by J. Carrarn
"No!" Tirella hissed.
The three continued laughing and shouting, 'tair crusha' for a bit longer before she finally got them to shut up.
"Where is he?" she asked again, this time avoiding using the word stair crusher.
"Da toweh!" one of them said, his eyebrows rising to the top of his bald head as he pointed at the ceiling. "Drippahs with im!"
Tirella resisted the urge to hit the zombie. Drippahs? She sighed as she struggled to understand their cretinous dialect. Then she shook her head. It didn't matter who was with him, at least now she knew for certain where he was!
She and Sig had figured that it was where Solus must be, but they couldn't get inside to verify. Without being certain, the risk of going inside had been too big.
"What are Drippahs?" Tatjie rumbled, seeming upset that she couldn't understand.
"Drippahs!" The three roared, putting drool on their fingers and flinging it away. Some spattered on Tatjie's chest.
"What was that for?!" she roared, stepping forward, her face angry.
The three just laughed loudly, roaring "Drippahs!" all the while flinging more drool at them.
"Enough!" Tatjie stepped forward and struck one of the three on the chest.
"No!" Tirella groaned, already picturing the zombie struck in half.
A deep boom echoed through the cavern, followed by a grunt as the orange-veined zombie looked down at the fist on its chest. His feet slid back a short distance in the ground, but that was all.
"Why you hit meh..?" he said, his eyebrows lowering and forming a thick unibrow above his suddenly glowing orange eyes.
"Oh bile..." Tatjie muttered as she stepped back. She wasn't fast enough, and the dull zombie stepped forward, his fist moving with surprising speed.
Another boom echoed through the chamber as the zombie hit Tatjie, who didn't budge an inch. Instead, she stared at her chest for a second as her eyes began glittering. With a loud laugh, she jumped forward, fists up.
Please be back next time, Derin… Tirella groaned as she jumped backward to avoid the fray.
The two other zombies jumped forward, and a loud booming resounded throughout the room as Tatjie and the three numbskulls started slugging it out.
While wondering if she should help, Tirella didn't move when she saw the enormous grin on Tatjie's face. It dawned on her that the massively powerful Tatjie hadn't been able to fight anybody on equal grounds since Solus had evolved her.
Fine, let her have her fun, she thought, and leaned against the wall.
The brawl lasted for a long time, and Tirella was amazed that nobody had come to check what was going on. The roaring, screaming, and slamming of bodies against walls and floor should have raised some kind of alarm.
It ended with Tatjie sitting atop one of the zombies and slamming her fists repeatedly into his face. The other two lay in crumpled heaps on the ground, their faces battered and bruised. They were still breathing, however, which was a testimony to their resilience.
"I think you and they are done," Tirella said loudly, and Tatjie stopped mid-swing.
Her breathing was ragged, and she looked tired.
"Yeah," she grunted as she struggled up, taking a last look at the unconscious zombie.
"Do you think all the undead in here are this tough and this dumb?"
"Of course not," Tirella said, frowning at the other. Had she taken a hard blow to the head?
"Those Yellowplates went down quickly, remember? Anyway, we've been here too long, and someone is bound to come by and investigate," Tirella continued as she walked toward the corridor from which the zombies had come. Tatjie's stumbling footsteps came after her.
"Where are we going? Let's go back and wait for the others to tell them where Solus is!" Tatjie groaned in her deep voice.
"Not yet. They won't be back for a while, and we've never been this far down before. I want to find the bottom and see what they are up to down here," Tirella said. Tatjie followed her, grumbling about being tired, but she ignored her.
There must be a reason why they are digging here, she thought as she walked through the corridor. It was dozens of yards long and ended in a double split, two left and two right. Having no idea where to go, Tirella tried listening to the vibrations in the earth. It didn't work most of the time, but sometimes she could get an impression of where to go.
After a moment of concentrating, she thought she felt something shake the earth to one side. It came from the top left corridor.
