“Alright, Ducky’s old man paired us with the Southern Shore Patrol again, but it’s just us and them today. So that’s something. Exploring the same tunnel we were in yesterday of course.” Frazier said as they stood before the open stone door into the dungeon hallway, the sun just now creeping up the backside of the mountains to the east.
“And the day before that.” Sarah said with a yawn.
“And the day before that,.” Maph added, already sounding bored.
“But not that first day,” Franco said as he checked himself to make sure he had everything he needed for the day.
A near empty ruck sack on his back. Just enough food for two meals, a change of clothes and some extra drinking water. Everything else on his adventurer belt. Three full days had passed since Helmric made his announcement. The news from the poor mages they made run out and set up a relay station was that hundreds of more adventurers were on their way. The first group would be leaving tomorrow. Several crews had been hired and were already working to improve the long trail to their location.
The remaining Golds and Silvers were clearing the dungeon rooms and rumor was that they had found some real treasures. Nothing legendary or mythical about the items but that little treasure chest was actually just that, a little treasure chest which, as was explained to Franco, usually not the case in a trap room. They waited in the chilly morning mountain air, a slight breeze blowing through the village as it came alive around them. The common smells of a camp mingled with the fresh scents of the mountain wilderness they found themselves in.
Although that first day had been exciting for him to return to where he had lost his memory it had quickly turned boring. The large tunnel they had been exploring off the main dungeon path was, so far, nothing more than where some stone scarabs and stone slimes had eaten whatever they ate out of the rock. As of yet, it had nothing to do with the dungeon.
While the first day saw them as one of four teams clearing that one tunnel it now seemed to be just the two of them. Frazier was sure they had moved almost a mile through the main winding tunnel and cleared countless offshoot tunnels of small pockets of the scarabs and slimes.
They waited at the large stone doors only a few minutes before the Southern Shore Patrol arrived.
“Good morning rookies,” their team captain said in his thick Clements accent. He held a canteen of what smelled like coffee in one hand and a spear in the other.
Captain Doran seemed a nice enough fellow. In his early thirties and a level 16 [Marine]. His spear had a very small glow orb lantern hanging from where the spearhead met the wood and he looked ready for a hike. He had three others on his team and each one was clearly prepared for a dungeon dive. It was nice to work with professionals.
“Good Morning Doran, where do you want us on the walk out,” Frazier asked.
“Let’s have Sarah and Val take the lead like usual, Franco and myself following behind this morning and then you and the casters with Maph and Lady bringing up the rear. But, I think today we will let your team clear any good size side tunnels we find by yourselves. Should be some good experience for you rookies.”
Franco liked the sound of that. Anything to have a chance to find something for themselves.
“Perfect, let's get started,” Frazier said.
That was the first excitement Franco had seen out of her this morning. Their group passed the Iron Triangle, the Silver rank team that was tasked today with guarding the barn size doors that stood between the hallway and the village. They made sure no one unauthorized entered and no one tried to walk away with something they had found without declaring it. The team had one of the two Truth Detectors the Expedition had brought with them.
The long, grey worked stone tunnel stretched before them. As wide as a street and almost 20 feet tall it sloped downward gently. With the Expedition placing glow orb lanterns at short intervals along its length, no part was in darkness. The worked stone floor had a checkered pattern to help with footing and slight gutters at the edges to let water run off to small openings on the side. Many of those drainage openings being the route the scarabs and slimes had used to enter or exit the tunnel over the thousands of years this place had been left to the monsters. What once might have been something grand was now half cave from its occupants.
Their two groups walked in silence for the most part. Passing side tunnels that had been cleared and closed off with stone or spell by other adventurers. Some few had only partially been blocked off as they had veins of ore that looked interesting enough to warrant inspection by a miner.
