I do not own Dungeons and Dragons or any of the characters.
A.N.: I'm taking a bit of artistic liberty and creating a race of monsters.
Hellhole
Jasper dropped off the low cliff, turning and helping Mia down after him, then turned to survey the world before them. They were in the Underdark, far from where they wanted to get, but on a path that led directly to it. Of course, before they could get to it, they first had to get past the innumerable deadly creatures which lived in the Underdark. And the lower they went, the worse it would get.
"Come on," Jasper said. "Let's get moving. Quietly."
Mia nodded in agreement. When they'd brought their weapons here, they'd accidentally incurred the wrath of a swarm of Sinspawn, creatures similar in concept to Sorrowsworn but more powerful. Or, at least, the weaker of the Sinspawn were similar, but any who lived long enough would change, becoming something much worse. Where Sorrowsworn could be born of and represent any negative emotion, the Sinspawn represented the seven deadly sins. At the time, they'd run into a couple of Greed Sinspawn, a single Gluttony Sinspawn, and several Envy Sinspawn. It could have been worse, like Wrath or Pride, worse, but they made it through alright. This time, however, as they worked their way through the Underdark's caverns and tunnels, working ever deeper into the hellhole, they moved silently, eyes watching everything and making no sound. The scattered creatures they passed, a few Kruthik, a Mimic disguised as a chest abandoned in a passage, and a couple of groups of wandering Intellect Devourers, took no notice of them. They passed through chambers formed of great roots as thick as houses, caverns filled with pools and a river of lava, circled an underground lake, and finally found a passage of crystals to take them deeper. As they finally stopped to rest in the Middledark, Jasper kept his rapier across his lap, eyes roving the world around them.
"We're almost halfway there," Mia said quietly, barely more than a whisper in the silence of the Underdark, yet echoing almost ominously in the fungus forest they were resting in.
"Almost," Jasper nodded. "But it's only going to get harder from here." He turned his head in the direction they needed to go just as several snarls and roars rang out. "Looks like a band of Beast-Follower Quaggoth have made a home here."
Mia nodded, narrowing her eyes. "We'll deal with them."
Jasper nodded. "They're not the problem. Where Quaggoth go, Drow follow. And the Drow in this area tend to attract Sinspawn."
Mia nodded. "We'll need to be quick."
Jasper turned his eyes back to Mia, and she nodded, standing and extending her gauntlets' blades. He returned the nod and together, they headed for the next tunnel. As Jasper had suspected, the tunnel was surrounded by a pack of Quaggoth. It was part of a cave system they seemed to have claimed as their home for a while, but there weren't many. Either the others were out hunting, or it was only a small tribe. Either way, it was good news for Jasper and Mia. Both started forward at a sprint. The Quaggoth turned and roared, charging, and when they met, blood scattered into the air as Mia and Jasper carved their way through the fastest of the group. The Quaggoth were fast and powerful, but there was no strategy, giving Jasper and Mia a very slight advantage, so long as they were careful.
A duo moved to tackle Jasper, but he turned sideways, slipping between them as his left dagger split one open along the sides, allowing its organs to spill out as it landed. The other skidded on its hands and feet and turned, only for Jasper's rapier to jab it through the eye and into the brain. It let out a pained shriek before collapsing. He turned, his rapier arcing upward and severing a head from a neck just as Mia stepped past him, spinning around a Quaggoth and shredding it with her gauntlet blades before ducking aside from another and jabbing it in the throat, severing an artery. Three leapt at her at once, only for Jasper to step up behind her just as he swelled, muscles ballooning rapidly, white hair sprouting from his entire body as his weapons clattered to the ground and his clothes vanished. In the blink of an eye, his transformation was complete, and a massive Girallon stood behind Mia, pulling her out of the way before two hands slammed fists down on the heads of two of the Quaggoth, killing them instantly. The last slammed into Jasper, knocking her over backward, only for two of his hands to grab it by the forearms, stopping it from clawing him before his two main arms slammed a punch into either side of its head, crushing its skull. He threw the corpse off of himself and returned to his previous form, pushing himself up and collecting his weapons again as Mia rejoined him.
