by JK Galioto
Maebh, Peter, and a few of the other halflings offered to come with them down the unexplored tunnel, although it was easy to see it was the last thing they wanted to do. As flattered as they were, they couldn’t know what they would find and decided against putting any of their new friends in danger, heading down as a duo instead. Jack took the lead, pulling the hood of his cloak up and feeling nigh invisible with his decent stealth skill propped up by his boots and cloak. Gooch waited until Jack had a good sixty to seventy foot lead on him before following. Since they were still in range of Jack’s Mind Meld perk, they were able to communicate.
“I forgot to mention,” Jack sent to Gooch, “that I found a couple of spell books. One called Shillelagh, and another called Dust Devil.” He shared the details provided by his Analyze spell with Gooch.
“I think it’s pronounced ‘shuh-lei-lee,’” Gooch sent back, still mulling over the spells.
“No, I am pretty sure it’s pronounced ‘shi-li-log’,” Jack responded, focused on making his way farther into the tunnel. As he continued downward, the smooth passageway, which was almost six feet wide and ten feet tall, became slightly smaller and rougher. The air felt cooler and damp, reminding him of his store’s seldom-used storage area in the basement. He had to switch to his Darkvision given the utter lack of light.
“No, I’m quite sure it’s ‘shuh-lei-lee’,” Gooch sent again, his mental voice presenting strains of annoyance.
“I’ve heard it both ways,” Jack sent back, grinning. “By the way, did you bring a torch or something else to light your way? It’s pitch black after you take the next bend.”
His acute hearing could faintly pick up Gooch mumbling a chant.
“Good now,” Gooch said proudly, using his Darkvision for the first time.
“Will the wonders never cease?” Jack responded. Gooch had neglected to mention that new spell.
“What is this creature that everyone is so afraid of it? What kind of creature feeds off trash and refuse?” Gooch asked Jack. Jack could feel nervousness and fear through their mental connection and he assumed his large friend could feel the same from him.
“If Umak was afraid of it, then we probably should be crapping our pants right now,” Jack sent back, trying to convey levity. “But we are going to get through this the same way we got through everything else; together.”
There were silent after that, walking for another few minutes before the tunnel opened up into a large cavern whose edges were not visible in Jack’s Darkvision range. An overpowering stench emanated from the room, and Jack knew he had found the place. “Gooch, we are here,” he sent back mentally. “I am going to try and check it out, real stealthy-like, if you want to wait near the entrance.” Gooch gave the mental equivalent of a head nod, and Jack started to make his way around the chamber.
He moved quietly to his right, staying near the wall. Giant piles of trash and assorted organic matter were strewn everywhere, and ethereal blue-grey light emanated from a large circular hole open to the sky near the apex of the room. Jack had taken his trash to the Merrill Dump every month for nearly his entire life, up until about five years ago when he switched over to the town’s garbage pickup. While not as large as the Merrill Dump, the piles were fairly impressive, reaching to over five stories at the peak and dozens of feet across. How long had they been adding waste to this cavern to create such mounds?
As he circled the cavern, he swore he saw movement amongst the refuse, and a few times he thought he saw long, grey tentacles ending in leaf-shaped pads with rows of sharp spikes weaving in and out of the heaped detritus. He continued his journey, checking the lodestone periodically. Unerringly, it was drawn toward the center of the cavern and the piles of refuse. Shocker. Jack made his way back to the tunnel entrance and Gooch.
He gave Gooch an update on what he had seen, and they spent a few minutes discussing their plan. In the end, it came down to the “do what you do best, Gooch—tank some aggro,” while Jack would try for backstab damage. If that didn’t work, Jack would try and find the pearl and make a run for it, although given the size of the garbage heaps, he really didn’t like that option. He did, however, mentally chuckle when he started to refer to plan B as the “trash and grab” plan. It would, as he hoped future alive Jack would say, be like finding a pearl in a garbage stack.
“Jack, let me have a try at that Shillelagh spell,” Gooch mentally said to Jack. He pronounced the word “shuh—lei—lee” very slowly, shaking his head at Jack like a disappointed kindergarten teacher.
