by Dante King
“The dryad woman? I’m afraid she is already lost.”
The women gasped, and Imogen put a hand to her mouth.
“She’s dead?” Ben asked, his stomach now knotted.
“Sir Gallant has her,” the dungeon replied. At least Ben assumed the voice was coming from the dungeon itself.
“Who the fuck is Sir Gallant?” he asked.
The dungeon said nothing.
Ben sighed. “Looks like we have to seek out this Sir Gallant.”
The stone slab creaked open. A worn set of stone steps led down into the depths, dimly lit by flickering torches. Nipper sniffed at the entrance suspiciously and hissed. Even with his boundless energy, he was held back by fear.
A musty smell emerged from the underground passageway—the sort of smell Ben had encountered in caves and old ruins on school excursions. But he had a feeling this wasn’t going to be like any school excursion he’d ever been on.
There was nothing for it but to go inside and hope he and his party were powerful enough to face the dangers below.
“Ready?” he asked the women.
The two nymphs nodded timidly and squared their shoulders.
Melody put a hand on Ben’s right arm. “Let’s go and rescue Vinata.”
He squeezed her hand with his left. Then, holding the scimitar with his right, he put his foot on the stone step and led the small party into the dungeon.
Chapter Nine
Darkness enveloped the small band as they descended the worn stone steps. Ben could make out the twinkle of torches somewhere in the passageway ahead of them, but their light was much dimmer than the daylight outside.
Ben led the way down the stairs, scimitar in hand. Trailing behind him were Melody, Lulu, and Imogen. Behind them followed Nipper, the cat-like monster child that had come from Ben’s union with Melody.
Ben’s boots scuffed on the deeply grooved stones beneath them. He wondered how many unfortunate adventurers had worn these stones with their excited feet before him, led on by the allure of hidden treasure.
It was an eerie feeling treading these ancient steps. These ruins were eons old already. It was the sort of feeling Ben imagined he might feel walking the streets of Athens or Rome. The difference was that this time he knew one of the ancients who had walked these ruins was himself. He shook his head, trying to wrap his head around the strangeness of this truth.
As the heads of the travelers dipped below ground level, Melody cast a worried glance at the stone above them.
“Do you think it will shut and trap us in here?” she asked.
The same question had occurred to Ben as well, but he didn’t have a solution. He’d seen enough movies where the door shut right behind the explorers, trapping them in a room full of monsters, to know he should expect just such a fate here.
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it did shut us in,” he said, “but there’s not much we can do about it. We can’t leave Vinata in here—we have to go forward.”
Melody and the nymphs nodded assent, but Nipper didn’t seem so sure. He hung back and mewed, his tail swishing agitatedly.
Melody turned and knelt to face Nipper at eye level. “What’s wrong, little one?” she asked, her own tail swishing in time with his.
She glanced up at Ben. “There’s something really bothering Nipper. He doesn’t want to go into the passageway.”
Ben considered the matter. “I don’t know what he’s sensing right now, but it seems like he knows something that we don’t.” He thought back to cats and dogs on earth, how they always seemed to be aware of things that humans weren’t regarding potential danger. Nipper was half human, he understood, but he wondered if his son might have a sort of animal intuition. “Really, I don’t have such a good feeling about it myself. In fact, I’d bet anything that the dungeon is leading us into a trap.”
“We have to go in there though, don’t we?” Melody said.
Ben nodded. “I’m not going to leave Vinata to whatever fate the dungeon has for her, not right after we rescued her from the mountain ogres. And I wouldn’t trust Nipper to be safe up here by himself; he’s far too young to fend for himself.”
Getting down on his knees, and holding his scimitar facing down the stairs, Ben looked Nipper in the eyes. “We’ll keep you safe, alright? We have to rescue our friend in that dungeon.”
Nipper stared intently into Ben’s face with his piercingly purple eyes. He appeared to be weighing his father’s words with a strange intelligence.
