by Nick Harrow
“Thank you,” she said. “Now let me see if I can find something to do with those motes of ka gathering dust in your core.”
“If you find anything interesting, let me know,” I said to Kezakazek. “Maybe I’ll even take your advice.”
“You should,” the drow grumbled and shifted in my lap to get a better look at the Tablet of Transformation. “You’re third level, you should invest in Mechanical Efficiency to make your traps reset more quickly. Or maybe...”
For the next twenty minutes the drow and I bantered back and forth about the relative merits of different upgrades. Fortunately, Zillah arrived to rescue me before the sorceress could talk me into making a permanent decision. I had a sneaking suspicion I needed to keep my options open until I had a better idea of the threats around me. The Buried Kings were out of the picture for the moment, but would they stay that way?
“Pinchy and I have worked out a route we think will work,” Zillah said. Her tail arched over her head and a scroll of papyrus unfurled from her poisonous stinger’s tip.
The scorpion queen had done a more than serviceable job of mapping out the area near my tomb. She’d clearly marked the location of the stele above the crypt of the Buried Kings, as well as the tunnel that burrowed under the oasis to the blast site that had once held the raiders’ gate. She’d also drawn a rather enthusiastic representation of the crater we’d left in the ground when Kezakazek triggered the gate’s booby trap and ended the Guild’s fun and games here on Soketra.
More interesting to me were the parts of the map I hadn’t seen before. Zillah had painstakingly drawn in all the twisting tunnels she and the scorpions had found while surveying the area around my dungeon. There were at least a dozen of these natural corridors spread out like the web of a crackhead spider. Most of those winding tunnels dead-ended in small caverns or on the shores of a subterranean stream that flowed east to west across the Great Below south of my territory.
“Here is the necropolis,” Zillah said. The long nail on her right index finger tapped a roughly circular outline toward the bottom of the papyrus. “This tunnel here leads from the chasm down to the necropolis, but it’s a two-mile hike. But you can see how the passage curves around here as it descends. If we tunnel straight down from this location just south of the chasm and then angle back to the west, you could reach it with less than a quarter mile of tunnel.”
“That’s perfect,” I said. I pulled the Tablet of Engineering in close and compared its map of our surroundings to the diagram that Zillah had drawn for me. There were some discrepancies between the two maps, but the tablet was able to reconcile them quickly. Zillah’s estimate was correct. We could probably reach and clean out the necropolis in a few hours of hard work. “Any idea what kind of resistance we’re looking at?”
“More than you probably want, but not as much as you fear,” Zillah said with a grin. “We didn’t get too close to the graves on our scouting trips, but the necropolis itself wasn’t very large, and the only roamers we saw were skeletons and zombies. One end of the necropolis is buried under a few thousand tons of stone, so there isn’t some secret undead army waiting to ambush us.”
“That’s too bad,” one of the wahket said as she entered the burial chamber with her sisters. She was taller than most of the other cat women, and she wore her long, raven-black hair in a braided plait that dangled almost to her waist. “We could use the exercise.”
“Don’t get cocky, Anunaset,” Nephket cautioned. “This little adventure is already dangerous enough without borrowing more trouble.”
The tall wahket ducked her head, and a golden blush flooded her olive-hued cheeks. Without another word, Anunaset went to the weapons rack in the corner of my burial chamber and doled out spears and shields to the seven other wahket who’d come to the tomb with Nephket.
“No crossbows this time,” I called out to the cat women gathered around the weapons rack. I’d constructed some new additions to our arsenal while my guardians slept, and I hoped the wahket would find them useful in our coming battle. “They’ll be useless against the undead. Take those spiked clubs on the bottom instead. Oh, and look in the sarcophagus. I’ve crafted some new armor for you.”
The wahket oohed and aahed as they lifted their fine chain mail shirts from the elaborate coffin. I used the Tablet of Transformation to make subtle adjustments to each set of armor as the wahket donned their new gear. The custom-fitted armor covered the cat women from neck to mid-thigh, and the long sleeves covered their arms down to their wrists. Full suits of plate armor would’ve offered more protection, but Zillah had warned me that the wahket didn’t have the training to wear it effectively.
