Chapter 94 - The Architect of Rot

  Whatever was making that smell, it couldn’t be that far off, because the stench was getting stronger, fast. Each step I took seemed to amplify the reek. It had moved from being mildly unpleasant to seriously disruptive. I felt like I wanted to gag a little every time I inhaled.

  Most of the party was shielded from the stink. They’d all donned their gas masks already, which were apparently doing a terrific job of keeping out the stink. Alex and I weren’t so fortunate. Our masks had gotten soaked when he cast Create Water around us, and guess what doesn’t handle being dunked in water well? If you said ‘gas mask filters,’ you win the prize. We still carried the things, because even soaked they might still block out some spores, if we ran into something emitting toxic crap into the air again. But they hung loose around our necks, because they weren’t stopping the smell at all.

  “God, this is just bad,” I grumbled.

  “Yeah. Not great.” Alex was just two steps behind me. I glanced back and saw he’d ripped a chunk of cloth, wet it, and hung it in front of his face like he was playing bank robber.

  “Is that helping?” I asked. If it was working for him, I’d happily sacrifice a little more of my already ripped up garments for some relief.

  Alex shook his head. “Nope. Not really.”

  “Terrific.”

  Marion laughed. “Poor boys. I can’t smell anything except the rubber of my mask.”

  “Me, either,” Ruiz added.

  “Careful, or I’ll put you both on latrine duty from now until doomsday,” Alex said. His tone was light, though.

  Marion smacked him on the shoulder gently anyway. “You wouldn’t!”

  “No, probably not. Latrines don’t smell this bad. I’ll have to come up with something worse.”

  That brought some more good-natured chuckles from the group. The noise was loud enough I almost missed the sound of something shifting against stone, coming from the passage ahead. I heard it, though. Or I thought I had, anyway. The noise was faint, so I couldn’t be certain. I held up a hand, and everyone stopped in their tracks. Silence reigned over the passage.

  I turned an ear toward the way ahead, focusing, trying to catch even the slightest bit of sound. There was nothing. I waited ten seconds, then ten more, but I still couldn’t hear anything at all.

  “What is it?” Alex asked, his voice soft.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Just thought I heard something move. I think we need to continue, but let’s stay sharp. We have to be getting close to whatever the next threat is.”

  We’d already gone more than a hundred feet down this passage, which was about the longest distance we’d seen between any of the rooms. That fact had me hoping that maybe this was it, the final room. Of course, that meant we’d be facing some sort of ‘boss’ monster, but we were ready for it. As prepared as we were going to get, anyway.

  As we proceeded, the passage had continued to grow in dimensions. Now, it was a full twenty feet across and high, which was good for me, at least. I was still walking along the floor, but that extra overhead space would make it a lot easier for me to fly, if I had to.

  We’d begun seeing more fungi growing from the walls again. Not to the same level as the rampant growth in the first room, with the puffballs, but more than we’d seen since. There were riots of growth spreading from the walls, with green glowing mushrooms springing up in patches, surrounded by weeping chunks of purple and red slime. Shelf fungi were common, too, but these didn’t feel the same as the clean, dry sort one usually found on trees. Instead, these ones looked wet, like they weren’t just feeding on the decay but were actually themselves rotting away.

  The whole thing made for an incredibly unappetizing scene. With the smell on top of it? Well, it was a good thing nobody was talking about a lunch break. We’d been going for a long time, and I imagined that if we were anywhere else, I’d have been more than a little hungry, but not then, and not there.

  As the passage twisted hard around to the right, I noticed stronger shadows on some of the fungi. “Brighter light ahead,” I called back in a whisper.

  I’d been ambushed once already, coming around a corner. I wasn’t letting it happen a second time. Instead of just marching around into the arms of whatever monster might be waiting on the other side, I carefully set myself up about three feet from the wall, then moved forward slowly, watching the area revealed as I took each step. At first, all I saw was more wall, but then I got a look at what else was there, and sucked in an unfortunately large breath in surprise.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The large breath made me gag, of course. I took two quick steps back while I got that reflex back under control, and Alex came up next to me.

  “What did you see?” Alex hissed.

  “Something weird. It’s huge, whatever it is, but it doesn’t look like it’s mobile,” I replied. “And I really do mean huge. Whatever it is, it’s gigantic. If this isn’t the final boss, I’m going to start really worrying about whatever else lies ahead.”

  “Let’s slice the pie,” Alex said.

  “What?” I stared at him blankly.

  He rolled his eyes. “Never played many FPS games, did you? Move in a semi-circle, slowly exposing more of the space beyond the corner.”

  My turn to roll my eyes. “That’s exactly what I just did!”

