by Robert Bevan
“I don’t think he saw shit,” said Cooper. “Look at him.”
A small gust of wind blew the hair out of the man’s face for a second, revealing his lack of eyes.
“I know these guys!” Julian whispered excitedly. “We saw some of their skulls in the tree.”
“That’s really fucking interesting,” said Tim. “Now keep your voice down.”
The eyeless creature sniffed the air, turning his head left and right. Could he smell intruders? Would he soon have four new decorations for his tree? Tim held his breath. The creature walked vaguely, but not directly, toward them, stopping once again to sniff the air when he was about a quarter of the way between the temple entrance and the edge of the jungle. He dumped the contents of his bucket, a lumpy brown liquid, on the ground.
Tim thought he heard faint scratching and clawing sounds, but couldn’t see anything to account for them.
The creature lifted the front of his loincloth and started to piss. The sound of his urine hitting the ground seemed off by a fraction of a second. Were Tim’s ears playing tricks on him? Then there was a hiss. Tim was sure he heard that, but couldn’t account for the source. The only candidate was the creepy blind guy taking a leak, and he looked like he was really enjoying it because he was laughing. His laughter was deep and throaty. Whatever had hissed, it certainly wasn’t him. Having finished his business, he picked up his pail and went back inside.
Tim exhaled. “Hey Dave. This goddess, Yolo Honey.”
“Yulu Hari,” said Dave.
“Whatever. Is she a good goddess or an evil goddess.”
“She’s neutral.”
“That figures.” Tim stood up and looked into the clearing. “I suppose hoping she was good was a longshot. Not that it matters much. These guys aren’t going to – Wait a second.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Julian.
“Where’s that dude’s piss puddle? And the shit he dumped on the ground?” The clearing was flat and featureless.
Julian shrugged. “Is that really the most interesting thing you feel you’ve seen today?”
“I just think it’s strange that it’s not there. Don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” said Julian. “Maybe he kicked some dirt over it.”
Cooper rubbed his belly. “I’ve got a good one brewing if you want to watch.”
“Jesus, Cooper!” said Tim. “Why would you even –” His whole body shuddered. “I really didn’t need that image in my head.”
“Listen guys,” said Julian. “We don’t know how much daylight we’ve got left, or when the next full moon is. So maybe we should stop screwing around.”
“We need a plan,” said Tim. “We can’t just walk in there blindly.”
Julian grinned and nudged Cooper with his elbow. “I think we all just witnessed evidence to the contrary.”
Everyone frowned at Julian.
“‘Cause he’s got no eyes,” Julian explained. “He walked in there blindly.”
“Meh,” said Cooper. “It’s funnier than a Dave joke.”
“Hey!” said Dave.
Tim put his hands on his hips and glared at Julian. “Wasn’t someone just saying something about how we should stop screwing around?”
“Sorry.”
“Let’s get to the entrance first and figure out how to proceed from there. Keep your voices down. These things are blind, which probably means they have an excellent sense of hearing. So stay close, and stay quiet.”
Tim started walking into the clearing as silently as he could. Julian walked ahead with him, while Cooper and Dave lagged behind a few yards.
“That guy was sniffing the air a lot,” Julian whispered to Tim. “They probably have a good sense of smell as well.”
“Speaking of which, do you smell that?” The air was suddenly ripe with the stench of sewage. It was like they just walked into a cloud of concentrated Cooper. “Where the fuck is that coming frooooo—”
Splat.
Tim turned over. He’d fallen at least ten feet and landed on his face, but he wasn’t hurt. His fall had been broken by a soft layer of… He looked at his hands, then at the ground around him. “Shit!”
“Tim?” said Julian. He was standing on the side of the trench, staring down, but not at Tim. The ground was an illusion. Tim could see out, having fallen through it, but Julian couldn’t see in.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” said Tim. He was covered in soupy excrement. He could feel it seeping into the hundreds of tiny cuts the jungle plants had given him.
“Where are you?” Julian asked. He turned around. “I don’t know. He just disappeared. He’s around here somewhere. He keeps saying Shit.”