The chain mail offered a good compromise between mobility and bite-proofing. If there were zombies in the necropolis, I didn’t want the wahket to get gnawed on and infected with an undead plague. The last thing I needed was the walking dead rising up inside my tomb.
“You certainly outdid yourself,” Nephket said with a smile. She eased onto my lap next to Kezakazek, who seemed irritated to have her study time with the tablets interrupted.
The drow let out an exasperated sigh, and I gave her a gentle pinch on her posterior as a reminder that everything wasn’t all about her. In fact, this little expedition wasn’t about her at all.
It was about securing my territory and preparing for the next step in my dungeon lord plans.
Not that I was entirely sure what that next step was, but I was confident my chances of success were much higher without a bunch of zombies in the neighborhood.
A few minutes later, the wahket had their gear in place and had gathered in front of my throne. They lined up as if for an inspection and banged their spears against their shields. The armor gleamed like silver in the light from my core, and the wahket’s eyes shone like embers. The heavy, spiked clubs I’d created for them hung off the belts they wore to secure the waists of their chain mail shirts, and they looked as fierce as I’d ever seen them.
“Let’s go kick some undead ass.” I rose from my throne with Nephket and Kezakazek under my arms.
Chapter 2: The Necropolis
ZILLAH CHUCKLED AND swatted Kezakazek’s ass as she passed the drow and led the way out of my tomb. I caught a glimpse of Pinchy and her fellow scorpions as they scampered across the ceiling and then dropped down onto Zillah’s back. They made good scouts, but they were far too slow to keep up with the rest of us at a full march without piggybacking on their queen.
“Come on, slowpokes,” Zillah said. “I can’t wait to get my spear bloody.”
The wahket cheered at Zillah’s words and followed the scorpion queen out of my burial chamber. They fell into an orderly double-column and held their weapons with practiced ease. I was still surprised it had only taken a few days for Zillah to transform the peaceful wahket into decent soldiers.
Something about that thought must have shaken up the memories of Rathokhetra I carried around in my head. As we left my burial chamber, my vision shifted. The short line of armored cat women stretched out to impossible dimensions. A column hundreds of feet wide and thousands long shimmered before me like a desert mirage. A faint sigh of approval drifted through my thoughts as the dungeon lord whose title I’d taken relived his glory days.
How many wars had the old dungeon bastard fought? How many of the wahket had trod across Soketra’s burning sands to bring his enemies to their knees?
The ancient creature’s voice dragged across my thoughts. “Countless.”
It sounded like it took the old coot a lot of effort to make himself heard, which suited me fine. I didn’t need the buzzard clawing his way out of the misty past to disturb me. There was hardly enough room in my skull for my own thoughts, much less a passenger’s nonsense.
I shook my head as we walked and drove the ancient specter out of my mind. He might’ve been the lord of this world once before, but his time had passed. Now I was the big man in the dungeon and these were my people. It was a new age, and whatever victories he
had racked up had no bearing on my present. I’d build my own legacy, thank you very much.
“Down here,” Zillah called to me over the heads of the wahket. Our minds touched briefly, and I used the information from her thoughts to create a new passage that sloped down and away from the current tunnel. The scorpion queen raised her hand and showed me a thumbs up a moment later. “Perfect! Thanks, boss.”
“Zillah won’t let any of them get hurt, will she?” Nephket asked me. She hadn’t uttered the words aloud, but they rang loud and clear in my thoughts. She trusted me to keep her people safe, but that didn’t stifle the heavy tinge of motherly concern in her mind. The wahket relied on Nephket, and she had led them for a very long time. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if this adventure ended with any of them injured—or worse.
“She’ll do her best to keep them safe,” I said. “But it’s important for the wahket to learn to fight. They need to be able to defend themselves even when you or I aren’t around to help them. I don’t want a repeat of the trouble you had with the raiders.”