Jack flinched slightly, then pulled the book out of his backpack and handed it to Gooch. “There’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to learn this. It doesn’t seem like it fits into any of your current domains; it’s more of a nature spell. But you’ve always been too clever for your own good, so who knows,” Jack said, taking a large step back from Gooch to avoid any potential explosion.
Gooch spent a minute considering the downsides, then seemed to decide that he was more at risk wielding a crappy weapon against whatever nastiness they would no doubt find in that room. He could wield Umak’s two-handed sword, but he didn’t want to give up his shield. “Here goes nothing,” he mentally announced, glaring shillelaghs at Jack, now half-hidden behind a large boulder, as he opened the book. This time it took longer for the book to fly through its pages and burn up. Gooch staggered and fell to the ground. Jack ran to him, wincing at the loud noise Gooch’s armor had made.
Gooch looked at Jack; his eyes were bloodshot, and his pupils were dilated like he had a concussion.
“You okay?” Jack asked, trying to shake Gooch out of his daze.
A few seconds later Gooch replied, “Yeah, I’m fine, I think. Heck of a headache though. That was a doozy; I had a dazed icon that I couldn’t shake. But I learned the spell!” Saying that, he took out a stout piece of firewood from his bag and began to chant. As the spell completed, the firewood was transformed into a long, stout cudgel. The wood was now polished smooth and had a light glow about it.
Jack cast Minor Heal on Gooch, restoring the psychic damage his friend had received.
“Anything else? Do you have other wood that needs polishing?” Jack asked, growing impatient, but not so much as to miss that joke setup. It was only a matter of time before whatever was in the garbage piles began to take notice, but in comedy, timing was everything.
Gooch ran his hand along his new weapon, and the glow changed from a dim yellow to an icy blue. “Okay, we’re on the clock. Let’s do this,” Gooch mentally affirmed his readiness to Jack, game face on.
Chapter 39
Jack used the abundance of small garbage piles for cover, moving to the right side of the cavern while keeping an eye on the stealth meter in the corner of his vision. Once Jack was in position, Gooch stepped forward, holding his backpack in his shield hand and walking toward the largest pile. “Come get your dinner,” he said loudly.
A monstrous creature rose out of the pile of trash. It had a bloated, oval-shaped body around eight feet wide and five feet tall with a disgusting, rock-like hide, and stood on four shuffling elephantine legs. It sported a pair of long tentacles bedecked in rough thorny growths that ended in leaf-shaped pads bearing rows of sharp spikes. A third, vine-like protrusion sprouted from the top of its body some two feet high, ending in at least six eyes and a large, roughly ear-shaped hole. The body of the creature contained a massive fang-filled mouth shaped like a crude gash in its center. It reminded Gooch of the weird aliens in “The Simpsons.” He gulped softly but kept walking forward.
When he was about twenty feet from the creature, he heard a high-pitched screech in his mind. “You late! You better bring double trash, or Moandir turn you into refuse!”
By Gandalf’s bushy white eyebrows, is everyone but me a telepath around here?
“Funny you should ask—” Emily started to say before he cut her off.
“I’ve got your trash in my adventuring backpack. Umak said there’s some really gross and disgusti
ng stuff in this batch that you’re gonna want to see,” Gooch replied out loud, continuing to walk forward. “Apparently half the mining crew had a massive explosion of diarrhea a few days ago.”
“Daddy likey!” Gooch heard the high-pitched voice screech into his head as the large beast dove into the pile of garbage and emerged at the base of it a few seconds later, standing on its stocky, wide legs. Gooch stood five feet from the creature and its garbage pile and did his best to hide his revulsion—barely.
He carefully set the backpack down in front of him, and the creature closed in on it, the tall eyestalk tentacle seeming to stare at him while the other two tentacles began pulling the bag toward its wide, fang-filled maw.
With a loud grunt, Gooch employed his Shield Bash perk, stepping forward and slamming his shield into the creature’s body, stunning it long enough for him to bring his shillelagh in a wide arc to slam into one of the eye protrusions. With a soft splatting noise, the eye was mashed to pulp and the beast froze. Gooch took a second to scan his combat log.