Tim was about to break down and start crying when he saw a familiar face. About twenty feet away from him, a dire rat snarled and bared its brown, shit-stained teeth. Behind it, two more giant rats stared at him through their beady little demon eyes. The largest of the three had a face full of wet fur, and looked none too pleased about it. Tim had faced stronger, more objectively terrifying creatures than these Rottweiler-sized rodents, but since one of their kind had been the first creature in this world to nearly kill him, he had a special terror reserved just for them.
“Ro – Ro – Ro –”
“…your boat?” asked Julian.
“Rope!” Tim remembered he had a rope in his bag. He reached inside, grabbed the coil of rope, wrapped his wrist with one end, and threw the rest of the coil up out of the trench.
“Hey,” said Julian. “That’s incredible. How did you do that?”
“Pull the goddamn rope!”
The rope pulled him up by the arm just in time to avoid the first rat lunge. The piss-face rat jumped up at him, though, catching his left pant leg.
Tim’s vision went wonky as Julian and the dire rat played tug-of-war with him. His head kept bobbing up over the surface of the illusory ground, making it appear as if he was buried up to the neck. And then the rat would pull harder, and he’d see the horrifying reality below.
Dave tipped the scales in the tug-of-war game. He and Julian pulled Tim up out of the trench. The rat’s head was now the one bobbing above and below the surface of the illusion as it held on to Tim’s pant leg. It looked like a glitchy computer game.
Cooper finally grabbed the dire rat, pulled it away from Tim, and body slammed it back into the trench.
Julian wiped sweat off his forehead. “I guess that explains what the log is for.”
“Cooper,” said Tim. “This trench is about ten feet wide. Do you think you could jump that?”
“No sweat,” said Cooper. “There aren’t a whole lot of Strength-based skills, so I put all my points into Swim, Climb, and Jump. I could make that jump with Dave’s mom hanging on my dick.”
Dave shook his head. “That doesn’t even mean anything. That was just purposeless vulgarity.”
Tim got on his hands and knees and pawed at the ground until he found the edge. “Okay, Cooper. Get a running start. The edge is here where my hand is.”
Cooper ran, jumped, and landed easily on the other side of the invisible trench. As strong as he was, it took every point of Strength he had to lift that log up to a standing position. He carefully felt for the edge of the trench with his foot as he rolled the vertical log into place, then let it fall to the other side, bridging the trench.
Tim and Julian crossed the log with ease. Dave had a tougher time of it, and nearly lost his balance at the end, but Cooper caught him by the arm and pulled him safely the rest of the way.
“Well here we are,” said Julian. “Who wants to go in first?”
“I’m going in alone,” said Tim. “Can you make me a light?”
“That’s crazy,” said Cooper. “You almost got killed by a fucking rat just now. How are you gonna take on an army of eyeless assholes?”
“I’m not going to take them on. I’m going to sneak in, get what we came for, and sneak back out again.”
Julian shook his head. “I can’t let y
ou do that. I’m the reason we’re here. At least I’ve got to go in with you. I can be quiet.”
“I’m a rogue,” said Tim. “This is what I’m made for. I’ve got a bunch of ranks in the Move Silently skill. Those are all for nothing if I have you guys tagging along. You’re a sorcerer. Now sorcer me up a light.”
Julian touched Tim’s crossbow. “Light.” The weapon glowed with a soft, white light.
“I’m just going to take a peek inside first,” said Tim. “Give me ten minutes.” He stepped into the open entrance, then turned to his friends. “Or until I start screaming.”
Taking his first steps down the stone stairs, Tim felt strange to be Moving Silently while carrying a glowing weapon. It seemed counterintuitive. He’d be the most visible thing in the whole temple.
They don’t have eyes. Light means nothing to them.
He descended about fifty more steps before he came to his first obstacle. A set of black velvet curtains with the goddess’s symbol embroidered in gold thread. The double rings of whatever the fuck her name was.
