Jackal Among Snakes: Book 2, A GameLit Fantasy, page 14
“Don’t joke about that,” Anneliese said angrily.
Argrave was taken aback by her sharp gaze. “Uh… okay, yeah,” he agreed, nodding awkwardly.
Her amber eyes turned away.
“I believe this is the place you spoke of.” Galamon pointed, ignorant or uncaring of their exchange.
Following Galamon’s finger, Argrave’s gaze found its way down a small, overgrown gorge. A tiny stream moved down into it, mostly obscured by tall blades of grass barely graying in light of winter’s beginning. At the very end, Argrave faintly made out a carved stone structure.
“Indeed. This is it,” Argrave agreed, moving his horse forward slightly. It seemed uncomfortable at the prospect of going deeper—perhaps because it could sense what lay behind those walls, or perhaps simply because the entrance to the gorge was too steep. “Thorngorge Citadel.”
“We should tie up the horses,” Galamon contributed, alighting from his mount. He grabbed it by the reins and looked about for a place to tie it up.
Most of the area around them was plains without a single tree in sight. In the distance, one could see the gargantuan towers of Jast standing against the sky, casting great shadows across the plains. Beyond it, Argrave could faintly make out a single white tower ascending out of the middle of a ringfort.
Argrave touched Anneliese’s shoulder. “Hey. See that? That white tower?”
She turned, looking out across the landscape. Slowly, she nodded.
“I used to own that. Foamspire, it’s called. Sold it for all those rose-gold magic coins.” Argrave kept his eyes on the white tower in the distance. It looked small, but it probably towered fifty feet in the air. “It was built atop a sea arch. Arches form on leading-edge shorelines. This is simplifying things a great deal, but…”
Argrave tried to create the image with his hands. “The waves hit a piece of land jutting out into the water and refract, and gradually, the center wears out, creating an arch in the sea. Over time, the whole thing falls into the ocean.” Argrave snapped, but no sound came out because he was wearing gloves. “That’s why I sold it. In a few months, it’s going to fall into the ocean.”
“A good sale, all things considered,” Anneliese commented.
“I might’ve got more if I sold it elsewhere, but we wouldn’t have any money now. Someone had the misfortune to purchase it from me.” Argrave nodded, then said grimly, “Let’s hope whoever purchased it isn’t planning to stay there anytime soon.”
Eventually, their party found a fairly decent place to tie up the horses so that the animals would not be disturbed by either people or the elements. They descended down into the gorge, mindful not to trip over the graying winter grass at their feet.
“Before we enter…” Argrave called out as they grew near the stone door. “Some things to keep in mind. There are some creatures within that don’t have arms—they’re just heads, and they’re immobile. It may be tempting to kill them, but don’t. You’ll attract the attention of some rather nasty things called Dire Eyes. They’re spiritual beings, meaning they attack the soul. Only magic affects them.”
Galamon turned around, a deep frown disturbing his face.
“As for the other ones—if they grab your weapon, Galamon, don’t try to pull it free. Just drop it. This probably won’t happen to you as you’re an experienced warrior, but just in case. Mostly, I think you’ll be using your bow.” Argrave looked about. “Anneliese, you should use the C-rank spell [Ice Spear]. It should kill most things within instantly. I will do the same—it’s why I learned that spell, you see. Always aim for the eyes. They’re very big and very vulnerable.”
“What in Veid’s name is in this place?” questioned Galamon. “You did not seem worried that I would not be wearing my armor, but the things you describe sound dangerous. What are they?”
“Abominations. There’s no better way to put it.” Argrave stepped past and approached the stone door. “The Order of the Rose fell because their members practiced necromancy without discretion. They’re the largest reason necromancy is illegal in the Order of the Gray Owl.” Argrave rapped his knuckles on the stone door. “Beyond these doors, we’ll find necromantic nightmares and horrors sculpted of flesh.”
“This is what you meant by ‘a brief foray’?” Anneliese stepped forward, pulling her long white hair aside and placing her ear to the stone door. “You showed more fear at the Cavern of the Lily’s Death. Am I to take it this place is less dangerous?”
