Morgan lay, staring into the darkness for a long time. Once, he stirred, doubting he had ever heard a voice, and it came again, just a soft breath saying, “Shhhh.” He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he recognized a hint of Issa’s voice in the admonishment, so he lay back down, and he continued to wait. He let his mind drift, and he suddenly thought of his ring. He could feel it resting, heavy and cool, on his finger. Had it even worked? He thought back to when the Yovashi first hit him, knocking him to the ground. It had hurt, and he’d gone sprawling, but he’d been fine to bring his knife around for an attack immediately. That ring might have saved him being speared through by that bastard’s pointy leg. He wondered if it was recharged yet. Now that he thought about it, he had no idea how long he’d been unconscious.

After what felt like hours, he heard something large stirring behind him, and he listened to the wet crunching and snapping sounds of what he could only imagine was the Yovashi feasting on some poor soul that happened to be closer to its resting spot than Morgan. After the slurping, crunching sounds died down, he heard the rustling noises of it moving away, and then the distinct click-clacking sound of its insectile legs receding through a wooden tunnel, farther and farther away behind him. He started to sit up, and he felt a warm, small hand rest on his cheek, and he frantically reached up and held it with his own.

“It’s gone hunting or something; we should move quickly,” Issa whispered. Morgan nodded, and he felt a warmth flow out of Issa’s hand and, the next thing he knew, his surroundings lit up in shades of grey. He stifled a gasp as he took in his surroundings. Steep dirt and stone walls rose on three sides of a veritable charnel pit. Bones, bodies, and pieces of bodies were strewn in piles. Morgan recognized many bodies that had to be of the same race as Issa. He also saw more of the strange goat-like people, as well as Yeksa and Urghat bodies. He looked around, in a horrified fascination, trying to see if any of the corpses were human, but he didn’t see any. He did see a few types of people that he hadn’t seen before, including a fair-haired, pale-skinned woman that he thought was human, at first, but then he saw that she had a pair of ripped, gossamer-thin wings on her back and long, delicate antennae sprouting from her forehead. Issa was pulling on his arm to get him moving when he noticed that the winged lady had opened her eyes and was looking their way.

“Hold on! That fairy lady is alive!” Morgan whispered to Issa and pointed.

“Fairy lady?” Issa looked where he was pointing and nodded. “Ahh, yes, the Ghelli. I saw her moving around a little while I hid against the wall with my cloak. Morgan, there are a few people alive down here, but if we linger, we’ll all end up dead.” Issa’s voice sounded pained, but she shook her head regretfully.

***Quest: Don’t let the Yovashi eat the surviving people in its larder. Reward: Commensurate with achievement 0/4. Penalty for failure: None.***

Issa hissed and swiped at the air in front of her face. “You got it too?” Morgan asked.

“Yes, but Morgan, the Yovashi is a terror, as you well know! Among my people, even the higher level Hunters with Improved Cores avoid them.” Morgan thought about what Issa was saying, and he knew she was speaking reasonably. That thing had treated him like a rag doll. Still, he didn’t like the idea of leaving four thinking and feeling people down here to be eaten bit by bit by that damn thing. He looked around, up the slope of carnage to where the Yovashi had been resting, and he could see in the highlighted greys of Issa’s spell, the broken wooden paneling of the tunnel the Yovashi had left through. Something caught his eye, and he stood up, walking carefully up the slope, and that’s when he saw the second survivor: a stocky man with brightly colored hair was laying at the base of a pile of bones. He lay on his side, holding the stump of his right foot elevated. He’d tied a belt around his calf, right where the limb ended. He looked in Morgan’s direction as he moved up the slope, but Morgan could tell that the man couldn’t see him; his eyes kept darting around, trying to pinpoint the source of the scuffling sounds Morgan and Issa were making. Morgan noted that his hair and skin looked similar to Issa’s in the grey light and whispered, “Is he one of your people?”

“Yes. Oh, Morgan, I have to try to help them. I won’t be able to live with myself.”

“Yeah,” Morgan whispered, “I’m feeling the same way. Let me get a good look around. How long do you think that thing will be gone?”

“The first time I watched it leave, to sneak in, It was gone for quite a while, maybe an hour,” Issa whispered.

“Hello? Who’s there? Help me!” The Ardeni man croaked hoarsely.

“Quiet, friend, I’m trying to think of a way to help,” Morgan whispered back. He nodded to Issa then looked around the upper area of the slope that led out of the charnel pit. The slope was about fifty feet long, and they were halfway up when they passed the man. Morgan looked closely at the body parts and piles of bones that were strewn around, wondering if there were other survivors. The quest had indicated four, but had it been including him and Issa? He didn’t feel like it made sense for him and Issa to save themselves, but then, what did he know?

He and Issa were almost up the slope to the flat area where the Yovashi had been feasting. The floor here was more stone than dirt, and it was stained dark with old blood and other fluids. The piles up here were different. Morgan could see that the Yovashi had been saving belongings from the people and creatures it ate, throwing them into sloppily sorted stacks of weapons, ragged clothing, armor, ripped backpacks, broken and whole tools, and supplies like ropes and even a cast-iron pan. Morgan’s eye was immediately pulled to a cluster of long staves, spears, and polearms leaning against one wall. “Oh, fuck yes!”

