Burrows & Behemoths

by Lee Duckett

  “Makes sense,” Rurik replied, explaining at her look. “Well, ya need to be able to make smart decisions ta level up. It’s only fair.”

  She wanted to say that life wasn’t fair, but his words brought her up short. He was right. This place was fair, but how it was fair was the question. “Rurik, when you rushed in, did you do that because you thought you’d be fine?”

  He hesitated, before giving a single nod. “Aye lass, otherwise it wouldn’t be a fair fight.”

  You idiot! she thought, but held her tongue. There’d been enough yelling, and it just seemed to make things worse. “Rurik,” she started, keeping her tone carefully neutral, “do you think things are still being balanced as we go?”

  “Uh, yeah?” he asked, as if the question itself was silly.

  Fayne let out a deep breath. “How.”

  “How what?”

  “How do you know that?” she elaborated. “How do you know things are still being changed to make it fair?”

  He was quiet for a moment before mulishly shrugging, “We’re still alive, ain’t we?”

  “Rurik,” the elf sighed, “We’re still alive because we’ve been skilled and smart.” She saw she was getting nowhere with this, and tried a different tactic, “What if, instead of following the wall, we’d gone right across the bazaar area? What if we’d gone right under that giant snake?”

  “Well we. . .” he trailed off. “We wouldn’t a done somethin’ that dumb.”

  “You can’t have it both ways!” she pressed, voice hissing as she tried to keep herself quiet. “Either it would’ve ambushed us like it was obviously waiting to do, or, as you’re saying, reality itself would’ve warped to save us. If this was all a game, what would Max do?”

  He winced, “He woulda warned us, but if we were bein’ dumb, he wouldn’t have let that go.”

  Yes! “So it might’ve moved, and, I don’t know, dropped a rock from above in front of us. And if we kept going?”

  “Badger shouldn’t ‘ave talked to me that way though!” he snapped quietly, trying to change the subject.

  Fayne feigned confusion, “If we kept going Badger would’ve said something? How does that answer my question?”

  His expression soured, “It woulda dropped on us, but you know that’s not what I’m talkin’ about. When it was just you out there it didn’t get you!”

  “Because we planned,” she reposted. “Did you plan when you charged into the troglodyte den, like you planned against the air elemental?”

  He started to say something when she mentioned the lizard-men, but her second comment stopped him. “I’ll not be apologizin’,” he finally stated.

  She rolled her eyes. “Did I ask you to? It’d be nice, but I’d rather have you plan instead.” She held up a hand as he started to object. “This place was set up with a team in mind, right?” He gave her a single nod. “Then you need to expect everything here to be built for a team. We can probably do this easier if we’re smart.” She paused. “Let’s take the trogs, what if you’d broken down their door and let them come to you? Even without Badger and I with ranged support, you could’ve made them come at you from only one direction, right?”

  The samurai struggled with himself before letting out an angry, growling sigh. “Aye lass, I coulda bottlenecked the stinkin’ lizards. But-”

  “No buts,” she cut him off. “We’re just talking possible strategies. You’re a samurai, I know you’ve had some training in tactics. Assume that we weren’t there, because we were still looking through the ruins. Could you have killed them on your own, even if there were the same amount of troglodytes?”

  He started to say no, but stopped, considering the problem. “Aye lass. I woulda been hard pressed, but I coulda done it me-self. The big one woulda been a challenge, but trogs are cowards. He woulda let his tribesmen wear me down ‘stead of workin’ with ‘em, and that woulda been his undoin’.”

  “So he wouldn’t’ve used teamwork?” the elf couldn’t help but point out.

  He levelled a glare at her, “I be listenin’ to ya lassie, but don’t compare me to those stinkin’ lizards.”

  “Sorry,” she apologized, not wanting to undo the progress she’d made. “But you see what I’m saying? Fight smarter, not harder!”

  The dwarf gave her a sideways look, “Ya sure I can? That I’m not just a dumb dwarf?”

  She scoffed, “You might do stupid things, but your character isn’t stupid, I’ve seen his sheet, and neither are you!”

