by Max Anthony
“Balls! Of course we are,” said Rasmus sourly. He wasn’t at all afraid of rats, but he found them distasteful and definitely didn’t want to rake through their leavings. “I have a firestorm spell I could use?” he asked hopefully.
“Would this spell destroy the nests and incinerate anything within them by any chance?”
“Maybe,” the wizard hedged.
“Keep the spell for a time we might have greater need of it,” advised Viddo.
As they finished speaking, it became apparent that whatever rats were still within the nests had become emboldened by hunger or whatever else it was that drove such creatures on. There were more stirring sounds and several rats emerged, each between four and five feet in length, including the tail. They were covered in dark brown and black fur, which looked to have been surprisingly well groomed. In appearance, they were exactly the same as normal rats, except for the fact that they were much bigger and more aggressive with it.
They scampered across the floor at great speed, their eyes featureless and black in the magical light. Viddo shot one, the bolt from his crossbow penetrating the thin bones of its skull. He reloaded, his hands a blur as the magic of the weapon assisted him. The next shot killed a second. Four more of them remained, uncaring that their fellows had died so quickly and easily. The closest reached Rasmus, who bent over and brained it with his metal bar. The wizard kicked firmly at another, striking it in the ribs and knocking it a few feet away onto its back. It scrabbled at the air, before it managed to flip onto all fours again.
In the meantime, Viddo stabbed one rat in the back with his dagger, executed an acrobatic roll and then stabbed another with the consummate ease of a man who has encountered his fair share of giant rodents. The last of the beasts attempted to flee, foolishly choosing to try and dart past the legs of Rasmus. The wizard was having none of it and delivered a bone-breaking crack to its head, killing it at once.
“I remember when these used to be a pain in the backside,” said Viddo, wiping his dagger clean on the fur of one of the creatures. “No matter how many there were in the party, there’d always be twice as many rats as there were of you. Plus, they’d rarely have anything of value.” He kicked at one of the bodies. “That’s for low-level adventurers everywhere!” he told it. The act of kicking had provided a modicum of pleasure, so he kicked it again, though by now the moment had passed.
Rasmus had already approached the nearest of the two nests. He hadn’t lowered his cosh just yet and looked at the stinking pile with some trepidation. It seemed as though the rodents had used their own droppings in its construction as well as whatever else they’d been able to drag in here. He pushed gingerly at the pile with his foot, trying to sweep a few pieces of it away.
“Just get stuck in,” called Viddo cheerfully. He kicked enthusiastically at the other pile of detritus, scattering dried leaves and sputum-matted hairballs all about the vicinity.
“If I had a nice metal staff this would have been so much more pleasant,” Rasmus muttered to himself as he picked up the pace.
In spite of Viddo’s demeanour, the work involved in deconstructing the nest was not something that either man enjoyed. By volume, the nests were quite large and it took some time to destroy them. Inside, there were no half-gnawed bones of adventurers, but there were several half-eaten bodies of other rats. They’d been dead a few days and they stank enough to make Rasmus’ eyes water with the reek. He’d seen far worse in the recent past, so was able to mostly ignore it.
“These ones have been killed by the application of a heavy, sharp implement, I would say. Look at the wounds they bear.”
“Jera wields a sword. Perhaps she’s as skilled as her father says she is. This is certainly evidence that she came through here.”
“The exit was hidden by this larger of the two nests,” said Rasmus. “I wonder if they reached this room and then turned back, thinking their way to be blocked.”
“Rats can rebuild their nests in under a day,” said Viddo. “I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that it was over the exit.”
“Very well, let us continue.”
This they did. The exit corridor was lower in height than the others they’d travelled so far, but they were able to enter it without having to stoop unnaturally. It was just wide enough for them to walk abreast as they followed it to see where it would lead.
“They must have got bored digging this bit,” said Viddo sourly. For some reason, he had a chip on his shoulder about those who crafted the underground places that he frequented.
The corridor wasn’t of any great length, nor possessed of any remarkable features, apart from a thick carpeting of rat shit. It ended in another room, full of decomposing waste matter of an indeterminate nature. It was a foot deep in places and gave off the odour of rotting eggs. As the pair entered, great clouds of flies rose into the air, where they buzzed around in a mixture of alarm and excitement.
“Flies. If you had a shit in the deepest part of the ocean, there’d be flies upon it within two minutes.” For some reason, Rasmus had a chip on his shoulder about the ability of flies to find their way into places that they were not wanted.
The origin of the flies and the rotting matter was unclear. They trod carefully across the thirty feet width of the room, with Rasmus watching carefully in case something went over the top of his boots. Viddo seemed to almost float over the surface, using his thief’s agility to avoid the worst of the muck, while Rasmus squelched and slithered. The flies were a nuisance, but otherwise harmless. They landed mostly upon the wizard, crawling down his neck and up his robes, in spite of his best efforts to flatten them.
