NPCs (23 page)

With a sweep of his purple cape, King Liadon slid back into the shadows of the castle corridors, leaving a large group of adventurers wondering why a guard couldn’t have just told them all that hours ago. So many were watching the now empty balcony that they didn’t notice the return of the guard who’d led them here and jumped in surprise at the sound of his voice.

“Now that our king has graced you with his voice to give you your orders, it is time for you to begin.” The guard motioned for them to follow and once more headed off, already beginning to speak as he anticipated their following. It was with a clatter of armor and hurried steps that the adventurers kicked into movement and gave pursuit.

“The dungeon his majesty mentioned is many weeks’ travel from here, so we have decided to send you to the location by magic. You will be teleported to a camp just outside the dungeon’s entrance, where you will receive a quick meal, some provisions, and a scroll with all the information we currently possess about the dungeon and the artifact you are to retrieve. From that point on, you will all enter the dungeon in whatever groups or intervals you like, provided you’ve all stepped in by sundown. Anyone who sees the night sky will be considered to have deserted their mission, and I trust there is no need to elaborate on what happens to deserters?”

There was no need indeed, as the adventurers quickened their step to keep pace. It was well known what King Liadon’s stance on people disobeying him was. Even if this dungeon were a hundred levels deep and filled with nothing but dragons, it still provided a less certain death than going against the king’s orders.

From the moment they’d set foot on the castle grounds, there had never been an option of backing out.

* * *

The teleportation was a quick affair; some wizards had set up a circle of glowing runes at the far south end of the castle grounds. Once an adventurer stepped onto the circle, they were transported to the camp outside the dungeon’s entrance, so within minutes, all twenty-eight adventurers, along with a few guards, had arrived at their destination.

“Not much to look at, is it?” Gabrielle said. She wasn’t wrong; it didn’t appear to be some fearsome dungeon as much as a cave whose mouth stuck out of the side of a mountain. There was a clear slope downward, then all vantage was lost to the cave’s shadows.

“Don’t let the looks fool you. Anything dangerous enough to gather this many of us is bound to be worth looting.” The speaker was another adventurer, a dwarf in plate armor with a set of crossbows on his hips. He gave Gabrielle a respectful glance, no doubt entranced by her fiery red scale armor and sizable axe, before tottering off to join his own group.

Most of the adventurers milled about, testing their blades or doing some light stretching. One or two from each group had gathered at the makeshift tent where the guards were set up, finding out what supplies were available. Simple observation told them they wouldn’t be getting much more than a pack with dry rations and a single scroll.

“He’s right,” Eric said, stepping next to Gabrielle. “We should assume any number of untold dangers await us in that dungeon.”

“They’re not all untold,” Thistle interrupted, walking back from the tent area. No one had even noticed him leave. This wasn’t because he was particularly stealthy or quiet; it was merely due to the fact that he was a gnome amongst a group of larger races. “I gave the scroll a glance and it looks like they’ve got a fair bit of the place mapped out.”

Thistle finished walking over to his group and laid the scroll out on the rocky ground where they stood. The whole area around the cave was littered with gravel; likely the kingdom had been excavating a mine when they happened upon the dungeon. Within forty feet or so, there was soft grass, but it was close to the line of the forest. No one wanted to be seen as making a run for it, so each group did their plotting atop the rough terrain.

“Mostly the outer layers,” Eric noted. The dungeon they were entering seemed to be structured in a ring-like fashion, with each path providing ways to move to a path closer to the center at irregular intervals. It was impossible to say how many rings this dungeon had, as only the outermost seven were drawn on their scroll. Everything further inward was a black blob, void of information, save for a red point dead in the center. No doubt, it was meant to mark their goal.

“I’m still impressed with how much they have,” Eric said. He pointed to a spot on the scroll with tightly-clustered handwriting and a crude drawing of spikes. “Look, they’ve even got the locations of known traps marked.”

“And a few expected monster types,” Gabrielle added. Sure enough, there was a small key near the bottom that listed off monsters they were likely to encounter. “It tells us quite a bit.”

