The fourth floor was quiet. They ran into no armored ghosts, rock spiders, carnivorous beetles, spell weaving crystals or anything else. Alek could hear something, bare feet softly padding deep in the tunnels. He could feel its eyes on them when they stopped to eat and surely the rest of Broken Fang could too by the way they wearily regarded those shadows, but the thing never approached and Broken Fang was happy to leave it as is. It’s cautious, Alek thought, but it's hungry too.
The walls here were deteriorating far worse than above. Cold stone peeked through the weathered black bricks and some hallways had completely collapsed. Aria called it strange. Something about the strong lifespan density which should have been upholding them, but was failing.
When they found the stairway into the fifth - what Rowan claimed would be the final floor - they came across a problem. The barrier was too thick. Alek could pass through, as barriers strangely had no effect on him. Eddie could pass, having the strongest coating in the party and Jarrah could squeeze through with great effort, but nothing they did could get Aria and Rowan down the staircase. Even with both Jarrah and Eddie trying to share their coatings, it was not enough.
‘Leave us behind,’ Aria said. ‘You will be fine.’
‘Without a healer or mage?’ Eddie asked.
‘Just don’t get hurt,’ Rowan said. ‘I am sick of healing you anyway. As for the mage Alek knows a few spells.’
Alek shied back. He only knew fire spells which he was told not to use underground lest it consume their oxygen.
‘What about you guys?’ Jarrah asked, looking into the shadows behind them. ‘What if that… thing takes its chance while we're gone?’
Aria waved her sapphire topped staff and a thick wall of stone rose up blocking their retreat. The staff flashed again and thin holes bored through the stone near the top, allowing some airflow. ‘We will survive.’
Eddie nodded. ‘Okay. We will check out the floor, but we will return at the slightest danger. It's not worth the risk when we are split up. If we don’t return in an hour, assume the worst.’
‘Done,’ Rowan said. He took off his giant backpack plonked down with his hands behind his head. ‘Take care, I will enjoy the chance to take a rest. My legs are killing me from all this walking. You know you guys could share the load of all this heavy equipment here and there.’
Eddie gave a short, sarcastic laugh then stepped through the barrier. Jarrah and Aria held an unnaturally long stare, seemingly communicating without words then he turned after Eddie. Alek was last, stepping down into the fifth floor where suddenly, he could barely breathe. His lungs felt full of water, swamped by steam so thick he thought he was back in the jungle that circled the city or sitting above the ravine that boiled like a kettle. It was a warm embrace with a wet kiss all over. Soft light scattered through the halls, but Alek could see no further than Jarrah who was two steps ahead and Eddie’s looming silhouette with that giant axe over his shoulder.
The walls on the fifth floor were almost entirely natural stone. Only a few crumbling black bricks remained, but otherwise the floor was more cave than tunnel. Their boots splashed in muddy water that had condensed on the concave floor.
‘The dungeon must connect up to the ravine,’ Jarrah said, speaking softly into the mist.
‘A little steam doesn’t change the mission,’ Eddie said. ‘Keep moving.’
So they did until they came to a three pronged fork in the tunnel. Both Jarrah and Alek looked at Eddie. He seemed uncomfortable, but maybe that was just the mist.
‘We will split up,’ Eddie said. ‘Look for the final room. It will look like a library.’
‘You did know more about this dungeon - this city – than you let on, didn’t you?’ Jarrah asked. He looked betrayed, but then he was cut off by a guttural cry echoing off the stone walls so loud Alek had to put his hands over his ears. It sounded like the cows in the slaughterhouse back home.
‘This isn’t the time,’ Eddie said, staring Jarrah down. ‘We will split up. If you find the library, look for a small black box.’ Eddie gestured about the size of a football. ‘It will have a silver lock. Take it and run back to the fourth floor. Do not engage any monsters you find.’ He said that last part only looking at Alek.
