He offered his hand and Og took it in his.
‘Did we win then?’ Dog asked.
‘We did,’ said Mr Agassi. ‘I suggest you head over to the Bureau this very instant and get your name on the register. Before that constitution is changed.’
FORM ADC6
The elation of the court victory was short-lived for Og-Grim-Dog, since it meant a return to the offices of the Bureau of Dungeoneering.
There were forms to be filled in at the Registration desk, and then follow up forms at NHR. Once Og-Grim-Dog had become a fully-fledged member of the Bureau, they and their new friends had to present themselves at the Applications for Dungeon Crawls desk.
The clerk at the desk needed to give the party approval for each dungeon they wished to visit. Those that had been visited too frequently in recent weeks were forbidden to them. A lively conversation ensued over where they should go, this or that dungeon, and the best route to take. The clerk’s advice was soon ignored, as Gurin tried to dominate the decision-making process with reference to his vast experience; Assata stood firm against him; and Sandon took the role of sensible peacekeeper. Brother Kane smiled beatifically throughout, while Raya rolled her eyes at Og-Grim-Dog when she was sure no-one else was looking.
The clerk looked more than a little relieved when they had settled on a plan. It involved hitting six dungeons in a ten-day period, with the promise of significant opportunities for loot.
‘One final thing,’ he said, yet another form clutched in his tiny human hands. ‘Form ADC6. A new directive from the Bureau. We now need to record surnames and I must record a name for your party.’
A barrage of complaints hit him at this new imposition.
‘What if we don’t have surnames?’ Gurin demanded. ‘None of the best dungeon crawlers had surnames. Reginald Shit-Blood didn’t have a surname, did he?’
‘We will accept nicknames,’ said the clerk, which seemed to mollify things a little. He put his piece of paper onto the desk in front of him and handed a quill to Brother Kane, perhaps with the idea that he was the least likely to snap it in two.
In the left-hand column, the cleric wrote
Brother
and in the right-hand column
Kane
With a long-suffering look, the clerk invited Sandon next.
Sandon Branderson
Everyone gave the wizard a silent look.
‘Are you for real?’ Assata asked him.
‘What?’ he demanded.
‘Never mind. Hand me the quill. No-one gets to know my surname,’ she said.
Assata S
Raya Sunshine
‘My parents were hippies,’ said the elf apologetically. ‘Do you have a surname, Og-Grim-Dog?’
‘Hmm,’ pondered Og. ‘We have three names. Maybe we could put Dog as the surname?’
‘We’re not putting Dog as the surname,’ Dog retorted, though Grim wasn’t convinced Dog knew what he was objecting to. ‘Dog is my name.’
‘Well, what do people call you?’ Raya asked them kindly.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Og, carefully taking the quill in his huge hand.
Og Grim Dog. The Three Headed Ogre.
Og passed the quill down to the dwarf, who muttered darkly to himself before scrawling down his name.
Gurin Fuckaxe
‘What in hell?’ said Assata, shocked. ‘Fuckaxe? That’s just wrong, man. That’s dirty.’
‘Eh?’ said Gurin, bristling. ‘Not in that kind of way. I didn’t mean it like that. I mean I fuck people up. With my axe.’
‘I’m really not sure you want that as your surname,’ said Raya in a concerned voice. ‘It just sounds indecent.’
The dwarf threw his hands in the air. ‘It’s done now, isn’t it? I’ve already written it.’
‘You could cross it out?’ Sandon suggested.
‘Well, I like it,’ said Dog. ‘“Fuck with me, and you get the axe.”’ He barked with laughter.
‘See, he gets it,’ said Gurin, stabbing his thumb at Dog. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m not wasting any more time on this nonsense.’
‘I still need a name for your party?’ the clerk dared to ask.
‘We’re called Team Shove It Up Your Ass,’ said Gurin.
They left the Applications for Dungeon Crawls desk, leaving behind a clerk clutching Form ADC6, a pitiful expression on his face.
