Missteps V.2

Chapter Ten – Into the Mine

“Anyone have any experience with underground?” Carric asked as the group stood at the mouth of the tunnel entrance. It hadn’t taken them long to find the entrance, they’d just followed the roads along the cliff-face till they’d stumbled upon it.

Iados peered into the darkness of the sloped entrance. “Nope, but I can tell that that is a long, dark tunnel.”

“It looks slippery too,” Kerri came up next to Carric. She held a lighted stick from Elaine. Behind her, Elaine cast the same spell on Lia’s quarterstaff.

Jun looked down at the halfling next to him. “Maybe you should ride on my shoulders, I’d hate to slip and crush you.”

Ander crossed his arms. “Just this once, and only because I don’t want to risk getting trampled.”

Jun stifled a laugh as Iados helped Ander up onto to his shoulders. At Ander’s request, a small rope was tied to connect the two of them, just in case Ander should fall off. Once again Iados did a sailor’s knot that could be undone in a hurry.

As everyone headed down the tunnel in pairs, they all walked very carefully. The ground was squishy and more than once someone slid and had to catch themselves on the walls. The water still trickling down the passage from the ground above did not help in the slightest.

They’d made it about halfway down before they came to a particularly slippery section. Rocks were embedded in the ground that had been worn smooth by past rainfalls. Carric was the first to find them.

“Shit!” Carric cursed as he felt his feet give way under him. He braced for the hard impact of the ground. He didn’t brace for the continued slippage as his whole body continued to slide down the sloped tunnel.

“Carric!” Kerri yelled as she watched Carric slide out of sight. She almost followed suit as her foot hit the patch, but Jun’s reflexes saved her.

“Thanks,” Kerri rubbed her arm from where Jun had reached out and grabbed her. “Everyone, be careful of the rocks here.” As they continued walking, everyone kept their eyes on their feet.

In doing so they missed the spider crawled out of the shadows above them. As it moved into position above them, a second spider crawled silently towards the back of the party. With not even a hiss, the first (and much larger) spider cast a web out.

“What the hell?” Ander struggled as the web began to wrap around his extremities. Before anyone could move, the spider dropped down the wall, and bit Ander in the arm. As the sting of the bite subsided, Ander felt the creature’s poison pulse in his veins, and his whole arm began to tingle uncomfortably.

Right on the heels of the first attack, the second spider followed suit and launched its own attack against Lia, The elf gasped as the spider’s fangs dug into her shoulder. Same as Ander, she felt the poison as it pulsed uncomfortably in her extremity. It didn’t pain her, yet.

Iados whirled to face the spider, and saw just how big it was. The creature’s body was easily six feet in length, with each of its eight legs as thick as his fist. He slammed the spider back along the wall with his club, and when the spider tried to bite him he punched its face. The punch disoriented the spider. Kerri ran up close to it, and jabbed her rapier in its midsection. The spider gave a strangled cry and crumbled off the wall. Iados and Kerri both dodged the large body. Iados turned to help with the other spider.

Jun, slightly bogged down by the now panicked halfling tied to his back, reached out with his warhammer, but with his movements limited was unable to hit the spider.

Elaine reached out and took hold of Ander’ foot. She sent a quick prayer to Vowil. As she did, the sun symbol of the deity appeared on the halfling’s forehead.

Lia thrust her quarterstaff into Kerri’s hands, knelt down, and shifted into the form of a panther. In one fluid movement, the panther leaped up and swiped at the spider. The arachnid barely evaded the attack.

It scurried down the wall again, and this time aimed for the large target that was Jun. Jun managed to move out of the way, but slipped on the muddy ground. His large form twisted around, and Ander became his shield. The halfling yelped as he was bit for a second time, the deity symbol on his forehead dissipating as the spider broke through the godly protection. As Ander went limp on his back, Jun twisted again, this time with his warhammer at the ready.

Jun’s blow connected at the same time as Iados’s did. The body of the massive spider went limp, and its hold on the wall vanished. Instinctively Iados shoved the heavy body away from him with his club, directly towards Jun and Ander. The berserker tried desperately to get out of the way, but in doing so lost his footing and fell back onto his back, and the halfling.

It took several minutes before Jun and a highly agitated Ander could be separated.

