by Robert Bevan
When the shopping was done, Dusty Sheglin was waiting for them outside.
“All ready to go?” he said chirpily.
“What?” said Dave. “Like, right now?”
“How many opportunities pass us by with each passing second we don’t spend living life to the fullest, my fine furry friend? By the way, you must tell me what happened to your arm there.”
Dave quickly crossed his arms, hiding his leopard-furred left forearm under his right. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Old Cardinia, as it turned out, was just beyond the part of town the Whore’s Head Inn was located in. They could have popped in for a drink if they’d had a mind to, but Tim thought better of making the suggestion. This Dusty Sheglin character seemed pretty eager to get on with his redemption. The terrain transitioned from slummy shithole to lush grassland surprisingly quickly. The grass was thick and green, punctuated here and there by smooth, sun-bleached white stones, and the soil felt moist and rich beneath Tim’s bare halfling feet. It was hard to believe that they were still within the borders of the city.
Dusty Sheglin stopped at the edge of a two-foot-high stone wall. Whatever purpose this wall had served was likely long forgotten. It was maybe one hundred feet long, and neither end seemed to mark anything special. “Here we are.”
“This is the spooky abandoned tomb?” asked Tim. “I’ve got to admit, I was prepared for something a bit worse.”
“This is only the entrance,” said Dusty.
“Where?” said Dave. “Behind the wall?”
“We’re still inside the city walls,” said Julian. “If there’s an entrance to a catacomb full of monsters around here, what’s keeping them from getting loose in the city?”
“The main entrance to the catacombs are miles beyond the city walls,” said Dusty. “This is a secret entrance, hidden well on both sides, unknown to man or beast except for me… and soon you as well.”
“I’m sorry,” said Tim. He looked over his shoulder, panic rising inside him. Something was wrong about this. “This feels like bullshit. There’s no entrance to a catacomb here. There’s just grass, some rocks, and a wall. What’s your game, dude? What do you want with us? Why have you brought us here?” He loaded a bolt into his crossbow, making sure not to point it directly at Dusty. Hopefully the gesture would convey the message that the time for fucking around had come and gone.
“Relax, little friend,” said Dusty, flashing his warm smile. “There is no game here. My vows forbid me to bear false witness. Lying to you now would only negate this quest for redemption that I’m on.”
“So where’s this secret entrance?” Tim demanded.
“I’m sitting on it.”
“The wall?”
“That’s right.”
“Show me.”
Dusty stood up on the very edge of the wall and pointed at Cooper. “You there, big fellow. Would you kindly stand on that rock for me?”
Cooper looked down quizzically at the large white stone he was standing next to. Tim’s mistrust of this cleric had apparently gained some traction, because Cooper looked to Tim for approval before acting. Tim nodded, and Cooper stepped on the stone.
“There’s a good lad” said Dusty. “Now if the dwarf may be allowed to come over to the other side of the wall and stand on this stone over here.” He pointed down, presumably at a stone, but the wall blocked Tim’s view.
“Stay where we can see you,” cautioned Tim.
“The wall is not that high,” said Dusty. “I assure you, he will never leave your sight.”
Dave walked around to the other side of the wall until he found the place Dusty had been pointing to. “Hey, it moved.”
“Very observant of you,” said Dusty. “Most people could step on that stone all day and never notice it. Ready, halfling?”
“Ready for what?” said Tim.
“It’s your turn. There’s a very small stone buried in the grass somewhere about five feet behind you. See if you can find it.”
Tim dragged his feet as he walked, hoping to catch the stone with his feet if he missed it with his eyes. He only spent a minute or two searching before he found it. “Am I supposed to stand on it?”
Dusty nodded.
Against his better judgment, Tim stepped onto the stone. If he hadn’t been anticipating it, he never would have noticed the stone sink into the ground about a quarter of an inch.
“Very good,” said Dusty. “Now mind none of you move. This won’t work unless everyone is playing their part. Elf, I need you to run over to the other end of the wall. There, right on the edge, you’ll find one stone which is just a shade darker than the rest. I need you to push that in and hold it. Can you do that?”
“Sure,” said Julian. He ran enthusiastically to the other side of the wall. Ravenus flew along beside him. “Found it!” he called back.
“Give it a push!” Dusty shouted. “And remember to hold it down!”
Julian was too far away for Tim to see what he was doing, but whatever it was must have worked. Dusty smiled and waved bye-bye to Tim as the section of wall he was standing on,, about a foot long, began to sink slowly into the earth. When it was halfway down, the next pat of the wall started to descend. When Dusty’s feet reached ground level, the third bit started. It was forming a staircase. It didn’t make all of the noise of stone scraping against mortar that Tim would have expected. It was no noisier than an elevator.
“When you hear it stop,” said Dusty as his waist sank out of view, “you’ll want to be quick on your feet. As soon as one of you leaves your position, it’ll start to rise again. It’s faster than it looks.”
