“We’re not here to fight you,” Morgan said.
Cordelia tightened her grip on her axe, looking for more creatures tiptoeing out of the darkness.
“Of course not,” the spider-thing said. He smiled almost charmingly. “You’re looking for the others. The beast men.”
“You know where they are?” Cordelia asked. “Which way they went?”
“I do, I do,” the spider said.
“And here it comes,” Morgan said.
“What do you have to trade?” the spider creature said.
“There it is,” Morgan said.
“Aren’t you supposed to be our level-headed spokesperson?” Tobias said.
“I hate getting scammed,” Morgan said. “Creepy little scam artist spider-creatures is where I draw the line on civility.”
“Fine,” the creature said. “Find them on your own.”
He began to skitter away, but Eriko stopped him.
“Wait,” she said. “We don’t have much to trade you, is the thing.”
The spider-thing walked quickly back to her, looking up eagerly.
“You’ll make a deal?” he said, flashing its needle-like teeth at her.
“None of us are for trade,” Eriko said.
“Fine, fine, that’s fine,” he said. “What do you have? I’m hungry.”
Eriko looked back at the whole group. Everyone shrugged.
“We really don’t have much to offer,” Eriko said, her voice tinged with resignation.
The spider-thing held up one long, thin finger, then pointed at her.
“Perhaps it’s not what you have, but what you don’t take,” he said.
“You want to loot the corpses,” Cordelia said. Eriko shot her a sidelong glance, then shrugged.
“Now we get somewhere,” the creature said, elfin eyes gleaming in the dark. “They brought meat. They brought grain. You leave.”
Eriko looked to Cordelia, who shrugged.
“Morgan?” Cordelia said.
Morgan sighed.
“We can’t carry everything back to the surface anyway,” he said. “Are you okay with this, Ingo? The supplies were taken from your people.”
“You’re right. We’ll never get it back to the surface,” the dwarf said.
“He could take whatever we had to leave behind anyway,” Jack said. “It’s not an unreasonable trade.”
“See? Reason. You are reasonable people for adventurers,” the creature said. “I help you.”
“Help might be too strong a word,” Morgan said. “Why don’t you just answer two questions for us.”
“I will answer three if you wish!” the creature said. “Three is a good number. There’s magic in three.”
“Do not ask three questions,” Tamsin said. “I’ve read enough books to know if a magical creature wants you to ask a specific number of questions, you’re going to have nothing but trouble.”
The spider-creature looked wounded.
“Your distrust is hurtful,” he said. “I only want to help you, travelers.”
“Sure, sure,” Morgan said. “Question one: how many did you see?”
The spider-elfling began counting on his fingers, then ran out of fingers and started counting on his spiny spider legs.
“Two more than that many,” he said. “Twenty.”
“Twenty trogs, seven of us,” Cordelia said. “I am in love with these odds.”
“Second question,” Morgan said. “Which direction did they go?”
The creature pointed down river.
“That way,” he said. “They followed the river. This way goes deeper into the dark, you know.”
“Go team gravity,” Eriko said. Everyone looked at her. “What?”
“Okay,” Morgan said. “You’ll be able to find their camp after we’re done?”
“I know these tunnels very well,” the creature said. “I will have no trouble finding my prizes.”
“So he’s going to be following us,” Eriko said. “Like a creep. I love this plan. This is a good plan.”
Jack shrugged and started for the river.
“I’ll take lead,” he said.
“I’ll help,” Ingo said, walking after the ranger. The others began to follow. Then Tobias piped up.
“What’s your name, anyway?” he said.
“Don’t answer that!” Morgan said.
“Tobias!” Tamsin said.
“Shit,” Eriko said.
The spider-thing rubbed his pale hands together.
“Third question! My name is Orsun,” the creature said.
“I made a mistake, didn’t I,” Tobias said.
“That’s a fourth question,” Orsun said.
“This is why I’m not in charge of riddles,” Tobias said.
Chapter 13: Like us but more violent
Maybe an hour later, Jack emerged from the shadowy tunnel ahead of the rest of the group and held a finger to his mouth, silencing them. Morgan fought the urge to sigh.
Maybe I was just hoping we’d never find them at all, he thought. They’d been in plenty of fights together so far, but the overwhelming odds, and the carnage they’d seen on the surface, had his nerves in the red zone heading into this battle.
Jack raised his hands, outstretching all ten fingers, then again, this time retracting his thumbs. Orsun hadn’t lied—eighteen trogs ahead, Morgan thought. Then Jack pantomimed something that took several tries to get across, holding one hand high above his head, then out wide, then again, repeating what eventually became clear was an indication of size. He held up one finger, then mimed placing a crown on his head.
“One big one?” Tobias said. Everyone whipped around to glare at him.
Tobias shrugged.
“We were making enough noise already,” he stage-whispered. “If they were going to hear us coming, they heard us coming.”
“I give up,” Jack said. “Come with me.”
He led them down a winding corridor that opened into a larger cave, the group’s vantage point several feet above the ground. Jack belly-crawled up to the edge. Morgan did the same, then the others, so that they could all look down at the war band of trogs.
