I was huffin' and puffin' by the time I hit the top of them long steps. Just as I did I was met with half a dozen rifles pointed in my face and just as many magelights shinning in my eyes.

  "You goin' to fuckin' shoot?" I hissed, breathing hate and fire, "or you going to get the fuck out my way?"

  "Gods above, below and betwixt," one of them gasped, "what happened to Xoxoctic?"

  "Snake bite," I said as Laticia and Miss Lottie rushed forward to take the little red girl from my arms, "bad one. Watched the limb rot right after I cut it off."

  "Fuck..." breathed a pinched fast man as he rubbed the dusty from his spectacles, "is she dead?"

  "Nah," I said as I unceremoniously shoved past the man, my gaze landing on Lottie, "Just passed out from the shock. Can ya'll fix it?"

  "I have to look but," Laticia inspected the ragged stump and frowned, "that venom was narcotizing..."

  "Common," I growled. It'd been a long fuckin' day, and the woman was talkin' nonsense, "I don't know what that means. Can you fix the arm?"

  "No," she said with a hollow stare, "no it means that if you had not removed the arm, she would have been dead. Very quickly. She has a fever now, likely some trace of the venom entered her bloodstream but," she looked up and nodded, "she'll live. I can ensure that at least."

  "Fine." I said and staggered to a corner of the room, "I'm gonna sleep. Wake me if she dies or we get attacked. If not," I glared at the assembled scholars and would-be explorers, "let me fuckin' sleep."

  And then I collapsed, exhausted.

  I didn't sleep, not yet. I had a feeling on the way up, that there was something I needed to check.

  Sure enough, when I opened my book and leafed through the pages I found that a new section had been added.

  Name: Lorcan Roche

  Patron: Kraken

  Path: Desperado

  Step: 2 (14%)

  Commune with your Patron to advance your Path.

  Task Available

  Customer: Entropic

  Description: Remove the central relic of the Anasisi Vault. Consume it.

  Reward: You'll see...

  Huh.

  I'd hit another milestone, another step on the Path. It might be wise to take the power now, but waiting a while longer would result in more, and better choices. I'd have to sleep on that.

  The appearance of a new task was interesting for sure. Not least because the requesting god was from the other side of the Pantheon. Entropic gods were the kind of villains you just don't play with. Used to be they'd offer their blessings for free, patronize anyone who asked.

  But of course, all power has a cost, no matter what anyone insists.

  Their gifts were said to develop rapidly. Let you rip strength and mana right from the corpses of your enemies. Which, well, I already did that, but the way they did it was worse. Probably. Anyway, lot of folks blessed by them end up insane, so hungry and set on claimin' power they'll kill a friend as soon as look at him.

  All that to say, I found myself dubious of completetin' this request-

  Additional Information: Failure will result in the death of Xoxoctic.

  Motherfuckers...

  I didn't sleep that night. I watched Shorty shiver and cry out as the fever raged through her.

  Guilt, rage, cold growing hate. For myself, for this situation, for the gods themselves. All of it burned inside of me until I thought I was going to start screaming.

  Instead, before the scholars could get up and get fussin', I started walking.

  Lottie looked up from her makeshift bedroll amongst the huddle of the others. She didn't try to stop me. Just watched as I picked up the magestone and headed to the stairs.

  I wasn't going to risk anyone else ever again. Didn't care if it killed me, I intended to clear the way. I was going to keep Shorty and the rest of them safe.

  I spared a glance at the mural as I crossed the dome room. Now I could only seem to see the most sinister parts. A tapestry of torture and ruin ringed the bottom of it all. The foundations of this civilization lay atop the bones of all beneath their feet.

  Or, well tails. Or whatever...

  Should I ever meet a member of Anasisi folk I might have to give them a piece of my mind. A piece of lead if they're at all like the ancestors, but, I'll hold judgment long enough to find out. I tore my eyes away from the scene of horror and took the left exit, toward the cistern.

  I still moved carefully through the passage. Just cause I hadn't hit any traps the first two times didn't mean they weren't there. The growing scent of fresh water almost made me a little sick, and when I smelled the linger blood I had to stop and take a few deep breaths.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  That was new. Didn't use to hesitate at a little gore. Guess cuttin' off someone's arm can really shape your outlook on that.

  The cistern was quiet, still. The corpse of the hydradile was far from rot, the cool air of the tomb and the mana of its own flesh would preserve the creature for a long time.

  Good. We needed food. I needed bait.

  While I had never taken apart a giant snake headed crocodile before, I had skinned a few of it's more mundane brethren back home. Crocks and gators were good eatin' and better mulah. Rich folks paid a mint for boots, gloves, and bags made of their hard and shiny scales. Used to go out with the local boys and trap them every summer. Not the most thrilling work, but it paid.

  Took the tail off first, that would be the lions share of edible meat. I imagined most of it in the body would be contaminated by punctured organs and old blood. Or even than nasty venom. Best save all that for bait rather than dinner.

  After most of an hour I had the skin off, the teeth pulled, and all the offal in a bloody bag. I wrapped the tail in the remains of a tent's canvas and hung it off the ground to keep it fresh while I worked to make sure the cistern was secure.

  I approached the water, fire-snake in hand looked down into that deep, dark pool. I had heard rich folks fished a bit like this. Hire a caster to drop a bolt of screamin' lightning on your favorite pond. Kills everything in it, and makes a feast for you and all your rich asshole friends. Never mind the fact that said pond would never recover.