"This way," she said, sounding more confident than she felt.
The corridor led to another split, and then another. Tirella used her fledgling stone-sense ability to follow the tremors. Some of the corridors they passed seemed to double back to previous paths, while others ended in stairs leading either up or down. They continued until the tremors were replaced by a dull thudding that even Tatjie could hear. It came from a tunnel that had steps leading even further down.
"This way," Tirella said, no longer sure if she could even find her way back to where they had come from. She hoped Tatjie had memorized the way, although that seemed highly unlikely.
The stairs ended in a tunnel that quickly widened and opened up on a stone ramp that circled a large, deep pit. An enormous chain of interlocking pieces of bone hung down from above.
Tirella looked up to see where the chain went. It continued up until it disappeared in a minuscule spot of light.
Loud thumps came from the pit.
Tirella saw Tatjie look at her with a raised eyebrow, and she nodded as she crouched. Tatjie copied her, and together they inched toward the edge of the pit.
The massive chain almost reached the bottom of the pit and connected with four slightly thinner ones. Those were attached to a thick bone plate that lay on the ground. The plate was dented and scratched, and partially covered with stone and rubble.
Throughout the dimly lit bottom were thousands of undead, digging into the ground. Clouds of stone dust swirled around and obscured much of the scene below. The dust was thicker where the undead were hammering the stone.
Tirella was awed as she looked at the diggers. There were more undead gathered in one place than she had seen since Bastion. There were skeletons, zombies, and a host of other undead that reminded her of those she had seen in Bastion. Most used their hands, claws, or feet to dig, but some were using bone tools.
Out of all the diggers, one stood out, and she gazed at it in wonder. Twice as tall as the others and brown like the dirt, it had four legs and four arms that all ended in long talons. Small bone chains connected its hind legs to two massive stone pillars.
It's a prisoner? Tirella thought, surprised and angry, although she didn't know why exactly.
The chained undead was digging in the center of the group, and the others gave it a wide berth. It ripped out large sections of stone, hurling them over its shoulders onto a large pile.
A dozen small white-plated skeletons rushed to and from the center plate, dragging the loose stone onto the plate.
"What are these numbskulls up to?" Tatjie whispered, her voice sounding like a stone rolling down a distant hill.
I wish I knew, Tirella thought with a frown. She put her hands on the ground and tried to sense something through the stone. Unlike her auditive sense, it felt like she now had an extra set of eyes that could relay what was in the ground around her, but they could only see a short distance. She could barely see past the stone where the undead were digging, and all she could sense was more stone.
"I don't know," she said, pulling her hands back.
Perhaps we should grab another one of these undead and find out what they are digging for, she thought, before shaking her head ruefully. We should have probably thought to ask this of the others we came across before.
While trying to locate an easy target, she saw many undead moving in and out of the dig site. They climbed up the pit's sides onto the winding ramp she and Tatjie were crouched on before disappearing into one of the many tunnels. Look
ing left and up the ramp, she saw a few undead heading down toward them. They were still far away and didn't seem to have noticed them.
"Let's go grab those and ask what they are up to!" Tatjie said, pointing up at a group of five skeletons and mirroring Tirella's thoughts. Her previous weariness seemed to have vanished.
"Okay, but you need to promise to keep your cool! If you smash them all into pieces, we can't ask them questions!" Tirella said, trying hard to resist the temptation of dumping Tatjie into a pit in the ground.
"I will! I am too tired to fight anyway," Tatjie replied as if that was supposed to be any guarantee that she would keep her promise.
Hoping she was speaking the truth, Tirella walked up the slope. If she does something stupid again, I'll leave her here to dig for a night! she thought.
—
After staring at the dark city below him for another moment, Sig shook his head.
"Let's go back. We've been out here for three days and haven't seen or heard anything about Borl. It's as if he vanished into thin air."