The party of six were ready to go bright and early the next morning. All legal boxes had been ticked; all provisions bought and packed away in knapsacks. They strode through the streets of Mer Khazer and the people of the city applauded them. Sellers shouted out encouragement as they got their stalls ready for business. People on their way to work gave advice about where exactly Assata should stick her sword, or Og his pike.
It wasn’t just that Mer Khazer was an adventurer’s town—had been for years—and was therefore sympathetic to parties of adventurers. It was also that dungeoneers kept down the local populations of monsters, and the citizens were grateful for it. Last night, The Bollocks had been full of stories of orc bands roaming the countryside, causing mayhem. Such stories didn’t chime in with what Queen Krim had told them. Og-Grim-Dog would have to keep their eyes peeled if they were to learn the truth about what was going on.
But such thoughts were at the back of the ogre’s minds. Right now, they were experiencing a strange sensation.
‘Grim,’ said Og, putting a hand to his chest. ‘I have a warm feeling here.’
‘Me too.’
Literally, the same place. It wasn’t the first time that Grim suspected he shared a heart with his brother.
‘Are we heroes?’ asked Dog.
‘Maybe,’ said Grim. ‘Or perhaps we will be when we come back victorious. It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?’
‘It sure is,’ said Og. ‘I can understand the attraction of adventuring now. Don’t get me wrong, staying underground in our cavern is good, too. But this is more—I don’t know.’
‘Fulfilling?’ Grim asked.
‘Yes,’ Og agreed. ‘That’s a good word for it.’
They left via the city gates and took the road north. Grim had been doubtful that all his companions would be able to walk at a decent pace, but he was proved wrong.
Assata and Gurin marched at the front, both seemingly under the impression that they were the one in charge. Raya walked some feet behind the rest of the group. At first, Grim took this for dawdling, but after a while he saw that she would take glances behind them, or veer away from the road a little way to stand atop a rise or hillock and look about.
‘Why is she doing that?’ Dog asked when he noticed her walking to a mound in the distance.
‘Elves are only small,’ Grim conjectured, ‘and therefore have many predators. I expect this is something they do to keep safe.’
‘Oh, it’s an elf thing,’ said Dog, a little dismissively.
‘Actually,’ said the wizard Sandon, overhearing the conversation, ‘Raya is one of the most respected adventurers of her generation. Her caution and care has got me through many a scrape, I can tell you.’
‘How long have you been doing this?’ Grim asked him.
‘Oh, for years. Before the Bureau even existed.’
After a bit of squabbling, Assata and Gurin agreed to leave the road and cut across country towards the first dungeon on their list. For the first couple of miles they walked through farmland and past small settlements, that clung tightly to the safety of the road. But beyond this thin zone of human habitation was wild, untamed land, that you didn’t enter without the numbers and weapons to back you up.
‘Deepwood Dungeon is in the heart of the forest,’ the barbarian explained, pointing into the distance to a treeline that was the beginning of the woodland. ‘It’s one of the closest dungeons to Mer Khazer, but most parties avoid it because you have to get through the woods to reach it. It’s not even worth considering unless you have an elven guide with you. Luckily for us, we have the best in the
business.’
Raya gave a self-conscious little salute.
They made their camp amongst the trees that evening. It wasn’t an environment much suited to ogres: the wood was a maze full of snags to trip you up and the game was small and agile. Og-Grim-Dog contented themselves with collecting wood, which Gurin turned into a blazing fire. Sandon and Brother Kane fetched water from a brook and the dwarf soon had a pot bubbling. Assata appeared with a brace of rabbits and she and Gurin paunched the animals with practised ease.
‘Good source of protein,’ commented the barbarian. ‘Just not much of it.’
Finally, Raya appeared. She had filled her knapsack with vegetables and herbs. She emptied it onto the ground for everyone to inspect. Most plentiful were long, greenish-yellow sticks that the elf called ‘carrots’. Grim thought they looked revolting, but even Dog had the manners not to openly complain about the elf’s efforts.
‘Oh, you found mushrooms?’ Assata asked, an excited tone to her voice. ‘Full of antioxidants, you know.’
