Your Fly skill is now level 7!

Four skill-ups and one agility boost later, Rich managed to keep Geebo on his back for more than a few seconds.

Then, before he could hesitate, he dove down the hole back into the caves. This was less of a flight, and more of a controlled fall. He pushed off the side of the smooth passage whenever he got too close, and flapped frantically to try and break his landing. Fortunately the water did a pretty good job of helping with that.

Your Fly skill is now level 8!

Rich held his breath and pushed through, using his bulk to his advantage. The pond of snowmelt was still and little challenge. When it got shallow enough to pop his head out, he heard Geebo spluttering. “You okay?” he risked calling back.

“Yes! Geebo is fine, thank you, Little Great One.”

“You're welcome,” Rich said as he found his way back to the main cavern and back to the forking branch of the tunnel.

He looked back the way he'd originally come. That way lay the door to nowhere and the main part of the caves. And also that whispering thing that he wanted nothing to do with. But there was that other branch, the one that the hounds had been trying to herd him into. Rich stared into the darkness. Were there traps down that way? Another ambush?

He was a level higher, now, and he'd been able to hold off two of them at once without serious damage. And he knew how to use the door to send them away... that had seemed to scare them. If it was another ambush it would probably end poorly for the hounds. Traps... traps were another matter.

Geebo stirred as Rich hesitated. “Is everything all right, Master?”

“I'm curious to see why the hounds wanted me to go this way. But I'm not sure if I want to risk it. Not with you along, anyway. You might die.”

“Geebo might die anywhere down here, or up there, or wherever we go, Master.” The little draggit folded his arms. “Is very big and hard world and draggits are very small and soft.”

“See, I know you'll follow me wherever I go without complaint. I know you'll die for me. I really, really appreciate that, but you're my friend, Geebo. I don't want you to die.”

Geebo's eyes grew wide behind his spectacles. “F-f-f-friend?”

“Yes. Friend.”

Geebo's jaw worked silently. Finally he nodded. “Thank you, Little Great One,” he whispered. “This honor is one Geebo never dreamed of enjoying. Geebo shall take it to his grave with pride when he dies for you.”

“Which is hopefully a long way off,” Rich said, feeling a touch uncomfortable. He hadn't expected such a big reaction from the NPC. “So, uh... which way do you think we should go?”

Geebo pointed without hesitation towards the alternate branch. “That way is most likely way back to your mother's lair. Geebo had thought the other branch would do it, but that dead ended in the really wet room. This one looks like it might rise slightly and curve back into the mountain. If there is exit, it is here.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to find a Dark Power, not the way out...” Rich stopped. “On the other hand if we scare up something I can't fight down here, it'd be nice to have an easier exit out of the place than that hole. That hole up is not a quick way out, and that's a bad thing when Cthulhu's chasing you.”

WIS+1

That decided him, and he patted Geebo with one wing, and started up the passage. The corridor rose and turned, stretching upward for a few more minutes, and Rich had to renew his Dragonseye as he went. The skill was up to the point where it lasted a good amount between renewals, and he was pretty happy about that. He had incredible amounts of fortune, but still, every little bit added up.

“Torches,” he said, looking back at Geebo. “Next time we're in a place with vendors we need to buy you torches.”

“Geebo is uncertain why a great dragon would need a way to carry fire,” the draggit said, not taking his eyes from the walls and the passage ahead. “Perhaps you could enlighten him, please?”

“Making fire on my own tires me out after a while, and the light saves me from having to use Dragonseye over and over again. I don't know how long we'll be down here, or of any real safe place to rest, so we should plan ahead, y'know?”

Geebo nodded. “You are wise. I shall make torches when next we can.”

“You're a torchmaker now, too?”

“No, no. That is not one of Geebo's jobs. But Geebo's mother taught Geebo how to make them the old way. Twists of wood and thatch and sap, to burn but not too quickly. Is easy to remember.”

“The old way?”

“By hand, Little Great One. It takes so long, not like the skills. But it works.”

That was interesting. But Rich was in a dangerous place, so he put it out of his mind as he kept a watch out. The air had changed, somehow. It felt tense, for no reason he could tell. Then he rounded one last corner, and saw the door. It towered above, stone traced with blue veins in familiar patterns. “This is like the other one,” Rich blurted out. “Those are the circuits, and...”

One of the lines winked out, then reappeared. A flare of blue, and a smell of ozone.

“Are they unstable?” Rich asked Geebo.