Jarrah had a mean look in his eyes. ‘I don’t-’
‘Not now. Go!’ Eddie said. ‘I’ll take whatever she-bitch is moaning my name.’ He ran into the mist down the center tunnel from where the monster had growled. When he was no more than a smudge through the fog, it roared again.
Alek had his hands over his ears and Jarrah placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Go left,’ he said, ‘and go as fast as you can.’
Alek nodded, but Jarrah was already gone, warping into the steam.
Kill yourself, Saleos whispered, or sit still. For today I don’t mind. Alek heard the demon laughing, tittering in his mind.
How much can you see? Alek wondered, but there was no response.
Jarrah told Alek to go left, but looking down that tunnel it felt wrong. Not wrong, it felt ordinary, the incorrect choice to make. Down the central tunnel the beast roared and this time there was a scream to accompany it. Eddie’s cry was cut short, suddenly silent. Alek made his decision and started running down the center of the fork. He was drenched now, but he pushed faster, faster than he had ever run. Something happened as he ran, his legs felt like fire, a soft burning ember. He was no longer just running, but not quite warping; somewhere between. The roar turned into a growl, guttural with a clicking sound mixed in. Through the fog, shadows of large tentacles grew and flicked, changing, churning, wrapping around a solitary figure that was trembling.
Alek landed next to Eddie. He looked paralyzed, pale with fear. His hand was on his axe’s handle, but instead of drawing, it just shook in place. Eddie’s blue eyes flicked onto Alek, pleading.
What came out of the mist was nothing but an abomination. Smooth, pink tentacles of flesh, veined with red lightning. Pulsing, the whole thing was beating like a heart. A ripple of teeth erupted along its feelers, and the entire bulk of its body, still wrapped in mist lumbered forward. Faces swam in its body, pushing and fighting, gaping mouths, gnashing teeth, trying to escape and still Eddie did not move an inch. He stood there, sweating and trembling as a tentacle licked his face, leaving a swash of saliva that burnt his skin.
A fractured odium, That was the only thing it could be. From the story Jarrah told Alek above the ravine. Half-monster half-demon with the power to immobilize even holy-knights with fear. Yet Alek could move. Why he could move now, why he could pass through barriers, why he could move that night when the demon came to his house, he did not know. He did know one thing, right now, none of that mattered.
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The tentacle reached around Eddie’s neck and again a wave of teeth rippled over its flesh. Bubbles popped and oozed over its round body and the faces, the dozen faces pushed against the skin, screaming.
Alek did not think. He just did. He warped onto the tentacle around Eddie, implanting the dagger, sinking deep into the slimy pink thing rimmed with teeth. The beasts cried out shrieking and thrashing. Alek was flung away, but a hand caught the scruff of his neck. Eddie could move again. The dagger was still firmly in his grasp, slipping out of the creature as easily as it went in.
‘Fireball now!’ Eddie screamed. He pulled Alek away from another tentacle that tried to whip him. The feeler smashed into the brick wall, shattering it completely.
Eddie, now holding Alek, ran back at a thundering pace. Alek raised his palm and formed a swirling orb of fire. He pumped his lifespan into it, as much as it could take and it exploded before he could even release it. The mist took it, but so did the creature which cried out again as it was hit.
Alek could no longer see it through the steam, but he could hear it roaring and breaking walls, crushing stone. Eddie didn’t stop and didn’t look back, he didn’t even put Alek down to run on his own. He just kept going with a more pale face than Alek had ever seen. When he reached the fork, Alek twisted his hand and dropped to the floor.
‘It’s not chasing,’ Alek said.
Eddie did not even seem to register him. ‘We should have never come.’
‘We need to find Jarrah.’
‘I’m here,’ Jarrah said, emerging from the fog. His hands were on his knees and he was breathing heavily.
Eddie grabbed his shoulders and shook him. ‘Did you get it?’
Jarrah just kept trying to catch his breath in the thick steam.
‘DID YOU GET IT?’
Jarrah shook his head. ‘It wasn’t there. I found the library. It wasn’t there.’
