“Two up, two across… Hmm…” “There might be a hidden door. I’ll look later,” says Myrmidon Monk from over her head. “Yes, please.” Female Bishop nods like a baby bird. “I’ll have to prepare Holy Light…” She sounds just a little bit…eager. You know that she used three separate spells in the fight just now, though. Your cousin mutters “Hrmm” at about the same moment Female Bishop finishes her work. “Here you go. I think we’re about in the middle of the ninth floor.” “Thanks!” your cousin says, taking the map Female Bishop offers her and trotting over to you. You’re at the halfway point—and yet the exploration has just begun. Your cousin offers the map to you happily, and about as you expected, only the lower right corner is filled in. Thinking back on the other levels of the dungeon you’ve experienced, though, barely half of them proceed directly ahead, or “upward.” What does she think? Notwithstanding her smug look, your cousin’s eyes are serious. So you make a point of sighing and saying something about how it’s stuff like this that makes your second cousin drive you up the wall. She makes an obliging show of getting angry: “You know I’m older than you, right?! I’m like your big sister!” You grin, then jerk your chin toward Female Bishop. She’s by the wall, her hands to her modest chest in a gesture of relief. You can see her exhale; you can hear the “Phew” from where you’re standing, although you can’t hear whatever she says after that. You think she looks a bit tired. ‘Might be wise to take a short rest.’ “I agree,” your second cousin says, nodding grimly. “That was some battle.” It’s all too rare that you’re given a moment like this so far down in the dungeon. You pull holy water from your bag and pour it in a circle around yourselves. That’s when you hear it. Ka-clank. Ka-clank. The sound of something metal slapping against the ground, coming toward you from down the hall. It almost sounds like one of the strange and silly musical instruments that jesters play. The source of the noise is nearly as strange—it is, indeed, a bizarre animal. The clanking turns out to come from a massive steel box that wanders into view. It drags itself along on feet that look like accordion bellows, producing a noise like something scraping against a knight’s armor. At first glance it looks like a wagon or a chariot, perhaps, but there certainly aren’t any horses attached to it. If it’s wandering the dungeon, one thing’s for sure: It’s a living, moving monster. “What,” says Half-Elf Scout, his voice breaking, “is that?” As surprised as you all were by the creature’s appearance, you also reacted quickly, crouching in a corner of the chamber and trying not to breathe. You’ve just come out of a major battle; it’s the worst possible time to be ambushed by something you can’t even identify. That was what motivated your choice of action, and it wasn’t a mistake. You feel the same way as your scout. What is it? “I have no idea…,” Female Bishop whispers back, her voice high and trembling with fear. Her senses can tell her that whatever is approaching is threatening, but she can’t deduce much more than that. “There’s nothing I can say…” You see how frightened she is, and you assure her with no trace of humor that it’s not a goblin. Female Bishop smiles oh so slightly, although her face is still tense. “Right,” she says, nodding. That’s a good start. “You’ve been reading a lot of books lately. Have you seen anything about that?” Myrmidon Monk asks your cousin. “Unfortunately, only demons know much about the biology of demons,” she replies. Those spell books from strange lands that she’s been so assiduous in collecting and studying contain information about a great many things—so how about man-eating fiends? Maybe, maybe not, but even your cousin’s expertise isn’t helping here. ‘No, wait. What did you say just now?’ “Only, uh… Oh!” She nods at you. “That it’s a demon.” Good gods. You groan to yourself, then place a hand on your sword, so recently returned to its scabbard. You’d assumed it wasn’t a creature of this world—so bizarre monsters like that can also be found in demons’ lairs. “What do we do? Do we take it?” Myrmidon Monk clacks at you, as nonchalant as ever. He doesn’t care either way. “…Hmm. I’m not sure there’s any need to fight,” Female Warrior whispers seductively in your ear; you can hear her tinkling laugh right next to you. You find yourself remembering your encounter with the succubi. Why? No, this is different. You glance to the side. There’s no hint of fear on Female Warrior’s face, only her usual catlike expression. “After all, we’re going to the deepest level of the dungeon, aren’t we? I don’t think we should