by Ian Rodgers
A group had gathered to bid Dora and her friends goodbye. Dramhyda was there, naturally. Who else would activate the dimensional portals, allowing Dora and her companions to leave the Resort? The Gold-Squalls were there to give their blessings, and Tilda and Evelyn stood nearby as well.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again,” Dora said awkwardly as she bid the sisters farewell. “But, before I go…”
“If you’re going to offer me a chance to have a few of my years back, I’d like to politely decline,” Evelyn said softly with a tiny smile. “Don’t worry, though! I’m not going to die until I want to! I’m going out on my own terms, Selika be damned!”
Dramhyda held back a giggle at that bit of blasphemy. Dora chuckled as well and gave the old woman a hug. “I had fun. It was nice having a grandmother, even for a short time.”
“What about me? Glad to have a sister for a day?” Tilda asked, beaming cutely. Her innocent act didn’t fool anyone, but Dora laughed and gave the vampire girl a hug all the same.
“Sure did! It made me glad I didn’t have to deal with a sibling of my own!” Tilda pouted but then joined in the bout of laughs that rippled through the room at Dora’s joke.
“Yeah, I suppose that’s fair. Anyways, here, take this!” The blonde vampire handed over a small ivory statue. Dora took it, noting that it looked like a large mosquito.
“If you’re ever back on Erafore and need my help, just let a drop or two of your blood fall onto the statue, and it’ll come to life and carry a message to me, regardless of where I am on the planet,” Tilda explained, before winking. “I’ll be sure to cut you a deal on prices. Half off on assassinations and sabotage!”
Dora chuckled weakly, as she pocketed the enchanted item. She wasn’t sure how much of what Tilda had offered was a joke. The sharp glint in the young-looking vampire’s eyes had been unnerving to say the least.
She went over to the Gold-Squalls next, and they happily wrapped some of their tendrils around Dora’s hand, shaking it.
“Thank you again for healing my wife,” Yugulp said heartily. “We’ll never forget your kindness! Are you sure you only want those Bags of Holding?”
“Yup,” Dora confirmed, patting her backpack fondly. “It’s all I need. Stay well, and I’m sure your kid will be adorable.”
“They will be. And they’ll be named after you,” Shelly promised once more. She leaned in and whispered, “By the way, I know you don’t want it, but I snuck some extra ‘thank you’ gifts into your packs. Don’t worry, it’s not money, just some snacks and coupons! You’ll like it!”
Dora stepped back with a murmured, “Thank you,” and was soon approached by Lady Dramhyda.
“The Depiction of Utopia is a tempting artifact many would kill to have. And, many of its old owners may come after you, wanting it back,” the Exarch warned Dora. “The painting has a mind of its own, coming and going where it pleases. Sometimes it’s content to sit on the wall of a mansion or in a museum for a few millennia before vanishing, which means a lot of immortals over the years have owned it at some point. Be wary, be safe, and most of all, don’t use its power unless you absolutely have to!”
“I will, Lady Dramhyda. And thank you for the lessons,” she said, bowing her head thankfully towards the tall blue lady.
Dramhyda smiled before walking over to the Planeswalking array in the center of the chamber. She flicked the tip of one of the diamond spikes, and the energy within it roared to life. Soon the other four crystal spires were radiating rainbow light, and the intricate runes and patterns on the surface of the azure marble sprang to life as well, glowing in similar colors to the ones given off by the pillars.
“Take care!” the Exarch shouted as a hole in reality tore itself open in the space between the diamond spikes, revealing a swirling vortex of blue and white.
Dora nodded resolutely, and Enrai patted her back solemnly before a wide grin full of excitement decorated his face.
“Let’s go!” the Monk cheered, charging into the portal. Ain sighed and hurried after him, and with a giggle Dora leapt after them.
Chapter 6: The earth moves
Traveling through Dramhyda’s portal was a lot smoother than the one they’d used to get to her Resort. It was even better than the ride in Kurnos’ portal they’d used to get to Targua.
