Chapter 56
Finding the door didn't take long. The 'key' seemed to have a range of effect, and as soon as we got close to it, the little pyramid started to hum. When we actually got to it, the hum cut off, all the runes on the stone glowed brightly for a moment, and a bit of the outer wall of floor eighteen just... vanished. Like some kind of illusion.
The four of us looked into the newly opened tunnel, noting that it wasn't lit at all, like the dungeon normally was.
"It looks just like the Xenos's cave. Normal stone, no glow from the walls, and no feeling of constantly being watched." Marius said, running his hand along the stone just inside the 'door'.
"Did we bring any lamps?" I asked.
The three shook their heads.
I took one of my tails and handed it to Bell, then started pacing. "We know this is a way into enemy territory." pace pace, "Lido tried to tell us that there is something 'back home'." pace pace, "But, not our home, right? His home. But what could be so important?" pace pace stop.
Bell was taking the opportunity to pat the end of my tail while I paced, "Have you thought of something?"
"Yes, but it's a terrible idea." I replied, my tail swishing out of his grasp only to be replaced by Haruhime's tail. "I have no problem in seeing in the dark, I'm wearing almost all black, and I can track by using my nose."
"Kodori-dono, that plan is terrible." Mikoto said with a frown.
"It's not 'can' it's 'must'." I replied, "You three know the way to their home. Even if it was only for a moment, Lido shrugged off a high powered curse to tell us that there was something important at their home." My tails switched again, and I looked at the fickle appendages critically, "And if there was a fight, you guys could probably find out where they were taken. If our sparring mach made our poor field look like a war zone, imagine what two groups of people fighting would look like."
"The three of us might have a hard time down there..." Marius said, "Not to sound negative, but we were all in pretty rough shape the first time."
The three of the nodded, but Bell answered, "We don't have Wiene. The dungeon seems to hate the Xenos. And the three of us can just run from the monsters. Miss Kodori is right, Lido did his best to tell us something, and we have to find out what."
"I still do not like it." Mikoto said, "But you are correct. Be careful, Kodori-dono."
"I have no intention of getting caught again. I will only find them and track their movements." I replied, putting my hood up and looking down the tunnel. "Be safe, and swift."
I listened to them start running, as I walked into the darkness, the 'door' behind me closing up again.
It was my first time inside a 'safe' area inside the dungeon. It honestly felt no different from a cave or mineshaft. Actually, no, there was one difference. It was clean.
No trace of animals, no insects or spiders, no dripping water. Even the air smelt clean. I was no expert, but I'd been in a few caves and even a mine, and each one of them, no matter how much use they were seeing, had nature slowly creeping into it. Dripping water from rain above ground, insects or small animals seeking shelter. Moss and fungus that could live in darkness. This place had none of these things.
Running my hand over the stone wall, I could feel the tool marks. It wasn't on par with say, Welf, who could make a stone sculpture with ease, but it was good work regardless. I had to wonder how long this all took.
But later. I had a job to do, and even though this was 'out side' of the dungeon, distractions could still get me in trouble, or worse.
Carefully, but as quickly as I dared, I followed the tunnel. Using my nose as much as possible, and my ears to feel the subtle air currents, I tried my best to actually find something to track. After what felt like hours of walking on what felt like a slow upward slope, my nose finally picked up a scent that wasn't stone.
Blood.
It was faint. But after all I'd been through, there was no way I could mistake that scent. I had no idea how old the scent was, but it was travelling on the faint draft of air I'd also been following. I took a slow deep breath, feeling my magic warming up as I did so, and made sure all my equipment was firmly in place.
It was a little while yet, before I heard the first signs of people. Laughter, cat calling, cheers. Someone was having a party by the sound of it.
Next, I could make out a faint light near the end of the tunnel. It was here I stopped, and did another check. This time though, it was of the mental map in my head. There were a few rooms behind me, dark and empty, as well as some other tunnels that led away from the draft of wind I'd been following. Even so, they would know the place better than I, so while I might get lucky, I doubted I could hide for long.
Fighting the urge to pace, I carefully crept closer and tried to listen in on the party.