‘Maybe we should throw them out, then?’ Dog suggested.
Assata laughed. ‘You are funny, Dog.’
‘I wasn’t joking,’ Dog mumbled under his breath, until Grim hushed him.
‘I haven’t seen ones that look like that before,’ Assata added.
‘Erm—yes, well, these ones tend to only grow in the Deepwood,’ said Raya.
‘Oh. We’re lucky to have you with us,’ said Assata. ‘We’ve got some rabbit. Any suggestions?’
‘The simplest way to cook rabbit well is to drown it with booze,’ said Raya.
‘Oh,’ said the barbarian, looking disappointed. ‘That’s so unhealthy. We’ve done so well with our abstinence as well, Raya.’
‘I know, it’s a shame,’ said the elf, who didn’t sound very disappointed to Grim’s ears. ‘But think how healthy the rest of the meal is.’
‘I suppose.’
And so the rabbit went in the pot with the carrots and the other vegetables, and the herbs and mushrooms as well, along with a generous helping of Kuthenian red wine. When it was served, even Dog had to admit it was a tasty stew.
From then on, Grim’s memory of the night was somewhat hazy.
Afterwards, everyone agreed that it was just as well that they had the elf with them. For the Deepwood was full of strange sights and sounds that night.
Sandon swore that the Queen of the Fairies had appeared and tried to lead him off through the trees to her realm. Fortunately, he was saved when he tripped over a tree root and knocked himself unconscious.
Assata said she had fought against foul winged demons, killing at least six of the creatures. There was no sign of their bodies the next morning, though Raya mentioned that demon corpses did have a tendency to melt away into a fine mist.
Gurin had apparently been visited by his ancestors, who had told him many ancient secrets of his race. Come morning, he struggled to remember them, except that his great-grandfather, Cracked Blurin, had in fact been a Mer-man disguised as a dwarf. Gurin insisted that this fact explained a lot, though Grim remained rather doubtful.
As for Og-Grim-Dog, they had come under attack from a giant spider. Grim distinctly remembered that Dog had seen it first, and he heard his own voice trying to reassure his brother that the spider wasn’t actually that large. Then Raya had said ‘how about now?’ and suddenly he had come face to face with its huge eyes and had screamed in terror.
Everyone agreed that while all these disturbing encounters had been taking place, an unceasing maniacal laughter had echoed throughout the forest. The more Grim thought about it, the more he thought it had sounded like Brother Kane, which made it all the more bizarre and terrifying.
It was only in the morning of the next day that their sanity returned. Grim slowly woke from a daze to find himself walking through the forest. Og and Dog were both clutching a length of rope and when Grim looked about he saw that everyone in their party had a grip of the same rope. Ahead, Raya had the rope tied about her middle and was leading them along a path that cut through the dense trees of the Deepwood.
When she heard the mumbles and muttering of her friends waking from their stupor, she stopped, and let them catch up to her. ‘We made it through the worst terrors that the Deepwood could throw at us,’ she told them. ‘Well done, everyone. This path takes us to the dungeon. We’re nearly there.’
DEEPWOOD DUNGEON: LEVEL ONE
The path ended in front of a cream-coloured building made from giant slabs of marble. Balusters rose up the length of the walls, while green moss and the climbing plants of the Deepwood had made the exterior their home.
Grim’s eyes were drawn to the archway that led inside the building. Beyond it was shadow, somehow both inviting and foreboding at the same time. Sitting just above the archway was a peaked marble roof and either side of it two decorative pillars. When Grim looked closer, he saw that what he had taken for pillars were actually marble statues, both of them worn and chipped. But he could clearly see that they were hooded figures, with both hands on the hilt of a sword that ran vertically down, so that the point of the blade was inches above the ground.
‘Deepwood Dungeon,’ said Gurin with some reverence. ‘A fitting challenge for our first dungeon crawl together.’
Without being told to, everyone in the party made last minute adjustments to their packs and armour. Weapons that had been carried on backs or at belts were now in hands. Tension gripped Grim’s belly. Once they passed under that archway, they had to be ready.