It was like walking through a tunnel made of blue jelly. After taking only five steps Dora emerged from the wobbling vortex of energy and joined her two friends on the other side.
Enrai was wandering around the area they’d arrived at, scouting for danger. Ain stood closer to the portal, waiting for Dora to exit it while also ensuring their bald friend didn’t go too far.
“Where are we?” Ain asked as the half-orc stepped out of the portal. It slowly began to seal itself up behind her.
The blonde Healer looked around, taking in the sights. It appeared they’d ended up in the center of a stone amphitheater, long abandoned and crumbling. It was dark, the only light source coming from patches of glowing moss and mushrooms poking out of the cracked and pitted rubble.
“Lady Dramhyda said it’d send us to a place where we could look for information on ‘walking opals,’ which Lady Nia says I need to find,” Dora said.
“Well, we’re in the right place if we want to look for stones,” Enrai commented dryly, eyes firmly latched onto the sky.
Dora and Ain tilted their heads back and gasped, stunned by the sight of a vast, stalactite studded ceiling. It extended as far as the eye could see, and Dora wracked her brains trying to think of where they were. It finally hit her and she slapped her forehead.
“We must be in Gaeum, the Elemental Plane of Earth,” Dora groaned.
“Well, I suppose that’d definitely be the place to find magical gems and what-not,” Ain mused. “I wish Lady Dramhyda could have dropped us off closer to civilization, though.”
“Odds are she wanted to, but the goddess who apparently wants to ruin my life made sure she didn’t,” the half-orc muttered in annoyance.
After some more glances around, she sighed and waved her friends over. “Come on, we’re not going to find what we’re looking for just standing around. Let’s go spelunking.”
The trio made their way out of the amphitheater and found themselves in the wreckage of a settlement. Everything was made of stone, and the architectural style was similar to the one used by the ancient Val’Narashi. Judging from the ruined state of the structures, the place was devoid of habitation, and had probably been looted a hundred times over by now, so the group didn’t spend longer than they had to in the area.
Large swathes of luminescent fungi lit up the darkness, leading Dora and her companions through the fallen town. It wasn’t long before they reached the edge of the cavern and came upon a large tunnel leading deeper into the depths of the Elemental Plane.
“Dancing Lights,” Dora intoned, and a trio of fist-sized orbs of white light popped up into existence in front of her. She willed the spell-crafted sources of light over to her side, and they lit up the dark, the glowing mushrooms stopping at the tunnel’s entrance.
“Well, this seems to be the only way forward,” she noted.
“Really gloomy and eerie,” the Monk said, glaring into the depths.
“We can’t exactly change that. Let’s go!” Dora instructed, and the group entered the tunnel.
The Dancing Lights provided only a small amount of illumination for the darkness of the underground realm. The stone walls of the tunnel seemed to swallow up the light, only permitting them to peer ten feet in front of them with any clarity.
“I think I’m starting to develop claustrophobia,” Enrai said with a fake chuckle, his eyes darting rapidly from side to side the further they went into the tunnel. “The air flow is so constricted… and it’s so stale as well!”
“Calm down, Enrai,” Ain told his friend. “The more upset you get, the worse you’ll feel.”
“I understand what he means, though,” Dora said, eyeing
the walls enclosing them cautiously. “I can barely sense any mana other than that of the Earth Element. Even at the Resort I could still detect the presence of the other seven Elements, it was just that Water was the most potent. Here, though, it honestly feels… empty and dirty. Yeah, I think that’s the best way to describe the sensation.”
“Well, if we’re all going to complain, I guess I can contribute as well,” Ain said with shrug. “I just wish it didn’t echo so badly in here! My ears are sensitive, and all this reverb is messing with my sense of balance!”
The Grand Elf absently reached up and pinched the tips of his ears, trying to keep the worst of the bouncing sounds away. When he did so, however, a frown creased his face and he looked around worriedly.
“Hey, anyone else hear that?”
“No,” Enrai and Dora both said, and Ain coughed awkwardly.
