“What have you seen?” I asked Beldrak. The wizards' eyes opened at last, and he looked at me.

“Not much. My little spider couldn't get through the doors. There is one to the south and one to the west. There is also a corridor from the chamber to the north, and there is no door there. I could follow that, and I have seen giant rats there.”

“Obviously”, I sighed. “The wee critters are everywhere, aren't they?”

“Don't worry; I have only seen two of them. It's not a very big nest, probably.”

“Any sign of those moving bushes?”

“Maybe. I have seen several bushes, but none of them moved yet. Two skeletons were trimming, watering and hoeing them.”

“Skeletons”, I said, not the least surprised. It was somehow fitting that there would be underground gardens in this world, which were tended to by skeletons.

“I suggest you use your mace against them”, he gestured towards the new weapon on my belt. It was convenient, so I kept it instead of giving it to Beldrak to sell in Oakhurst. “Piercing a skeleton with a sword doesn't impair them much, but with a mace, you can easily break their bones and joints.”

“I will keep that in mind. Now, who goes first?”

While Beldrak was “befriending a spider” as he put it, then using it for scouting the well and the chambers below us, Jim and I built a simple windlass so we could get down and up the well fast and safe.

“Arnold does not see in the dark, and Jim can't shoot firebolts”, sighed Beldrak. “So, I am the obvious choice.”

“Shout if you get in trouble”, advised Jim. “We can wind you up in a moment.”

“Don't lower me to the ground yet. I will want to see the chamber with my own eyes first.”

We spent the next hour or so lowering Beldrak into the chamber under us, where he methodically torched the bushes and skeletons with one of his lesser spells. Whenever a bush moved, or a skeleton came too close, we winded him up, and waited till the troublemaker went away, or tried to crawl up the well, whereupon we destroyed it.

“Moving bushes and skeletons are even more stupid than goblins”, I remarked after Beldrak cleaned out the whole chamber. “If they rushed at the well at once they might have stood a chance. Goblins at least did not let us defeat them in detail as long as they were in the same room.”

“Lucky us. Now, who will go next?” asked Jim.

“I will.”

The scale-mail of Talgen Hucrele was heavier than what I was used to. This armour protected me better than my chainmail, but in exchange the extra weight would fatigue me to death by night. I didn't want to tire myself out even more with climbing in this attire, so I let Jim to come down last.

Since Beldrak already thoroughly cleaned the room without provoking the arrival of any reinforcements, I did not see any reason in trying to hide our presence. As soon as Jim climbed down, I started northwards, where Beldrak's spider had seen the giant rats.

The beasts were probably alerted by the light of the burning bushes, and tried to ambush us, but by now, Jim and I had considerable experience in fighting their kind. We held them back with our shields easily while Beldrak and Erky used their lesser spells to deal with them.

What we didn't expect was that the rats had a master, namely a seven feet tall goblin, which unnoticedly emerged from a side-corridor. Its first strike hit my right shoulder, numbing my sword-hand, and left me tumbling onto the floor. Jim had more luck, but it was still forced back as the beast was wildly flailing and shouting about putting us all into its pot.

We might have ended up there, if not for Beldrak.

The wizard this time did not shout, did not spread out his arms, but in the light of my lantern I saw the veins bulging from exertion on his forehead, and the big goblin slumped to the ground. It was not asleep, only paralysed, I could see its eyes moving and staring at us with hatred.

“Fast!” Beldrak muttered urgently. “I might lose control any minute...”

Jim was already hacking at the giant goblin with its halberd. I didn't see where my bigger sword has fallen, and my sword-arm was still numb, so I dropped my shield and unsheathed my trusty short-sword with my left hand. I was never a two-handed fencer, but skewering a lying, motionless giant wasn't a tough task either. I opened the beast's belly, while Jim put the spearpoint of its halberd through the throat of the goblin.

Beldrak slumped to the ground too.

“Thank the gods... I could never cast this spell before, no matter how many times I tried...”

“Good thing you have risen to the occasion”, I agreed. “Should we go back up now?”

“Just give me a minute or two... This was exhausting... But next time it will be easier...” he panted.

Erky took a look at my arm while we have waited for the wizard. I only had a bruise - my new armour was proving itself already.

Beldrak was feeling well enough after a few minutes of resting, so we decided to press on. After we found that this northern cave ended in a smaller duct leading down into the darkness, we backed off.