"-think of the payday this will bring!" someone said, "I mean, what a haul!"
"Funny how these 'smart' monsters are actually easier to catch than real ones."
"Real ones don't care about moral, or seeing others get hurt." Another laughed, "See the look on their faces when Dix turned that big one to ash?"
"Thought it could block the hallway? Well, it did, until the boss just took that spear of his..."
"Wonder where he got that from? Meanest lookin' thing I've seen. Love to get my hands on it just to see what it can do."
"Not me! Heard that thing is cursed."
"Speaking of cursed, see how those monsters he hexed just ran off to the eighteenth? Wonder how long it will take for the surface to come down and wipe them out for us?"
"And while they are doing that, we bring our cargo up, and out of the city. Netting ourselves a big fat payday."
"Speaking of? Think our other team managed to get that one? The one that got away?"
"Dix did tell them to keep an eye out, in case they left the place undefended."
"Idiots, should have caught on that we were watching them. Not just with those fool Amazon."
As they laughed, I seethed. I should have assumed there were other watchers. Not just from Hermes and Fels, but enemies too. How else would they have known to set the trap for me? I was mentally kicking myself for it, but also trying to think about what to do about these jokers. From the sound of it, there were four of them. All men. I had made a vow never to go alone into the dungeon, and a promise not to do anything stupid, but with these four here, I could go no further. That also left me with the question of, if it did come to a fight, how much force should I use?
Then one of them made the choice for me.
"Gotta take a leak. Gimme that lamp?
"Yeah yeah, remember how to turn it on?"
"I'm not stupid."
"You look stupid."
"Why don't you go f-"
As they bantered, I backed up as quickly as I dared. Behind me there was a shallow curve in the tunnel, and so long as he didn't look up, I'd be hidden from the light, and his lamp. Quickly kicking off my boots, I left them a little further down the tunnel, and climbed my way to the ceiling, my toes and hands gripping the stone easily, letting me hang face down, keeping all my tails, the golden one especially, hidden from the oncoming light.
"Stupid bastard, ugly son of a goblin fucker..." He was swearing steadily as he approached, giving me something to focus on, other than the risk of what I was about to do.
"Why did the closest drain hole have to be all the way back at the fork... what the hell?"
Broad shouldered, armed with a sword and dagger and wearing a shirt of mismatched chain, plate and leather, he passed under me and spotted my boots, one of them standing up straight, the other on it's side. He put the lamp down, turned around, took in a breath, then saw me as I leaned down and closed my hands over his throat.
"Go to sleep. And I won't pop your head off." I whispered to him, even as he tried, and failed to pry my hands off his throat. Flailing about, my grip kept him in the centre of the tunnel, just out of arms reach of the walls.
He wasn't giving up though. As I let go of the ceiling with my feet, landing perfectly, and he tried to go for his sword, but my tails latched on to his arm. Squeezing a little harder and using my tails to stop his attempt for the dagger on his other hip, then him trying to punch me, I simply waited him out, as his face turned deep red, then purple. Until finally, he went limp, my outstretched arms suddenly holding up a bunch of dead weight.
Easing him to the floor, and wrinkling my nose as he pissed himself, I made sure he was breathing, undid his belt, took the three pouches that were on it off, then picked up the lantern. Thinking about the way I took, I remembered a fork in the path a little back the way I came. Running the timing in my head, I figured they might get suspicious if he took more than five minutes. Judging by how strong my victim was, I guessed a fairly experienced level two. If I went by that, the three of them shouldn't be a problem.
But, if I were wrong...
No, don't go there. Confidence!
Taking in a slow deep breath, I warmed up my magic, then stopped...
I had another option now.
I held out my hand, and my golden tail flopped itself onto my palm. Giving it a pat, I quickly turned off the lamp, then thought about cute foxes.
"Yip." Said a small black and gold fox, eyeing three men from just inside the tunnel entrance.
"What the hell? Wuzzat?
"It's a fox. But what's it doing down here? These tunnels are supposed to be sealed from the surface."
"Think it got in during a supply run or something?"
"I dunno..."
"Grrr." The fox backed up a little, the fur on its back bristling.