Tim watched impatiently as, section by section, the wall sank into the ground. He started working on a game plan in his head. “Okay guys,” he called out. “Here’s what we’re going to do. On three, we’re all going to book it to the top stair. Dave, you’re the slowest, so you do the count.”
“One!” shouted Dave.
“No!” said Tim. “You have to wait for the goddamn wall to stop first.”
“Oh right,” said Dave. “Sorry, I’m a little nervous.”
“Cooper,” said Tim. “You’re the fastest, so you’re going to carry me.”
“Got it,” said Cooper.
“Anything for me?” asked Julian.
“Just run like a son of a bitch.”
After another minute or two, the whirring stopped.
“It’s finished!” Julian called out.
“Come on down!” shouted Dusty. His voice echoed out of the ground like he was in a subway tunnel. A really really deep subway tunnel.
Dave rubbed his hands together. “Okay, here we go. One! Two!” He jumped off his rock and set off for the staircase as quickly as he could. “Three!” He walked like a man trying to look dignified while trying to make it to the bathroom before he shits himself.
Dusty hadn’t been lying about the stairs rising again. Tim heard the whirring before he even started running, his eyes on that first step. He just barely glimpsed the tips of Julian’s ears disappear below the surface with Ravenus flapping right behind him.
Cooper stood at the edge of the stairwell, frantically waving his arm at Tim. “Come on, man! Hurry the fuck up!”
“I’m going as fast as I can!” Tim shouted back. “Cut me some slack. I’m only three fucking feet tall!”
Dave made it to the stairs and hopped down. Cooper ran toward Tim, scooped him up, and ran toward the middle of the hundred-foot-long hole in the ground.
“What the hell are you doing?” cried Tim.
“Shortcut!” said Cooper.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I’m very angry!”
“I don’t give a fu—”
Tim’s breath was cut off suddenly by Cooper’s expanding bicep and pectoral muscle squeezing the air out of him.
“Brace yourself,” said Cooper. His voice was several octaves lower than normal. The big idiot had gone into Barbarian Ra
ge.
“Cooper,” Tim was barely able to squeak the words out. “What are you doing?”
“We’ve got to get ahead of Dave, or he’ll slow us down.”
Tim wanted to make one last effort to talk some sense into Cooper, but was distracted by his body being jerked around. One second he was facing forward with a clear view of the pain that undoubtedly lay ahead of him, and the next his vision was completely obscured by a face full of half-orc nipple. And then the bouncing of Cooper’s stride stopped. They were airborne. Cooper roared like a drunk grizzly doing a cannonball off the high dive. Tim had heard once that the last thing a person sees before they die is imprinted on their retina. He didn’t want to leave this body behind, his eyes scarred forever with the image of a huge and hairy nipple.
“What the fu—”
Dave’s voice disappeared beneath a cacophony of armor against stone against weapon against rolling bodies, mixed together with a healthy dose of swearing from Cooper. Tim was happy to note that there was surprisingly little pain. At least, not for him. For all his idiocy, the big brute had managed to keep him protectively cradled during the fall. As they tumbled down the stairs, Tim also reflected thankfully that Dusty had been chosen to carry the oil flasks and Julian the food. Cooper, being the strongest, could easily have carried everything, but nobody trusted him with the oil or wanted to eat anything that had been in his bag.
The last leg of the fall was a drop that couldn’t have been any higher than seven or eight feet. Cooper released Tim from his sweaty embrace. The dank, musty air of the catacombs smelled like a spring meadow by comparison.
Julian kicked Cooper lightly in the ribs.
“Ow,” Cooper groaned. The rage had left him.
“Get up, you crazy bastard,” Julian demanded. “What was that all about?”
“I thought the extra Hit Points I got from raging would absorb the fall,” said Cooper.
“Those go away as soon as the rage ends,” said Tim. “Any damage you sustain remains afterward.”
“I know that now,” said Cooper. “I think I broke my ass.”
Dave rolled onto his back. “I think you broke my ass too.”
Dusty Sheglin put his hands on his hips and looked down at Cooper. “Do you think it’s wise to alert the entire labyrinth of catacombs to our presence all at once?”
“You did say we should hurry,” said Tim.
“I meant that you shouldn’t dilly dally,” said Dusty. “I didn’t mean for you to free fall all the way down.”
“Quit your moaning and dole out some healing, cleric,” said Cooper. “My ass hurts.”
Dusty looked away and crossed his arms over his breastplate. “The order has stripped me of all my clerical powers. They shan’t be restored until my quest for redemption is complete.”
“What a bunch of dicks,” said Cooper. “How about it, Dave?”
“Yeah sure,” said Dave. He and Cooper touched fingers. “I heal thee.” He touched himself on the temple. “I heal me.”