“Largely speaking, these things are quite impotent. Strange anatomies are not conducive to effective displays of strength.” Argrave watched Anneliese as she tried to hear beyond the stone without much success. “Just have to watch the ceilings, make sure the other denizens don’t sneak up on us. That’s what Galamon is for.”
Anneliese lifted her head from the side of the door and looked at Galamon. She quickly reached back and bound her hair in a simple braid. Argrave was impressed at her speed. In perhaps ten seconds, the large mass of white hair descending to her knees was tied back in a ponytail.
“Perhaps next time we may choose a place that is not a dark, dank underground cavern. I am well tired of crouching through narrow places and banging my knees against rocks,” she said with little enthusiasm.
Argrave considered her statement, hand on his chin. “That’s unfortunate. Long-term, I believe there’s to be quite a lot of this.” Argrave looked to the door, head tilted. “On the bright side, I don’t think this place is cramped. There’s plenty of room. Plenty of space for things to hide, too.”
Galamon drew his broadsword, the steel rattling as it came free of its scabbard. He pointed towards the door. “Anything else you wish to share?”
“Hmm… just follow my directions, I suppose. As ever, you’ll take the front.”
“Right,” Galamon muttered. “As ever.”
He walked to the door. It was circular and simple. The years had cracked it, though not enough to let any light through. Galamon placed his hand on its side and pushed. It creaked, grinding against the floor, and then pushed open slowly, grating horribly.
Once it was open, Galamon stood there gazing inside. “Looks to be clear. It smells of blood, but it’s… wrong. Rotten. Debased. Defiled by magic.”
His gaze slowly lifted up. Something dropped down, and Galamon immediately thrust his sword up at it. Whatever was falling stopped, and blood started to drip down Galamon’s blade.
A creature mostly still hidden in darkness narrowly stopped itself from being impaled, two of its many hands grasping the center of the blade. Galamon stared up at it, and Argrave prepared a spell to dispatch it. It started to move, and Galamon heeded Argrave’s words, tossing both the creature and the blade away. Both tumbled, sliding, and then landed just where the sunlight fell into the ruin.
The creature’s body was only a head. This head could not be any smaller than Argrave’s torso. It was bald and veins bulged from its forehead as though enraged. Its neck extended down and branched off into eight arms. The arms lacked joints—its fingers had no knuckles, the forearm had no elbow. It was like a twisted mockery of a man and an octopus. Dazed, it took a moment to settle itself, and then it looked around.
Argrave met its eyes. They were an absolute black with two golden rings for irises, as though someone had poured molten gold into dual abysses. Its nose and ears had been cut off. From the still bleeding orifices, child-like hands emerged and pulled at its eyelids, keeping those dread eyes exposed and bloodshot. Its mouth had been sewn shut, but its sharp teeth pierced its flesh and left wounds from which harsh, uneven breathing came.
Anneliese took a step back, and Galamon readied himself. The creature shifted about, dragging its arms against the ground. As it made to move, a spear of ice hurtled forth soundlessly, taking it in the eye. It slid back a few feet from the impact, slamming into a wall. Argrave stepped forward, hand still outstretched after casting the magic.
“Scary bastard,” Argrave commented, coming to a cautious stop. “There aren’t too many of those in there, but those will be our main opponent. It’s why we watch the ceilings in Thorngorge Citadel.”
Anneliese let out a sigh of relief, and Galamon stepped forward and retrieved his blade, cleaning it of blood on his pants. He peered out into the hallway beyond.
“No use standing around,” Argrave said cheerily. “You first, Galamon. As ever.”
Chapter 18
Argrave’s hand came alive with a spell matrix and a small ball of flame jumped up into the air above his head, illuminating the stone passage ahead. Thorngorge Citadel was distinct from the previous places they had explored. The tomb of metal guardians had been wide and spacious, the ruins hidden within the Cavern of the Lily’s Death had been meticulously carved, but the Citadel was surpassingly simple in design.
