by Lee Duckett
The party stared at the arrow, a shining pool of actinic light in that sea of darkness. Fayne glanced at the rest of the party. ~Did anyone else see. . .?~
~Aye, Lass~
~Maybe we should look around before we go out into. . . that,~ suggested Badger.
~Yes. Let’s do that,~ agreed Aria, backing up a few steps before turning around and hurrying back into the ruins. The party wandered for another few minutes before turning a corner and meeting the sheer face of the cavern wall. The road they were on led towards a hole in the otherwise featureless expanse of stone, the buildings stopping a good two dozen feet before that point. Fayne took a forward position, bow out and arrow strung, as she quietly stalked forward, past the leading edge of the light of Aria’s aureole, her eyes peering into the shadows for any sign of danger.
They walked through the natural-looking entrance into another cave, this one sizeable, but nowhere near the scale of the last one. The smell of something foul wafted through the chamber, and Fayne almost fell into the stream that silently ran through the middle of the space, its run having cut a shallow gully in the stone floor of the cave.
Fayne held a hand up to stop the party before suddenly jumping backwards, dodging by inches as a green skinned something came down spear first from the shadows of a small stalactite above, weapon bouncing off of the cavern floor with a crack. A second one came down, also aiming for the elf. This one hit her, but the creature’s descent was mis-angled, and so the force of the blow slid off, leaving little more than cut armor and an angry red line of blood across her arm.
The two creatures stood up, lit in Aria’s yellow-white light. Their scaled hides, long tails, and head crests identified them to be troglodytes, the subterranean lizard-men that infested caves across the land. One raised its snout, chest expanding to call when two purple darts of energy pierced its abdomen, and its lungs, causing it to double over as it wheezed, coughing up dark green blood.
Rurik charged the other, stabbing deep with a sizzle as his swords sank into saurian skin. The wheezing one lunged forward to stab the samurai in the back, but its spear scraped against his armor as it stumbled. Aria took it off its feet with a swing of her mace, its chest deforming under the blow as it sprawled out, twitching, but obviously dead.
The dwarf kicked the second trog off his swords as it flailed, gravely injured but still able to fight. It caught its balance and brought its spear to bear only for its chest to explode outwards, an electrified arrow protruding for the wound. The troglodyte fell to the ground with a thud, bringing silence back to the cave.
~Those must’ve been the guards,~ Rurik advised, looking around. ~If they’re smart there’s a third somewhere around here.~
The party looked around, but didn’t see anything. ~Rurik?~ Aria hazarded, ~I don’t see anything. Maybe it was just the two of them.~
~Or it’s already warned them! They saw us comin’ so these two got ready while the third went to get its buddies! Let’s go! They’re just troglodytes, we can take ‘em!~ and with that he took off, armored footsteps pounding on the stone floor, echoing throughout the chamber.
As he charged, ignoring Fayne’s cry of cried ~Rurik! Wait!~, his flaming katana lit the way, showing an entrance to another cave across and downstream. He promptly veered towards the improvised barrier, ramming through the detritus covering it with his shoulder and passing through in no time at all.
The three adventurers stared in shock over the fact that he’d just ran off without the rest of them before Fayne sped after him, mentally berating the dwarf, Aria and Badger in tow. The sounds of battle came from the cave entrance and Fayne pushed herself even harder, flying through the tunnel entrance only to be stopped by what she saw.
Rurik was fighting off a good two dozen troglodytes, with several more dead at his feet, katana and wakizashi dancing back and forth, deflecting spear thrusts and slicing deep into scaly hides. However, he was also bleeding from several wounds as the ring of trogs slowly tightened. Fayne shot one in the back, causing it to stumble forward and be gutted by Rurik, but two more of them rushed forward and grabbed the dwarf’s arms, stopping him from swinging as more and more tackled him, pushing the samurai back towards the pool that dominated the center of the chamber. Fayne shot a few off him, and one caught a Flame Bolt to the head, but they seemed to endlessly emerge out of the shadows, dragging the dwarf into the dark water.
