Delvers LLC- Surviving Ludus

by Blaise Corvin (ed)

  She secured her quiver to her hip, frowning as she realized she was down to less than a dozen arrows. Most of her attention was focused on what their scout was doing, but a small part of her mind hoped that Innear would show her how to improve her arrow crafting. Sometimes two identical arrows she’d made would fly differently. In a situation like this, that could be a fatal mistake.

  Finally, after a few breathless moments, Innear released his arrow just as his arm began to shake, catching the large ork in the throat. Another ork cried out in horror, while the others turned and noticed the group of adventurers in the distance. With a roar they began running toward them, a half-dozen orks wielding crude weapons.

  Anahi took a deep breath before releasing her own bow, and the arrow flew true, striking an ork just above his wooden chest armor. The ork faltered as blood flowed, but Anahi ignored this as she pulled a second arrow and took aim.

  Innear had already shot twice more before Anahi released her second arrow. The group of monsters was less than twenty feet away, and she imagined she could already smell their fetid breath upon her. At this distance she had an easier shot, and she hit an ork in the head, but the arrow glanced right off of the monster’s thick skull.

  Geb met the first ork head-on, feinting towards his neck before slicing him down across the torso. Blood flowed freely as the ork tried to strike with his crude dagger, but before he could make contact, Geb had impaled him with his sword. The group’s leader kicked the ork off his blade. To his side, an arrow whizzed by Innear’s ear, and the entire group crouched down to make smaller targets of themselves.

  Unfortunately, Anahi’s feeling that more monsters had been lurking around ended up being true. Two orks broke out of the brush behind them, and Jessel did his best to hold them as Mos turned to attack. Mos struck one ork just under the armpit, but it wasn’t enough to drop him, or to relieve the pressure on Jessel. The other adventurer took a large wound to one thigh, and then another to his kidneys. With a scream, Jessel fell, and the larger of the two orks moved in for the kill.

  Innear turned and caught the ork in the eye with an expert arrow; the mottled blue-skinned ork fell down on top of Jessel, who screamed again. As the two monsters in the rear attacked, the rest of the orks in front began to flank Geb. The adventurers were being surrounded. Mos defeated the second ork by impaling him through the throat, but the monsters’ numbers didn’t seem affected much at all.

  Most of the orks had stone or bronze daggers, not amazing weapons, but still dangerous, especially coupled with an ork’s natural strength. A large ork in back had a large bronze sword and a small shield. The shield was battered in a number of places with leather patches over much of the surface, while the bronze sword had a gleaming edge that had been sharpened to perfection.

  Geb suddenly shoved his weapon point-first into the earth, held out his arm, and said a few words in a language Anahi had never heard before. A whoosh of fire flew out from his hand, the fireball striking three orks who had grouped together on one flank.

  He yelled, “Anahi, finish them off!”

  Anahi didn’t allow herself to lose focus. Instead, she nodded, looking for an opening as the orks rolled around on the ground. Much of their skin had been blackened, and she cursed herself for being so surprised by magic. She’d almost frozen up.

  Her first arrow caught an ork who was trying to get up, his burnt arm and hands preventing him from levering himself to fully support himself yet. The arrow pierced his throat. Anahi drew another arrow and nocked it. Within moments she had hit the other two, but neither had been clean kills. They’d definitely die now, though. One wasn’t dying quickly enough, though; he tried to claw his way forward to the adventurers. Anahi didn’t want to use another arrow so she hoped the monster would expire before he became a problem. Her hands shook.

  Mos scurried over to pour a vial of blue liquid into Jessel’s mouth, whose expression relaxed. Jessel nodded his thanks. Then Mos moved with Innear to the front to assist Geb, who was holding off the other flank.

  Geb’s armor prevented most lacerations, but dents had appeared where none had been before and the powerful man was favoring one leg. Now the adventurers were facing off against four orks, two of which had spears with bronze blades affixed to the ends. As one ork attacked Geb, Mos hacked at the wood haft until the wood cracked and was cut in half. The orks drew back with a grunt and seemed to speak to each other, but it was a language unknown to Anahi.