A straight cube-shaped hallway stretched ahead. Every so often, iron bars blocked the path. They had been broken, seemingly ripped apart, and the years had rusted them to uselessness. Some of the breaks left sharp points exposed. Argrave could see dried blood on the floor and near the sharp parts—evidently, the creatures roaming the citadel had cut themselves on the exposed metal.
Galamon stepped forward past Argrave, advancing first as he had been directed. Argrave could see his head moving about, scanning each bit of the hallway before proceeding. When they came to the first set of iron bars, Anneliese paused and peered at where they met the walls.
“These bars… they can’t open, nor can they slide out of the way,” she noted. “You called this place a citadel? Why are these bars like this?”
Argrave had been expecting that she would ask some questions and had an answer prepared. “It’s a mage’s citadel. The Order of the Rose had mastery in earth elemental magic. This entire place was built with magic alone. Supposedly, they could build one of these citadels in a day, provided they had enough capable spellcasters. Their mastery was great enough to manipulate even metal.”
“I see,” she muttered, her curiosity sated somewhat.
Galamon took his bow off his back and took an arrow from his quiver. Argrave and Anneliese paused, and in the silence, the faint sound of choked breathing could be heard.
“Be sure it’s not just a head,” Argrave cautioned. “Like I said, we don’t want to get the attention of the Dire Eyes.”
Galamon’s white eyes fixed on Argrave briefly, and he nocked an arrow. “I am capable of remembering things you say. You seem to forget this often.”
“I just don’t want any—”
The bow twanged, and a black blur vanished into darkness. A rather unpleasant noise sounded out ahead, and Galamon walked forth. Argrave could only shake his head and follow along. When they finally reached what the arrow had hit, Argrave saw one of the eight-armed head creatures with an arrow sticking right out of its black eye. Its arms spasmed a few times, fingers clenching, and then it grew still.
Galamon put his foot on its forehead and pulled the arrow out. Argrave stepped back so that none of its viscera would land on his shoes. Galamon cleaned the arrow and then proceeded onwards. The hallway began to slope down ahead of them, but Argrave’s steps were confident. Galamon glanced back at him, brows furrowed.
“What?” asked Argrave.
Galamon shook his head, and then proceeded. The hallway levelled out again, and ahead of them finally opened up into a room. Galamon stopped Argrave with his arm, staring into the darkness beyond.
“I see one of those… heads… that you mentioned,” he said.
Argrave pushed his arm away and replied, “Then you know what not to do.”
Galamon nodded, entering the room. Argrave entered after him. The light of his spell illuminated some stone bedframes. The mattresses within had rotted away to nothing. When the light of the spell fell upon a head on a spike, sound filled the room, and both Anneliese and Galamon jumped.
The creature—a human-like head with a snout and a black nose—sounded like a Tasmanian devil with its rattling, dry growl interspersed with snorting. The sound echoed against the stone walls, filling the place with sound. Such a thing might’ve worried Argrave, but he knew most of the creatures in this place were deaf. The few that could hear were incapable of coming to the upper levels.
Argrave retrieved a decaying and decrepit canvas blanket and draped it over the head, and the sound faded somewhat. He turned back to his two elven companions.
“Noisy one, isn’t it?” Argrave spoke loudly above the din, wiping his gloves clean of the dust on the blanket. “This first level has the soldier’s dormitories. Here, the non-mages would sleep. Rather kind of the Order to place them at the entrance of the Citadel, no? First line of defense, first to die.”
Anneliese took uncertain steps forward, eyes locked on the head still growling. “Are you not uneasy?”
Argrave was perplexed. “Why? Something amiss?”
“You are eerily calm,” Anneliese said. “These things…” She trailed off. “Why do they not bother you?”
Argrave frowned, turning his head back to the still-screaming head. Anneliese wasn’t wrong. These things probably should make him uneasy. That said, of every dungeon type in Heroes of Berendar, abandoned citadels constructed by the Order of the Rose were likely the most common. They were largely uniform in design, and the biggest risks were the traps, not the enemies. Moreover, the player could summon each and every one of the creatures within these walls if they studied necromancy.
