“Actually,” I said, “I came about the centipedes.”
Marrisa’s look of alarm returned in force. “Oh no, child! You leave those nasty things alone. I’m sure they’ll go away eventually, yes, yes, most things do. Here, here.” She tried to shoo me towards a wooden step stool. “Have a seat. I’ll find you something.”
“Marrisa!” Ishàmae returned in force, his mixing bowl now dark with what I assumed was the buckwheat. A sooty splash of it adorned his white double-buttoned coat, but he seemed oblivious. “Where are the— oh, hello, Samiel.”
“I brought your muffin tin back. You don’t have to fine Ramsey for a new one.” I said in a hurry. “And I’d like to have a go at those centipedes. For some gold. Two gold.” I tried not to fidget. How would Ramsey negotiate this?
“Please-would-you!” Ishàmae waved his hands triumphantly, causing a temporary shower of flour dust. “See Mari, I told you, today our fortunes turn! Samiel has come just in time, yes, and she will make our house safe again. And I will have access to my wine cellar! I will not need to rely on inferior vintages!”
Marissa seemed somewhat hesitant about this endeavor. “Are you sure you want to go down there all by yourself?” she asked me.
“It’s ok, I’m used to being by myself.”
She seemed unconvinced, but Ishàmae had swept off, calling over his shoulder. “Two gold! And use anything you find down there, if it helps you exterminate those things. Except—” His head poked back around the hanging pot confection. “Do not touch my wines!”
With this, he was gone again, leaving Marrisa and I to exchange the slightly bewildered looks that seemed to follow in Ishàmae’s wake.
[Quest accepted: Bugs in the Basement]
“Well then.” she said after a moment. “Well then. If you’re sure, I’d better see you to the cellar, I suppose. This way.”
She led me out to the overhung patio area, and I saw a low doorway off to the side of the wicker chair. Marrisa pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked it for me.
“You be careful down there, you hear.” she said, putting the keys away. “There’s a light just inside on your right. You’ll need it, as I keep this door shut. And if you have any trouble with those creepy things, you just come right back up here, I don’t want to see you end up like the last poor fellow.” She sniffed, offended at some memory. “Even if he was rude.”
I reached out and opened the door. Steep stone steps led downwards into the still air. I saw the lantern hanging on the wall. I turned and nodded to Marrisa, then went in. She shut the door behind me.
The door to the basement was a snug fit. So snug, in fact, none of the fading twilight slipped in at all, and I realized as I waited for my eyes to adjust that I had no idea how to use the lantern in my hands.
I’ve never been afraid of the dark. Certainly not the clear, cold night of the desert, wide open and lit by uncountable stars. This though… this was a still, closed darkness, like the buried tunnels of the tombs.
A waiting darkness.
My eyes did not adjust, because there was no light to adjust to. I took several deep breaths. The air was damp, and smelled of stone.
I carefully felt up the metal and glass contraption in my hands. It seemed pretty solid, no openings or screws or caps that suggested you put in oil or candles, just a series of runes running along the base.
I felt the runes more carefully. They almost seemed to mean something; a murmured message, not quite heard, tracks to the oasis, obscured by blowing sands.
The wind taught me riddles before I could walk, I reminded myself. This isn’t any harder.
I closed my eyes (for concentration, rather than because it had any effect), and really felt the runes. I let them whisper beneath my fingers, let the barely heard thought float gently into my mind, let the hushed syllables surface…
“Shah… schir… zirri…” I mumbled, and the runes tingled when I got them almost right. There. “Shaziri!” I exclaimed, and the small sunstone in the middle of the lamp flared to life, casting a steady yellow glow back at me.
[Skill acquired: Improvise Magic Device]
“But surely wizards make these things?” I turned the lantern around in my hands. It looked mostly like an ordinary oil lamp, but three of the glass panels had been mirrored to throw the light forward. The handle felt cool in my grip, as it drew on my body heat to keep itself lit.
“Maybe they know something we don’t?”
I began my descent into the basement. I supposed the narrow stairway would have been cramped for a human or an elf, but I held the lantern high as I made my way down. A dozen feet along, the stairs ended in a packed earth floor and the walls opened up into a low ceilinged room. Carved pillars here and there rose out of the floor to support the stone above me, and I was reminded of my earlier suspicion that the restaurant above was only part of whatever this building had once been. Before it got buried, apparently.
Here underground, I couldn’t help but think of the buried tombs of the desert, and the long forgotten dead interred within; monuments to the fact that a grave was the ultimate fate of all things, of people and their buildings and their cities and their ambitions. Will it be mine?
I pulled one of my daggers out of my sleeve and held it lightly by my side as I explored the room. Not today, it won’t. A hallway off to my right gaped rather ominously, but I chose the doorway ahead and to the left. I didn’t like the idea of leaving rooms uncleared behind me.