You performed Shield Bash on Moandir the otyugh. The otyugh partially resisted the stun effect and is stunned for 3 seconds. You used 6 stamina and have 53 remaining. You cannot use this perk for 30 seconds.
You hit the stunned otyugh for 25 damage. Base damage of 7 (4-12) + 3 (strength) + 4 (1-6) cold damage (Arcane Reservoir: Weapon Element) times critical strike multiplier of 2, times Arcane Reservoir: Enhance Weapon multiplier of 1.10%, minus defense of 6.
Gooch now understood why Jack liked to sneak around for backstab and critical strike multipliers. He was also extremely pleased with his new Magus perks, which gave him additional damage and seemed to have some sort of freezing effect.
Snapping his focus back to the battle, he saw that the tentacles had dropped the backpack and were now streaking high toward his head from the left and right. Reflexively, he put his shield up to block the left, using the shillelagh to parry the other tentacle blow from his right as he danced backward a few feet to avoid a large chomp from Moandir’s mouth. All thoughts of offense were gone as he focused on blocking, parrying, and dodging attacks from the two hideous appendages and the sharp teeth of the large maw.
He was doing pretty well until he lost his footing on some slime excreted from the creature’s gaping orifice. The creature immediately lurched forward, sensing an advantage. Gooch was forced to use his shield to block the large mouth and had to accept a hit from the hideous appendage to his left, hoping his high defense would protect him. Fortunately, it did the trick. Though the spikes on the padded ends of the tentacle pierced his armor, only the tips penetrated his skin for minimal damage. Unfortunately for Gooch, that hold was enough for the creature to use its incredible strength to coil Gooch in like a yo-yo, lifting him high in the air and slamming him to the ground with terrific force. “Jack!” Gooch screamed mentally, the pain of being beaten against the ground overtaking his usual calm demeanor. Moandir emitted a low, deep chuckle, clearly enjoying itself immensely.
Chapter 40
Jack, creeping closer to the large monster but not quite in position to attack, quickened his pace as he saw the creature slamming his large friend into the ground. Gooch landed a couple of solid hits on the beast with his shillelagh, but not enough for the creature to drop him. Not seeing any obvious vital points on the amorphous blob of a body, Jack opted to cripple the creature by attempting to amputate one of its tentacles. Lining up his strike, he waited for the creature to slam Gooch once more to the ground, lowering its limb inside his reach, before he struck the junction where it attached to the body. His shortsword managed to slice most of the way through the appendage, and the now useless limb flopped to the ground along with Gooch.
It turned its enraged sights on Jack, whipping its still-functional tentacle at him, but Jack was already dodging backward, and the attempt fell short. Jack counterattacked with his sword, but with his stealth advantage gone, he only made light cuts along its filthy hide. But he had done his job, and he saw Gooch rise up behind the creature.
Amazingly, the Magus still held his weapon and shield, and with a loud shout, he slammed his shillelagh down on the creature’s back. Ice formed from the hit. Jack redoubled his own efforts, forcing the creature to go on the defensive as it lashed out with its remaining unsanitary squid-arm, not letting Jack or Gooch in for an easy strike. However, Jack knew it was only a matter of time before the beast would make a mistake, and meanwhile, they continued to slip attacks past its guard. That’s when his spidey sense went off.
He dropped to the ground the moment before a smaller tentacle plunged through the space he had just vacated. Getting back on his feet, he saw a smaller version of the creature attacking him, with another creature about the same size crawling out of a nearby garbage pile. “This thing has children!” Jack sent mentally to Gooch as he focused on avoiding and parrying the tentacles and mouth. Where the main creature was about five feet high and eight feet wide, these “children” were only about three feet high and five feet wide. The tentacles were five or six feet in length, about half the length of the parent’s.
Deciding it was time to try his Discourage Foes perk, he began to sing one of the saddest and most demoralizing songs he knew, even though he knew the regret would be immediate. Then again, he did have the Knows No Shame perk. He started singing “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls. “If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends . . .”
