Dungeons of the Crooked Mountains

by Alexey Osadchuk

  After that is when I realized Miri was on alert and keeping me safe. She just wanted to let me see how dangerous this place is for myself without any hints.

  The dying cave worm made a lasting impression on me. Its body was short and barrel-like. Its skin was thick and rough. The mouth oozed poison and was dotted with sharp little hook-shaped teeth. I was in shock... Especially in light of the fact that I would soon be crawling down little burrows monsters just like this one chewed into stone.

  The caverns were teeming with creatures one more dangerous than the next... The black megabats hung upside down on cave ceilings and were always on guard with their sharp hearing, ready to fly off after prey at any moment. The giant rats were the size of a wolfhound and always attacked in packs. All it took was one deep scratch and a group of them would crawl out of the rocks and darkness, attracted by the smell of your blood and ready to eat you whole. Beyond that, there were white vipers fangblooms, coldunes, hexapods and a plethora of other kinds of creatures, which would take more than a day to list...

  Gradually my brain started adapting to the stress. A barrier appeared in my mind, very fragile for now, that helped me perceive the potential danger a bit less sharply... Like detach from it...

  At first my companions made fun of me. But eventually the mockery fell to zero. Despite their prediction of three hours, I had held out three days.

  To be frank, keeping pace with the scouts wasn’t such a daunting task. They walked slowly. Softly. Trying to disturb the peace of the cavern as little as possible.

  “The caverns don’t abide outside sounds and smells,” Miri explained to me in a whisper. In the end, she was the one who took charge of me. Dag and Chad didn’t take part in my “education.” Well, not counting the terrible faces they pulled when I did something wrong.

  “Make too much noise, you die,” she said. “Start a fire, you die. Deep wound, dead.”

  For the record, there was no need for fire here. The walls were overgrown with moss that gave off a dull light-green glow, probably the only plant down here that couldn’t kill you.

  It was fairly chilly, but better to bear the cold than end up in the belly of the cave beasts that would come running as soon as they smelled fire.

  Yesterday I got some messages saying the second batch of moss had dried out. Thankfully, they hit while I was lying with my eyes closed. We had just eaten, and Dag announced a one hour break.

  All told, my knapsack now had three hundred twenty-two esses and two hundred twenty-eight clays. Thank the Great System, I still had my bread and butter. As a matter of fact, another two batches of moss would be finishing up soon. I tried not to think about my and Crum’s hiding spots. Livid had probably given a command to plow up all the soil near the village. Sooner or later, one of his gang would find the spots.

  I had to give the scouts their due. None of them even once tried to steal from me. And actually, I still hadn’t figured out why. Either my companions didn’t suspect that a street rat like me would have anything of value or they weren’t like Livid and his henchmen. Although, based on their faces, it was hard to believe...

  By the way, about my companions... And more specifically their equipment... To look at them they were typical hunters, but there were a few peculiarities. For example, they were all wearing arm and leg protectors.

  And their torsos were defended by vests of thick leather. The men wielded short spears with leaf-shaped tips and had small arbalests on their backs. Rounding out the picture were the long hunting knives they carried on their belts.

  The only difference with Miri’s equipment was that she had a short compound bow instead of an arbalest. Father had once shown me something like it at the market. In his words, this was the weapon used by steppe riders. A person has to have a good amount of strength and ability just to pull back the string of such a bow. That made it all the more surprising at first to see such a thing on a small and fragile looking woman. To be frank, I thought Dag was in charge at the very beginning of our journey, but I very quickly realized Miri was holding the reins.

  I noticed the way she moved, how she read tracks, oriented herself underground despite the fact her level was no higher than the men’s. For the record, they were all fifteen but Miri was without a doubt closest to the ceiling in her characteristics.

  They didn’t talk with me much. First of all, it was dangerous underground. They would converse amongst themselves in a kind of sign language though, and quite actively at that. Well and secondly, I was of little interest to them.

  Just one time, back at the beginning of the journey when we first got to a more or less safe level was I given the honor of conversation. We had a talk about Livid. It turned out my companions hated him no less than me. Honestly though, they never said how he wronged them. For the most part, our conversation about the werewolf was empty chatter but still I learned some interesting things.

  “You think you surprised us or Skorx with the news of his abilities?” Dag asked mockingly. “Oh, naive soul...”

  “He knows?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Miri nodded. “And he has known a very long time.”

  “Knud too,” said Chad.

  “Even Bardan,” Dag surprised me.

  “But then...” I started, shocked.

  “You want to ask why a werewolf has been allowed to live as an open secret for so long?” Dag asked, snarling. “Because Bardan sent that creature out here intentionally.”

  My eyes climbed into my forehead. But that couldn’t be. Bardan himself...