  He stared at her for a moment, unsure, before giving her a slow nod, “Thanks lass. Appreciate it.”

  “It’s just the truth,” she rebuffed, “Now open your sheet, I want to see what you get for levelling up!”

  ◆◆◆

  In addition to the normal; better saves, skill points, health points, etc., they both gained a new ability. Rurik gained the ability to challenge an opponent twice per day, focusing on them to the exclusion of all others. It made him deadlier to his chosen foe, but doing so made him more vulnerable to all other opponents. Fayne in turn gained the ability to move undetected even when running as fast as she could. It was several hours (according to Rurik who was used to telling time without the sun, which Fayne felt was just wrong), before Badger and Aria woke.

  Both were quiet as they got up, the elf engaging the cleric in conversation when she caught the aasimar frowning at her husband’s back. Walking her through the level up process took a bit of time, though the archer noticed that Badger waved off his son who tried to do the same, leaving the dwarf with a resigned, almost hurt expression the gnome didn’t seem to notice. After the party had breakfast and the casters had regained their spells, they took turns using the toilet in the breakroom; a seat over a hole that Badger had sent a Flame Bolt into to make sure nothing was going to come up at them. As ready as they were going to be, they assembled in the office on ground level.

  Peering out into the darkness, Fayne couldn’t spot any sign of the monster waiting for them. “So,” Badger started, waving his hands together. “I’ve been thinking about what we need to do, and I’ve got a plan.”

  “I remember your last plan,” Fayne commented dryly.

  The gnome’s grin was insufferable, “It worked, didn’t it?”

  Rurik had taken a seat, and folded his arms, “So what’s your plan, wee man.”

  “Magic,” the gnome smiled.

  Fayne frowned, “Did you get a spell that will let us get there? Like, teleportation or something?”

  “No,” the wizard disagreed, “Well, yes, but it’ll help, not get us there. I’m not talking about that kind of magic, but magic from back home. I learned stage magic when I was playing Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees, and there’s one thing that is the cornerstone of all stage magic. Misdirection. Our objective is to get to the door there,” he pointed out towards the side of the cavern opposite of the ruins, “and we need to avoid the monster. So, what do we know about it?”

  “It goes after light?” Fayne offered.

  “Yes,” the gnome agreed. “But what kind of light? It prioritized the blue light of my spell over Aria’s golden glow. It prioritized the torches over hers as well, which are more red. Now, what kind of things make red, blue, or,” he nodded to Fayne, “Green light, but not gold?”

  Silence greeted his question, the other three looking at each other. “Magic?” Fayne offered. “Arcane magic?” she clarified, as everyone else looked at Aria’s aureole.

  “No it’s. . . oh. Damn,” the gnome swore. “I mean, maybe? Kinda ruins my displaced ecosystem theory, but. . .” he sighed. “Okay, yeah, maybe, wait, not, then the fire wouldn’t work. Anyways, what I was thinking was bioluminescence. You can get a yellow bioluminescence, but it’s closer to a green-yellow than gold. Blue however, is common, and thus likely closer to whatever it instinctually hunts.”

  “Wait, but there’s nothing around here like that, that that thing could eat!” Fayne objected. “And to be that big, it’d need to be eating a lot.
”

  “Maybe it hibernates?” Aria proposed.

  The elf shook her head, “Snakes don’t hibernate, they brumate.”

  “Oh. What’s the difference?” Badger asked, once again sidetracked.

  “Um, reptiles don’t just sleep, they just enter a dormant, lethargic state, though they do sleep in it,” she explained, “Just not non-stop.”

  Aria rolled her eyes. “So it’s the same thing. So, maybe the giant snake just was hibernating?”

  Fayne opened her mouth to object, but Badger nodded, “Likely. Until it noticed the light of its prey nearby.”

  “Then why did it try to eat that fire? Seems like a stupid thing to do, even fer a scaly bastard,” Rurik grunted.

  Badger replied immediately. “It likely hadn’t seen fire before. It just sensed heat, sensed light, and sensed movement, then struck at what it thought to be prey.”

  “If it’s going after heat, why did it go after the arrows?” Fayne asked.