“Geebo thinks no...” the draggit said, slowly.

A few minutes passed as they watched. Then another line winked out, and reappeared. More ozone, more blue light. Rich realized what was going on. “There's someone on the other side, and they're trying to solve it.”

Geebo nodded. “The lair is not far beyond,” he said. Then he growled. “Geebo thinks he knows who is working on this door.”

“Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out,” Rich agreed. These were the other players. “Is there anything we can do to hurt them here, or slow them down?”

Geebo studied the door, then he shook his head. “Not without exposing us— exposing you to danger, Little Great One. These doors were built to keep unspeakable things inside. They will very much hurt anything that tries to affect them from this side.”

Rich nodded. “Nothing more to be done, then. They'll figure it out sooner or later, and then they'll be down here. Maybe the hounds will come back and slow them down.”

We can't count on that, he thought to himself. Rich blew out a puff of air, and thought aloud. “We need to get through here quickly. We need to take everything of value so they can't use it, and find a good Dark Power for me. Otherwise they'll probably kill them all or unleash them it before we get there.”

“Dark powers are not so fragile,” Geebo said, and Rich twisted his neck to study his friend. Geebo's neck frills were flexing in what Rich realized was nervousness. “But the things down here are not the powers themselves. The things here are servitors and artifacts and things touched by those powers that could not be disposed of safely. Remnants of ancient things that were pulled here and should no longer be.”

“So we don't have to fight Cthulhu?” Rich asked.

“Geebo has no idea who that is... but if that is a Dark Power then the answer is no, not unless we— unless Geebo gets really dumb. They dwell far from here, in the cracks between. Might have to fight a servitor, though. That will... not be easy. Powerful things stored here. Time has little domain over their powers.”

“Time's what we don't have,” Rich said, as another line flared up on the door. And unlike the others, this one turned green.

They'd found a solution to one of the locks.

“Let's go,” Rich said, turning and hurrying down the hall, listening to the patter of scaly feet on the ground as Geebo followed.

The broken door was right where they'd left it... mostly. It had shifted toward the left side of the hall, and Rich stared at it for a full minute to make sure it hadn't gone mobile or something.

He jumped when everything went dark, but realized it was just his buff expiring. “Dragonseye,” he muttered again.

Your Dragonseye skill is now level 14!

The door snapped back into view, and for a moment he thought it had shifted in the darkness. But no, no it hadn't.

Surely it hadn't? Pushing his nerves down he walked past the door, but his eyes didn't leave it.

Then it was past the other door, the puzzle door, and back into the deeper caves.

Rich tried to look for landmarks, but he was soon lost. Stalactites, stalagmites, water and stone... it all blended together, and Rich shook his head as he realized he was getting tired. Not in-game, but back in his realspace body.

“This is bad. Geebo, do you know where we're going?”

“Somewhat,” Geebo said. “Geebo is recognizing places he explored before.”

“You take the lead,” Rich said. “The only place I explored had something weird in it, so we're not going back there.”

“Weird is pretty much what this place does,” Geebo said, philosophically. “But all right, Geebo will go first. Geebo thinks to follow the water, because it goes down. Water carved these caverns. Most of the tunnels we seek will be off the main branch of the flow.”

“That's... pretty smart.”

Geebo brightened up, and his neck frills flapped. “Thank you! Geebo does have good intelligence. Is hard to level it anymore.”

“Oh yeah? Does it get harder the higher up it goes?”

“Yes, is how all attributes work. Start with the simple stuff, easy to level up. But the higher it goes, the more you must do to get better. And the more difficult stuff makes it go faster.”

“That makes sense,” Rich said, nodding as he kept an eye out for danger. “I was wondering how they balanced it.”

“Balance, Little Great One?” It occurred to Rich then that he might have to watch what he said. Once he and another player had run into each other and started talking about realspace stuff, Geebo had gone to a very basic script, and lost most of his personality.

So if Rich tried to explain realspace stuff, it might trigger that change again. And down here in the darkness, Rich really, really didn't want Geebo to lose his edge and start acting like a chatbot. “Nevermind about balance,” Rich said, finally. “Let's just keep an eye out for trouble.”

But as it turned out, they felt it long before they saw it.

It started like a headache, except without the pain. Rich honestly thought he was just getting tired at first, but then Geebo groaned, and Rich looked over to see the draggit holding his head.

“You feel it too?” Rich whispered.