They looked at one another for a few seconds more. They all knew that they would have to work as a team; rely on each other to survive. It was good to look your friends in the eye before you stepped into Gehenna.
‘Let’s do this,’ said Assata. Her voice was quiet but steady.
The barbarian went first, the dwarf at her shoulder. Og-Grim-Dog went third. These were the fighters of the group. Behind them, Sandon, Kane and Raya offered a different skill set.
Assata put one foot through the arch, legs bent and balanced, strong and supple.
‘Steady now,’ Gurin whispered. ‘Let me have a look at what we have here.’
He inched past the barbarian and peered into the darkness. He waited a while. Gurin probably had the best eyes for seeing underground, but he still needed to let them adjust to the sudden lack of light. The others waited for him. Grim could see Dog’s knuckles whiten as he gripped his mace hard, ready to react if needed.
‘A corridor to the left and right,’ whispered Gurin at last. ‘Empty. Something odd looking to the left. I’m going to investigate. Wait here for me. I won’t be long.’
The dwarf disappeared into the pitch black of the dungeon. They waited for him to return, the time dragging. Grim saw Raya look back into the forest behind them, her fingers on her bowstring, an anxious expression on her face.
Gurin’s face reappeared at the archway.
‘There’s a pit trap to the left,’ he said, pitching his voice just loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘Quite elaborate looking. It would take a long time to dismantle. I presume its sole purpose is to catch out unwary adventurers, and that the denizens of the dungeon follow the corridor to the right. That means we can probably access the whole of the dungeon that way. Is everyone agreed?’
Everyone nodded. The layout Gurin described made sense to Grim. Multiple access points would simply make the dungeon more vulnerable. This way, trespassers would be funnelled in a single direction.
Tentatively, Assata and Gurin moved into the corridor and turned right. Grim followed them. The corridor was only just wide enough to comfortably walk down. Maybe that’s a good thing, Grim told himself. It suggested that they wouldn’t find anything much bigger than an ogre.
When they were all in the corridor they waited, trying to get used to the sudden lack of light. It was the only way to do it. Grim had witnessed first time trespassers trying to creep through a dungeon carrying torches. It never ended well for them. It wasn’t just
that the dungeon dwellers saw them coming. They heard them, too—coughing and spluttering from the fumes that the torches released in a closed space. It was one of the reasons dwarves and halflings and the like were so sought after in the world of adventuring. Their eyes were a match for most anyone, or anything.
Grim’s weren’t so bad either. He began to make out smoothly cut walls on each side. Above, the ceiling joined at a perfect right angle. Whoever had originally built this place, for whatever purpose, they had known what they were doing.
They began to move along the dark corridor. Ogres are physically unable to creep, or sneak, but Grim did his best to move quietly, aware that he was making much more noise than anyone else.
They came upon two wooden doors, directly opposite one another. Almost certainly guard rooms, typically full of the most expendable soldier in the dungeon.
Grim knew there were two main schools of thought when it came to guard rooms. Firstly, sneak past and head for the lower levels of the dungeon, where the valuable items would be stashed. This approach suited groups full of thieves and other rogues. Second option, charge in and neutralise them as quickly as possible, so that they don’t get in your way when you’re leaving the dungeon. This approach seemed to be much the better fit for their party.
Assata invited Og-Grim-Dog to the door on the left. Grim felt honoured. The barbarian stood ready with her sword on the far side of the door, the dwarf with his axe on the near side. The elf put an arrow to her bowstring. The cleric smiled, and the wizard nodded nervously.
Grim leaned back a little and then kicked at the door with the sole of his foot. He followed it into the room. Goblins. About ten of them. Grim didn’t stop, instead moving towards the far end of the room, leaving space for the others to get into. As the goblins screamed their challenges and came for them, it was Og and Dog’s turn to act. Og thrust his pike at the enemy, threatening to skewer them with the sharp spearhead. Dog waved his mace about, aiming to connect with a massive blow. He caught a goblin that got too close, sending it crashing to the floor.
Og-Grim-Dog- the Three-Headed Ogre Page 4
