by Robert Bevan
“Jesus, Cooper!” cried Tim. “I didn’t mean you should literally throw him. We’re trying to see if he’s got any life left in him.”
“Well I didn’t know that. I thought we were just dumping a body.”
Tim frowned, looking at the floating skum lying still on top of the water. “From the looks of it, I guess we were.”
“Should I do the other one too?” asked Cooper.
“No. Let’s go find Dave.”
Ravenus cawed excitedly.
Julian sighed. “Fine, whatever. But I’m not going in there to flip the body over for you.” He turned away as Ravenus flew toward the floating corpse. “I can’t look at this. Should we search all the smaller tunnels first, or start with the big one?”
Tim put his hands behind his head and stretched backwards as he pissed into the pool. “Floppy McBirdfood said something about a master. If there’s a Big Bad in this sewer, I’m betting his lair is down the big tunnel.”
“But there are dozens of tunnels to search,” said Julian. “What if Dave’s getting raped by fish monsters the whole time?”
“They’re skum.”
“I can’t bring myself to call them that.”
“You just called them fucking rapists!” said Tim, shaking the last drops of pee from his dick.
“I didn’t say they were raping him. I said they could be, or even worse.”
Cooper picked up pissing in the pool where Tim left off. He watched Ravenus trying to peck a hole through the back of the dead skum’s head. “What’s worse than getting raped by fish monsters?”
“How about getting murdered and eaten by fish monsters?” Julian’s tone was growing impatient.
“I don’t know,” said Cooper. “Given the choice, I think I’d rather –”
“Fine!” said Julian. “Can we settle on ‘differently just as bad?’ My point is that Dave could be in serious danger right now, while you guys are wasting time pissing in a pool.”
“Or more likely,” said Tim, “he’s just sitting in a cell like the rest of us were, but lacks the brute strength, brains, or Gordon the Magical Fucking Horse to free himself.”
“It’s Gilbert.”
“Whatever. If we have to go up against a boss monster, I’d rather do it with the healer in the party.” Tim looked at Cooper. “What do you think?”
Cooper shrugged. “Those skum are pretty tough in the water, but not so much on land. Hell, if shit gets too thick, we can just outrun them. Out of the water, they’re as slow as –” Tim had been making a lot of sense, and Cooper didn’t want to lend any more weight to Julian’s argument than he’d intended to.
“Cooper?” said Julian. “What were you going to say?” His encouraging tone suggested he knew exactly what Cooper was going to say.
Cooper hung his head. “Dave.”
“There you have it,” said Julian. “We could take a peek down the big tunnel at minimal risk to ourselves, or we could waste a bunch of time in the little tunnels while Dave is potentially being violated and/or murdered.”
“Logically, what you propose sounds like a tremendously stupid idea,” said Tim. “So why does it suddenly seem so reasonable to me? Wait a minute... You’re using Diplomacy on me again, aren’t you?” He clapped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes. “Get the fuck out of my head!”
Julian smiled. “I guess that’s that, then. Cooper, would you care to lead the way?”
Cooper picked up Tim and put him back on the horse’s saddle.
After about five minutes of walking along the wide earthen corridor, they came to the first of a series of hard-packed steps. Each was about half a foot tall, and four feet deep. They made for an easy, gradual climb.
Ten minutes into Tim’s constant bitching about how he couldn’t see, Julian raised a more puzzling question.
“How high have we climbed? How are we even still underground at this point?”
“We must be climbing up into that hill Cooper ran down,” said Tim. “Do you have any Light spells?”
“I can cast it on a fixed point in space. But if we want it to travel with us, I need to cast it on an inanimate object.”
“Cast it on your pants,” said Tim.
“I don’t want light shining out of my crotch. What if I need to hide?”
Cooper, who could see just fine with his Darkvision, clawed a small chunk of rock out of the dirt wall. “Here.”
The passage had apparently grown too dark for even Julian’s Low Light Vision; he waved his hand around like a jackass before finally connecting with Cooper’s.