  “It’s like I’m saying — naive soul,” Dag chuckled, poking a fat dirty finger into me. “Look at that face!”

  “It’s all simple, Rick,” Miri said. “Bardan is a lanista. He is training himself a new warrior for the yearly championship in the Imperial capital. I don’t know how, maybe by oath or some spell, but somehow Bardan convinced the werewolf to join him.”

  “Clever,” Chad nodded. “Livid ‘shears’ clays off losers in order to raise his characteristics to the ceiling and Bardan meanwhile doesn’t have to invest a single penny in his fighter. Beyond that, no one knows about him. He probably has a couple potential fighters training publicly to take part in the championship, but it’s all a sham.”

  “Why make it so hard?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” Dag asked in surprise. “He’s hiding his real strong warrior from his competitors. There’s still lots of time before the championship, and anything can happen to a warrior. From bloody diarrhea to some supposedly accidental death in a bordello in the big city. Bardan is taking insurance because he is just as much a snake as his competitors.”

  I was reminded of Happy saying Livid has a plan... So this is why the crime lord acts so greedy. Every clay tablet is valuable to him now. Imagine how enraged he must have been when they took me away. So the criminals weren’t going to kill me? Frodi was just trying to scare me... Learning he was a gladiator in training cleared all that up.

  “With a fighter like that, Bardan has every chance of vying for the championship,” said Chad.

  “If he doesn’t decide to sell the werewolf to some minor lord who wants to become a mage,” Dag inserted and his comrades all nodded in concert.

  “Why?” I asked, baffled.

  “Well, kid,” Dag shook his head. “What do they teach you over in your schools? Werewolves are what kind of creature? That’s right, magical. What does that mean?”

  “Whoever kills a werewolf might have an Intellect tablet drop...” it dawned on me.

  “They say the chances aren’t high,” said Miri.

  “The chances are decent,” Dag waved a hand. “What is Livid’s level now?”

  “Fifteen,” I answered.

  “Well then if you took him down as a zero, you’d definitely get one,” the bearded guy chuckled. “But in your case, it isn’t realistic. But for some rich count or duke, it’d be easy-peasy. The beast gets chained down so he won’t even dare kick, then some low-level son of a ri
ch man can come and take him down. In fact, it’ll still take a lot of effort. Werewolves have extreme regeneration. But sooner or later he will die, even if that requires prolonged torture. And voila, there’s your Intellect tablet. Doesn’t matter if its clay or gold. The main thing is activating the supply. Then you can have your rich daddy buy you as many tablets as you want...”

  Dag sighed dreamily...

  “Ugh, it would be nice to be rich... And if I was a duke or something too, or at the very least a baron... Mm-hm... A completely different life...”

  At that time, my mind was in a completely different place. Despite how much hate I felt in my heart for Livid, I didn’t wish him such a terrible fate...

  At first the caves and tunnels were impossible to tell apart from the ones I’d worked in before. In a few of them, mainly on the upper levels, I even saw my beloved gray moss. But they didn’t let me cut any. One of the main rules of this group was to always tread in the footsteps of Miri, who went in the front. Any step to one side or the other could be your last. And that meant for me or the whole unit.

  Sometime in the middle of the second day, Miri brought us to a tunnel leading down a level. Although the scouts were more or less relaxed before, after we went down, their behavior changed completely. Their movement speed was almost cut in half and they walked around with arrows knocked. Their heads were constantly turning in search of the slightest hint of danger.

  This lower level was noticeably different from the one above it. There was more of the fluorescent moss, making it brighter. Honestly despite all that, the dim green lighting made this place even spookier.

  The tunnels connecting the caves also changed. They became wider and larger. All that made the impression that they’d been made out with different technology than the upper level. Later, Chad gave me a short explanation - this level was gnomish handiwork.

  “Ha,” he whispered proudly. “You should see the beauty of level four... Too bad we aren’t going there this time...”

  I didn’t share his feeling of pity. I had experienced plenty on our “hike” through the second level.

  The woman was stopping all the more often, studying some tracks only she could see. Sometimes she gave a command to wait and went forward all on her own. That always put me beside myself. I had a panicked fear of losing Miri. Dag and Chad didn’t inspire much trust as trackers. When she came back, I would always steal a sigh of relief. Once I noticed Dag doing the same. After a few hours observing him, I came to the conclusion he had the hots for our archer. She by the way, seemingly knew about the big bearded guy’s feelings but tried to pretend she didn’t notice.

  And then finally, at the end of the third day we reached a big cave with walls like Swiss cheese. There I learned the nature of my new work.

  The fairly narrow cave entrance was blocked from the outside by a large stone. Dag and Chad worked up quite the sweat clearing it. A strange fact jumped out at me... From the tracks, I could tell this boulder had been placed here on purpose. And it was moved back and forth often. Based on their dexterous movements, it looked like these two were moving it every time.