I swore that out of the corner of my eye I saw something move. I whirled to my left, dagger upraised, but saw only the swinging shadows caused by my lantern. Soft skittering noises were muted by the earthen floor.
“Sure.” I muttered back. “Except I bet Isha tolerates rats in his kitchen even less than he tolerates collapsed Plumeshire Puddings.”
Neither did I. I abandoned my search of the big room and turned towards the closed wooden door in front of me. It opened easily on well greased hinges, revealing racks and racks of old bottles of wine. Isha had said not to touch them, so I didn’t, but I figured what he probably really meant was Don’t let any creepy giant bugs touch them either, which necessitated at least me going in and checking things out. Most of the bottles had a layer of dust on them, but some had readable labels, carefully scripted handwriting listing places I’d never heard of, dated in a calendar I didn’t recognize.
Dominae of the Imperial Coast, year of the Firebird. Iron Crown Castle, east Vineyards, year of the Bat. Silverthorne Valley, year of the Falling Star…
…skitterskitterskitter…
I spun around again and this time I did see something, escaping through a crack in the wall, segmented legs the size of my finger in disappearing yellow and black. I ran over, my bare feet making no noise on the dirt floor, but saw nothing once I got there. I shone my lantern into to the crack in the wall and noticed it opened, barely, into the empty basement room I had been in a moment ago. I abandoned the wine cellar and ran back out, shining my lantern along the wall, looking for the crack, or a centipede. Cummon, you little bug, you were just here a moment ago.
I widened my search area and bega
n scanning the rest of the room…
[Perception check: Success]
… and dodged desperately out of the way as it detached from the ceiling and tried to drop on my head. I swung my dagger wildly as it fell, getting in one glancing blow, but it landed otherwise unimpeded, curling and hissing at me. It was as long as my arm, stripped dull red and shiny black and aposematic yellow. The thing darted at me, whipcrack fast, and I pulled both my legs off the ground just in time to avoid the poison mandibles.
[Dodge check: Success]
The centipede made a queasy “s” shape and then whipped its way across the floor, under my frantically levitating legs, and away behind me.
“I thought you said nothing gets above a twenty without magic?”
And that is no natural bug. I landed facing the other direction, and again, there was no sign of the centipede.
[Perception check: Failed]
Hmm. Instead, I knelt down and looked at the tracks it left behind on the dirt floor, a slithering parallel ribbon of neatly stitched dots from its needle sharp legs.
[Hunting check: Success]
The ribbon led off to the hallway, and I followed, muffling the lantern with my hand. Though the light was a happy warm yellow color, the metal lantern itself was uneasily cool. I crept up to the wall and peeked around the opening, and very slowly opened my hand, carefully spilling the glow down the corridor, like a surreptitious sunrise.
The centipede pressed flat along the bottom of another wooden doorway, antennae waving as it sought entrance. Making no sudden movements, I drew my arm back, took aim, and let fly.
My dagger hit it right between two segments, burying itself in the bug’s otherwise armored body, and pinning it to the door. The centipede began writhing and thrashing, threatening to jerk loose my dagger. I leapt forward before the big bug could get away. It snapped at me, rolling its long body like a wave, and finally dislodged the dagger, which fell to the floor. Mobile again, it curled itself to strike, but it was clearly slowing. Before it could recover, I took my other dagger and spiked it just behind the head, again between two segments, and then danced back out of the way of any retaliatory tail strikes. Do centipedes even have venomous tails?
The bug completed its death throes with one final, thrashing inversion.
[Bugs in the Basement: Quest update!]
[Exterminate the centipedes: 1/?]
Gotcha! I thought triumphantly. I gathered up my daggers, and used one to carry the centipede’s body, held at arm’s length, back over beside the entry stairs. I didn’t want to accidentally step on it if I had to exit this hallway in a hurry later.
“Let’s see what you were trying to get into.” I mused as I came back to the door. It too opened easily, latchless, though not quite as smoothly as the wine cellar door. On the other side was a small room with a haphazard stack of old furniture, some shelves, and a few boxes. A clearly new addition to the room was a large painting in a gilded frame, not yet dusty, which sat facing the far wall. I went over and took a look.
The painting was of a large, fluffy white cat, with tawny ears and tail, and the barest ghost of cream colored tabby stripes in his thick fur. He stared arrogantly out of the painting, displaying a blue collar with the name “Pequod” stitched into it with gold thread.
I swallowed a lump in my throat at the thought of someone who doted on their cat enough to commission this portrait, only to have the self-absorbed little bastard run away. No wonder Isha doesn’t want another kitten. I put the painting back under the thick-glassed, grimy window high on the wall, and turned towards the next object of interest, a small oaken chest, bound with iron, now going rusty.
