The Dungeoneers

by Jeffery Russell

  Miss Cluck waddled out of the maze and into the cavern.

  ᴥᴥᴥ

  Ruby held up the stick and eyed it critically. “Yes, I think that just might do.”

  “Yer made a four foot long spoon?” Thud asked. Ruby smiled, which Thud didn’t recall having seen her do before. He wondered if the smile came from the fact that this was the first thing she’d gotten to do that actually affected the mission. The scribes were known for going to great lengths to avoid having any significant effects on how events played out, present simply to record what happened. “We don’t make the history, we write the history,” she’d told him once. Later, on reflection, Thud had decided that the two were one and the same. History wasn’t what had happened. History was what someone had written down about what happened.

  Ruby raised her walking spoon up over her shoulder, holding it by the narrow end, the spoon end extended out behind her.

  “Try and balance that on the end there. Be ready to light it”

  Ginny carefully placed the costonflagrationator on the end of the stick, balancing it on end. Thud took a big drag on his cigar then touched the tip to the fuse.

  Ruby swung.

  It flared into brilliant white light, high above their heads, arcing through the emptiness. The light lasted but a second or two which was both just long enough and, having seen what it revealed, not nearly long enough at all. The light faded and went out, leaving them in their suddenly very small pool of lantern light, surrounded by the immense darkness and the clicking sounds.

  “Holy shit,” Thud said.

  ᴥᴥᴥ

  They advanced into the hall in as best of a formation as Nibbly was able to manage with their reduced numbers. He’d appointed Rasp as the temporary leader of the vanguard team and he and the other three remaining vanguard were in front, shields up and crossbows poised. Cardamon was just behind them as the only available member of the traps team, his pack sagging and Cardamon listing backward with the weight of the extra gear he’d loaded up on. His trap poking pole was the only thing that seemed to be holding him up. Nibbly followed behind with Leery to one side and Gryngo to the other. Dadger took up the rear as message runner. Nibbly didn’t have much of a plan formed. He knew that the lost dwarves were down below him somewhere and his hope was that somewhere up ahead there would be a more conventional means down. If that failed then the time it took for it to do so would at least give him a chance to come up with a plan B. He hoped. Provided that plans of action arrived fully formed from the ether without requiring much pondering on his part.

  They advanced, taking it slow. Cardamon was the newest member of the trap team, having replaced Kengi a year ago following the incident with the pit full of whipped cream in the haunted harem. Nibbly wanted to make sure Cardamon had every opportunity to spot anything before Rasp stepped on it. The dwarf’s perpetual half-lidded eyes didn’t do much to inspire confidence in either his being particularly alert or his ability to spot things. Still, he had Ginny’s confidence so Nibbly extended the benefit of the doubt.

  That was when they met the daemon.

  ᴥᴥᴥ

  “This gonna take much longer?” Clink asked. He and Gong had been watching Mungo scribbling on a piece of parchment for several minutes.

  “Well,” the gnome said, “if you think you might be of any assistance you are more than welcome to help. All we have to do is postulate the layout of the maze based entirely on knowledge of the route through it. As this is, typically, the opposite of how mazes are usually solved it is taking slightly longer.” He stared at the paper for a moment, sucking on the quill tip. It had stained his lips black causing them to blend in with his faux beard. He scribbled a few more lines then studied it again. “Gentledwarves, I think I have it!”

  They crowded around him.

  “If we activate this hall here it should move to connect to that one. We move through it without activating it then activate the next one twice and that should give us our passage through.”

  “And if it don’t?”

  “Then I’ll have learned something useful about the maze and can correct my error. One way or another, we’re bound to succeed.”

  “Yer makin’ a lot of assumptions there,” Gong said, gesturing at Mungo’s piece of paper. “Symmetricality, no accountin’ for possible rooms in the maze, levels we don’t know about, pattern breaks, consistency of the rules-set…”

  “Yes, yes, as I said, if it doesn’t work then I’ll have learned something useful and make necessary corrections. Now, this way!”

