Let us descend. The monster lab has done its nefarious deed and released a monster into the depths of this stone labyrinth. How will we fight it?
For starters, I should acknowledge something I left off last week. Weaknesses. Lots of monsters have them. Garlic for vampires, iron for fae, silver for were-creatures, copper for Metroman– wait maybe not.
Photo from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Then again, some monsters are good old “hack at it until one of you stops moving”. Or in the case of some of the larger dragons like in St. George and the Dragon from last week, until you stop moving and then start moving again.
So are we giving this beastie we’ve created a weakness? Fire is an often-used weakness, and for good reason. It’s pretty good at destroying things, especially things made of organic material like our dungeon centipede. But maybe its acid-spit shell makes it less pervious to such destruction. Sharp objects like swords or heavy force like a good warhammer or standard pickaxes could do some heavy damage though, especially if the shell is brittle. Some things to think about. Well then, let’s get into it.
The Peril Below
Hethera and her companion faced the door to the underground labyrinth. Dwarves did not feel fear at going below ground, but today Hethera could feel it curling the hair on her feet and bristling in her beard. She cleared her throat, patting down the braided plaits of ginger hair on her chest, and turned to her companion, hefting her mace. “Are you ready?”
Quillig, black hair bristling out all over his helmet so it was hard to see his eyes, nodded. “Yes, marm, steady-o, we be good to go below.” He scowled. “If we must, I guess we must. ‘Tis a fearsome beast, I trust.”
Hethera nodded. Quillig spoke thus since she’d met him. If he was rhyming, he was ready. She’d only heard once or twice that he didn’t. Nothing for it. The village was counting on them. She squared her shoulders and opened the door.
A yawning black stretched before them, a deep nothing that promised it was just like the mine at home. A soft black like the fur of a Catzen, luring with soft paws but hiding sharp claws. Hethera shrugged her head side-to-side. Quillig checked his axe and sword. They checked their tinderboxes. And they descended.
The dungeon had been the lair of a wizard, the town said. He experimented with forces he said were beyond their ken, but not beyond his. Few said good of him, fewer said little of him. Mysterious, they said. Kept to himself. Yet everyone had a story of him. Finding him in their garden at night. Seeing him climbing in the wild moors. Watching him still a ferocious tigrin. Begging him for a cure when the town fell ill to a plague. Wondering if maybe he started the plague through careless experimenting. But none said he’d experimented on the townspeople, so maybe he was all right, just… eerie. Then none had seen him for three moons. And then the troubles began.
It didn’t like to be out on the open rolling hills, that was the good. But it had come out some, Hethera could tell. Something had scraped the dirt clean of bracken and scrub as they closed in on the place. And something had scraped the stone free of dirt right near the unassuming shed that was its entrance. And something lurked in the dark in which they now swam. Yet for a time, nothing could she hear but the sound of their feet and the shift of their armor and the steady pace of their breath.
Nothing. Not a whisper of wind. Not the creak of timber. Not the squeak of a rat. The area smelt– dead. Not of death, no, but of no life. There were things in the mines, mosses and mouses and strange lights and good darks and the far sound of hammers and picks. But nothing here. Her night-eyes piercing the dark in tones of gray and darker gray saw no root embedded in a wall, no droppings on the ground– but there was a strange hole. Two, one on either side of the hall.
“Quillig. What do you make of these holes?”
“An oddity, Hethera, I allow.” His voice grumbled reluctantly out. “But did you see we passed more just now?” He pointed the way they’d come. And yes, two other holes in the floor, further up the passage. And two more beyond. Balanced evenly.
“They feel… if we were in the mine, I’d say they feel they’re where supports should be.”
“And no mine is safe from collapse at all, with no support for its stone walls. Wizard he may be and yet no magic in the build, I’d bet.”
Hethera nodded grimly. The place was not going to fall in on them any time soon, but she’d not trust a mine with no supports after a time to let the sighing, creaking weight of stone shift over it until it decides to fill the hole in its depths. Moons yet, probably, but coming if nothing else kept the labyrinth of passages up.