  Alex flashed me a grin. “And now you know what it’s called, too.”

  I held my tongue. There was no point in arguing over terminology at a time like this, and the last thing I wanted to do was make a lot of noise.

  I held my tongue. There was no point in arguing over terminology at a time like this, and the last thing I wanted to do was make a lot of noise. We ‘cut the pie’ or whatever the heck it was he’d just said, taking slow and careful steps side by side as we gradually exposed more of the space beyond the tunnel’s curve.

  The passage either widened dramatically or ended in a new cavern, depending on how you wanted to look at it. Either way, the space beyond was the largest we’d seen in this dungeon. It had to be forty or fifty feet high. The walls rose sharply, then curved gradually toward the ceiling. Every surface was covered with fungi, but unlike most of the other places, this area seemed to be a mono-culture. There was only one sort of fungus growing here, something similar to the puffballs we’d seen before, but attached to the walls or floor, instead of freely rolling about. Of course, there was no certainty that they’d stay anchored like that. For all we knew, the moment we stepped into the room, they’d all wake up and come after us.

  It wasn’t the smaller fungi that took our breath away, though. There might be as many as a hundred of those balls, but the thing that took up the center of the cavern completely stole the show, anyway.

  It was shaped like a column that reached from floor to ceiling. It was a pale color, almost white, except that it gave off a faint glow that had a slight greenish tint. The trunk of the column had to be at least a dozen feet in diameter. The thing was huge. Its surface was wrinkled, looking something like pictures I’d seen of a human brain.

  “Looks like brain coral,” Alex muttered. I realized he was right. It looked a lot like some corals I’d seen, but where those were usually smallish lumps, this was a massive column of the stuff.

  “I don’t like that you used the word ‘brain’ to describe this. We’ve had enough trouble fighting off monsters that were relatively dumb, so far. Are you thinking this one is smart?” I asked.

  Alex gave me a shrug before replying, his voice soft. “Can’t tell. Won’t know until we get in there with it, really. But I’d guess so, yeah. I think you’re right about this creature. Did you see the tier?”

  I blinked. I’d been so busy just taking in the sight of the thing that I hadn’t checked its rank. The column shone as a tier ten monster. I blinked again, just to make sure I’d seen it right, but sure enough, the number stayed the same. I glanced at the pods, but thankfully those didn’t show a tier level. They might still be traps of some sort. They certainly looked like bad news of one variety or another. But it looked like they weren’t the same monsters as the puffballs. That was a relief, in a way. They’d been painful to fight, even with the masks. And Alex and I didn’t have masks anymore.

  We backed away from the room, returning to the others, and filled them in on what we’d seen. Then Alex did what he did best, and came up with a plan of action.

  “I want everyone with masks to keep them on. Johnson, Clark, Ruiz, and Anderson, I want you to lead out. Since Castle doesn’t have a mask, I want to keep him in reserve until we see what this room is going to throw at us. Dara, you, me, and Castle will be the next wave, right behind the tanks,” Alex said. “Marion, you and Rodriguez bring up the rear, okay? Rodriguez, keep her safe, no matter what. I have a feeling we’re seriously going to need her heals. Your sole job is to make sure Marion stays alive. If she goes down, we might all wipe.”

  “Wipe?” Carter asked.

  “He means all of us might die horribly if we let the healer get killed,” Dara replied.

  “Why not just say that, then?” Carter grumbled softly.

  Nobody chuckled, this time. We were locked down and ready for a fight. With the plan set, it was time to make it happen. Alex made a forward motion with his arm, and the tank row led out, marching around the corner. Those of us with ranged attacks followed right behind them. It felt weird, not being first in. I’d gotten used to leading the way, and even without a gas mask, I was still probably more durable than all four of our front row combined.

  All the same, I knew Alex had a point. If I was taken out of the fight for even a short period because of some sort of surprise power, it might spell doom for everyone here. Marion and I were our two keystones, her for the healing, me for my ability to take and dish out damage. If either of us went down, the party’s odds of success plummeted.

  The tank row went all the way up to the edge of the cavern, to where the passage suddenly shot upward and outward, turning from a relatively narrow space into an enormous one. Clark glanced back quickly, and Alex nodded, gesturing with his hand to keep going. They marched forward another three steps before anything happened.

  As soon as they came within spitting distance of the nearest ball fungi on the floor, the massive column pulsed with a flash of slightly brighter light. It pulsed a second time. A third. Something was definitely about to happen.

  Three of the pods on the floor in front of our tanks opened up, the tops peeling back like they were some sort of alien eggs. As soon as they’d opened enough, three of the weirdest creatures I’d ever seen scuttled free, launching themselves through the air toward our tanks!