Chapter Seventy-seven

Water and Grime

It felt like Jörgen was gone for forever, though it was probably only thirty minutes. He'd gone a fair distance down the tunnel, then it took several minutes to cast his spell to set the alarm. He took the first watch, waking me up to take the second. My shift was extremely quiet, the only sounds I could hear were my friends around me. I woke up Sephra for her watch, and she woke up Ari'yasa to watch with her.

I woke up to cool air after the magic of the dome ended. I took a few minutes to do my daily meditation before eating. Jörgen studied his spells with a new owl perched on his shoulder, and Ari'yasa also meditated. Sephra and Melima got some food ready for breakfast.

We began debating again which direction we needed to go. I made the point that really, we needed to decide if our left-straight choice was a choice or not. To me, it made sense to count it as a choice, left.

Everyone agreed, Sephra suggesting the far right tunnel, which was the one I'd been inclined to use. Melima stood at the tunnel entrance, peering into it. I stood next to her, trying to see if there was anything that would give us a clue. There was the faintest movement of air, which I thought was probably just from all of us moving around. But when I went to the next tunnel, the airflow was gone.

Airflow was a good sign, I hoped. As long as where we wanted to go had access to the surface. We decided to head that direction.

It curved a little more to the right as we traveled, then left. It started sloping down, then changed into steps. It leveled out a little bit, opening into another set of natural caverns with stalactites and stalagmites. Fortunately, the floor seemed to be carved out. Droppings began to dot the floor, then became more frequent. Bat droppings. I glanced up at the ceiling. Several bats were huddled between stalactites, growing into bigger clusters the farther we went.

The carved floor continued, and an occasional drip would sound in the distance. The ground still sloped down, but I was feeling more confident that we were heading in the right direction.

The natural cave ended, leading into a staircase. The stairs led down for a long time, making my legs burn as we walked down. It was about forty-five minutes into our descent when a creature tunnel broke through the stairs, going off and down in another direction. The stairs almost seemed to come to a landing at that point, the stairs ahead of us weren't as far down as they should have been.

It looked like there could have been another arch around where the creature had burrowed through. We'd need to count this as another choice. Good thing the intact tunnel was left, the next direction we needed to go.

The stairs finally ended at another large natural cavern. The cavern extended farther than I could see in the darkness. Jörgen said that he could see a wall right on the edge of his sight from his owl.

We continued into the cavern, and I let Jörgen walk right behind me so we had the advantage of his sight. The ground was soft beneath my feet. I thought it might be mud, especially with the water I'd heard earlier, but then a stench caught in my nose. It wasn't mud, it was guano. Gross!

I looked up. Thousands upon thousands of bats hung on the ceiling. Nearly every surface was covered by bats, only the steepest stalactites showed open rock. There was a wide variety of sizes of bats. Some were tiny, some were the size of cats. A soft chitter descended from above, and frequent pats of falling material sounded from the ground throughout the cavern.

Jörgen let me know that he saw two tunnels on the far end. One on the right had a set of stairs, the other on the left seemed to slope down. Far to the right was a hole in the ceiling.

It seemed to get deeper with the couple more steps I took. How deep was the guano in the center of the cavern? Would it be remotely safe for us to walk through? Would it act more like a quicksand and not let us out? Fortunately, we'd discovered that we could all fly by some means or another.

Ari'yasa turned into a light-colored bat with even lighter designs that matched the ones normally on her face. She fluttered around us for a moment, then flew out into the cavern. She came back and landed on Melima's shoulder.

I helped Melima onto my broom, flying us both across the cavern. Jörgen and Sephra both cast their flying spells so they could make it across. There was still a visible path through what were probably guano-covered stalagmites.

We flew towards the left tunnel, which had a slight downward slope to it. I asked Melima to pull out her decanter so we could clean off the guano from our shoes. I didn't want to track it all through the tunnels. A few seconds later, we came to a three-way split, all carved. We immediately decided to go straight. Another hour later, we came to another trio of carved paths. We chose the left path there.