“Get this off of me!” Ander grunted as he struggled against the webbing that still held his arms tight against his body. He didn’t have much strength of his own as the spider’s poison continued to pulse in his body and weaken him. With some quick knife work from Iados, Ander was mostly freed from the webbing, though pieces of it still clung to his hair and clothing.

Elaine administered some magical healing to both Ander and Lia (after she shifted back), which did alleviate the majority of the poison’s discomfort.

As soon as he was free, Ander grabbed the makeshift torch that Kerri held, and bustled off down the passage a bit, mumbling under his breath. Everyone could feel the anxiety that radiated off of him, and they let him stew for a few moments.

Lia grimaced as she rubbed her still aching wound. “Is the poison gone?” She asked Elaine as the cleric examined the injury.

Elaine shook her head. “I don’t have any spells that can remove the poison, only lessen its effects. The wound itself doesn’t look too bad, and judging by how the two of you are still walking around and conscious I think you both managed to evade the worst of it. I’ll go ahead and clean it, so we can try to keep away infection. Personally I think the worst of the poison should be out of your system in about an hour.”

“Let’s catch up to Carric, and then you see about treating their bites.” Jun said. Carefully, and with half the party watching the ground and half the party watching the vaulted ceiling, they made their way to the end of the passage.

Now, Carric didn’t travel far, but it did seem further in the dark. His body hit something metal as he careened down, and there was a slight moment of hesitation before whatever he’d hit gave way. As he slid past, Carric reached out and tried to grab whatever it was that he’d hit. He hissed as he felt his arm be wrenched sharply as he came to a stop. He just laid there for a few moments, before the sounds of battle from up the tunnel reached his ears.

He slipped a few more times as he tried to stand up. By the time he’d finally made it to his feet, the rest of his party (led by an angry halfling) had reached him.

“What happened? I heard fighting.” Carric said.

“A couple of spiders tried to eat us.” Ander grumbled as he walked past Carric.

Carric sent a confused look to the rest of the party. Iados mimed out the sheer size of their foes. Carric mouthed a silent ‘oh’, suddenly glad for his little trip.

“Are you alright?” Jun asked.

“Yeah, I managed to catch myself.” Carric looked over, and gestured at the wrought-iron gate he’d crashed through.

In the middle of the room was a large fountain. It was made out of a white stone, and had a cascading torrent of crystal clear water that bubbled out from a round column in the center.

“Gorgeous.” Kerri said as she and everyone else crowded around the sculpture.

Before anyone could stop her, Lia reached in and cupped some of the water in her hands. She took a long drink of it, feeling the cool water on her tongue as it slid down the back of her throat. As she drank, she could feel some of the weariness leftover from the bite she took just disappear.

Lia smiled and turned back to the group. “It’s good.”

Everyone had looks of shock on their faces.

Ander reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lia, did you even stop and consider how bad of an idea that was, before you took a drink?” He jumped onto the foot-wide lip of the fountain, and angrily pointed at the runes carved into the bottom of the fountain. “Do you know what those mean?”

Lia shook her head.

“Neither do I!” Ander grumbled a bit more to himself as he dug into his pack. He pulled out a piece of parchment and some ink. He quickly sketched out a crude runic circle before he grasped his arcane focus and began to chant. A thin purple film covered his eyes. When he turned his attention to the runes, he could see the magic that pulsed through them before it spilled into the water itself.

Iados tapped Lia on the shoulder. “He’s right, you should wait for someone else to try the water first next time. Come on, let’s check out the rest of the room while Ander does his stuff.”

The rest of the group spent the next ten or so minutes just examining the room. Elaine took a few moments to clean and dress the spider wounds. When she examined Lia’s wound, she noticed that it’d already healed quite a bit since she’d last seen it.

The room was less of a room itself as it had three different passages that branched out with empty wall sconces every few feet along the walls.

Jun knelt down and ran his hands along the floor. “Does anyone notice anything off about this place?”

Elaine kneeled down next to the berserker. “Besides the magic fountain?”

“The floor is spotless, save for our muddy footprints and runoff from the main passage.” He pointed to the small puddle of muddy water that had collected around the once-closed gate. “I mean, I don’t see any droppings from mice or other creatures, no dust. This place has been abandoned for a hundred years, and yet it looks like someone’s been keeping house.”

“Maybe there’s an enchantment that keeps the place clean?” Kerri asked.

