As expected, the tunnel wasn’t empty. From the long dark depths came a dozen twisted wretches and bone thieves, their screech and clatter creating muffled echoes in the web-lined passage. As bad as the mob of vicious demons were, they were nothing compared to the twisted wretch matriarch.
Syd, Kerr, Ealdread, and Douglas plowed through the demons that tried to block their way, cutting them down with as much speed as possible. The goal was first and foremost to put distance between them and the matriarch. There was no time to linger on battles against lesser foes when a much greater threat could be coming right behind them.
As soon as the initial rush of demons were dead, they pushed forward, following the downward-slanted tunnel as it curved slightly to the west. For long minutes they jogged down the only path, finding no turns or junctions. Fortunately, they found no more demons, either, but that was only a brief reprieve, Jadis was sure. They had well and truly jumped out of the pan and into the flame, choosing to walk straight into the demon’s den.
Still, what choice had they had? As much as she hated the idea of running blindly into the enemy’s territory, she had seen no hope elsewhere. None that would have seen everyone out of the village safely.
But was this option any better? Did she really think they were all going to get out of this tunnel alive? There was no fucking way. She’d just led them all into the nest where the demons were spawning from. How the hell was this better than fighting the grundwyrms and matriarch in Alawar?
It wasn’t better, not really. Except, there was a chance in the tunnels that they might run into foes less dangerous, less overwhelmingly impossible for them to overcome. Of course, they could be running straight into the jaws of something far worse, but that was the nature of the chance. It could go either way. But at least it was a chance.
Almost as if to punctuate the thought, the group finally came to an intersection in the tunnel, a fork with a path that went hard left and the other only slightly to the right. Another chance lay before them. Left, or right? Which way led to safety and which to doom? Or was the answer the same either way?
“Left is west,” Ealdread pointed down the dark tunnel. “The city’s that way.”
“That doesn't mean there’s an exit that way,” Aila countered. “That tunnel could go for miles without leading anywhere, or it could curve around and put us further away from the city.”
“Well we need to decide on a direction. How else do you propose we chose?” Ealdread snapped, stress evident in his voice.
“If both of you would fucking shut up, I could figure it out!” Kerr hissed.
All quieted down as Kerr listened carefully to one tunnel, then the other. Her long, animal-like ears twitched from where they poked out of her helmet, flicking and turning as she listened to sounds Jadis couldn’t hear.
“I can hear movement coming from the right. Lots of feet. Nothing on the left.”
“Then let’s go left,” Jay proposed after a beat of thought. “We should avoid fights if we can, especially with our injuries.”
“I’m sorry,” Eir added. “I’d heal you all if I could, but my magic power…”
“It’s fine,” Dys cut her apologies off. “You’ve done what you can. We’d be dead right now if you weren’t here.”
“This whole thing stinks like dog shit,” Kerr growled, “But yeah, we can’t keep this fighting up. I’m out of arrows and those three are practically out of blood,” she motioned first to her empty quiver, then to the still bone-needled Jay who had resumed carrying two wounded guards.
“Let me help,” Thea whispered to Jay, offering to take one of the guards dangling under one of Jay’s arms.
Jay let that man go to be supported by the female guard and the other relatively uninjured guard. The last guard, Busch, Jay continued to carry. He had been wounded the worst out of those that had survived the acidic splash attack and had lost consciousness at some point. Considering what she could see of him under his helmet, she figured passing out had to be a welcome relief.
She knew she could certainly use that same relief right about then.
“Take your healing potions,” Ealdread ordered abruptly as the group started moving down the left tunnel.
Jadis’ brain skipped a beat at the elf’s statement.
“Hold on,” Syd said incredulously. “You’ve had healing potions this whole time and you haven’t used them yet?”
Ealdread glanced up at her, eyes hard to read from beneath his helmet. “Yes. For emergency use. This qualifies, I’d say.”
He pulled a small, metal ampule about the size of an average person’s thumb from a pouch at his waist, then passed it up to Syd.