Franco could already hear people working in the first room further down the hallway, past the true doors to Desanigh. It was a huge room that had held twelve stone golems and a massive stone scarab colony. Now, it was a source of loot being torn apart stone by stone. History, lost magic, works of art, or talents from the era of the Five Evils and just before the end of that calamity's time — all of it would be worth something to the right buyer.
More than 4,000 years old. Although Franco had to be told the current year was 3993 of the New Era and that decades, if not more than a century, was lost to the apocalypse that ended the Five Evils era.
They entered a scarab tunnel half way down the main hallway. A large chalkboard sign hung next to the tunnel entrance. Captain Doran and Frazier took turns writing down their team names and members present. The sounds of chalk scraping on slate seemed to act as a signal to the nine adventurers. Everyone began their final preparations.
Franco pulled out his wand of Light Orb and cast the spell on the top of an Adventurer’s Stick that Maph pulled from his bag. Their team had four of them. Franco wasn’t sure if he knew about them before he saw someone use it on their first day down here. It was a simple polished hardwood staff that broke down into parts that could attach to each other with brass ends that screwed on and off. Allowing the stick to be as long or short as needed. Perfect and cheap enough to use on traps or a hundred other reasons. Now, with four parts together, it made a staff taller than he was that held his light orb. One that would last two hours before he would need to cast it again.
Both Fern the Sorcerer on the Shore Patrol and Oaken free casted the spell from their personal spell books, taking more than a minute to do so. Light orb was a common spell but not one any low level magic users would use their Level restricted quick cast Ability slots on. Their lights hovered a few feet above their heads but would change height depending on the height of the ceiling.
They had another hour walk ahead of them at least, so once Captain Doran saw that everyone was set he just waved for Val and Sarah to get started. No one wrote stories about this part of adventuring thought Franco and stepped off after Captain Doran into the dark tunnelway.
***
They were almost two hours in before stopping as a decision needed to be made.
“So what do you think?” Frazier asked them quietly as their voices bounced around the tunnels. Franco pulled his wand of light orb out and refreshed the spell on his adventurer’s stick as they talked. He knew that his spending spree and their daily training had helped him grow closer to his new team but he was also aware that he was still an outsider to them.
“It needs to be checked but it does seem to be a smaller tunnel,” Maph said as he stretched his legs. He had strapped his longsword to his back while his short sword was on his hip. Better for these tighter tunnels that were at times only big enough for them to get through one by one.
“We have been going up I think think the last thirty minutes, so we are probably getting away from the city that was famously sunk into a mountain,” Oaken added after he had finished free casting his Light Orb spell again.
The group turned to look at Sarah who was sitting on her heels, long red braid in her left hand while she played with a knife in her right. She noticed their eyes on her and she shrugged.
“I don’t care. Just decide, Frazier.”
Frazier looked at Franco and he nodded at her. “I think we should Captain. I have a good feeling about it” and he really did. He wasn’t sure why, maybe it was the air, but it smelled different somehow.
“Alright it’s ours Val, good hunting.” Frazier said as she turned to the [Pathfinder] of the Southern Shore Patrol who had been waiting for them to decide while the rest of his team waited further down the main tunnel.
Val got up from where he was sitting and looked them over before he trilled, “This is no game, it’s always after a few quiet days days that rookies lose focus and get themselves killed,” the older Kimber man said, moving his third hand to brush off his pants.
“Play it safe and blow a whistle and keep blowing if you need help. I’ll hear you.” He turned and caught up with his team.
“Alright then,” Frazier said. She fussed with her gear for a moment before taking a deep breath. Then, using a thick piece of red chalk, she marked the turn off they were taking with a dotted arrow indicating they were still exploring the tunnel they were about to head down.
“Sarah, when you are ready,” Frazier said pointing down the dark unexplored tunnel that was little more than seven feet tall and only a jagged three to four feet wide. Luckily the floor was mostly smooth. The rock here was a variety of colors but mostly different shades of brown and the strata showed layers as different as the colors. Sarah sighed and got up. Making sure her new enchanted gloves were on tight and a dagger in her left hand.