Then the tiny kitten darted forward and snapped his tiny jaws. Ben darted back, narrowly avoiding having his nose nipped.
“You little shit!” he exclaimed. “Maybe I’ll just leave you to the monsters.” He scooped the kitten up playfully, and they continued down the steps.
The fear felt by everyone was not abated, but the women smiled, seeing how tenderly Ben interacted with the kitten.
Ben saw how Lulu and Imogen still looked at the stairway with trepidation. He gave a little of his courage to each of the women and to Nipper as well. He had enough to spare. His own confidence had been boosted by the victory he and Melody had won the night before. With a little extra courage, the women would be safer than if they reacted with fear at every threat.
They descended the last few steps, going down more than twice Ben’s own height into the ground. Looking back, Ben could only see a small patch of blue sky at the other end. Barely any daylight reached the bottom.
They emerged into a passageway, about fifty feet long and ten feet wide. It took a few moments for Ben’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. No doubt Melody and Nipper adjusted faster, having feline eyes. Once Ben’s own eyes had adjusted, he was able to see the nature of the chamber they found themselves in.
The chamber might have been narrow, but it was not low. The roof of the passageway was barely visible, at least ten yards above their heads. Ben wondered if that was even possible. The ground above had been fairly flat, but they had descended a lot of steps. Perhaps the hall roof lay just beneath the ground above.
The walls and floor were carved out of solid stone, with no cracks visible where mortar might have joined the stones. The whole room appeared to have been carved from one unbroken stretch of stone. Ben tried to imagine how craftsmen could have excavated so much stone with such skill. Then he considered that in all likelihood they’d used magic.
Colossal pillars jutted out of the walls, curving into a vaulted ceiling. Torches were ensconced on the pillars running all the way up their lengths. They looked like so many fireflies illuminating the grand stonework.
Ben wondered who had lit these torches. There were dozens of them. It didn’t make sense that Vinata would have lit them all on her way through the dungeon. Had someone else been here to light them? Or something else? Perhaps the voice that had spoken to them before. Maybe the dungeon really was sentient, as Melody had said.
“And this is just the entrance,” Imogen whispered, her faint voice echoing up to the ceiling. Her anxiety seemed to have momentarily been replaced by awe. “If only my parents could see this place.”
The entrance reminded Ben of how he expected the Mines of Moria to look, or the entrance to a cathedral. The great gothic arches carved in stone made an impression.
“I can’t see a way out at the other end,” Melody said, her voice joining Imogen’s to echo through the vaulted stone. “This looks like a dead end.”
She was right. The other end of the passageway ended in a wall, with a mighty statue in the middle. The statue depicted a robed warrior with a huge sword planted at his feet, plunging through the skull of some non-human creature. The sculpture had been carved with surprising detail, down to the expression of pure agony on the orc-like creature’s face and the blood that accumulated where the blade drove into the skull.
It was the only adornment in this gloomy passageway. The statue’s features were lit by the lurid glow of torchlight, giving his face a grim and menacing appearance. The folds of his robes were e
xaggerated in the light to look like the wings of a bat. Ben remembered the bats they’d faced on the rope bridge, wondering what sort of monsters they might face in there.
“Well, the dungeon has to be bigger than this one room,” Ben suggested. “Maybe there’s an exit that has to be triggered by some sort of mechanism. From what I saw in my vision, dungeons are supposed to have traps in them. So, they probably have secret triggers as well, only to be discovered by the cleverest adventurers.”
“You’re starting to think like a dungeon master already,” Melody said.
Imogen shivered. “But doesn’t that mean there could be traps in here too? Vinata might have already triggered them and be...” She trailed off.
“I can’t see any danger in here,” said Lulu, squaring her shoulders and speaking with far more confidence than Imogen had spoken with.
Ben suspected she was trying to look braver than she felt.
“And there are no monsters in here yet,” Lulu continued. “Maybe this is just the entrance where the dungeon welcomes adventurers.”
