Chapter Seventy-six

Chapter Seventy-six

It didn’t take long to get to the entrance trapped under the tree, just like Cindy had said. With some careful maneuvering and a little bit of time, they were able to get the tree growing halfway over the opening out of the way without dropping the large tree on top of them.

“This would have been easier with Leaf,” Claudia muttered as they finally started prying the door open.

“Yeah, but I only got that there was a tree on top,” Cindy muttered as the pair of them watched Kay and Stephen pull to the door open with a crowbar, “I didn’t know it’d be that damn big!”

Kay and Stephen finally wrenched open the dirt-encrusted door with a final yank. A piece of it actually snapped off as they flung it open.

Kay stepped back to give the other human man some room and stared down into the tunnel. Just like the other one, it was weirdly dark in front of him, even though the stairs were only a few feet in front of him; by the third step down, they disappeared into the gloom.

“I really hate this,” Stephen said.

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Claudia stepped forward and smacked him on the back. “Those weird undead aren’t the only things that like magical darkness.”

“Weird undead?” Kay asked, glancing back over his shoulder.

“No idea what they’re called, but we ran into some in a cave back during our adventuring days when it was just the two of us and Leaf. They weren’t smart enough to make their own magical darkness, but they managed to find an item that did it for them at some point, and they fought to the death to keep it.” She frowned, “Or re-death or whatever. I hate that discussion. Who cares what term you use if everyone knows what I mean?”

“They were horrible, and I hate anything that reminds me of them.” Stephen declared, “But once again, I will march on, my honor a shield before my weaknesses.” He dramatically lifted his nose up.

Everyone but Claudia stared at him blankly.

“Steve, I love you, but none of them get the joke. That’s probably the most inside joke we have out of all the inside jokes.”

“You got it. And stop calling me Steve.”

“Yeah, but I stopped thinking that one was funny like, three years ago.”

He shrugged and grinned. “Whatever.” He glanced over at Kay, “My sense of humor aside, I’ll be fine. I just hope there aren’t any of those weird undead. I was serious about that part.”

Kay looked down at the stairs, “I’m pretty sure it’ll mostly be Rittian cultists driven mad and forced into some form of servitude by some unknown terrible creature.”

Stephen nodded decisively, his short hair swaying slightly. “That I can deal with.” He marched down the steps, his shield held out in front of him.

Kay slowly turned to look at Claudia, who shrugged. “Me and Leaf like him.”

“I’m not really at the point of like or dislike yet,” Kay said slowly, “I just want to know what’s going on.”

She shrugged again, “He’s weird. Does what he wants and ignores everyone else’s opinions about him.”

“Why does he not like those specific undead so much?”

“They sprayed him with weird goop that smelled. His boyfriend at the time made him sleep outside for a couple months. Then they broke up.”

Kay stood there with his mouth open for a while, then shook his head. “I’ll save the backstory delve for later. Leya, you go next since you’re going to be doing a lot of sensing while we’re down there. Then Claudia, since she’s ranged, then me in the rear.”

She sighed, “Well damn. I know of a few things that might do something like that, whether it’s intentional or random, but nothing that’ll attract or make worshipers or followers, or need sacrifices for anything.”

“Great. I was hoping we could come up with some plans.”

“Smart, but we don’t have enough to know anything yet. Or it could be we’re running into something none of us has any experience with, which means we have to use the oldest plan known to any being.”

“What’s that?”

“Go with your instincts.” Stephen intoned seriously. “Sometimes, it’s all you can do.”

Leya slowly broke down the stone shell over the entrance to their little cave, and they cautiously moved out, looking for a path deeper into the tunnels, where something waited. Or just was, there wasn’t any reason for it to be expecting them. Or at least that was what Kay hoped.

Eventually, they ran into signs of Rittian presence.

“You’d think there’d be more of them or something,” Leya commented while they carefully inspected the remains of some kind of meal, with bits of bone chewed on by rat-like teeth. “Or at least we’d run into them when we came down here. Why did they only send one group upwards, with weak members?”

“I’ve been asking the same things,” Kay commented, “But I still don’t have any answers.”

“That’s one of the drawbacks of reacting instead of acting. We have to come down here and prevent whatever bad thing is going to happen,” Stephen told them, “We don’t have control of the timing, location, or a lot of other stuff, so we have to react to what’s happening instead of acting to be the thing happening. We lose a lot of ability to gather the information that way. It could be they pulled back after losing that scouting team. Could be there are less Rittians than we thought, and the real danger is the thing they’re awakening. Maybe there was some kind of tunnel collapse earlier, and a bunch of them died.”

“Less chatting, more moving.” Claudia poked his back, “You’re right, but we’re close enough to run into enemies, so be on guard.”

They crept forward, finding more and more signs of there being Rittians about, from food to abandoned scraps of clothing, and they eventually made their way into a large circular room with multiple tunnels leading out and away from them.

The sound of something large sniffing and snuffling made them all pause. They sneaked closer to the source of the noise and found a hole in the floor that led to another circular room of the same size just below them.

In the room under them was a small band of Rittians, all asleep on raggedy bedrolls and blankets. A few feet away from the pile of rat people was an actual rat. But it was the size of a large SUV.

It was also asleep, and they watched as it shifted around, its snore cutting off a moment before it sniffed at the air. It apparently didn’t detect them, as it went back to sleep seconds later.

“That might be a problem,” Claudia whispered.

“It’s just a giant rat.”

“Watch it breathe.”

Kay watched for a moment, waiting to see whatever Claudia was seeing that he wasn’t. A moment later, he got it. On the backs and sides of the creature, two giant teeth filled mouths opened and closed in time with the monster’s breaths. Massive tongues lolled inside the mouths, and it shifted around in its sleep.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“What is that?”

“Some fucked up monstrosity, that’s for sure. But now we know we’re headed in the right direction.”