Eddie looked frozen again, this time in disbelief, but he let go of Jarrah and stood up straight. ‘Retreat. To the top floor and then we keep going, never turning back.’
‘But the box,’ Jarrah said.
‘Fuck the box,’ Eddie yanked Jarrah forward with one hand and Alek with the other.
Down the hall the beast roared.
‘Move!’
They ran and they did not stop until Eddie yanked Jarrah up through the barrier. Aria and Rowan screamed when they emerged. They had huddled against the barrier shying away from the stone wall Aria had constructed.
Finally able to breathe real air, Alek, Jarrah and Eddie collapsed heaving.
‘Their drowning,’ Rowan said. His hands were shaking, but he put them to work and golden green light soaked into their chests.
‘We don’t have time,’ Eddie said. ‘We need to move.’ Eddie rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his feet. Somewhere deep in the dungeon the fractured odium roared.
‘W-wait,’ Rowan said, his voice trembling. ‘Let me h-heal you.’
Aria was trembling in a similar way by his side.
‘Why are you scared?’ Jarrah asked Rowan and Aria.
Aria pointed to the wall she created and at first Alek noticed nothing, but then he heard it. Nails scratching against the stone and faint whispering.
‘Let me innnn… Help meeee… Help meeee…’
A long pale finger poked through one of the ventilation holes, eight feet above ground and at least a foot thick. Aria shrieked and blue light flashed from her staff. The hole closed, severing the unnaturally long, human finger.
The thing yelped. ‘Help meeee… Let me innn…’
Eddie drew his axe. ‘Open the wall.’
‘What?’ Aria asked, ‘I- I can’t’
‘Open the fucking wall Aria,’ Eddie said, glaring at her, ‘We don’t have time for this.’
Aria’s hands couldn’t stop shaking, but she raised her staff all the same. The wall dropped and behind it was a naked man in the shape of a deer. It stood on its hind legs with a ridiculously wide smile filled with pointy teeth.
‘Help meee…’ it whistled out through those needles.
‘I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU,’ Eddie roared, slamming his axe straight down its center. The two halves dropped dead.
Aria puked.
Eddie grabbed her, slung his axe over one shoulder and the mage over the other.
‘MOVE!’ he screamed and they did.
* * * *
Alek and Jarrah were the fastest two so after the fourth floor they broke off to prepare the horses in advance. They ran without speaking and encountered no monsters besides the timid scarabs on the first floor and rock spiders that would only attack from behind. They were all too slow. Jarrah crossed the final barrier first and when Alek followed him out, Alek saw something strange. Jarrah’s coat, or just under one of his pockets was emitting a pure gold glow. It radiated out in a way similar to the barriers. Now that Alek thought about it, the barriers had seemed much duller on his way back up today. It was the type of light that only Alek could see.
Jarrah saw Alek staring at his coat and turned away. ‘Let’s keep moving. We need to pack up camp before they surface.’
‘I need to do something first.’
‘What could you possibly have to do?’
‘I need to step on that,’ Alek said, pointing to the bronze disk on the floor.
‘That dud apostle plate? No, we don’t have time.’
‘Do we have time to talk about what's in your jacket?’
Jarrah snapped back and he reached for his dagger. His eyes were wild, crazy. He reached for the left side - the side that was empty. That missing dagger had been given to Alek. Alek reached to his own side and grabbed it slowly, but instead of pulling it on Jarrah, he flipped it around and held it out, handle first.
‘I won’t need this anymore,’ Alek said. ‘Thank you for letting me borrow it.’
Jarrah went to snatch it, but then he stopped halfway, his face softening. ‘No. No, sorry, no. Keep it, Kid. It’s yours.’ He walked out of the cathedral, head hanging low.
Alek looked at the plate, swirling its purple aura around like a tornado. It smelt like him, the demon in the suit, but he was silent now. The whispers were gone. Alek gripped his dagger, grateful Jarrah did not take it back. Alek would need it now more than ever.