It had the desired effect; their attacks slowed and they swung their tentacles with less vigor, and if he could read otyugh facial expressions properly, he swore they wore confused frowns. To be fair, so did Gooch. Jack used the opportunity to dance around the closer of the smaller creatures, scoring gashes across its left flank and taking a few parting shots in return.
“Burning Hands,” he heard Gooch say in his mind. Jack feinted a lunge forward but rolled backward instead. A moment later, an intense burst of blue-red flame erupted from Gooch in a wide cone that hit both toothy creatures, sizzling their skin and setting some of the debris on their hides on fire. Jack darted back in as the smaller creature thrashed, activating Dual Attack as his shortsword and daggers plunged deep into the creature’s bulbous body.
The third creature was just about to join the battle when Jack and Gooch both heard a loud shriek in their minds. “Smidgin and Spot, join with Daddy!”
Every fiber in Jack’s body screamed at him to stop the bits of Moandir from joining together. Gooch apparently felt the same. “Jack!” he roared as he slammed another hit into the still-smoking body of Moandir, “We can’t let them join together!” Gooch then used a Magus perk to insta-cast Magic Arrow, hitting the smaller monster Jack was fighting and distracting the beast. Jack used the opening to plunge his dagger and shortsword into its eyestalk, hearing a faint but satisfying popping sound as one of the eyeballs burst apart. He paid for the critical hit in blood when a wild strike from one of the creature’s flailing tentacles hit him and sent him flying in the direction of Gooch. They crashed together, knocking each other prone.
Moandir chuckled, a nauseating smell rolling over the two adventurers and lingering, like the early morning fog over the Prairie River back home. “Now you see the true power of Moandir!” it roared in their minds.
Gooch and Jack stood, horrified to see the three creatures join together in a mass of goo and pus. As they merged, Moandir’s missing tentacle began to regrow, along with its destroyed eye. It also began growing larger, its oval-shaped body standing over ten feet high and fifteen feet wide and its mouth becoming the size of one of those small, plastic kiddie pools you can get at Walmart. Rows of sharp, jagged teeth lined the opening. On top of it all, the tentacles were at least twenty feet long, and the spikes on the pads at the end were as long as Jack’s shortsword. Both men froze, their minds terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.
Chapter 41
“Ideas?” Gooch cried a moment later, his voice trembling as he watched the creature finish the merging process.
This fight just went from crazy hard to horrifying! He cast Analyze on the monstrosity before him as it finished merging.
Name: Moandir. Race: Otyugh. Level: 9. Hit Points: 149/149. Spell Points: 0/12.
Ugh! The creature was fully healed as a result of its unusual pairing with the smaller otyughs, and it has 149 hit points! If he were playing a video game, he assumed he would be seeing question marks above the creature’s name, letting the players know to stay away. They were seriously outclassed and he had no idea how they were going to get out of this one. But he didn’t come this far to quit.
“Let’s get back to the tunnel entrance and fight from there. Moandir’s size will make it hard for it to get clean attacks on us. I’ll focus on the tentacle to the left if you take the one on the right and its gaping, grinning mouth-vagina.”
Slowly, they disengaged the beast and pulled back toward the tunnel entrance, eschewing attacks in favor of full defense. The creature continued to laugh maniacally as it swung its tentacles high and low, looking for a way past their shields and blades. Jack was having a tougher time of the two, forced to parry the tentacle instead of trying to dodge, worried that if he sidestepped an attack it would swing past him and hit Gooch. Due to the length of the spikes on the pads, he was often stabbed even if he parried successfully. He wasn’t sure if they could make it back to the tunnel entrance before his health hit zero.
He noticed Gooch was holding his own against the creature. And by “holding his own,” he meant not being torn apart like a wet napkin, which would be the case if their positions were reversed. His friend’s shield was able to keep the giant mouth at bay while his shillelagh proved up to the challenge of parrying the tentacle. His higher defense helped him deal with the attacks that did get through, and he was careful to always pull back, lest the creature get a hold on him again. However, it was apparent that the beefy tank couldn’t keep it up for too much longer.