They really do look like us, but more violent, Morgan thought. Human aside from their misshapen hands and feet, and bigger, certainly—ugly as hell too, with filed teeth and heavy brows—but human nonetheless. They wore the ragged skins of unidentifiable animals and carried rusted metal or dirty bone weapons. The spoils of their journey to the surface lay all around—bundles of grain or produce, entire cow or horse carcasses, other kinds of meat that Morgan would rather not know the source of.
In the middle of the group one stood out clearly as the leader. A full head larger than the others, broader of shoulder, this one wore a headdress like a crown, spiked with a variety of teeth and bone. He carried a grotesque two-handed weapon that seemed to be little more than a staff that had been studded with every vile sharp instrument the trog champion had ever found.
“That one’s mine,” Cordelia whispered.
“I’ll help,” Ingo said.
“There’s got to be a way to thin them out a bit before we fight,” Eriko said. “I mean I could sneak down and backstab one, but that’s not super helpful.”
“I have an idea,” Tamsin said. “But I’d need a distraction, and another vantage point. Can we get to that tunnel over there?”
She pointed at a cavern opening below and to the right of them.
“There’s a path I found that winds around,” Jack said. “I can get you down there.”
“And I can come up with a distraction,” Tobias said.
“No,” Tamsin said.
“Trust the bard, sis,” Tobias said. “You said you learned an invisibility spell, yeah?”
“I hate this idea,” Tamsin said.
“Just do it,” her brother said. Reluctantly, Tamsin softly uttered the words to a spell, touched Tobias on the shoulder, and watched her brother fade away.
“I’ll giv
e you a head start,” Tobias said, unseen. Morgan sensed the bard walk by him and make his way quietly down into the chamber.
“Okay. Tam, Jack, you head to the other chamber. I can hit them from above with a divine spell from here, but I’ll wait for your move,” Morgan said.
“I’ll stealth down and get stabby when Tobias has them distracted,” Eriko said.
“And then we’ll charge in and make some noise when the mayhem starts,” Cordelia said.
Morgan nodded. Jack and Tamsin slipped away. The cleric took a moment to see if he could find Tobias’ invisible footsteps below them, but the spell was doing its job, fortunately.
Okay, Morgan thought. So. Theana. I know you’re a fictional goddess in a fictional game, and to be honest, I was raised pretty religious so even thinking like this would put my grandmother in an early grave. But the way I see it is, we’re stuck here together, and that means I’m here to do the work you need, and you’re here to lend me a hand. I can live with that, whoever you are. But we’re about to fight a metric shit ton of cannibal cavemen and now would be a great time to introduce yourself in some fashion. If you don’t mind.
“Are you talking to yourself?” Cordelia whispered. “Your mouth was moving.”
“Y’know, I’m not sure if I am or not,” Morgan said. “Figure now is as good a time as any to find some old-time religion.”
And then, a soft voice whispered in his ear.
“I’m as real here as you are, my sentinel,” a woman’s voice said. It sounded both imperious and warm; understanding and unyielding. “And for as long as you are here in this world, as long as you do good, I will be at your side.”
“Holy crap,” Morgan said.
“The irony of your expletive is appreciated, my sentinel,” the goddess whispered.
“And she has a sense of humor,” Morgan muttered. “Well, this could be worse.”
Chapter 14: A night at the opera
The closer Tobias got to the encampment, the worse the smell became. It wasn’t so much the trogs themselves, though they had some pretty impressive body odor going on. But the goods they’d stolen from the surface had started to spoil already, or hadn’t been in particularly good shape to begin with. The whole area had a funk of rot filling it up like a green cloud.
Tobias waited until what he felt was the right moment, hoping he gave his sister and Jack enough time to get to their spot. He took a deep breath and did his best musical theater voice.
“Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation,” he sang, hoping he could remember enough of the lyrics to Phantom of the Opera’s signature song to get through this. Why am I worrying about my performance? He thought. We’re all going to die anyway. Who cares if you flub the lyrics?
The trogs, all together, stopped what they were doing and looked around the cavern for the disembodied voice.
“Darkness stirs…” he continued, louder this time.
He continued to sing “The Music of the Night” with, in his opinion, perfect pitch, the high notes light and airy, the low notes powerful and full. This cavern has ridiculously good acoustics, Tobias thought. I could sing here all day.
The trogs had drawn their weapons, pointing, shouting in a fierce, guttural language, swinging at empty spaces in the cave. One started smashing a club into the ground out of frustration, and another covered his ears, howling. I’ve had better audiences, he thought. Any time now, Tamsin…
And then he saw his sister appear at the tunnel entrance. Worried that they’d see her, he ran up to the nearest trog, drawing his own saber as he hit that big, beautiful, glorious high note, and slashed the creature across the chest. The trog’s cry of pain and shock harmonized with the note surprisingly well.