“This is... eldritch,” Geebo whispered back.

“So what do we do?”

“It is getting... stronger. No sanity lost, not yet. We can perhaps push through?”

“Yeah,” Rich said, scanning the place they'd come to. A forest of stalagmites jutted up like teeth, and crystals grew down from the ceiling. Some of them looked like stalactites, only they were milky white. Others crawled and crept across the ceiling like vines...

...or tentacles...

They almost seemed to writhe as he watched them, and for a second Rich thought he saw a pattern.

Then his head throbbed, and he shook it. “Let's go,” he decided.

“Master?” Geebo asked, as he hesitantly followed Rich along the now-swiftly-trickling stream. “May Geebo ask the greatest of favors?”

“Sure. What do you want?”

“If Geebo starts going mad, please strike Geebo unconscious. His sanity is still tender from the howls of the hounds. More of this will send him into insanity, and perhaps Geebo might not return from it.”

“Okay,” Rich said. “Let's hope it doesn't come to that.”

“Yes. Definitely!”

The pressure grew as they descended, and the cavern widened around them. It went from a passageway to a wide room, so wide that Rich couldn't see the far walls. Water lapped in and around rocky outcroppings, waves washing in and out in a slow rhythm. This place is so big it has tides, Rich thought in awe.

The pressure grew as they wound their way between the rocks, splashing through the shallow underground sea. The water was warm... or at least warmer than the stuff they'd been wading through so far.

And there was a feeling as if something was looking at them. It didn't come from any single direction, and nothing moved when Rich turned, but there was no denying the attention.

Then something shifted. Rich tried to figure out what was wrong, putting one foot in front of another, straining his eyes and ears...

...until he realized that the water wasn't splashing anymore. He looked down at his hands, smacked one against the water. Drops sprayed, but there was no sound.

“What—” he started to say, but the word caught, and seemed to reverberate in the stillness of the air. Instantly the feeling that he was being observed grew overwhelming. A deep voice almost seemed to ask, incessantly.

What.

What.

WHAT.

WHAT!

WHAT?

He couldn't tell whether the word was in his ears or his head, and he saw Geebo double over, as a blue '14' escaped from the draggit and floated upward. Rich took a deep breath.

You have resisted the LDAP Sign's Communication!

“In his house in our layer, dead Cmpylyah lies DMAing,” Geebo muttered, but the words didn't resound this time.

Rich stared at him, then glanced around...

...and the rocks were different this time.

They had shifted, he was certain of it. “Geebo,” Rich risked, and it reverberated, but more quietly.

Geebo... came the words that were unheard and unthought.

Then there came a deep groan and the water bubbled around him. It was warm, so warm, and Rich had had enough. He reached over, fastened his teeth around Geebo's harness, and flipped the little draggit onto his back.

“The channel is shut,” Geebo whispered, digging his claws into Rich's scales. “The domain is lost, the channel is shut, and he may not parse!”

“Yeah no,” Rich said. “Scaly Wings. We're getting out of here right now.”

Your Fly skill is now level 9!

AGL+1

Fear lent Rich's wings strength and he kept his focus tight as he swerved between rock pillars and sought the airspace above. Then he was up and over, and the entirety of the cave was shifting, he could see. Rearranging itself into a squirming pattern...

...and for a second he thought he could make sense of it. There was something in the center, something that flashed gold to his sight. It sat upon a little stone altar that almost looked like a deformed skull. And as he looked at it, the pressure in his head spiked...

...as it looked back at him.

For a second, just a second he wasn't Rich anymore, or even Rutger. He was the cave, he was Geebo, he was everything in between and the thing in the center as well, which wasn't a thing but a link to something vast and inscrutable. He was caught in its mind as reality rippled, understanding that he was a tiny particle of a particle of an orbiting particle, taking part in and creating patterns with motions and what he thought was willpower given action.

The LDAP Sign communicates with you! You take 8 points of sanity damage!

That snapped him out of it. On his back, Geebo let out another groan.

“Out!” Rich said.... but even as he said it, he realized that this was a thin place, a place where words could become actions and reality. So he turned his mind, leaned into the alien flow, and put every bit of his willpower behind a single utterance. “Out,” he said.

And the pattern paused.