“Light,” said Julian. The light from the rock was blinding at first, but the spots in his vision slowly faded, mingling with the new light’s reflection sparkling on the water just ahead of them.
“This is a dead end?” asked Tim.
“We could swim,” suggested Cooper.
“This water could be crawling with skum, and I can see the other side from here. Why didn’t you tell us we were at a dead end, so Julian wouldn’t have to blow a spell?”
“Why don’t you blow me?”
“Take it easy, guys,” said Julian. “It’s just a zero-level spell. I’ve got plenty.” He stroked his horse’s mane. “Take a drink, Gilbert.” He held his enchanted chunk of rock out over the water, shining it left, then right. “Doesn’t look like there’s anything here.” He walked back and shone his light back down the tunnel. “From what I could tell, this is the only tunnel leading upward. The rest of them led deeper underground. We can take each tunnel, clockwise one at a time, until we find –”
“JESUS!” cried Tim.
When Cooper looked back, the horse was struggling to stand, its head completely engulfed by a massive three-eyed fish.
Tim jumped off the back of the horse just in time to avoid being grabbed by one of the four tentacles reaching for him from the creature’s sides. They struck the horse instead, and it disappeared instantly.
The fish’s lamprey-like mouth closed around nothing as it fell, smacking the bottom of its head against the dirt at the side of the pool.
“Gilbert!” cried Julian.
“Who gives a shit about your horse?” said Cooper. “What the fuck is that thing?”
The fish retreated backwards into the water, which had suddenly become thick, opaque, and rancid. Its three eyes peeked above the surface, staring at them.
“You dare bring a false offering to Bal’Horzahg?” Whatever had spoken hadn’t done so in the conventional sense. The words had bypassed Cooper’s ears and been directly transmitted into his brain somehow.
Had the others heard it?
Tim clapped his hands over his ears. “Get the fuck out of my head!”
Apparently so.
“I think the fish is talking to us,” said Julian.
“I am no fish!” said the voice that wasn’t really a voice. “I am an aboleth, a denizen of the underworld.”
Tim’s eyes were tearing up as he coughed. “You’re a denizen of a shithole. Seriously, how do you live in that?”
“I was betrayed by my own kind. When we consume a creature, we gain their memories. I know many terrible secrets. The other aboleths feared my growing power and imprisoned me here, where I’ve wallowed for years in my own waste.”
“It didn’t look, or smell, like this a minute ago.”
“My powers of illusion are strong, and your minds are weak.”
“Why didn’t they just kill you?” asked Julian.
“The temptation to consume me, inheriting my knowledge, would be too great. But one day my skum shall find an underground river or lake, and I shall escape into the outside world and be free to exact my revenge.”
“Is that why they’re digging all those tunnels?”
“You are correct, elf.”
Well, not technically, since I killed them all.
Bal’Horzahg turned to Cooper. “You did what?”
“Shit. Did I say that out loud?”
Tim and Julian glared a
t Cooper.
“He can read our minds, asshole,” said Tim. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Cooper frowned. “It’s probably obvious now, in context.”
“No matter,” thought Bal’Horzahg. “You shall make suitable replacements.”
“Fuck that,” said Tim. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.” He turned around and started walking.
“Stop!” thought Bal’Horzahg.
Much to Cooper’s surprise, Tim did as he was told. He faced the aboleth and got down on his knees. “I serve only you, mighty Bal’Horzahg.”
“Shit,” said Cooper.
“Very good,” thought Bal’Horzahg. “The little one’s mind is weak.”
“Whoa,” said Tim. “I blacked out there for a second. What happened?”
“Once I’ve turned you all to skum, you shall dig more tunnels until you find me a way out of this pit.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Julian. “Why don’t we go get a wagon, and we can travel overland and drop you off in a lake or something?”
“Outside of water, my skin would dry out and I would either die or be severely weakened. Perhaps I would survive, but my spawn would surely not.”