Rurik fought back, flinging several off, but they were quickly replaced, dragging him deeper and deeper into the pool. A few steps in Rurik teetered, having reached an edge in the pool’s floor, the drop down into an underwater cave inches behind him. With a defiant bellow he took a step forward, then another, starting to overpower the troglodyte pack. As he was about to leave the water there came a deep roar and a seven-foot-tall troglodyte in leather armor came charging in from a side tunnel. It lunged at the lizard covered dwarf and shoved him back farther into the water hard, enough for the dwarf to drop his swords, the lot of them disappearing beneath the surface.
“Rurik! No!” cried Aria, who dropped her mace and dived in right after him, followed by Badger. The remaining troglodytes all looked at Fayne who narrowed her eyes, pulled another arrow taut, and started to slowly walk forward.
◆◆◆
Rurik struggled against the lizard-men as he sank beneath the surface, kicking and punching, but unable to do any real damage. His heavy armor was dragging him down as much as the troglodytes, pushing him deeper and deeper. He was descending an underwater shaft, which opened up into a larger chamber far below, lit by some glowing aquatic plant, though something else moved down there as well. Rurik’s lungs burned with the effort, fighting with all he could to break free, finding his efforts fruitless.
Aria broke the surface above him an instant later, arrowing down into the water after him. She punched and pulling troglodytes off him, but as soon as she let one go to grab another, it reattached itself to the mass dragging down her son.
Badger, barely a foot underneath the water, saw all this and struggled to swim down, but couldn’t get any deeper. After an unproductive moment of struggling he changed tactics and cast a spell, his incantations lost in the burbling of his escaping breath.
Below the bobbing gnome, Rurik tried to direct his descent to one of the walls of the shaft, hoping to maybe at least grab onto something to stop his sinking, but his enemies determinedly kept him centered and helpless. Rurik felt his strength fading, and the edges of his vision creeping in with a final blackness as he saw the gnome finish his spell and point at Rurik, grinning, though the dwarf didn’t see how the wizard could find anything to grin about in the face of his death.
Suddenly, Rurik’s strength snapped back, his vision clearing. He felt strong, stronger than he ever had, save for the time that he had wrestled that evil animated tree. His muscles rippled with strength as they grew, and he grew along with them as the Enlarge Person spell took effect. The dwarf grew from four to eight feet in height, still nearly as wide as he was tall.
The troglodytes hissed in dismay as Rurik shoved his hands and feet outwards, bracing himself on the shaft’s walls. He used these holds to start walking himself back up the smooth shaft, not even needing handholds, the troglodytes struggling to find a hold on his larger frame but unable to do anything. Some tried to stab him, but his armor, heavy as it was, had grown with him and held fast under their attacks. Several gave up and peeled off towards Aria and Badger, seeking easier prey.
Aria, almost sighing in relief when she saw that Rurik had stopped his descent and was making progress back up, swam towards the surface, feeling a definite need for air. She was brought up short by a hand gripping her ankle, dragging her back down. Turning, she saw a grinning troglodyte holding her, walking up her body with its hands to get a better grip.
She shivered in revulsion at the feeling and moved to grab her mace, only to remember that she had dropped it in her dash to save her son. She felt a twinge of panic, which must have shown for the troglodyte, c
hest high on her now let out a low serpentine laugh, the sound odd in her water-filled ears.
She calmed herself as it rose to look her in the eyes, pushing down on her shoulders despite her attempts to swim higher. Reaching behind her back, she extracted the holdout dagger Aria’s father, a paladin of the god of battle, always insisted she take with her wherever she went. She thrust the dagger, with the sword and shield symbol of Fienurian etched into the blade, deep into the troglodyte’s chest, ripping it out with a grunt of effort. The cloud of blue-green blood that spurted from the wound wasn’t enough to obscure the shocked look on the face of the troglodyte as Aria grabbed it, and used it to kick off, speeding towards the surface.