  Anahi stayed out of the main fight, hunkering down and trying to be helpful as much as she could. As the orks were injured, she’d shoot at them to either add additional injuries or finish them off. She managed to kill one, but only injured a second. Her quiver had only four arrows left as she had missed a few times. Staying on target with so many distractions and terrors was unlike anything she’d ever endured before. She’d cursed each time she missed.

  Innear killed the last ork in the group as Jessel tried to stand up. The amount of blood on his legs and arms was shocking, but Anahi saw that the wound between the torn leather was already healed over.

  Geb bellowed, “Everyone heal up or rest if you can! Don’t hold anything back. This was just the younger warriors. We’ll face the experienced fighters next, along with their leader I imagine.” The adventurer leader pointed his sword at the ork chieftain, who bared his tusked teeth in response, and said, “Innear, watch our back with Mos. Anahi, do you need anything?”

  She nodded. “I’m almost out of arrows.” Innear tossed her a leather-wrapped quiver from his pack.

  The scout said, “Be careful, lass, a few of those arrows do more than just kill. They’re marked with different colors wrapped around the shaft.” Anahi nodded and quickly moved her old arrows to the new quiver.

  Geb ordered, “Listen up. I want to form a diamond formation with Anahi in the middle. Mos, you’ve got the point in the back, Innear and Jessel have got the sides. It will keep them from flanking us too badly, but it also means we need to stay in position. Don’t get taunted out of formation if you can help it. Keep it loose but not too loose.” The men grunted their agreement as they wiped blood away with small rags.

  “Innear, what happened with all the traps you set up?”

  “They’re further ahead,” admitted the scout.

  “Well, that’s—” began Geb, but stopped in mid-thought as the monster leader moved.

  The ork chieftain walked forward until he was only a dozen feet away. He stared at Geb, his eyes moving around the group briefly before returning to the man in armor. As the monster had locked eyes with Anahi he’d seemed to grunt in approval, although she thought she must have imagined that. No one moved, and the tension became almost unbearable.

  Jessel asked the obvious question first. “Why aren’t they attacking?” Mos grumbled under his breath as well, but Geb and Innear stood stock still and glared at the chieftain. She had no idea what was happening, but it didn’t seem to be good. When they had arrived, there had been a few other orks in the distance, but they had all disappeared before the first attack.

  “Is he waiting for a signal that the others are safe, maybe small ones?” Anahi wondered out loud.

  Innear nodded. “Likely. They may lose the battle, but they won’t sacrifice the full tribe if possible.”

  “How do you know any of that for sure?” asked Mos.

  “I don’t,” said Innear with a grin.

  Metal clanged against metal far above them up the hill, and the chieftain walked forward in response. Orks had appeared from behind bushes where Anahi would have sworn no one was hiding, although not a single one appeared from behind them.

  The chieftain began grunting and stomping his feet; the rest of the orks responded by stomping their feet as well. Rain begin to fall harder than before as the chieftain leaned his head back and roared. At his signal, the orks charged toward the group.

  Innear and Anahi loosed as fast as they could nock arrows and release. Innear seemed to injure or kill with each shot, while A
nahi missed as often as she hit anything. One arrow hit a monster’s neck, and the ork fell to the ground. The creature she’d hit wasn’t dead, but Anahi didn’t have time to see what happened before turning and targeting another enemy.

  For the first few arrows she checked that the shafts were free of color, but by her fifth arrow there wasn’t time. At least a dozen orks, including the chieftain, had attacked, but between her and Innear, they had made the odds a little better. She fired at a group of orks leading the charge towards Jessel, and an explosion sent the orks flying away as the enemy she’d actually hit dissolved into a fine mist of blood. Anahi blinked, deciding that had been one of her special arrows.

  At the edge of the blast, Jessel stumbled, a bit of shrapnel striking his face, but he turned to give her a bloody grin. “Keep it up, lass!” he shouted.