“Take mine and give it to your injured sister. I’m above three-fourths of my maximum health. It’s not instant and will take time to regenerate, but it should recover a full fifty points of health.”
Syd took the metal vial and gave it a curious shake.
“How much does something like this cost?” she asked before passing it back to Jay.
“Ten eagles,” he replied shortly.
Ten eagles was double the promised pay for their days work on this dangerous mission, Jadis recalled. Kerr and Aila had both thought it a sum too good to pass up and, to Jadis’ recollection, ten of the large silver coins was the cost of a common riding horse as explained to her by one of Aila’s uncles. She was still getting the hang of pricing on Oros, but ten of those coins didn’t sound like a small price. In fact, it was probably prohibitively expensive for the average person. Jadis’ experience with imperial coinage was no doubt skewed due to the large sums of bounty coins she was raking in for demons that were normally fought in large groups.
Still, looking around, the other guards followed Ealdread’s orders and pulled their own health potions from their belts and quickly drank them. Even Douglas pulled his own metal ampule from a pocket and drank its contents in a swift gulp. Now wasn’t the time to sit on an expensive potion that could save your life.
Jay unstoppered the cork cap from the little container and sipped it, the small bottle not close to a mouthful for her. It tasted vaguely like sour grapes and tingled with carbonation. Checking her health, she saw her points slowly start to tick upwards. At the rate they were going, she guessed it would take thirty minutes before it regenerated a full fifty points. Clearly not comparable to the near instant healing Eir was capable of, but definitely better than nothing.
With potions taken, the group fell into tense silence as they continued down the tunnel. There honestly wasn’t much to say. With how bad things had gone and the deaths of five, probably six, people they had all been happily working with not an hour ago, they were all feeling not just physically, but emotionally exhausted.
At least, that was how Jadis felt.
The tunnel continued for what felt like at least a mile before it came to another intersection, this one a three way. With no one more qualified, Kerr guided them down the middle path, again making choices based on what she could and couldn’t hear.
The further they went, the more frequent the intersections became. Soon, the tunnels were turning and twisting back onto each other, their slopes taking them higher and then lower, sometimes looping in what felt like full circles to Jadis. After an hour, she had no idea where they were and was certain she could never find her way back to where they’d entered the tunnels. No matter how far they went, though, there was no sign of an exit, nor a hint of daylight. There were, however, still demons.
The group did their best to avoid any demons they could, covering their candles to hide the light whenever they heard enemies coming down one side tunnel or another. There were several stressful moments when they all sat in pitch black darkness, trying to make as little noise as possible, waiting for some mob of demons to pass them by. On one such occasion, what sounded like dozens of demons, maybe even hundreds, shuffled by a tunnel intersection for several minutes before the noise of the horde faded into the distance.
Eventually, after D knew how many hours, Kerr let out a relieved sigh.
“I can smell fresh air,” she whispered just loud enough to be heard over the muffled steps of the group’s boots. “Fresh air and fresh water. We’ve got to be near an exit.”
“Thank Valtar,” Aila murmured, squeezing Dys’ neck a little tighter for a moment.
Her sentiment was mirrored by everyone else and a palpable sense of hope could be felt in the atmosphere. Everyone was ready to leave the accursed tunnels and find some measure of safety. The group picked up their pace, hurrying towards escape.
With another sharp turn, the tunnel opened up wide to reveal a sight that Jadis could barely make sense of.
To the left and the right stretched a massive cavern, the ends as well as the top and bottom invisible in the inky darkness. Pale green patches of barely visible light shone in the distance, acting as the only demarcations of stone walls that would otherwise be invisible in the underground gloom. A sound of rushing water could be heard coming from far below, though its source remained completely invisible. What was visible in the tiny sphere of light generated by their group’s candles were dozens upon dozens of cave tunnel entrances, round holes carved into the stone walls where the webbing ended.
“What the fuck…” Jadis whispered in unison, gaping at the sheer immensity of the colossal cave system.