fight when we don’t have to.” You can’t quite decide if it’s conscious or intuitive for her, but that tone, that expression—they’re the way she always is. You’re grateful for it. A group that has only one opinion is a dangerous thing, of course. You cross your arms, ponder, and watch the steel demon as it wanders around, making its unearthly noise. You wonder how it can even tell where it’s going. Half-Elf Scout likewise crosses his arms and mutters, “Well now… Think it’s got eyes? Or ears?” Even he, now an accomplished scout, has to pause and consider how to evade a completely unknown monster. “It’s hardly even got a head.” “Maybe it uses smell!” your cousin says. “Naw, it woulda found us all long ago,” Half-Elf Scout replies, but then he laughs and says, “Clever girl.” He nods. “Point is, it can’t seem to find us where we’re hiding. Doesn’t mean we can let our guard down, though.” Makes sense. You express your gratitude for your scout’s analysis, and then continue carefully watching the creature. It’s probably pointless to wonder what it’s thinking, given that it comes from a completely different dimension. It shambles around the chamber. There’s an enemy in the room, and you don’t know how it will act… Silently you reach for your sheathes and draw the short blade that’s been waiting. “What? Think you can hit a vital point?” A chuckle follows that question; it’s Female Warrior, who’s looking over your shoulder. Hardly. A ghost of a smile plays on your lips. You do wish, however, that you’d learned better how to fight with a knife—much better for close quarters like this. You grab the knife like you’re a particularly wild member of the family Felidae, then aim in an entirely unexpected direction and fling it. The small blade pierces through the darkness, bouncing off the wire frame in the distance. The steel demon reacts instantaneously. It turns what you take to be its head, and the horn growing there lashes out. No, you realize, it’s not a horn; that was your mistake. It seems to be more of a magic staff. There’s an explosive boom, and then a geyser of flame. “?!” Female Warrior claps her hands over her ears at the deafening sound and shouts something you can’t hear over the blast. The noise echoes inside your helmet. Scrunching up your face and crouching down is the most you can do. The rest of your party is in much the same position; only Myrmidon Monk seems largely unaffected. The successive explosions simply cause his feelers to bounce a little. You’re sort of jealous. “I guess this goes beyond simple fire breath,” he clacks. “Wh-what…did you say?” your cousin asks, shaking her head vigorously. She probably literally couldn’t hear him. You groan amidst the vaporized debris drifting through the air from the steel demon’s attack. Somehow, even though you can’t hear anything, there’s a high-pitched ringing in your ears. You just can’t win with this thing! “That was probably a magical blast,” says Myrmidon Monk, who’s managed to “purse” his antennae in a way that looks almost as frustrated as your groaning. “Might be poison, might be paralysis…maybe even petrification. Point is, we would be facing a hail of those things.” “Basically, take one of those hits and it’s game over, huh?” Half-Elf Scout asks with a shrug. You sympathize. So this creature uses sound and perhaps its eyes (although you don’t know what it can see). “Magic blasts, strange sounds, breath weapon, strange footsteps…” Female Bishop seems to be onto something where you aren’t. Maybe it helps that she doesn’t have sight to distract her. She’s placed a slim finger to her lips and is thinking. At length, she says, “Maybe it’s…Hell’s Jester!” “You know, now that you mention it…!” Your cousin claps her hands and nods, but you, meanwhile, don’t know what they mean. You ask if there’s really a demon with a name like that, and your cousin replies, “Well, there aren’t a lot of records. The book I saw only called it an unidentified demon who supposedly approached with a sound like a jester’s lute.” If you’ve now encountered such a creature yourself, that’s of immense academic interest—but you’re not editors of the Monster Manual. At this moment, you need to know just one thing: how you can kill it. “Hmm… Well, like I said, not many people have seen one, and even fewer have written about it.” Your cousin scrunches up her face, deep in thought, and you wait for her to answer, unhurried. You’re pleased even just to learn that this creature isn’t completely unknown; you’re glad to have identified it. It means someone, somewhere, survived an encounter with this monster. If there’s data available, perhaps it can even be killed. After a few moments