Chapter 9
"There! There, my children, do you not see it? Though it may bring a curse just to look upon it as we now do, there before us is the fabled City of the Dead."
For the past ten minutes, the horses had steadily climbed a gentle incline and had just now crested the low, rolling hill of sand. The trek down the other side appeared to be a bit steeper, but nothing the steeds could not manage. From this vantage point at the top of the dune, where they all now reined their horses to a halt, the desperate adventurers at last looked upon the crumbling, ghostly remains of a once-great desert city.
Maintaining a brisk pace across the desert, they had made good time to reach this point. There had been no further encounters with Dustdiggers or other creatures of the desert, though some sort of small, wild desert animal that Rahmoud had called a 'Llok' had been occasionally sighted in the distance, fleeing from their approach.
While it was now obvious that the caravan or whatever it might be was following them, the speed with which the group traveled had kept their pursuers from closing the miles. At one point, Bhujar reasoned that it doubtlessly was not Venger, since he had more magical means of arriving at their destination, and if it was his army, then judging from their distance, they would likely arrive too late to be of any threat.
Though no one was reassured by the sage's words, eventually, the telltale cloud of dust and sand behind them had become little more than a minor worry in the backs of their minds. And now that their goal was suddenly so close before them, the concern of being overtaken was almost completely forgotten.
"If the fickle desert does not deceive these old eyes," Rahmoud continued as the others gazed at the city and murmured amongst themselves, "then it appears that no more than one league separates ourselves from those fallen walls." When they had halted, someone had produced a skin filled with water from the oasis that morning, and each person took a sip before passing it on to the next. Quickly quenching his thirst, Rahmoud made a visual judgment, estimating, "Thirty minutes, no more, and we shall have arrived, my children. Our little Cait-a-lin is very nearly within our arms once more."
Beside his king, the sage Bhujar unwrapped a small, brass telescope from a bag sashed to his waist to better view their destination. "Yes," he said in his heavily accented but musical Common, scrutinizing the landscape carefully. "League. One league. Thirty minutes. Yes." Nodding his head, he offered the instrument to his King, and pondered the sweeping view thoughtfully. Then, closing his eyes, he moved his lips silently, reciting phrases to himself from some arcane memory. "Hold great respect," he finally told the group. "This is now where we tread in footsteps of Hadarif the Steadfast. Yes, must tread with much respect for the Dead."
"Look, let's be a little more concerned about the living for the moment, okay?" Hank countered with his signature bluntness.
Bhujar and several other Khadisians who understood Common looked scandalized at Hank's comment, as if what he had just suggested was tantamount to going out after a bout of heavy drinking and urinating on hallowed graves. But they dared not make a protest, for to their surprise, their King had quickly agreed with his adopted son and did not seem to care how sacrilegious the comment might have been.
"Yes, my son, for now the Living are alive, and the Dead shall remain dead," Rahmoud agreed with a rather pointed look at some of his warriors who had gasped at the remark. Like all good Khadisians, even their King held fast to their firm beliefs about the Dead, but the fear and reverence behind those superstitions was now completely overridden by his concern for Caitlin's life and overwhelming desire to see Venger regret his actions. Snapping the telescope shut, he handed it back to his sage and continued, "And if we are successful this evening, then this truth shall continue to be so."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Diana asked pointedly as she studied the position of the suns in the late afternoon sky. They were cutting it close as it was; they had no time to tarry and admire the view. And complicating matters was the realization, earlier in the day, that when Venger had told them they had until the setting of the suns, he hadn't specified whether that meant the first sun to set, or the last. There was at least half an hour's difference between the two.
"We're not waiting for anything," Hank answered her, urging his horse down the slope of the dune. "Let's go."
O.O.O
"Gee, talk about ambiance," Eric said sarcastically half an hour later, when at last the group's horses strode past piles of stony rubble that were once the city's walls. Time and the desert winds had taken their toll, for very few of the monolithic stones remained standing. Long ago, before the rise of Khadish as the cultural and economic center of the desert, these once-powerful walls cracked and fell, and over the centuries the sandy winds scoured away most of their features. Within their vast, shattered ring lay bleached and crumbling husks that at one time were the dwellings and shops that comprised this now-deceased city.