Nephket blushed at the memory of what had almost happened to her people. If she hadn’t summoned me and turned me into Rathokhetra 2.0, the Guild’s treasure hunters would have wiped out the wahket.
“You’re right,” Nephket reluctantly thought to me. “We’ve been at peace for so long we’d all but forgotten how to go to war.”
Her admission rankled me, and I felt a flash of anger that was out of proportion to what she’d said. My fists tightened and my jaw clenched so tight my molars ground together. How dare such noble warriors let themselves go so far from their past glory?
I blinked and willed myself to relax. Where the hell had that come from?
I wanted the wahket to be good fighters, but I wasn’t mad at them for not spending every waking moment at the oasis training for the next battle. Until the raiders had showed up on their doorstep, the cat women had been left alone for years.
Why was I so pissed?
There was a faint hiss in my ears, like the sound of a serpent’s scales gliding across sand-strewn rock.
Oh.
I wasn’t pissed.
But Lord Rathokhetra was not amused that his fabled feline warriors had let themselves go after he’d spent so long transforming them into fearsome fighters.
“Fuck off,” I muttered to myself. I didn’t like the way the old dungeon lord’s thoughts kept intruding on my own, and I wanted him out of my head. This was my show to run, not his.
“Is everything all right?” Nephket thought at me. She seemed hesitant to reach out, and I hated that my anger had reached her.
“I’m all right,” I said. “Just a dungeon lord headache.”
I hated to lie to my familiar, but I didn’t want to explain to her that the old Rathokhetra was giving grief to the new one. Once we’d cleared out these zombies and secured my territory, I’d spend some time with Kezakazek and we’d figure out how to get the old dungeon lord out of my thoughts forever.
Twenty minutes later, my merry band of adventurers arrived at the mouth of a cavern that was far too regular to have been formed by nature. We’d entered the open space on its north side, and that gave us a clear view of the damaged necropolis. The eastern and western walls had been carved from the limestone, and their surfaces were slick with a faint sheen of moisture that leaked from the craggy ceiling overhead. The walls were covered with what might have once been rows of regular patterns, but centuries of erosion had all but erased them and transformed this once-impressive home for the dead into a decrepit ruin.
Whoever had built this place had fashioned it after the design of some ancient city now long buried by the sands of history. The tombs that remained stood like homes arranged in a city block. Open spaces between these orderly blocks of graves reminded me of roads. Once smooth and flat, these flagstone patches were now littered with small animal skeletons and fist-sized chunks of porous rock that had fallen from the ceiling. The same moisture that had turned the walls into glossy slates had worn tiny grooves through the flagstones between the tombs, and now patches of gray moss spread across the pitted stones like blotches of mold over old bread.
“This place has seen better days,” I said. “Any ideas who built it?”
“Don’t ask me,” Kezakazek shrugged. “I was born beneath the purple sun of Erzelosh. We didn’t waste time or resources building fancy houses for dead people.”
“And I’m just a poor little dungeon guardian,” Zillah added. “I don’t know nothin’.”
All eyes turned to Nephket, the only one of my dungeon guardians who had been born and raised on this world.
“The people of Soketra have always venerated their dead,” Nephket said. “Especially since so many of our leaders perished and rose again as dungeon lords. Better to build an elaborate tomb for a king who never rises again than to neglect one who comes back as a vengeful dungeon lord.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “But seems like a pain in the ass to build it all the way down here.”
“Soketra has changed much over the millenia,” Nephket explained. “This may once have been much closer to the surface. It’s possible some cataclysm...”
Nephket’s words faded away as Rathokhetra asserted himself and piped up.
“The Marrow War,” he rasped through my thoughts. “The blood of gods disturbs the fallen—”
“Fun history lesson, Neph, but we’ve got company,” Zillah called out. “There.”
