by Josh Powell
“I see,” said the dwarf. “Do you have a pass?”
“A pass!” Gurken exclaimed.
“Yes, I’m afraid I need to see a pass before I can let you in.”
Gurken raised his axe to the heavens and thundered, “Here’s my pass!” He looked around, but nothing happened. No rune glowed upon the axe’s head, no fire rained down from the heavens. “That was rather less impressive than before,” Gurken muttered.
“Yes, I’ve seen the axe. As impressive as it is, I’m afraid it’s not a pass. No pass, no entry. Good day.” The wooden panel slid back over the barred window. Gurken walked back over to the group.
“Maybe I should talk with him,” Pellonia said.
“Won’t do any good, unless… do you have a pass?” Gurken replied. Clem lumbered over to the door.
“I’m afraid not, but perhaps I can reason with him,” Pellonia suggested. Clem looked at the door and took hold of the bars in the window, one in each hand.
“He doesn’t seem like the sort of fellow one can reason with,” Gurken said. Clem pulled and strained at the door.
“Bribe?”
Clem jerked on the door.
Gurken shrugged. “We can give it a try.” He turned back to the door just in time to see Clem rip it off its enormous iron hinges. Wood splintered and iron groaned as he tore the door off and threw it aside.
“Clem no need pass, tiny dwarf!” Clem shouted. Then, in a more polite voice said, “I do not need a pass. Please stand aside.”
The dwarf hissed at Clem, a tentacle sticking out of his mouth. “Get away, foul beast, you do not belong here.” The dwarf stabbed a spear deep into Clem’s chest. Clem swung a meaty fist down on the dwarf’s head. There was a sickening crunch as the dwarf’s helmet crushed into his skull. The dwarf fell over, dead. Clem broke off the spear, tip still in his chest, and threw it aside. He wandered back over to the group.
“Clem open door,” Clem said. “Door open. I have opened the door for us. The way is clear.”
“Is this really the best strategy?” Gurken asked.
“Absolutely,” Maximina said. “Pellonia is our rogue, so she walks ten feet ahead of us checking for traps; that way we don’t wander into them. If she’s beset upon by any monster, we are close enough to help out. The only way it could get any better is if she was better at hiding.”
Pellonia walked silently along the wall, ten feet in front of them. They weren’t using any torches, since they could all see well enough in the dim glow emanating from Maximina’s green eyes. Pellonia made exaggerated movements, trying to hide in the shadows of the wall, but failed miserably. Everyone could see her. She had, however, been successful so far, in that the party had not yet fallen prey to any traps. She had not yet discovered any traps either.
Pellonia raised one hand and everyone stopped. She motioned for Maximina to approach.
“Look at this,” Pellonia said. “A bunch of holes in the wall here, about an inch across. I don’t see any trip wires, but there could be a pressure plate in the floor. I think poisoned darts will shoot out of these holes when they’re triggered.”
Pellonia picked up some rocks and lodged them in the holes. “There! Trap disabled.” She took a step forward, slowed, and began to float. She waved her arms about frantically, looking as if she was trying to swim. Maximina reached out and her arm plunged into a cold, moist substance. It latched onto her arm and started to suck her in.
“Help!” Maximina shouted.
Gurken ran over and tugged on her arm, but Maximina didn’t budge. She stuck a foot against the substance, trying to leverage her way out, but the substance latched onto her foot. Maximina slid into the stuff. Pellonia stopped moving forward after about five feet, but she kept waving around, trying to grab something.
Clem trudged over and yanked Maximina. She pulled out with a sucking pop sound. Sssslll-pop! Pellonia frantically continued to swim.
Maximina rummaged through her magic sack and pulled out the mystic rope. She handed one end to Clem and threw the other towards Pellonia and shouted “Liga Illam!” The rope plunged into the substance and wrapped around Pellonia.
“Pull, Clem!” Maximina shouted.
Clem pulled. The rope pulled taut. He strained and Pellonia seemed to inch toward them. Finally, as if the substance grew tired, she spurted the rest of the way out. She gasped for breath.
“Thank… you… that… was close,” she said.
