"No,
you just can't start smashing walls randomly!" Seventh said to
Eric. The undead were standing at a dead end of an corridor. Erick
was tentatively tapping the wall with the butt of his axe.
Recently,
the horde had found multiple dead ends around the castle and Seventh
was officially lost. They had stopped at the most recent wall cutting
the corridor off and were inspecting it. Dylan and Erich had the
bright idea to break the wall and continue onward.
Erich
stopped his tapping to turn toward Seventh. He made annoyed grunts
and waved his shield hand vaguely, making small circles.
“We
don't need to go through, we can just go around it. And you don't use
an axe to smash things to bits!”
Dylan
made some probing taps on the wall. Seventh could see Frank slowly
sneaking closer to the wall.
“NO!
Not maces either! A sledgehammer or battering ram! We don't have
either! We. Go. Around!” Seventh said with annoyance while spinning
his pointed finger, the general gesture of turning around.
Enthusiastic
wall breakers slumped their shoulders and walked past Seventh,
towards the rear.
“Party!
Turn around!”
The
corridor filled with the sound of almost two dozen undead changing
their direction. Seventh ordered the Squad Seven to the new point and
checked the status of nearby ratkin. Fang-Knife was right by his
side.
He
was fast— very fast— and could be used as a precision instrument
for pincer movement or keeping the shield wall safe at the
knee-level. After ordering him to attack, Seventh could order other
ratkin to follow Fang-Knife and concentrate on the battlefield. An
excellent addition to the team and Seventh had plans to find other
exceptional additions to the party.
The
problem was they hadn't met any ratkin for days. At least Seventh
thought it had been days. He didn't have an hourglass or candles to
check time, but he got tired and slept every now and then.
Seventh
didn't really mind not fighting. He didn't have to constantly check
the party status, count healing potions or find new replacements for
minions that frayed little too much from the edges.
It
was a bliss.
Given
the peace and quiet, Seventh had some time to think. He wondered how
vast the castle was and how far the corridors extended. He had a
general feel where the buried castle was, but sometimes he got lost
and it took hours to backtrack or just hope for the best and try to
find new way back.
What
made everything harder was the uniformity of the corridors and halls.
Everything was almost identical down to the symmetrical mosaics on
the walls and roof.
Some
halls had balconies and windows on the side, but they ended up to the
dungeon wall. Decorated with small blue tiles, a faux sky beneath the
rock.
At
an intersection, he ordered basic protective detail formation. One of
his new ways to make things easier. His squad took positions and
ratkin pair assigned to them followed, filling the roughly hewn tunnels in
a protected formation, leaving some room in the middle.
First
Seventh marked the dead end tunnel with a small X on the wall and
rummaged his satchel for inkpot, quill and parchment.
To
keep himself better oriented, he had started making a map. Nothing
fancy, just basic lines and boxes to give general feel and shape to
the dungeon. The scale was just a suggestion and there were multiple
splotches of ink when Seventh had tipped the quill.
There
was even a few symbols marking good spots for rest. Defensive
positions with bottlenecks and side passageways for ambushes.
Curiously,
there weren't any rooms in the dungeons. Or doorways. Just endlessly
snaking around corridors and empty grand halls. It felt cold,
uncaring. No living thing had lived there.
Drawing
a line, ending it with an X, Seventh had made a new addition and the
dead end was now on parchment. A pattern was starting to emerge.
He
showed the map to his ratkin leader, Fang-Knife, and George. "See?
Those clusters of corridors are identical with these ones. And those
halls? Mirrored on the...erh... west and east? Yeah sure, west and
east— or left and right? Anyway, if we copy these parts here to
here we can predict the structure of the castle and maybe even find a
way out!"
Fang-Knife
and George didn't exactly jump up and down in joy, patting his back
about his breakthrough.
George nodded along the explanation
and Fang-Knife... His eyes gained an even deeper glazed quality
beyond being bored to death.
Seventh
sniffed. "Well I think this was very clever. We can also test it
easily. There's unmapped area just beyond the next fork on the
corridor. I can use Wandering Eye to map out both of them, compare it
to my hypothesis, and— if it holds true— we can move as a party
onward."
Seventh had occasionally used his skill to scout
ahead while he was using Meditate to fill up his magical energies,
but since they hadn't fought for a while he hadn't used it much.
He
could move the eye around five hundred yards away until the
connection started to feel fuzzy and disconnected. It was perfect to
test out his theories of the dungeon layout.
True to his
words, at the next fork, the undead set up a perimeter and Seventh
started channeling his mana for buffed version of the Wandering
Eye.
Channeling it was different from the Raise Dead or
Shadowbolt. Channeling those spells didn't affect the casting time—
apart from the actual channeling— but for some reason the more you
channeled before casting the Wandering Eye, the longer it took to
create the spectral manifestation of the spell.
While casting
the spell Seventh wondered what effect the extra mana would have.
Maybe the connection was better or it didn't have that weird fish eye
effect while looking through it.
The buffed eye appeared and
Seventh focused his vision through it. It looked the same. No
extra-wide view and the fish eye effect was still there.
Little
bit disappointed, Seventh casually moved the eye to the left. He
found out the change immediately.
