by Max Anthony
They went straight onwards and had travelled for almost half a mile before they conceded to themselves that they’d been a little premature in condemning this place for being so cheap as to contain a maze.
They came upon a metal door set into the left-hand wall. It was iron and covered in a thick layer of rust. Viddo idly dragged his fingers over it and watched as a shower of red particles scattered on the ground. There was a narrow metal opening set at eye height and the thief looked through.
“Skeletons,” he said. “Dozens and dozens of skeletons.”
The sound of his voice produced a perturbation in the room beyond and Rasmus heard what he could only describe as a frenzied scurrying, mixed with the clanking of clumsily-held metal. He ignored the sounds and addressed his friend.
“Do you think this was another trapped room like the one we found way back near the beginning? And an unfortunate adventurer has stumbled within and perished to this horde of low-level undead?”
Viddo inspected the door frame, hoping it might provide a clue as to whether this room had been created to lure in the unsuspecting.
“It’s too rusted for me to tell,” he admitted.
“Have another look inside and see if there’s anything worth having,” Rasmus urged.
Viddo did as he was asked and pressed his eye to the gap, swiftly ducking when the sharp end of a sword was poked through. Not dissuaded, Viddo had another look, leaning to one side as a skeletal finger was pushed out. The finger was not withdrawn quickly and Viddo took a perverse satisfaction in snapping it off and using it to point at Rasmus.
“I can’t really see if there’s anything worth taking. There’s another doorway on the other side of the room, however.”
“Rooms make for a welcome change from all of these corridors,” said Rasmus. “And stop pointing at me with that thing, will you?”
Viddo made one last rebellious point with the snapped finger, and then threw it casually to one side. “They’re all gathered on the other side of the door now. Why don’t you drop something magical through this opening and then we can have a look?”
“That is a plan I can work with,” said Rasmus. He stepped up to the slit in the door. It had evidently been made to allow people within to look out, or vice versa. It also made a perfect gap for a wizard to send a spell of fiery destruction through, which is exactly what Rasmus did. He raised a hand to the gap, and a small, orange globe flew through. Less than a second later, there was an explosive thump. A bright flash of orange was visible for a moment and then all was silent. A plume of dark smoke found its way through the opening and drifted gently towards the ceiling.
“Urgh, that stinks!” said Viddo.
“Burning biological matter often does,” said Rasmus. “Now get the door open and we’ll see if there’s anything interesting to look at.”
Viddo was already on the case and had two of his thickest metal lock picks pushed into the hole. “The door’s a bit hot,” he commented as he scraped away the thick layers of grimy rust from the inner mechanism. After a few minutes’ scraping, he gave up trying the subtle method and gave the lock a hard twist. He heard something snap within and he stood up in satisfaction.
“Let’s find out what secrets these confined undead were hiding.”
Since the door lacked a handle, he stuck his hand into the slit and pulled. The heavy door screeched open judderingly. Rasmus and Viddo looked guiltily around, as if they expected to see a swarm of undead guardsmen come to arrest them for the crimes they were about to commit. On the other side of the door, was a large, scorched area, littered with piles of ash and blackened bones. Here and there amongst the mess, was a broken weapon or piece of old armour.
“You weren’t wrong when you said there were dozens of them,” said Rasmus.
“A shame for them that they were foolish enough to cluster so helpfully together,” said Viddo.
Not all of the skeletons had perished in the blast. In the far corner, a lone skeleton remained. It didn’t seek to attack and walked an endless walk into the solidity of the rock wall.
“That one’s gone bananas,” said Viddo. He crossed over to it and watched in fascination as it collided time and again into exactly the same section of wall.
“I’ve never seen this happen before,” said Rasmus. “Though admittedly I’ve never been bothered to make any serious study into the behaviour of the undead. Maybe the magic that has animated it is starting to fail.”
Viddo brazenly took the skeleton by it shoulders and spun it round, so that it was pointing towards the doorway through which they’d entered. Its legs continued walking and carried it away. The open door deflected it and it walked off along the corridor. Only Viddo was curious enough to follow and he stuck his head around the door again, to see the skeleton walking off along the corridor, scraping against the wall as it did so. The thief shook his head in wonderment and then wiped his hands on his trousers, mindful that he’d just touched the remains of someone who might have died thousands of years ago. He pulled the door slowly closed behind him, to minimise the sound of screeching and turned his attention to the room. One glance at Rasmus’ face told him all he needed to know.
“I’ve wasted a precious fireball on this lot and all for nothing! Fool me once,” the wizard muttered.
“Your fireball has saved us from those interminable corridors, friend wizard,” said Viddo as he looked about. The room they’d entered was twenty-five feet square and with a high ceiling. There was a scattering of metal weapons upon the floor, from where the former occupants had either dropped them absent-mindedly, or had them blown out of their hands by a fireball that had been powerful enough to almost completely incinerate their remains. One such item caught Viddo’s eye and he ambled over to it, before giving it a nudge with his foot.
“This knife is probably magical,” he said, stooping to pick it up. It was unmarked by the flames.
“Look at the size of it,” said Rasmus. “What’re you meant to kill with that? An undead mouse?”