“How close do you want me?” Franco asked as he held the Adventurer’s Stick with the Light Orb in front of him so that light was washing down the tunnel they were about to explore.
“Stay on my ass till it opens up then give me a little more space,” she said as she got to the front of the group.
“My pleasure,” Franco said with a smile coming to both their lips.
With that their group began to move. It was slow going as it had been the last three days. Their path twisted and turned and the group stayed quiet because of the strange acoustics of the cavern. After almost thirty minutes they stopped in a wider section of the tunnel to drink water and let a few members take a piss behind them.
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“Well this is further than I thought it would be,” Sarah said after Frazier came back from relieving herself.
“Same,” Franco added.
“But not the longest side tunnel we have seen yet,” Maph said, his hand resting on Frazier’s shoulder as they sat together.
“But it’s almost that long,” Oaken muttered. He was not handling the tunnels or cramped places well.
“Mark our spot and go back?” Frazier asked. The group looked around at each other under the lights of both Oaken and Franco’s spells. Franco waited a few more seconds and then chimed in.
“I think we should push on. I’m feeling like something is ahead.” He looked around excited. “Have you noticed that we are still heading up and the water erosion here is greater? Also, I think the air is different, less stale.” He knew he felt or sensed something.
The group almost as one took in a loud breath through their noses. They laughed at the serendipitous action but then, after they had caught their breaths, did it again in sequence which was even funnier to Franco.
“I think he is right,” Maph finally said with a small smile coming to his face. Franco saw the light glimmer in the elf’s eyes. They seemed almost catlike now.
“There is something. Water does come down towards us,” Oaken said as he checked the floor of their tunnel.
“Sarah, do you need to be switched out?” Frazier asked the young woman.
Sarah shook her head no before dumping a small shot of Stamina potion into a canteen of cold coffee.
“I’m good,” she said before taking a big gulp of the stale drink.
“Let’s get moving then,” Frazier said, standing with Maph’s help.
So they went on, passing multiple small side shoots but nothing that could fit a person. The floor continued to slope upwards. At one point, they had to crawl under a boulder that blocked the top half of the tunnel. They found nothing living for the next hour and heard nothing but their own breathing and foot falls.
When Franco had to recast his Light Orb spell he was worried he had wasted their time. The tunnel just continued on and on.
Eventually, they encountered a tighter section of the passage. Tight enough he had to turn sideways for more than a dozen feet until he hit Sarah with his Adventurer’s Stick. He was about to apologize to her until he saw her eyes flick to him before going back to looking forward. His heart jumped into his throat before he leaned back the way he came and held out his left hand. Frazier soon touched it and, in the dim light reflecting from the rock around them, she locked eyes with him.
He mouthed “Sarah found something” and Frazier nodded before twisting in the tight spot to pass it on to Oaken.
He then crouched low and shimmed his way to Sarah who was also crouching down. He couldn’t see what she could as the tunnel apparently turned back towards him a bit. When he got close to her she whispered “Spiders” and felt his eyes go wide. No one liked fighting monster spiders but Sarah smiled and quickly shook her head.
“No, small ones, but there are spider webs ahead” she mouthed the words more than whispered them.
He was confused for a second until it hit him. They had gone hours without any kind of life. Not even rock slimes. He smiled and passed the news on down the line. They took a small break there in silence and prepared themselves. Franco pulled his wand of magic bolt out and put it in his left hand so that Sarah would have as much light as he could give her. After just a few minutes Frazier tapped his shoulder and he nodded to Sarah who, with a dagger in hand, moved forward.
As soon as he got around the bend he saw what had stopped her. Thick spider webs strung from one edge of the narrow tunnel to the other covered the top of the passage. All higher up but clearly there and as Sarah moved forward the sound of her steps changed. They grew faintly louder and then Franco felt the air around him move as if from a breeze.
