Title: Grave Robbing
Genre: Adventure, horror, humor
Rated: T
Warnings: language, spooky morbid voodoo altars, mild blood, skeletons
"Why are we back here again?" Lance complained. His eyes darted about with unease, flitting from one tree to the next. "If I turn into a stump, you guys can bet I'll be haunting you in revenge..."
Anna cast a cheerful grin over her shoulder. "If you turn into a tree, you won't be able to haunt us: your soul gets stuck in the wood, remember?"
"That makes me feel so much better."
Natalie spoke up from where she was watching Matt shove an unlit brazier towards a crypt wall. "You're not going to turn into a tree. Quit being paranoid. A few more feet, Matt!"
The swordsman grunted as he heaved the heavy stone brazier into position before standing back. "I think that's all of them. Give 'em a light, Natz!"
Four flames leapt into existence at the mage's command, and a creaking, grinding groan filled the air. Startled crows leapt from the crypt wall with alarmed croaks as the ancient doors swung inwards. Centuries of dust rained from the ceiling to the ground and then all was still.
"That wasn't so hard. Wonder why no one's bothered with this before?" Matt said with a satisfied grin.
"Maybe because most people don't loot the resting places of the dead," Anna suggested dryly, though her eyes gleamed with excitement. "Wonder what we'll find?"
"Dust? Rats? Or, impossibly, a dead body?" Lance muttered with heavy sarcasm as he stepped forwards. "Let's get this over with and get out of this stupid cemetery."
Natalie rolled her eyes with a faint smile at Matt and Anna as she followed the gunner inside. Each of them grinned back, more than used to Lance's complaints about everything.
Inside the crypt was dim with the only light being the dusty sunlight coming in from the entrance, though the darkness inside seemed to swallow the light up before it got too far. Still, they could make out the shapes and outlines of stone altars and monuments, and Matt confidently stepped forwards to inspect the first object.
Lance reached forwards to stop him. "Hey, don't get all excited. Remember that these places are usually-"
A soft click sounded from under Matt's foot, and the crypt door abruptly slammed shut with an ominous boom.
"...Trapped," Lance finished resignedly before slugging Matt's arm. "Damnit, idiot, could you at least pretend you remember this crap before you get us into these messes?"
Matt's voice was guilty as he rubbed the forming bruise on his arm, "Er... sorry." He wondered how the heck Lance could see well enough the pitch blackness to hit him so squarely. Then he sheepishly decided that Lance had definitely had plenty of practice in the past from similar incidents. "Give us some light, Natz?"
In the next instant, a small globe of pure light illuminated the darkness, hovering beside Natalie. Each person winced slightly at the sudden change in lighting and blinked a few times to adjust before blanching at the unveiled sights of the crypt.
"Well, that's gruesome," Lance muttered uneasily with a queasy expression.
Bones lined several of the altars of the crypt, interlocked so tightly that it seemed as though the monuments had been constructed solely from the deceased. Skulls impaled on metal spires at varying points served as macabre candelabra with dead candles half-melted on their crowns. Suspicious brown smears stained patches of the floor in and around an etched ritual mark. Most disturbing was the chained remains of a skeleton still hanging from one of a pair of shackles over the mark with a rusted knife still in its rib cage. Its skull, left arm, and right foot lay on the floor beneath the rest of the cadaver.
"Yeah, I don't think people died natural deaths in here," Anna whispered, her eyes fixed on the obvious ritual sacrifice. "Gods, no wonder this cemetery is so haunted..."
"Let's find the way out of here quickly," Natalie suggested, finally tearing her gaze away from the disturbing sights to try and find a release trigger for the door. "If this was a sacrificial altar, then the sacrificers had to have a way to open the door again when they were done with their rituals. C'mon, let's split up and search."
Even Matt no longer seemed interested in the possibility of treasure as they began inspecting the walls and floor and even attempting lighting the torches to try and see if there was a magical release. All that changed once the torches were lit was that the sigil on the floor began to glow red.