They walked into the tunnel together, finding a pair of Quaggoth guarding a pile of bloody food, but before the Quaggoth could charge, Jasper and Mia had closed the distance, each of them felling one of the beasts with a quick strike to the throat. As they bled out, the two of them continued down into the tunnel. They ran quickly, working their way lower and lower, finally making it to the Lowerdark after nearly an hour of alternating between running and walking. And then, finally, they stepped out of the tunnel into a barren nightmare.
Flames licked into the air from scattered cracks in the ground, enormous bones the size of trees or bigger stuck up from the cracked, stone ground, many of them burning, lava sat in pools and flowed through the cavern in rivers. A skeleton of a creature Jasper couldn't identify and didn't want to meet alive sat in the distance, tall as a small mountain, parts of it scortched black, parts broken, and Kruthik crawling over it. Scattered around the cavern, which extended for miles, were small swarms of Kruthik, scattered Drow hunting parties, and a single Pride Sinspawn.
Jasper narrowed his eyes, tightening his grip on his rapire. "It was deserted before."
Mia nodded. "We can make it. We'll have to fight the Kruthik on the skeleton, but the passage we want is there."
Jasper nodded. "We'll have to run."
Mia nodded and took his spear from him before both began to jog. It was another mile, yet, to the skeleton, but the Sinspawn was far beyond it, the Drow were focusing on monsters further away than them from the skeleton, and the only Kruthik near them were on the skeleton. Maybe twenty at most. They could kill them quickly enough to slip into the passageway without trouble, so they ignored everything else.
Jasper narrowed his eyes, slowing to a stop. Something wasn't right. He looked around. The Kruthik on the skeleton were staying on the skeleton. The Drow were scattered over the entire chamber, except for around them. The other Kruthik swarms, as he watched them, were making a point to go around where they were. Jasper's heart sank as his gut clenched, his stomach twisting into knots slowly.
"What is it?" Mia asked.
"We need to turn back," Jasper said, backing away slowly. "We shouldn't have come this way."
Mia backed up slowly as well, taking note of the way Jasper was keeping his steps light, making no sound with his feet. But it wasn't sound. It was vibrations. Mia paled, but just as she began to pray that it wouldn't come for them, it did. The ground before them erupted, debris scattering through the air, even more being swallowed by the enormous, spiked, purple body that lunged at them in a streak.
Jasper tackled Mia to the ground, both landing in a roll and regaining their feet as the Purple Worm plowed into the ground again, burrowing into the ground again in seconds. Jasper's heart sank as he counted the feet by the segments of its body. One hundred feet. It was about a hundred feet, and thicker than he was tall. Almost ten feet thick. It was too big.
"It's huge!" Mia moaned in despare. "How do we fight this!?"
"We don't have a choice!" Jasper snarled, crouching and readying himself.
As he did, his body lengthened, golden fur with black spots growing from his skin as his false clothing shifted into a tunic and a pair of shorts, his sheaths remaining in place. Beside him, Mia likewise began to sprout fur and grow taller. Their bodies thinned, growing lithe and agile. Their ears sunk into their heads with their hair as feline ears grew from the top of them, tails sprouting from the backs of their waists. Then, both shot away from each other just as the Purple Worm burst up from the ground where they'd been. Jasper's hand snapped up, a blast of flames shaped into an arrow flashing from his hand and punching into the worm's side, burning it and punching a hole in its side, thick blue blood splattering from its wound, but the wound was barely more than a needle prick given its side. The worm crashed heavily to the ground, making it lurch violently, as it shrieked in pain, the sound as much deafening, vibrating roar as shriek, and its tail whipped up from the hole, a massive, spear-like stinger flashing down at Mia.
She ducked aside, barely avoiding the sting, then slashed with her borrowed spear, the blade tearing across the side of the worm's tail. It roared again, then exploded forward, Jasper's got dropping yet again as he realized it was still contracted. It was over a hundred feet. By a lot.