Twisting masses of rocks shifted in silence among murky waters, revealing a hole in the center of the lake, and water pouring down to white mist. Rich took it without hesitation, and as he passed below sound returned. A distant pouring at first, then a rushing, then a thundering crash as the water poured down into darkness. And the pressure on his mind eased with every trembling flap of his wings. Geebo shifted on his back, muttered something. “Not yet!” Rich said, searching the mist below, looking for a place to land. It took a while, precious minutes as his wings tired, but he finally found one. He landed on the ledge, then furled his wings to cover Geebo as he marched under the falls.

Then he stopped, staring at what lay ahead.

Rust coated an iron gate, a great dark metal structure embedded with mossy skulls. Words were writ large across it, and unlike the ones above, he could read the script.

ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE

Something about those words was familiar. It brought to mind church and some of the preachers his Dad used to listen to, and old memories and dread. He couldn't remember the specifics, but it was nothing good.

“It has a hold here,” Geebo whispered. “The sea gold, the deep metal. You could claim it, and it would answer to your call,” Geebo continued. “But you would be fixed forever in its mind. How strong you are... but how much stronger you would have to grow, to keep your mind your own...”

Rich snapped his head around at the draggit's unexpected words. Geebo's face was slack, his eyes wide.

Something twisted in them, as Rich watched. Like worms squirming around behind the pupils.

Worms or tentacles.

“Geebo?” Rich asked.

“It calls forever above us,” Geebo whispered again.”You queried and it answered, just for a second. Old magic, deep magic, the call of Cmpylyah. Will you answer?”

Light dawned. “That gold thing is something connected to a dark power up there. I could pledge myself to a dark power if I grabbed it, right?”

Geebo stared at him. “Yes. No. So many realities, so many options, and he worms through them all at once—”

Then the draggit fell off, slumping to the wet rock floor below. “Geebo? Geebo!” Rich knelt down next to him, and poked the little guy.

Geebo turned his head and barfed, and Rich backed way the hell up, almost off the ledge in surprise.

Then Geebo sat up, and put his head in his hands. “Ow. Ow ow ouchie,” he groaned.

“Are... you okay?” Rich asked, hesitating.

“Geebo thinks so, yes. Status.” The draggit winced. “Sanity could be better. But not as bad as the howling of the hounds last time.”

“You were talking kind of funny, for a few minutes there.”

“Was he? Geebo is sorry, please forgive him if he was babbling.”

“No, no, it's fine.” Rich turned his head back to the door. “Let's worry about the way ahead instead. If we want to go back there and fart around with weird gold stuff later we'll do it when our sanity's back to full. So... this writing on the door; why does this sound so familiar?”

Geebo studied it, and shook his head. “Geebo has not seen these words before. Well not in this order, anyway.”

“It's familiar to me.” Rich bit his lip.

His dragon body was pretty tired from his exertions. He settled in to rest and regain what stamina he could. “I could beat my brains out trying to remember—”

“Oh please do not do that, Little Great One! Geebo can smash his own skull if that will help, but please don't kill yourself!”

“What? No, no, it's a uh, figure of speech. I was going to say I could strain myself and try to remember, or I could call in a lifeline.”

“A... lifeline?”

“Yep. I'm not alone, here.” Rich smiled, and sent a message to Stormanorm. He tried, anyway.

Player is not currently in this world! Rich frowned and checked the time. This was within Norm's usual playtime. Was he dead again? That was annoying.

But then, Norm wasn't his only option.

Message Midian >>Hello? It's Rutger from Neverquest.

And with surprised joy, he saw new words flashed before him as she responded.

RUTGER'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Rutger Royal

Age: 18 Hours

Jobs:

Cultist 1, High Dragon Hatchling 3

Attributes Pools Defenses

Strength: 130 Constitution: 127 Hit Points: 257 Armor: 60

Intelligence: 37 Wisdom: 34 Sanity: 71 Mental Fortitude: 60

Dexterity: 13 Agility: 31 Stamina: 44 Endurance: 0

Charisma: 33 Willpower: 126 Moxie: 159 Cool: 60

Perception: 126 Luck: 32 Fortune: 158 Fate: 3

General Skills

Brawling – Level 11

Dodge – Level 4

Fly – Level 9

Ride – Level 1

Stealth – Level 2

Swim – Level 1

High Dragon Hatchling Skills

Burninate – Level 6

Chomp – Level 4

Draconic Tongue – Level N/A

Dragonseye – Level 14

Limited Equipment – Level N/A

No Thumbs – Level N/A

Scaly Wings – Level N/A

Slow to Age – Level N/A

Cultist Skills

Unlocked Jobs

Conjuror