"So where's Venger?" Sheila asked. From long experience, they'd all been expecting - or perhaps it was more accurate to say hoping - that their nemesis would meet them with a magical display of firepower as they entered the city, rather than forcing them to play a desperate game of Hide-and-Seek with her daughter's life as the prize. Unfortunately, the place lived up to its name as the City of the Dead, because except for a few annoying flies that buzzed around their ears, no other living thing could be seen. The creatures and plants of the desert had shunned this place long ago, and even now, the normally obedient horses seemed reluctant to continue on.
"Well, maybe he's waiting for us at the Veil thing," Diana suggested. "Maybe he's already found the weak spot." Shading her eyes, she scanned up and down the streets of ruined, partially-buried buildings, blindly trying to guess which one housed their goal. Sheila had studied the Gem upon their arrival, and to everyone's dismay, said that it had so blackened that she couldn't make the telltale smoke trail out any more, not even by holding it up to her eye and facing one of the suns. As Bhujar had explained, the Gem's utter darkness was due to the simple fact that they were so close to the Veil now. Whatever the reason, in these last few hundred yards of their journey, they were now left without an effective guide.
Or perhaps not. Terri spoke up then, as she very carefully and very nervously stood in the stirrups to get a better look around. "Look for a big building," she said, her voice taking on that familiar, far-off tone as she sought out the dream images the night had provided her. "Probably the biggest building around here. I guess it was like a palace, or a town hall or something, or ... maybe … I don't know, a mansion?"
"Okay, Rahmoud," Eric asked, "where would something like that be?"
"This I cannot say for certain," Rahmoud admitted reluctantly. "As in my own Khadish, cities are often built around palaces, therefore a palace would be at the heart of these sad ruins. But those who would live in the luxury of a mansion would also crave to be far from the crowded bustle, and will oft reside instead at the very edges of a city."
"In other words, you don't really know either," Hank stated neutrally, sighing as he looked around. Well, what had they been expecting, a big sign that read, 'Come See The Veil Of The Dead Here'?
"My son, I cannot guide us further," Rahmoud replied, with a shake of his turbaned head. "These old eyes have never before beheld the City of the Dead, nor have any of these brave men who ride with us. I know little more of the City than the legends that surround it."
"Uh, guys," Terri said quietly, waving her hand in the air for attention.
"Okay, then," Hank said, not hearing Terri. All that concerned him now was finding his daughter as quickly as possible, getting her away before Venger could make good on the horrible threats that had been eating at him constantly. The sound of his little girl's scream as Venger teleported her away still haunted his thoughts; he had not slept well these past two nights because that terrified cry still echoed in his ears every time he closed his eyes. Raking his fingers through his hair, he considered their options a moment before slipping back into the leadership role that Rahmoud was quietly relinquishing. "We'd better fan out. Let's have four groups, with four or five to a group, and each group goes in a different direction."
"Guys?" Terri said a little more loudly.
"Everybody stick with your group and look for the biggest buildings you can see," the Ranger continued with unquestionable authority. "Ignore the little houses and shops, that's not what we're looking for."
"GUYS!" Terri finally yelled to get everyone's attention.
Perhaps she shouldn't have yelled so loud, because the end result was about a dozen weapons whipped out by their jumpy owners, each pointing their scimitar or bow or whatever else they had in several directions at once. Immediate defensive positions prepared for anything from an attack by Venger, to an assault from the supposed caravan that had been following them, to an invasion of the Walking Dead that Rahmoud had warned them about.
"Well ... what is it?" an edgy Presto finally asked after a tense moment passed, in which absolutely nothing happened. The only sounds were the crackles of charged and ready Weapons of Power, and the horses stamping and snorting in response to the heightened tension in the air. Presto's hand was in his glowing Hat, and judging by his expression, he had hold of something in there that was probably nothing short of a Howitzer. "What did you see?"
"Sorry, guys, but ... it's that way," she said, pointing down the road to the group's left, while biting back an inappropriate smile. "We don't have to split up to find it. Maybe you guys don't know where this place is, but I do. Now that I think about it, I see some things down that way that sort of look familiar from my dream. We need to go this way." Giving the reins a gentle tug, she turned her horse with a new-found level of skill that she hadn't shown just the day before. She'd learned so quickly how to ride out of old-fashioned necessity, though she still had balance troubles if her steed moved unexpectedly. But being a fairly even-tempered animal, the horse, snorting once as if to say that he really did not want to go deeper into the city, responded gently to her signal to start trotting down the street. She even appeared confident enough to take one hand off the reins and gesture for everyone to follow her lead.