Tim licked his dry lips. They tasted like shit. Should he go back and report this? No. This wasn’t information that would serve a purpose. Whatever was on the other side of that curtain was what was important. If he turned back now, it would only be because he was too scared to look. Come on, Tim.
Trying not to think about what he was doing, he felt for the edge of the left curtain. The glowing crossbow, loaded and cocked, felt heavy in his right hand. His heart was racing and he knew that he’d shoot at anything he saw, whether it was a threat or not. With his luck, it would probably be a gong, or a set of wind chimes. He moved his finger away from the trigger.
On one. Ready? One!
He pulled back the curtain and thrust his crossbow inside to reveal…
More stairs?
Tim sighed silently, trying to force his heart rate to slow. Why the hell would they even put a curtain there? It’s not much of a defense. But then, this wasn’t meant to be a fortress. It was a place of worship.
The stairway beyond the curtain curved gently to the right. Twenty steps later, Tim arrived at another set of curtains, identical to the first. He pulled the left curtain back and was not surprised to see more stairs. He was surprised, however, to hear faint chanting. It wasn’t in any language he understood, but it must have been at least a hundred voices strong.
That’s what the curtains were for, to absorb sound. Tim followed the stairs down in an increasingly tighter spiral until he reached a third and, from the clarity of sound on the other side, final set of curtains.
His heart was beating fast again. He pulled the curtains apart very slowly, just enough to peek through. As he expected, it was too dark on the other side without the aid of his glowing crossbow to see much, but he appeared to be on the edge of an enormous pit, with orange light coming from somewhere below.
Reminding himself again that these creatures had no eyes, he worked up the courage to step through the curtains. The chamber was vast. Tim found himself on the top tier of something like a Greek theater. Concentric circles formed ten foot high steps that eventually led down to a fire pit with a stone dais raised out of the flames at its center. A lone figure stood atop the dais, chanting words that Tim couldn’t understand. Above his eyeless head, he held a six inch golden statue, no doubt the item they had been tasked with stealing. A congregation of at least two hundred worshipers stood on the second tier, repeating the chant. How the fuck were they going to pull this off?
“Guard!” shouted a voice from the tier below Tim. “Guard! I’m hungry! I’m so hungry!”
Tim got on his knees and peeked over the edge. The upper tiers of the temple were much less populated than the lower ones, but this asshole was calling a lot of attention to himself, and potentially to Tim as well.
One of the eyeless creatures – Tim was almost certain it was the same one they’d seen outside – stomped toward the source of the pleading voice. He didn’t look pleased. He paused briefly as he passed under Tim’s position and sniffed the air. He raised his upper lip in disgust, showing off his rotten teeth as he faced Tim directly. Tim remained perfectly still, holding his breath and trying not to piss himself again.
“Guard!” shouted the voice again. “I’m hungry!”
The creature broke his non-gaze away from Tim and continued stomping toward the prisoner.
“No food!” said the creature. “You. Eat. Morning!”
“Oh,” said the prisoner. “Okay.”
That’s it? Okay? How hungry could you be, you fat fucker? You nearly got me killed!
Then it occurred to him. The prisoner wasn’t trying to get the guard’s attention. He was trying to get his attention. He’d seen the light from the crossbow, and wanted to let Tim know he was there. But he couldn’t very well shout Hey! Come help me! Not bad thinking on his part.
Normally, Tim would look at this as another chore to heap on the pile, but this guy might actually be useful. There were a hell of a lot of those things between him and the golden statue. Tim was ready to take whatever help he could get.
He crawled back to the curtains leading to the staircase, in case he needed to make a run for it, and waited for the guard to go away. Grumbling as he left, the guard proved easy to keep track of by sound.
When Tim deemed it safe enough, he sneaked to just above where he estimated the prisoner’s voice to have been coming from. The tiers were interrupted by staircases every couple of hundred feet, and Tim was right in the middle of two of them. Each one had a few of the eyeless creatures milling about, so he decided to take the fast way down. He crept up to the edge of the tier he was standing on, and lowered himself down until he was hanging by his fingertips. There was still about six feet of empty space between his feet and the next tier, but he didn’t think that would amount to any loss of Hit Points. He let go.