As Aria was fighting her foe, three troglodytes swam up towards Badger, who could not fully submerge himself for long, his back always rising towards the surface. As they swam the wizard tried to throw a Flame Bolt at them, only for the spell to fizzle into a small cloud of steam, as did the next two he tried to throw, the magically-created flames destabilizing underwater. The lizard-men laughed at the gnome’s plight, swimming up in a V pattern, ready to take him completely under.
As they neared, Badger tried another spell, holding off its completion until they were right in front of him. His Fiery Spray spell only churned the water to steam, just as his Flame Bolts did, but steam was what he wanted as he flash-boiled the water in front of him, and the troglodytes with it. Two of them went into shock, twitching and drifting down the way they came, while the third hissed in agony before raking the wizard with its claws, sharp claws cutting through the leather armor and opening up bloody furrows in his chest. Badger, in response, cast one final Flame Bolt at point-blank range, engulfing the lizard-man’s head in steam as the gnome swam back toward the edge of the pool.
Badger’s head broke the surface as he reached the shallow end of the pool and hauled himself out of the shaft, struggling to his feet and preparing to fight the troglodytes on the surface, when he was brought up short by a crackling arrow pointed in his face. It was moved aside a second later with an ice cold sending of ~Move~ from Fayne, who had several bloody gashes on her arms and legs, her armor torn up.
The gnome looked past the weapon to the bleeding elf, a hard look on her face. He looked past her, and instead of the small horde of troglodytes he expected all he saw was the carnage of reptilian bodies, some missing heads, some in pieces, several still twitching as small arcs of lightning occasionally sprung from their corpses. ~Now,~ came a command which brooked no disobedience and he hurried out of the water.
~It’s okay!~ he told her as he clambered ashore. ~I enlarged him and he’s coming back up along with Aria!~
At this news the elf seemed to deflate slightly, some of the tension gone from her shoulders, though her bow did not drop in the slightest. ~Good,~ she responded, terse, but not as cold as her previous order as she retreated from the edge of the water.
Aria broke the surface next, gasping as she paddled to shore, helped up by the still-bleeding Badger. “You’re hurt!” she cried, seeing his ripped-up armor and flesh.
Badger gave a wan smile. “Tis but a scratch,” he responded. “Though I’d like to not get another one anytime soon.”
The surface of the water broke as a troglodyte burst from the surface, lunging for Aria’s back only to catch an arrow to the chest, followed by another to the groin. The lightning imbued in the arrow, normally subtle, blazed across its body as it fell back, twitching, into the dark water and disappeared. Aria scooped up her mace and faced the water, her expression transitioning from murderous to motherly. “Where’s Isaac?” she asked, “I thought…”
A huge hand reached out and grabbed the edge of the underwater pit, fingers like iron-clad tree branches. They strained and Rurik’s enlarged face broke the surface, lungs like bellows gulping for air. He pulled himself fully out of the water and flopped down on his back, gasping like a beached whale.
~Did you kill them all?~ the scout asked.
“Wuh?” Rurik replied dazedly.
~Did you kill them all!?~ she demanded. ~And don’t talk!~
~Um, no?~ the samurai sent after a moment. ~They let go after I started climbing out.~
Rurik got up and retrieved his swords, looking comically small in his enlarged hands. Aria turned her back to the pool and healed Badger’s chest as the wizard watched the surface of the water, fire slowly gathering in his palm.
The water exploded as troglodytes surged out, charging the party in a veritable torrent of lizard flesh. The lead one was taken down with an arrow to the chest and a Flame Bolt to the face. The monsters rushed forward, losing several of their number in the process, but didn’t seem to care. They were met on the shore by Rurik, whose size threw off his movements, but whose increased strength made sure that the strikes that did hit were not glancing blows.
Aria charged in to help, mace swinging, and the troglodytes, unable to isolate an enemy, started to fall quickly. This changed when the dark shape of the alpha troglodyte fell from the ceiling, hands gripping a metal staff. Rurik moved to block the blow with his wakizashi, meaning to deflect the force of the blow to the side. When the blow struck, however, there was a ripple in the air around the staff and instead of deflecting harmlessly off at an oblique angle, the blow snapped the sword with a loud crack, the top half spinning off and impaling a retreating troglodyte.