“No reason for us to go down there”, explained the wizard as he led us back towards the chamber where we started our escapade. “This is one of the long ways, connecting the subterranean cities of the goblins. I have read about them, and it was not encouraging. Best would be just to collapse it.”

We went westwards now, and soon we could feel the pungent stench of goblins.

“I hope these won't be as big as the one with the rats” Jim murmured. And if they are that big, let us hope Beldrak has some trick left to deal with them.

Moving forward slowly and carefully, we reached a short corridor from which six doors opened. And the rooms are teeming with goblins. Obviously. Thankfully the wretched beasts took no note of our arrival, but that could change any minute.

“Jim, start closing the doors”, I whispered, and the tiefling nodded. There were tables and chairs in the middle of the corridor. If I can barricade a few doors before the goblins realise what's happening, we won't have to fight with all of them at once. It wasn't a good plan, but I did not have a better one. As Jim closed the first door with his spell, I rushed there, and threw two tables to block the doorway. Sadly, the goblins were fast to react this time, poured out of the rooms, and saw me. The door I blocked flew open - so much for my plan - pushed by three goblins, and suddenly I was surrounded by the small beasts, their daggers searching for the weak points in my armour. Erky was pouring fire at them with one of his lesser spells, while Beldrak used one of his more formidable ones to clear away three enemies at once. Jim stopped closing doors and came to my help with his halberd.

If I had my old chainmail on, I would have died, but this heavier armour protected me well. In retrospect, it was also a mistake on the goblins' side that they did not attack Beldrak, because the wizard was using his more potent spells without restraint. The fight took only a blurred, bloody minute, and in the end we were still standing, while the floor was littered with charred, maimed and mutilated goblin corpses.

I had multiple wounds, and better armour or not, I would have still bled out there if not for Erky, and his healing magic.

“You have lost a lot of blood”, he announced after closing my wounds. “And I barely have any healing power left. I suggest we end it here for today.”

“I am also tired” Beldrak cleaned his forehead from sweat.

“Let us take a short rest here”, suggested Jim. “We have to search these rooms anyway. Then we decide whether we should go further.”

First we checked how many of the six rooms were dead-ends: it seemed that only two had exits other than the corridor whence we came from. We blocked both of these doorways, more carefully this time, then saw to search all rooms methodically.

We amassed some silver, found some goblin supplies, but our most exciting finding was a giant rat strapped to a desk. It was suffering from some kind of illness or curse, according to Beldrak. In the same room, we found three potions, and now I found out what Beldrak needed a pearl for. He bought one during one of our visits in Oakhurst, and he placed it on the table next to the potions. He also took out a feather. He closed his eyes, put one of his hands on a vial, the other one on the pearl and the feather, and started chanting. He continued that for a long time, then opened his eyes, and announced that the potion would be of use, if we wanted to cleanse the blood of a man from lesser poisons. Then he started the same process with another potion, but as I was not interested enough to watch him repeat the whole procedure, I laid down on a bedroll instead.

After half an hour or so, Beldrak came out of the room too.

“Another poison antidote, and the third potion causes the illness which we can observe on the giant rat.”

A chill came over me. That rat was in a detestable condition, green ulcers coated its body, and it was whimpering from pain.

“Put the wee critter out of its misery, will you?”

“Why not.”

“Then break the potion, find the bastard who made it, and kill him too.”

“I won't break something we can learn from, and with the killing, I might require some assistance.”

“Well then, I suppose I should get up.”

“If you want to go further today...”

My legs ached, my arms ached, my whole damn body ached, and I was looking forward to the moment when I can take off my new and uncomfortably heavy armour at last. But we had to press on. The two Hucreles were somewhere in this maze, and with every passing moment, we had less chance to find them alive.

“Just one more door”, I said. “After that, we can all go up the well, go back to our room, and drink some of that nice ale you found in the goblin store-room.”

“One more door” agreed Beldrak.

We removed one of our makeshift barricades and opened the next door. Then the next one. Then the next one. We all wanted to go back, but we still forced ourselves forward, because somewhere, deep in the maze, the Hucrele siblings might have been tortured this very moment. We walked among underground gardens filled with pale, slimy mushrooms, caverns covered with luminous lichen, but there was still no sign of another prison cell.