Ben shook his head, grimly. “If I can make any sort of guess about how a dungeon like this would operate, the monsters won’t appear until the adventurers are good and trapped inside.”
That was exactly how Ben would have designed such a place. He couldn’t give away that he was the actual designer however. He hadn’t had a chance to inform the nymphs of his identity yet. Given that they were about to face lethal danger, it did not seem like the time to explain that he had himself constructed all those dangers.
“There’s nothing else for it,” Ben said, resolve in his voice. “Let’s investigate that statue.”
He looked at the women standing with him. “If any of you want to turn back and wait outside, now’s the time.”
The women shook their heads. They seemed scared, but there wasn’t a trace of hesitation among them.
Lulu’s eyes blazed. “I’m not going to turn back until our friend is rescued.”
Imogen nodded. “Neither am I.”
Melody put her hand on Ben’s arm. “I’m with you till the end.”
Nipper mewed and brushed himself up against Ben’s leg.
A surge of pride ran through Ben, knowing his companions were all there by his side.
“That settles it,” he said. “Keep your spells at the ready and be on your guard. If any danger arises, make sure Nipper is safe between us.” Ben held his scimitar at the ready and strode forward toward the statue, the women following close behind.
They hadn’t walked halfway down the passage before a loud creaking sound echoed from the other end of the corridor.
Ben sighed and looked back down the hall. The sliver of daylight streaming down the staircase was rapidly diminishing, until, with a loud thud, the stone dropped into place. Just as he’d anticipated, the entrance had closed to seal them in.
“Well, we’re all trapped in here now,” Ben said. “Keep your eyes open and be ready for anything.”
They didn’t have to wait long to see the surprise in store for them in this chamber though. They’d only taken a few paces forward when the sound of stone grating on stone filled the vaulted chamber. A light movement of air caused the torches to flicker, casting wild, bouncing shadows.
The party stopped. Ben stood facing the statue, his scimitar outstretched. “I don’t like the sound of that. Be ready.”
The women all stood with their backs to him and each other. Nipper stood in the middle, protected on all sides, and growled in a thin and high-pitched tone.
In the wildly dancing shadows, Ben could make out the forms of other, shorter statues, rising out of the ground in long rows on either side of the passageway. The statues had humanoid shapes, but were far bulkier and taller than any human he had ever seen. There must have been twenty on each side of the hall.
And what was more, Ben couldn’t shake the notion that he was being watched, like many pairs of eyes were on him all at once.
The grating noise culminated in a loud thud as each statue reached its full height and came to a stop.
Each figure stood close to eight feet in height and was proportionally wider and heavier set. The stone was rough, its surface more resembling coarsely chiseled granite rather than skin.
The face of each giant statue was equally rough. The eye sockets were dark holes, encircled by heavy brow and nose ridges. Within these sockets, their eyes were closed, as though they were sleeping. Their jaws were heavy set. There was no sign that these statues were sentient or intelligent, but Ben wasn’t about to jump to any conclusions.
Imogen’s next words proved him right. “Gravel ghouls,” she muttered grimly.
“What are they, Imogen?” Ben asked.
“They are stone giants,” Imogen replied. “They look lifeless now, but they will come to life in a moment. That is a common trick of theirs. We have such creatures in the mountains. They cannot be harmed by elemental attacks, except for those from water.”
Lulu chuckled. “Just as well I’m here then.” She pulled her water skin from her belt and opened it.
“That counts you out though, Melody,” Ben commented. “Your lightning spell won’t work on them.”
Melody stowed her wand in her belt and smiled. “I may not be able to use lightning, but I still have my fists, if you can give me a boost, Benjamin. Do you think you can sap their strength and give it to me?”
Ben quickly examined the ghouls and saw that they did have large green strands of physical energy. He couldn’t make out much in the way of emotional or mental energy, but hopefully that wouldn’t stop him from taking their strength.
“That sounds like a plan I can work with,” Ben agreed. “You’re more experienced at fighting than I am; I’ll see if I can give you some of the ghouls’ strength. Imogen, do you need me to give you some of their strength too?”