The path started to level out. There was still moving air, but it seemed warmer than it had before the cave of bats. The ground would rumble every now and then, but I couldn't tell if it was getting closer or not. Melima and Jörgen couldn't even feel it.

I asked Ari'yasa to come back from her bat form so she could use her staff to cast pass without trace, cloaking us and our footsteps. If we could feel the creature through the ground, it could probably feel us.

The creature cross-tunnels started coming more frequently. We were probably getting close to wherever these things lived. It became quiet for a while, then a loud rumbling went off close in front of us, stopping us in our tracks. It couldn't have been more than a stone's throw in front of us, around a curve. Whatever it was, it was moving from left to right.

We crept forward. Several cross-paths intersected, creating a small cavern of creature-carved paths. I put my finger to my lips, then lowered my hand to the ground. I stood at the cavern entrance, listening and waiting. Jörgen started casting a spell as he waited.

I peered around the corners, noticing the right path curve to the left. The main tunnel we'd been following continued forward, but I couldn't tell yet if there was another gnome-carved tunnel that may have joined.

Water started swirling in the center of the cavern. Jörgen was concentrating on the swirling, the swirls matching his movements. The water came together into a figure of water, a water elemental.

I listened for any reaction. There was still a rumbling, but it seemed more like breathing than movement. It came from the right. I pointed that way, then touched my earring to talk to Melima at the back of the group. "Whatever it is, it's that direction. I can feel it breathing."

Melima whispered to Sephra in front of her, and the message made its way forward. The water elemental moved to the left, away from us and the breathing creature. The sloshing sounds it made were immediately covered by more rumbling. The creature was moving down.

I remained still. Moving would just alert the creature to where we were, and I wanted it to focus on the water elemental. I whispered to Melima through my earring, "have Jörgen move the elemental to the left."

The elemental continued away from us, Jörgen's owl landing on my shoulder so he could see it. The rumbling continued, seeming to move past us. The ground beneath the elemental broke apart, a huge worm bursting out of the ground and catching the elemental in its mouth.

The worm was perfectly round with spines all down its body. It slammed its head down on the ground with the water elemental inside. It wouldn't take much for it to swallow any one of us. What was more concerning, the tunnel it was in—that was carved by a creature—was twice as wide as the worm.

I flew to the other side of the cross-tunnel, staying close to the ground but not touching it. I fired Gûdtirith at the worm, but the arrow didn't go in as deep as I'd expected. I whispered to the bowstring, causing it to glow. My arrow burst into flame as it hit the worm, still not going in as deep as I'd thought it should.

The worm started opening its mouth again as it continued pulling itself out of the hole. Ari'yasa came around the corner from where I'd been standing, casting a spell that created a swarm of locusts around the worm. The worm froze for a second, but continued out the hole towards me.

A bolt of fire came out of the tunnel I'd come from, striking the worm in its now open mouth. Jörgen came up and stood close to me. While I wasn't thrilled about the wizard getting between the worm and me, at least he was close. He started hovering a little bit as Sephra flew past him across the cross-tunnel.

The water elemental seeped out of the worm's mouth, reforming on the other side of its head. The elemental swung its arms at the worm, but only created a splash on its eyeless head. The worm came the rest of the way out of the hole, swinging its tail at the elemental. The elemental got slashed in half but immediately reformed. A blackish substance lingered for a moment inside the water, but quickly dissipated.

The worm moved its head as if looking for something, but most of us were in the air and not moving. I whispered to my bowstring, "lacogoth," and fired again. I landed my arrow in a soft spot by its mouth, causing it to move just a little bit as my second arrow hit, deflecting it with one of the spines on its side.

I flew closer to the worm, getting between it and Jörgen. I caught a glimpse of Melima down the tunnel, also starting to float a little bit. A light bat came from behind me, landing on the front of my broom. I waved it away, I wanted to take the brunt of any attacks from the worm, I didn't need another one of us in harm's way. The bat flew away and landed on Sephra.

Melima flew past me towards Sephra, hurling a lightning bolt at the worm, followed by a firebolt. Skin started peeling off of it, revealing its fleshy insides. A wall of water rushed over the left half of the worm, pushing it away from me and twisting it around as it crashed into the wall.