"Well, I am kinda hungry, wonder what fox tastes like."
I watched through the eyes of my little apparition. Haruhime's magic letting me not only extend the range of my magic, but giving it less of a ghostly appearance. The three of them, all dressed in the same sort of style of my first victim, though one of them was a dwarf, and another a cat person, they all stood.
I made another growling noise, the fox mimicking it, and had it retreat back into the tunnel, turning tail and vanishing from the light.
Along the wall, just out of immediate sight of the tunnel, was a thin trail of my 'aura'. Attached to my tails, then to the little fox, I waited until the three of them were just inside the tunnel, then had the little fox dance through their legs, just out side of the tunnel.
And fed as much of my magic through that trail of 'aura' as I could.
I felt my magic drain out of me quickly, but the reaction was priceless. Suddenly, the little fox was about the size of a school bus, and with its golden eyes now at eye level or higher, it glared at the three of them and growled. They didn't, to their credit, run in terror. They did however, back up into the tunnel and draw their weapons.
The cat person noticed me first, his ears, then head turning towards me as I charged down the tunnel, my boots hitting the stone the only sound I made.
Until I hit him in the face with my fist, a spray of blood and teeth erupting from his mouth as he flopped over the dwarf's shoulder. The human turned next, but I gave him a strong left hook to the kidney. With nothing but chain armour to soften the blow, he folded up like wet cardboard to the sucker punch, then hit the floor as I used the edge of my hand on the back of his skull. The dwarf tried a kick to my shin, but his ankle was much softer than my adamant shin guard.
Then, without my command, the fox apparition bit into the dwarf's shoulder, picked him up, and shook him back and forth, slamming him against the walls several times before dropping him at my feet, unconscious, like a present, its tail wagging back and forth happily.
"Good girl." I said to it, patting it, and by proxy, myself, on the nose, before cutting off the mana I was feeding it, and watching it vanish.
Huffing a couple of times to try and ease the sudden adrenalin crash, I ate a couple of mana mints to keep my reserves up. Then, as quickly as I could, I gathered the four men up, stripped them, then slapped all of their equipment against the walls. Swords, daggers, an axe, a spear, armour, helmets. All of it turned to dust as I used it as a 'weapon' against the wall. Stripping their belts of any pouches, I gathered up a passable supply of potions and tools, then used the belts to tie them up as awkwardly as I could, so that when they did wake up, they'd have a hard time undoing my work. I considered simply killing them. Feeling a bit of shame as I did so. But I didn't want anyone to know I was here, and if I did kill them, Ikelos, their patron God would know.
Then, as a final gift to them, I took the magic stones out of the lamps. Leaving them in total darkness.
Still following the scent of blood and the faint draft of air, I got a sense of just how... big these man made caverns were. I was no expert, but I'd see enough on TV or the like to know that digging out caverns like these took a lot of time. And making sure they didn't collapse, or flood, or any number of things took skill.
Marvelling this, as I quietly quick-stepped my way through yet another massive empty room, I stopped suddenly as my ears picked up something other than my own breathing. Someone was struggling. It was faint, but I could hear the sounds of distress from a little off my current path. Picking up my pace a little, I followed the noise.
"Can't have you leaving a trail for anyone to follow." the rough voice was followed by what sounded like the cracking of stone, and a shriek of pain.
"Dix is gonna be mad you're breaking the merchandise."
"It's a monster. It'll grow back." Said a third.
"How much farther to the main camp?" Asked a forth.
"Far enough. Not like we were expected to find this one."
"Think we have time for a little fun?" There was the sound of someone being slapped, followed by a grunt of pain.
"She certainly is pretty enough. And if she struggles too much, we could just break another leg or two."
"She's got seven more, after all, right?" They all laughed, the fifth voice, a woman by the pitch, wasn't sobbing, so much as growling.
I was almost there now too, peeking around a corner. Four men, armed with spears, swords, one with a bow and another with a mace. Much better armoured, or at least, not so poorly armoured, though they were all scruffy looking and dirty. They all had a lamp, though they were smaller, they were much better quality than the ones I'd rendered useless. They were all looking away from where I was, towards the fifth.
