by Demi Harper
‘So?’
‘So, it’s clearly a magical hybrid. A Core-spawn, or ‘dungeon born,’ as they’re often referred to.’
‘What?!’
Both Coll and Benin began to edge backward, their eyes wide and staring at my forrel. Tiri sighed.
‘What I’m saying is that if this creature wanted to kill us, it would already have done so, and it would have brought friends to help. But it hasn’t, and so we’re clearly on friendly ground. If we were trespassing anywhere near the territory of a hostile Core, we’d know about it by now.’
This wasn’t strictly true. If I were a Dungeon Core – as opposed to a God Core – my main source of power would come from unsuspecting adventurers like these. It would therefore be within my interests to lure them across the boundary into my Sphere of Influence. As far as they knew, the forrel could easily have been my avatar, the only one of my creations permitted to roam beyond the limits of my Sphere, here to lure them into my domain to be taken care of by the rest of my god-born creatures. I supposed a more seasoned Guild adventurer – like Lila or Cassandria – would have known this.
But seasoned these three were not, and after a little more coaxing from Tiri, the two men followed their new leader in pursuit of my forrel.
Forty-Two
Unlikely Allies
‘Warm down here, isn’t it?’
Tiri ran her hand along the tunnel wall. ‘It is. Damp, too. We must be approaching a source of water. The stuff doesn’t evaporate down here.’
Behind her, Benin and Coll exchanged glances and broke into a trot, despite their exhaustion. The flames in Benin’s palm danced jauntily, sending their shadows skittering over the walls and ceiling as he ran. Tiri smiled slightly as they overtook her, their fear of my forrel forgotten in the wake of their own desperate thirst.
The forrel led them into the Lake cavern, the former home of my first ever boulderskin. I felt a twinge of sadness at the sight of the black, still lake, knowing there was no longer a monstrous armored amphibian lurking beneath its surface.
The sight of the water brought back some of the humans’ initial wariness.
‘Remember the other cave?’ warned Coll. His hand had dropped once more to the hilt of his sword.
‘The one with the flooded sinkhole?’ Benin’s magical fire burned brighter, taking on a bluish tinge. ‘How could I forget?’
Both men stared at the lake, and I recalled the time I’d sent my second boulderskin bursting forth to block their route and prevent them from traveling further into my Sphere of Influence. Oops.
‘Gentlemen, if you recall, the specimen we encountered last time caused us no harm, nor did it attempt to attack without provocation,’ said Tiri, striding past them both and taking the lead once more.
‘And the kobolds?’ demanded Coll. ‘Reckon I’ve seen enough of them to last me a lifetime.’ His knuckles whitened around the haft of his hammer while Benin nodded in firm agreement.
My ears pricked up. So they’d been fighting kobolds, had they? Could it be that in the time since I’d last encountered these adventurers, they’d found their way out of my Sphere and into Grimrock’s – and lived to tell the tale?
Tiri tutted. ‘Like I said: there are no kobolds here. We’re well away from the enemy, at least for now.’
Still, she approached the lake’s edge with more than a little hesitancy in her step. The other two watched, holding their breath. Tiri crouched by the water’s edge, leaned out toward the slightly deeper water, and slowly, slowly, lowered a waterskin beneath the surface.
All three of them jumped at the sound of bubbles rising to the surface as the skin began to fill. Then, with a relieved ‘Ha!’ Benin slipped and skidded to the lake’s shallow edge and followed suit, shortly pursued by Coll.
A moment later, both men were slurping lake water from their cupped hands, ignoring Tiri’s admonishments to take it slowly and let their stomachs adjust. Splashes and gasps and laughter echoed around the cavern, signs of life in my otherwise lifeless kingdom.
Aside from the humans, the only sound in the cave was the steady plink-plink of moisture; it dripped from the stalactites on the ceiling and into the lake, sending ripples across the water’s dark surface.
The forrel, its job done for now, withdrew to the tunnel they’d just exited, where it waited in the entranceway.