“The only magic I’m detecting is coming off the fountain.” Ander said. “And that magic seems to be an enchantment with healing magic of some kind.”

Elaine turned to Lia. “Did the water taste stale?”

Lia shook her head. “It tasted fresh.”

Elaine turned to Ander for answer, but the halfling just shrugged.

Jun grinned. “I want to try something.” The large berserker jumped in the fountain. He knocked his boots along the bottom and twirled the mud around directly over the runes. By the time he climbed out, the once clear water had become a cloudy mess.

Iados groaned. “What if we needed to drink that later?”

Jun didn’t answer as he gestured for everyone to look in the pool. The muddy water slowly faded back to clear.

“Part of the enchantment must be self-cleaning.” Ander had a fascinated expression on his face. “Remind me to include this in my report.”

“Will do,” Carric turned away from the fountain. “So, any preferences on which passage?”

“Let’s just start with the one on the left.” Elaine suggested as she started down the chosen passage.

“Hold up.” Jun jogged up and halted the cleric. “How about we let three of us scout ahead, with the rest straying about twenty or thirty feet back. That way we won’t get bunched again if we run into more spiders.”

The cleric nodded and gestured for Jun to go first.

They headed out, with Jun, Iados, and Lia in front, and everyone else straggling behind. Lia handed her quarterstaff to Iados, and then went ahead and shifted into the form of a dire wolf. Underground wasn’t her specialty and she felt more useful with claws.

“How many animals can you transform into?” Iados asked her as they headed down the hall. Wolf-Lia turned her head to look at Iados, and let out a small yelp.

Jun chuckled. “Do you speak wolf?”

The akudaem grinned sheepishly. “No, you?”

“Nope.” Jun reached over and patted the dire wolf, who was about five feet in height. “Remind me to make up some codes we can use to communicate with you when you’re in animal form.” Jun told wolf-Lia, who gave a nod in return. “At least you can understand us.”

Forty or so feet down the hall, they came across a wooden door.

“Do you think it’s trapped?” Iados leaned down and looked at the door handle. Right underneath he saw what looked like a keyhole.

“I can’t tell with your head in the way.” Jun said. “Do you think it’s trapped?”

“Not from what I can tell.” Iados angled the light to get a better view. A small yip drew their attention. Looking back, wolf-Lia pointed towards a passageway that continued off in a different direction.

“What’s the hold-up?” Kerri asked as she approached the group. The rest of them stayed back with the second light source.

“We can’t tell if this door is trapped.” Jun explained.

Kerri knelt down next to Iados. “I thought you were a pirate?”

“Hey, I was part of the distraction force, not the lock-breaking force.” The akudaem explained. “Let’s see you do any better.”

Kerri stood up. “Well I did learn a little bit about locks from an ex-boyfriend. I can tell you right now, this door doesn’t even lock, so how can it be trapped?” She reached down, turned the handle, and flung open the door. “After you.”

With an eye-roll Iados quickly stepped through, followed by Kerri.

“Come on Lia, looks like we’re going through the door.” Jun let the dire wolf go ahead of him. They’d no sooner walked through the door, then the passage curved around to the right.

“Stop,” Iados hissed as he put up an arm to stop Kerri from going any further. Wolf-Lia growled as the scent hit her nose.

“What is it?” Kerri asked. Iados handed the enchanted quarterstaff to Kerri as he drew his club. Once her half-elven eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Kerri quickly saw what Iados had seen.

In front of them was a skeleton.

Unlike the skeletons they’d seen in town, this one was upright. It shambled across the room, dragging a shortsword across the floor in one hand. It hadn’t seemed to notice them yet. Kerri took a step back, getting ready to run, only to hit Jun instead. She gave a gasp in surprise. The bony figure stopped and turned its head towards them with a crackling sound.

Iados charged forward. He swung with his club, but the skeleton ducked under the swing.

“Get in here!” Jun roared back towards the others as he drew his warhammer. His vision went red as let the anger that was always just under the surface bubble up. He strode forward into the room and the skeleton. With a single blow the berserker shattered the bony head into splinters.

Kerri and wolf-Lia charged forward, the light in Kerri’s hands shining out into the room. Three more skeletons ran out of the darkness towards them.