It was a drider. Half spider, half woman. Even through all the cuts and bruises, she was a very pretty creature. Though at the moment, she was trying to balance herself on seven legs, while the four adventurers tugged the ropes they were holding, pulling her roughly this way and that to keep her from standing up again.
"Come on, don't struggle." One said with a laugh. "Who wants to try and find where it is first?"
Unable to just watch anymore, I charged in, my magic igniting inside my chest, the words of my second spell on my lips. "I am the hand of my Goddess!" They all looked towards me as I said the first line, two of them securing their ropes around their waists, while the other two readied a spear and sword respectively. "I carry her hope!" I twisted out of the way of a spear thrust, planted my front foot and spun away from the sword, dropping my elbow to stop the spear man from slamming my ribs, "I deliver Her wrath!"
"That's the Fox! Kill her! Shoot her!" One said, my ears hearing the sound of creaking wood.
The swordsman managed to score a glancing hit against me, but my coat of drake scale deflected the blow. "NONE shall ignore her judgement!"
"SHIT! She's getting loose!" The drider was more or less on her feet now, her bound hands trying to take the mace from the man holding it.
I slipped another thrust from the spear man, the point going under my arm. Grabbing the shaft of the spear, my fingers curling over his, I twisted, putting him in the way of the archer, who shot him in the back of the head. The swordsman kicked me from the side, sending me into a painful roll. But, my tails and hands brought me to a quick stop, and I looked up at him. "And I pass it now!"
From my runner's crouch, I sprang forward, fist glowing with an acidic purple, I shouted, "GUILTY!"
To his credit, he tried to brace for it. But with a boom of displaced air, I covered the five meters almost instantly, my fist and arm passing through his chest almost like a blade. As I used my grip to stop about three meters behind him, I heard a scream. Looking, I saw that the man with the mace was now impaled by the two front legs of the drider.
"Behind you!" I shouted, seeing the archer pull back an arrow.
The archer managed to fire, but the spider woman stood tall, the arrow passing under her, then with what looked like pure contempt on her face, she slammed her abdomen down onto the archer. Stunned, the man stood no chance as she turned and impaled him as well, her chitin covered hands reaching down and clawing out his throat.
We both looked around at the four dead men, then at each other. I could tell she was sizing me up, but then I saw a spark of recognition in her eyes.
"It's you... The one we found." Her voice wasn't as pretty as the rest of her. A little rough, but certainly quite feminine. It reminded me of Aisha in a way. Checking herself over, her arms covering up her naked torso, she walked towards me as I shook my hand off, noting that my gauntlet was gone.
"I suppose it was a little overkill." I mumbled to myself, "Are you okay? Your leg?"
"It will grow back, in time." She said, "What... Are you doing here? I did not expect rescue, or to even see you or the others again." Her voice was a mix of sadness, and anger.
"First." I said, looking up at her and offering my still covered left hand, "Kodori, pleased to actually be awake to meet you."
Reluctantly, she reached out with her own left hand. I noted that it was covered in an almost gauntlet-like chitin, a natural glove of armour. We shook, and she replied, "Arachani. Chani, is what little Wiene called me." She had a good handshake, but covered herself back up again as soon as we let go.
"Let me find you a shirt or something, if you don't mind wearing something from a dead man." I looked around, noting that the only one with a still intact shirt, was the man with the arrow in the back of his head. "It's a bit bloody... But..."
"That's fine. I just..." She paused, my ears turning towards her as I undid the straps on the man's armour and tugged off his undershirt. "I don't like being touched, or exposed..." She huffed in irritation, "They stripped me of my armour too... Finding it was difficult, getting it to fit properly was even harder."
"Well, if I ever get the chance, I'll make you some. I'm not half bad at it either." I tugged off the man's shirt, wrinkling my nose at it, "Urg, you'd think they'd bathe or something..." I looked up at her, "Before you put this on, lower yourself a little, I'll check you for injuries."