"Volunteers for ritual sacrifice?" Lance joked with a nervous laugh. Anna threw a bone at him from one of the altars, though he leaned back to dodge it. "Hey! There is no way that is sanitary, and I don't want to catch some evil death plague, thank you very much."
An eerie shriek cut off Anna's reply and each of them leapt into the air from shock, nerves on edge from the atmosphere and from a general fear of being trapped. Unnervingly, there was no source for the cry that they could see as they warily scanned the space. Matt took a nervous step back before freezing as he felt another pressure plate trigger under his foot. The floor dropped away in various places all over the room, but only Lance was sent plummeting out of sight, screeching an expletive.
"...Oops."
Anna cautiously stepped up to where Lance had been standing and peered down into the black pit. "Lance! Are you alright? Can you hear me?" she called loudly. Her voice echoed back to them followed faintly by Lance's.
"Sore, but alive! Matt, you're a dead man when I get a hold of you!"
"If he can make death threats against his friends, then he's fine," Natalie snorted. She carefully followed Anna's footsteps to study the pit before musing, "Jumping down doesn't really seem wise. Maybe there's a hidden passage somewhere that'll lead to where he fell to?"
"Unless its just a pit trap designed to kill someone either by the fall or starvation," Anna agreed with a frown as she stood straight and looked around.
"Lance, can you see if you're trapped down there, or can we possibly get to you?" Natalie called down the pit.
A few moments passed before Lance replied. "I think I'm in some kind of holding area! There are a lot of cages, and chains, and, ugh... other... stuff."
"We're going to try to get to you, so sit tight!" Natalie sighed as she stood back from the pit and looked around. "Anna, you lead. You've got better eyes for detecting traps. Matt... just don't touch anything, alright? I don't care if it's a solid gold icon encrusted with diamonds that would let you fly, leave it alone."
"It's not like I do this on purpose," Matt muttered mutinously with crossed arms, but he stayed put while Anna began examining the walls and floors, detecting and marking triggers of traps.
Nearly a half an hour passed before the ranger let out a sound of triumph and heaved down on a sconce with no torch in it. A section of wall flipped ninety degrees to reveal a damp, dark passageway. Another screech filled the air, raising the hairs on the backs of their necks and they each exchanged uneasy glances as they thought they needed to get to Lance and get out. Anna forced a log out of the ground to prevent the passageway from sealing behind them before she led the way into the tunnel with Natalie close behind her and Matt bringing up the rear.
The eerie darkness seemed to stretch on forever with no change in their surroundings. All that Natalie's light revealed were damp stone bricks that comprised all sides of the tunnel. The air was frigid and stale and their footsteps echoed in the darkness as they steadily made their way down on a gentle, twisting incline. Matt had to duck his head slightly to keep from brushing the ceiling, and the width of the tunnel was only just wide enough for one person to walk without touching the slimy walls.
"So, what do you suppose made that noise?" Matt finally asked, eager to take his mind off of the creeping feeling of claustrophobia. "It didn't sound like any wraith I've ever heard."
"No, it didn't sound like a wraith, and most of the other undead I've seen or studied about are silent," Natalie agreed thoughtfully. "It did sound... kinda familiar, anyway, though..."
"You thought so, too, huh?" Anna commented. "I feel like if I heard it one more time, I'd know what it is... Strange that messing with objects in the crypt is what upsets it. Most beasts are territorial to just trespassing, not only touching some of their stuff. And it's really weird that we haven't seen it, yet."
"I'd rather not see it, if it's all the same to you, but I guess that's not up to me," Natalie sighed.
"Slaying it might be worth it. We see a lot of unusual creatures, but if even we don't recognize its cry, then it must be really rare, and rare stuff sells well," Matt pointed out.
"Yeah, after we suffer great bodily injury, distress, exhaustion, and clean up. But what's a little suffering in the face of a shiny new sword that you'll never use because it's inevitably worse than what you'll find in a ruin," Natalie muttered under her breath.
Anna barely smothered her laugh with a cough as Matt choked out an indignant noise.