He kicked off the ground, barely escaping the gaping maw speeding toward him, then stepped off of it again, streaking past the worm, his blade tearing along its side. It shrieked, its entire body compressing and stretching again, sending it streaking down into the ground in under a second. Then, as it burst up from the ground again, dozens of spells, ranging from Flame Arrows to bolts of lightning, to explosive blasts, slammed into it, making it shriek in agony. Arrows began to rain down on it before it retreated into the ground. It burst up again not five seconds later, a hundred feet to Jasper's right, heading for a group of Drow. The Drow magic-users blasted it again, archers firing into it as it rapidly raced across the ground. However, just as it opened its mouth to swallow them, they scattered. Three of them were too slow and were swallowed, and the worm dove underground again.
Jasper and Mia skidded to a stop as a chorus of shrieks split the air. All around them, from cracks and holes in the ground, Kruthik swarmed. Both swore harshly and shot forward, tearing into them. Their bulbous bodies stood a little more than waist high, and they were quick on their bladed, sickle-like legs, but their chitanous scales weren't extremely thick or solid, so Jasper's blade and Mia's javelin tore through them easily.
Jasper spun around a slash from one's front legs, slicing off its head, then turned, jabbing another through the side into its heart. He withdrew his blade as he drew his dagger, darting past another and slashing one of its legs off with his dagger before slashing another across the face before spinning and sending a lightning-fast thrust into its heart, then flipped backward onto another's back, stabbing down into its heart as well. Opposite him from the swarm of nearly a hundred Kruthik, Mia spun in a circle, her javelin slashing a ring of Kruthik before leaping onto one, stabbing one behind the wounded circle, then leapt forward, using its body and the spear to flip before swinging the body up over herself using her own momentum, smashing it down on another before ripping the spear back out and flipping it around, finiahing off the wounded Kruthik behind her. As she pulled it free again, she batted another's bladed legs aside with it before impaling the Kruthik, only to be forced to abandon the spear in order to avoid a slash from another, extending her gauntlet blades as she turned her dosge into a charge. Her blades weren't long enough to fatally wound in a single strike, but she was fast enough to shred their fleah and remove their legs, leaving them to bleed out as she darted and danced from one reptilian insect to the next.
Jasper sent a Flame Arrow into a Kruthik's head as it charge at Mia, then spun, slashing another aside as it lunged at him, then slashed it a second time before stabbing another. He had bever been so happy as he was now that his rapier was both sturdy enough and broad enough to be used as a longsword, or that he'd trained for so many years to be capable of using it as such. He slashed and stabbed his way through the Kruthik rapidly, returning his dagger to its sheath as he neared his javelin, then ripped it free of the corpse it rested in, twirling it to clear most of the blood and gore from it before returning it to its sheath, expertly fastening the strap to hold it still as he slashed a pair of Kruthik. Then, he launched himself up and backward just as the Purple Worm returned, hurling Kruthik aside and swallowing nearly a dozen as it emerged.
Its body shot upward a second time, intent to swallow him, only for Mia to grab his tail, yanking him downward. He yelped in pain, slashing down along the Purple Worm's body, but his blade caught a spike and bounced out of its flesh. He landed atop a Kruthik as the Purple Worm began to fall toward him and Mia, and both leapt aside, allowing it to crush them. Its body was riddled with wounds and burns now, but none were life-threatening. It roared, streaking through the Kruthik and swallowing any in its path before burrowing into the ground. However, just before its tail could disappear into the ground, Jasper slashed as hard as he could, cleaving off its stinger.
A roar vibrated the ground, and Mia dove aside, rolling under a Kruthik to escape the worm, and Jasper lunged, leaping onto its side and driving his blade into it, then leapt backward along it, tearing its body open along its side, this time making a long, deep wound. The worm shrieked and fled from him, only for a barrage of spells to blast it again. This time, however, an explosive blast slipped into its mouth, and a moment later, its body was blasted apart maybe ten feet along its body. Jasper sighed as its carcass crashed to the ground. However, as he turned to look around at the remaining few dozen Kruthik, he found them fleeing, Drow rushing to surround them.