“I suspect they ended up as fertiliser for the mushrooms”, said Jim gloomily.

“Or food for that bugbear”, sighed Beldrak.

“A bugbear? What is that?”

“The big bloody goblin we killed after we came down here. Honestly, I am surprised we haven't seen more of them yet, it's not like they...”

“There is one”, said Jim peeking through the barely opened next door. “It's doing some... gardening I guess?”

“Can you put it to sleep? Or paralyse it like the other one?” I asked Beldrak.

“Doubtful. I don't think I can cast the paralysing spell once more today, and my sleep spell might be too weak to take effect on a bugbear.”

“We will rush it then; there's no helping it”, I announced with more confidence than what I felt. “It has no proper weapon, does it?”

“He has an axe, but not in his hand”, answered Jim. “We will be on him before he realises what's happening.”

I went forward, rushed through a door, and charged at the giant goblin. Jim followed me closely. The beast looked at us in surprise, then bared its fangs, and screamed with hate and bloodlust. It danced away from my sword, so the thrust I intended for its belly only skewered an arm, but Jim was bringing his halberd up fast, and the point through the chest of the bugbear.

A human would have died, but this giant goblin was a tough bastard, and instead of collapsing and bleeding out, it sent me flying with a sweep of its hoe. But Jim was still standing, its face contorted in a snarl of murderous rage. It extricated its halberd, and lunged forward again, piercing the throat of the beast. At the same moment, Erky and Beldrak finished their spells, and a bolt of fire charred the head of the bugbear, while another flame flashed out of the earth under its legs.

I stood slowly, leaning on one of my javelins.

“I think...” I said grimacing with pain “I am done for today.”

I was wrong, of course.

 

We gave up finding the Hucrele siblings that day, but after we were up on the level now inhabited solely by the kobolds, Beldrak had a great idea. Or at least he thought it was great.

“Erky, you can still turn the undead right? I mean you get that power directly from Adaron, it doesn't matter how tired you are, yes?”

“I get all my power from Adaron” answered Erky in a sanctimonious tone. “But I can perform the rite of turning the undead, no matter how many other spells I use a day.”

“Splendid! Then how about we visit the grave where we have seen the whistle, and...”

“I think this is a terrible idea”, said Erky.

“Come on!” shouted Beldrak wantonly, his behaviour in direct opposition of his usual demeanour.

Jim shrugged. “If you can still turn the guards of the grave, I don't see why we shouldn't go.”

“Give me an hour”, I said. “We can go after I have got some rest.”

 

Outside the citadel, it was already well into the night, but here there was no difference, my lantern was just as light as in the middle of the day. If this drags on much longer, I will lose my sense of time; I sighed to myself.

“Everyone ready?” asked Beldrak cheerfully. “Then let us see what kind of whistle is that!”

The trap which was protecting the entry of the grave became inert after Erky cast Turn Undead at the door first time. Now again, we were able to open the door without difficulty, and nodded one by one to the suspenseful Beldrak. He nodded back with satisfaction, then cast one of his lesser spells, and the whistle on the altar started to rise into the air.

Then the graves opened, and five moving skeleton emerged. I was prepared for the sight, and used to the peculiarities of this world, so I felt more disgust than fear, but it was still chilling to see the leer grin of the naked skulls as they turned towards us. Beldrak has lost sight of the whistle, and was now chanting in an annoyed voice, while Jim and I hurled two javelins into the dead. Not that we expected to do much damage with them.

The wizard and Erky finished their spells at the same time, and one of the skeletons was scorched, then turned its back towards us, and with two of its companions fled as far from Erky as they could.

The problem was that the two remaining skeletons seemed not to care about Erky at all, and attacked us without restraint...

I remembered Beldrak's advice, so I used my mace instead of my sword this time, and even in my pitiful state, I was able to fend off a skeleton's attack. Meanwhile Beldrak was frantically chanting behind me to ready a new spell, and Jim was hacking away with his usual efficiency. The fight was going well.

Then, my attention lapsed, and a skeleton stabbed me through the arm-hole.

I probably used up all the fear and pain I could feel that day, because I was filled only with mild annoyance towards the unreasonableness of the world. Then I slowly slumped against the wall, and lost consciousness.