The crumbling, ancient walls standing askew along their path cast long, dark shadows as the suns edged ever closer to the horizon, lending even more eeriness to the haunted atmosphere of a ghost town that, in Khadisian belief, was an ill omen just to look upon. An uneasy sensation passed through the group as they rode, as if the shadows themselves were alive and watching their every move. Some of them shrugged the feeling off, chalking their nervousness up to the stories Rahmoud had put in their heads about the Walking Dead. Some, not so willing to dismiss intuition or superstition, quietly made some sign asking for divine protection. Still others hunkered down in their saddles and took a more secular approach by getting their weapons ready for anything as they followed Terri's lead.
Though one rider or another often thought to look behind, no one saw evidence that the feeling was more correct than they realized: the shadows were indeed alive and watching them. Pale white eyes glowed for a moment, tracking the horses, and then there was little more than the movement of darkness within darkness as Shadow Demon hurried to tell his Master that the Gem, the Outworlders, and the Desert King had at last arrived.
O.O.O
"This is it?" Sheila asked about five minutes later, when Terri reined her horse to a halt before the crumbling, time-bleached facade of what must have been the most opulent and magnificent building of the desert in its day. But in the end, unheeding time ravaged its beauty just as thoroughly as it wore down its plainer neighbors. Only the faintest traces of tarnished gold-leaf and weathered enamels hinted at the former glory of these sad, deteriorating walls. Long ago, the window panes had cracked and shattered, eventually eroding back into the sand from which they were originally glazed. The only surviving remnant of the building's previous grandeur was the regal staircase leading up to it. Though smoothed by ages of gritty wind and half-buried by drifting sand, the bluish-green tinge of carved marble was unmistakable.
"Yeah, this is it," Terri agreed slowly. Clearly, she was only half-listening as she stared into the jagged, gaping hole that was once a towering double-doorway. The thinnest point of the Veil was in there, or at least it would be in less than an hour, when the planets aligned. She could almost picture it in her mind now, a hazy white sheen somewhere in the dark building, and behind that, indefinite silhouettes clawing desperately to escape through the light. That would be when Caitlin should hold the Gem ... but how? How were they supposed to get her away from Venger and keep him from getting his hands on the Gem at the same time?
Deciding to give it one more try, Terri closed her eyes, trying to do what she had done in the amusement park: recapture the scene in her dream and place herself within it, so she could expand the vision and have more active control over what images she could focus on. Centering herself, she let out a calming breath and focused on what images she could remember. There ... there it was ... she could see Venger ... he had Caitlin … and Terri felt herself falling …
O.O.O
Studying the situation from a more physical approach than Terri, Presto asked, "You think Venger's in there waiting for us already?"
"Well, if he is," Eric retorted, "he didn't take the front door."
"Oh?" Presto frowned. "What makes you say that?"
"Simple, dummy. Look. The sand on the steps hasn't been disturbed," Eric retorted, unquestionably proud of his simple observation, or at least proud of the fact that he'd called it before anyone else. "Nobody's walked up those in a long time." But the smugness quickly faded, replaced by a grim and deadly serious determination that, until the events of these past few days, was a rare thing to see on the Cavalier's features. "But whether he took the front door or the back, or even if he came in through that huge hole in the roof, it doesn't matter. I hope your Hat's in top working order, because Venger's going to be waiting and Caitlin is counting on us."
"Yeah, and that's something I don't get," Diana interrupted. Something about this whole situation had been bugging her since they'd found out what Venger wanted, but she hadn't quite been able to figure out what. In an odd way, Eric's comment finally helped her put her finger on it. "Venger's been acting really weird this time. Or not acting – like you said, he's pretty much been doing nothing but waiting for us. Think about it. He tells us we have two days to bring him the Gem, but he doesn't even tell us where we have to go to meet him, he just tells us to show up. And then he leaves us alone. Doesn't even try to attack us, unless maybe that Dustdigger thing was something he conjured up?" She glanced at Rahmoud, but the King's only reply was to shake his head in the negative. "Do you think ol' Horn Head is slipping or something? We've got something he wants, so why isn't he trying to roast our butts until he gets it? This whole, 'See you in two days, I'm outta here!' routine just isn't like him."