Tamsin’s location began to glow with bright purple-blue energy. Her voice was audible now. There would be no hiding those magic words. Just as some of the trogs began to turn toward her, she unleashed a massive bolt of lightning from the tips of her finger, steaking toward the nearest trog. The creature lit up from within, a like an x-ray after image from a cartoon. The lightning didn’t stop there. It leapt from one trog to another, electrocuting them, the creatures dropping to the ground in sizzling, smoking piles of muscle and bone. The lightning arced all the way around the room—Tobias had to cut his song short to duck out of the way at one point—then back toward Tamsin. It streaked upward, splashing into the stone above where she stood with Jack, who had started firing arrows at the now furious and distracted trog war band. As all this happened, a bright white light illuminated the room, and Tobias could hear Cordelia’s war cry as she charged…
But his attention focused on the cracks forming in the stone above Tamsin’s head. Cracks that split and grew, rumbling, crumbling…
“Tam! Jack! Look up!” Tobias yelled.
One of the trogs charged at the duo. Seeing this, Jack dropped his bow to draw his swords, nearly gutting the barbaric warrior with one swing of his blades. The ranger heard Tobias’ cry and looked up, immediately seeing what was about to happen. With one smooth motion Jack sheathed both swords and dove at Tamsin, hooking her around the waist and carrying her back into the corridor they’d emerged from just as the ceiling above them collapsed in a thunderous cacophony of stone and electric energy.
And then they were gone.
Chapter 15: Fools make plans
Eriko had just started to make her way down the edge of the tunnel when everything went sideways.
She was admiring Tobias’ singing—really, a solid performance given the circumstances—when Tamsin’s magic carved a path of electric carnage through the trogs. The lightning bounced seemingly at random throughout the room, and to fatal effect. Eriko was close enough to the husk of one of the victims to know the trog wouldn’t be getting up again in this lifetime.
Another trog noticed Eriko’s decent, but before he could take a swing at her, Morgan unleashed some sort of holy hand grenade of a spell, a bolt of majestic golden light lancing down from above and searing another of the trog warriors. The monster who had begun to threaten Eriko turned to look at the source of the light, and Eriko wasted no time driving a dagger into his neck.
Before she could feel like the battle might be going their way, though, she heard Tobias cry out, and saw Jack diving to push Tamsin out of the way of a cave-in. Eriko, never prone to emotional outbursts, caught herself gasping as she watched two of her friends swallowed by falling stone. But before she could do anything to help, she found herself dodging and ducking away from nasty, unclean trog weapons swung with the intent to take her head off.
This is why only fools make plans, she thought. With a sort of cool serenity she never felt in the real world, Eriko spun and slashed, hamstringing trogs and bloodying her dagger with each strike.
Tobias appeared beside her, his invisibility spell dropping as Tamsin disappeared.
“We have to get to my sister,” he said, parrying a blow from a trog with his saber.
“We will. Help me,” Eriko said, the two weaving a flashing dance of blades across the cavern.
Not for the first time, Eriko found herself surprised at Tobias’ skill with the sword. He spent so much time pretending to be a parody of a medieval musician it was easy to forget his character was no slouch in a fight, as well. But as they carved their way toward the rock pile where Tamsin and Jack had disappeared, Eriko felt a looming presence nearby and looked to her left.
The champion had taken notice of them.
He was even bigger and uglier up close than he had been from a distance. A mountain of muscle and hair, thick scars lacing his skin like armor, he wore a belt strung with human skulls around his waist. Well, at least we know the game has declared him “chaotic evil,” since nobody good wears human skulls as flair, Eriko thought. As he turned to confront them, Eriko saw that he’d tied several fresher human heads to his belt as well as if to dry out.
I don’t know if we can take him, Eriko thought.
“Hey big guy!” Cordelia yelled. Eriko sto
le a glance toward her friend, her axe stained with trog blood, standing side by side with Ingo, both spoiling for a fight. “I’m gonna add your head to that belt of yours!”
The champion stopped paying attention to Eriko and Tobias, turning his full focus on the two warriors. He roared at them, curdled spittle flying from his vicious, sharp teeth.
“We’re all gonna die,” Tobias said.
“Let’s get your sister! Go!” Eriko said, shoving him along, and not for one second doubting he was right.
Chapter 16: Not the first date I had in mind
Jack came to with an immediate awareness he was somewhere he shouldn’t be. Gasping as he regained consciousness, he realized that the place he wasn’t supposed to be was partially on top of Tamsin, as they were both pinned down by dark stone.
The pocket of air around them was illuminated by a tiny globe of conjured light. Tamsin, already conscious, smiled at him as he opened his eyes. A tiny trickle of blood ran down from her scalp toward her eyebrow.
“Oh good. You’re not dead,” she said.
He faked a weak smile as pain across his entire body began to flair.
“Maybe reassess that statement in a few minutes,” Jack said. “Are we stuck?”
“We’re stuck.”
“And our friends are out there,” Jack said.
“This could have gone better,” Tamsin said. “Thanks for making sure the cave wall didn’t land on my head.”
“Feels like it mostly landed on mine,” Jack said. He wiggled his fingers and toes to make sure they all worked.
“Did you see how many trogs the spell took out?” Tamsin said. “I’m just hoping we didn’t leave everyone with like, just one less creature to fight.”
“Pretty sure you hit eight or nine,” Jack said. “And I plugged at least two with arrows. We pulled our weight. Not bad for two players who only lasted one round of combat.”
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