The eye could
now.
While moving the eye, Seventh send it bouncing around the
walls of the left corridor. In seconds, it reached the maximum
distance and barreled far beyond, breaking the spell.
Seventh
didn't notice that at first. He was too busy staying upright head
physically spinning around.
George
and Fang-Knife looked at him with mild alarm. Well, George did.
Fang-Knife looked him impassively like always.
His head had
felt like cotton and he could still feel like he was speeding through
the corridors. The rush of air, tiled floor passing by like fields
far below. Almost like real flying.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Casting
the spell again, Seventh expected the speed and cautiously jerked the
eye forward. After a minute or two of testing, he had an inkling of
how to slow down and accelerate the eye and moved steadily forward.
Following the route of the eye on the map it looked like he was
right.
The
eye arrived at another intersection, took right, flew forward and
near the end of spell's range Seventh could see yet another fork.
Just like he expected.
Smiling,
Seventh started to fill the map, but stopped at a familiar feeling.
Wait
what?
Seventh stared dubiously at the blue box. He
gained a new class just by exploring a dungeon and making... a
map...
Looking at the map made him wince.
A
mess of scribbles and goblin scratches for text and symbols. It was
quite obvious what his new skills did— aside from making him feel
foolish about his past achievements. He didn't even need to check the
skill descriptions as his head buzzed with fantastic new information.
Language.
Writing.
He dipped his quill in the ink pot, tapped excess ink
gently off— which he hadn't done before making the "map"
full of splotches— and wrote at his current position 'you are
here'.
Three little words he hadn't known how to write just a
moment ago. The skill Literacy had filled his head full of knowledge.
Rules and techniques on writing, and how to read.
Out of
curiosity, Seventh wrote the inn's name on the upper corner,
Pilgrim's Rest. He had been correct, there was rest in the name.
He
took out a fresh piece of parchment. The first map couldn't be used
anymore. It was a crime against his new pride as a
cartographer.
Hours later, when the map was copied and revised
there was more detail. Corridors were two narrow lines running
parallel and the halls were in scale, completed with little marks for
pillars.
Seventh didn't need that much detail, nobody else was
going to read it after all, but making it was... fun.
A
feeling he didn't even know he could have.
But all good things
had to come to an end. They were still trapped in the dungeon,
possibly surrounded by monsters. Seventh sighed and corked his inkpot
and carefully placed it in his satchel. While packing his old and new
map, he had a though. He held the first map he had made and activated
his skill, “Identify.”
Seventh
stared at the box. Then he stared at the parchment, and again, at the
box.
“Okay,
that was... something,” he finally said after staying silent for a
minute.
He
wasn't expecting to gain anything useful from lowest rank skill, but
now he knew where he was, kinda. Looking at his second map he
activated Identify again.
“Huh,
that's interesting,” Seventh said and opened his map to check it
more carefully.
It
was mostly identical to the first map, but far better drawn. He
didn't see anything what he would call a road, but the box talked
about an exit. The barred gate next to the inn?
Rummaging
his writing implements from the satchel, Seventh made quick markings
to the map. He wrote 'Pilgrim's
Rest' and drew an arrow pointed downwards labeled
''. He
also wrote the map's name at the top.
When
finished, Seventh could feel someone staring at him.
It was
Fang-Knife. He was looking at the new map with a look bordering on
curiosity. Or at least Seventh thought it was curiosity, ratkin faces
were hard to read for him.
Seventh raised his eyebrow. "Oh
now you think it is good? Little bit shading for artistic whazam and
reading comprehensibility, and suddenly it is interesting?"
Well,
Seventh also thought the first map was bad, very bad, and only good
for kindling, but the former ratkin leader didn't need to know
that.
Fang-Knife gave him a nod and a skittering sound Seventh
thought it was a ratkin moan. He didn't know if they actually said
anything comprehensible. Squad Seven never said anything. Especially
George.
Fang-Knife
tapped at the end of the map, then he tapped stone next to the map.
“You...
want me to move the map?” Seventh asked and moved it.
Shaking
his head, Fang-Knife repeated his action. Multiple times while
staring at Seventh.
“Something
outside the map?”
The
undead ratkin bared his teeth. Maybe a smile?
Seventh
considered the language barrier. Fang-Knife didn't even speak the
same language and couldn't speak. To be honest, Seventh didn't even
fully know why they understood each other. Some kind of master-minion
link? Or was it because of his mana animating Fang-Knife?
“Can
you draw it?” Seventh asked and handed the quill to the ratkin. He
placed the backside of the first map on the ground, next to the
better map.
Slowly,
gingerly, Fang-Knife took the quill. He held it like a knife in
reverse grip and carefully placed the tip on the parchment. The quill
spluttered ink, and the movement was jagged, but one single line
emerged. A repeating line of horizontal and vertical lines.
Stairs.
Seventh
took in unnecessary breath of air. "Stairs?! Up or down?"
he quickly asked. He felt a smile rising to his face.
The
ratkin pointed up and down before reaching to the inkpot. He sunk all
too much of the quill inside the pot and started drawing again.
