Chapter 129

Chapter 129

Chapter 129

“Alright, we’ll come up with a name for our new city after you cull the opposition. Remember not to just butcher anything in sight, I mean that, and catch you later.” The call with Allie ended, and he deposited the black communication bauble in his bag of holding. Riven thumbed through the pages of one of the large books he’d taken off the dwarves, walking behind Snagger down the underdark tunnels with a gleeful grin and gave Athela a loving pat on the head. “You play fetch nicely! Who’s da good dawg!”

*SMACK*

“OW!”

“I’m NOT a dog! I’m a princess. Hmph!”

Riven imbued a command. “Bark for me.”

“WOOF! Hey!”

“Sucker.”

Athela pouted and folded her arms over her chest. “Not fair!”

“What’s not?”

“Don’t use my contract like that! I feel violated.”

“You signed up for it, girlfriend!”

Riven gave her a wide teasing grin and then stuck his tongue out while pulling his cheeks apart, crossing his eyes and making a stupid face. She tried to hide her amusement under an eyeroll and a quick twist of her hips - walking further ahead with her long black hair swaying behind her while pretending to act disgusted.

“Ugh. You humans are immature.”

“Vampire, not human.” Riven cackled to himself and went back to looking over the notes scribbled into the text. It was one of many items Athela had scrounged up, and it wasn’t anything magical but it was a condensed list of valuable ores and where to find them via instructions and maps drawn out on the parchment. It contained all the information the dwarves had accumulated so far in their scouting missions for this particular group Riven had killed, and it looked like they’d spent weeks at a minimum jotting it all down. They even had Snagger’s nest listed as a potential zone for ‘extermination’.

Mesha the white-furred ratkin rogue was not far off further down the tunnels, occasionally giving the book Riven was holding inquisitive stares, but she’d always turn away when she saw Riven’s eyes dart over to her. He caught on pretty fast though and intentionally caught her in the act mid-stare a few minutes later while hopping over a small cave pool.

“Interested in the contents?”

Riven snapped the book shut and casually tossed it over to the ratkin female, smiling to himself as she hastily nodded with a light squeak of appreciation and then began to thumb through the pages herself.

The footsteps of their party, namely Azmoth, echoed across stone walls as the path narrowed and spilt off into four different directions within a small cave and crossroads. Snagger took them left, and they began to descend deeper into the underdark after a spiral loop. These were likely once huge lava tunnels, no doubt, a vast and intricate network of them. That they were intricate only became more apparent the further they walked, and they soon found themselves on one of the most curious trips Riven had ever been on before.

Some of the caverns they passed through were many miles high and even many more miles wide, leading to large ecosystems of cave-dwelling creatures like various species of bats, huge black or purple snakes, glowing green mushrooms the size of trees and moss clumps that created literal hills. Neon-teal grass, fungi and molds were seen in abundance, creating forests that were rampant with tiny rodents, brilliantly colored salamanders, ants the size of small dogs, and other insects of various types. Pools of crystal clear water with bioluminescent or pale white shrimp could be seen feeding on plant algae, with larger, blind, squid-like creatures even further in the darker recesses of the lakes or basking on the shores underneath the canopy of glowing mushrooms. They got attacked twice, once by a large spider-like creature that Athela actually spoke to and sent away without anything more than an initial scuffle - much to Riven’s amazement, and a small group of chitinous giant centipedes. The orange armored centipedes here each weighed a couple hundred pounds, but Riven annihilated them easily enough with a few spells. He didn’t even break a sweat in the attempt. Otherwise Snagger and his cousin Mesha did a good job of keeping everyone out of the dangerous areas and away from conflict.

“It’s very pretty.” Riven muttered under his breath while they marched along the outer edge of one of these caverns, looking down at a large pit where a flock of brilliant pink cave birds were bathing at a central lake.

Snagger approvingly smiled back at him, still gingerly clutching the armpit that’d been stitched back together by Athela with one gauntleted hand. “We are close-near to the brood! Wait-stop until you see-view our nest-city! It is much-very nice-pretty as well-well!”

“So I could just go over and murder a ‘low-kin’ person and not have anything happen to me?”

“Only if you are-be high-kin. You are not rat-kin, so does-is not applied to you-you. If I-we want to fight-kill low-kin, we can attempt-try, but they can fight-kill us back and take-obtain our mark-brand.”