"I like swords," Matt protested loudly. "I'm allowed to like swords. I don't razz on Anna for her bows, or you for your staves!"
"Yeah, but you don't even stop to think about all the healing I have to put into keeping you all on this side of life. That magic isn't easy, you know!"
"You like healing magic! For that matter, you like fighting giant monsters as much as the rest of us, so I don't get what your problem is here!"
"Alright, children, settle down," Anna interrupted as she heard Natalie take a breath to fire back. She ignored their grumbles that she was younger than both of them, and said, "I think we're almost out of the tunnel. The air is flowing a little differently, and it smells different."
And sure enough, they soon reached another wall that flipped around and came out into large, circular chamber. Stagnant water was pooled in the center with a narrow stone bridge stretching across it while connecting tunnels stretched off from all sides. Far over head was the barred light of a boarded off well that allowed a few shafts of late afternoon sunlight to filter through the air.
"Must be an old cistern," Natalie guessed as she peered around the space. "I wonder if it connects to Whitefall? The tunnels are all dry, though, so maybe not."
"Why would this connect to a crypt filled with crazy voodoo-ritual sacrifices?" Matt wondered curiously. "And why all the secrecy of the hidden entrance?"
Anna shook her head as she set out for a tunnel across the chamber lined with burned out sconces. "Goldenbrick and the ruins in Lankyroot both have a places like this, actually. These tunnels are probably part of a huge network of passages used to smuggle rulers and supplies around in the old days during periods of strife. It wasn't uncommon for them to come out into important tombs. After all, who wants to risk the wrath of the dead when most weapons don't work on them? These days, though, all they're used for is black market smuggling."
"You know a lot about these," Natalie noted in an impressed voice. "Why didn't you speak up earlier?"
"I've spent a lot of time cracking down on the illegal trapping and selling that happens in Greenwood, Lankyroot, and Ashwood, but I didn't know Whitefall had its own network," Anna admitted. She waved a hand at the space as she crossed the narrow bridge. "I didn't even suspect until I saw this place. No one talks about these tunnels, and they aren't mentioned anywhere in any of the notes smugglers pass around, or in any old texts. Anyway, I suspect Lance is going to be up ahead. No other reason to have torches if people didn't once use that route, right? And we've gotten turned around a lot, but I think this should be going about the right way."
"I trust your sense of direction," Matt temporized as he cast a last look at the other tunnels they were ignoring, "but how can you be sure? I don't wanna get lost in some underground labyrinth."
"I just know. I've been doing this kind of thing for a long time. Doesn't matter if it's a forest, or a cave, or an old smuggling path, I always know where I am and where I'm going."
The three plunged into the next tunnel, which, thankfully, was much wider than the previous one, allowing them to walk in a loose formation. And as Anna had promised, they came out into a long hall lined with rusty, barred cells while chains hung from the ceiling at regular intervals. The red light of a flare led them to where Lance sat against the door of the third cell down on the left, rattling a tin cup against the bars with a bored expression.
"Spare a coin for a misunderstood soul?" he asked drolly, earning himself a snort of amusement from Anna. "What the hell took you guys so long? It's been hours, and Tony over there isn't much of a conversationalist."
Three sets of eyes trailed over to where a skeleton was slumped in the corner with one of Lance's hats perched on its head. Its jaw bone was missing, but the tattered remains of a moth eaten shirt and pants still clung to its frame.
"You named it Tony?" Natalie asked in disturbed amusement.
Lance ignored her in favor of gesturing at Matt. "Bony Tony, meet my asshole of a leader, Matt, who I am going to kill as soon as they let me out of this damn cage."
"Well with that kind of attitude, maybe he should stay in there," Matt joked nervously as he eyed the angry light in Lance's glare.