Caught off guard, Rurik was unable to deflect the next blow, which struck him straight in the chest. Once again, the air around the staff rippled and Rurik’s chest plates deformed as he was flung off of his feet, flying backwards several dozen feet before hitting the floor and rolling for several more. As the alpha troglodyte stalked towards Rurik, it dodged as an arrow flew right where its head had just been, rolling to the side only to be caught in the shin by a well-timed Flame Bolt.
It staggered and turned around in time to be hit by Aria’s mace, falling back as an arrow glanced off its side, slicing its armor and shocking the creature as the projectile sped past. It twitched as it struck at Aria, barely catching her shoulder, but still sending her spinning away a dozen feet, even though it only winged her. The monster hissed at the gnome and charged him, swinging its staff and missing by inches, the impact sending stone chips exploding from the floor. The Alpha reared back, and Badger looked up, hands aflame when it jerked with a gurgling noise.
The leader of the troglodytes took a shuddering step forward, clutching its chest, coughing up blue-green blood over the gnome before its head exploded in a shower of blood, gore, and electricity, a satisfied Fayne standing not five feet behind it.
As the body dropped, the last one in the chamber, so did the tension from Fayne’s shoulders as she put her bow away with shaking hands and sat down on the floor, taking deep, uneven breaths. Aria hurried over to Rurik, who had returned to normal size, and helped him peel off his ruined armor before healing his broken ribs.
After a moment, Badger, unsure of what to do, started to poke around the room, flames ready in his hand. Fayne collected herself, getting up and shadowing him, ready for any danger. When it became clear that their healer was focusing on her son to the exclusion of all else, Fayne slipped out a lesser healing potion and drank it, her wounds healing.
Inside the caves, the pair found the remnants of the troglodyte camp, along with half a deer, and little else. That changed when they entered the last cave in the system in which rested a large bed made out of furs and a stone chest. Fayne picked the lock, disabling the trap in the process, and opened it up to find it half full of coins, a mix of gold, silver, and copper, but mostly silver. Buried underneath was a glowing green potion which she carefully extracted before handing it to the wizard, who just shook his head, unable to identify the magic contained within, and handed it back. They made their way back as Aria finished healing the dwarf, who ruefully regarded his chest armor and dented helmet.
“Is he healed?” Fayne asked without inflection as she walked up to the pair of them, picking up and feeding the alpha tro
glodyte chieftain’s quarterstaff into her Bag of Holding.
“Just finished,” Aria responded, relieved, leaning back and wiping the sweat from her brow.
“Good,” stated Fayne before she backhanded Rurik, sending him sprawling to the ground as Aria gasped.
Rurik looked up, eyes wide with surprise and cheek reddening under his beard. “Oi!” he sputtered, putting a hand to his cheek as he started to get up. “What was tha-“
“What were you thinking!” hissed the elf, backhanding the dwarf in the other direction. “‘Oh, they just be troglodytes’?” she mocked, voice low and dangerous. “We are low-level adventurers you fallow fawn of a fighter! We don’t know what happens if we die here!” she coldly raged, glaring at Rurik as if she was appalled something so stupid could exist.
“And what if you do die? We could resurrect you, just to get your character back instead!” she continued, voice nearly hissing with anger. “And that’s assuming we make it out of here alive without you here to help! These adventures are made for four people at least! We can’t exactly turn around now, can we? Your clumsiness saw to that, because you weren’t taking this seriously. And, AND!” Her voice rose, only to drop back to furious whisper “That’s assuming we could get your body back in the first place! What could we do if they had just taken you and not left the water? None of us are good in water. I shoot arrows Rurik. Arrows! Do you know how well arrows work in water, because I do, and the answer is not well at all!”
The rest of the party had a variety of shocked looks on their faces about the normally level-headed girl’s reaction. “Lassie,” the dwarf started, making ‘calm down’ motions as he stood up.
“Don’t you Lassie me Rurik Balderick!” Fayne seethed.
Badger whispered, “Ooh, full name, must be mad,” with a weak grin, only to receive no response from the rest.