When the pair had traversed the room into the exit corridor, the flies settled again, clearly of the opinion that rotting biological matter was a preferable target to the waving hands of Rasmus. The wizard stared back into the room, with his hands on his hips. Viddo could easily read the thoughts that were going through his friend’s mind.
“If you’re thinking of casting that firestorm spell, might I bring your attention to the large quantity of gas in this room, which is no doubt extremely flammable and likely to result in a considerably larger explosion than you might intend.”
“Harrumph,” said Rasmus, turning to follow Viddo.
The smell rapidly faded, though it lingered in their nostrils for a time after it had dispersed from the air. The room of flies was soon forgotten. The exit corridor carried them for a considerable distance, over which the number of droppings diminished until there were eventually no more droppings to be seen. There was no branching of the way, which was a relief to both of them. Choice had its advantages when they were looking for random excitement, or trying to escape from powerful foes, but they were both agreed that choice was most unwelcome when they were trying to stay on the track of a party of missing adventurers.
The corridor ended at a new room. It was a similar size to most of the others, hacked out of the solid rock, with rough walls and an uneven floor. There was a wooden table in one corner, with three upturned chairs, two of which had been broken. There was a pile of crates and a small pile of rubble, with no discernible source.
As they came further into the room, more of the details became illuminated for Rasmus’ eyes. There were three more exits, one of which had a solid-looking metal door across it. In the farthest corner from where they’d entered the room, there were signs of combat. They walked across to investigate it. There was a pile of bones and several dead bodies, strewn across an area of twenty or so feet. Each man looked at the scene and tried his best to come up with the most plausible explanation before the other could.
“They pulled this lever here,” said Viddo, pointing to a metal bar protruding from the wall. It was at the lowest end of its metal slot. “Then this part of the wall slid back, revealing four skeletons and two zombies.” He waved an arm to indicate a ten-feet-deep alcove in one corner near to the lever. “Then there was an almighty fight and this fighter and this wizard were killed in
the altercation with the undead.”
“Hmmm,” mused Rasmus. “I agree with you up till that point, but where is Jera? She isn’t one of these two fallen adventurers. We’ve found five dead so far. Surely they’d have given up at this point and gone home to figure out how to be more successful next time?”
“There might have been ten or twelve in the party,” said Viddo, already doubting his own words. Such expeditions rarely had more than six people in them. Any more and the division of the spoils would become a fraught affair, as each profession fought over what they thought was their rightful loot. Even six was a rarity, with four or five being far more common.
“It appears that Jera knows how to wield a sword. At least in comparison to her clumsier companions,” said Rasmus. “It could be that she emerged from each battle unscathed and chose to proceed alone, or with whoever remained alive.”
“That doesn’t seem likely to me,” Viddo replied, knowing that Rasmus hadn’t really believed what he was saying either. There were times when speaking random ideas brought the probable truth closer. “Still, we are here and with a certain amount of time on our hands to get to the bottom of this whole affair. We should continue our exploration of this introductory-level dungeon in order to see what we can find.”
“Yes, we have made a deal with Jera’s father, and we must do our utmost to locate this brave young lady.” By now, each man was starting to feel an amount of admiration for the skills of this woman whom they had not yet met. They were sentimental when it came to their early years and found themselves very keen that she had succeeded in her endeavours and not met the same grisly fate as these others.
Something caught Viddo’s eye and he examined one of the dead adventurers more closely. He beckoned Rasmus over. “What do you think of this?” he asked.
The wizard peered over. “Looks like an axe wound,” he said.
“It does, and there is no sign of an axe on the floor near to these beaten undead.”
“Either the survivors took the weapon with them, or they were attacked by more than just undead. That would be strange, but not entirely unheard of. Noise has a habit of attracting unwanted attention.”
“It does and we can only hope that this potential third party has not caused any more mischief than we see here.”
“We should move on as soon as possible,” said Rasmus, suddenly concerned, though not for his own safety.
“There are three exits from this room,” said Viddo. “One of which is sealed by this fine-looking specimen of a metal door.” He approached and sized it up. It was a dull grey slab of some unknown metal, which could have been iron, but there was no rust upon its surface to suggest that it was so. There was a metal ring for a handle, which Viddo examined for a brief time before he grasped it and turned. The door did not open. He gave the handle an experimental rattle and found it to be as solid as could be.
“Locked,” he announced. “I don’t think she’s gone this way.”
“Could she still have a thief with her? One who could have picked the lock?” asked Rasmus.
“Let’s see now,” Viddo replied, crouching down to look at the lock. “Oooh!” he announced, his voice climbing one octave in his excitement.
Viddo was known for his enjoyment of practical jokes, but he wasn’t the sort of man who would make a cryptic utterance such as ‘oooh!’ simply to extract a response from his audience. Therefore, Rasmus waited patiently until his friend was ready to speak again.
“Do you remember back in the early years, when you’d come to places like this?” asked Viddo. “You could be in the best party of the luckiest of adventurers you’d ever been with. You’d smash your way through every challenge and clear the place out, finding piles of low-denomination coins in a wooden chest and a couple of magic swords.”
