by Nick Harrow
The scorpion queen through the ruined necropolis, and I extended the dungeon passage right behind her. The cave-in that Zillah had kicked off had finished the work that the ages had started. We passed by the open doors of crushed tombs that no longer held any occupants and wound our way through a maze of open graves now covered with layers of fallen stone. I wondered how many dead this place had when it was full. The wahket had survived their encounter with the skeletons and zombies with little more than scrapes and bruises, but if there’d been twice as many undead—or even more—the outcome would’ve been very different.
I shook the gloom out of my head as we walked and focused my attention on our surroundings. I kept the dungeon ten feet wide to allow the wahket to walk four abreast without bumping into each other or poking each other with their spears, and the walls of the dungeon battered aside the necropolis’s decrepit structures as we traveled. I didn’t recognize the languages I saw inscribed above many of the open mausoleum doors. It certainly didn’t look like the angular pictographs I’d seen on the tablets, which meant they must not have been Soketran.
“What language is this?” I asked Nephket.
She squinted as we passed by one of the mausoleums. Her lips moved slowly as she struggled to make sense of what she saw, and then her mouth pursed, and her eyes widened a hair.
“The language is an old dialect of Ushalan,” she said. “They were a mortal empire who held dominion over much of Soketra before the coming of the dungeon lords.”
“And then?” I asked. “They got their asses kicked?”
“They held out for a long time before they were forced out of their ancestral lands,” Nephket mused. “When the gods died and the Marrow War began, the Ushalanti retreated deep below the surface.”
“What the hell is the Marrow War?” I asked. We didn’t have time for a history lesson, but there was something about this place that made me think it was more important than I understood.
“When the gods died, their bodies burst and rained down upon the mortal realms,” Nephket explained. “Their blood burned in the sky, which is where the stars came from. Their flesh was consumed by beasts, who became the monsters of the many worlds. But their bones landed with the force of meteors.”
“Sounds gross,” I said. “Let me guess. Their bones have all kinds of juicy power in them, and all the mortal kingdoms went apeshit trying to get their hands on the stuff?”
“Yes,” Nephket said. “Legends say that any who found the marrow of the gods could use it to perform miracles of awesome power. Others say that the presence of the marrow is enough to rouse the dead from their graves. I think that’s why this necropolis was built.”
“To keep the dead from crawling out and eating people?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” Nephket responded. She read from the nearest tomb, “Let whosoever shalt find this lonely place know that it is cursed by the marrow of the fallen. Those who find a home here will one day rise again to spread our wrath upon the lands. Fear those you turned against, oh mortals, and prepare for thy doom.”
“That’s pretty metal,” I said. “You think there’s still some of that marrow around here?”
“No,” Nephket said. “The old texts claim its light could be seen for a thousand miles, and I definitely do not see any light down here.”
I considered that explanation but didn’t totally buy it. Religious scholars loved to exaggerate their divine bullshit, and I didn’t think the marrow would glow like the sun. Of course, I also didn’t believe it really came from gods and raised the dead, either.
“Keep your eyes peeled just the same,” I said. “Be a shame to pass up a sweet magical item like that.”
Rathokhetra murmured his approval at my command but didn’t offer any further information on stinky old dead god parts. I prodded him a few more times as I followed Zillah, but he never responded to my bait. Either he wanted to keep his information a secret or he didn’t really know shit.
I’d wager on the latter, honestly.
Zillah paused at the edge of the necropolis and pointed her spear at a narrow opening in the eastern wall.
“There are some sticky black spores here,” she pointed out. “There’s more of that shit deeper inside that skinny little tunnel, so I’m sure he dragged his bloated ass through here.”
One of the tomb scorpions scuttled out of the darkness and raised its claws toward me, then dipped its tail as if to confirm what Zillah had told me.
“How far down this did you go?” I asked.
“I’m a little too well endowed to fit in there, but the scorpions went a few hundred yards,” she said. “This was one of the last passages we found. The blood gnomes are down another tunnel farther back. I wanted to bring you up to speed before we pushed any deeper into the Great Below.”