“Right, yeah, you don’t have elf ears,” he muttered to himself. Louder, he said, “There’s a scratching sound coming from up ahead. Sort of reminds me of claws… I think we might have company soon!”
Dora grunted in affirmation and unslung her crossbow, loading it and aiming down the tunnel. Enrai swallowed his nervousness and started to gather flames around his fists. To his mortified surprise, his fire was weaker than normal, and wavered palely as he held it tightly.
Ain had his own nasty surprise as he only managed to call up a few sparks of electricity that danced fitfully along the edge of his saber.
“Looks like we’re doing this old style,” the Spellsword noted with slight apprehension as he settled into a sword fighting stance.
“Please let it not be spiders or bugs! I really don’t want to punch spiders or bugs without my flames!” Enrai muttered to himself. Dora and Ain both shared a chuckle at that.
“That’s why normal people don’t use bare hands to fight!” the Grand Elf joked, only to tense up. “Here it comes! Whatever it is!”
Out from the gloom a large, bulky shape reared up as it approached the light Dora had summoned. It screeched and lunged at the trio.
“Oh, unholy Hells, is that a rat?!” Dora screamed in disgust. She fired her crossbow at it, and the bolt sunk into its left eye, causing it to rear up on its back legs in pain.
“That’s one big rodent!” Ain proclaimed as he slashed at the gargantuan creature, drawing blood as his blade sliced into its chest. It was indeed a rat, only one that could match a horse in terms of size. It also had a huge, boney knob on the end of its whip-like tail that cracked loudly against the stone of the floor and walls as it pounced at the three travelers.
“At least it’s not a bug!” Enrai cheered before slamming his fist into the giant rat’s head. A loud ‘Crack!’ rang out as its skull fractured, and with a squeal of pain it toppled over.
Ain approached the insensate form of the massive rodent and with a swift swing of his blade, took its head off. Its form twitched for a few seconds before going limp.
“It was down already, why’d you do that?” Dora asked, confused.
“Better to be safe, then sorry,” he said in explanation for his action.
“Unless its head or heart are completely destroyed, you never know if a monster can recover from its injuries and attack when your guard is down,” Enrai said as he massaged his knuckles.
“Yeah, that’s fair,” the half-orc agreed after a moment of thought, thinking back to the times with the Yellowmoon Menagerie when she’d helped capture injured monsters, only to have them trick the trappers and break free.
“Any idea why this rat came after us?” the Monk wondered as they walked around the corpse they’d left lying in the tunnel.
“Maybe it smelled us?” Ain suggested.
“Possibly. But maybe it just was a jerk who liked scaring people by popping out of the shadows,” Dora offered with a snicker.
The group continued to chat as they made their way through the dark, keeping their spirits up in the gloom. Their mood lifted when they spotted a very faint glow in the distance that was not coming from Dora’s spell.
“An exit?” Dora hoped eagerly.
Ain’s ears began twitching again, and he frowned. “Maybe. I hear a lot of scratching coming from up ahead.”
“One giant rat or two?” she asked the Spellsword, who grimaced.
“…More like thirty, plus extra,” he said after a moment of straining his ears to catch every sound.
“Well, crap,” Enrai sighed. He ignited his fists while Dora reached for more crossbow bolts.
The trio stealthily crept to the end of the long tunnel. As they got closer, squealing and snarling, as well as screeches of pain and an odd clicking sound permeated the air. The group stayed low, and upon getting to the last edge of the stone pathway, peered out to see what exactly they were dealing with.
“That is a lot of rats,” Dora said squeamishly as she observed about two dozen more of the large club tailed vermin.
“That’s a lot of ants,” Enrai added weakly, staring at a tide of black and brown carapaces that were biting and tearing at the rodents.
“Looks like we stumbled onto a turf war between these two species,” Ain mused, eyes carefully observing the scene. While the rats were bigger than the ants, they were outnumbered five to one. For each monstrous insect crushed or bitten in half, there were still several ants left to rip and tear at the rats’ limbs, causing heavy bleeding that was taking its toll.