With one last slight twist of the rocky tunnel the ground leveled, and with a few halting steps he reached Sarah and raised his light orb. The tunnel they had followed ended a few feet in front of them and opened like a doorway into a strange, cavernous space. Gone was the narrow tunnel of rough, natural rock. It was replaced by an open path at least fifteen feet wide with a distinctly engineered floor of large worked stone blocks with clear mortar lines.
Franco slowly moved forward, following behind Sarah, and could see that the walls on either side of this space were made of rubble. What, at first glance, appeared to be piles of rock slowly revealed themselves as the shattered remains of something made by hand. Too many right angles, hints of engravings. As far as they could see into the gloom, broken sections of a forgotten building lined the sides of the cavern as if they were pieces of some ancient puzzle. Small patches of dungeon moss grew among the rubble and gave off faint light.
The true wonder of the space was the towering vaulted ceiling. A scant twenty feet above their heads, two enormous beams of ornate stone emerged from the cave wall, slanting up, their other end lost high in the darkness. The massive pillars held the weight of a mountain at bay to create this pocket of ruin. As Franco stared in awe, he realized those beams rather closely resembled a pair of large decorative columns that had been knocked askew. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what force it would have taken to tip them over.
The rest of the party had caught up and taken their time to marvel at the sight. Maph tapped Franco on the arm which got him to turn towards the elf. He had the attention of everyone else also.
“Right,” Frazier said, trying to focus.
“How far up is that roof before we lose it in the darkness?” Franco asked the group. Was it a hundred feet above them, more, two hundred?
“Hard to tell but at least a hundred,” Sarah said softly. Maph nodded in agreement.
“I hear running water,” Oaken said and the group grew still as they strained to listen. Franco thought he heard it but it was clear they were not alone in this place. What sounded like bats quietly chirping came from far above them.
“Bats,” he said as he pointed up with his wand. Seeing the wand, he realized he needed to take this place more seriously. He holstered his wand of light orb, then shifted his Adventurer’s Stick to his left hand as he quietly unsheathed his saber with his right. Frazier saw his actions and started doing the same while indicating that everyone should follow suit. She unhooked her crossbow, her Silver rated crossbow and the likely reason she was so low level. It was an enchanted auto loading hand crossbow that held ten bolts at a time and could be reloaded in seconds. Powerful enough it stunted her growth.
They all made ready until Sarah, the most impatient she had been all day, spoke.
“What’s the plan, this is clearly rubble,” she squeaked in excitement looking around them.
“Yes, with things living in it, expect anything. Like undead or traps,” Oaken trilled at her excited tone.
“Is this, is this Desanigh?” she asked in a near whisper. He could still hear the excitement in her voice.
“We don’t know anything because this could be anything so let’s act like real adventurers and do this smartly. So, get yourself under control Sarah or we will head back right now,” Frazier warned, deliberately making eye contact with the rest of the group.
They all nodded in understanding and Sarah visibly calmed herself. She took several deep breaths to get herself under control. Frazier waited another heartbeat before she tapped Oaken on the shoulder.
“How many free cast [Light Orbs] can you maintain and still be useful in a fight?”
Oaken trilled slightly in thought. “Three,” he said after a few seconds.
“Then go cast one above our entrance and keep that one above you further away just in case anything from above tries to drop down on the lights,” Frazier said.
After Oaken finished, Frazier had the group move forward again. Franco still stayed close to Sarah who now moved even slower than before as she moved in a half squat. Scanning the ground below her as much as she did what was in front of them. Sarah was taking her job seriously looking for traps or an ambush. Franco held the light above her as much as he could between resting the staff back on the ground when his left arm grew tired. The ubiquitous dungeon moss growing on the walls and ceiling gave off a faint glow that mingled with their light orbs in odd ways. Dancing shadows ebbed and flowed all around, drawing their gaze and keeping them on edge.
At this slow pace they passed the rubble walls on either side in ten minutes as their path now opened up to an even larger area. The floor here was still worked stone, but was covered in a strangely thin layer of bat dung.
