(Chapter eighteen! I have a little something-something planned for around chapter twenty, but that all depends on how the next couple of chapters go. If I reach the point I want to, it’ll be fine. At the worst, I’ll just move it to chapter twenty-one or so. Anyway, I still have a Patreon, please support my stuff if you can, I’d really appreciate it! And thank you to all my lovely readers, I love seeing all your comments, and it always makes my day to see them!)

I stare at the Andromal captain, eyes wide, as she smiles. Asteria splutters a little, before she starts to smirk, her dark lips curving almost menacingly. “You’ve given this some thought, haven’t you, captain Brandia? Tell me, what’s to stop us from killing you right here and now?”

She snorts. “Puh-lease, if you wanted to, you could’ve done that already, regardless of if I was here or back at camp. My father and all his men combined couldn’t stand against an Argonaut. HE might not want to accept it, but you Argonauts are blessed by the gods. It’s the right thing to do, helping you.”

I reach out and touch Asteria’s elbow gently. “Astie, please don’t tease her, you look scary with that wicked smirk…” internally, I sigh with relief as she drops the ‘evil witch of Darkness’ shtick and starts behaving.

Turning to Captain Kael’Dornis-Galatea, I ask, “Are you sure about this? If you get hurt, we wouldn’t be able to apologise or heal you or anything. We’d just have to run, since I doubt your father would appreciate us using you as a hostage…”

She waves her hand dismissively. “It’s fine, I can keep the guys distracted with some fake injury or something. My priority is getting you past the gates and into that dungeon!”

I look at Asteria, and nod. “I… I think we should do it. We don’t have any other ideas, do we?” Asteria pauses, and then shakes her head. “No, we don’t… we can at least give it a shot. We’ll try not to hurt any of your men, but we can’t make any guarantees, okay? If we have no other choice, we’ll go for a knock-out if possible.”

The captain nods, smiling. “Thanks. I’ll do my best to keep you from being pursued for as long as I can. Let’s go, the sooner the better, before they miss me.”

She turns and starts heading back the way she came, Asteria in tow. I follow, unsure of where we’re going, but it isn’t long before the three of us enter the boundaries of the camp. Asteria reaches into thin air and pulls something out of her inventory pocket-dimension. It’s a katana, made of a strange yellow metal, sheathed in a sturdy black scabbard chased with silver and gold in unmistakeable lightning-themed filigree.

She smiles and tosses it to me. “Here, this is for you! Harvenhaight got it from a quest, but it’s not suitable for him. He said it’s an early birthday present, which he told me to give you now, since he can’t log in today. Sooooo, when is it?”

I blush, and admit, “Well, I’ll be 21 in a week or so…” and my chat explodes, followed by Asteria. “Ooooooh, so young! I’ll have to think of something I can give you as a present!” she purrs, teasingly.

 Anyway, I’m gonna help you level up so you can play with that shiny new toy. It looks like it’s an advanced-class weapon, or something! It’s a shame you can’t use it yet, but you’d look totes badass wielding this when you’re ready to!” 

I draw the katana, admiring the sheen of the dull yellow blade. It’s strangely blued, as well, a smoky tint glossing the metal. It looks a little different from any katana I’ve ever seen. It has a thicker, wider blade, and it feels awkward in my hand, as if it doesn’t WANT me to use it. Its explanation seems… less than helpful.

NAME: ???????

LEVEL: N/A

EQUIPPABLE BY: ???????, ??????

DESCRIPTION: This blade, from a strange land, is _________  ____ Eastern katana, made from _____. It has an innate affinity for _____, and its true power is revealed in the hands of a master swordsman, changing __________. The sword’s strength increases as it ______.

With a sigh of frustration, I slide the length of odd metal back into the sheath and tuck it away in my inventory for safekeeping, as my Alv partner hands me a long dagger. “This is a bit easier to handle in a hostage situation than your spear, cutie. I’ll do the talking; you just look menacingly adorable and hold that knife to the captain’s throat!”

Captain Brandia nods. “I’ll whisper directions to you, just make sure your shield is slung on your shoulders, that way they can’t shoot you in the back.” I pale and nod, slinging my Needleboar greatshield onto my back. I feel like a turtle!

We march into the military camp, Captain Kael’Dornis-Galatea right in front of me, one of her arms twisted round for me to grab, the dagger sheathed at my belt, unobtrusively. Asteria keeps an eye out, and I clear my throat, spotting a couple of familiar figures, the Lizzara and the Gnoll, who are currently engaged in a furious shouting-match with an elderly man in gleaming, decorated armour.

Asteria whistles, and Mur twitches his head around, before tugging Ulged’s tail. “Look-look!” the huge, furry axeman turns, his stereotypical hyena grin looking strained and fixed on. Asteria shouts, “Come with us, you two! We have a plan!”

The pair bound over, and the armoured man starts. “C  -Captain, what is the meaning of this? Why is that woman back inside the camp?! I ordered you to throw her out!” she winces, and, at her tap on my arm, Ii draw my blade and hold it to her throat as Asteria raises a hand and launches a massive pillar of flame into the sky. “LISTEN UP!” She yells.

“Your captain is our hostage! We’re going through into that dungeon, or she dies here and now! We resurrect, you WON’T! The first one to attempt a rescue will burn to ash! Is that clear?!”