  I'd always hated the practice but... Well, I wasn't exactly in a position to be particular.

  Click.

  Hiss.

  Plop.

  Then I waited for the boom. The wick was waxed so it should burn fine underwater but the longer I sat the more I suspected it was a dud. I pulled another out and started to strike a match when-

  Boom!

  Even from fifty yards away that was a blast to rattle the teeth. The whole damn body of water seemed to boil as snakes made of fire, ten foot long and hissing like, well, snakes, tore up and out of the depths. They spun in the air before diving back down to pierce the water with gouts of steam, hiss, and die.

  I blinked and spared a careful look for the unlit fire-snake I had in hand.

  Holy shit. That little red menace had touched upon the power of the gods. No doubt about that. Now I really felt bad for cuttin' her arm off.

  Move on from it.

  Stop dwelling on shit.

  She'll be fine, she'll forgive you, or she won't. You can't fix any of that.

  I pulled the tail down and took the hide, but left the sack of awful where it lay. Amidst all that juicy gore and rich organ meat I had hid a pair of fat, dark surprises.

  Venom sacks, near as I could tell. That would attract whatever else might be in there and hopefully I'd either catch them havin' a snack, or they'd take a bite of them poisoned pods and do my work for me.

  As I went back to the dome room I took a few moment to inspect the other two hallways. Both of them were dark, but from one I could just barely feel a cool breeze. Maybe the way out, maybe just a way deeper down. Either way, that's the direction I would checking next.

  This time no one bothered to point a gun at me. No one even stood as I summited the stairs and dropped forty pounds of fresh croc meat like it was Solstice dinner.

  There was a malaise. The sickly scent of despair underneath the usual piss and desperation. No smoke though, yet the fire still burned.

  Odd.

  Something had happened while I was gone.

  Something bad.

  My eyes flicked to the corner where Shorty still rested. Sweat dripped heavy from her scaled brow, her stump clutched to her breast. In a bad way.

  But alive.

  So what then?

  "Roche," Lottie said picking herself up from a huddle of other explorers, "you've been gone some hours. Where have you been?"

  I nodded to the meat, "Hunting and clearin' the cistern. Should be safe if my trap didn't draw nothing out."

  "Good," she said with a nod, "We need to talk," my eyes flicked from her face to the others.

  Pale, wide-eyed... Not just scared, something more.

  "Sure," I said, "you, specs. Cook that up. You all need some meat in your bellies and I ain't a a good chef."

  "Oh, holy shit! Uh Right, right," he muttered and stood on wobbling legs to collect the canvas wrapped tail, "Guys! Meats back on the menu."

  A ragged little cheer ran up at that, and a few of the survivors seemed to find a hungry light in their eyes.

  We were rapidly running low on supplies.

  Thankfully everyone had the sense not to mention that I'd eaten most of them. Me and the earth mage anyway. That feller was slumped by the crumble of rock that kept us beneath the sands.

  Full burnout.

  Or so close that the difference didn't matter. Proof that digging wasn't going to work.

  Someone had placed a pillow under his head and an blanket over him.

  That same healer form before, poor girl, was sat near lookin’ nearly as broken as he was. But they were both still alive. They both fuckin’ tried, even if the world made them fail. Some proof that isolation and desperation hadn’t made animals of the expedition, that these people, soft and weak as they were, had some grit in ‘em.

  Lottie grabbed me gently by the arm and drew me a few paces down the stairs.

  "Mr. Roche. We have a problem."

  "We had a few, last I checked."

  "More than a few now, I'm afraid. We did a headcount just after you left. Three people are missing. No one saw them leave, and no one has heard from them either. They're simply gone."

  I frowned and cast my eyes about.

  Five, ten, sixteen...

  Yep. Less people than I remembered.

  "Did anyone go and look?" I asked, knowing the answer. I'd been through the cistern and the dome. If they were in the halls they had somehow gotten past me.

  Unlikely.

  "No. Several volunteered to try and find them, and you... I forbade it."

  That was a… cold move.

  "Were any of them, uh," I spun a finger around my ear, "not well?"

  Her lips went thin and pale, "That is a gross gesture you are making, Mr. Roche, and no. They were as mentally sound as any of us. Professor Hardwick, Dame Racheal and Mister Cervantes were also all veterans of prior expeditions. Not new blood. They've suffered worse than this. Either they are dead, or they will find a way back. In either case, I won’t throw people into the dark after them, you, or anyone. I have experienced situations like these enough to know the danger of separating a group."

  Ah but askin’ me to go off and scout didn’t count. Figures

  "Okay. I've got a question," I said as I looked back to the top of the steps, "if we had three people disappear and no one heard a thing, saw a thing, or had reason to suspect they'd even leave, well then..." I stopped walking through the problem as a warm breeze caught the back of my neck. Slowly, I drew my magelight up.

  Other eyes followed as light shone on the ceiling of the Vault's entrance.

  Three square passages cut into the rock.

  "Ah, shit."

  "What... What are those?"

  "Vents. Probably for air circulation. Thing is, there weren't none a day ago. That smoke-" I pointed to the low fire, "was chokin' us all out. Miss Lottie, I think the first expedition didn't die of traps, or monsters, or nothing of the kind. I think something a lot more clever, a lot more cunning is at play."

  Something that could take its time. Stalks the shadows and avoid we shepherds until all the little sheep were lost.