NPCs (24 page)

“What do we have coming up?” Eric asked. He was at the head of the line, his attentive stare sweeping for any indicators of unexpected obstacles. Yes, they had forewarning on the traps, and the monsters should have all been killed, but he wasn’t one to discount the possibility of pure bad luck assaulting them.

“Spike pit,” Grumph said. While they’d all studied the map, he’d clearly retained the best mental impression of it. “After next corner.”

“A spike pit, you say?” Thistle ran his hands along the seam of his new belt as his mind whirled furiously. This idea he had, this theory, it was utter madness. The dungeon he was in had been crafted ages ago, built with such precision that no adventurer had made it further than halfway through. There was no possible way his hunch could be accurate… except… except…

Except that minions, whether now, then, or in the future, would always be minions. And Thistle knew how minions worked.

“When we get to the spike pit, there’s something I want to do,” Thistle announced.

“Got some trash to dump?” Gabrielle asked, the smile on her face a stark contrast to their grim surroundings.

“Not quite. Do you recall earlier, when I said I had an errant thought? Well, I think the time has come to put it to the test.”

“Could you possibly be more cryptic?” Eric said.

“Sorry, just don’t want to say it out loud and jinx it,” Thistle replied. “But, before we get there, everyone open your packs. We’re going to need a fair bit of rope.”

“There are just so few ways this can possibly be a good thing,” Gabrielle said. Still, she pulled her pack around and opened it up, just as Grumph and Eric did. Caginess and odd requests aside, Thistle’s ideas were a key part of what had gotten them this far. They weren’t about to start ignoring them now.

* * *

As Thistle’s group grabbed rope, another team was clutching onto hope. In the third ring of the dungeon, the first team of adventurers had encountered a pack of barghests that were tearing through them. Their pugilist was down, as was their knight. The only ones still standing were the wizard and the archer, though standing didn’t come easy as their clothes were already slick with blood from their wounds.

“What the hell, why can’t we land a damn hit?” the archer swore. “This is such bullshit.”

“I know, the odds against this are nuts,” the wizard agreed. “I think the dice are cursed. But I’ve got a plan: can you buy me two rounds?”

“Maybe; I’m pretty low on Health Points. What are you going to do?”

“I’ve got one good spell left, and the hit difficulty for it is so low I’m sure to connect, even with our shitty rolls.”

“Fine,” the archer agreed. “It’s the best option we’ve got so far.” With that, he took off in a charge, firing arrows at a rapid clip. Despite his skill and proficiency with the bow, each arrow went wide, nowhere near making contact with the beasts. The only saving grace was that his effort succeeded in drawing attention away from the wizard. The dog-like monsters surged forward, closing in around him.

As quick as the barghests were, the wizard was still able to begin his conjuration in the time it took them to attack the archer. He pressed his hands together, words of power slipping from his mouth like audible gems as he condensed and directed the magic within him. A purple glow formed around him, crackling magical energy surging over each part of his body. The wizard’s eyes sparked with energy as he parted his hands and stuck his left palm out, putting every ounce of his focus on the barghests. One final word echoed from his mouth as he spoke the phrase of activation, completing the spell.

In another world, one with five people sitting around a dining room table, a young girl rolled her twenty-sided die. Upon seeing the roll, her friends shook their heads and whispered the words “critical failure.” She was forced to roll again, but this time, the result of her roll filled the room with tension. It was the same as what she had gotten before. A young man with wavy dark hair with a screen shielding his part of the table nodded at her wordlessly. With trembling hands, the girl picked up the die and rolled it across the table one last time. It bounced and tumbled along the surface, nearly knocking over a small figurine of a male elven wizard, before finally coming to a stop.

Its outermost face, for the third time in a row, showed the number 1.

The wizard’s heart exploded as his magic misfired, killing him instantly. The magic continued to surge, however, erupting from his corpse in an explosion of arcane power. Within moments, there was no sign that the wizard had ever existed, save for the scorch marks along the walls, marks that were already beginning to fade as the dungeon’s own magic cleansed them.