Morgan hurried over to the weapons and picked out the spear that had caught his eye. It was about seven feet of smooth, dark wood that stood out in pitch black in his dark vision against the lighter greys of the other weapons and surroundings. Its blade added another foot to its length, and it was a hell of a blade - four inches wide at the base, with two curving half-moons that converged on a gradually tapering point. He felt the edge, and it was like a razor. “Oh, come here, my lovely. You and I are going to do some damage!”

Issa sucked air in with a gasp, and Morgan looked over to her; she’d pulled a long, slender rapier out of a stack of other swords, some broken and rusted, a few looking to be in decent repair. The rapier she whipped back and forth gleamed brightly in his vision, though, almost like it gave off its own light rather than just reflecting the dim lantern light coming from down the tunnel. “It’s a beauty!” Morgan said.

“Better than that axe, and better than any sword I trained with, that’s for sure,” Issa said.

“Okay, that’s half the plan - we have some weapons, but we’ve gotta hurry up,” Morgan said, looking to what had first given him a sliver of a plan earlier. When he’d first looked at the area at the top of the ramp, he’d seen that the Yovashi’s lair was a natural cavern, one part deeper, where he had been flung, unconscious, and the other part up higher, where the Yovashi rested, ate and stored its belongings. What he’d seen was that the natural cavern wall near the wooden tunnel entrance had some clefts and even a large boulder jutting out of it. The boulder was about eight or ten feet from the tunnel, and Morgan could see that if he climbed it, he’d be able to crouch there in the shadows, prepping a potentially devastating sneak attack.

The only problem was that the top of the boulder was too far from the tunnel for him to be sure he’d be able to jump onto the Yovashi. It would have to be lured over closer. “Issa, let me explain my plan,” Morgan whispered and then proceeded to do so.

“I’ll do it,” Issa said.

“I knew you’d say that, but I think I have a better idea. I want you up on the boulder with me. You can cast Haste on me before I jump.”

“Well, then who will bait the beast?” Issa’s eyes opened wide, and she looked over to the man with the missing foot. “No, Morgan!”

“Hear me out,” Morgan said as he looked around the piles of equipment. He saw what he was looking for and hurried over to a pile of discarded armor and clothing and picked up a large, round shield made of wood and metal. He nodded and walked over to the man holding his tourniqueted leg up. “Hey man, we’re gonna get you outta here, but I need your help to make it happen.”

The man introduced himself as Darran. He wasn’t pleased with Morgan’s plan, but he couldn’t really argue. He knew he was dead if Morgan and Issa couldn’t get him out of the pit, and he knew they had to deal with the Yovashi for that to happen. In the end, Morgan only had to press a little before he allowed himself to be dragged over next to the wall, about five feet past the boulder. Morgan gave him the shield, “Listen, just turtle up behind this after it starts coming your way. We’ll handle the rest.” Darran nodded, mouthing the word turtle with a quizzical expression, and held the shield in front of his chest.

Morgan boosted Issa up onto the boulder, leaned his spear against the rock, then reached up, taking Issa’s hand and clambering up beside her. He grabbed his spear and shrank back into the shadows to wait. Issa crouched beside him, one hand on his shoulder, concentrating. She’d said she’d prep the Haste spell so she could cast it nearly instantly. The minutes ticked by, and both he and Issa grew uncomfortable, but they knew they had to stay still. After what felt like hours but was probably more like twenty minutes, they heard the click-clack of the creature's spider legs moving through the wooden hallway. It was nearly time.

Morgan raised his spear in a two-handed, stabbing pose and drew in a slow deep breath. Issa’s hand tightened on his shoulder. The click-clacking stopped right at the edge of the hallway, followed by long moments of silence. Morgan started to sweat; something was wrong. A deep, sibilant voice poured out of the hallway, “Where’s my snack?” Click-scrape, and the first few legs poked into the cavern. The Yovashi’s head became visible as it leaned into the cave. “I know I had a fresh one just over there,” it said in that same deep hiss. Darran played his part flawlessly as he scooted and scraped along the wall, reaching one hand toward a pile of rusty knives and daggers. The Yovashi finished stepping into the room and swiveled to stare at Darran. “Ahh, there we are,” it hissed, stepping quickly toward him.

Morgan looked into Issa’s bright eyes and nodded. He instantly felt a surge of Energy flow out of her hand, and he felt his heart start to race, his mind breaking free from its fetters. Before he could contemplate his actions, he stood and leaped, driving the spear forward and activating his Backstab skill. He had to adjust his stab mid-flight because Backstab was guiding his blow into a more vertical angle. He dared not scream a warcry, but he cursed the Yovashi in his mind. He drove the vicious spearhead down through its torso from just behind its left collarbone all the way into its creepy abdomen. For a second, the spear hung up when the spearhead was fully embedded into the creature, and then it punched through something, and Morgan kept pushing as the shaft sank in. Resistance broke once more as the razor-sharp spearhead ripped through the bottom of the Yovashi’s torso, slicing through several flailing tentacles on its way out. Morgan kicked off the Yovashi’s back, managing to land on his feet. He quickly backpedaled away from the screaming creature’s flailing rear legs and tentacles.

Issa was standing on the boulder watching the death throes of the sadistic creature, and she shouted, “Fuck you!” The Yovashi, convulsing and coughing black ichor, managed to turn around and look at Issa. It took two steps toward her and then collapsed.

“Hey, you used that word perfectly!” Morgan laughed.