“How gods’ verboten big is this damned warren?” Kerr cursed as she peered over the edge of the tunnel exit down into the abyss.
“Too big for the demon’s to have done all this in just a couple years,” Aila pointed out, lowering herself off of Dys’ back. “This has to be the natural environment for those giant black spider beasts.”
“The demons must have possessed the spiders and taken over their tunnel systems,” Dys mused. “Then probably expanded the tunnels so they could reach as far into the Broken Hills as they needed them to so they could get past the border guards unseen.”
“Fascinating, but not the fucking point right now. I can still smell fresh air coming from somewhere,” Kerr said, cutting off their speculations. “There has to be an exit to outside somewhere nearby.”
After a silent beat, Eir spoke up, pointing with her finger.
“Up there. I can see starlight.”
Following the priestess’ gesture, Jadis gazed up at where the ceiling of the cave should be but saw nothing but darkness.
“I can see it too,” Ealdread confirmed a moment later. “There’s a fissure in the rock up there. Thin and jagged. Some kind of gorge that leads from the surface to down here.”
Jadis still couldn’t see anything, but she’d take the two elves at their word. Clearly there was something about the strange, solid color eyes of the elves that gave them better vision in the dark.
“Well, fuck. I’m guessing we can’t climb out that way?” Syd said, staring futilely into the abyss above her.
“Not unless any of you have a flying spell or some other shit like that you’ve been holding out on until now,” Kerr groaned, slumping against the tunnel wall.
As frustrating as it was to have not found an immediate exit, Jadis supposed the situation hadn’t changed much from what it had been a minute ago. They still had to find a way out. If there wasn’t one here, then they’d just have to search one of the many other tunnel entrances scattered around the huge cavern.
Looking at the fatigued faces on her companions as well as the exhaustion on her own faces, Jadis amended the plan.
“Alright. Standing here won’t get us anywhere. Let’s make our way down the walls following the paths as best we can. If we can find an alcove or a something like that, we can rest and get our heads back in order, then figure out where to go from here.”
“Put out your candles first,” Aila advised. “Their light is too easy to spot in this open space. We’ll have to rely on the cave moss to see for now.”
The logic was reasonable and the guards who held the lights snuffed them out, plunging them all into not quite complete darkness. The “cave moss” as Aila had called it wasn’t quite as bad to see by as Jadis feared, but it still left large gaps of darkness where she and the human guards struggled to see even a few inches in front of their faces.
Along the walls where the tunnels appeared were narrow stone ledges that the group followed, led by Kerr who had little difficulty seeing in the dark. The path wasn’t perfect, sometimes narrowing to a hazardous degree and sometimes hiding gaps just large enough for an unsuspecting person to fall through and disappear into the depths below, but the archer led them past such dangers without incident. At one point, Eir pointed out a black shape that crawled out of one of the tunnels on the far side of the cavern. All went quiet and still as another giant ten-legged spider crawled along the cave wall before disappearing into a different tunnel.
Once the threat had passed, they continued on their way, following the ledge path in a generally downward direction, eventually coming to a larger ledge where an underground stream poured out of a wide natural tunnel in the cliff wall. On Kerr’s command, the group waited while she ducked inside the tunnel, coming back out a minute or two later.
“There’s a cave pocket further in,” she reported when she got back. “Plenty of space for all of us, even the three large asses over there, and it doesn’t look like anything’s disturbed it in a long time, if ever.”
“It’ll have to do,” Syd nodded, ducking into the small tunnel.
The alcove Kerr had found was far enough down the bend in the stream’s tunnel that it was completely hidden from any outside observers that might pass by along the ledge path. It was also, to Jadis’ relief, more than large enough for everyone to get in without piling on top of each other. It wasn’t quite tall enough for her to stand completely upright, but she could live with that. She wasn’t planning on standing much for the next few hours anyway. As soon as they were all ensconced in the nook, she collectively collapsed to the ground. It had been an absolutely fucked day, all things told, and it was time to get some rest.
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