Maximina lit a torch, and the orange light reflected off a solid wall of transparent goop. It didn’t ooze along the ground; it blocked the entire passage. Maximina poked it with a finger. It adhered and tugged at it, sucking at her finger like an infant on a teat. She pulled her finger away with a small pop. The wall moved slowly towards them.
“I wonder what it could be?” Maximina asked, taking a step back.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Gurken proclaimed.
“Me neither,” said Pellonia. “But we’ll have to get by here somehow.”
“It’s too bad Ohm’s not here,” Maximina said. “Bards know all sorts of useless things. Lore they’ve collected along the way.”
“He hasn’t been a bard long,” Pellonia said.
“True, but he makes up for it by being a dragon. Dragons know quite a lot too.”
Pellonia said, “I have an idea.” She took the torch from Maximina and held it next to the cube. The cube stopped advancing and bent inwards, away from the flame. Pellonia smiled and said, “Kitty, torch it!”
Apocalypse sucked in an enormous breath and let out a jet of flame, engulfing the gelatinous thing. It sizzled and steamed, quivering as the fire took hold. It retreated, but soon the flames were everywhere and it shook and began to melt. Everyone backed away from the flames, waiting for them to subside. When it had, they noticed from the wet marks along the walls that the creature had been exactly as deep as it had been tall and wide.
“It’s a Gelatinous Cube!” Gurken said.
Pellonia shook her head. “That’s a terrible name. We should name monsters based on their weakness instead of how they look, that way anyone that finds one will know how to defeat it. How about… Flammable Jelly Monster?”
Maximina shrugged. “Works for me.”
Gurken thought about it for a moment, then said, “By that logic, wouldn’t goblins be called Everything Goblins?”
Maximina and Pellonia stared at Gurken. Gurken said, “You know, because everything kills them?”
They continued down the hall for some time, Pellonia ranging ahead and, at Maximina’s suggestion, holding a ten-foot pole out in front of her, dragging the tip along the ground. They did not find any more Flammable Jelly Monsters, but they did discover a hidden pit with some sort of greenish slime covering the bottom of it and set off a tripwire that caused a boulder to drop from the ceiling, splintering the end of the pole.
The loud snap of the pole breaking and the sound of falling rocks echoed through the tunnels. They held their breath and listened. They could hear the sound, slowly, faintly at first, then with increasing speed, frequency, and volume. Slurp…pop. Slurp… pop. Slurp. Pop. Slurp pop. Slurpop. Slurpopop. Several brains with tentacles growing out of them strode into view. Phage. The Phage stopped, as if to take their measure, then lunged at Gurken, Pellonia, Maximina, and Clem, coming two and three at a time.
Gurken raised his axe. Pellonia took a step back, drawing her knives. Maximina pulled a cap out of her magic bag. Clem stood there. Apocalypse took to the air.
They were no match. Gurken was taken first. He sliced a Phage in twain with his axe, the next creature found its mark and stuck to his head, tentacles sucking at his cheeks and nose. Pellonia fell next, deftly tumbling and avoiding the Phage before one took her from behind. Maximina held the cap tightly onto her head, but once several of the Phage were upon her, they overpowered her, ripping off the cap and latching onto her.
Apocalypse scorched a score of Phage with his fiery breath. As he burned his way through them,
it took longer and longer for one to succumb to the flames until they ignored the flames entirely. Phage climbed on each other, building a pyramid until one was able to leap and latch onto his legs, pull itself up and latch onto his head.
Their tongues swelled and blistered. The blisters popped, a warm fluid seeping into their mouths. In place of the blisters, suckers covered their tongues. Something writhed and flopped around in their mouths, squirming tentacles where once there were tongues. “Kill them.” They heard a deep raspy voice speaking, all anger and rage and dripping with hatred. “Kill ‘em all.” They looked around for the voice, then realized it was their own.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Berserker and the Ant
MAXIMINA WOKE UP as if from a deep slumber, a time of nightmares, memories seeping away like sand through a screen. Her tongue stretched and her sense of self slammed into her as her tongue stretched to the breaking point and snapped. Blood pooled into her mouth and she spat it out as she opened her eyes. Two huge black orbs stared at her, inches from her face. In front of the orbs, chitinous pincers twitched. A flopping tentacle, suckers wet with her blood, fell to the ground, flipping about in place, unable to move any appreciable distance. Air blew into her nose as the creature sniffed at her.
