Chapter 18: Underground Part 3

Written by Skarth Diem to Dronaet Klingstone

We had found a staircase leading up which we hoped might lead to the exit. Excited by the opportunity, Riellian, Shay and Wrack forged ahead up the stairs while Kelshann and I followed along behind.

In their enthusiasm, the three in the lead failed to notice a pressure plate that clicked down and released a large boulder at the top of the stair. There was a loud grinding sound as the boulder began to move, slowly gathering pace as it rolled down the stairs.

Riellian and Shay managed to run forward, up the stairs and duck into a side passage before the boulder got to them. Shay yelled “run” as they did so. Wrack managed to wait until the boulder hit a flat section and deftly jump over it.

Kelshann and I had our view blocked by the others, so we didn’t know what was happening. We looked around when Shay yelled “run” but were unable to react in time. Kelshann somehow managed to duck out of the way of the boulder but it smashed straight into me and knocked me down, leaving me feeling very battered and bruised. Wrack rested his hands on my chest and called upon the power of Procan. I smelled sea air wafting over me as the power rushed through me and washed away the worst of my injuries.

I staggered to my feet and turned to look behind me. The boulder had continued bouncing down the stairs and gathering pace until it had smashed through the doors below us and then ploughed into the trash room.

At the top of the stairs, the side passage that Shay and Riellian had found led to a chamber containing several broken statues of baboons, with the pieces scattered around everywhere. There were also the bodies of some actual baboons that appeared to have been shredded or burst open from inside.

In the centre of the room was a huge creature with a single large eyeball in the middle of its body. It had stalk-like tentacles and a smaller eyeball at the end of each stalk. Shay took a single glance at this creature and called out “Beholder.” Shay and Riellian quickly hid back around the corner. Riellian told us that Beholders are quite evil creatures with a high level of intelligence. Each eyeball on a stalk could fire some sort of murderous ray.

Shay handed me a potion which I drank, screwing up my nose at the bitter after-taste. But, despite the taste, the potion did quickly restore me to the point where I was feeling somewhat better. The dank air in this endless maze seemed to be sapping the energy from all of us.

I investigated the hole the boulder had emerged from, hoping to find a way that we could navigate past the Beholder but there was no sign of any passage back there.

Wrack moved into the room and created a fog, hoping to blind the Beholder. Under the cover of the fog, we all started moving through the room. I kept my hand on one of the walls so that I wouldn’t get lost.

Through the fog, I heard Wrack call out and strike at the Beholder, it immediately exploded into a thousand spores that filled the room with a choking blur. I think most of us managed to hold our breaths long enough for the spores to clear, but in front of me, I saw Shay breathe in a mouthful of the spores and immediately start coughing and spluttering. She appeared to have been poisoned by the spores, so I used the last of my power to dispel any poison in her system. My spell appeared to have no effect.

Realising that the creature was gone, Wrack dispelled the fog and I walked over to where its remains lay on the floor. I quickly decided that this had not been a Beholder at all, but a plant that formed a balloon-like shape holding some sort of gas. Somehow the plant had learned to imitate the appearance of a Beholder. The spores would have been floating in the gas and as soon as it was pierced, the balloon burst and the spores were spread everywhere.

I checked over Shay and realised that the problem wasn’t the poison but the spores which were lodged in their lungs and appeared to be growing rapidly. I should have used a different spell to remove the spores from their system but my power was now all gone and I would not be able to heal Shay of this condition until I’d had a sleep. Wrack said he could do the same but he also was exhausted and would need to sleep before he could use restore Shay.

Shay asked how long they had and I suggested maybe 12 to 24 hours before the spores overwhelmed their lungs, which would kill them.

We set up camp at the end of the chamber and tried to sleep, but the air in there was so bad that we quickly discovered that it was sickening us and not allowing us to restore our power. The only solution was to find the exit as quickly as we could so that we could recuperate in the fresh air.

Around the corner from the chamber, we discovered a long corridor with a carved depression in the wall at each end. Paintings on the wall indicated that the occupants had played some sort of ball game up and down the corridor where the objective seemed to be to get the ball into the depression at each end.

Around the corner from that corridor, the hallway continued to a door that opened into an oddly shaped room. The room seemed to have a cat theme to it. One wall was carved to resemble a snarling tiger with hollow eyes. In the middle of the room was a stuffed tiger facing the statue of a tiger-headed man holding a spear and facing off against the tiger. There also appeared to be skins of different types of cats stuck to the wall, but these turned out to be skilful paintings on the wall rather than actual skins.

In several places there were stuffed domestic-type cats in various poses. Against one wall stood an altar with a Jade statue of a cat and a finely carved flint dagger. On the wall behind the altar was what appeared to be a calendar stone though the symbols for the months or seasons were unfamiliar to us.

Riellian pushed on the sun in the centre of the calendar stone and it opened to reveal a narrow passageway. She carefully stepped over the altar, trying not to disturb its contents, and entered the narrow passage. There were various symbols painted and carved into the walls of the passage and when Riellian asked me to look at them, I immediately recognised them as symbols of abjuration – this was a warning of some kind or a spell imprisoning something – or possibly both.

The door at the other end of the passage opened into the upper wall of a short corridor. A door off that corridor had a mystic seal holding it shut and binding it with some sort of powerful spell. This all seemed a bit much for us and did not seem to lead to the exit, so we backed away and returned to the others in the room of cats.

Shay was naturally wanting us to keep moving to find the exit, so they pushed through one set of doors and into a corridor. This led to a room deep with ash. When Shay stepped into the room, the ash was disturbed and curled up off the floor. The ash formed into the image of a woman who appeared to be frightened and backing away from something, then she appeared to turn and flee to one side. Then the phantoms of two men formed from the ash and appeared to follow the woman. Shay decided the room did not appear to lead anywhere and turned back.

Shay returned to the room of cats and we tried the other door. This led to a corridor lined with the carved profiles of warriors armed with polearms. The passageway then turned and turned again before opening into a large chamber with what looked like a dead tree in the middle. When I got a good look at it, I realised that this was not a dead tree but some form of giant mushroom-like growth. Sort of like a polyp. I was fairly sure that it was immobile as it seemed to be rooted in the ground. Its base stood in a pool of black oily water.