“That’s just great,” said Tim. “We haven’t been here five minutes, and we’re already down two Heal spells and one Barbarian Rage. Oh, and our other cleric is useless.” He looked up. It was too late to turn back. The stairs had ascended beyond any of their reach and were now starting to block out the sunlight from outside. “Someone light up a torch.”
After a few false starts, Dave managed to catch a spark from his tinderbox on the tallow-soaked flax atop one of their torches just as the last step sealed away the sunlight. He held the lit torch over his head. The room they were currently standing in was made of the same kind of stones as the wall outside had been. The effect for someone discovering this room from within the catacombs, once the stairs had ascended again, would be that they had just run into a dead end, albeit one with a curiously high ceiling. Dave held out his torch to Tim. “Here you go.”
“Keep it,” said Tim.
“I don’t need it. I have Darkvision.”
“I’m a rogue,” said Tim. “I need to stay out of sight if I’m going to get my Sneak Attack bonus.”
Dusty smiled and shook his head. “I must say, you gentlemen have a peculiar way of talking.”
The ceiling sloped down sharply as they walked down the corridor until it evened out around the twelve foot mark, about half as tall again as Cooper. The ceiling was featureless but for two small stalactites.
“That’s odd,” said Dave. “This isn’t a natural tunnel. There shouldn’t be any stalactites.”
“Complain to the manager,” said Tim, looking up at the stalactites as he and Cooper passed under them. Without warning, the stalactite above Tim let go of the ceiling and fell. Halfway down, it opened up like a tentacle umbrella. Tim barely managed to jump out of its way.
“The fuck?” said Cooper. And then his face was covered by a black squid-like creature wrapping its leathery tentacles around his neck and shoulders.
“Cooper!” shouted Julian.
“Grrmblfrrkbrr!” Cooper responded.
The black squid-thing which had failed to land on Tim’s face waved its circumference of webbed tentacles in a fast clockwise motion that caught air beneath it. It flew back up to the ceiling. It would have been a remarkable thing to behold if its friend wasn’t suffocating the life out of Cooper.
Julian tried to beat the creature off of Cooper’s face with his quarterstaff, but Cooper was thrashing around so wildly that most of Julian’s blows struck him instead.
Tim loaded a bolt into his hand crossbow, all the while keeping a careful eye on the strange creature which had once again taken the form of a stalactite on the ceiling. When it dropped again, Tim was ready for it. He easily rolled out of the way. When the twice-foiled creature tried to retreat upward again, Tim unloaded his bolt into the membrane between its tentacles. It’s flight pattern interrupted, it spiraled out of control, crashed into the wall, and fell to the floor.
It immediately started trying to fly again, but Tim was having none of it. He pulled out the dagger he kept hidden in his boot and jumped the little black squid-bitch. It was dead long before he stopped stabbing it. When he finally ran out of breath, he took a break and turned to the others.
Ravenus was pecking at the discarded remains of the other creature, which Dave, Dusty, and Julian had apparently managed to remove from Cooper’s face. They were all staring at Tim in wide-eyed wonder.
“Sorry,” said Tim. He felt the warm blood rushing into his cheeks. “It was like a bat fucked a squid. It freaked me out, that’s all.”
“What are those?” asked Julian.
“Darkmantles,” said Dusty. “More of a nuisance than anything. Shall we move along?”
Another forty feet down the passage, they met another stone wall. Dead end.
“Well I guess that’s that,” said Cooper. “It’s been real.”
“This has to be a secret door,” said Tim. “There’s got to be some stone you push to open it or something.”
“I think I know where it is,” said Dave. “Cooper, hold this.” He handed Cooper his torch and touched the end of a second torch to the flame. The fire glowed bright for a moment, and then relaxed again as Dave waddled back the way they’d come from. “I’ll be right back!”
When the glow of each torch were barely still touching, Dave stopped. A second later, the stone wall blocking their way began to slide upward.
“He did it!” said Tim.
“Shh!” hissed Dusty.
“He did it!” Tim whispered it this time.
Dusty poked his head into a corridor running perpendicular to the passage they were in. “Come on,” he said, stepping through the secret doorway.
Tim, Julian and Cooper followed him, and the stone wall began to slide back down again.
“Hey guys!” said Dave. “Wait for me!”
“Julian, quick!” said Tim. “Your quarterstaff!”
Julian propped his staff under the doorway. The stone door didn’t even stutter as it smashed the stick
into splinters. “Well, shit.”
The secret door was completely closed again before Dave was able to get anywhere near it. Cooper tried to push up on it, but it wasn’t budging.
“Well, shit,” Julian repeated. “Now what do we do?”
“Maybe there’s a button on this side too,” said Tim. The stones were much smoother in this corridor. Even the stones on this side of the secret door were polished. When the door shut, the stones lined up perfectly with the rest of the wall. He thought that if he looked away, he might not even be able to find the door again. It was a fruitless pursuit. None of the stones looked unique. Everyone fanned out to push on random parts of the walls, but it had no effect. A moment later, the door slid upward once again.