She screamed and jumped into the air. The ant went flying, landing and rolling several feet away. There were several dozen ant corpses arrayed around her on the ground. She held a crude club in her hand, red and black ichor coating the end from where she had smashed the ants. She looked around wildly. The ant got back to its feet and its antennae shook. It stood, watching her. Several other ants crawled over to it.
Maximina put a hand over her heart; it was beating rapidly. She closed her eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath, then let it out. She opened her eyes and looked. She was still in a tunnel of some kind. She’d apparently been engaged in a battle with the ants after the Phage had taken her. And the ants had saved her. Even after she had killed so many. She felt a stab of guilt.
She looked at the crude club in her hand and tossed it aside, frowning. She raised a hand to her mouth and winced as her fingers touched her tongue. It was painfully shredded, but still there. The tentacle hadn’t replaced her tongue, it had merely held on for the ride.
“Thain you, ser an,” Maximina said, addressing the ant that had pulled the tentacle out of her mouth. Maximina walked over to the tentacle and stepped on it. It gave a satisfying squish, like stepping on a grub. Green goop shot out the side and the tentacle stopped moving. She reached tentatively down toward the ant and it allowed her to stroke a tuft of hair behind its head.
Maximina felt around for her magic sack and found it still attached to her belt. She smiled, took it, and reached a hand inside. She pulled out a potion. The first potion was a blue potion that fizzed and overflowed as soon as she pulled the stopper off. She quickly sucked up the bubbles and drank the potion down. The wounds on her tongue stitched back together and her tongue was whole again.
Next, she reached into the bag and pulled out a scroll. She unrolled it, looked at it a moment as if to set the words in her mind, and said “Loqui ad Animalia.” The room was suddenly filled with a light, rainbow-colored fog. It didn’t come rushing into the room; it was more like she had suddenly become aware of something she had been unaware of before. The fog around her was blue, that around the ants was purple, and around the tentacle it was green.
The ant twitched its head and the fog swirled and intensified and Maximina heard, though not with her ears, the ant say, “What in the name of the queen is wrong with you? Letting yourself get captured like that. Useless off-world alien scum. Now you’re playing with your pretty potions and paper while the Phage need killin’.”
Maximina’s eyes flew wide, her mouth gaped. The mist around her swirled and the pattern changed slightly. It felt as if she were talking, but no words came from her mouth. “I’m sorry, what?”
The other ants took a step back, the purple mist around them froze in place. “It scents!” they seemed to say.
“Sir!” one ant said, “It seems that they’re intelligent, sir!”
“I can smell her perfectly well!” the ant that had saved her said in a mist. “Dead goblins! I always suspected they were intelligent.”
“Sir, yessir!”
“Um. Yes, we’re intelligent,” Maximina said.
“The one I took for a pet always seemed so. Never could convince anyone else though.”
“The one you took for a pet?”
“I called him Squishy. Poor queenless grub kept dying all the time. Squishy kept coming back though, resilient fellow. At least, until the Phage got ‘em.” The ant sighed.
“Do you mean Arthur?” Maximina said. The ant looked puzzled. “Had two friends with him? Gurken and Pellonia.”
“It’s possible. He did have two colony mates with him. A warrior and a worker. Not terribly effective most of the time. Had to get help to bail them out of trouble.”
“Gurken and Pellonia were with me earlier, before the Phage took me. I think the Phage took them as well.”
“Well, fry the queen! Why didn’t you say so? Dickie, Frog, Beetle, Maggot! Spread out and find them. Take a big sniff of, uh, say what do you scent yourself?” the ant asked Maximina.
“Scent myself? Oh, my name is Maximina,” she said.