  “Because, while they weren’t living, they were still warmer than the cave,” the wizard explained, patting the stone desk next to him. “Not warm enough to be a mammal, sure, but enough to be reptiles or insects; and, unlike us as we moved, they were resting! Which means that they’d be perfect prey for an ambush predator.”

  “So what, wee-man? We know how it hunts, what be your plan?” the dwarf prompted.

  Badger grinned conspiratorially. “When I levelled up, I took a spell called Minor Image,” he divulged. Which lets me create an illusion within a five thousand cubic foot area.” At their looks he explained, “Five ten-foot square cubes. So, we heat up a bit of rubble and spread it around, and I create an illusion of bioluminescent insects scurrying around, I know what some of them look like from college.” He paused, before shrugging, “Though from what I know about biology from back home, most of them shouldn’t work but hey, magic.”

  Fayne looked like she wanted to object but Rurik spoke over her. “And when it does that darkness thing? What’s ta stop it from turnin’ it off like it turned off yer glowin’ from before?”

  The gnome grinned, “That’s the thing, my light spell? Just a cantrip. It’s barely a whisper of arcane magic.” He formed a bolt of fire in his palm. “While I can tweak it to be more effective, it’s not that powerful, and the spell matrix is easily disrupted. Every order of spell not only contains more energy, but is more robust. As long as the darkness effect isn’t on the level of a third order spell, it’ll still work!”

  He pointed at Fayne, “We’ll do the light arrow trick to draw it off, but also light the arrows on fire so even if they’re dampened, they’ll still be sources of warmth and light. Hopefully we’ll make it use its ability, which it might only be able to do once a day. If it can, and wastes it there, we’ll be golden. Either way we’ll be running for the door by this point. Honey,” he addressed his wife, “I’ll need you to carry me, because I’ll be focusing on the illusion, and because we can’t have any light.”

  “That’s nice, but I can’t see in the dark!” Fayne objected, paling when the wizard glanced at the samurai. “No.”

  “Don’t think I’m happy about it either lassie, but it be a solid plan. What?” the dwarf grumbled as the other three looked at him in surprise. “If ya give ‘im enough time, he can plan, I’d be daft to deny it. On the other ‘and, he can’t do it on the field like I can. I just need ta be lettin’ the rest of ya in on me genius!”

  Badger opened his mouth to object, but closed it slowly, shaking his head. “The lack of light from us should make sure it goes for the distraction. We’ll need it when we get to our destination, though, then Fayne gets the door open and we lock it behind us. Rurik, the door should be reinforced, right?”

  “It will be,” the dwarf nodded. “Even enough to hold off whatever that thing be.” He stood up from his seat and stretched. “Might as well get this done now, before any of us ‘ave second thoughts.”

  ◆◆◆

  With everything packed and their preparations completed, the party stared out into the darkness of the cave. The fires they’d set in the ruins had long since sputtered out, and no trace of the underground town could be seen from the guardhouse.

  ~Are you sure it’s out there?~ asked Aria, golden glow lighting the room. ~What if it’s waiting right outside the door?~

  ~Then it can’t get to us in here, and it’ll go for the arrows,~ replied her husband, a note of exasperation sliding across the telepathic connection. ~It’s why we’re firing them from in here. Fayne?~

  The elf nodded, taking the glowing arrow from him and stringing it. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered to herself. Lightning from her bow coursed down the magically lit arrow, sparking the oil-soaked rag tied to the head and igniting the projectile. She swiftly fired the first distraction and grabbed the second of twelve from the wizard.

  On the fourth shot, the party heard the sounds of scale on stone coming directly to their right, fifty feet away from where they stood, at the most. On the eighth shot the arrow disappeared in mid-flight a few dozen feet away, a flash of a serpentine head bigger than a minivan seen before the light went out and pained hissing reverberated across the cavern.