of furrowing her eyebrows and rubbing her temples, your cousin turns to you and says without much confidence, “Some people say the exterior is just a façade, that the tongue is the true body, or that maybe there’s a slime inside…?” “Urgh…” Female Warrior scowls. Or maybe she looks like she’s about to cry. Whichever it is, the sound she makes is pitiful. You pat her on the back with a grin, then conclude that the point is, if you can get that thing’s armor off, you might be able to do something about it. It’s not realistic to think you could dodge past those terrible magic blasts only to spend the rest of your time in the dungeon with the fear you might encounter this thing again. It’s clear what you must do if you want to get to the tenth floor. We have to hit that steel demon and smash it. “Basically, we gotta do something about that pesky flack it’s got,” Half-Elf Scout comments. He watches the monster, which ambles around at an irregular pace. No, you realize: What he’s studying is the chamber that’s set to be the stage for your battle. You whisper that you wish there were some way to draw first blood. You need to get that armor or shell or whatever it is off that thing or you have no hope here. You don’t think frying it (or would that be steaming it?) in its armor is very likely. In which case, you’re going to need an obstacle. You don’t think a frontal assault with sword and spear would get you very far. “Those magical blasts, those are the problem. I’m not sure even Protection could stop them.” Female Bishop sounds surprisingly engaged, though; if the party asked, she would no doubt use her miracle. Half-Elf Scout blinks at that, then jerks his thumb toward the room. “We’ve got what we need. Barriers.” “Wha…?” Of course Female Bishop can’t tell what he’s pointing out right away; she can’t see it. You have the thing the party is hiding behind at this moment. Then the walls that make up the chamber. Half-Elf Scout is pointing at something between them. The corpses of the greater demons, as big as you could want. An explosion sounds, smoke billows up. The shock and the heat ride the air toward you, and you run to meet them. Each time a round explodes over your head, the demon’s corpse bounces, bits of flesh flying off it. “Ugh, greater demon innards!” cries Female Warrior as some viscera come down on top of her. It’s still better than taking a direct hit. Nonetheless, the blasts fired by the steel demon, the jester of hell, remain formidable. Its shots easily strip away the exterior of the demons against whom you struggled so mightily. Huh! That diamond knight acted like he was going to have the tougher time, going to the capital! Is there any greater adventure than braving the depths of the Dungeon of the Dead? And you’re only on the ninth floor. In spite of it all, the great, thick walls of meat have proven more than enough to withstand the monster’s breath. You’ve tucked yourself behind the corpse; now Female Warrior runs to join you, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Then you both crouch behind the body. There’s another blast, and another demon-shaking shockwave. “What are we supposed to do about that…?” You decide the whine in Female Warrior’s voice must be due to the blue-black body fluids she’s soaked in. You’ll have to lend her a handkerchief later, you think, but for now you say that’s a good question and start thinking seriously. That thing has a shell like a suit of armor. No ordinary blow is going to reach it. Normally, then, you’d look for a chink in the armor. On any decent suit of plate mail, the joints would be covered, but that thing is an altar-planar monster. You need to let Female Bishop rest, however, and you want to conserve your other spells if you can. You decide a strategy like the one you used on the green dragon is called for. “You’ve got it… Hee-hee.” The laughter seems to come unbidden to Female Warrior’s lips; she doesn’t appear to expect it, and you certainly don’t. You look at her in shock, to find yourself meeting her translucent eyes. “Nothing,” she says, shaking her head, her black hair rippling. “This is just sort of…fun.” That’s all. Leaving behind only that brief whisper and the sweet scent of her hair, she pushes off the ground with her sabbatons and rushes off. Left on your own, you watch in astonishment as she goes—and then you laugh. Yes, this is what you’re cut out for. What you must do hasn’t changed. You’ll brave the deepest depths of the Dungeon of the Dead. That’s what this adventure is about. You wouldn’t trade it with the Knight of Diamonds for anything. Maybe he’s struggling away in the capital right now, or maybe he’s taking on the