the Night-grifter shrugged. “I would say a patrol or a relieved guard detail heading home that saw our lights.”
“Guard detail?”
Jeff pointed. “They were coming from the way we were going.”
“Sixteen when we’re expecting them isn’t so bad,” Shad observed as the Black Talons headed down the tunnel from which the Goblins had emerged. “We took the first bunch with only one armor charm each. I’ll bring runes into play when we get close. Derek, you need to ID and drop the shaman from the start.”
“Can this light be turned off?” Jeff asked.
“No, but I can move it to someone else if you want to try to stealth up,” Derek said.
“Just a little recon, not too close, is what I’m thinking. I grabbed two of their cloaks to give me an edge.”
“Once a Ranger, always a Ranger,” Shad grinned.
“I killed him,” Sam muttered.
“Shut up, Sam. What the hell do you think we were going to do down here?” the Jinxman snapped.
“I…”
“How many dungeon crawls you make back home? How many hours you log on a game platform?”
“This was real.”
“That’s my point exactly: welcome to the real world. If you ever want to get back home, you had better samurai up. You better reach deep and find your inner kamikaze.”
“I think that might be racist.”
“I think you better get your head in the game before some Goblin ends up using your skull as a codpiece.”
“Or a sex alternative,” Jeff added helpfully.
“Could be both, really,” Shad pointed out.
“True.”
“I get it,” Sam snapped.
The Bard sulked as the bravos trudged deeper into the mountain. The Talons stopped in a wide place in the tunnel about a quarter-mile from where the map indicated the tomb should be. Derek transferred the light to Fred and Jeff slipped forward to scout.
“Might as well put a scroll on me and Jeff when he returns,” Shad decided. “Better to have too much light than too little when it comes to a fight.”
“You have a plan?” Derek asked.
“Subject to Jeff’s intel, but from the map it looks like we’re heading into a sizeable chamber. Since we have lights we will buff up, then double-time in, chunk out the caltrops, and engage with missile weapons. No actual surprise, but them having to come over caltrops ought to give us an edge. Anybody have a better idea, sound off.”
No one did.
“Sam, you up for another fight?”
“Not really. Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because our lives are going to be on the scales in there-whichever way the fight goes, only one side will survive. I want to know if the odds are sixteen to five, or sixteen to four.”
“It will be sixteen to five.”
“Good. Remember, getting home comes with a price, and the bill comes due up ahead.”
Jeff returned a half hour later. “I didn’t get too close, not that they’re watching. They’re set up in a big room.”
“The map scales it to about thirty by thirty, roughly,” Derek observed.
“Could be-I didn’t get that close. The tunnel just opens into it, no door, no guard post, nothing. Inside the room its pretty well lit, by candles is my guess, and I could hear them talking. Nothing much else to report other than they sound calm and comfortable.”
“I wonder who is paying them to guard the tomb?” Shad wondered.
“The Council would be my first choice,” Derek said thoughtfully. “No danger in word reaching anyone else.”
“Wouldn’t the Goblins get interested in what’s inside?”
Derek frowned. “No, not if they thought it was a real tomb. Goblins have a deep cultural revulsion towards robbing burial places.”
“Good use of Humanoid Lore,” Shad slapped the Shadowmancer on the shoulder. “Points well spent.”
“What’s the plan?” Jeff asked.
Shad outlined it. “Anything to add?”
“Yeah-I have two Goblin cloaks-if we had spear shafts or something like that we could use ‘em to create a screen, and hide our light as we approach. With the amount of light
in the chamber the Goblins won’t see what leaks out until we are really close.”
“We don’t have anything like a spear shaft,” Fred pointed out.
“I’ve got a ball of twine and a lot of heavy thread,” Shad offered. “Oh, and some spare bootlaces.”
“We use torches,” Derek snapped his fingers. “We use arrow shafts as splints, like for a broken bone. I’ve got a ball of twine and twenty spare bowstrings.”
“I’ve got spare strings for my mandolin and extra bootlaces,” Sam started digging in his pouch.
“I love it when a plan comes together,” Jeff grinned.
Afterward it had reminded Derek of an ambush they had mounted in Iraq. They had been manning a checkpoint, just their squad, when some kids came running past and one covertly dropped a note laboriously written in English that a bunch of foreign fighters were coming to hit the checkpoint. Shad and Jeff had had a quick huddle, and they had set up an ambush four hundred meters short of the checkpoint, leaving two guys behind to move around and make things look normal.
The local Iraqis hated the foreign fighters for being arrogant, abusive, and starting firefights inside populated areas. They didn’t like the Americans all that much, either, but they knew US troops preferred to fight in the countryside.
After forty minutes of hiding, staying motionless, hardly daring to breathe, twenty-two young guys in civilian clothes came down the low-water ditch exactly as predicted, lugging AKs, two PKM machineguns, a couple RPG-16s, and enough ammo, grenades, and rockets to take on a battalion.
When the foreign fighters were where he wanted them Shad fired an LAAW into their midst and everyone opened up on full auto. In a minute it was over; it took far longer to gather up the weapons and ammo and search the bodies for intelligence information than it had to take them out.
The attack on the Goblin guard point went the same way. Half the Goblins had been dozing before the attack stated. None even noticed the Talons’ approach until they dropped their screen about twenty feet from the chamber and rushed in, Shad throwing the enchanted pouches that sprayed rusty iron caltrops across the floor as the others opened up with their missile weapons.
The Goblins were game, he had to give them that: they rallied and charged across the caltrops straight into a hail of arrows, slung bullets, throwing axes, throwing knives, and a couple of Jeff’s crossbow bolts. Only two survived to reach melee range, where Fred, out of hand axes, was waiting for them, not even bothering to Rage.