Nearby, the barghests looked up from their meal momentarily, then set back into it. Within seconds, the archer’s pain-filled screams had faded just like the wizard’s scorch marks.

* * *

“All right, we’ve got the ropes secured and enough slack to feed it halfway back to Solium. Now will you tell us what this about?” Eric asked. The last of the preparations were done, the team having run the ropes together and tied them off on various points in the dungeon’s walls. This left them with an exceptionally stable length of rope that would allow them to lower someone down into the spiked pit magically concealed directly in front of them. What they lacked, however, was any understanding of why they’d want to do such a thing.

“I suppose we’ve come along far enough that the jinx is a bit of a moot point,” Thistle said. He produced a small hunk of dried meat from his pack, walked calmly up to what would be the lip of the pit, and tossed it. His aim was true, striking one of the many magical sensors that would open the pit if touched. Immediately, the ground in front of them dissolved, revealing a wide pit with jagged spears poking up from the ground.

“This is one of the secrets of minions, one we keep as close to the heart as our own true loves. Whenever constructing dungeons — which we do, because obviously, your average tyrant or mad wizard can’t be bothered with grunt work — minions always include secret tunnels and burrows. These tunnels are to allow the minions who have to work in the dungeon to get around, navigating all the traps and monsters that would easily tear us to shreds. The reason we guard this trick so fiercely is that if it got out, we’d no longer be able to do it.”

“Wait, I thought people found secret doors in dungeons all the time,” Gabrielle pointed out. “We’ve heard people talk about it in the tavern.”

“Oh sure, we hide a few obvious ones for people to discover. Oftentimes, we stick our tunnel entrance in those rooms, since no one ever thinks to check a secret for another secret. But, make no mistake, those are decoys designed to make adventurers think they’ve thoroughly explored an area. The real tunnels are far more useful, they allow a minion to scamper safely to almost any point in a maze, even the heart of it.”

“And you think one of those tunnel entrances is in the spiked pit?” Eric asked.

“Early, easy access, simple traps surrounding it… makes sense,” Gabrielle said.

“Precisely. If I were building this dungeon, I’d stick the entrance at the bottom of the spiked pit. No adventurer ever goes combing about on the floor of those; in fact, they barely pay them any attention at all.”

“Hiding in plain sight,” Eric said. “That’s damned cunning.”

“It’s damned cunning if I’m right,” Thistle replied. “Otherwise, it’s just a silly notion. Now then, you lot ready to lower me down?”

“We can handle it,” Grumph assured him, grasping hold of one section of the rope. Eric and Gabrielle followed suit, everyone getting a firm grip. Light as Thistle was, it would only take a small mistake to send him tumbling onto those spikes.

“I’m sure you can, old friend. Remember, two tugs to bring me back up, or just listen for the sound of me screaming to hurry up and pull.” Thistle picked up his side of the rope and stuck his right foot through the loop they’d fastened at the end. With extraordinary care, he lowered himself off the ledge and into the pit.

His friends didn’t let him down; they doled out slack at a slow, constant pace. It took him over two minutes to descend the entirety of the pit’s forty feet, but eventually, Thistle was able to thread himself between the spikes and find a clear section near the wall. He stepped out of the rope’s loop, careful not to give any tugs that might make the others think he wanted it pulled back.

The floor of the spiked pit was like the rest of the dungeon: clean and maintained. There should have been a few skulls, or perhaps a bit of dried blood decorating the area. Instead, it was pristine. The tips of the spikes even looked as if they’d been recently polished.

Moving about was a tricky task. Thistle was small, but his armor was cumbersome and heavy, compounding the poor dexterity his warped form already imparted on him. What Thistle did have on his side was experience. He’d been forced to navigate tight quarters on countless occasions in his tasks as a minion, so he understood that it was all a matter of staying calm, keeping focused, and making each move deliberate. It wasn’t the fastest method of exploration, but it was something.

As he made his way through the pit, worry cast a dark shadow over his heart. So far, he’d seen no signs of a tunnel entrance. If his idea didn’t pan out, they were stuck going through the dungeon the normal way, an almost certain death. He didn’t realize until he was hunched down amidst the spikes just how much hope he’d put in this theory, and how crushed he would be if it wasn’t so.