She was probably the worst first aid patient I'd ever had. Not only was she shy, though I could understand that, considering what she had just gone through, but she was also very sensitive. It was like anywhere she had skin was either ticklish or... well, something else. But, after a couple of potions, a bandage to bind her breasts, and a shirt that smelled like week old socks, she was decent enough to relax a little. Her shattered leg was another thing however. I had no potions strong enough to grow back a limb, and while I might have been able to heal it if it were say, a severed finger held against a stump, the chitin was in little bits all over the place.
"Oh, here. Bell told me you eat magic stones?" I offered her the magic stones from the lamps, keeping only one of the small belt lamps for myself.
"Yes, though..."
"These are just from lamps, not from..." I sighed, unable to think of a more tactful way of saying it, "Any fallen. Those, if they are from the others, are in this pouch here." I offered her the pouch I'd filled with the magic stones I'd taken from the first four I'd fought.
She took the pouch after a moment of hesitation, then carefully opened it. "No... no... no..." She sighed a little in relief, "These are just from monsters." She dumped them onto her palm and showed me, "See? They are irregular, the swirls inside uneven and random."
Pausing in my looting, I looked at the stones. I'd honestly never really taken a close look before. Lilly and Bell were the ones who dealt with them before, as I couldn't use a knife to pull them out. "I didn't know that a stone from one of you, and from a normal monster would be different."
"Yes." She paused her explanation to pop one of them into her mouth, crunching down on it once then swallowing, "Ours... They tend to be more... gem like. The magic inside dancing gracefully."
"Like this one." I said, taking out a stone from one of the pouches. It was fairly large, about the size of a golf ball, though the top and bottom were pointed like quartz. Inside, the magic spiralled around itself slowly.
"Yes." She said, leaning down and over my shoulder.
Carefully, I used some of the leather cord from the biggest pouch, and tied it around the stone. Then, with another, I fashioned it into a necklace. As I worked, I heard a couple of 'tap taps' on my shoulder as something wet fell onto me. "Here." I said, turning and holding up the necklace, Tuck it under your shirt, keep it safe."
"Yes." She said, carefully wiping away her tears.
"They will know someone is down here." I said, as she touched the stone first to her forehead, then put it under her shirt. "When some one in a Familia dies, their God knows it."
We looked to the four dead bodies, Chani walking over to one of them and very deliberately poking one of her sharp legs through his chest. "Let who ever it is know it then." She said, doing the same to another.
"Bell, Marius, and Mikoto," I paused as she nodded, "Went to your old home. Lido resisted what ever it is that is making him act like a monster, just long enough to tell us that something is there still."
"We had almost finished packing up. Fels had found a possible spot for us, but..." She poked the third of the three that still had a chest to poke.
"The others went back to the surface to get help. I think they attacked my home too, to try and capture Wiene." I did one final check, then waved my hand for her to lower herself down again. "But until help arrives, we can't be caught. No matter how much we want to just..."
Carefully I put a belt around her 'hips' where her body attached to the spider part of her. "We can't do nothing." She didn't shout, but I could tell she wanted to.
"No, we can't be idle. Just not be caught." I took her hand and guided it to the pouches, "Healing potions, smoke bottles, mana potions." I had given her more than half of what the people were carrying when it came to tools and potions. "Are you venomous?"
"What?"
"Your bite."
"Oh, well yes, I am a spider, as much as a woman."
"Web spinning too?"
"Do some spiders not spin webs?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm not one of them."
"Good. Let's move someplace else, and we can make a plan." I very carefully gave her a pat on the side of her abdomen, where I knew she wasn't ticklish. "And can you use a bow?"
I had no idea how long we had until help arrived. Or how long it would take, if they even cared, for someone to look for the people I'd tied up or killed. But, after finding a place to hide, easy enough for two creatures who could see really well in the dark, and hang from the walls or ceiling, we made a plan.
First, we'd find out where the main camp was. She wasn't able to feel the air or track by scent, but she did know what way was up, and roughly how deep we were. I had her fill a couple of empty potion bottles with her venom, and coated the spear we'd taken, and arrows, with it too. By her own admission, her venom wasn't deadly, but it was a highly potent paralysing agent, even getting a little on my fingertip had it feeling a little numb, and I had a good Abnormal Resistance skill. She also made some rope with her webbing, not very thick, but after trying to break it myself, it really didn't need to be.