Ben remembered how Imogen had carried the mountain ogres the night before, but he wasn’t sure if she would need extra strength to fight these monsters.
Imogen smiled and shook her head. She opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by a grating noise, a sound like two heavy, rough objects rubbing hard against one another. The sound blended with more and more of the same noise, the cacophony loud and horrible enough to nearly cause pain.
The stone statues began to move their limbs. Then their eyes opened, glowing a dull, bloody red. Each statue turned its head toward the small party in the middle of the hall and began to advance with slow, booming footsteps.
Ben’s hands clenched into fists. He wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, but he could sense that a fight was on.
“Get ready!” he shouted, his voice rising above the groaning and grinding of the statues coming to life. “Got a feeling we’re going to have to fight!”
Lulu didn’t hesitate. She poured the water out from her water skin onto the ground and tossed the empty leather bag to the side. She whispered an incantation and twirled her hands in the air while making symbols with her fingers.
Ben was about to start casting Drain, but then he saw what Lulu was doing. The water rose up into the air in tendrils. Ben stared with his mouth open, still not accustomed to seeing new forms of magic.
The tendrils of water, gleaming in the orange torchlight, hovered in front of Lulu in globules. Then Lulu shouted and splayed her fingers, the streams of water splitting just like her fingers.
Streams of water shot toward the nearest gravel ghoul, wrapping around its neck. The liquid constricted, flowing in tightening rivulets around the thick, stone muscles of the giant’s throat. A loud creaking and groaning sound rose above the thudding of the other giants’ footsteps.
With a loud bang, the ghoul’s head popped off and crashed to the ground. The gravel ghoul’s decapitated body followed shortly after, crumbling into dust and fragments on the hallway floor. Beneath the stone exterior, the giant was made of a pale colored gelatinous flesh. The ghoul’s body slapped to the ground like jelly as it lost the support of t
he stone casing around it. Fragments of stone flew off the limp body, forcing Lulu to shield her eyes.
When it was clear Lulu had avoided injury, Ben smiled to himself. Occupational hazards were a risk here, too. He made a mental note that when the stone statues broke they exploded like claymores—more danger to be aware of.
Lulu weaved her hands again and sucked the pool of water from the ground where the ghoul had fallen. She began drawing it into the air to form a globule for another attack. The globule took shape as she waved her hands, an expression of total focus on her face.
Imogen dashed toward the nearest giant and hit its torso with a flying kick. There was a loud crack as her foot struck the stony mass. Stone fragments flew into the air, shattering against the walls of the passage. Ben turned his head as the fragments flew toward him, raising his hand to cover his face. The fragments hit with surprising force, tiny dots of pain spreading across his skin.
The ghoul’s body lost its integrity and toppled to the ground. Imogen rose her foot high and stomped on its head, splattering jelly on the hard floor, a sickening splat sounding out as she brought her foot down.
Well, that explains why she doesn’t need my help, Ben thought. Both nymphs were proving to be far more capable in battle than he initially suspected.
Ghouls approached from all sides, and Ben needed to get Melody into the fight too so she could keep him and Nipper safe.
He laid his scimitar on the ground next to him, knowing that such a thin blade would be almost useless against stone giants. Using both hands, he summoned his mana and focused on the strands of energy he could see emanating from the gravel ghouls. Melody stood next to him, waiting for his spell before she could join the fray.
As Ben had already observed, the gravel ghouls had almost no mental or emotional energy. They appeared to have only enough sentience to control their movements. They had a huge amount of strength however, and that was just what Ben needed.
Ben’s practice at using his Drain spell paid off. He closed his eyes and focused on the thick green strand, tugging on it as surely as a giant rope. He was swiftly able to pull a large amount of strength from a nearby ghoul and push it into Melody’s body. Her eyes widened as the strength flowed into her, Melody’s muscles growing taut and powerful right before his eyes.