by Deck Davis
“Every year you’re in the guild, you earn a piece of armor. By year five, you have the full set,” Ethan said.
“Let me get this right,” said Zewn. He’d barely been in the sun five minutes, and already his worm-like locks lay wet against his forehead. “You give the least experienced recruits, the least amount of armor?”
“No year-ones come to dungeons,” said Glen, putting on a pair of black-stained gauntlets. “Not sure why you’re here. But, in Bander I trust. Even if he’s losing his mind.”
“I heard that, you lanky scarecrow,” said Bander. “Come on. We better move.”
Lillian kept his back to them, staring into the distance. Ethan followed his gaze. Not far away stood a giant tree, the only one for miles. It looked older than the Fire Isles themselves, with a battered trunk full of holes, and twisting branches that held no leaves.
But the grotesque tree hadn’t drawn Lillian’s stare. East of it, in the horizon, mounds of jagged, black stone rose from the ground. Their placement seemed random at first, but the more he looked, the more Ethan swore there was a pattern. Not only that, but was something moving on them? Were black shapes crawling along the rocks?
The sooner they left here, the better. After weeks cooped up in the guildhouse Ethan couldn’t say yes fast enough when Bander asked him to accompany him, but now he was here, he wished he could go back. It wasn’t that there was no sign of civilization; dread heavy hung in the air, as if there something dwelled here that he shouldn’t see.
Despite that, he tried to commit it to memory. He’d tell Dantis about all the places he travelled when they met up. Dantis wouldn’t be able to believe this one.
“I will explore for a while,” said Lillian, pointing his scepter at the black rocks.
“Explore what? There’s nothing here but the dungeon.” said Zewn.
“He means over there,” said Ethan.
“Ove where?”
“The big, black rocks!”
“Hvar you lost your mind, Ethan.”
Ethan realized everyone was looking at his strangely now. Bander arched an eyebrow, while Lillian stared at him intently. Glen pointed at his temple and made his eyes crossed, as if Ethan was crazy.
“I’ll leave you to your dungeon play time,” said Lillian.
Bander took a belt from the luggage crate and strapped it around his waist. Bander slid vials into loops fixed along it. Two held blue liquid, three had pink.
“Oh? Not coming to the dungeon?” he asked Lillian.
“I’ll join you later. Once you’re cleared whatever beasts lurking inside.”
“Where is the dungeon anyway, boss?” said Glen. “Can’t see anything but that tree, and that tit-shaped mound.”
“That is the dungeon. Brilliant observation skills, Glen. I know why Reck held you back a year now.”
Glen glared at him. “Reck marked my exam wrong, and you know it.”
“I’ll leave you to your squabbles,” said Lillian. He headed toward the oil-black rocks.
“Glen, Zewn, walk on ahead,” said Bander. “I need to talk with Ethan.”
Ethan fell in line next to the guildmaster, and they stayed a few steps behind the other recruits. Glen punched Zewn on the shoulder, and when Zewn looked at him, Glen pretended not to notice.
Ethan tried to walk with a straighter posture. Why did he try to be at his best around Bander? Maybe it was because he respected him. Bander had been a thief once, but now look at him; a veteran fighter, and master of a heroes’ guild. Maybe that could be Ethan one day.
“Yart hasn’t left his room in three days,” said Bander. “I wonder why.”
“Maybe he’s been studying.”
“And maybe klizerds shit gold. I know what happened, Ethan.”
Ethan had already decided what he’d do if anyone found out about what he did to Bunk. Although the recruits’ unspoken code forbade them to talk about it, some could be persuaded, especially if they learned about the prospect of a dungeon visit. Maybe a recruit had told Bander in the hope they’d get to come to the dungeon. With this thought, he glanced at Zewn and Glen ahead of him. Nah – couldn’t have been them.
He chose his words in his head. “I’m not gonna pretend what I did was right,” he said, “But you must know what Bunk and Yart are like.”
Bander nodded. “I do. Because I put them up to it.”
“What?”
“Easiest way to separate the lions from the chickens in any recruit dorm is to introduce a threat. Now, I told Yart and his friend not to hurt anyone; just to cause enough conflict to force someone to act. That was you, as it turned out.”
Most people would have said Bander’s way of finding recruits with leadership skills was unfair. That it was cruel, even. Ethan knew differently. Life was supposed to be hard, not fair, and a heroes’ life was doubly so. When he and Dantis slept on the streets of Rotterwell and Wolfpine, nobody stopped to check if life was treating them fair; the idea anybody owed you anything was ludicrous. You had to make your own way.
“Well?” said Bander. “No thoughts on it?”
“I guess a hero can’t always afford to act heroic.”
“And that, Ethan, is why you’re on a dungeon raid with me today.”
“Thanks for trusting me.”
“I regret it already,” said Bander. He opened his hand. Ethan’s heart leapt into his throat when he saw that Bander was holding the memory needle. “You’re playing a dangerous game, lad. We’ll talk about this back at the guild,” he said.