This was my first time leaving the Grotto in the days since the battle, and I suddenly realised that this cavern – and the surrounding passages – were in fact far emptier than they should have been. Where were all the kobold corpses? The last time I’d been here, the ground had been littered with the enemy fallen, the floor and walls spattered with their black reptilian blood. Now, there wasn’t a single scale or bone in sight. It was as if they never existed.
I vaguely remembered Ket telling me something about how dead organic matter broke down much more quickly and was absorbed by its environment within a Core’s magical sphere. Yes, that must be it. Though for the life of me I couldn’t understand – or remember – the details.
The three humans were sprawled beside the lake. It seemed they were done drinking for now, and instead had turned to discussing what was next.
‘We could always just… stay here,’ the big warrior was suggesting hopefully.
Oh, no, you don’t, I thought. I have enough mouths to feed already. Somehow, I didn’t think these three would be very happy with mushroom stew and moss soup, or whatever it was my own easily-pleased denizens consumed.
Luckily, Tiri was of the same mind.
‘And what about when the travel rations run out? We only have a couple of weeks’ supply left.’
‘Ugh,’ Benin grumbled. ‘Hardtack and jerky—’
‘—have kept us alive this far, and will see us through this dungeon with plenty to spare,’ Tiri said firmly. ‘But we can’t stay here for long.’
‘You’ll get no argument from me,’ sighed Benin. ‘For now, though… d’you think this area’s safe to rest?’
I let the humans sleep for as long as they needed, taking pity on their exhausted state, but as soon as they awoke and began to further discuss their situation, I began to wonder if I shouldn’t have hurried them along a bit sooner.
‘We need to get out of here, and return with the Guild,’ Tiri was saying to the other two.
Coll stopped chewing, his mouthful of half-masticated jerky on full display as he spluttered, ‘What? You want to come back here?’
Benin simply raised an eyebrow, as if questioning Tiri’s sanity. Her own eyes widened as she took in the full extent of her companions’ incredulity.
‘We all saw what was down there. Those hybrid creatures we fought our way through… I’ve never seen their like. And the webs…’ She shuddered. ‘And then that cave. The fires, the smoke, the kobolds beyond counting…’ She looked both her companions in the eye. ‘And the Core. I know you saw it too. Lila was right. That’s what’s behind the raids back on the surface. I just never expected the source of the evil to be so far down.’
Coll shook his head, swallowing the mouthful of jerky and taking a swig of water. ‘I reckon we’ve done enough,’ he said. ‘Let the Guild handle the rest on their own.’
‘Coll’s right,’ said Benin. ‘We must have weakened it enough for now. My fireballs killed at least fifty of the kobold bastards.’ He fingered his own singed eyebrows and winced. ‘It’ll take the red Core some time to rebuild its forces after that. We might even have trounced it ourselves if it hadn’t been for that… thing… arriving when it did.’
All three of them looked haunted by some memory. I had a creeping suspicion I knew what ‘thing’ they were referring to – a suspicion that was confirmed by Coll’s next words:
‘Those tentacles… ain’t never seen anything of the sort before. The way it paralyzed Lila, and then— and then—’ The big man shuddered, rustling his chainmail. ‘It’s not sporting to attack when your opponent can’t fight back,’ he finished weakly.
&nbs
p; Tiri placed a hand on Coll’s shoulder. ‘The creature we fled was truly a foul and evil being.’
‘A horror from the deep places and no mistake,’ agreed Benin.
‘One that should not be permitted to continue existing,’ persuaded Tiri. ‘You see why we have to show the Guild exactly what we found and where we found it? And, more importantly, destroy the Core that created such an abomination?’
I watched with fascination as determination, righteous fury, and sheer primal terror warred on both Benin and Coll’s faces. After a moment, Benin spoke again.
‘So… we get out of here – assuming we can – fetch the Guild, return in force, show them where we found the red Core, and then let them handle it?’
‘Exactly,’ said Tiri.
She said nothing about what would happen to me, I noticed. Whither Corey, eh?
The humans had four waterskins apiece, and once they were done eating they filled the containers all to bursting with water from the lake. Then they stripped and bathed, scrubbing their sweat- and blood-encrusted skin, hair and clothes as best they could.