"I wouldn't have this kind of attitude if it wasn't always me that ends up in these stupid situations because you can't manage an ounce of preservation. Because of you, I've had my life drained away, been dragged under by a squid, poisoned by a slime, eaten by a dragon, nearly drowned in a swamp, almost killed by a glowing furball more than once, and dropped in a psycho's sacrifice cageāall in just a few years. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you're trying to get me killed," Lance snapped. Feeling a little mollified by the guilty look on Matt's face and for being able to vent, he crossed his arms and leaned back to watch Anna inspect the lock and shook his head. "You can't pick it. I tried."
"Yeah, too rusted for that," Anna agreed as she stood back. While the bars and lock were rusted, the hinges were in excellent condition, and would resist forcing out. "Matt, try cutting it off with Heaven's Gate."
One slash and a broken lock later, and Lance was exiting the cell with a glower at Matt. The swordsman's eyes dropped to his feet, and Lance rolled his eyes before slugging his shoulder, though not with as much force as Matt had expected.
"C'mon, I'm all 'funned out' for the day," the gunner muttered as he strode for the way they had come in.
Natalie waited until Anna had trotted off to catch up to Lance before she rested a hand on Matt's slumped shoulder. "He's not actually that mad. If Lance really had a problem with the messes we get into, he wouldn't be here, you know that. Neither would I or Anna."
Matt sighed and ran a hand through his bangs as he stared distractedly after the other two. "I dunno, there's a lot of complaining that happens on this team."
"But we still have fun on these adventures," Natalie insisted. "Sure, we sometimes get hurt, you usually set off traps, Lance ends up getting messed with, and Anna has aneurisms over thefts, but we're in good company with new and interesting stuff happening all the time, and a lot of wealth stockpiling. What're a few complaints when you think of all the stuff we've done, seen, and accomplished?" When Matt didn't look convinced, she squeezed his shoulder reassuringly before letting go and calling back, "You'll see. He'll be talking about the mechanics of the traps for days, and Anna will be telling horror stories of this trip for drinks and meals at the bars for weeks. And who knows? We might still find treasure or a rare monster."
Matt's expression cleared and he grinned as he hurried to catch up. "So I can buy another useless shiny sword, right?"
"Maybe even two useless shiny swords," Natalie joked.
They were only halfway back down the tunnel when the crack of Lance's bullets echoed off the walls followed by a pulse of Anna's magic. That eerie screech sounded once again, louder than ever, and Natalie's face paled as she finally recognized it. Both she and Matt took off running.
"It's an undead hydra. Of course it's an undead hydra. Only the nastiest and most difficult thing to put down," Natalie complained. "Couldn't have been a monolith, or a golem, or a bunch of wraiths. Noo, it had to be the stupid resurrecting snake!"
"Well, it's certainly rare," Matt pointed out with a fierce grin, ready for combat.
They burst out into the cistern to see Lance had pinned one of the great skeletal creature's mouths shut with a weighted net while Anna was nimbly clambering along the lashing spine of another, taunting the creature into attacking itself. As Matt leapt forwards with Heaven's Gate raised high, a third head exploded out of the murky waters of the cistern. Oily black water streamed from the empty sockets of the draconic head, and slime trailed from its jaws and bones as it reared back in preparation of a massive dark blast.
Lance flung himself back on Matt's shout, and caught Anna with a grunt when she leapt from the neck of the creature. A massive ethereal sword dropped down on one of the heads preparing to blast them, pinning it shut and to the stone with an unholy screech. At the same moment, a glowing runic circle appeared beneath the one Lance had weighted before a column of light exploded upwards to engulf the creature. Despite the size of the target and the encumbered movements, it still managed to writhe out of the direct path of the spell, resulting in the spine being vaporized.
"Damnit, I was trying to avoid that," Natalie cursed as she began summing up her magic for a second try. "Lance! Anna! Weaken that one on the left! We need to take them down all at once!"
"I have fought these things before, you know," Lance snipped, though he obediently turned his gun's sight on the one Natalie had indicated and unleashed a stream of soul fire as it lunged at Matt.
Anna, too, began to unleash a storm of soul arrows upon it, but she looked confused. "Why can't we kill them separately?"
"Wait, Anna, not so many!" Matt yelped in warning.