A little further, the path ended in a chasm that fell hundreds of feet below them and was the source of the sound of running water. The chasm was so wide that even their light orbs couldn’t illuminate the far side.
The underground river was flowing swiftly from their right to their left and seemed to be heading deeper into the mountain. When looking back at their entry point there was a worryingly clear path worn into the dust, bat shit, and stone. Someones, or somethings, had been active down here, and recently at that. The same was true along the edge of the chasm. To their left, a trail went down deeper into the mountain. Again, it was obvious something had shifted the rubble to create a clear path. Looking to their right, they saw a similarly clear path through the rubble.
Franco thought heading right was better and, apparently, so did everyone else in their group after the question was asked. So, once again, he kept close to Sarah as they moved up the path with the chasm to their left and piles of rubble to their right. For forty nerve-wracking minutes they cautiously followed the trail before the chasm suddenly stopped at a solid wall of smooth rock. The path made a hard right turn, moving alongside these huge stone blocks that interrupted their way forward.
So, they followed the path right and after a few steps entered into a large open space with their lights only covering a portion of the open area. Their team gathered before moving forward into the open space. It looked like an old city plaza. The stone path they had followed here looked to have been made up of different pieces of rubble that had been formed into a walkway while what they now stepped onto was marble of some kind. Engraved with a simple pattern at the edge of the plaza. It was hard to tell in the dark and the ceiling was still far above them.
This open space or plaza was even more of an oddity because it was the first space they saw piles of dirt and dung covered rubble all throughout the plaza. Some piles as tall as Franco. It was Oaken that noticed the faint blue light first. It was almost directly to their left and seemed to come from the outline of something. Something along the straight wall that formed this near perfect 90 degree corner that formed the wall that had blocked the path and made them turn into this plaza. It finally came to him.
“Is that a corner of a building with a plaza in front?” he rasped out.
Sarah audibly gasped while Frazier loudly asked “What?”
Oaken trilled in excitement but kept his voice down. “Skyfather above, it is Franco, and the building looks intact. In fact that glimmer of blue light looks like it could be a ward spell and it’s near the center of this massive building, like like those are doors. Magically sealed doors and it’s hard to tell because of the rubble but are those steps leading up to that glimmer.” He was excited but he kept calm as he took a few more steps into the plaza, this time heading towards the glimmer.
“Wait for us.” Sarah said as she turned back slightly and took another step towards the glimmer as well, and with that step a little trimmer ran through the plaza. Suddenly every rubble pile around them began to move, putting out a cloud of dust and dirt into the area as a millennia of dust and dung was stirred up while an unnatural rattling sound filled the plaza. Franco knew that sound. He knew that sound. That sound made sweat break out on his bald head. He threw the adventuring stick he was holding with the light orb forward into the haze and dust because he knew that sound from somewhere. He quickly grabbed for his wand of Light orbs. They were going to need more light. He knew that sound. Where? How?
“What’s going on.” Sarah shouted
“What are we doing.” Oaken said moving backwards
“We need to run,.” Frazier said, fear clearly choking her words. How did he know that sound? It was something, a tomb and stairs downward and then it hit him. Just a flash of a memory. Sight, sound and smell. Of dozens of unblinking green flames staring him down as he swung his saber again and again, as a man lay at his feet dead, his life blood pouring from a cut across his neck while another next to him brought their hammer down onto the white skull of a skeleton, snuffing out those pale green flames in its eyes and sending the rest of its skeleton body rattling to the ground. Rattling bones, rattling bones, it was a legion of rattling bones.
“No” he shouted as he shrugged off his ruck and started to cast more Light Orb spells as far out into the plaza as he could.
“It’s undead skeletons and there are hundreds of them. We won’t out run them, we can’t. It's death or glory, Stone Eaters. Death or glory” he knew he was grinning and chuckling like a mad man.