Julian peered past the aboleth. “You’ve got kids?” He’d found his in for Diplomacy.
“Not yet,” thought Bal’Horzahg.
“Oh.”
Cooper nodded for Julian to keep that line of question going.
Julian shrugged. “Is there a Mrs. Bal’Horzahg down there with you?”
“We aboleth are hermaphroditic.”
“Your blood doesn’t clot properly?” asked Cooper.
Julian shot him a quick glare. “That’s hemophilia.”
Cooper scratched his ass thoughtfully. “He’s into kids?”
“Dude!” said Tim. “Shut up!”
“It means we have both male and female sex organs,” explained Bal’Horzahg.
Good. Then you can go fuck yourself.
“You shall pay for your insolence!”
“Sorry!” said Cooper, Julian, and Tim simultaneously.
Cooper looked at Tim. “Were you thinking, ‘He could go...’”
“Low hanging fruit,” said Julian. “It just popped into my head.”
“He left himself wide open for it,” said Tim. “I couldn’t help –”
“SILENCE!” Bal’Horzahg was thinking in his outside voice now. “How dare you insult me! I, who have devoured the king of the merpeople?”
“Oooh,” said Julian. “That’s very impressive. He must have had some interesting memories.”
“Silly elf. You try to win me over with flattery. Are you not aware that your deepest thoughts and motives are as plain to me as this toxic sewage in which I dwell?” Bal’Horzahg raised one of his tentacles out of the dark brown sludge and held it out toward Julian. “Come, touch me and let your transformation begin.”
“I willingly obey,” said Julian, reaching his hand out and stepping forward.
Cooper wondered if he should interfere, or whether Julian had a trick up his sleeve. “Uh... Julian?”
Julian took another step forward. “I want to be skum.”
Cooper looked at Tim, who stood there watching with no sign of emotion, then back at Julian. “Are you sure? Because it kind of seems like it sucks.”
As Julian was about to touch the tentacle, Bal’Horzahg began drifting to the right, like he was teasing Julian into stepping into the putrid water.
“Wait... happening to... what...” Bal’Horzahg’s thoughts were fragmented and panicky. Cooper couldn’t keep up with them. Suddenly, the giant fish plunged beneath the liquid filth. Cooper thought he could see a small whirlpool forming in the middle of it.
“Hey,” said Julian. “What happened? Where’s Bal’Horzahg?”
Cooper didn’t know if it was Julian, Tim, Bal’Horzahg, or all three of them, but somebody had to be fucking with him.
“That asshole is still lingering in his mind,” said Tim, digging his finger deep into his ear. “Motherfucker really gets up in there.”
Cooper put his hands on Julian’s shoulders. “He was about to turn you into skum. Did you want that?”
“I did,” said Julian. He rubbed his temples. “Now I’ve got kind of mixed feelings about it.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“No,” said Julian. “We should wait and talk it out more with Bal’Horzahg.”
“We could do that,” said Cooper. “Or...” He punched Julian in the face, threw him over his shoulder, and looked down at Tim.
“Hey, man,” said Tim. “I’m cool.”
Cooper scooped up Tim and started to run.
“Stop!” said Tim.
“No!” Cooper kept running. “Don’t make me punch you too. I don’t want to be alone down here.”
“I think I saw something back there.”
“Was it a harpoon?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t give a fuck.”
Tim squirmed under Cooper’s arm. “I spotted a pattern of rocks on the wall. They looked like purposely arranged handholds. It might have been a way out.”
Cooper continued bounding down the stairs. “I don’t know why that slimy asshole went all Das Boot on us, but if he comes back, and we’re all standing around jerking off at some fucking rocks, he’s going to dig into our brains and turn us into skum.”
“What’s the alternative?” asked Tim. “How the hell else are we going to get out of – JESUS CHRIST!”
Cooper stopped at the mouth of the tunnel. A stream of liquid shit had flowed up from one of the lesser tunnels and into the pool enough to darken a good quarter of it, but had since subsided.