Too late, the neck rattled in its death throes under the assault of holy arrows and it collapsed down before the weight of the rest of its neck dragged its skull back under the water, bones scraping along the floor and jaw limply swaying. Lance cursed and shouted for Matt and Natalie to take down the pinned one as quickly as possible.
"Questions later, help me take out the one flying around," the gunner snapped.
Anna only looked more baffled at the sudden increase in worry in the others, but joined Lance in a raining assault of missiles on the disembodied head lunging in and out of range to snap at Natalie and distract her from her magic. It was far nimbler than its immense size suggested, and the majority of Lance and Anna's attacks missed it, but enough landed to divert its attention and wrath to their position across the cistern. Both of them dived to opposite sides as it crashed into where they had been standing, gouging a great swath of stone out of the floor to crumble down through its jaws as it flew away for a second attempt.
Meanwhile, the head Matt had pinned was angrily screeching and the mana it couldn't expel as an attack was being reabsorbed, causing the bones to gain a shimmer of unholy light. Recognizing a potentially dangerous buff happening, Matt lunged in, sword raised to run the skull through and unleashed a flurry of slashes before springing backwards to allow the full power of Natalie's spell to be unleashed on the gouged and marked remains. The light cleared to reveal the head had gone still and dark, and Matt finally released it from the Holy Sword pinning it to allow it to slide back into the murky water.
"They aren't going to kill it in time," Natalie stated flatly as she moved up beside Matt and scowled at the evasive skull darting about over their heads.
Despite her assessment, she still tried to help out by unleashing a firestorm that encompassed the entire ceiling of the cistern. A scorched and smoking skull plunged out of the flames, screeching and snapping. At the same moment, and to the immense frustration of Matt, Natalie, and Lance, a rumble ran through the ground and the water exploded up as the two previously slain heads lunged up with triumphant roars, fully restored.
"What the hell?" Anna yelped as she scrambled back from a blast of dark magic.
Lance wasn't so lucky and took nearly the entire brunt of the attack to the chest, though his armor was designed to resist dark magicks. Still, he hit the stone wall and slumped down with a groan until a pulse of healing had him staggering back to his feet.
"And that would be why they all need to die at once," he wheezed before spitting out a mouthful of blood and wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
He leapt back into the fray to slide under a skull's lunge at him and blast it with magic as he passed. The hydra nearly recovered enough from its attack to dodge Lance's magic but three arrows slamming into it knocked it back off balance and into the glowing white flames.
"Ignore that one now," Lance ordered as he turned his sights on the skull still flying around above their heads. "Matt and Natalie can weaken their target, but we need that thing grounded."
Anna nodded grimly, ignoring a yelp of pain from Matt, knowing Natalie would see to him. "I can scare it into one of your nets, I think, but we'll need to time it perfectly."
"You up for some precision?" Lance challenged with a smirk as he readied the launcher.
Anna's responding smile was fierce as she raised her bow and nocked an arrow. "Look at who you're talking to."
Without a word of signal, she loosed the arrow and Lance launched the net half a second after. Their attacks flew with expert precision, and when the hydra skull veered out of the path of Anna's arrow it became ensnared in the heavy steel net of Lance's trap and came crashing to the floor, cracking the stone on impact, and remaining pinned beside the limp and dazed head they'd previously weakened. At nearly the same moment, the third head collapsed with a rattle beside those two, so badly slashed that entire swaths of solid bone had been shorn away and the lower jaw had been sliced off.
"Now, Natz!" Matt shouted, bleeding heavily from one side, but eyes glowing with a triumphant battle fury.
Natalie's eyes opened across the cistern where she'd been concentrating on summoning her magic while Matt had defended her and she raised her staff, her entire body glowing with holy light.
"May the cursed soul purged from this plane be forgiven!"
The massive, shimmering cross of Genesis exploded over the cistern and each fighter was forced to turn away from the blinding light. A desperate screech rose from the doomed undead hydra before abruptly cutting off. For a brief moment, a shadow seemed to writhe in the column of light before even that was engulfed and vaporized. Nearly as quickly as the light had appeared, it flickered out, leaving only a few motes of holy magic dancing in the air to steadily dissipate.