The chest was locked.
“Maybe it’s locked for a reason.” I mused in disappointment.
“Yeah, but I’m sure he didn’t mean to just start smashing our way into stuff.”
“You’re the worst conscience ever.” I muttered, and then hit the rusty lock with the pommel of my dagger. It clicked open with a snap.
I opened the lid of the chest.
Inside was some folded silk, once a solid and beautiful dusk blue, but now water-stained silver grey and puddle green. Underneath the silk was a coin purse, empty—
—and underneath that was a pair of finely tooled, soft leather boots. Small moonstones adorned the back of each heel. I ran my fingers over the gemstones and felt the slight tug of magic in them.
[Improvise Magic Device check: Success]
Higher! they whispered at me. Faster! Step as softly as moonlight, lightly, lightly, away! Gravity is stupid!
Do I dare?
…skitterskitterskitter…
Yep! I decided, jamming my bare feet into the boots. To my delight, they fit exactly, contouring themselves to my heels and gently spreading around my toes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a red and yellow blur wriggle its way down the hallway. I leapt after it, and my newly weightless feet somersaulted over my head, bucking me out the door and up against the hallway wall. I managed to use my knees and elbows to absorb the blow, then landed on my outstretched hands as I slid down the wall.
[Jump check: Failed]
This is so cool! I thought as I gently turned my handstand into a back walkover. Now, to carefully lower my feet so they don’t erupt underneath me…
An upside down pair of segmented red feelers appeared in my vision, followed by a darting set of red and yellow mandibles. I startled as the hissing centipede snapped at my pale, exposed fingers, and landed heavily on my heels, which absorbed the force of my landing, multiplied it, and sent it back up my legs with interest. Panicked at the thought of all that energy geysering me right into the ceiling, I leaned forward and let it bleed out in centripetal motion, executing a neat triple somersault in mid-air before sticking a three point landing using only my toes and splayed left hand.
I was unable to suppress a triumphant grin, although the bug in front of me was oblivious to my astonishing aerobatics. Making no sudden movements, I knelt, then stood, keeping my weight on my toes, making sure the lantern didn’t swing. The centipede wafted its feelers over the floor, trying to read my position in the subliminal tremors in the dirt. It’s blind. I realized. It was not the light which had alerted it to my presence, but my footsteps.
Trying not to stand too heavily, I kept my balance forward and drew out my dagger. Possibly alerted by some faint scuffing of my toes, or possibly having just run to the end of its limited attention span, the centipede gave up its search, turned, and whipped off into the darkness of the unexplored hallway.
I vaulted after it. My feet barely touched the ground as I flew down the hall, and in spite of the giant insects unnatural speed, I overtook it as we reached the T-shaped intersection. I stabbed at it, missed, and it came back at me with a sideways swipe of its pinchers, the venomous mandibles scraping at my knuckles. A hot numbness immediately began spreading along the back of my hand.
Uh oh.
I knew better than to try and suck venom out of a wound (if you don’t want it in your blood, you don’t want it in your mouth, either), and putting a tourniquet on anything not already bleeding to death is pretty much always a bad idea. Instead, I swapped
my dagger and my lantern and dropped my hand to hang beside my waist, well below the level of my heart.
“Permanent what?” I asked, outraged. I’m going to kill that monster bug. I’m going to stab it dead and then burn its stupid poisonous dead body.
Quenching my panic in anger, I raised my dagger and stood still. For a moment all I heard was the distant clink of toasting glassware and gentle voices from the dining room above.
…skitterskitterskitter…
There! At the end of the right branch of the hallway was another wooden door, with the tail end of the centipede pulling away underneath it. One bounce of the heels and I was there too. This door was locked, or at least stuck fast in its frame. I snarled at it, thought for a moment, and then hopped both feet up and planted a double heeled kick right below the latch. The door and I had a mutual rebound as I shot backwards and hit the wall behind me while it flew open on its hinges, banging against a wooden crate inside the small storage room.
[Jump check: Partial success]
[-1 Hit Point: Bludgeoning damage]
[Hit Points: 7/8]
Ouch.
My quarry was perched on the side of another wooden crate, part of a pile stacked all the way towards the ceiling. I stepped forward, pausing just inside the doorway, and threw my dagger. It pierced the carapace near the back end of the creature, but the angle of attack carried my dagger onwards without pinning the centipede to the box. Wounded, it hissed and began scurrying around the crate, so I drew my second dagger and stalked forward, intent on my prey. So intent, I didn’t see the second centipede as it came at me from behind the door, until its multitude of black tipped legs stitched across my feet and wound around my leg, up the inside of my thigh, and it snapped at the soft flesh of my torso.
A Fist Full of Sand: A Book of Cerulea (Sam's Song 1) Page 6
