by Galen Wolf
‘Retreat!’ Fitheach shouts. He’s right, if I get burned by the burning sugar and take any more damage, then I’m dead and back at Clitheroe.
I pick myself up and stumble back. Only then do I take stock of my companions. Fitheach is healing himself and a silverly glow bathes his antique form. Of the others there is no sign.
We both retreat. Tye and Bernard must have both been killed in the explosion. The sugar walls of the tunnels are burning in patches, but it looks like that fire will die down. I’ve missed a message in the scroll of text. It says:
Fitheach heals me up to full.
‘Thanks, mate,’ I say.
He looks worried. ‘We’re on our own now, Gorrow. Unless we wait for them to come back all the way from Clitheroe.’
I shake my head. ‘We don’t have time for that. We either quit now, or go on just us two.’
I’m uneasy. Maybe we should retreat and restart, or even give up. Only two of us left and half our party was taken out pretty easily. It’s not looking hopeful that we can finish this quest.
But time for us getting to the King, is running short. We either have to recall out of the quest and abandon it, or we go on. It might make more sense to swallow my pride and quit, but I hate failing quest after quest. Fitheach is waiting expectantly for my decision.
I suck my teeth and say, ‘No, we go on.’
19
Mr Treacle Returns
Fitheach shows his big white teeth and slaps me hard on the shoulder.‘I knew you weren’t a quitter, Gorrow. Let’s do this.’
I nod, grateful for his support then look around us. We’re deep in the Treacle Mine, and the dark walls glisten with crystallised sugar, except where they’re burning from Tye’s ill-judged fireball.
I can’t see any treacle berries, but I see more of the anti-enchantment ferns growing by the passage edge. Just then I get a personal message from Tye.
Tye: Sorry about that, boss. Just rezzed in Clitheroe with Uncle Bernard. We’ll be back as soon as our little legs can carry us.
Gorrow: Okay, Tye. Come as fast as you can. We will maybe have finished the quest by then anyhow.
I step forward, my mailed foot crunching into the dusting of sugar on the passage floor, then I step over a thin stream of molasses that makes its way down the slope in front of us. It strikes me that if all the molasses in the mine flow downward, then the bottom of the mine is going to be flooded in the sweet dark stuff.
Fitheach follows me down, and I’m wary for the return of more Sugar Golems. Though Tye killed himself doing it, his fire attack was the only thing that made much of a dent in them, and I don’t know how we’ll fight them without him if the Sugar Golems return.
Minutes pass and we’re still following the string of rusty lanterns hung picturesquely along an ancient-looking cord, leading us deeper into the bowels of the Treacle Mine.
‘So far so good,’ Fitheach whispers.
Then the lights stop. The cord is tied neatly to a hook in the wall and goes no further. The passage however does travel deeper into the depths. Fitheach raises his bushy eyebrows. ‘No problem. I can cast a Sunlight spell.’
I raise my hand. ‘No, Fitheach, that would just make us so obvious.’
‘Let me try, anyway’ he says, and ignites a Sunlight spell. There’s a flare of white and I have to cover my eyes. The cavern is now bright as day and the sugar walls really sparkle and something flutters towards us out of the dark below, and I peer ahead to see a cloud of what look like bats.
They may be harmless.
Fitheach’s seen them too, they come close flapping and flying into our faces, then one swipes down and scratches him. Two red lines on his wrinkled cheek ooze blood and he touches where he’s hurt and curses, ‘Damned things!’
Then they’re all around us, biting and scratching.
Okay, they don’t hit massively hard, but there are hundreds of them. I can hardly see through the cloud of fluttering, flitting things that flies all around me like a thousand fat midges. I swat at them and then get out my sword to swing it, trying to get them with the edge.
They hurt me, but I one-shot then whenever I hit. Luckily they aren’t impervious to damage like the Sugar Golems.
This is tedious, and it’s also holding us up. Fitheach crouches beside me, zaps of light darting from his fingers and blowing up Sugar Bats in mid-air. Finally, after much hacking and zapping they’re all laid around us in a pile of sugary death until their graphics fade in a mist of black motes and we’re alone again.
I check and I’ve got 300xp from all those damn bats. The Sunlight spell is still blazing, illuminating everything around.
Fitheach says, ‘Do you think it was the light spell that drew that bats?’
I’m about to say yes, when more of the bloody things swoop up from the tunnels below. There’s yet more hacking and zapping and I take more damage until we’re done and the bats are no more.
Fitheach shoots a beam of healing at me and once again I experience the peculiar feeling of being wrapped in warm, wet cotton wool that comes with this spell.
But his spell is too bright. It’s just drawing attention. I say, ‘Switch off the light.’
He does what I say, and we’re plunged into darkness.
I mutter, ‘Okay, so remember to look out for Treacle Berries.’
‘I can’t see anything now.’
Good point. I rub my eyes to make them see better but I don’t have Dark Vision or any comparable skill, so it does no good. I say, ‘Do you have any lesser light spells that aren’t like a supernova exploding in a pure white room?’
He pulls his white beard. ‘No.’