  “That’s the way we come from,” Clink said.

  “Sorry, got turned around. This way!”

  ᴥᴥᴥ

  If you’d asked the dwarves, they would have said it was a demon. Only the humans were pretentious enough to add the superfluous ‘a’. The spellings had identical pronunciation but the humans felt the extra letter added a more occult feel to the word to better reflect the danger of the things. They felt justified, having borne the brunt of the daemonwars with dozens of cities and hundreds of villages being sacked. The dwarves placed less importance on the war, having followed their usual strategy of holing up in Kheldurn, their city beneath the Hammerfells. The dwarves had long advertised Kheldurn as being impregnable but were very taciturn as to what they’d done to make it so. People took them at their word, as they’d also built everyone else’s fortresses and knew a thing or two about how fortresses worked. That the daemons had attacked Kheldurn was widely known. It was also widely known that Kheldurn had not fallen and that the dwarves had spent the next month burning piles of deceased demons. Kheldurn still held its secrets.

  This particular daemon looked like a toddler-sized monkey with yard length tentacles in place of its arms and legs. The tentacles had monkey paws at their ends and were covered with monkey hair. The thing hung from the ceiling by one arm, swaying gently back and forth, looking at them. There was a door behind it and Nibbly wondered if the demon had been put here to guard it. It didn’t seem particularly interested in attacking them. Not yet, at least.

  “Hello?” Nibbly said, figuring it was at least worth a try.

  The demon monkey picked at one of its nostrils and then spent a moment examining its finger, tentacle undulating. It sighed.

  “Hello,” it finally responded. Its voice was saturated with boredom and ennui.

  “We’d like to go past.”

  “No.”

  “What are you doing talking to the damned thing?” Rasp hissed. “We should stick it to the wall with a dozen bolts and then burn the carcass for good measure. Only way to be sure with that lot. Standard Plan A for demon encounters. I can show ya where Thud put it in the manual.”

  The monkey demon tilted its head. “Are you desiring to commence with the hostilities now? I’d been hoping for at least a minute or two of conversation first. More to prolong the amusement of the distraction you’re providing, really, than any hope that the conversation itself will be interesting. But, if you insist, just say the word.”

  “There’s a lot more of us than there is of you,” Rasp yelled. He stepped forward to yell it then stepped back again just as quickly afterward.

  “How adorable; the dwarf can count. I’m sure your superior numbers just fill you with inspiration and courage.” It yawned.

  “What’s your name?” Nibbly asked.

  “In order to pronounce my name you’d have to cleave your tongue in half, tie one half in a knot and choke on the other. I’d be more than happy to provide that service, should you wish. If not, call me whatever you like. Your choice will be utterly irrelevant within a few minutes.”

  “Why are you here? Everything else we’ve seen has been a bit more…skeletony. You seem a bit out of place.”

  “Alaham’s teenage experimental phase, I suppose you could say. Hormonal angst sort of thing. Necromancy or demonology, however to decide? One can appreciate the difficulty, perhaps, in making the choice. He summoned and bound me then decided on necromancy. H
ere I still am, centuries later, still following his command.” It cast a sidelong glance their way. “I would take this opportunity to point out than none of you are particularly skeletal either. As you are also not demons, you would seem to be even more out of place.”

  “You’re his wyrd?” Dadger asked.

  Cardamon gave him a sidelong look. “His wot?”

  “His wyrd. ‘S a demon necromancers keep around so folks think they’re actually demonologists.”

  “That’s somehow better?”

  Dadger shrugged. “Messing around with dark and sinister entities in the pursuit of power, well, folks can understand the allure. Playing with dead things, however, not so much. So they have a demon to parade around and keep their skeletons in the closet.”

  “Both types of magic smells about the same,” Rasp said. He gave a disapproving sniff in the demon’s direction.

  “Do go on,” the demon said. “I’ll just be over here.”

  “We can free you,” Nibbly said. “You won’t have to be bound to Alaham no more,” Rasp made a hissing noise and glared at him.