forces of evil at the head of a great army. Whichever it is, you wish he could see you now. He’ll regret his choice later on. “Yo, Cap! What do we do about this?” Half-Elf Scout shouts in between bursts. Sneaking is his specialty, but you don’t see any shadows anywhere. As for the shouting, he probably figures that with all the explosions going on, the enemy won’t hear him over its own attacks. Every bit as loud as the magical explosions, you shout back that you’re going to give it the runaround; then you press your helmet against the demon’s rapidly disintegrating flesh. You can’t see the faces of your back row from where you are—but you figure they’re okay. Your cousin and Myrmidon Monk are there. They’ll keep an eye on Female Bishop lest she bites off more than she can chew. Anyway—yes, this is still the ninth floor. Just the ninth floor. The tenth level, and the man in black, still await. Right now, conserving your energy is even more important to you than getting Female Bishop rest. At that point in your thinking, another smile creeps onto your face. Sparing a thought for the back row? Seems like you’re as relaxed as anything. Yes… Yes, this is better by far. With a remarkably light heart, you grip your katana and leap out from behind the demon’s corpse. “!” The steel demon turns to look at you and makes some sort of vocalization; the horn—no, the staff—spewing magic begins to change trajectory. This creature seems to be able to rotate its head in a complete circle, but the magic attack can only come from its staff. At least that means that if you attack from three different directions, you can’t all be wiped out at once. “—!!” There’s an earsplitting screech of metal and the “boom stick,” the staff growing from the creature’s head, explodes like a high tower. You immediately jump back—yeah, right. More like you’ll be blown back when something hits you—the light, the sound, one of them. So you have to stay one step ahead. Any time the opponent moves, you have to move first. Keep going. That’s all you can do. The tongues of fire get close enough to lick you; you roll to avoid them. What must you look like to those watching from the back row? Your cousin is probably anxious, but maybe not Female Bishop—since she can’t see you. As for Myrmidon Monk… Get hit, don’t get hit… He probably doesn’t care either way. Sounds about right. Such are the silly thoughts that pass through your mind as you plant a palm on the floor of the chamber and heft yourself up. There’s no time to stand still. That would simply give the enemy a chance to target you. That’s the last thing you want. Instead, you bounce like a ball with your sword at the ready, running, always running. It’s not like you’re simply fleeing in a panic. The enemy is locked on to you now, and as far as it goes, you’re grateful for that. “Hey! How d’ya like this?!” While the monster is busy going after you, Half-Elf Scout lunges at it, bringing his butterfly-shaped knives to bear on its feet. They’re strange and bellows-like, but they’re still feet. The muscles are easily severed, and the torso lists to one side. The feet suddenly start to scramble along the floor, making an awful screech—but also providing a critical opening; one that Female Warrior isn’t about to miss. “?!” Female Warrior shouts “Yaaah!” and leaps through the air, even her sabbatons barely clicking as she threads her way among the magical fire. The spear in her hand shines with an almost divine light, even down here in the darkness. She drives it into the monster’s shell. “?!?!?!” “Ha!” says Female Warrior, licking her lips. “So we can hurt you!” She leans her weight against her weapon, and even though she’s not a very big person, the spear acts like a lever, prying at the creature’s shell. There’s a creaking, then a cracking, the noise somewhere between steel shattering and flesh tearing. The one thing that’s very clear is that the steel demon is in intense pain. And so you run. You push off from the floor of the chamber, and then, using the greater demon’s corpse as a ramp—you leap. Your armor weighs heavy on your legs, the strain of continuous battle weighs heavy on your body, but the flying monkey technique that your master taught you is stronger than them both. As you fly through the air, you form a sigil with your left hand, your lips speaking words of true power. Just three words, to be precise. Carbunculus Crescunt Iacta. A ball of ethereal fire flies from your fingertips, trailing a tail of spectral light as it drops squarely into the monster’s open wound. Whereupon… “?