Thistle was nearly at the point of giving it all up when his eyes noticed something, a mark etched into the base of one of the spears. In any other dungeon, he’d have taken it for wear and tear, but in this unmarred environment, it stood out like a beacon. He worked his way over to it carefully, winding through the forest of spears. When he finally came close enough to make out the mark, a small smile bloomed on his misshapen, gnomish face.

It was not a random mark, nor was it wear and tear. No, it was a rudimentary carving of a broom with a dagger tied on top. It was the symbol of Grumble, god of the minions. Thistle reached out and grabbed the spear. It took some fumbling, but he finally found the hidden latch he’d been searching for. The pit echoed with sound as the spear let out a gentle click, and then a small section of stone along the wall shifted out of place.

Thistle released a long sigh of relief before lifting his head up and calling to his friends.

“I hope you lot don’t mind doing some crawling. It looks like a tight fit!”

* * *

The wraith stabbed its incorporeal claws through the summoner’s eyes, draining the last of her life and sending her sprawling to the floor. Around it, other wraiths had already finished the remainder of the party. These had been strong adventurers; their efforts had killed off two of the six wraiths before they finally succumbed to their wounds.

Eventually, they’d fallen, of course. Everyone fell in these halls. The closer an adventurer came to the center, the more chance turned against them. By the fifth ring, they’d be fortunate to walk without falling to their deaths. Anywhere past the seventh and even that much was an impossibility.

The wraiths ran their claws over the newly-made corpses once more, just to be certain their prey was fully drained. None paid attention to the rune on the scroll that had fallen from a barbarian’s clutches. It was a small rune, positioned below a drawing of the very dungeon these wraiths inhabited. Before the party died it had been entirely invisible, but now it glowed with a dark green hue.

This was all irrelevant to the wraiths, which held no concern that information was being sent back to the king’s guards. All the wraiths cared for was eating life, and they could sense that there was still some in the dungeon to be had. They’d have to hurry, though; the lives were fading fast.

Of the seven clusters of adventurers who had entered the dungeon, only four were still drawing breath.

* * *

“Cozy fit,” Grumph muttered as he tried to ignore the sensation of tunnel walls closing in around him. He was already on his hands and knees, as was everyone aside from Thistle, inching along in the dim tunnel. Grumph, like the others, thought safely maneuvering down to the bottom of the pit would be the hard part. All things considered, he might have taken a poke from one of the spears if it meant a few inches’ more comfort on his trek.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Thistle said from his position at the front of the convoy. Gabrielle was behind him, then Grumph, and Eric was in the rear, listening for anything that might try to sneak up on them. “Minions tend to be my size most of the time. Makes us easier to kick around and discipline as needed. Occasionally, we get some bigger folks — since we gnomes are shit at heavy lifting — but they’re never weighed down by things like armor or weapons when they come through the tunnel.”

“I don’t want to hear any complaining from the half-orc not wearing armor,” Gabrielle snapped. “I’ve got this demon-scale and a giant axe weighing me down.”

“I’m very wide,” Grumph countered.

“He is robust,” Eric agreed. Since his armor was barely thicker than cloth, he was the least inconvenienced of anyone, save for Thistle. “Any idea how far we are from the center?”

“We’ve been passing exit hatches at regular intervals,” Thistle informed him. “I’d wager each one exits in a different ring of the dungeons, so right now, we’re somewhere between the fifth and sixth rings.”

“That would be a lot more helpful if we knew how many there were total,” Gabrielle said.

“Helpful, but unnecessary. If the minions built something this direct, it almost certainly will take us all the way to the center of the dungeon. We might not be right in the artifact’s chamber, but we’ll be quite close.” Thistle put his hands on his daggers unconsciously. No matter how far they got through the tunnel, there was bound to be some monsters guarding their prize. When they arrived, there would be bloodshed. He only hoped not all of it would be theirs.

“I wonder how the other teams are doing.” Gabrielle paused to reach back and adjust her axe, nearly banging Grumph’s skull in the process.