  The demon shook his head. “Not interested. I’m from the Plateau of Leng. Freezing cold wasteland of ruins, cultists, and spiders the size of moon beasts. Being here is like a vacation. And Alaham nailed the luxury resort ambiance. I can’t think of a single good reason to leave.”

  “What’s behind the door?”

  The demon gave him a look of surprise. “Asking? Well, I don’t think anyone ever mentioned any rules in that regard and the heritage of my species pretty much demands that I take the opportunity to undermine my master’s intentions while still following his commands to the letter.”

  “Exactly,” Nibbly said, mentally filing that information away so that he could use it on purpose next time rather than by happy accident.

  “Beyond this door is where the necromancers are.”

  “…Oh?”

  “Quite a lot of them, as a matter of fact.”

  “But they need you to protect them?”

  “Oh, no,” the monkey demon laughed, displaying a mouth full of teeth that looked like coffee icicles. “That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to make sure they aren’t interrupted.”

  “Erm…interrupted?” Nibbly scratched at a drop of sweat that had suddenly trickled into his beard. “What sort o’ thing might they be up too?”

  “Oh, no, now that would spoil the fun,” the demon grinned. “Suffice to say that you will most certainly notice when they’ve finished.”

  “Well that don’t sound like something I wants to wait around fer,” Rasp said, just loud enough for Nibbly to hear. “Still thinking Plan A is looking pretty good.”

  He’d switched to speaking Dwarvish, insuring that even if the demon heard what he’d said that it wouldn’t understand. The extremely strict Dwarven laws over who could learn Dwarvish (dwarves only) guaranteed that dwarves could openly discuss strategy in front of their enemies, as long as they weren’t fellow dwarves. Some countries had come to consider a dwarf speaking Dwarvish to be an act of war and had, thus far, been spot on. It was the linguistic equivalent of a crossbow being cocked.

  The demon dropped to the floor and rolled its neck around, loosening up. Its neck made a sound like a batch of popcorn. Rasp gave a snort and cracked his knuckles with a sound like a troupe of tap dancers falling into a pit full of castanets. The demon arched its eyebrows, impressed. A split second later and it was flying through their air at their heads.

  It grabbed onto Cardamon’s pole with one hand, arcing sideways mid-flight to angle between Rasp and Nibbly. It caught onto each of their heads with one arm and one leg each, its hairy tentacle limbs wrapping around their heads as it flew between them. It reached the end of its tentacles, hanging for a moment in mid-air just in front of Dadger’s face. It had just long enough to hiss and snap at him before its tentacles rubber-banded it backwards, giving it the momentum and strength to bring Rasp and Nibbly’s heads together with a sound like a frying pan on a metal coconut.

  Against humans this would have been a reasonably brilliant tactic. Dwarven skulls, however, are more akin to granite than to bone. The two dwarves, unfazed by the impact, jerked their heads apart, pulling the monkey tight between them and yanking it back right into Dadger’s fist. The impact spun the monkey horizontally, braiding its tentacles on each side. Rasp and Nibbly grabbed hold and began swinging it in loops between them like a jump rope.

  The monkey demon wailed, its voice oscillating as it swung. The noise was cut off with a bass drum thump as Cardamon swung his staff down hard, the blow meeting the monkey on its upswing. Rasp quickly tied the demon’s limp tentacles together in a complicated knot he’d learned from a yo-yo he’d kept in his pocket as a boy. He tossed it into the air, flip-kicked his crossbow into his hand and fired, pinning it to the wall mid-flight.

  “That was Plan B,” he said. “It works good too.”

  It was a good line, to be fair. The sort of line that bards like to latch onto and deliver in gravelly drawls to trigger a round of audience cheering and applause. It would have been all the better had Rasp not still had the bone-breaker ball-tipped bolts loaded. As it was, rather than the expected pinning to the wall the monkey demon just made a ‘wuff’ noise then slid to the floor, a tangle of tentacles and hair reminiscent of a Mondilinian appetizer. The demon’s head snapped up, face twisted into a snarl, tentacles writhing as they unknotted.