  ~Damn!~ the gnome hissed across their mental connection as darkness descended on them, Aria’s glow shrinking under the pressure of shadows. ~Damn! Damn! Damn!~

  Fayne held up a hand, commanding sharply ~Wait! Listen.~

  The party did just that, and while faint, the creature could be heard slithering away. Badger tried to get the arrows to glow once more, but to no effect, whatever it did was location dependent, and not coming from the creature itself. Fayne grabbed the last four arrows in quick succession, lighting and firing, finishing the arc they wanted to lead the creature down.

  The light of the arrows was swallowed up by the darkness before they could even reach their apex, but gradually as if they were flying through heavy mist, not the sudden snap of the snake snagging them. As she grabbed the last one, Aria, Badger, and Rurik opened the door and left the safety of the guardhouse, ready for anything.

  Fayne darted out the door to join the rest of the group, repressing a squawk when Rurik grabbed her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes. Before Aria’s Aureole went out, Fayne could see Badger held like a child, bag of warmed stones in one hand, staring intently in the direction the arrows had gone. After the cleric dismissed her light, all she could see was endless darkness.

  The two party members with darkvision ran as fast as they could, both strong enough to carry the other two without slowing down. ~Yes!~ Badger cried across their connection, ~They’re still there!~

  Fayne twisted to see, and now that they’d cleared whatever darkness effect the serpent created, she could see six of their distractions still alight, two glowing blue while the others were points of flame in the dark. One of the glowing bolts disappeared, and she could barely hear a hiss of displeasure from the creature in the distance.

  One by one they disappeared, and when only two were left the dwarf grunted softly, ~Passed the sign, we be halfway there.~

  As the second to last disappeared, and the hissing grew more pronounced, Fayne heard the sound of rocks falling right behind them and tensed. As she heard a murmured incantation from Aria’s direction she relaxed, a panoply of cave insects popping into existence where the rocks had hit, their light outlining the cleric and wizard running right behind her. If it’s the illusion of light, how does it outline real things like normal light should? she thought, shaking her head with a, Not important. Focus, Grace!

  The angry hiss suddenly cut off, and the cave became silent, save for the footfalls of her companions, who were wisely choosing swiftness over stealth. ~How much farther?~ Fayne asked as she tried to listen for any sign of the snake.

  ~More ‘an sixty feet, lassie!~ The dwarf sent back, an undercurrent of fear unable to hide behind his gruffness.

  They sped through the dark and she watched the fake fauna shrink away, heari
ng Badger’s muttered incantations keeping the spell stable. “Damn!” the gnome swore under his breath as the illusions disappeared into a cloud of blackness, before resuming his chanting. ~It hit them with another darkness, but the spell’s still- most of the spell’s still there. It got one of the squares, but the others are untouched.~

  Fayne felt herself pitch forward as Rurik started running up an incline. ~Almost there, get ready to open the door lass!~

  ~Two gone. Three.~ Badger informed them, tone as neutral as if he were discussing the weather.

  Light bloomed from Aria, full and bright, as Rurik set the elf down and spun her around to face a huge set of double doors, covered in Dwarven writing. Fayne was happy she’d chosen that language when she’d leveled up, otherwise she’d’ve wasted precious seconds trying to understand where to put the key. Looking over them quickly she saw that this was a temple to the dwarven god Andruft, god of dwarves, smithing, magic, and alcohol. She resisted rolling her eyes at that last one as she found where she needed to insert the keys.

  Her stomach dropped as she looked at it in horror, staring at the second hole. Hastily putting the first key in and turning it, she saw the door flash with magic, likely undoing half of the protections. Kneeling down and extracting her lockpicks, she practically shoved them into the opening as Badger intoned ~One left. What’s the hold u- Oh. Damn.~

  ~What?~ Aria asked, turning and seeing Fayne frantically work. ~There were two keys? Who does that?~ She rounded on her husband, ~Why didn’t you SAY there were two keys!~

  The wizard had unslung his crossbow and was lighting a bolt with magic as he informed her without inflection, ~It did not say there were. The map only said that it was locked and that a key was in the guardhouse.~ He fired once into the darkness off to the side, only for the bolt to extinguish itself a hundred feet away, mid-flight. ~By the way, it also got the last illusion. If you have a plan, I’d like to hear it. Rurik?~