Hmm. But as our eyes get used to the darkness, I realise it’s not completely dark. We’ve stepped past the line of oil lanterns but they still give off a smoky yellow glow behind us. Ahead is pretty dark, but not totally.
Something scuttles across a wall ahead at about waist level. ‘Did you see that?’ I ask Fitheach.
‘Yes. Don’t know what it was.’
The thing was luminous. It looked about the size of a bird, but it was running across the wall. Then there’s another. ‘Another,’ says Fitheach, pointing.
Then another.
‘There’s quite a few of them,’ says Fitheach.
‘Yeah, let’s go see what they are.’
He hesitates. ‘Do you think they’re dangerous?’
‘Probably.’
‘Do you think they’re made of sugar?’
‘I guess.’
I see one of the creatures scuttling on the wall and advance, grabbing at it. It’s a spider, but it’s made of sugar and it glows internally. A soft, pleasant glow. I inspect it as it wriggles in my steel fingers. It doesn’t try to do me any harm. Seeing that it’s harmless, Fitheach grabs one that darts nearby. He giggles as he holds it. ‘They’re quite cute really.’
Cute, but another distraction. Then I have a bright idea. ‘Hey,’ I say.
‘Hey what?’
‘These spiders glow.’
‘Yup, I noticed.’
‘But not as bright as your spells. And they are native to the place so if someone sees this kind of light down here, they won’t think it’s unusual. It doesn’t seem to draw the bats either.’
‘Yes…?’ I think he’s following my train of thought.
‘Do you have anything we could hold them in?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, sure. I’ve got a string bag in my inventory, and the mesh is pretty small so I don’t think they’ll fall through.’
Pretty convenient.
The spider in my fingers wants to get away, it wriggles and struggles
but I won’t let it go.
I say, ‘Why have you got a string bag in your inventory? I mean why string?’
He doesn’t answer and I guess it must be personal so I leave it at that. Then he pulls out the string bag and pops his spider in it. He’s right, the mesh is too small for the spider to fall through. ‘It’s not very bright though,’ he says. ‘Put yours in.’
‘What if they fight?’
He shrugs. ‘We’ll soon see.’
I feel a bit guilty putting my spider in the bag to what might be its death, but I do it anyway. We need to be able to see down this treacle mine after all. But they don’t fight, in fact they cuddle. The light’s still not very bright so I say, ‘Catch some more.’
Luckily there are plenty of the Glow Spiders around and we manage to get ten and put them in the bag. They all cuddle up in a friendly ball and now we have something approaching a light we can see by. It’s good enough to see right in front of us so we can step out on our way. More anti-enchantment ferns grow out of a cleft in the wall, but no treacle berries.
‘Onward then,’ I say.
By the light of the ball of the Glow Spiders in Fitheach’s string bag we make our way slowly onward and downward further into the Treacle Mine.
The stream of molasses grows bigger here and is joined by another rivulet until they pour down the slope in a glutinous torrent. The whole bottom of the mine must be filled up with molasses like I thought.
There are other glowing insects here, not as harmless as the Glow Spiders. A huge centipede attacks us from out of a hole, glowing and writing and standing up so it’s about six feet tall, but I cut it down with my sword, getting a measly 50xp.
I hear voices ahead. The tunnel twists left so whoever is talking is out of sight. Spiders run across the walls here and there, giving a little illumination, and the molasses stream makes a gurgling noise as it runs on, but there are at least two people talking. They are player characters. What the heck they are doing this deep down a Treacle Mine I don’t know.
I tap Fitheach and he puts the bag of spiders behind his back to obscure the light from them. I strain to listen to what they’re saying.
A gruff voice says, ‘Yeah, so, Mr Treacle is due back any time.’
‘Right. I need to go and do some treacle mining once he’s back and we’re relieved from guard duty.’
I wonder about that. Guard duty? What on earth are they guarding?
The first speaker, a woman from the voice, gives a quiet laugh. ‘They just so don’t get it.’
The man answers. ‘Yeah.’ Then a pause. ‘They don’t get what?’
‘Mr Treacle.’
‘Oh yeah. Obvs. But who does? He’s like totally original.’
‘Yeah, only one of him, but what I mean is that they don’t get that he’s going to take over this world. People think that Satanus is the one who’s taking over, but Satanus is nothing compared with Mr Treacle.’
The man laughs. ‘No, right? He’s just a dragon thing, isn’t he? I mean Satanus.’
‘Yeah. Scaly, flying, evil. But he’s not made of treacle.’
‘No.’
I listen longer just in case I learn something useful. I’d never heard of Mr Treacle before so I don’t see how he can be a rival of Satanus for the position of most powerful evil dude in the game, but I’m prepared to be educated.
Fitheach hisses. ‘Did you hear that? About him being more powerful than Satanus?’
I nod silently, not wanting him to make any more noise. They’re only round the corner from us and they will hear. There’s a hole in the rock wall to our right out of which a molasses stream bubbles. The low noise of the running liquid won’t cover our chat.
‘So, how many berries have you got?’ the woman says.
‘I’m allowed a hundred. Got the same number of ferns.’