Derin sat beside him, leaning against the one side of a small building. He yawned as he got up, stretching his body. "Finally! Next time I will go with the others," he complained. "There's nothing I can do up here, and being carried around by you just makes me dizzy."
Sig nodded and changed into his wraith form. As he absorbed Derin, there came a weary sigh from the purple undead. Sig floated toward the edge of the city, passing the immense bone construction that led down to the shining white plane that stretched below. He hoped that the others had more luck in the hunt.
Streaking down, he counted to three before stopping and gliding into the wall. He floated down through the stone for a while; it took him some time to relocate the room Tirella had made. When he glided in, he found it empty. Only the small red orb was still softly glowing in a corner.
Sig reformed and Derin cursed as soon as he appeared, grabbing at the wall to stop himself from falling over.
He, too, saw that the room was empty, and he grunted at Sig. "They should be back soon. Tirella hates being out after dark."
Sig didn't reply but changed back into his cloud form. "I'll go find them." Then he floated through the wall.
"Sure, and I'll just stay here. Waiting. Again!" Derin sighed, sitting down with his back against the wall.
He waited for what seemed like forever before Sig floated back in through the wall and changed back into his normal form. Tirella and Tatjie appeared beside him.
"Rotbrain! I Told you to let us walk!" Tatjie cursed as the color drained from her face." I feel sick…" she muttered before moving to the side of the cavern. Wet gagging noises came from where she stood.
"So, did you find anything?" Derin asked, his question directed at Tirella.
Tirella frowned and nodded, staring at him for a moment. "We know where Solus is."
"You do? Finally!" Derin jumped up in surprise while Sig turned to her, his eyes glittering.
"Scathia is holding him in the top room of that bone tower," Tirella said, quickly explaining what they had found out.
Everyone fell silent after that statement. Even Tatjie had stopped her gagging, and then Sig sighed.
"That's a problem. I've scouted that place a few times, but there are hundreds of Yellowplates guarding it day and night."
"So? Go fly inside and grab him and let's get out of here!" Tatjie moaned from the side, wiping some sickly yellow sludge from the corner of her mouth.
Sig just shook his head, and for a moment, a hopeless and angry look was etched on his face. "Something is still blocking me from entering that room, remember?"
"Right, I forgot about that... So how are we going to get him out?" Tatjie said as she stumbled back to them.
There was no answer, and Derin sat down in the chair, staring at the opposite wall. The others followed his example.
After a long time, Tirella suddenly looked up at Sig.
"You can't move through the bone, but what if you break it apart? Or bring us there, so we can do it?"
Sig gazed back at her, stunned, before quickly transforming and disappearing into the wall. A soft "I'll find out!" hung in the room.
"He could have brought us along…" Tatjie muttered before blinking and shivering as she realized what she just said. "On second thought, never mind!"
Cheroc and mouse
"Give me your mana-core!" Scathia screamed as she banged her fists against the invisible barrier.
"No," Solus said.
His body was more black than grey now, and most of his hair singed or burned off. Even so, he didn't show his pain as he scowled at Scathia and the three black sludge skeletons behind her.
"Three!" Scathia screamed, staring at him. "That's how many rifts have opened in front of the city tonight! If we don't stop them soon, it won't matter anymore!"
"Then why don't you tell me how I can stop them instead of demanding my core?!" Solus roared, straightening his back.
Scathia pounded the barrier before turning away and sitting down in one of the chairs that gave her a view of Solus. "There is no other way-"
"You lie!" Solus interrupted her, getting up and towering over the other undead before him.
"Stop hiding what you know!" Solus roared, louder than he had ever done except when attacking.
Scathia scowled and looked at the sludge skeletons. For a moment, Solus thought she was going to give in. Then her face turned placid, and she looked at him again. Any sign of the previous rage and anger were gone as if wiped away.
"I will have your core and evolve into a Litch as I was meant to be. There is nothing you, nor anyone can do to stop this."
Turning to the skeletons, she motioned them forward. "Continue. His mana-field has to be almost depleted by now!"