After Beldrak torched the two skeletons not affected by Erky's spell, Jim crushed the other three with Beldrak's great hammer. Then Beldrak determined the nature of the three magical objects. The candle turned out to be a candle that would never burn down, the potion would shield its consumer from fire for a while, and the whistle would control one or two undead like the ones which guarded the crypt.

While all this was determined and explained to us, Erky tended to me. He closed my wounds again, then helped me to walk over to our room, where I finally took off my armour. I had neither the resolve nor enough clean sand to rinse the mail thoroughly, so I just scrubbed off most of the blood with a rag, then went to sleep.

 

Jim's shouting awoke me.

“I have broken down the door!”

“Good for you”, I growled. “Now let me sleep.”

“What door?” asked Beldrak.

“The one on the southern corridor.”

“And what was behind?”

“Some kind of steam machine, and a lot of tubes carrying hot water.”

Rousing me in the middle of the night with no good reason, and talking nonsense? When I am done with the kobolds and the goblins, you will be the next, Jim.

“Can we talk about it tomorrow?”

Beldrak was already dressed.

“Out of question. If this thing supplies the gardens down with water, we have to break it now!”

“Good luck then”, I growled, and turned towards the wall.

“You are coming too”, said Beldrak, and pulled me off my bedroll. “Get dressed son; we have some work to do!”

While we were walking towards the place, I amused myself with imagining how will I betray my companions, and torture them to death. Beldrak even insisted that I don armour. I told him to go fuck himself, but he still insisted, my head hurt, so I put on my old chainmail to shut him up. I kept the armour, since I still hoped to find Talgen Hucrele alive, and now I was simply glad to take the slightly less uncomfortable option.

Meanwhile Jim and Beldrak were blabbering about the right way to break steam-machines. What the fuck is even a steam-machine?

“That's it” gestured Jim theatrically towards a broken-down door.

“Truly, you are a master of breaking doors”, I growled. “Now break the other bloody thing you wanted to break, and let me go back to sleep.”

We stepped into the small room, and saw a big barrel with a lid on top of it. There was a whistling sound coming from the barrel and the tubes connected to it.

“What do you think? Should I open it?”

“Yes, open it.”

Jim could not open the lid alone; it was sticking. I stepped forward to help him, then the lid popped open, and a blue and a pink creature leapt out of the barrel. The pink looked at me, shrieked, and puffed out a cloud of burning hot steam. I was screaming from the pain, Jim was screaming too, and Beldrak shouted incomprehensible orders, while Erky was quietly whimpering in the background.

“You damned little...” cried Jim, and leapt into the air. It was a mighty leap, and as he fell back down, the blue creature was thrashing in the tight embrace of Jim's arms. “Get the other one, Arnold!” the tiefling shouted.

I tried, and bashed my head into the wall. For a moment I have seen stars, then I was screaming again, as the pink creature attacked me, and burned the back of my neck.

“Go away!” I shouted. “You dumb critter, you are free, that's what you wanted!”

I got another burn thanks to my diplomatic approach, this time on my hand. In the meantime, Jim put the blue creature back into the barrel. He pressed the lid down with one hand, while flailing with the other at the pink one. Not very surprisingly, he got burned too.

Then, the pink creature decided that we were not worthy foes, and to my considerable relief, floated out of the room, and started to pester Erky Timbers. The little man whimpered, tried to run away, then screamed in agony as Beldrak's spell nailed the flying little bastard, and it exploded into a giant cloud of burning hot steam.

“Open the barrel, and let's kill the other one as well!” I was in a particularly bloodthirsty mood now.

“No need”, said Beldrak. “Close it down well, then we repair the door, build a fire in the room, and it will die from the heat. It's an ice-elemental or something similar.”

I was not thrilled at the idea that I get to practice my skills in carpentry at this late hour, but thankfully Beldrak had a lesser spell, that could repair simpler objects like doors. He only had to use it ten or twenty times, and the door was back again at its former glory. Then we built a pyre next to the barrel and gleefully set it on fire.

“You know”, I said thoughtfully. “That was the most unnecessary fight we have got ourselves into since we arrived in this accursed fortress.”

“True”, said Jim ruefully.

“Next time though”, I set forth, “when you come up with an interesting idea for a night-escapade?”

“Yes?”

“Leave me out of it”, I growled. Then I went to sleep.

***

Author's note