As I averted my eyes from the three humans preparing to depart, I brooded over what to do next. None of the passages within my Sphere led directly to the surface. There was the hole in the Grotto’s ceiling, of course, but there was no way I was letting them get that close to my gnomes. I had to protect the tribe – and myself. And that meant keeping the Guild away from my gem at all costs.
So when the adventurers started to move toward the cavern exit that would eventually lead them to the Grotto, I activated Creation, draining six of my seven globes of mana to fashion an evolved boulderskin. It flashed into existence directly in the path of the humans.
The boulderskin was massive – by gnome standards, at least. Its ridged back only came up to the humans’ thighs, but it still cut an intimidating figure.
Benin seemed to agree. He stumbled backward, away from the bulky, lizard-like creature.
‘Core-spawn! Monster!’ cried the mage, pointing at the boulderskin as if his companions could have missed it. ‘Just like the one that drove us out of that sinkhole cave last time!’
‘Why isn’t it attacking?’ growled Coll, hammer held two-handed before him.
‘Because,’ said Tiri patiently, ‘the Core that created both these creatures,’ she gestured toward the forrel in the other entranceway, ‘is clearly benevolent.’
More than ever, I wished Ket were still around so I could say, ‘I told you so.’ But all I could do was listen and feel silently vindicated . . . and also a little guilty as I remembered my accidental murder of the humans’ initial group leader, Cassandria.
That’s all in the past now, I assured myself.
Coll wasn’t convinced. ‘Friendly? What, even this… this… chubby crocodile?’ said the warrior incredulously
‘How can you be sure?’ asked Benin.
Tiri rolled her eyes. ‘We’re still alive, aren’t we?’
She began edging closer to the boulderskin, examining it searchingly. ‘Interesting… it’s clearly some kind of salamander species, but its armor looks… arthropodal?’
Spot on! I thought, impressed at her recognition of the boulderskin’s two key components.
Coll and Benin just stared at her blankly. ‘Arthro-what?’
‘Arthropods.’ She caught their clueless looks. ‘Millipedes and things,’ she explained.
‘What did you say you studied again?’ asked Benin, sounding skeptical. ‘Cryptic Cartology?’
‘I’m top of my field in both Cartography and Theoretical Crypto-Entomology. Maps and insects,’ she added when she saw Coll’s look of confusion. ‘But I also took Basic Cryptozoology. It’s essentially the study of creatures that don’t ‘officially’ exist, but have been reportedly observed by credible sources, such as the king’s rangers, or Guild operatives such as ourselves.’
‘Speaking of the Guild,’ said Benin, still glancing mistrustfully at my boulderskin, ‘what do you think they’ll do about our… friend… here?’ He gestured around the cavern.
He means me, I realized. I listened intently for Tiri’s reply.
‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted. My heart sank. Did that mean it might be dangerous for me and my denizens if I were to let these adventurers escape? Would I have to kill them after all? I hoped not.
‘But,’ Tiri continued. My ears pricked up. ‘The Guild has been known to adopt a peaceful approach toward Cores who’ve proved themselves non-hostile in the past. A sort of ‘live and let live’ policy. They may well do so here as well, especially when we tell them how Lady Fox-Squirrel over there saved us from dying of thirst.’
Huh. So the Guild might not take action against me after all. That was a relief. In fact, their presence might even help me. If they returned in time, I might never need to face Grimrock again, for they would destroy him before he could take even a single gnomish sacrifice.
Did that mean… should I lead these three adventurers into the Grotto, and show them the hole to the surface?
I pictured their reactions: Tiri studying my gnomes like specimens on a table; Benin’s nervous insta-fireball reaction; Coll’s clumsy armored feet smashing through the gnomehomes’ roofs.
No; I could not let them into the Grotto and risk them destroying by accident what Grimrock sought to ravage on purpose.
My mind was made up. With a single thought, I commanded the boulderskin to take a step forward, toward the humans.