"What are you doing here!?" one of them demanded.
"Where did you steal Ironwood weapons from!?" another accused.
"From a group of woodland elves we were hired to wipe out," Jasper shrugged. "If you want to try to take them, we'll gladly kill you too."
The Drow bristled, readying their weapons, even as Jasper sheathed his rapier, drawing his daggers instead, both in reverse grip. Then, just as the first Drow Sorcerer opened their mouth to chant, Jasper and Mia were off. As they twirled, sliced, and danced through their victims, arteries opened, throats were slit, and hearts were punctured. Both were too fast for the Drow to keep up with. They evaded the aim of archers by ducking through the ranks of the Drow Warriors and Rogues, slashing and stabbing anything in reach as they closed in on archers. Any Sorcerers who resorted to bombarding entire swaths of Drow to try and catch either Jasper or Mia in an area-of-effect spell were forced to watch in dismay as Jasper and Mia escaped the spell before it could take effect, leaving the Drow to die pointlessly. Within a few minutes, the last of the archers and sorcerers had died. Almost as though they'd been waiting for that, the Drow Warriors and Rogues turned to flee. Jasper and Mia allowed them to go, turning toward the massive, unknown skeleton again, only to stop as the Drow shrieked in fear, desperation, and pain. Both spun back, only for their guts to clench, Jasper instantly trading his right dagger for his rapier once again. Sinspawn had been drawn to their battle.
As the Drow tried and failed to fight for their lives, Envy Sinspawn swarmed them. They were not terribly different than Wretched Sorrowsworn, but instead of being waist-high grub-like creatures with huge mouths running around on a pair of legs, they were instead long, black, leech-like creatures scuttling around on six clawed legs with mouths of sharp teeth lining their undersides. They were about the same size as a Wretched Sorrowsworn, but they were faster and their bite more lethal, as they latched onto the Drow and bit nearly half of their torsos off at one time. Any Drow who escaped or survived the Envy Sinspawn were, instead, the victims of the Gluttony Sinspawn. They were massive, bloated monstrosities with rotting, diseased flesh, two enormous arms tipped in chipped, bloodied claws, and in place of a head, they had only a head reaching from where their head should be to where a human's navel would be, the mouth filled with enormous, jagged, rotten teeth all the way back into their throats. As they stuffed the Drow unfortunate enough to be caught by them into their throats, the Drow screamed in agony as these jagged teeth ripped at their flesh, shredding and filleting them, rather than a more conventional bite.
Of the dozens present, only a handful were lucky enough to escape both the Envy and Gluttony Sinspawn, but any who did merely fell to the Greed Sinspawn following them. These were creatures that appeared vaguely humanoid, a silhouette in a robe reaching to the ground, but as their victims drew near, their robes began to move, unraveling until it revealed monsters made wholly of tentacles, all of them joining at a misshapen mass of flesh in the center where many dozen mouths stretched between the tentacles. And in order to feed these mouths, the Greed Sinspawn's victims were torn apart in seconds by the tentacles, then fed to the mouth in dozens of pieces. It was the Greed Sinspawn which revealed the origin of the Sinspawn. Unlike the Sorrowsworn, they did not hail from the Shadowfell, but from the Far Realm. They were Aberrations, one and all. Disgusting creatures which existed solely to devour any living thing.