Spluttering in outrage, the general raises a hand, about to signal to his me, as archers nock arrows and infantry troops draw their swords. Ulged and Mur encircle me, backs toward my sides, as I follow the captain’s murmured directions towards the sealed and guarded doors of the great dungeon, the Fallen House of Raskel. Slowly, slowly, I drag captain Brandia with me, my knife against her throat, a trickle of blood leaking from the gradually-forming cut.

“Very good. Keep it up, young lady.” She murmurs, and I whisper back an apology about the blood. Asteria waves her hands, and a wave of ice cracks across the ground, causing a couple of the bolder soldiers to hurriedly back up, their armour clanking like someone wearing  a magnetic leotard fell into a saucepan cupboard.

After what feels like an hour, but can only be a few minutes, our ‘hostage’ lets out a yelp, making it look like I’d dug the blade in deeper. A surge of infuriated shouting fills the air, and several more men and women begin storming towards us. Mur and Ulged move to intercept, a couple of bodies flying back with loud crashes, as the Andromal captain murmurs, “my breast pocket. The key to the doors is in there!”

Before I can even think of trying for the key, the massive hyenid whirls and sprints back towards us, his forehead glowing slightly. “Oout o’ tha waaay!” I drag Captain Brandia aside, as everyone pauses to stare, Mur perched on one soldier’s chest like a reptilian gargoyle. The gnoll’s hefty, clawed fists dig into the framework of one of the doors. Rearing his head back, he roars, almost howling with a rhythmic cackling sound, before he brings his skull into contact with the door with a noise like an ancient elephant dying of explosive flatulence. The door buckles, before creaking open. As he straightens, he bellows, in a roar like Hell itself

 “Get! Inside! Now!”

  Asteria slips in, followed by Mur, then Ulged. Brandia murmurs, “hit me, then push me as hard as you can, it’ll buy you some time if it looks like I’m unconscious.”

With a nervous gulp, I whip the blade away from her throat, then slam the pommel into the top of her head, between her horns. A fierce shove, and I watch in brief horror as she ragdolls, tumbling several times over, across the hard-packed dirt. I catch her wink, and mouth, “it’s all… up to you…” as she goes still. Ducking inside the bowed door, the mighty gnoll shoulders it closed, with Mur jamming a stout length of metal rod through the locking struts. Ulged snaps the bar off at the halfway point and twists it, then uses the other half to bar the door in a different spot.

“There’s next to nothing short of a wyvern or a siege-ram that’ll get through that in a hurry. ‘T willnae hold forever, though, so let’s get moving!” he mutters, and the four of us begin jogging deeper into the musty air of the dungeon entry-hall.

There are… bodies everywhere, as we move deeper through the dank, dimly-lit halls and corridors, flaming torches raised. Most are wearing rent and buckled armour, stained thickly with oxidized blood, that matches that worn by the soldiers outside, and a few are hideous, malformed grotesqueries, with metal gears and pistons gleaming rustily through pale, dead flesh and torn sinew. The weird, half-mechanised zombie-things don’t seem to carry weapons, though. Their forearms end in corroded, nicked blades, or three-headed spiked flails, or long, tarnished sets of claws like some ancient, regenerating superhero who called everybody ‘Bub’. It looks like this is where the majority of those squads of soldiers met their gruesome ends…

As we pick our way through the chill, dusty galleries of this silent mausoleum, the stillness stretches on ominously, broken only by the soft susurration of our footsteps, and a near-inaudible moan, the airstream pulling from behind us and making our torches gutter in the breeze as it continues its ceaseless lament. The barely-present…feel… of that querulous wail sets my teeth on edge. It sounds like lost souls, trapped for eternity and crying out for an end to their suffering.

The whole place gives off the atmosphere of somewhere long-abandoned… somewhere lifeless. Not quiet, or waiting for its former occupants to return, but a place where the very impression of life and warmth never existed. Ulged murmurs, “This place is deeeaaad….” His rumbling voice, even in a whisper, repeats back from all around, a dozen spectral echoes sighing the words, fading into the eerie hush.

Our first encounter with the evil dead came upon us swiftly, and, woe and tribulation, no-one had a chainsaw for a hand! A full bakers-dozen of shambling horrors lurched mechanically out of a side-passage and fell on us with guttural howls and shrieks of mindless rage, their corpselight eyes blazing. Mur’s tail blurred, the solid golden thagomizer whirling around to thunk meatily into the groin of the leading abomination, which staggered back, but otherwise seemed unaffected.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my chat switch from meme-ing ‘spooky scary skeletons’ to freaking out with written cries of sympathy for the reeling undead. It seems even the half-rotten ghoul didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.

Ulged’s great warhammer whistles as it tears into another, the entire left side from ribs to waist caving in with a sickening crunch, the gnoll wrenching the hammer’s great head from his target’s pulverized flank with a savage chuckle, his eyes feral.  I was about to head over before one shoved past him and raises a huge hooked blade over me. My spear is practically worthless in these somewhat cramped confines, so I grip the long dagger in my hand, wishing I’d bought a mace or shortsword back in Tillberry. If we made it through this, I’m totally going to rectify that oversight.

My shield is still usable, though, and I deflect the first terrifying swing, there’s plenty of force behind it, but no finesse or forethought. Ducking under the next hacking blow, I drive my knife into the corpse’s chest, the blade sinking deeper than I’d anticipated. However, as I tried to wrench my weapon out, Asteria hurled an icy bolt at it and sent it tumbling, the hilt of the dagger torn from my grasp, leaving me unarmed…