The four heroes stood outside the dungeon. This was only the second dungeon Ethan had seen, and it was remarkable how similar it was to the first. He remembered that day he first saw one; he and Dantis hid in a forest when their parents’ enemies, dressed as brigands, attacked. They fled into a dungeon that looked unbelievably like this one.
Did all dungeons look the same, was that it? No – Ethan studied through hours of hero theory lessons with Saim, the cook, barber, kennel master and teacher, and everything else the guild couldn’t afford to pay a separate instructor for. Saim showed them illustrations of dungeons and their subtypes; tombs, lairs, dens. The fact this dungeon resembled the only one Ethan had seen was a coincidence.
Bander gripped Artifax in his hand. He gestured for the recruits to join him in a circle. “Zewn,” he said. “Reck tells me your awareness is years ahead of where it should be. I want you on the lookout for traps.”
Zewn swept his orange hair away from his forehead. Without it covered, his brow looked huge. “Got it,” he said.
“Glen, I want you fifteen feet ahead at all times. No more than that. Scout everything in front of us. Lads,” said Bander, looking at Ethan and Zewn, “Reck taught you signals, yes?”
Signals were a multitude of finger gestures heroes used to communicate in silence. You couldn’t form full sentences, and most of the gestures related to names of creatures, but it was good to warn each other of upcoming dangers.
“We know some, but even Reck’s theory lessons turn into sword fights,” said Ethan.
Bander crossed his arm. “Did Reck teach you the Rule of Three for dungeons?”
Zewn nodded.
“I’m waiting…”
“Scout, kill, loot,” said Zewn.
“Scout, kill, loot,” agreed Bander, “One, two, three. There’s a reason we put them in order. Heroes who go straight for the treasure without taking their measure of a dungeon get trapped. This is a low-grade dungeon, according to Gabreel, so you’ll be fine. This is an experience of a lifetime, boys. It’ll set you ahead of the others. Let’s go.”
~
Dantis couldn’t take his eyes off the heroes. He watched them enter his dungeon, and tension mixed with burning excitement.
“Was it him?” said Wisetree.
“I don’t know.”
“Who’s the guy in the robe?”
“That’s Lillian. He’s one of the Wolfpine town mages.”
With the heroes out of sight and the m
age wandering to Yutula-na, Dantis stepped out from behind Wisetree. The sun made his mud body feel like a furnace, but he needed to go into the dungeon later, and there was no way of him going his root system there without ruining the design.
Externally, his dungeon looked the same as when he’d first crafted it. It was shaped like a buxom breast, even thinning at the top to form a nipple. Inside, changes were afoot.
Dantis had a secret. The more spirit he fed his shadow fiends, the longer they could stay out of Yutula-na. Not only that, but spirit gave them strength; it thickened their muscles and boosted their speed. After crafting pickaxes and shovels for them, Dantis asked them to dig inside his dungeon, expanding it into the ground where it spread into tomb-like rooms and earth tunnels. He asked them to re-enforce these mud passageways with strips of timber crafted from the nearby forest.
He paced around Wisetree. He’d prepared as much as he could for this day after Gabreel promised to spread word of his dungeon, but there was so much still left to chance.
“You’re making me dizzy,” said the tree. “Was your brother there, or not?”
“They were too far away,” said Dantis. “I couldn’t make them out. I mean, it could have been him.”
He clenched his fists so tight dirt crumbled off. If he had a heart in his mud frame, it would have pounded loud enough to shake the ground. If only he could have gotten closer to make sure it was Ethan. But no - if he approached them head-on in his mud form, they would have done what all heroes did to strange creatures; cleaved his head clean off.
“My only chance is if I can get Ethan alone,” he said.
“How do you propose to do that?”
“Simple. Split them up. We have enough traps, and I’m gonna load Xig and the other with spirit. We have it planned.”
“It’d be better to kill them, grub. They’d do the same to you.”
Dantis had thought about killing the other heroes, but then he remembered the horn-bugs, and how such a simple creature was capable of fear. He’d never have contemplated murder before now, so could he really let the Barrens change him so much?
“No. I’m not going to murder them. I need to get Ethan alone.”
Wisetree sighed with disappointment. “Fine, fine. But can I at least eat the mage? He’s too nosy for my liking.”
In the distance, Lillian approached the outskirts of Yutula-na. His crimson robes stretched to the ground and trailed along the dirt. Beams of sunlight reflected from his metal mask. His face must have been boiling. A metal mask in a scorching place?
Dantis would have guessed Lillian had never been in the Barrens before, and yet, he made no attempt to enter Yutula-na itself. He was content to stand ten feet away from the nearest stone. He knows something about the city…but what?
“I need to get into position,” said Dantis, with the excitement coloring his voice. “Run the checklist with me again.”
Wisetree sighed, sending out a plume of rancid breath. “Traps?”
“Yep. Obvious ones for them to find, and some well-hidden.”