The knife was indeed undersized, but it wasn’t meant for stabbing. Viddo spun it around in the air, catching it easily. It was extraordinarily light.
“It’s meant for throwing,” he said. “And preferably not into undead mice, for that would be a waste of such a fine-quality knife.” He pushed it away into his clothing. Even the best throwing weapons weren’t particularly valuable, owing to their fairly disposable nature, but he thought he might get a chance to use this one at some point.
“Anything else that my eye has missed?” asked Rasmus, content for Viddo to do as he pleased with the weapon.
“I saw a few copper-coloured smears on the floor near the door,” came the reply. “There were probably some copper coins lying around that your spell reduced to mush.”
Neither man gave the spoiled coins a second thought and they gathered at the single door which exited the room. It was made of solid iron again, though with marginally less rust and no viewing slit for them to peer through. Viddo crouched next to it and pressed his ear to the surface and listened patiently for a few moments.
“I can’t hear anything,” he said. “Though in my experience, the undead do not usually entertain themselves with merry frolics and have a tendency to wait unmoving for as long as it takes before the living arrive.”
This new door was soon open, for its lock was less damaged than that of the previous door. It also opened with rather less of a screech and the pair were relieved at its comparative quiet. They were in another room of similar dimensions and with nothing else of interest to comment on, apart from metal doors in each of the other three walls.
“Now we’re talking!” said Rasmus. “Your classic design, this is.”
Viddo pulled the door shut behind him and jimmied the lock closed, in case anything of a lichly nature should happen to pass by and come to investigate the signs of forced entry. With that complete, he carefully checked the vicinity for traps and then listened at the right-hand door.
&nbs
p; “Again, nothing moving,” he said.
This door was locked, but provided little resistance to questing lock picks. Viddo peered round and into another corridor, which went away from him, before it turned left in the distance. He could hear a very faint sound now, but couldn’t put into words whatever it might be. He entered the corridor and beckoned Rasmus to follow. The source of the sound was soon discovered when the passage made its turn to the left.
“Slugs,” said Viddo. “Filthy, filthy slugs.”
They gazed upon a large, open room, dozens of feet square. The floor was piled knee-deep in what could only be described as waste. It lay mostly towards the centre of the room, in a heap directly beneath a large hole in the ceiling, fifteen feet above. Neither man was surprised to find that it stank.
“Rubbish falls from there,” said Rasmus, indicating the hole above. “And these slugs consume it.”
The slugs were everywhere, sliding smoothly across the brown-and-green mottled piles of faeces. They were not the kind of slug that one might find in one’s garden, and were anything from one foot in length to five feet in length, their bodies plump and disgusting. There were layers of slime coating everything, which had the unexpectedly positive side-effect of suppressing some of the odour.
“I hate slugs,” said Viddo, revealing a secret that Rasmus would not have found difficult to guess.
“Me too,” said Rasmus, with even more feeling.
“I’m not in the mood for walking through all this shit, are you? I’ve been down enough toilets for one day, and the stench on your skin from the spider-queen’s guts has only just started to become acceptable.”
Rasmus uttered the words that changed his friend’s mind instantly. “A metal chest,” he said. “Over there in the far corner, propped up against the wall.”
“How’d you see that before I did?” asked Viddo, feeling as though his professional loot-spotting abilities had somehow been cheated.
Rasmus shrugged. “Who knows how it got here or why? Regardless of its provenance, I feel an irresistible urge to discover what lies within. We’ve not had much luck so far.”
As they talked, both thief and wizard were fully aware that the slugs had begun to slide gradually in their direction. The progress of these molluscs was slow, but their numbers would soon crowd the entrance to the room and prevent the adventurers from entering without molestation. Viddo casually stabbed at the closest one - it curled up as the magical blade sliced it open. The thief looked at the mucus left behind on his dagger and cursed that he’d now have to clean it away. Rasmus thought that his friend had just made a mistake, but didn’t want to say anything immediately.
“Got any spells that summon up bags of salt?” Viddo asked.
“Less of your salt-spells nonsense and make haste,” was the response.
“Why don’t you go?” asked Viddo. “You saw the chest first and it doesn’t look too big for one man to carry.”
“Because if we don’t both go, then we run the risk of being separated by the gaggle of slugs which approach. And it would make sense if we carried the chest out of yonder exit across the room. Thirdly, it’s a massive chest and there’s no way I could lift it alone.”
There were several things that Viddo wanted to say. In the end, he settled on the least important, which he mentioned as he stepped into the room. “A gaggle of slugs?” he asked. “I’m sure it’s a warble of slugs.”
The conversation did not progress beyond that point, owing to the fact that they weren’t particularly interested in bringing it to a conclusion. It could have been a who-gives-a-stuff of slugs for all they cared and they were more focused on trying to traverse the room, whilst avoiding the maximum amount of waste matter.
It was a task they did not relish. Viddo was in the lead, trying his best to step around the piles of excrement and the questing slugs. Rasmus followed, having tucked the hem of his robes into his belt, so that they did not become soiled. As they watched, another shower of brown muck dribbled from the hole in the roof, though it did not distract the slugs, which now seemed quite keen to see whether adventurers tasted more palatable than turds.