She pointed her mancatcher spear ahead and to our right. A small knot of undead creatures shambled out of a shadowed walkway and lurched in our direction. Pale blue flames glowed in the pits of a skeleton’s skull, and the glassy, sunken eyeballs of a pair of zombies rolled in their sockets. The rotten creatures were unnerving to look at, but they seemed more miserable and pathetic than truly fearsome. A quick glimpse from my dungeon sight proved my initial thoughts correct.
<<<>>>
Skeleton
Medium undead, lawful evil
Armor Class: 13 (Armor Scraps)
Hit Points: 4 to 20 (Average 13)
Speed: 30 feet
STR: 10 (+0)
DEX: 14 (+2)
CON: 15 (+2)
INT: 6 (-2)
WIS: 8 (-1)
CHA: 5 (-3)
Damage Vulnerability: Bludgeoning
Damage Immunity: Poison
Condition Immunities: Exhaustion, Poisoned
Senses: Dark Sight 60 feet, Passive Perception 9
Languages: Understands Common, but cannot speak
Challenge: 1/4
Actions
Bash: Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 feet, one target. Hit: 1 to 4 (Average 2) bludgeoning damage.
Zombie
Medium undead, neutral evil
Armor Class: 8
Hit Points: 12 to 33 (Average 22)
Speed: 20 feet
STR: 13 (+1)
DEX: 6 (-2)
CON: 16 (+3)
INT: 3 (-4)
WIS: 6 (-2)
CHA: 5 (-3)
Damage Immunity: Poison
Condition Immunity: Poisoned
Senses: Dark Sight 60 feet, Passive Perception 8
Languages: Understands Common, but cannot speak
Challenge: 1/4
Undead Resilience: If the zombie is reduced to 0 hit points by damage, it is allowed a Constitution save (5 + damage taken). On a success, the zombie drops to 1 hit point instead. This save is negated if the damage was caused by celestial weapons.
Actions
Slam: Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 feet, one target. Hit: 2 to 7 (Average 4) bludgeoning damage.
<<<>>>
If this was the worst the necropolis had to throw at us, we’d have it mopped up in time for lunch. The skeletons were especially vulnerable to the clubs I’d made for the wahket, and none of the undead would have a chance to reach the cat women through their shield wall defense. Piece of cake.
“Hold your ground,
” I said to Zillah before she could lead a charge to meet the undead. “Lure them into the dungeon so we can harvest their ka.”
The scorpion queen grimaced at my suggestion but nodded. She might’ve been the most headstrong amongst my guardians, but she was also the most obedient. Where Nephket would challenge my judgment if she thought it put the wahket in danger, and Kezakazek would challenge me just because, Zillah held her tongue and did as she was told even when she didn’t want to.
“Anunaset, Sabra, Aliyah, and Nenet to the front,” Zillah commanded. “Spears ready, shields locked into a wall. Your job is to hold the undead so the second rank can finish them with their clubs.”
The wahket formed up quickly and efficiently. Zillah hadn’t had much time with them, but she’d worked the cat women hard to turn them into a fighting unit. Those she’d named stood shoulder to shoulder a few feet back from the dungeon’s mouth. They braced their spears to meet the shambling charge of the undead and leaned into one another for mutual support. The edges of their shields overlapped to form a wall that the zombies would be hard pressed to push through.
The remaining wahket crowded in behind the front rank. They’d slung their shields and spears over their shoulders and held their clubs in two-handed grips. They supported the weight of the weapons on their shoulders like major league sluggers ready for their turn at the plate. I pitied the undead skulls the beating they were about to take.
The skeleton was faster than the rotting corpses behind him and led the charge at the wahket. Its bony arms and legs clattered and rattled as it made its way toward us, but the skeleton had no weapons to speak of and its teeth were cracked and splintered down to ragged nubs.
The zombies that followed it were no better armed or armored, and what little clothing they’d once worn had long since rotted away until not even threads covered their putrid flesh. Their teeth were in somewhat better shape than the skeleton’s, but their jaws hung slack as if they didn’t have the strength to snap them closed.