Jun made a grab for one of the skeletons, and tossed him across the room with ease. In her wolf-form, Lia made a dash for one of the bony legs. It splintered easily against her teeth. Iados swung his club at the next skeleton that approached him, shattering two of its fragile ribs. Kerri stood back, as she watched her party members handle their foes with ease, committing it all to memory for a future performance.

Everyone else entered the room just as Jun dispatched a second skeleton. Elaine drew her mace and finished off Iados’s opponent. Wolf-Lia seemed to be enjoying herself as she tested her strength by pulling her skeleton around the room by its leg.

Finding himself without an opponent, Iados took a moment to inspect the room. Close by he discovered a door and headed towards it. When he opened it, he was confronted with not one, not two, but three more skeletons. Two of the skeletons landed lucky strikes with their longswords. Iados fell down at their feet, unconscious and bleeding.

Carric pulled his longbow out and sent an arrow into the new room. His arrow lodged itself in the eye-socket of the first skeleton. Kerri grabbed Iados’s feet and tried to pull him out of the doorway, but he was too heavy. Jun barreled over, and bum-rushed the skeletons back into the room. He’d barely managed not to step on the injured akudaem. Between Jun and Elaine (with the occasional arrow from Carric), it didn’t take them long to finish off the skeletons.

Wolf-Lia stopped playing with her skeleton and finished it off, before she shifted back into an elf. She ran over and dropped down on the ground next to her bodyguard. Her hands glowed as she sent magical healing into the worst of his wounds.

“How are you feeling?” She asked as Iados came to consciousness.

“Like I got shanked by zombies.” He mumbled. Lia helped him sit up.

“Technically, they’re just skeletons.” Kerri passed him a waterskin. As he took the waterskin, she sent him some additional magical healing, just to get the color back into his violet skin.

Jun walked back into the main room, his face alight. “Well that was fun.”

Aside from the passage they’d walked into the and the door he’d just stepped out of, there were three more doors in the room, two of the them on the same wall. The room itself was a large open area with visibly rotting chairs and a few tables strewn about. Some of the furniture was newly broken, consequences of the brawl.

Carric hunkered down by one of the skeletons. He called Elaine over.

“What?” Elaine knelt down next to him.

“Look at these skeletons, would you?” He pointed at what was left of them. “They look different from those we saw in town.”

Elaine resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Judging by their height, they’re obviously not dwarves.”

“I figured that much, but is there anything else you can tell?” The ranger pressed. With a sigh Elaine acquiesced and did a more thorough examination.

Meanwhile, Iados and Lia examined the rest of the room. Inside the second smaller room, Ander and Kerri found three rotted beds, and a large chest. There wasn’t a lock, so of course they wasted no time in opening it. Inside they found a handful of coins (silver, gold, and a few platinum pieces that were quickly pocketed) along with two vials filled with a red liquid. A quick check by Ander confirmed them as mild healing potions. These were also pocketed.

“What’d you find in there?” Carric asked as the two of them came out, dragging the chest behind them.

Kerri stood up. “Money. How about you?”

Elaine brought one of the skulls over. She pointed to the small rune that had been carved into the back of it. “These things were deliberately placed here by someone.”

Kerri took the skull. “Same someone who put the zombies in the cemetery?”

The cleric shrugged. “Perhaps, but I’m not trained enough in necromancy to be able to tell. My training was with the living, not the dead.”

Iados cleared his throat. “If anyone’s interested, from what we can tell none of these other doors are locked or trapped.” He and Lia rejoined the group. “However, the furthest door on the left there, the lock seems to be really rusted so I'd advise we be careful with it.”

“Let me see if I can twist it.” Jun strode over to the door in question. He grasped the handle and gave it a firm twist. Just as it turned, a needle shot out from a small hole next to the handle. Using the last of the berserker rage left in his system, Jun jerked his hand out of the way, and the needle flew across the room.

He turned to Iados. “I thought you said it wasn’t trapped!”

Iados immediately put his hands up in an ‘I surrender’ pose. “I swear to you, it did not appear to be trapped when I looked. However, as I explained to Kerri, traps aren’t exactly my forte.”

Jun growled, but turned back to the door and gingerly opened it.

The hallway on the other side was only about twenty feet long, but it was covered in mushrooms. Big ones, small ones, lopsided ones. Their colors varied from puke green to sickly brown, with their heights being only a few inches tall to easily three feet tall. Along the wall, huge cracks had formed and water dripped down in several places. The smell was horrendous.