"The Dark Lord has undergone no great changes in the years of your absence, my children," Rahmoud explained to them. "Save perhaps to become even more vile and evil in the wake of your escape from his clutches. But something else you say piques these old ears. How strange I find it that the Dark Lord himself did not direct you to meet him anywhere at all, least of all here, at the weakest point of the Veil."
"No, he just gave us a deadline," Eric explained. "Mostly we've just been following the Gem, but in a way, you can blame Dungeon Drip. Or at least, sort of. We didn't have a clue until he managed to remind us of that Prophecy in his usual bass-ackwards way."
"Maybe bass-ackwards for you," Diana shot back. "You just memorized the words, and left it to the rest of us to figure it out-"
"That son of a- aaargh!" Hank suddenly exploded, cutting a surprised Diana off in mid-word. "He tricked us again!"
All eyes turned to the Ranger, who was muttering angrily to himself and suddenly looked like he wanted to get his hands on something breakable. "Who?" Eric asked him when further explanation was not forthcoming. "What, Super Shrimp tricked us or something? How?"
"No," Hank sighed, taking a few seconds to visibly get a grip on his anger. "Not Dungeon Master. Venger. Like Diana just said: He didn't tell us where the Veil was, and it's not like him to just leave us alone while we try to figure it out. Not unless that was exactly what he wanted."
"Meaning ..." Presto gaped and then slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand as the realization sank in. "Aw, no!"
"You're saying," Diana said slowly, seeing the whole thing clearly in hindsight, "that all along, Venger didn't know where it was either? And he's been tracking us all this time?"
"You got it. We just led him right to it," Hank concluded in frustration, looking back towards the southeast. If whatever had been following them earlier this afternoon was still out there, all traces of its progress were blocked from view by the broken, deteriorating ruins around them, but gut instinct told them all that whoever - or whatever - it was, they were still out there.
"Terrific ..." Rob muttered.
"Well, if Venger's coming, he'd better have brought Caitlin!" Sheila exclaimed. I don't care what we have to do, I want my little girl back!"
"Take care what you say, my child," Rahmoud told her quietly. "I too crave nothing more than the safe return of our little Cait-a-lin. But under no circumstances should the Gem fall into Venger's evil hands. This we must ensure."
Sheila looked at Rahmoud as if he'd just betrayed every ounce of trust she'd ever placed in the Desert King. "How can you say that? You want me to just forget all about Caitlin's life? Well, forget you! I don't want Venger to come out on top any more than you do, but you heard what he said he's going to do to Caitlin if we don't give him the Gem!"
Rahmoud walked his horse to the shady side of a half-standing building across the ancient street as Sheila spoke, and his men followed suit as he dismounted there, leaving their steeds in relatively cool shelter while they entered the faded, decrepit palace on foot. "And if we simply give him the Gem of Shahvin, my child, we will have our little Cait-a-lin back, but only for a brief while. Once the Dark Lord reaches across the worlds and opens the Veil, there will be no place safe in this Realm. Nowhere to hide, and you are keenly aware that Venger craves your destruction above all others, save perhaps the mighty Dragon Queen Tiamat, or the great Dungeon Master."
As he spoke, for a brief moment, those who looked at Rahmoud might have thought he had aged suddenly. His shoulders stooped and his head bowed, as if the weight of the truth was at last bearing down on him: With the undead spirits of evil at his command, Venger would take great pleasure in destroying the ever-defiant Khadish and her insubordinate king. And with such evil in Venger's power as he aimed to release, there would be no stopping him. All Rahmoud's beloved people could do would be to helplessly bear witness to Khadish's complete annihilation at Venger's uncaring whim.
But then he straightened proudly. What he feared had not yet come to pass, and in this, there was hope. "And so, the Dark Lord must never have it. The Realm could not survive, my children. None of us could if Venger were to possess the power released by the Tear of Stone."
Sheila exploded. "So, what are you saying?" she yelled. Hopping off her horse, she advanced angrily on Rahmoud, who, despite Sheila's shouting and finger-pointing, stood placidly under the verbal assault. On the other hand, a few of his warriors reached uncertainly for their scimitars, caught in an untenable dilemma of possibly having to defend their King from a woman he claimed as his daughter. "I'm supposed to let Venger feed my baby to the orcs, and you're telling me that I'm supposed to feel good about that because it means we didn't let him win?"