Near the wet and chunky brown path, wandering around like a zombie, was some kind of mud-monster. It was dripping and moaning, its short fat arms stretched out in front of it.
“Mwaaaaah! Whaaaaa!” the mud-monster groaned.
Cooper dropped Julian and Tim at his sides.
“Ow,” said Tim.
“I’ll take care of this.” Cooper charged at the creature, mentally reclassifying it as a shit-monster when its smell hit him. “Fuck the demon ass you squirted out of!”
“No, Cooper!” cried Tim. “It’s –” Whatever else he said was lost in the crash of Cooper and the shit-monster colliding and splattering into the dirt.
Cooper had no weapons, so he straddled the shit-beast and punched it repeatedly.
“Cooper!” cried his foe, shielding its shit-face with its shit-arms. “Stop!”
It knows my name.
Cooper throttled its shit-throat with both hands. “Get the fuck out of my head!”
“Idiot!” said Tim, suddenly on Cooper’s back. “That’s Dave!”
Cooper stopped slamming the creature’s head into the dirt, but kept his hands firmly around its neck. “Bal’Horzahg turned Dave into a shit-monster?”
“He’s not a shit-monster,” said Tim. “He’s just Dave, covered in shit.”
Cooper released Dave and stood up. “That’s disgusting. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Dave weakly raised his middle shit-finger up at Cooper.
“Honestly, Dave,” said Tim. “Where have you been? And why are you covered in shit?”
Dave wiped a thick coating of shit from his face with both hands. He was no less brown, but the non-bearded parts of his face were now recognizable. “I heal me.” He groaned and sighed as the magic sorted out his bumps and bruises. “They locked me in a cell.”
“We guessed that much,” said Tim. “They locked us all in cells. The rest of us escaped pretty easily.”
“I escaped too, but it wasn’t easy.”
“What the fuck did you do?” asked Cooper. “Crawl through a whale’s asshole?”
“I couldn’t open the gate, so I Shawshanked my way through the wall. I started tunneling upward, hoping to reach the surface. Instead, I hit the bottom of some sort of shit reservoir. When it broke, the
pressure blasted me right through the gate. It was up to my waist in no time. It rose up the tunnel faster than I could climb. I honestly thought I was going to drown in liquid shit.” He looked at the mouth of the tunnel he’d come from. “I guess it stopped.”
“Bal’Horzahg,” said Tim. “He plugged the hole.”
“You mean he’s actually fucking himself?” asked Cooper.
Dave squinted at him. “What?”
“No,” said Tim. “He’ll die without moisture. He swam down to plug the hole that Dave made.”
“So he’s plugging Dave’s hole?”
“Technically, I... Shut up, Cooper.”
“How does it feel, Dave?”
“Shut up, Cooper,” said Dave. “Who the hell is Bal’Horzahg?”
“He’s an aboleth.”
The whites of Dave’s eyes widened against his shit-caked skin. “You guys met an aboleth? How are you still alive?”
Cooper snorted. “You opened your hole in the nick of time.”
Tim glared up at Cooper. “Would you knock that shit off?” He looked back at Dave. “But yeah, that’s true. You saved us, buddy. We owe you.” Tim was speaking conspicuously less prickish than he normally did.
Dave shrugged. “It was my pleasure.”
“Good,” said Tim. “Because we need you to do it again.”
“What?”
Tim licked his lips. “Listen, Dave. There’s a pattern of discolored rocks on the wall right near the aboleth’s pool. They look like handholds. It’s my guess that was how the skum went in and out when the need arose.”
“And?”
“And we need somebody to go up there and lower a rope through the pool trap while the aboleth is distracted.”
“Why me?”
“Because it knows that’s our only hope of escape,” said Julian, rubbing his swollen black eye. “It’ll die if it doesn’t transform at least one of us into its slave, so that we can repair the leak and bring it food.”
“What happened to you?” asked Dave.
“Cooper punched me in the face.”
Dave glared at Cooper. “Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?”