“I didn’t know slugs ate shit!” said Viddo, as he trod ankle-deep into a patch of something green and soft.
“There are many things you don’t know,” replied Rasmus. “And besides, there is more than just ordure in here. I have seen bones and turnips amongst the piles. It may be that the chute above links to kitchens as well as toilets.”
“I’m not sure which I like the least – turnips or the shit of creatures unknown.”
“I quite like turnips in butter,” protested Rasmus.
“But you need so much butter on them to disguise the taste that you might as well just eat plain butter. Better yet, freshly-churned butter spread thickly upon still-warm bread from the oven.”
“How can you talk about food at a moment like this?” asked Rasmus, sliding when his boot trod on something glutinous beneath a pile of vegetation he’d just been forced to stand in while avoiding a three-feet slug that was moving with a surprising turn of speed. “And besides, something on your person is smoking.”
The wizard watched as Viddo patted his clothing to find out where the source of the acrid smoke was coming from. The thief pulled out the dagger that he’d recently used to stab the slug. Without slowing, he threw the dagger away and Rasmus saw that whatever fluids the slug kept within its body, they had corroded the magical blade, making it brittle and useless.
“Was that your best dagger?” asked Rasmus in concern. He didn’t feel it appropriate to point out that almost every adventurer knew that it wasn’t the greatest idea to stab slugs with your best weapons, unless they were really powerful weapons, in which case they’d not be harmed by the acid.
“Yes,” was the terse reply. “I’m down to one dagger now, with only a modest enchantment on it. I’m not sure if it’ll be enough to kill another dread knight.”
“Perhaps we’ll find another dagger,” said the wizard. “There could be one in that chest.”
“I’m not sure that chance favours it,” said Viddo. “But I should have had a better weapon than that last dagger anyway. I’ve been looking for a few years now, since I lost my previous set.”
Rasmus knew that the word ‘lost’ wasn’t strictly speaking the most apt description of what had happened, since Viddo had gambled them away in a drunken game of dice. A very drunken game of dice, where the winning party hadn’t even been cheating. The wizard liked to think that Viddo had learned his lesson from that, but he wasn’t convinced that it would be so.
They reached the middle area of the room. The quickest path to the metal chest took them around the edge of the waste pile, and close to a number of the largest slugs, which continued to close in on them, albeit slowly. Viddo jumped over one – a brown, translucent slug of over four feet in length, and wondered if it had always been that colour or if it had lived off shit for so long that it had gradually become the same shade as its food. The waste was deeper here and Viddo was concerned that it might come over the top of his boot. As he looked down to see how much clearance remained, he noted four turnips and what might have been a half-eaten carrot. There was also a leg bone and several distinct turds in the small area around his travelling boot. Each time he raised his foot, it was with difficulty and elicited a sucking noise, which was accompanied by the sharp odour of dung, released from beneath the surface as he disturbed it.
The unsure footing meant that both men had been looking more at their feet than at the room about them. Consequently, they were taken by surprise when they noted that the slugs had almost managed to block their progress, with more sliding over from where they’d been concealed by the central pile of muck. Additionally, many of the slugs looked as though they could change their colours to match that of the background, and because of this, there were actually more of the creatures than they’d anticipated.
“Any useful spells at all?” asked Viddo, in expectation that t
hey might be needed.
“Acid is normally quite good on slugs,” said Rasmus. “But I used my last acid ball on that abomination we found in the altar. A fireball wouldn’t be fully effective, since they’re covered in slime, but one would likely still do the trick.”
“As well as igniting any of the noxious gases that pervade this room and inflicting major burns on the both of us.”
“You’d probably be fine,” said Rasmus, having observed Viddo’s skill at evading the worst effects of magic. “While I’d be the one burned to a cinder.”
“Hold off with the fireballs for the moment,” said Viddo unnecessarily. “But we need to move a little faster in case these slugs get us trapped. I don’t want the same acid that destroyed my dagger to end up on my leg.”
With a series of increasingly enthusiastic squelching and sucking noises, they hauled themselves step by step across the room. Rasmus was a little less sure of his footing than Viddo, but he was possessed of an enormous motivation to avoid slipping face-first into that through which he trod. It would be wrong to say that the slugs frantically tried to close the gap on them, since they moved so slowly, but the best efforts of these molluscs were thwarted by the extra speed of their adventurer targets. Rasmus was just in time to haul himself through the last gap in their attempted encirclement and it was with relief that he was able to wade closer to the walls where there was less of the sewerage underfoot.
Although they had been unsuccessful in their first attempt, whatever it was that motivated these slugs, they didn’t give up and they continued their gradual pursuit. Rasmus couldn’t restrain himself and offered up a quick two-fingered salute at them as he splashed rapidly towards the metal chest. It looked like it had been made of steel and was unmarked by slug acid, though one end was embedded in a pile of shit.
Viddo had reached it first and had got his hands around the end that was clear from the muck. “That’s your end,” he said to the wizard, nodding towards the part that was thoroughly befouled.