"Whoa, Sis, take it easy!" came Rob's voice as he jumped off his horse in an attempt to intervene. In an unusual juxtaposition, for once he was the one trying to calm his sister, rather than the normal other way around. Physically placing himself between Sheila and Rahmoud, he reasoned, "That's not what he's saying at all! He's saying that we need to think of a way to get Caitlin back without giving Venger the Gem. Right, Rahmoud?" Rob asked in a tone that was half-hopeful, half-warning as he glanced over his shoulder at their adopted father.
"Yes, forgive your old Rahmoud," the King said humbly. "I would die a thousand deaths, each more horrible than the last, rather than allow any harm to befall my precious Cait-a-lin. But the situation, I fear is ... how do you say, 'damned if we do, and damned if we do not?' But come, the day wanes, leaving little time for conversation. We must search out this faded palace." Rahmoud switched languages then, speaking in Khadisian to Masrur, one of his soldiers. He spoke too quickly for any of the Earth-born to understand, since they had lost most of their Khadisian in the past four years. But it seemed like he'd instructed Masrur to stay and guard the horses, for as they moved towards those cracked and pocked marble steps, that soldier remained in the shade, watching the steeds as they snuffled at the sandy ground and rested after their long journey.
"You see, Sis?" Rob asked, trying to sound hopeful for everyone's sake, including his own. "We'll think of something, I know we will. And Terri's sure we'll think of something too, right, Terr?"
"Yeah, we will," the Dreamer answered with as much confidence as she could muster. But then she felt compelled to add, with no pretense but definitely under her breath, "Like I know what."
"Guys, we're wasting time!" The voice was Diana's, shouted over her shoulder as she crossed the wide avenue to the marble stairs. Hank was already halfway up those steps; he'd had enough and wasn't about to wait around for the argument to be settled. "Horn Head's not going to put up with us dawdling like this!"
"Oh, no you don't!" Eric called as he sprinted after her, leaving a very surprised Presto suddenly having to scramble to catch up with him. "You guys aren't getting Venger all to yourselves! The old Cavalier wants a piece of him too, for everything he's put us through!"
One after another, the Outworlders and their Khadisian friends quickly disappeared into the gaping entrance of the dark, derelict palace, leaving the avenue once again silent and deserted, save for a single desert warrior who watched the southeast with edgy anticipation as he guarded the horses.
O.O.O
Once inside, Hank drew an arrow, its golden glow illuminating what appeared to be a vast, dusty foyer. Around them, dried-out skeletons of once-opulent furniture lay in crumbling splinters, and tattered shreds of exquisite, hand-woven tapestries hung limply from the walls like long-abandoned cobwebs. Ominous, ghostly shadows loomed and lurked just beyond the circle of light cast by the Bow.
The haunted effect was unsettling to Khadisian and Outworlder alike. Bhujar produced a large ruby from his bag of magical items, and said an arcane phrase over it that caused it to glow and provide more light. Its color only served to cast the shadows a disconcerting shade of blood-red. Hastily, he stuffed the ruby back in his pouch and quickly said a few words of apology to the spirits of the Dead that might be watching.
"Gee, whoever these guys were, they must have left in a hurry," Eric commented, trying to fill the creepy silence with the comforting sound of a human voice. He studied the shards of what was once a fine piece of intricately enameled and gold-leafed pottery, probably worth a fortune in its day. It had been abandoned to crumble into the sands of Time along with everything else in this ancient city. "They didn't take the time to pack anything up, they just left."
"Yes, perhaps," Rahmoud agreed slowly, and it was clear by the way that he gripped his Scimitar that even he was growing unsettled by the eeriness of the place. "If, indeed, these unfortunate people left at all."
Eric shuddered at that, and backed away from the pottery as quickly as he could without making it look like he was hurrying away from it. Though he wasn't quite sure what was bothering him, it suddenly felt highly appropriate to leave the artifacts of a dead civilization in peace. Yes, it was entirely possible that some horrible, natural disaster came along and wiped out the entire city in one fell swoop. But the way Rahmoud said it, Eric was sure the King believed it was a very un-natural disaster which brought about this civilization's demise.