“It actually tells us even more than I believe they meant it to,” Thistle said. His voice was quieter than the others', intended for his friends alone. “This map tells us that regardless of what the king may have indicated, we are in no way the first adventurers to try and crack this dungeon.”

“How do you… because if they got this by magic, they’d have mapped the whole thing,” Eric said, realization striking.

“Precisely. My guess is that somewhere in this pack of rations is a magical relay program that tells them what we encounter,” Thistle surmised.

“So, the reason it only goes seven paths deep is that…” Gabrielle trailed off, not eager to reach the conclusion right before her.

“Farthest anyone has got.” Grumph’s harsh voice was low as he completed her thought. It was quite disheartening, especially when one considered that seven rings probably was only halfway through the dungeon, given the density of the black blob area. Halfway through at best.

“Most likely, each group does a little better than the one before, thanks to the information they’ve been provided, and when they die, their encounters are added to the map,” Eric said.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Thistle agreed. He rolled up the scroll carefully and tucked it in his pack. “But sadly, it really changes nothing for us. Our current choices are certain death and slightly-less-certain death. All we can do is press on, and hope the gods are watching over us.”

“Says the only one of us with a direct line to a divine being,” Gabrielle noted.

“While Grumble seems pleased with my service thus far, I’m not so sure of his favor that I expect to make it through here alive. At the end of the day, I’m just one paladin, and Grumble has a tremendous amount of minions begging for his attention.”

“Didn’t you just say we should hope the gods are watching over us?” Eric asked.

“Aye, but there is a key difference between hope and expectation.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a loud cheer from the other adventurers. It didn’t take long to suss out the source of the excitement: one of the parties had gathered at the cave’s mouth and was about to embark into the shadows. The still-preparing adventurers raised their fists or weapons in salute and those departing mirrored the gesture. Once it was done, the group of five turned toward the mouth of the cave, brought their weapons to the ready, and carefully crossed the threshold.

“And with that, the task is officially started,” Gabrielle said. She watched the mouth of the cave, as did many others, half-waiting for a spray of blood to break into the light. Nothing came, though, neither blood, nor shrieks of terror, nor even the sounds of battle. It seemed whatever lay in wait for them was further inside the dungeon’s walls than right at the entrance.

“We should get ready.” Eric complied with his own order by adjusting his armor a few degrees and making sure his sword was in a position to be drawn easily.

“Take your time,” Grumph disagreed.

“He’s right; now that we know the score, it makes more sense to be one of the last teams in,” Thistle explained. “We’re not really in a race; we’re in a contest of survival. The more people who go ahead of us, the more traps they trip and monsters they slay.”

“That’s a pretty heartless stance for a paladin,” Gabrielle pointed out.

“I’m a paladin for the god of minions. Do you know what minions do best? Lay low and try not to die.” A curious look suddenly darted across Thistle’s face, as though his words had shaken something loose in his brain.

“Got an idea?” Eric asked.

“No; more a thought to mull on. I’ll let you lot know if anything comes of it.”

“If we’re just standing around anyway, then pull the map back out,” Gabrielle suggested. “We can get familiar with the layout of the first few rings, choose our paths, and be ready for any traps that we know are coming.”

“Good idea,” Grumph said, patting her gently on the back. Well, gently for a half-orc.

“Agreed,” Thistle said. He reached into his pack and produced the scroll, but his fingers snagged on a brown paper package as well, which came tumbling onto the ground.

“What’s that?” Gabrielle asked.

“Oh. A gift from Sierva. I meant to open it, but I got… distracted.” Thistle hadn’t told them about the implication that Sierva and her people were like them, frauds who had picked up the adventurer title. Until he was sure what it meant, he didn’t want to worry the others unnecessarily.

“Now seems like as good a time as any to open it,” Eric urged. “Might come in useful.”

“Perhaps. I suppose it is worth checking.” Thistle carefully tore away the brown paper to reveal a white belt with a pair of dagger sheaths on it. Unlike the one he’d borrowed from Sierva, this had clearly been made with Thistle’s size in mind. It was a fine bit of craftsmanship, dyed leather stitched together immaculately.