Solus clamped his eyes shut and covered his head with his arms. A torrent of burning black drops splattered over him, but he barely felt it. Almost empty, huh? he thought with dark humor. From what he could tell, they had barely drained half of his energy. The humor faded almost as soon as it started. He could feel that his energy was draining faster at an alarming rate. At this pace, he might be able to hold out for another day or two before he would be so weak and helpless that they could just enter his cage without him able to resist.
The torrent of dripping burning sludge lasted for hours, only lessening when one or more of the skeletons stopped to absorb mana-orbs. Scathia stayed this time and was watching him intently, her eyes gleaming. While looking at her cold face, Solus felt his hatred of her grow. Hate. He had not felt it often, and he preferred anger. Not that there wasn't any anger. It washed over him like waves. If he got out of here, nothing would be able to stop him from first tearing Scathia limb from limb and then destroying her mockery of a city.
Time seemed to pass by in a blur until Solus noticed that the deluge of burning sludge had stopped. He looked up and saw Scathia staring hatefully back at him. Without a word, she turned and stalked out of the room while the skeletons silently absorbed more mana-orbs, dust trickling between their thin fingers.
Taking a few deep breaths, knowing he only had a short window of reprieve, Solus again scanned the room. He hoped against hope that one of the skeletons had carried a spec of dirt with him or some small stone. He didn't know what he would do with any if he got it. Perhaps he would be able to push it through one of his tormentors' skulls?
Sensing nothing, he was about to curl up again when a soft noise drew his attention. There was a soft thudding, barely audible. Confused, he tried to locate it. It seemed to come from the ceiling. Focusing on where he thought the sound was coming from, he couldn't see, hear or sense anything beyond the soft thudding. The bone that clad this place was like an impenetrable curtain, dampening his sensing abilities. He watched and waited, wondering what was going on, as the skeletons drained a dozen orbs before moving back toward the barrier again.
Suddenly a minuscule crack appeared in the bone above, too small to be of any consequence. Was so
meone breaking through?
The thudding stopped, and as his tormentors continued their gruesome work, he strained to hear the noise again, hoping it would return. Seconds turned to minutes, and slowly he realized that whatever had been there had left.
Feeling worse than he had before he'd heard the thudding, he crawled tighter in upon himself, dully weathering the pain.
—
"It's breakable!"
Sig's voice boomed strangely as part of his shape was still inside the stone wall. The others jumped up, Tatjie and Derin looking startled while Tirella grinned.
When Sig appeared in his full form, he moved immediately. First to the baskets that held the mana-orbs, riffling through them, then back to others.
"Grab the baskets and get ready. I am going to move all of us up the top of the skull."
"Finally, some action!" Tatjie said as she moved and grabbed both baskets.
"Did you see anything else, any guards?" Derin asked with a frown.
Sig shook his head, his eyes glittering dangerously. "None. Just the ones in the room that are torturing him."
"We might have a problem," Tirella suddenly said, and the room turned quiet as the rest turned to her.
"If Solus can't break out of there, if he is either hurt, or held captive by something, or weakened... What do we do if we can't break him out?"
The silence lasted until Derin cursed.
"Bile, what now?"
"Let's go see first. It might not be that bad, and if it is, we will deal with it," Sig finally said. The glittering in his eyes had dulled, and he looked worried again.
He changed into his cloud form and absorbed the others before floating slowly toward the tower, burdened by the weight of his passengers and cargo.
—
Solus was on the ground, his eyes closed. The thudding hadn't returned, but he kept an eye on the spot. There was nothing else he could do but hope.
As sudden as the first time, a heavy thumping started. This time it was far louder than the first; the sound of the skeletons torturing him only just covered it.
Staring at the small crack quickly forming in the ceiling, Solus felt a small spark of hope, and when some bone dust and debris fell, the spark became a raging fire. He had no idea who was breaking in, but right now, any help was welcome.