“Kinda fucked up.” Riven frowned while crossing his arms disapprovingly.

Mesha snorted in amusement, sidestepping a larger ratkin carrying a steel pole into one of the tunnels nearby. “We overpopulate-breed fast, it makes us-we strong-fit for survivors. But with beard-men dwarf-fighters attacking-warring us, queen-kin has told us-we to try and hold off customs-traditions to save our numbers-kin for war.”

Riven felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see Snagger looking down at him rather hesitantly.

“Is it alright-ok if we take-show you to the brood-mother? Want to know many thing-happenings of top-surface, of new world ally-friends and fighter-enemies.”

Riven’s eyebrows raised. “Like, the queen of your city?”

The larger ratman rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck with a toothy grin that looked a little weird coming from a humanoid rat, but nevertheless it was obviously friendly. “No! We take-show information on world-planet to brood-mother, Mesha and I’s brood-mother, head of family-nest - not city-nest. It is our brood-nest. Queen-mother look-seeks for new friend-allies and information, but not important enough for us-we to get audience. That why we take-show to brood-nest instead of city-nest.”

There was a long pause as he considered this.

“Huh. Sure thing, that’s fine with me. Not sure if I’ll be any real help but I’ll answer what I can and what I know.”

That was more than enough for Snagger, and he along with Mesha led the way while beckoning Riven and his two demonic familiars to follow.

Mesha and Snagger eventually led them to a checkpoint along the city’s inner perimeter where the crowds started to thin and things became more organized. A wall had been erected here, encircling one of many larger compounds that sometimes had two or three mounds apiece. This particular mound was singular, but nevertheless was heavily guarded and much larger than many of the other mounds in the area.

Guards outfitted in leathers similar to Snagger’s own from a stone tower overlooking a path called back and forth with the duo, holding crossbows and asking about Riven and the demonic servants, but neither the guards nor any of the other ratkin passing them by seemed to mind that Riven was a vampire. Nor did they seem to care that he had demons with him either. The most that continued to happen were a few curious glances, but none of them were hostile and Riven even got a few open smiles. This only confirmed what Snagger had originally told him about the underdark, that ratkin here were used to vampires from their old world - and it was rather encouraging after the absolute looks of horror or hate from elves and humans he’d received on the surface.

After the checkpoint was over with and Snagger told the guards of the dwarven scouting party that’d attacked them, he proceeded to explain he was bringing in outsiders to see their brood-mother. The guards let them pass without much issue, knowing Snagger and Mesha already, and their group entered the compound to travel into the mound with minimal incident after that.

However, one of the guards hopped down a ladder and rushed off to tell the military of the dwarves’ presence. According to Mesha, the dwarves had been encroaching on their territories but had never ventured that close to the city yet.

“The dwarves grow fierce-aggressive.” Mesha commented when they entered the mound through a large cave entrance, entering a bustling rat-made cave network of merchants, food carts, and ramshackle buildings of various makes. “They kill-butcher us-we, take our goods-things, want our city-spawn.”

Riven had overheard Snagger and his cousin Mesha talk about the dwarves in brief snippets along their travels, but still had little to go on and wanted to clarify a few things. “So why are your people at war with this group of dwarves?”

Mesha nodded and squeaked loudly at a bunch of young whippersnappers that chittered and laughed while playfully racing underneath Snagger’s legs. “Yes-yes, the dwarf-wretches kill us, attack us-we, take our shiny things because they want-need our land-things. They hunt-kill us and leave message-threats telling us-we to leave. The queen-mother and many brood-mothers have led battles against dwarf-wretches, we win-attack and lose-attack both. We try to make peace-sign with dwarf-wretches, but they say no-refuse.”

Huh.

Riven didn’t know Mesh or Snagger very well, but based solely on how the dwarves had tried to ambush Riven and the rest of them he couldn’t help but be a little biased against the dwarves now. He shook his head. To think he’d have met dwarves, elves, orcs, demons, and even ratkin since leaving Earth only about two months ago? It was all very surreal. That being said he was very excited to explore this underground sanctuary of civilization, and was pretty sure he was the first person from Earth to get a good look at any rat-kin city since the worlds had merged.

To go where no man has gone before!