"Come on, guys," Hank said, peering into the darkness past the glow of his arrow at the many arched and darkened doorways. It was anyone's guess which they were supposed to take next. "Caitlin's-"
"What was that?!" Diana suddenly interrupted, dropping into a startled half-crouch with her feet planted firmly on the ground and Staff extended to fight. Her head swiveled back and forth as she quickly searched for something that wasn't quite visible.
Unfortunately, no one else had any idea what it was she had noticed.
"What was what?" Presto asked nervously, his Hat off his head and already glowing violet with power. "Is it another Dustdigger thingamajiggy?"
"I don't know ..." the Acrobat replied. "Maybe … I thought I felt the floor vibrate."
"Yes, yes!" one of Rahmoud's warriors, a tall and scarred man by the name of Yaphet, exclaimed when Diana explained what she had felt. Pointing at the worn, marble floor, he said, "I too was feeling this, also!"
Warily, Hank pointed his Bow at the floor. Though he hadn't felt the slight movement that Diana had, he asked, "Rahmoud, what do you think? Is it another Dustdigger like Presto said?"
"What makes the floor here shiver beneath our feet can be no Dustdigger," Rahmoud answered, but he stopped abruptly when this time, everyone felt a small shake. After a moment, the vibration ceased, so he continued warily, "Those foul creatures bury themselves in loose sand where a hapless animal or wanderer might tread, my son. Never would they conceal themselves beneath the hard foundation of construction such as this, for Dusdiggers are relatively weak and cannot quickly break through the surface to ensnare their prey with the element of surprise."
"So, what, an earthquake, maybe?" Hank suggested. "Are we having some tremors or something?"
A violent explosion of flying rubble bursting from the floor answered Hank's question. Most of them were thrown off their feet, and those who weren't dove for cover of their own accord. One of the Khadisian warriors fell howling to the ground with a deep, bloody gash in his leg from the teeth of the vile creature that had burst through the floor.
The most accurate description was to call it a ten-foot long slug with the mouth of a shark. Its mottled brown body, covered in slime, exuded a stench not unlike a bait shop on a hot afternoon in July. Lunging about, it gnashed its dagger-like teeth as it extracted its long, disgusting body from the ground. It had no discernable eyes or ears, but as it oozed rapidly out of its tunnel, it somehow knew to lunge and snap savagely when three swordsmen quickly overcame their surprise and tried for an attack to drive it back. Fortunately, human feet were fleet, and its gnashing fangs missed its attackers, though by bare inches. The abomination made a horrible, gurgling hiss when it failed to connect with its prey.
"Eeeeeeeeuuuuch!" Eric screeched when he mustered the courage to look up and catch sight of the creature that had thrown him to the floor. "Omigod, it's Cujo the Slug!" he babbled. "Tremors is right! Where's Kevin Bacon when you need him?"
"Stop comparing everything to a movie and help us fight the damned thing!" Diana snapped at the Cavalier as she landed lightly on her feet after a backwards handspring which helped her avoid the monster that was trying to make a meal of her. In one seamless motion, the slimy horror then whipped its head around to bite at the warrior named Jhali'ad, who had tried to approach with his scimitar from behind. The monster's oddly informed movements clued the Acrobat to take a hint from the movie that Eric compared the thing to, even though she would never admit to having watched such a silly flick. Risking a moment to stand up, she shouted, "Stay back and don't move if you can help it! It can feel you moving around! That's how it knows where you are!"
"Crossbows, then!" Hank shouted as he fired on the creature, and Rahmoud was just as rapidly shouting a translation for his men who did not speak Common. "Or anything you can throw! Try to drive it back without moving your feet!"
"Look out! Here comes another one!" Sheila suddenly shrieked over the hisses of the creature and the twangs of crossbow bolts slicing through the air. She, Presto, and Terri, who had been standing next to each other, all dove in different directions just as the floor beneath them erupted. Another slimy, snapping maw of teeth gnashed savagely in the air where they had been, then hissed its frustration when it realized its prey had escaped.
"These are not creatures of the desert!" Rahmoud shouted over the din, as now a third creature burst through the faded tile floor. Though his archers' bolts were mostly bouncing off the leathery hides, they were encouraged to see that the monstrosities reacted violently to the flaming arrows that Hank was letting loose on them. If the Energy Bow could weaken the things enough, then the rest of them could move in for a kill. "I know not what they might be, but such moist bodies do not bespeak of the arid sands!"