Then she heard it. A scrape on stone. Not here, not this corner, but close. One finger up to Quillig; mine sign, Hush Now, Something Important. He flipped his hand back to her. Me Too, the gesture said. He’d heard it.
Another sound, the scrape of… wood? Yes. Then the slightest whisk of cloth, then… some sort of rattling. And a smell now, a smell of rot and decay but also of wood and of something clean and sharp. Like the cleaner in the kitchens to keep the rot from growing on the counters. And more sounds. If they weren’t so clearly from different objects, she’d say… they were footsteps. Lots of footsteps. In a sequence. And certainly getting closer.
“Fire!” barked Quillig. “Burn higher!” They both pulled out their tinderboxes, facing the direction of the sounds, and whispered together the Enchantion of Flame.
As movement came around the corner, they struck. The sparks flew then blossomed into flying flames, circling down the hall in an inferno. They hit the shape scuttling around the corner and… they didn’t catch. But it was enough to give a good light-sight of the thing.
The face was… well, she would call it a face if pressed, but only because of two things. It was in the front, for starters, but it had few typical face structures. No eyes, no nose, no discernable ears or chin– just one other part. The mouth. That gash that split open, tearing the structure apart. The teeth. Shards of wood, slivers of bone, and some clear structure that the licking flame seemed to cut around. The rest of it– it seemed pressed together. She saw wooden planks thick enough to fit in the holes in the ground. She saw something green and leafy. She saw something that looked uncomfortably like a snarl of rats. And she saw something that definitely looked like a person’s arm and leg, but not moving like they would attached to a person.
Then the blossom of fire went out, and she had to rely on night-eyes. She took a half a breath to look at Quillig and see his terror reflecting her own.
“Run,” he whispered, and they turned and fled.
The tak-tak-thump-wsshh-click of its jumbled legs rushed down the hall behind them. Quillig waved over his head– Turning, This Way– and darted into one of the offshoot hallways. Hethera piled after and followed and… it didn’t hesitate in the least as it followed them. It slowed less than they did. Hethera, drawing by Quillig, could feel her stomach sinking to her toes. She saw it in what she could see of his face. If it could corner faster than they and run as fast as they… their lead was a fragile thing. The time was coming to make a stand, one way or another.
They passed doors empty of doors. But as they continued, they noticed shreds in the doors. They grew larger. Then there were several with nearly full doors. Hethera panted “Next door,” and she and Quillig ran into the room and slammed the door behind them. The thing skittered in the hallway but took little time to stop. She and Quillig looked around the room. Their night-eyes revealed they were not in another hall but in a close room. The walls were barely a human’s body’s length apart. One wall held shelves but there was little on it. Some empty jars, a bucket. Nothing to use to brace the door; the shelves themselves were built into the wall.
“What should we do?”
“If the fire will fail, we fall to the flail. My sword to the face, you lash with your mace.” Quillig’s mouth scowled beneath his bristling black mustache. He was right. They needed to face it and this would give them the time to collect themselves. For themselves and for those poor villagers.
There was a creaking, grinding sound from outside. And something wet as well. With a shatter, a fang that seemed made of a sharpened rib bone shattered into the door. It dripped something that started melting the wood. The fang ripped sideways and the piece of the door came away with a shatter and a squelch, then disappeared into the dark maw behind the door. Hethera watched in fascination as it passed into the mouth, then seemed to appear on the other side, coated in a new fluid that glittered and hardened. The area around the beast’s head seemed to be made all of wood now. A hand grabbed what was left of the door frame, and it was a hand. It didn’t move quite right but she could see it was a human’s hand. Withered and old, with a robe clumping around its wrist. The wizard, she assumed. But now the creature was coming in and it was time. She brought her mace up as Quillig brought his down.