‘Er… I thought you said it wasn’t going to attack us?’ Benin raised his arms defensively, his usual flame re-summoned and flickering in one palm.
‘It isn’t,’ said Tiri calmly. She’d stopped her own advance toward the boulderskin, and now took a steady step backward. ‘It’s simply letting us know it’s time for us to leave. And not by this entrance.’
‘You’re saying we have to go back the way we came?’ Coll sounded like he might cry.
Tiri turned to look at the forrel, who flicked her ears and bounded a few steps down the far tunnel. ‘Looks that way.’
For a long, tense moment, I thought they were going to refuse. Benin glared at the olm, while Coll just stared up at the ceiling, as though pleading with me to change my mind. I didn’t.
Eventually, though, all three of them followed the forrel out of the lake cavern. Before she left, Tiri turned around and mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ before hurrying off after the others, leaving the cave empty and dark once more. Empty, that was, except for the boulderskin, which waddled forward and slipped beneath the water’s surface with a satisfied glurp of bubbles.
There. It’s done.
My forrel would now escort the humans to the boundary of my Sphere of Influence, there to make their own way up to surface. They might end up wandering the tunnels for days on end only to walk into some stray cave monster and die, but at least I’d ensured that they wouldn’t drop dead any time soon – at least not while they were in my Sphere of Influence. My job here was done. My conscience was clear.
And so, I realized, was my purpose.
Forty-Three
Recover and Regroup
Realizing that the humans meant me no harm… well, it changed everything.
Based on what I’d just overheard, the adventurers had stumbled upon Grimrock’s base soon after he’d launched his assault upon mine.
Grimrock had obviously kept some kobolds back in order to protect his gem; Coll and company had attacked these remaining forces, and might have succeeded in wiping them out if not for the arrival of a fearful creature that had killed Lila and forced the others to flee.
The way Coll had described this creature as ‘paralyzing’ Lila before brutally dispatching her made me certain that the monster in question was Snagga, Grimrock’s hellish avatar. Which would explain why it had so suddenly ceased its own attack upon me, albeit reluctantly; Grimrock had probably compelled it to return against its will, to protect its diabolical master.
I remembered Snagga’s last act against me �
�� the murder of Ris’kin – and couldn’t help feeling a tad bitter about the humans’ timing. Why couldn’t they have begun their assault on Grimrock just a few minutes earlier?
I forced myself not to think that way. What was done was done, and now it was time to move forward.
Benin had said ‘the red Core’ – which was obviously Grimrock – would need some time to recover its forces after he, Coll and Tiri had attacked its base, killing over fifty kobolds. My god-born creatures had themselves killed around a hundred during the last attack on my Sphere. I’d seen Grimrock’s base at full capacity, and now suspected Benin was right: there surely couldn’t be that many kobolds left.
When Grimrock had last spoken to me, he’d given me a month in which to ‘make my decision.’ Did he… did he actually need that month for himself, to recover his forces in preparation for one final assault on my Grotto?
Was Ket right all along? Is his offer of truce a lie, and he’s really just… stalling for time?
How quickly can kobolds reproduce, anyway?
Surely not that fast.
Questions of draconic biology aside, it didn’t really matter whether Grimrock was weakened or not. I couldn’t risk defying him, nor did I have the means to effectively do so. An assault on his Sphere was out of the question. Impossible. My god-born creatures could not leave my own Sphere, and my gnomes were still sadly incapable of self-defense, let alone Raid combat.
It seemed I’d have to rely on my newfound human accomplices – a perilous alliance if ever there was one.
It could be weeks before the Guild arrive. Can I take that risk?
Do I have a choice?
No. I didn’t.
If Ket had taught me one thing before she left, it was that I couldn’t do this on my own. Right now, it was abundantly clear that I had to rely on Tiri and the others bringing back the Guild to destroy Grimrock.
Tiri had said her group had two weeks’ worth of food rations. She’d also said it was more than enough for them to escape the caves and make their way to their Guild. Provided the woman hadn’t been lying to raise the men’s morale – which didn’t strike me as something she would do – that meant it would take less than a month for the three humans to return here with reinforcements.