  Geb traded blows with the chieftain, each strike a blur. The ork chieftain’s shield eventually splintered, becoming useless, and he tossed it away before feinting and striking at Geb’s head.

  The adventurer didn’t fall for the misdirection, instead parrying the actual blow and carving a small gash in the ork’s torso. To his side, Innear had dropped his bow as he held off three orks, while Mos moved forward to assist.

  Pulling another arrow from her quiver, Anahi checked that the shaft was uncolored before nocking and loosing across the diamond formation to strike an ork in the throat. She’d been aiming for the chest, but had gotten lucky with her shot. The ork dropped his sword in shock and Innear finished him off with a chop to the head. Stricken, the mortally wounded monster fell limply to the ground.

  Jessel killed orks that had been injured by the explosive arrow. Even with fewer targets to focus on, Anahi found it difficult to find a shot during the close melee battle; every enemy moved too quickly as they battled the four adventurers.

  Mos and Innear were fighting a single ork each now, and seemed to be holding their position. Geb’s armor looked even more banged up than before as he fought the chieftain. The monster leader had a half-dozen wounds but hadn’t been slowed one bit.

  Anahi looked for an open shot at the chieftain’s uncovered legs, but had to concentrate carefully. The chieftain moved forward and back often while trading blows with Geb.

  As she watched she began to see a pattern to his movements. How the ork stepped varied depending on what Geb was doing, but the ork chieftain retreated in a certain manner that left a small opening before he attacked.

  Anahi waited as long as she could to make certain, but working as much based on her intuition as her observation, she loosed and managed to hit the chieftain in the thigh. The ork fell to one knee with a grunt of surprise before lifting himself back up and attacking Geb. His body began to turn red; eventually only the small bit of clothing he wore for breeches hadn’t been affected. Instead of hurting the ork for long, it seemed he’d been energized.

  Geb backed up, each sword strike flying at him faster than it had before. Realizing she had done something wrong, Anahi pulled arrows until she found one colored blue. The arrow shaft for the type that had exploded had been colored red, which meant that the blue shaft was probably either ice or water. Guilt climbed up her spine.

  Meanwhile, Geb was still retreating as Mos, Innear, and Jessel moved to flank the chieftain. Anahi followed, and a few moments later the ork presented his back to her. She took the opportunity and shot at where his heart was located, and after the arrow struck, ice almost instantly covered his back. The chieftain bellowed and tried to reach with his off-hand to dislodge the arrow.

  When Geb attacked again, the ork chieftain was both injured and disabled by the ice. The creature roared with his head held high, right up until Geb lopped his head off with a single strike. The head rolled to a stop as his body fell limp, the battle over. Mos and Jessel cheered, while Geb fell to his knees and took off his helm.

  His face was bruised black and blue, with red gouges where the metal had been pushed into his flesh. Innear helped get his pauldrons and chest piece off; his body was bruised and bleeding far worse than his face. Innear handed him a healing potion and he drank it in one gulp. The injuries didn’t fade immediately, but over time his flesh knitted, though many of the bruises still remained.

  Turning to Anahi, Geb nodded. “You know what you did wrong and what you did right?” She nodded, embarrassed yet proud she had managed to help the group.

  “Good. We’ll talk later, but right now we need to loot anything valuable from the orks before heading out. We still have a dungeon to face, but the return trip will be a little easier now that this battle is done.”

  “Couldn’t she have used less of those expensive elemental arrows?” complained Mos.

  “Quiet, Mos,” said Jessel. “We’re all alive.”

  The group checked the bodies of their enemies and found a half-dozen bronze swords and knives, some which needed disassembly from makeshift polearms. A few dead orks had valuables on them, but in the end, the team scavenged less than ten small coins and a few pieces of jewelry.

  After that, Geb led them to a series of caves nearby, where he wrapped a bit of pitch-soaked cloth around a stick and lit it. The smell was overwhelming inside the caves, the odor of urine, feces, sweat, and filth mixing together into something Anahi could barely breathe.