“Yes, yes,” said Rasmus. “Get to the point.”
“And you’d be with a thief who was more experienced than everyone else and he’d pick every lock with ease and spot every trap from twenty feet away.”
“Come on, tell me what you’re getting at.”
“But, there’d always be that single door left in the whole dungeon that you couldn’t get through. Your strongest fighter would bounce off when he tried to charge it down. Your over-confident thief would snap all his lock picks off inside the mechanism.”
“Ah yes, I am starting to understand,” said Rasmus as light dawned within his head.
“You’d leave that dungeon with more loot than you could have imagined finding in all your wildest dreams, but your success would still have been tainted by the failure to open that one, single door. What was behind it, you’d ask yourself? Was there something there that would have turned a great success into an overwhelming life-changing victory? You would never find out and the door would be the fly in your otherwise perfect jam sandwich.”
“I do remember those doors quite well. The worst thing about them was that by the time you became so powerful that you were certain you could get the door open, there was no point in returning to the place because you were always off doing other, more important things.”
“Exactly. Those bastard doors. I must have spent at least a dozen silver that I couldn’t afford on replacing picks that I’d snapped off in my efforts.”
“And I assume you are telling me that just such a door lies in front of us now?”
“That is exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Think you can open it?”
“I’ll be a bit cheesed off if I can’t,” said Viddo, pulling out his thief’s tools.
“I’m excited,” confessed Rasmus, running on the spot to work off his nervous energy.
“Me too,” said Viddo. The thief made a few noises which Rasmus had long since learned to associate with effort. Lock picks went in and came out, to be replaced by other similar-looking tools.
“It’s a bit of a bugger,” said Viddo.
It took him a full five minutes to get it open, though in the end there was no doubt as to who would be the victor in the battle between man and lock. Viddo was a master in his field, but he hadn’t wanted to snap any of his picks so far away from a place where he could replace them. There was a soft click to indicate success and the thief packed away his tools before he rose to his feet. He put one hand on the door handle and gave it a half-turn.
“Shall we?” he asked.
Rasmus nodded and Viddo finished turning the handle. He pulled and the heavy door swung open silently and easily.
4
A waft of cold air washed over them as they looked through the aperture.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” said Rasmus.
“I know what I was hoping for,” said Viddo. “A room full of treasure.”
“There’s a reason that door was there,” said Rasmus, trying to look on the bright side. “And the only reason you put doors somewhere is to stop other people getting into a place you don’t want them to be.”
“I suppose,” said Viddo. “This is just another passageway though.” He was right – there was another corridor ahead of them, stretching off into the darkness. The cool breeze continued to blow in their faces, suggesting that the corridor was a long one.
“We should be getting more patient in our old age. Instead we are getting grumpier and more impatient. There could be a room full of loot two minutes’ journey along there and we’ll have spent more time grumbling about it than it’ll take us to walk in and find out.”
With those words, Rasmus went through the doorway and into the corridor beyond. He was followed by Viddo, who had no intention of being left behind.
Almost immediately, they reached a set of steps downwards. They didn’t break stride and proceeded, side-by-side. The treads were a little bit too wide and Rasmus struggled to walk comfortably. They both knew what steps downwards meant: they were heading into the deeper and therefore more dangerous areas of the dungeon. If the length of these steps was any indication, they were headed into a very hazardous place indeed.
After fifteen minutes, Rasmus called a halt and perched his rear onto one of the treads.
“I am concerned,” he said. “I believe that the door was nothing more than a short cut to the most perilous parts of the dungeon, and placed so that the strongest of parties could avoid the easiest upper levels and get straight to the meat.”
“I think you are right,” said Viddo. “Should we go back?”
“Normally I would be happy to continue, but I am not adequately equipped with spells, hence our journey to Trilbus for me to stock up my arsenal. In addition, your efforts to disengage the lock make it a certainty that none of Jera’s companions would have had the skill required to open the door.”
“Definitely not,” said Viddo matter-of-factly.
“I think it would be wisest if we returned to the upper level and resumed our search.”
Viddo thought on the matter for a few moments. “I am not disagreeing with your conclusion,” he said. “On the other hand, it seems like a shame for us to have come so far down these steps and not even had a peek at what lies at the bottom of them. I think we should find out what’s below and then return.”
Rasmus was easily lured and quickly agreed to this plan. After all, he told himself, there was still a chance that a treasure room lay below. And if they didn’t get to the end of the steps, they would still not know for definite what these firmly-locked doors were designed to protect.
“Let’s get on with it,” he said.
The steps disappointed them by showing no early sign of ending and after another fifteen minutes, both men had started to wonder if they would be best off turning around and going back to the top. Then, they saw something that made them change their minds. There was a glinting ahead, as Rasmus’ light reflected off the surface of something metal.
“A sword,” Viddo said, dropping his voice low. He stooped and picked it up, turning it over in his hand. It was a well-enough made longsword and his thief’s senses told him that it contained a minor enchantment, though he couldn’t tell exactly what it was.