The most striking feature of the sheath-belt was not the style, or the skilled assembly: it was the small set of arcane runes glowing faintly on each sheath. Thistle examined them closely, but their complexity exceeded the limited magical knowledge he possessed. Carefully — as careful as one should be with unknown magical items — he lifted the belt up and showed it to Grumph.

“Well, old friend, any idea what these might be?”

Grumph stared at it, trying to match the symbols with anything he’d managed to understand in the spellbook. There were a few bits he could put together, but a complete comprehension was beyond his reach.

“Not sure,” Grumph said after several minutes of study. “But probably not dangerous.”

“‘Probably’ seems pretty risky when dealing with unknown magic,” Eric pointed out.

“Aye, but one must consider the source,” Thistle replied. He lowered the white sheath-belt to the ground then set about the task of unfastening the lesser one currently strapped to his waist. “Sierva was a friend, one who helped save my life, so if Grumph says the magic is probably not dangerous, that’s enough for me.”

As Thistle worked to change out his belt, the area around the mouth of cave grew crowded once more. Now that the first team had broken through, other adventurers were making their own entrances, lest they be left behind.

* * *

“Okay, you’ve entered the dungeon. Since the paths form rings, you have two directions you can go; which one do you want to choose?” Russell stared at his group with a worried expectation. Getting them to the dungeon had been hell on earth; now that they were finally in, he just knew they were going to find a way to screw things up.

“Which way did the others go?” Terry asked. He’d been rolling checks to evaluate as much of the other adventurers’ equipment as possible.

“You can only see the two other parties who entered at the same time as you,” Russell said. He picked up the module book to double check the information he was about to dole out. This one had a lot to keep track of, so he didn’t want to mess anything up. “Each one went off in one of the two directions.”

“How many are still outside the entrance?” Mitch asked.

“Let me see. The first one went in a while ago, then you guys entered with two more, so that makes four, leaving two more groups outside for a total of six parties.” Russell’s eyes flicked down to the book on instinct and he realized he’d made an error. “Wait: seven parties. There’s one more group that still hasn’t entered.”

“Way to fuck up,” Glenn said. “I think it’s GM retcon. He just wanted to add another team to up the competition.”

“Glenn, I misread something, that’s all.” It was strange, though; Russell had carefully gone through this book when he started and he was certain there had only been five parties besides the one that his group would be playing. Luckily, it was an easy enough mistake to fix, as long as none threw the kind of tantrum Glenn looked like he was gearing up for.

“Don’t worry about it, Glenn. This is actually a good thing,” Mitch said. He was leaning over the map carefully, examining the small figurines representing their characters. His eyes darted along the drawn bits of the map, eagerly drinking in every detail.

“How is it a good thing? You know Russell will try and make one of them get the artifact first.”

“It’s a good thing because one more party means one more set of loot,” Mitch explained. “We’re not going to do like these other guys and try to wade through the dungeon for treasure. Our party is going to take a far more proactive approach.”

20.

“It’s cleaner than I was expecting.” Gabrielle’s eyes wandered down the spacious stone walls and floors, all of which were easily visible thanks to the presumably magic light-casting gems embedded in the walls at regular intervals. Despite purportedly having been lost for time untold, the dungeon showed no signs of dirt, degradation, or disrepair. It was like the whole thing had been built only days before.

“Magic,” Grumph surmised, eloquently explaining the entirety of the situation quite well.

“Aye, but it must be powerful magic for it to have persisted for so long. We’d best be careful.”

The party had waited until the sun was dipping low on the horizon — long after the other teams had taken the plunge — before finally entering the dungeon. In truth, they might have pressed their time a bit more, but the guards were starting to get fidgety and keep their weapons close at hand. Once in, the act of making their way through the dungeon had been fairly easy. Thanks to their knowledge of the dangers, the small dart trap and explosive runes along their path were easily skirted. The route they’d chosen had evidently been infested by monsters, but judging by the giant vermin corpses they passed at irregular intervals, the other adventurers had already seen to that particular challenge.