"I will never get tired of that spell," Matt sighed in satisfaction as he sank to sit and catch his breath, his injuries healed by Natalie's magic. "How're you holding up, Natz?"
"Tired, a little dizzy, but otherwise fine."
"We're okay over here, thanks for asking," Lance reported sarcastically. He moved forwards to peer down into the cistern basin, now empty after the water had almost completely vaporized in Natalie's Genesis. "Well, hello loot."
Anna, having come up behind him, let out a low whistle as she eyed the piles of gold and jewels sitting in the remaining puddles at the bottom of the basin. The bleached bones of many unlucky treasure hunters rested among the spoils along with a few scattered pieces of the undead hydra's body, now still in a final death, but still rich with the dark magic that had once sustained its unlife.
"Must've loved its hoard too much to pass on when it died," she mused thoughtfully to herself, though she also wondered if maybe the sigil they had accidentally activated upstairs had been binding it.
"Treasure here I come!" Matt cried, having recovered enough to come forwards and fling himself over the edge.
Natalie joined Lance and Anna at the edge and all of them stared down with arched brows, waiting for Matt to realize his mistake. The swordsman was too excited and busy scooping their spoils into his adventure pouch that for several minutes he didn't notice they weren't coming down. He finally glanced up in confusion to see three amused faces staring at him.
"Don't want any?" he asked uncertainly.
"Well, I think I'm ready for a nice inn," Lance suddenly announced, stretching his arms over his head and walking around the edge of the basin in plain, taunting view.
"And some hot food," Anna agreed, a clear laugh in her voice.
Matt's eyes slowly widened as he looked down at himself, then at the walls, then at where Natalie was now sitting with one foot hanging over the edge and her cheek propped on one hand watching him with an amused grin, well over his head.
"Wait, Lance, you can't go, yet! You have the rope!" Matt suddenly yelped.
"I think we should splurge and get separate rooms," Lance decided loudly, now out of sight, but not actually leaving. "It'll be nice to have blankets not being hogged by Matt, and to not have to hear him snore loud enough to wake the dead. Had enough dead stuff for one day, what with Tony, and all. Too bad Matt never thinks ahead, or he could have a nice bed and warm food, too."
"Lance!" Matt called louder and more desperately. "Wait, I'm sorry! I swear I didn't mean to drop you in a pit! You can't leave me here!"
When Lance didn't reply, Matt gave Natalie a perfect pleading puppy-dog look and she finally cracked up. "Alright, Lance, I think he's suffered enough. Besides, he currently has all the money for your separate inn rooms."
Anna and Lance both laughed and before long the gunner had tossed one end of their rope down for Matt to grab ahold of and began hauling the other man out of his trap. At the edge of the pit, Lance held out his hand and grasped Matt's to pull him up and out, and steadied him on his feet before slapping a hand on his back and gesturing for the sheepishly grinning swordsman to lead. The hidden passage swung open at Anna's press on the correct brick and they began the trek back to the surface.
"You know, it really is quite a brilliant use of cleverly disguised counterweights and seamlessly fitted pressure plates to make a door swing open so cleanly and suddenly, and after such a long time since being constructed, too," Lance suddenly commented. He didn't understand why that caused both Matt and Natalie to crack up.
A/N: Been awhile since I've updated this collection. :P I think I missed last Halloween, and this one is cutting it close but I'm back with what I think is a pretty good ficlet! Kinda another sequel to the first Halloween fic, and using the Undead Hydra and more of the graveyard I never touched in An Epic Retelling. I had the idea of Matt getting Lance stuck in a cell and the idea flowed from there into this beautiful mess. This was partially banged out in just a few hours while I was sleep deprived this morning and sleep didn't happen later, either, so there are likely several errors in it. Please let me know if you spot any!
Anyway, hope you all enjoyed, and that you have a spooky Halloween!