She laughs. ‘Mr Treacle doesn’t like you taking more berries than your ration.’
The man grunts. ‘No, I don’t want to cross Mr Treacle. This is his front business after all, the berry and fern thing.’
She says, ‘But you know what he really does, don’t you? I mean what he’s really up to?’
The man says, ‘I hear rumours. But what have you heard?’
She says, ‘That would be telling. But believe me, it’s serious. If it ever got out what Mr Treacle is really doing down here, it would shake the world. That’s why he needs guards for when he’s away on business.’
‘The guards are to protect the berry fields, surely?’
She laughs again. ‘You think?’
Fitheach is getting bored. ‘Bah, let’s go kill them.’
He has a point.
Without warning me, he runs forward, yelling, ‘Aroint ye, evil-doers! Feel the wrath of the True God! Abandon your Mr Treacle or die!’
The woman shouts, ‘What the effing jeff—’ and gets hit by one of Fitheach’s light beams.
I run after him, sword out, screaming, ‘For My God and King’
The man turns, amazed at our entry. He’s a warrior wearing yellow guild markings, but I don’t recognise them. He’s wielding a Great-Axe, lifting it and roaring. He takes a swing, but I’m mesmerised by the field of bushes in the huge cavern I can see over his shoulder. The bushes are all set out in near rows and each bush has a crop of berries that glow golden-brown in the dark of the mine.
My attention drawn, I hack sideways at him.
That’ll teach him to go without a shield. He swings down, but I put up my shield and block him.
We trade blows. We damage each other, but me more than him. I swig healing potion and attack. He swigs his own healing potion and attacks back.
Beside me, Fitheach is trading light spells for the female sorcerer’s Flaming Ray spells. They’re both healing, but Fitheach is a better healer as the sorcerer has to rely on potions.
I’m getting the better of Animalz and he’s falling back. ‘Fool,’ he snarls, ‘if you kill me, I’ll be back. I’m bound here. And when I come back, I’ll come with friends.’
But he’s talking when he should have been fighting. I get a crit on him.
I glance right and see Fitheach go down under a spray of fire from the female sorcerer despite his better healing. She’s killed him. His ghost looks at me sorrowfully and disappears. But she’s in a bad way, she’s sipping at a blue healing potion when I lunge at her in anger. It only takes one blow.
I would rather Fitheach had lived than got the xp. I’m also mindful of what Animalz said. They are both bound somewhere close by and they’ll have allies.
Fitheach and his bag of Glow Spiders has gone and I’m standing alone in the dark. In the almost dark, because in addition to the weird glowing insects that dart here and there on the walls and ceiling of this huge cavern, there is the glow from the berries on the bushes. I am guessing these are the Treacle Berries and they must be valuable because it looks like Mr Treacle and his henchmen are making a roaring trade from them.
I have little time if I’m to succeed in the quest. I walk into the cavern and step down from the path into the berry area. I go from bush to neatly arranged bush, grabbing at the glowing berries and stuffing them in my Inventory. I’m so conscious of the time. I need to get a hundred berries before the enemy characters come and stop me. If they kill me before I get a hundred, we’ll have to come and do the whole thing again, and I don’t have time for that.
I check my Inventory.
42 Treacle Berries.
Come on, come on. I rush from bush to bush, grabbing at the most obvious berries. I don’t spend time plucking all the berries from every bush, I just grab and tear at the easiest ones and move
on. I fumble some berries and drop them on the floor and I scrabble to pick them up. More wasted time. I check my Inventory.
65 Treacle Berries.
This is too slow. I’m listening out for returning enemies and dropping lots of berries now in my haste.
84 Treacle Berries.
Okay, nearly there.
Then I hear them.
I am near the path just in a row of bushes, but they see me.
‘He’s there!’ That’s Animalz. SugarLips isn’t with him but there are four other fighter types. Depending on their level, I might take them. But then again I might not. I grab at four more berries, but they’re on me now. Fight or run. If I run maybe I can come back.
I turn and exit the cavern, berries glowing in my hands and stumble up the passage the way they came. They’re almost within striking range but I hear, ‘Light!’ In their haste they have no more light than I do. I run on and see that low hole the stream of molasses pours from. I stoop. I could get into it, but they would see me easily if they looked. Then again, maybe they won’t look.
A bright light flares behind me round the corner and I duck and push myself into the hole. Molasses flows over my armour. The glowing berries are still in my hand so I stuff them into my inventory taking me up to eighty-eight. I need only twelve more. I sit tight in my molasses hole and listen.
‘Where the hell is he?’ One of them shouts.
‘Must be up the path. Go stop him.’ I hear the clatter of boots. Then it’s quieter. I just pray they are gone far enough because I need to get back for the extra berries.
After counting to twenty, I drag myself out of the hole, covered in sticky molasses. My eyes are more used to the darkness now but as I stand up out of the hole into the tunnel, I can hardly see anything.
I know the berry field is to the right. Slowly, trying not to trip over any lumps of sugar, I make my way down, one hand against the tunnel wall. Then the soft glow of the Treacle Berries appears round the corner.