  Not wanting to appear weak, she forged ahead with the rest, finding the skeletal remains of numerous animals and a few humans. Blood had stained the dirt a deep crimson, and she felt her gorge rising in response.

  Unable to hold it in any longer, she spewed the contents of her stomach into the cave. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she took a swig of water and spit it out. No one seemed to notice.

  They found some damaged tackle and broken weapons that they could have smelted down and reforged after returning to a city. The adventurers took it all, piling everything outside the cave entrance and heading deeper into the caverns.

  A single torch barely managed to push the darkness back, and Anahi stayed close to the group for fear of getting lost. Innear pushed forward all the way to the back of the cave until they found a raised area with a variety of different furs covering a large platform. The group pulled the furs back in search of more loot. Mos found a beautiful bronze dagger, thin and sharp in a leather sheath, which he immediately tied to his belt.

  “What’s all this stuff?” asked Jessel. “Why wouldn’t they use good weapons if they had more on hand?”

  “Who knows why orks do anything,” replied Mos with a dismissive wave.

  “Geb, you should see this.” Innear pointed to the corner, where the torchlight revealed a locked chest. The chest was made of thick wood and bound with thin strips of metal, but it was fairly small.

  After inspecting the chest for a distance, Geb said, “Jessel, you’re up. Do us proud.”

  Jessel nodded, leaning down in front of the chest and pulling out a thin leather roll of tools. He checked each side of it thoroughly, tapping at the metal and wood for reasons Anahi couldn’t comprehend.

  Finally satisfied, Jessel pulled two thin pieces of gleaming metal from his tool roll. Anahi gasped, and Jessel chuckled in response. “Never seen blessed steel with your own eyes I imagine, right?”

  Blessed steel? The grey gleam of the metal reminded her of the dagger she’d inherited from her parents. She wasn’t sure if the blade was truly blessed steel, but it would be just her luck if the entire time she’d been trying to escape her village, she’d had the means to do so all along.

  “I paid a fair fortune to get my hands on these,” said Jessel.

  Anahi blanched, comparing the two small pieces of metal to the long dagger she had hidden under the stove. Her dagger held at least twenty times the amount of metal Jessel held in his hands, which meant hers was worth— She didn’t dare try to calculate it. It was a fortune, and it could possibly change her life assuming she was willing to part with it.

  As she stood swaying, thinking about her life up until now, Jessel stayed busy and eventually
the lock popped, the latch came free, and Jessel put his tools away. He moved aside for Geb, who looked at the chest before turning to Jessel.

  “You’re sure there are no traps? I’d prefer not to take a poisoned dart to the face if possible.”

  Jessel grinned. “As far as I can tell, it’s fine. If you’re worried, you can open it from the side, as most trapped chests deal only with the person in front or back. Pretty rare to see a chest with traps for each side.”

  Geb nodded, walked to the side of the chest and lowered himself to lie prone on the dirty furs. “You might all want to take a step back just in case.” Innear nodded and moved the torch back a few feet from the chest.

  Without further preamble, Geb flipped the lid up, and the chest rocked slightly before settling down. Just as he was about to stand up, a dart flew up into the ceiling of the cavern and stuck there. The group stood perfectly still, not moving a muscle. Finally, after a few breaths, they decided that everything was safe.

  Geb looked inside the chest and whistled. Anahi leaned forward for a peek, and saw more wealth than she had ever seen in her life. The chest was half full of the largest Tolstey coins, some gems, and another small stone sat in the corner. A large chunk of refined copper sat in the opposite corner, and a set of darts were in the middle. Each dart had a cap on the end with a thick black fluid seeping out.

  The adventurers cheered, and Mos patted Jessel on the back in excitement.

  Geb smiled and said, “Alright, this is a good haul for a day’s work. The coins and jewels go into the pot and will be divided into shares after we clear the dungeon. The copper will go for the group fund, and the last stone…” Geb looked at Anahi for some reason, looking as if he was trying to come to a decision. Nodding slightly, he said, “Will be saved for later.”