Of all the Drow, only one managed to evade even the Greed Sinspawn. A Rogue who survived by shoving a friend into the grasp of those horrid tentacles in his place. But when he saw what came for him, he wished he hadn't. A Lust Sinspawn awaited him, more grotesque and horrid than any of the other Sinspawn. It took the form, not of something that would seem sexually attractive to most humanoid species, despite its name, but of a corrupted, unholy version of the biproduct of lust. In other words, what awaited the single surviving Drow was, in fact, a fetus. A humanoid fetus, coated in blood and goo, as though just pulled from the womb, its umbilical cord around its neck, as though strangling it, its malformed face split open into a three-part mouth from where the bridge of the nose should be down to where its a humanoid's mouth would normally be, pointed, wicked-looking fangs, claws, and the entire thing crawling on all fours yet still reaching Jasper's diaphragm in height. It let out a shrieking wail, like a baby crying, and all but launched itself from the ground, crashing down on the Drow and biting off his head before beginning to eat his corpse. Jasper swallowed hard as more and more of the Sinspawn began to take notice of him and Mia.
"Do we run?" Mia asked.
"Yes," Jasper nodded. "Fast."
They turned to flee, but before they'd gone more than ten feet, an Envy Sinspawn launched itself at them from behind. Jasper spun, bisecting it with his sword, then cursed harshly, slashing a second, then a third. Mia darted forward, carefully slashing anything she could reach with her gauntlet blades, and Jasper was finally given a moment to do more then fend off airborne Sinspawn. He darted forward, sword cleaving Envy Sinspawn in half, dagger biting into the flesh of Gluttony Sinspawn, Flame Arrows punching into and igniting Sinspawn out of reach of his arms. As he and Mia passed each other, they found they were making quick work of the Envy Sinspawn, and between Jasper's sword and Flame Arrows, three Gluttony Sinspawn had died. Five more remained, but they were making progress. And then, of course, even after they'd dealt with the Gluttony Sinspawn, there were the worse problems. The five Greed Sinspawn, the six Lust Sinspawn. And then, of course, the worst three. Two Wrath Sinspawn and a Pride Sinspawn. The Wrath Sinspawn were huge, red-skinned brutes with enormous teeth, four arms, bulging muscles, spikes coating their back like hair, and a penchant for beating their victims into bloody stains. The Pride Sinspawn, however, was the worst. It was eight feet tall, powerfully built, though not to the level of the Erath Sinspawn, had thick, chitainous armor resembling a suit of full plate mail and a skull helmet, had large horns, and three-foot claws which could slice through any metal. They were fast, precise, and wholly deserving of their name. They were also beyond the abilities of Jasper and Mia.
Jasper spun around a Gluttony Sinspawn, stabbing upeard into its back, the monstrosity so tall that he barely stood level with its hips, and pierced its heart before leaping away. As he landed on his feet, Mia passed him, slashing an Envy Sinspawn off to the side. Then, Jasper's shadow, inactive in the battle so far, finally rose, swelling up, hunching over, and then swelling again. Within a second, a Grey Render Silhouette was roaring and tearing into the Sinspawn. It crushed Envy Sinspawn, ripped apart Gluttony Sinspawn with its claws, shredded Greed Sinspawn tentacles, and joined Jasper and Mia in their charge toward the Lust Sinspawn. The Pride and Wrath Sinspawn were getting closer, but the Lust Sinspawn were in the way, between them and the path they needed to take.
One of the Lust Sinspawn launched itself at Jasper, but he kicked off the groubd, flipping over it and slashing, severing its head from its shoulders. As he landed, his Shadow transformed, becoming a rhinoceros and plowing into one, goring it with its horn before trampling it. Mia spun around one as it lunged for her, then flipped sideways over it, shredding its back and spine. As Jasper passed it, he drove his sword into its head twice to kill it. Before the next two could attack, the Shadow returned, coiling around one as a Grik and crushing it before its mouth tentacles dragged the next to its beak, allowing it to bite its head off, though the head fell to the ground a moment later. Then, as the last launched itself at Mia, Jasper's Shadow was suddenly an Ephemeral Hangman, its mass of tentacles coiling around the last of the Lust Sinspawn and crushing it.
"I'm so glad we have your Shadow this time!" Mia said as they sprinted past the Shadow, heading for the tunnel.
"Would have made the fight last time much easier," Jasper agreed. "We're almost-"
One of the Wrath Sinspawn exploded down on the skull. The skull, big as a mountain, shattered and crumbled.
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