There was a terrible crashing and grinding noise as their weapons hit the creature’s body. Sharp cracks sounded and the span of heather she’d hit grew shatter-lines like ice hit with a pick. It had a shell? She brought her mace down again and the piece of heather cracked and fell down. The face turned away from Quillig, scratches of his sword’s attack evident on the panel of the door that now stuck above its mouth. A strange and slimy tongue extended, brushing across the area she’d broken. It glistened as the face snaked back around to Quillig. She hit again and there was a mild squelch, but her mace almost stuck to the area. Hethera had to yank it away and it left sugar-syrupy strands. And by the time she brought her mace to bear again, there was another clank as her mace impacted against shell yet again.
Quillig screamed. A tooth had hit his armor and left strands of a dark fluid on his arm and his leather arm bracer. The armor was melting away and his arm sizzled. “Wash it off!” Hethera shouted but Quillig was already reaching for his water bottle. Which meant he’d dropped his sword. And the mouth crunched down on his arm and in a moment it was gone. In another moment, Hethera saw something disturbingly arm-shaped becoming part of the musculature opening and closing the mouth. She ran to Quillig. They only had a few of the blood-sealing patches but surely he needed one now if ever. She slapped it on his arm with one hand as she picked up his sword with the other. She tucked it in her belt. She had a plan. Maybe.
“Get back, ready your tinder,” she said and heard Quillig scooting away, breathing hard, but couldn’t take the time to look. She went back to where she’d hit it before and slammed her mace back into the spiderweb of cracks, breaking through the shell. The tongue came again and she hacked at it. A slice came out and it writhed but didn’t stop moving. She hacked again and the tongue fell to the floor, leaking that clear fluid. Another slam to the heather and pieces of shell fell away. Now the creature seemed to be retreating. No it wouldn’t, not today. Hethera slammed once more then shouted “Now!” as she dived away.
From behind the enchantion of Quillig’s voice was replaced with the scrape of tinder and a jet of flame shot forward, catching on the heather. It grew, glowing from within the shell, and Hethera could see it with her light-sight now. She slammed the shell again, breaking a new piece, tearing a leg off, and Quillig’s flame shot into the open timber exposed. The beast writhed now, lashing back and forth. But it was confused, it was hurt, and it didn’t know what to do. Hethera saw with a glance that Quillig had braced the tinderbox between a tile slightly out of place and his foot and was scraping his flint across it with his remaining arm. She didn’t look long, though, continuing to smash through. Scents filled the air, smells of burning campfires, of wild brush fires, of roasted meat, of acrid smoke from fires in bad places, of the dung middens on a hot day. It was foul; Quillig and Hethera choked as they worked. But they continued. It would not leave, it would not have the chance to terrorize this village again.
It took an hour, maybe longer, before the creature stopped moving. There was little left of it, just a trail of charred bits and its strange clearish shell. Hethera stood panting. She was glad of dwarven lungs that could keep working on very little oxygen, but her head was telling her they were pushing the limits. “I think that’s done it,” she said. “Are you ready to leave?”
Quillig stood, reaching down and pocketing his tinderbox. He sheathed his sword, clumsily, as it was on the wrong side. “Let’s leave.” No further words, and he averted his face from where the monster’s mouth had been. Hethera waited for him to join her and they walked out together. They could tell the town what had become of their wizard, though no one would probably know for sure what had created that creature, whether the wizard’s own meddling or some mishmash of magic gone awry. But he was gone, it was gone, and the village could sleep safe tonight. As for her and Quillig, she was sure she could help him find a replacement arm, eventually, but first they deserved a rest.
Fin
Well, hope you enjoyed that adventure. I realized that maybe there should’ve been some glass remnants in the labyrinth or something but it probably wasn’t important. I decided on the “fire only works once you’ve penetrated the shell” as I was writing about the fire and the swords above. Having two steps to enact a weakness feels like a good way to make it more of a challenge. I decided one of them was getting at least partly eaten pretty quickly in story development, too, because a fight without damage or sacrifice can leave a reader wondering if the fight was actually that scary after all.
…
Oh dear.
I forgot to let Hethera and Quillig name it.
We’ll call it a Crystalling Crawler. Then people will hear “crystalline” and go “oh yay, treasure!” only to find, no, no, that means it’s crystallizing you onto it.
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