  “Is there a Plan C?” Nibbly asked.

  “Yeh,” Rasp said. “Reload afore it gets that knot undone.” He had his foot in the crossbow stirrup and was tugging the string into place.

  The demon had one tentacle arm free. It grabbed up the blunt bolt, arm snapping forward with a whipcrack followed directly by a loud clank noise. Rasp keeled over backward, a fresh round dent in the front of his helmet.

  Nibbly grabbed Rasp’s crossbow from where it had fallen, having to give it an extra tug to free it from Rasp’s foot. He aimed and fired. The pointy bolt definitely worked better in the ‘pin the demon to the wall’ department. It screeched, displaying far more teeth than Nibbly felt any creature needed to have.

  The thing was not out of tricks, however, demons being what they are. Its tentacle arms and legs detached and came slithering across the floor with terrifying speed. Hairy, sucker-covered snakes with grasping monkey paws for heads, fingers flexing, nails long and ragged. Nibbly suddenly had a compelling desire to do everything in his power to prevent one of those from getting under his kilt. The demon’s tail was still attached and it was using it to tug at the bolt pinning it to the floor. Black goo bubbled from where the bolt had impaled it.

  Unloaded crossbows are notorious for not being much good in the ranged offensive category. They can, however, make for a fair club in a pinch. Nibbly grasped it by the lathes and brought the stock down hard on the paw of the tentacle that was coming for him. There was a satisfying crunch and the monkey demon yelped from across the hall.

  “What’re you doin’ to me crossbow?” Rasp yelled, having sat back up, followed by, “Ack!” as he saw the tentacle wriggling up his leg. He grabbed the paw as if he was shaking its hand and began flailing it about. Cardamon was having less success. He had a tentacle wrapped around his neck, squeezing, the paw clamped over his mouth. He was trying to leverage his staff in between to pry it off. Dadger Ben was scurrying around in circles, the fourth tentacle chasing after him, paw grasping.

  “Ceiling!” Rasp yelled. The tentacle was wrapped around his arm and he was swinging it frantically as if attempting to fly. Nibbly looked up and saw the glyph.

  In order to be bound demons had to be imprisoned. Surrounded by a glyph that created a magical barrier that the demon was unable to cross, either physically or dimensionally. The occult equivalent of a pinning crossbow bolt. The glyph covered the ceiling of the hall, a bewildering array of angled lines, curlicued with sigils. It was carved into the stone of the ceiling to prevent it from being easily disrupted. It had not been carved
to contend with dwarves, however. Just as some elves could meld wood, so could some dwarves with stone. And Cardamon was such a dwarf.

  Not that Cardamon was in a position to do so at the moment. He’d managed to get his staff in between the tentacle and his face but hadn’t had the leverage to actually pry it loose. He’d gotten the other end of the staff between his legs and was trying to sit on it, bouncing up and down in an attempt to use his weight to apply enough force to break free. Physics was making the process rather awkward.

  Nibbly ran to him, dodging around Dadger as he ran past yelping, tentacle still in pursuit. The demon had unpinned itself but was short on ambulatory limbs at the moment. It snapped its tail, throwing the bolt toward Nibbly but had less luck this time as Dadger ran in between, the bolt pinging unnoticed off of his helmet.

  Nibbly stuck his head between Cardamon’s knees and stood, hoisting the diminutive dwarf to the ceiling, grabbing the end of the staff to lend stability. Being wedged between Cardamon’s face and the tentacle let it act as the third leg of a tripod. Cardamon, fortunately, had the presence of mind to have grasped the plan. He let go of the staff, reached up and drew his finger through the edge of the glyph. The stone was like clay beneath his touch. The glyph flared with red light, bathing the hallway in eerie crimson. The monkey demon screamed, the sound rapidly dwindling as if it was moving away at an astonishing speed, pulled across vast dimensions. It faded from existence.