“Good thinking,” I said. “Is this whole planet riddled with caverns and tunnels?”
“I keep forgetting you’re new at this,” Zillah said. “Soketra is riddled with an enormous cavern system. They say you can reach any cave entrance on the surface by navigating the deep, dark maze of tunnels down here. It’s also filled with spooky badness.”
“Learn something new every day,” I said.
“Oh, I can teach you some new things,” Zillah said. “A Zelezean dancing girl showed me this trick with marbles that will absolutely blow your mind.”
“Do tell,” Kezakazek urged the scorpion queen.
“Business first,” I interrupted. As much as I wanted to know what, exactly, Zillah could do with those marbles, we needed to deal with Delsinia. “This way, then.”
I urged my dungeon forward. The tomb scorpion snapped a sharp salute with one of its claws and headed back to its companions deeper within the cleft. I heard a faint hiss when the walls of my dungeon met the stone of the cavern, and the points of contact bubbled and reshaped themselves. The porous limestone melted away and was replaced by the smooth, slate-gray stone of my dungeon. It was a neat trick, and that was the first time I’d really noticed how it worked. Cool.
Zillah and Kezakazek took the lead as the dungeon moved ahead. They spoke in low tones as they walked, and the scorpion queen’s tail hooked around the drow’s waist. Kezakazek rested her hand on the small of Zillah’s back, and they leaned into each other with casual intimacy. It was nice to see them together like that, and I didn’t feel even a faint stir of jealousy. They belonged to each other, but they also belonged to me.
Nephket squeezed my hand. Her tail swiped the backs of my legs and lifted my loincloth high enough that I felt the cool breeze of the dungeon air against my nether regions.
“You trying to start something?” I asked with a sly grin. “This isn’t exactly the time for it, but...”
“Just trying to get your attention,” she said. “You seem distracted since we came down here. Is everything all right?”
Lord Rathokhetra stirred at the sound of the priestess’s voice, and I felt a strange sense of possessiveness emanate from his corner of my mind.
I clamped down hard on that shit. He might’ve been the boss once upon a time, but now he was nothing more than a passenger in my thoughts. If he had any illusions that he’d somehow come back to life and reclaim all of this, he was sorely mistaken.
“I’m all right,” I said. “I have a lot to think about. I didn’t expect to have another fight on our hands quite so soon.”
Nephket nodded, but a shadow of concern washed over her face for a moment. She must’ve noticed my inner conflict with Rathokhetra, and it bothered her even if she didn’t understand what exactly was happening.
“Good,” she said. “This plan makes me nervous, but if you’re confident it’s the best way, then so am I.”
I could read between the lines and knew my familiar was concerned for the wahket more than herself. They depended on her to make the right choices for them, and they depended on me to protect them. Leading a bunch of zero-level commoners with spears and shields down into the Great Below to do battle w
ith another dungeon lord seemed a little reckless.
“I know what you’re thinking, but bringing the wahket is a risk we have to take,” I assured her. “We don’t know what this dungeon lord has up her sleeve, and we don’t know what sort of guardians she might have. I have enough ka to manifest for a few minutes, but that might not be enough to finish the fight. If push comes to shove, I’ll need the wahket to help drive the nails into this dungeon lord’s coffin.”
“Of course,” Nephket said without hesitation. “The wahket will fight for you if that is what is required. Our lives are yours to do with as you please.”
“I’m not going to throw away any lives here,” I said. I squeezed her hand to reassure her that I meant what I said. “We need to deal with this threat, but I won’t ask the wahket to die for me unless there is no other way.”
“I know that.” Nephket forced herself to smile for me. “But there may not be a choice.”
That was true and there was no getting around it. This dungeon lord might be stronger than we thought, and this expedition might turn out to be a death march. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that kind of thinking infect me and my people. We were going to win this thing, and I was going to dance on Delsinia’s grave.