Kerri covered her nose. “Do you think they’re poisonous?”

Lia knelt down and reached out towards the fungi. A vine of green magic extended out of her palm and wrapped itself around the plant. Lia’s eyes closed as she focused on listening to what the plant had to say. “We can touch them, I just don’t recommend eating them.” She finally said. “Do we want to try to wade across?”

Ander gently pushed the elf aside. “I got this.” He held up a finger, and a small flame erupted on the tip with a flash. When he pointed the digit at the closest mushroom, a small ball of flame was spat out. It engulfed the plant and reduced it to cinders within moments. With the bolts, the halfling created a clear path into the room. At the end of the small hall before it opened into the room at large, was a very large mushroom. Even after several bolts in a row, the plant still stood. His face was drenched in sweat as he turned to look back at the group and shrugged.

“Alright, my turn.” Jun grabbed his warhammer, and waited for Ander to hug the wall before he charged down the open path. As he brought his warhammer down towards the mushroom, he heard a loud snap resonate through the air. A large burst of force energy rippled through him and made his insides squish back against his backbone. It took all he had not to fall back on his ass. All the mushrooms in the area, those still standing and those not, were pushed back flat against the floor or sprawled down the hallway. The force sent a concussive wave down the hallway, just hitting Ander at the edge of the doorway. Ander stayed on his feet, but all he heard for a good ten seconds was ringing in his ears.

Jun’s ears were still ringing when Carric reached him. Elaine made the berserker sit down as she checked him over, looking for any overt injuries. He could see her and Carric’s lips moving, but it was a full minute before he began to hear their voices.

“-seem to be any permanent injuries.” Elaine stood up. “He should come out of it soon.” She coughed and batted away at the ash that swirled in the air.

“What was that?” Carric looked about the room. At one time, there were shelves on the walls in here, but the force of the blast had reduced them all planks of woods and splinters.

“Some kind of spell, must have been set up as a trap.” Elaine said.

“You don’t say.” Jun grumbled as the ringing subsided.

Elaine knelt down again. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been run over by an army.” Jun said. “Mind you, last time that happened my ears didn’t ring this much.”

The cleric smiled. “Good news, I think you’re gonna be fine. A lot better than Ander would have been at any rate, or any of us. Thank you.”

The berserker returned the smile. “You’re welcome, that’s why I’m here.”

“To set off the traps?” Carric extended a hand and helped the berserker stand up.

“Partly, so, what do we have in here?”

“Good question!” Ander said loudly from behind him.

Everyone had waited till Carric and Elaine were safely down the corridor before making their way, just in case there were more traps. Spreading out and digging through the rubble, the party spent the next half hour just exploring. In all, they found quite a bit of coin, some of it spilling out of a broken chest. Five gems had been tucked into a cloth bag, along with a pair of dice that Jun quickly picked up. In the remains of a cupboard they found a potion that Ander couldn’t identify, and a small sphere that he could.

“Give me that!” Ander reached forward excitedly towards the sphere that Elaine had just unearthed.

She raised a questioning eyebrow at Ander as he snatched it out of her hands. “What is it?”

“Something I’ve been drooling over for years.” He placed an already glowing hand on the sphere’s smooth, opaque surface. The glow moved into the sphere and crisscrossed across its surface. A couple of seconds later, Ander said a word and the sphere began to glow with the same light as one of Elaine’s light sticks. He gave a small laugh, said the word again, and the light faded.

Carric whistled. “Cool trick.”

Ander carefully tucked the sphere into his pack. “It’s called a circumluci. A little more study, and I should be able to find the right word to make it drift in the air beside me.”

“Ok, that’s pretty cool.” In front of the former pirate were several stacks of coins he’d made as he counted. “On that note, guys, we have a lot of coin here.”

Jun chuckled. “I see that, mostly all copper and silver though. I do see some gold.” He cast an appraising eye over what they’d found. “I don’t think this is all going to fit in our bags.”

“What about that chest we found before?” Kerri said. “Why don’t we just store it in the chest, leave the chest in the barrack room or whatever, and then pick it up before we leave? That way we’re not bogged down while we explore the rest of this place.”

“Sounds as good as anything.” Lia left to go get the chest and in no time they had it stowed away in the barracks.