"You know, when we get out of this, I would love to chat with you about your silk." I had her slowly making another thin rope, and was wrapping my bare hand with it like a boxer's wrap. "I can only imagine how useful this stuff could be..."
"I am not a commodity." She said stiffly, "And I am almost out of silk."
"I didn't mean it like that." I clenched my fist a couple of times, "That's good, thank you." I said, wiggling my fingers, "I've known about you guys for a little while now, and have been thinking about 'how to bridge the gap' so to speak."
"Oh?" She rubbed her belly, frowning, and I offered her a bit of dried meat from my ration pouch, taking some for myself as well.
"Yes. As it stands, right now, it just isn't happening. Period. Full stop. No chance." I nibbled a bit before continuing. "But, there's a saying, 'you have to work, to eat'."
"So if we were useful in some way?"
"Yes. For as long as anyone can remember, 'monsters' are the enemy. But, from where I'm standing, and having met some of you, you aren't monsters, but 'people'. But, surface or underground, being a people needs a few things to qualify."
She raised an eyebrow at me, her pretty, sharp featured face not quite glaring at me. "Go on."
"First, is language. You have that. So long as you have the right mouth for it, you can talk, and talk with others." I made sure all my gear was where it was supposed to be, and stowed some of the little 'gifts' Chani and I had made for our mission. "Next, is culture. Art, music, science, agriculture. Ways to influence the world around you. Be it learning about it, recording it, or changing it."
"Until this happened, we had those things, though, Fels was the one giving us the tools to do it."
"And that's the last point. Trade. A way to show other 'people' that you can not just provide for yourself, but offer something as well." I held up my webbed hand, "Your silk and venom? Useful tools for the dungeon. I only know Lido and Chime, aside from you, so I don't really know what else the Xenos have to offer in that regard. Well, except maybe hell hound fur. Even without the pelt, its still fireproof."
Surprising me, she giggled, the first happy noise she'd made so far. "I don't think he'd let you shave him. Ever."
I pictured a 'hell poodle', and laughed quietly as well, "Okay, no. But you get the idea. If people up top, can see you for something other than 'monsters' then maybe... But right now..." I gave her side another pat, "Ready?"
"We can discuss this another time, yes. Let's find their base, and see if your plan works."
The first thing we had to do, was find it. As we got closer to the surface, by Chani's judgement we were getting close to the fifth floor or so, we started to see more signs of 'people'. Discarded tools, empty barrels that smelled like either water or potatoes, and other such things. There were still no people, but I was starting to detect them with my nose. Apparently not bathing wasn't just limited to the two patrols we'd dealt with.
We started to encounter patrols then as well. They were on alert too. None of the idle banter or distracted walking. Chani and I had to hide several times, clinging to the high ceilings until they passed, before descending and laying down a little spider web. This was to let Chani know when the patrols were on their way back, so that we had a little more time to hide, or, if we felt it possible, ambush them.
I also noticed the quality of equipment was really disorganized. Not that I expected the Ikelos Familia to be as organized as say, Loki, or Ganesha, but... It was like they were all... Workers. Workers working at a job they hated, but did it anyhow, because they had nothing else to really do. That isn't to say many of them didn't look strong. But they certainly didn't look... enthusiastic.
"We are getting close." I whispered into Chani's delicate looking elf ear as we clung to the ceiling again. "Once we find it, we start. Here." I offered her the last of my food, taking only a mouthful for myself, so my stomach wouldn't give me away for at least a hour or two. "You're going to need all the strength you can get for your part."
"My poor spinnerets..." She pouted.
"When this is over, I'll make it up to you." I gave myself one more check, to make sure everything was still where it was supposed to be.
"Nervous?"
"Terrified."
"Yet you are still doing this."
"I will cry later, when I have a shoulder to cry on."
I looked her in the eyes, and we nodded to each other, then descended once more.
Notes.
I think I'll pause this one here. Next chapter is going to be a mix of door kicking and mission impossible, and will bring us to the climax of 'book 10'.
See you in five days. :)