Jörgen flew out from behind me to my right, getting away from the worm. If we could just all get out by flying, we could get away without it knowing where we went. We were almost there. A splash of acid landed on the worm, but didn't burn as much as I'd normally seen it do.

"Hey!" Sephra called out. "I feel like we need to leave!" She darted down the tunnel, out of my sight. The water elemental walked around a little bit, making noise before smashing its arms into the worm, still only creating splashes.

The worm dived back into the hole it came out of, then the cavern around us echoed with rumbles. It was burrowing somewhere, but I couldn't tell exactly where. Melima whispered to me through the earrings, "it's coming between and behind us."

"Then let's keep going," I whispered back. I followed the rest of them, stopping at another cross-tunnel to make sure none of the other tunnels were gnome-carved. None of them seemed to be carved by tools, and the tunnel everyone was heading down was actually bigger than the one we had come from. But it was directly across from where we had come, so it was our best bet.

Melima and Jörgen continued their flight, Melima turning back to look before a curve in the tunnel.

"Hey," Sephra's voice said in my head, "everything down this tunnel looks good. How does everything look on your end?"

"Well, the worm disappeared, but we think it's going the other direction, and we're coming after you." I turned to look back the way we came. The elemental sloshed around to my right, though I couldn't see it when I glanced that way. The rumbling grew louder to my left. I snapped my head, catching a glimpse of the worm breaking through the ground. It charged straight towards me.

My heart leapt into my throat. I tried to pull away, but it barreled into me, barely missing me with its gaping maw. I tumbled over the top of it, rolling with my broom. I hovered for a moment after it passed, just long enough for it to swing its tail at me and hit me with its stinger.

Pain. So... much... pain... I gasped for breath as the poison surged through my body. I'd been hit with poison before, but nothing like that. I grasped my side where the stinger pierced through, trying to calm the stinging.

A crackling bolt of lightning passed by me, hitting the tail of the worm and bathing the tunnel in light, revealing a rust color on the walls— probably blood. I moved away from the worm—avoiding the stinger—far enough that it wouldn't be able to reach me anymore. I muttered to myself, "that was close, but you can do this!"

A surge of healing energy rushed over me. The power of Bahamut calming some of the poison raging within me. It wasn't much for what I'd just gone through, but it would keep me going.

The worm stopped thrashing and froze in place. "I'm holding!" Melima shouted. "Come hit it hard!"

She threw a bolt of fire at it, but it ricocheted off the hide of the tail. A fireball erupted on its back, burning away some of the tough hide. Poison sprayed out of the tunnel from Jörgen, barely affecting it. The water elemental came out of the worm's mouth again, enveloping its head.

I gently leveled my bow, aiming at a crack in the hide. The arrow planted deep, leaving only the fletching outside. The arrow pulsed ever so slightly next to a vein. I aimed for the vein, letting another arrow fly. I pierced the vein, sending blood gushing from it. The worm writhed a little bit, then finally stopped moving. Within a few seconds, the gushing blood slowed and finally stopped.

Melima asked for my help to get the venom out of the tail. It took some effort, cutting out the stinger then following back a few hands to the venom sacs. We used a dagger heated in a bonfire Jörgen made to cauterize the veins the venom went through. It was messy work, but we got them out safely. The stinger was barbed, the venom coming out just below it. No wonder I hurt so much.

The worm was covered in dirt and clay, but the skin was a red hue. The blood coming from it was more of a purple than the red-brown blood on the walls. Jörgen started examining the walls, and I held my hand to the ground, trying to tell if there was something else heading our way. For the moment, it seemed we were safe.

I channeled natural magic into the ground, trying to tell if there were any creatures within a mile. I didn't detect anything, but unfortunately, I could only tell if certain types of creatures were in the area, beasts and monstrosities being the exceptions. I wasn't sure if these giant worms qualified as monstrosities or something else.

I cast another healing spell on myself, dampening the pain. I could no longer feel the poison coursing through my veins, but the wound from the stinger would take a bit more to heal.