A
group of stick figures. Up at the stairs. They were shooting ratkin
with arrows and fireballs.
“Soldiers?
Adventurers?”
Stopping
his drawing, Fang-Knife looked deep in to Seventh's eyes. He let out
a sound Seventh was starting to interpret as confirmation— a soft
squick— and handed the quill back.
“Yeah,
sorry. We have to go there— I need to go there,” Seventh said. He
placed his hand on Fang-Knife's shoulder. “We'll figure out what
we'll do with you and other ratkin. I promise. They won't attack you
when I'm with you. I think.”
Giving
the ratkin a tap on the shoulder, Seventh collected his things and
stood up from the floor.
Assuming
the map, and Fang-Knife, was correct they would need to walk for
hours. The route wasn't straight, and some of the map was guesswork
based on the repetitive nature of the dungeon.
To
speed things up, Seventh made buffed version of Wandering Eye and
used it to scout forwards. He had to close his eyes while using the
speeding eye and used George as a guide, keeping his hand on the
man's shoulder.
He
kept the formation tight around him and ratkin at the flanks. It was
quick and dirty, but they could move much faster.
Seventh
wanted out.
It took longer than couple of hours. The closer
they got to the stairs, the more map started to be incorrect.
Multiple corridors crisscrossing, making the dungeon a confusing mess
of crossroads and dead ends. Even halls started to have dead ends.
Once the party traveled for an hour and had to backtrack when Seventh
couldn't find a single tunnel excluding the one they used.
The
situation worsened when they found a grand hall with wide open doors
leading to a dripstone cave, only a handful of feet wider than the
tunnels and corridors Seventh had traveled. He had seen it earlier
and already had scouted the space with his Eye. It looked like a
natural cave with tiny glimmering stones embedded to the deep grey
walls. The floor was uneven, rising up and down naturally. Moisture
fell in droplets from the roof making the floor shiny and
slippery.
Seventh stood at the doors and shifted his gaze from
the cave to the ratkin next to him. "Fang, did— did you forget
to mention something?"
Fan-Knife looked him innocently.
Or just dully.
"There's a cave. Why there's a
cave?"
The ratkin shrugged and pointed at the moist
cavern, shimmering faintly with a rainbow of colors.
It
was more lit than other parts of the castle, but seemed more
dangerous to Seventh. Weird and unknown. He felt more at home in
endless corridors and forgotten halls.
"Okay. We're
falling back."
Turning
to leave, something tugged Seventh's mind. It felt like something
moved at the edge of his vision, a ghost of a movement.
He
realized it came from his Wandering Eye, far away in the cave. He had
sent it in advance to check out the doors and the cave with his own
eyes. Focusing on the magical vision, he saw movement. Dozens of
small shapes running on all-fours, towards them. An army of ratkin.
“Oh
fu—“ Seventh started, but was cut short by a warning scream and a
twang of bow firing. A ratkin minion and Charles were engaged in
battle.
Looking
back, Seventh could see the closest corridors spewing out more
ratkin and furry archers aiming, firing towards them. Unarmored like his, faster. Scouts.
A
trap.
“WALL!”
Seventh bellowed.
His
troops obeyed, but made the wall at only one side. The cavemouth loomed
behind them. A cave full of ratkin.
“Erick!
Frank! Get your ratkin and CLOSE
THE GATE!”, Seventh
yelled. The formation shifted and he took his place behind it, next
to Charles and bowratkin.
Erick
and Frank ran to the gate and each started pulling large doors
closed. It was wide enough for ten men to stand shoulder to shoulder.
Probably double the amount of ratkin.
Halls
were the worst place for battle. Hundreds of feet wide they gave
enough room for battles, but evenly spaced massive pillars broke the
space and ratkin used this effectively for pincer moves, flanking,
and ambushes.
While
one group fired arrows over a hundred yards away, Seventh could see
another group dashing over the space between pillars and taking their
place to start shooting at closer pillars.
Enemy
ratkin peeked out only to make quick shots. The two fronts exchanged
arrows, couple living ratkin fell, but were quickly replaced with
fresh ones. Arrows and occasionally better bows were picked up and
the rain of arrows continued. The undead suffered multiple hits, but
stood resolute and continued firing or closing the gate.
The
shield wall had assembled dead middle to the hall forty feet from the
gate, giving some cover from the pillars to the sides, but cutting
the visibility to half. Seventh knew there were ratkin running
towards them at the far edges of the hall.
He
ordered his own minions to curve the formation into a horseshoe to
protect the flanks. It made the shieldless ratkin more vulnerable to
arrows, but protected the party as a whole.
Immoral
mathematics.
Seventh
fired the occasional Shadowbolt. He had to conserve mana. Silently he
cursed his own stupidity.
Marching
too fast, stupid. Sending Wandering Eye too far, stupid. Walking to
an ambush. Stupid.
Endangering his party and minions.
The
closing gate made a rusty, pained groan and started to close slowly.
From the cave, in the distance, Seventh heard something chilling.
Drums.
Not
a fast beat of musicians, but a slow, meticulous drumming. War
drums.
The ratkin had come to war.
dum-dum. dum-dum.
DUM.