As soon as he landed, two meaty hands lunged out at him, grabbed his upper arms, and pulled him up against iron bars. The dwarf on the other side of the bars averted his eyes as if in pain.
“You have to help me!” he whispered.
“That’s what I’m trying to do, fucktard,” said Tim. “Let go of me so I can get you out of there. And for fuck’s sake, keep your voice down.”
The dwarf released Tim’s arms. While Tim dug through his bag for his thieves’ tools, the dwarf hunkered down next to him.
“They killed my brother two days ago,” said the dwarf, wringing his hands. “I fear they will come for me tonight.”
Tim unrolled his picks and chose the one he thought best suited to this particular lock. “Your brother didn’t have hazel eyes, did he?”
A tear rolled down the dwarf’s dirty, haggard face. “Aye, and a beautiful pair of eyes they were. How is it you come to guess that?”
Tim tried to remain focused on the lock. He felt around inside for the tumblers. “Just lucky. I’ve got a really high Intelligence.”
“I won’t argue that,” said the dwarf. “It was right smart of you to cover yourself in grimlock excrement.”
“Grimlock!” said Tim. Since he saw the first one outside, he had been trying to remember what these things were called.
“They can find an outsider by scent.”
The lock popped, more loudly than Tim would have preferred. “Shit!” What was he doing? This wasn’t part of the plan.
“Olag will have heard that,” said the dwarf.
“Who the fuck is Olag?”
“He’s the grimlock in charge of guarding me. Real nasty feller.”
“Yeah,” said Tim. “I think I know the one.” The door creaked when Tim pushed it. Figuring it best to avoid a prolonged noise, Tim relied on ripping-off-a-Band-Aid logic and gave it a good hard push. Noisy as the door was, it was surprisingly light on the hinges. The scream of iron on iron was loud enough to interrupt the chanting a hundred feet below them, and the clang of door against cage didn’t help matters either.
“Olag will certainly have h
eard that.”
“Shit,” said Tim. He’d fucked up trying to rescue this stupid dwarf. The statue was going to have to wait. “Let’s move.”
He took a step toward the stairway on the right, but there was Olag, running at them with a raised battleaxe, screaming like an enraged chimpanzee. Tim fired his crossbow. The sphere of light which had been surrounding him was now surrounding the grimlock.
“That fucking idiot!” said Tim. “He enchanted the bolt!”
Olag fell, and the light turned dim and pink as blood gushed out of his throat. It was a Critical Hit for sure, which was nice, but left Tim and his fugitive dwarf in the dark. Hostile voices barked orders and angry battle cries. The chanting from below turned to chaos.
“Boost me up!” said the dwarf.
“I need to get my bolt back,” said Tim. “I can’t see without it!”
“Well I can see, halfling. And I’m telling you, there’s no time. We must flee now!”
Tim believed him. The howls and barks that made up whatever language the grimlocks spoke were getting louder by the second. He locked his fingers together for the dwarf to step onto. The dwarf climbed from Tim’s hands to the horizontal cell bar, then to the top of the tier and disappeared from Tim’s view.
“Hey!” shouted Tim, no longer making any effort to keep quiet. “Don’t you fuck off on me now!”
“Hurry!” said the dwarf, his hand reaching down as far as it could go. These were not the two most ideal races to be attempting such a maneuver.
Tim had always thought it kind of dumb that halflings got a +2 bonus to Jump checks, considering they got a -2 penalty for Strength, which is the ability score that the Jump skill depends on. But he was grateful for that bonus when he grabbed a cell bar, sprang into the air, and caught the dwarf’s hand.
Olag’s blood had obscured most of the light Tim’s bolt was giving off, leaving Tim as good as blind.
“Hurry!” the dwarf repeated, grabbing Tim’s arm and taking off in the direction of the stairwell Tim had entered from. Tim stumbled along blindly, trying to keep up as best as he could.
A particularly enraged roar, much closer than the general cacophony of roars currently echoing all over the temple, came from right in front of them.