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!??!?!” There’s a muffled thump from the creature’s stomach, then black smoke begins pouring out of its body. “Ahhh!” That’s not the reason for Female Warrior’s scream, however. She screams because something a dark crimson color has come flying out of the smoking monster. It’s an engorged slime—no, it writhes like the tongue of some unknown creature. It jumped right at Female Warrior’s head, which was when she screamed and crouched down so that the tongue went flying over her. “No! It’s gonna get away…!” Half-Elf Scout hollers. You may not know exactly what it is, but what it’s trying to do is obvious. You turn at Half-Elf Scout’s warning, but the room is large and the distance is great. The monster’s tongue squirms its way across the floor, making a lunge for the hallway. “Aranea facio ligator! Spider, come and bind!” Formed by the very rhythm of the incantation, a sticky white substance ensnares the tongue and drags it to the ground. “It’s hard to cast spells directly on demons, but indirect magic works just fine!” your cousin says with a triumphant snort. Her staff is thrust out, much like her ample chest. No, wait—she’s actually standing tall to protect Female Bishop behind her. An admirable performance indeed. …is what you don’t say to her. Nonetheless, your relief must be written on your face. Your cousin chuckles, pleased with herself. “Well, whatever it is,” Myrmidon Monk clacks, looking down at the writhing tongue in the spiderweb with no pity in his compound eyes, “this is the end of it, right?” Then he gives it a good whack with his machete—and indeed, that ends things. It’s only natural to take a short rest after that. You draw a circle with holy water to keep monsters at bay, then each of you finds a place for yourself, relaxing in whatever manner you choose. You might be in the dungeon, you might be right in the middle of a chamber, but uninterrupted exploring is not a good idea. This is necessary. How many times is it now—stopping for a rest in the dungeon like this? What happened the first time you visited the first floor? You think about it, about how many times you’ve braved these depths since then. Over and over. You mull the thought as you head to the corner where Half-Elf Scout is crouched. He’s positioned himself in front of the treasure chest that appeared as if from nowhere, working with his seven tools to break the lock. He told you to keep your distance—this is dangerous business, after all—but it’s SOP for you to station yourself nearby while he works. “What, wonderin’ if we’re gonna find ourselves a magic weapon down here?” Half-Elf Scout asks, sparing you a glance as you come up beside him. “With our luck, we’ll get holy armor or a paladin’s cloak or something. Lotta good that’ll do us.” But if you live to go home, you could sell it for a nice price. “True enough,” Half-Elf Scout responds with a laugh. Those particular items might not be of use to your party, but there’s always a chance that a magic sword might appear. This time your words are half-serious. “Also true.” The scout nods, then adds almost in a whisper, “Hell, this is like a dream.” Hoh, you breathe. How unusual, for him to give you any hint of his inner life. He’s always considerate of the other party members, always trying to do things for them. You cross your arms and lean against the wall, indicating that you’re listening to your scout. If he wants to talk, he can talk. To listen is your job; at least, that’s what you think. “Me, I was just a penniless scout,” he says. “A washed-up adventurer, or at least getting there.” One wrong move and he would have been just a runner, he says, as his tools rattle in the lock. You’re more than familiar with this scout’s skill by now—he would have made a very good runner. “Naw, can’t think that way. I joined a party ’cause I felt like I had to, but it all sorta went to hell.” He shrugs, a half grin on his face. There’s another rattle from the lock. That must’ve been when he pissed off the wizard and wound up in a tree—you laugh, remembering how the two of you met. Maybe he stole that spell book and maybe he didn’t, but whatever, he ended up with a spell of bug attraction on him, up in a tree and hounded by bees. You and your cousin were passing by on your way to the fortress city when he begged you for help. “And now the likes of me is on the deepest floor of the Dungeon of the Dead. Wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t been there.” You remind him that you all might still die before you get there. “Oof!” He groans and looks at the ceiling. There’s one more metallic scrape, and then the lid of the chest pops open, revealing what’s inside: money, treasure, equipment. A pretty good take.
Chapter 26
21 min read