The traps had been the easy part. Years ago, Dantis stole a book on traps, pitfalls, and lures from the Rotterwell library, and he and Ethan read it cover to cover and spent hours testing each other on it. As thieves, it paid to know what defenses a paranoid mark might use. Traders who lived away from cities were especially prone to using them; without a city guard, and if you couldn’t afford to hire your own protection, beartraps and spike nets could keep you safe.
This made it easy for him to craft simpler traps. He just had to cast an illusion of a bear trap, added iron from the supply Wisetree had found and Xig had collected, and poured spirit into it. He layered his dungeon tunnels and rooms with traps obvious enough to be seen, but with the appearance of an attempt at hiding them.
The best part about the dungeon came a day into Xig and his crew’ digging. They’d shoveled and pickaxed their way into the ground, deep enough that the barren dirt was wet and worms and beetles crawled in it.
That day, Xig had sprinted out of the dungeon. “Got see this,” he said. “Got see!”
“What is it?”
“Dantis got see!”
It was stupid, but he still couldn’t enter his dungeon. He tried. He almost forced himself once, but every time he stepped into the darkness, his brain shut down. Panic flooded through him, and a memory threatened to stir, like a beast shaking its way out of a locked box.
Even if he could make himself go in, he wouldn’t want to. Standing near the entrance was enough to send wafts of a foul earthy-odor his way. He should have been used to nasty smells after living on the streets, but that was the one thing he could never adapt to. It was hard to cure a sensitive nose.
This gave him the toughest problem of his plan; once Xig and his crew separated Ethan from the other heroes, would Dantis be able to force himself to go into the dungeon? I have to. If there’s a chance of seeing Ethan, I can make myself do it.
He turned to Wisetree. “Do your roots spread around there?”
“Give me a second,” said the tree.
Wisetree closed his eye cavities. The base of his trunk trembled, as if something was flowing into him. He opened his eyes.
“Interesting,” he said. “Very, very interesting.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ethan
Ethan learned something new; he loved the smell of dungeons. It was an exotic aroma, one of age and curiosity, and it tugged at his nose as if it wanted to lead him further into the darkness.
It was good to finally be in one after hours of theory. He’d learned in guild classes that dungeons came in many guises; underground tunnels, tombs, lairs, catacombs, graves. When people first settled on Fire Isles, dungeons were natural; they were warrens under the earth where creatures lurked. They held no traps, no treasures, nothing to entice adventures except a curiosity of what was inside.
When heroes’ guilds formed and used dungeons to test their recruits, an industry bloomed. Enterprising individuals constructed dungeons of their own, populating them with monsters and loot, charging heroes guilds a fee to use them. When a hero wiped out a dungeons’ creatures, it as simple; the dungeon master captured more.
As more dungeons sprouted up, competition grew fierce. Come to my dungeon, masters would say, I offer better treasures. No, come to mine! My monsters will give your young bucks a test.
This dungeon didn’t look like the ones he’d seen in class. It lacked the organic feel of the natural dungeons, yet didn’t have the professional sheen of the man-made made ones. Tunnels sprouted out from all directions, but most ended after a meter or two.
There were no torches on the walls, and instead only the glow of Artifax’s hilt gem and the flicker of a mana-candle Glen held lit their way. Ethan was glad he hadn’t been given a candle; they were made from liquified mana, and Lillian warned them how volatile mana was in liquid form. The candles were safe unless you sought to destroy them with force, but it was a chance he wouldn’t have liked to take.
Ethan shuddered at the breeze. It sounded strange in his ears, like whispers teasing their way into his head. Dantis would lose his mind down here.
As instructed, Glen and Zewn scouted ahead of them. Glen had lost his carefree manner since going in the dungeon, and Ethan was pleased to see him taking his scouting duties seriously.
The atmosphere had forced seriousness on all of them. None of the heroes spoke as they walked the dungeon tunnels. “Know what kills most heroes?” Reck once asked them. “It’s not swords, it’s not arrows, it’s not poison. It’s their own flapping lips.” In a place like this, it was easy to see why the silence rule existed. Even his breaths could betray him.
Ahead of him, Glen stopped. The dungeon forked into two tunnels. Glen made a zero shape with his right hand.
Bander nodded. He held his left hand in the air and gesture forward, and Glen set off that way. Now they were underground, Ethan could sense the weight of the dirt layers above him.
&
nbsp; Timber beams reinforced the tunnels, but it didn’t seem enough. What if a passageway caved? How would it feel to be buried under mounds of earth, to suffocate in heaps of foul-smelling soil? Or worse, what if a tunnel caved and they survived, but they were trapped, doomed to walk the dungeons passages until they died of thirst? Dantis would have hated it here. He would have lost his mind even thinking about a place like this.
Zewn reminded him of Dantis most of them time, but he was much more confident in the dungeon. He moved in as low a crouch as possible, so he was like a dog sniffing the ground.
He paused. His lifted his hand in the air, crossing his fingers and wiggling them side to side exactly three times. That couldn’t have been right – his signal meant there was a tavern ahead.