The ant shook its head. “I knew quadraworms would scent themselves something weird. Sniff Maximina and get the others’ scent. Report back when you’ve found them. Do not engage. Re-scent. DO NOT ENGAGE.” The ants crawled over to Maximina and sniffed at her. Bluish mist drifted off her and settled over the ants’ antennae. The mist drifted down to the ground and spread down the tunnels. The ants skittered off, following the trails.
“Quadraworms,” Maximina said. “That’s a weird name. We call ourselves humans, or elves. I’m half-elven. Half-underelven to be precise.”
“Who the dead queen decided to scent you that? Those are terrible scents, not descriptive at all.”
“What do you call yourselves?”
“Armored terrorpods. What do you scent us?” The ant seemed to glare at her.
Maximina swallowed. “Same thing.”
“Well, I’ll be a wasp’s uncle. A quadraworm got something right. First time I ever caught scent of that happening!”
The world came rushing back to Gurken with a thundering snap. His tongue stretched and ached as the tentacle was ripped out of his mouth. He opened his eyes and saw two huge black orbs staring back at him. In front of the orbs, chitinous pincers twitched. Air blew into his nose as the creature sniffed at him.
“Antic!” Gurken bellowed. “Good to see you.” He reached out and stroked the ant just behind its head, where soft tufts of fur stuck out in the joint between its head and neck carapace. Antic purred and quivered under his hand. “Have you been here, in the Phage ship, all this time?”
Antic twitched one pincer and cocked his head to the left. Maximina stood beside Antic, crushing the tentacle under her heel.
Maximina said, “You call him Antic?” She scratched her head.
“I didn’t name him that, Arthur did. Why?”
Maximina looked at Antic. Antic twitched his antennae and a strange odor suffused the air. Then she looked back at Gurken. “No reason,” she said.
“What’s that smell?” Gurken asked. “It smells musty.”
Maximina shrugged. “Let’s go get Pellonia.”
Antic tore the Phage out of Pellonia’s mouth. It did not come easily. He tossed it to the ground, where Maximina stepped on it.
“Gah,” Antic scented. “I think I pulled my thorax.”
Pellonia’s eyes widened and she bared her teeth in ritual challenge. These quadraworms were very aggressive, especially this one. One had to know how to handle them. Antic growled and opened his pincers to answer her challenge.
“Surrender, worm,” Antic scented. “You try and try again, but you will never defeat me. I have no trouble sending you to an
early grave.”
Maximina put off an undecipherable scent as she looked back and forth between Pellonia and Antic.
Pellonia stood, picked Antic up, and attempted to crush him against her chest. Antic heaved against her and set his pincers against her arm.
“Put me down, or by the eggs of the queen, I will end you!” Antic scented.
Pellonia set Antic on the ground, and showed deference by cleaning the hair behind his head and presenting an offering of food. Antic growled and took the food.
“You best not forget this, worm,” Antic scented. “We’ve located your colony mates, a dragon and an unusual quadraworm that seems immune to the Phage. They’ve been taken to the queen, and you will accompany us. If you refuse, or cause any more trouble, we will sever your limbs and leave you out for the birds.”
Maximina looked at Antic. She gulped and seemed to sweat a little. She looked back at Pellonia and said, “Antic says they found Apocalypse and Clem and would be happy to take us to them.”
“That’s great,” Pellonia said in a pitch one octave higher than usual. “Oh, I’m so happy to have found you,” she said to the ant. Antic purred and his pincers quivered in excitement.
Pellonia reached down and stroked his soft fur once more. Antic purred with contentment. She picked him up and rubbed her face against him. “Who’s a cuddly-wuddly little ant? You are. That’s who.” Antic gently pressed his pincers against her neck. “Awww, a little ant kiss.” She pulled him off of her neck, kissed him on the head, and set him on the ground.
Maximina’s eyes darted back and forth between the two. “We should really get going,” she said. Antic skittered off down the tunnel, Pellonia and Gurken following close behind. Maximina followed, after allowing a respectable distance to accumulate between them.
Antic, Gurken, Pellonia, and Maximina walked into a large chamber. Two enormous ants stood just inside, guarding the entrance. Behind them were countless ants of moderate size. The guardian ants moved aside as Antic entered the room, bowing their heads and allowing him and his companions to pass.