"Whatever they are, they're starting to block our ways out!" Diana pointed out, as the floor split violently and two more of the things suddenly burst through; one between them and the entryway, and another in front of a hallway that they had not had the chance to investigate yet.
There were now too many of the creatures for their small group to effectively fight.
"Heads up!" Eric suddenly shouted, having overcome his initial bout of being grossed out. With his Shield raised, he charged past Diana just as the floor beside her shattered with the force of another creature breaking through. Debris which would have fatally hit the Acrobat bounced off his Shield instead, and when the creature surged up from its tunnel, its mucousy hiss turned into a squeal of pain when it lurched squarely into Eric's force field. The blow staggered the Cavalier, but he remained upright and even found the gumption to shoot Diana a cocky grin. "Who needs Kevin Bacon, huh?" he asked smugly.
"Nah, not us, we've got plenty of ham right here!" Diana shot back, though she owed the Cavalier big time for the save. The creature that probably would have devoured her was now lying in a slimy, unconscious heap at his feet.
Rahmoud leaped over several piles of rubble to join the men wielding crossbows. "Aha!" he shouted at the slug-thing they were firing on. "Never let it be said that Rahmoud's warriors will fight when he will not!" Striking his broad Scimitar on the ground, he blasted the creature squarely in its grotesque non-face with high-frequency sound waves. The beast reared back in confusion, flailing its head desperately. Struck deaf, unable to locate its attackers, it instead turned blindly towards its tunnel to flee the intense vibration. The men cheered at its sudden departure even as they continued to shower it with crossbow bolts.
"Look out!" Rob shouted before that one had completely disappeared. "Another one's coming up!"
Rather than running away from the telltale tremors beneath his feet, Rob stood his ground, Club raised high above his head. Not moving, he watched the floor for just a moment until he saw the first crack in the marble tiles. Then, with a wild shout, he brought his Weapon smashing down between his feet with all the strength he could manage.
The force of the blow knocked even Rob off his feet, but his gamble had worked better than could have been imagined. The creature never came up through the floor. From somewhere beneath the tiles came a pained squeal, and judging by the vibrations, the thing was tunneling away as fast as it possibly could. But even better was the fact that the shock of the blow spread out through the floor, sending the other creatures into complete confusion. Finishing what Rahmoud had started with the power of his Scimitar, Rob's blow had overpowered their fine-tuned senses which could locate their intended prey by feel alone. Several scimitar-wielding warriors were able to rush up and hack at the sensory-deprived beasts' tough, leathery hides without fear.
"Sheila! Terri! Everyone, move it!" Hank shouted, standing near an archway that led to a room which seemed to have outside light streaming into it. "This way! Now's our chance to get past those things!"
In agreement that it was more important to find Venger and Caitlin, Rahmoud gave a Khadisian desist-and-retreat order to the men who were trying to break through the creatures' incredibly thick skin.
Before the monsters could recover and follow, Hank pointed to his Bow and shouted at Presto, "Those things don't like heat! See if you can whip up a flamethrower or something!"
"Already on it!" Presto answered, and in fact he was ready to start an incantation over his Hat when Hank had called to him. The others, some carrying their injured comrades, ran past him towards the next room that the Ranger was gesturing them into. Just as the last of them made it through the archway, there was a great flash of light and a deafening thunderclap from Presto's Hat. In that second, torrential rains started pouring inside the foyer.
"What the - I asked for fire, and you conjure up rain?" Hank asked in surprise as a quickly-soaked Presto splashed past him.
"Well, yeah, it's not fire, not by a long shot," Presto grinned, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the slug creatures, which had started to writhe and squeal the moment the rains touched them. As they slithered painfully down their tunnels and disappeared, the Wizard explained, "And no, my Hat's not on the fritz again. It's raining, all right. But, see, it's raining salt water."
Hank, surprised but impressed, caught a few drops of water and tasted them, just to be sure. The rain was at least ten times as salty as the ocean. "Slugs. Salt. I get it," he almost smiled as they ducked out of the raining room and followed the others. "Okay, let's figure out where we are. We've got to find this Veil thing fast."
"Um ... Hank?" Presto interrupted, pointing into a corner of the lighted room that everyone had gathered in. "Maybe you spoke a little too soon there. I think they already did find it."