  There must have been a reason for all this... There had to be a reason... There was nothing like this before...

  Before rolling back the boulder, Miri spent a long time straining her ears to hear if there was anything behind the stone. While Dag and Chad dragged it aside, she stood with her bow at the ready.

  But despite their fears, nothing came barreling out of the passage. Then in the very middle of the cave, she explained my job:

  “See those holes in the walls?” she whispered.

  I nodded. Over my three days down here, I’d grown used to not talking much.

  “Those are cave worm burrows.”

  Seeing fear on my face, the woman put her little hand on my shoulder. She had fingers of steel! She could clamp them down pretty hard!

  “Don’t panic, they haven’t been here for a long time. There aren’t any other monsters there either. Or any other nasty stuff like fungus or toxic moss. Got it?”

  I nodded again. But just for appearances... Say what you like. I’ll never believe you. What makes you block the entrance of the cave? What are you afraid of?

  “Smart kid,” she praised, not noticing my true state. “See how narrow they are? Even I can’t get in there. So, see why we need people of your build?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Your job is to crawl in as far as you can and check where they end. You’ll find your way back by a rope, which we’ll tie to your belt. If you find a new cave, look for a drawing like this on the wall.”

  On the ground, she drew a circle with two parallel lines going through it.

  “This is our symbol.”

  “Got it. It means you’ve already been there,” I figured.

  “Clever boy, Rick,” Miri praised in a whisper. “We have exactly one day to check as many of these burrows as possible.”

  “Why do we have to work so fast?”

  “The caverns don’t abide strangers for long,” she answered elusively.

  Her words made a brigade of ants crawl up my spine.

  “You can leave that knapsack here, too. It’ll just make you bigger,” said Miri, her hand extended. “I promise no one will go through your things.”

  I bit my lip. No matter how much I wanted to keep my stuff on me, I was forced to admit Miri was right. The burrows were too narrow. The bag would be a hindrance. Well, unless I tied it to my foot. But then it would be a problem to go back. After all, if I didn’t find a place to turn around, I’d have to crawl legs first.

  “Come on, you got this,” the scout said reassuringly. “Don’t worry. Everything will be right where you left it. I promise.”

  Despite myself, I handed her my knapsack. Setting it on the ground, she started deftly tying a rope around my belt.

  “The rope is around forty paces long,” she explained. “As soon as you feel it pull, come back.”

  “Good.”

  “Now signals. Two sharp tugs is an all clear. Three times means danger. Does that clear things up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then crawl on in.”

  I adjusted my clothes, nodded and crawled into the burrow. When I was inside the hole, I heard Miri’s voice.

  “Good luck, Rick. And remember, don’t try to trick us. Do your work the way you’re supposed to.”

  I didn’t answer. I just took a heavy sigh and crawled forward. Miri’s warning was just an empty vibration of air. I’d already been told what happened to those who played dirty.

  They had a boy once who would crawl thirty feet in and stop in the burrow. Then he would slowly pull the rest of the rope to imitate movement while coiling it around his belt. When the line got taut, he would spend some time lying there resting, then crawl back. Once he emerged from the burrow, he’d say he didn’t find anything or that the hole was too long.

  At first he got away with it. But only until the scouts got a notion they were being tricked. When they decided to test the kid, they pointed him to one of the burrows he didn’t know had already been explored.

  Not suspecting a thing, he pulled the same trick. When he came back, he said the same old story about the burrow being very deep. But in reality it was only twenty paces long.

  The scouts pretended they believed him and sent the little fraudster down a different hole. And when the rope tightened like a guitar string, Dag and Chad pulled back hard, almost instantly yanking the stunned kid outside. By that point, he was already so flagrant that he was stopping around the first bend, just seven paces from the entrance.

  When the kid realized what happened, he fell to his knees and begged for forgiveness. And the scouts pretended to forgive him, making him crawl back down all the burrows he’d supposedly checked before. That time he did his job properly, with particular gusto even. And that earned him praise from the scouts.

  But this story is the kind that ends with a moral. Once above ground,
Dag asked the boy who, for the record, was fully convinced he’d been forgiven, to check one last cave worm burrow. And he eagerly ran off to do that, but it was to be his last... That burrow was still inhabited by the creature that dug it, and the scouts knew that. In other words, they just executed the unfortunate bastard in cold blood. As a warning... Chad told me that story during a break with a bloodthirsty smile...

  I checked the first few burrows carefully. I crawled very slowly, listening for a long time and trying to catch even the slightest suspicious sound. The fact that all the passages were old was evidenced by an abundance of glowing moss covering every surface. There was no way not to be happy about that.