“There won’t be anything left of this other dungeon lord when we’re through with her,” I said. “Bank on it.”
Nephket leaned against me and pulled my arm around her waist. We walked like that for a few more minutes until Zillah raised a hand and the parade came to a stop.
“This is as far as we went,” the scorpion queen said. “Pinchy’s scouted a bit farther ahead, and the tunnel continues for another fifty or so yards before it branches off into four separate passages. With your permission, I’ll have the scorpions split up, and we’ll scout each of the forks. That will save us some time.”
“Go ahead,” I agreed. “The longer we spend down here, the more likely it is the dungeon lord will send scouts up to find her missing trumpet zombie. We need to finish this before she realizes the little bastard didn’t get himself offed by a wandering monster.”
“See ya soon,” Zillah said with a snappy salute.
She and the scorpions scattered to carry out their mission while the rest of us stood around in uncomfortable silence. I felt like I should say something, maybe even do something, but I’d be damned if I knew what.
“You know, if I was third level, I might have a spell to make this all much easier,” Kezakazek said to break the silence.
“Stop asking.” I booped the end of her nose with my index finger. “I know you want to get stronger, and I want you to be stronger, too. Right now, I need to save my ka in case I have to manifest.”
“Yes, well, if I had more spells, you might not need to manifest,” she protested.
“I know,” I said sternly. “Patience, grasshopper.”
Kezakazek huffed at that and drew herself up to her full diminutive height. She planted her fists on her hips and thrust her chest up toward me in defiance.
“I am a drow sorceress,” she said. “I am not a bug. I am not a cricket. I am not a moth. And I am certainly not a grasshopper.”
I raised my hands defensively and chuckled.
“It’s a saying,” I said, then cut my description short before I had to dive into the concepts of television and kung fu. “No offense. I know you’re a badass drow witch, but you need to hold your horses until after we’ve dealt with this dungeon lord issue. Then I’ll see about advancing all of you.”
“That would be nice,” Nephket said. She stroked Kezakazek’s hair with one hand and squeezed my hand with the other. She cast a meaningful glance at the wahket, who had nothing to do but watch us squabble. “Everyone’s nervous. Let’s not let our tempers get away with us.”
Kezakazek’s cheeks darkened at the priestess’s words, and she gave a short, sharp nod. I still saw the sharp edge of temper in the drow’s eyes, but Nephket’s words had calmed her enough to hold it in check.
“Let’s play a game,” Kezakazek said.
She led us through a sort of roleplaying exercise. One of us would describe a hypothetical enemy while the rest came up with inventive ways to dispatch it. It was an amusing game, even if the drow was much, much better at it than Nephket and me.
“And that’s why the best way to demoralize a foe is to build a penis pyre,” the sorceress said with a smug grin.
“Well, there’s another winner for you,” I admitted.
All my methods defaulted to the most pragmatic solution, and Nephket’s answers tended toward the merciful. But Kezakazek was an endless font of truly horrible ideas. This was not a game I’d ever win against her.
“Penis fires are fine,” Zillah said, “but if you really want your enemies to think twice about attacking you, turn a few uteri into balloons and fill them with quickfire gas. You see a few of those float into your village, you’ll figure out a way to toe the line pretty darn quick.”
“That is disgusting,” Nephket said. “Did you find anything interesting?”
“Yep,” Zillah said. “But you aren’t going to like the bad news or the worst news.”
“Let’s have the bad news,” I said.
The scorpion queen reached into the small pack she wore on her back and pulled out a mutilated skull.
“Take a look at this.” She tossed the bony trophy to Kezakazek.
The drow snatched the skull out of the air with ease and turned it over in her delicate hands.
“Oh, shit,” she said in horrified surprise. “Is this what I think it is?”
The drow held the object up so I could see it. Someone had neatly sawed off the top of the skull just above its eye sockets. The revealed edges were smooth and polished, like the lip of the ceramic bowl. There were faint spiral scratches along the inside of the skull and a series of strange holes around the nasal cavity.