The territory dispute had left the cavern awash with blood and ichor, staining the ground and making large patches of stone slick with the run-off. The green and blue light given off by patches of moss and mushrooms growing on the walls and ceiling reflected morbidly off of the shed bodily fluids.
A closer inspection of the open space revealed that the ants were pouring out of one tunnel, and that the rats were protecting a second one across from the first. The passage the trio were hiding in was a third one on a slightly elevated position that allowed them to look down on the whole conflict.
“We either go through that tunnel the rats are guarding and run into what are likely women and children rats, or we try and get past the ants and use their tunnel,” Dora said, discussing their options.
“I don’t like either choice, but honestly, I’d rather deal with rats than bugs,” Enrai stated with a frown. “Not that I like the thought of running into flesh-hungry beasts, but insects are, in my experience, harder to deal with than soft, furry creatures.”
“Yeah, if we have to fight, I’d rather it be with rats, no matter how large,” Ain agreed.
“…Okay, that makes sense,” Dora said with a nod. “Rat tunnel it is!”
With that decided, they all leapt down from their hiding spot and booked it across the uneven floor of the cavern. A handful of the giant rats noticed Dora and her team, and upon discovering their aim to enter their tunnel broke off of the pack to pursue the trio.
“Damn it, they spotted us!” Dora whined, glancing over her shoulder at the pair of massive rodents coming their way. She also saw the way Ain and Enrai tensed up. “Oi! No fighting, you two! Just book it!”
“Fine!” Enrai sighed, extinguishing the pale flames he’d wrapped around his hands. Ain just grunted, but slid his saber back into its sheath.
They had a head start on the rats, but four legs proved better than two in this case as the vermin grew ever closer to the fleeing trio.
“Dora, we might have to fight back if they keep chasing us!” the Monk stated as their pursuers continued to gain.
“Argh! Selika curse them!” the half-orc growled, before muttering an incantation to herself.
“Look away, boys! Burst Flare!” the Healer shouted, tossing a throbbing sphere of magical energy over her shoulder. A second later there was a loud “BANG!” and a violent flash of bright white light tore through the darkness.
Twin screeches of pain greeted her ears, and Dora smirked. “More than one way to evade a rat!”
“Good job, Dora!” Ain praised, before frowning. “It sounds like they�
��ve stopped chasing us.”
“Is that bad?” Enrai asked, glancing at his friend then over his shoulder to check the Grand Elf’s words.
“Perhaps if there are more of them up ahead guarding the rest of the nest, it might be a problem,” the Spellsword stated.
“Knowing our luck, there will be plenty of them,” Dora sighed. Elf and human shared a look before sighing as well in agreement.
“Only one way to find out!” Enrai declared, his chipper act not fooling any of them in the slightest. Still, he had a point. And given it was a mostly straight tunnel, they had no choice but to keep on walking.
∞.∞.∞
“How long have we been down here? Or, uh… what do we call being trapped in a dimension that literally has no ‘surface’ and is nothing but underground tunnels, caves, and pits?” Enrai wondered aloud, his jittery expression a giveaway that his claustrophobia wasn’t going away. So far, they’d encountered no monsters, just a seemingly endless path leading nowhere. But that in and of itself was worrisome.
The tunnel itself had widened shortly after they had ditched the giant rats. Now, it was large enough for all three of them to walk side by side with plenty of room to spare. Unfortunately, the light emitted by Dora’s Dancing Lights only stretched so far, keeping them in a ten-foot by ten-foot bubble of illumination. At times, they couldn’t even see the walls or ceiling of the tunnel. The ever present darkness seemed to press in on them, trying to crush and suffocate them.
“I think ‘down here’ still works,” Dora replied. She looked around anxiously, checking to make sure nothing was waiting to pounce, and cast a quick time keeping cantrip. The result made her frown. “Ugh, right, this spell is still calibrated to Erafore time.”
“How long have we been gone from home, then?” Ain inquired. He was the only one of the group not about to soil himself from the all-enclosing darkness around them. At least, not outwardly. Inside he was a quivering mess.