“Somebody make themselves a cereal bowl?” I asked.
“You wish,” Kezakazek said. “This is all that’s left of a mind spider’s victim.”
“They’re fascinating, really,” Zillah said. She pressed her index fingers to the space between her nose and her upper lip. “They dangle from their webs over your face while you’re sleeping and jam these little ovipositor tubes right into your skull. Then they squirt an egg sac into your brain.”
“Gross,” Nephket said. “That’s really gross.”
She held one hand up in front of her chest and pointed back toward the wahket who waited a few yards behind us. She opened her eyes wide and then pointed her finger down toward the dungeon’s floor.
“Oh, right,” Zillah said in a much lower voice. “Sorry, didn’t mean to panic the troops. Anyway, when the egg hatches, the larva burrows back into your brain and attaches itself to the top end of your spine. Once it settles in, it can walk you around like a puppet until it gets too big and squishes your brain to death. Then the spider lops your whole head off, sticks its legs out of your ears and eyes, and crawls around until it finds another victim. If it gets too big before it finds a new host for its eggs, it pops off the top of your head to give itself more room. That’s what happened to that poor fucker.”
“And how many of these things are down here?” I asked.
“Define ‘down here,’” Kezakazek said with a dark smile. “They’re not common in the Great Below, but these caverns are enormous. There could be thousands of those wicked little beauties beneath Soketra, maybe tens of thousands.”
“How many of them do you think are around here?” I asked. I did not want to lose any of the wahket to freaky head-popping spiders.
“This discarded skull is old,” Zillah said. “I didn’t see any fresh ones nearby, so we probably won’t run into any mind spiders. But this carcass is a good reminder that these old caves can be every bit as dangerous as a dungeon. There are monsters down here much scarier than mind spiders.”
“If that was the bad news, what is the worst news?” I asked.
“We found t
he dungeon,” Zillah said. “It’s not even very far from here.”
“That sounds like good news,” I said suspiciously.
“You’d think,” Zillah said, but she wagged her finger at me to let me know how wrong thinking that would be. “But whoever this Delsinia bitch is, she has some nasty, nasty friends. And they’ve got a camp set up right outside her front door.”
“You sure those aren’t raiders hunting her core?” I asked.
Maybe the Guild had been smarter than they looked. Shit, now that I thought about it, they could have a camp somewhere other than the oasis. Though, if they’d done that, wouldn’t they have sent their higher-level folks over to reinforce the low-level raiders I’d wiped out?
Imperfect intelligence was driving me nuts. I needed to know more.
“If those were raiders, they’re the lazy kind,” Zillah said. “It looks like they’ve been set up there for a while. We found a latrine that was far from empty, if you catch my meaning.”
“What kind of guardians are they?” Nephket asked.
“The bad kind,” Zillah offered. She inclined her head toward Kezakazek. “Drow.”
The sorceress’s eyes widened, and her lips compressed into thin black lines of panic. I felt her fear rattle against the inside of her skull like the wings of a butterfly trapped in a cage.
Even Rathokhetra gave off a faint scaredy-cat stink at the mention of enemy drow. The heebie-jeebies must’ve been contagious, because my stomach curdled into a knotted ball of anxiety, too.
If Kezakazek was one of the weaker drow, how deadly would the stronger ones be?
“How many?” the sorceress asked. She chewed on her lip while she waited anxiously for Zillah’s answer.
“We saw five,” Zillah said. “Looked like four soldiers and a sergeant. No obvious spellcasters, though it’s hard to tell with dark elves. It’s possible the sergeant was a priest or sorcerer, but I couldn’t tell without getting too close for comfort.”
“That is not good,” Kezakazek said. “I vote we seal this passage and go home. We could visit the Buried Kings; I’m sure that would be enlightening. Where there is one squad of drow, there are many more. Let’s pretend we didn’t see this batch and hope they don’t find us until we are much stronger.”