“Fear comes from uncertainty… the unknown,” Argrave said slowly, speaking only as the answer came to him. He knew Thorngorge Citadel like the back of his hand. After all, [Electric Eel] was one of his favorite attack spells, and this was one of the easiest places to get it. He had seen these creatures a thousand times before; their unusual appearances did not bother him even if they were far more realistic than he was used to.
“I know what lurks in here. We’re more than capable of confronting anything within. What’s there to be fearful of?” Argrave concluded, thumping the screaming creature’s forehead. Anneliese stared at it as it growled beneath the canvas. She blinked a few times, then took a deep breath, nodding.
“Right. I envy that knowledge,” she admitted freely.
Argrave snorted, and then made to proceed. Opposite the hallway they had entered from, another identical one sloped gently downward. It proceeded onward for a short bit, and then opened up into a curved hallway going left and right. Argrave knew from past experiences that these two paths formed a ring containing many other dormitories along the way.
In the silence following their pause, Argrave heard a faint noise. After it repeated, he recognized it as a whisper. On the inner wall of the hallway, there was an empty space acting as a window into the portion beyond. Anneliese walked past him, leaning down and gazing into it. Argrave followed after her, staring out just as she did.
The inside was hollow and descended for a long way. One could see the other levels of the citadel, each with an opening identical to the one they looked out of. The source of the whispers dominated most of their vision, though. Branches of bone extended upwards from the ground far below. At points, what looked like white roses bloomed. Argrave knew they were not.
The ‘white roses’ were humanoid faces. Each had been morphed into the shape of a rose, twisted and bent unnaturally like some terrifying modern art given life. Their black-and-gold eyes were beautiful and decidedly feminine, and each blink was exaggerated by large lashes. Their mouths would open at times and whisper haunting phrases that Argrave was well familiar with: calls for help, calls for death, questions of where and what they were. Even when expecting this, Argrave could not help but shudder.
He spotted movement in the corner of his eyes and noticed that Anneliese was shaking. He grabbed her shoulder, and she flinched slightly. “Take it easy. Those things can’t move. They’re one of the least dangerous things here.”
“Right. Right.” She nodded quickly as though trying to reassure herself. Argrave turned her away forcibly, leading her away from the inner wall. Galamon stared out beyond, expression passive as though he was unbothered.
She’s been to war before. I doubt that it’s the gore rattling her. There’s something else at play… That, or I underestimated the psychological impact this place might have, Argrave reflected. He bit his lips, thinking, and quickly made a decision. “Alright. Let’s hurry this up. Galamon, this way,” he directed, placing Anneliese on the side opposite the inner wall and hurrying Galamon along with a wave of his hand.
Their progress was much faster than it had been before, but Galamon still maintained a cautious pace, pausing only to dispatch some of the eight-armed creatures lurking on the walls or ceilings. The Tasmanian devil-like screams of the disembodied heads filled the halls, setting the mood tenser yet. They wound around the ring, heading to where Argrave knew the main stairwell would be.
Fortunately, unlike in the ruins nested within the Lily Lurker’s cavern, the stairs were not placed far from each other. The main stairwell descended all the way to the bottom, spiraling down steadily. Anneliese was quite reticent during this time, focused more on the path ahead of her than the things around her. Argrave could not deny he felt some worry, but he tried not to distract himself from the matter at hand.
On the second to last floor, Argrave led them off the stairwell. Bits of the bone and flesh plant in the central room pierced the stone of this floor, some rose-faces exposed in the hallway. It was difficult to avoid their voices. Argrave made sure to proceed past them quickly, but sometimes they were directly above or beside the hallway, peering down and whispering.
After a good deal of walking, they came to a room that had a wooden door—an oddity, considering most other places were simply empty doorways. Argrave stopped Galamon.
“This is the place—the commander’s quarters. There’s a great hulking creature within. It’s rather unobservant, but it’s quite powerful. If you shoot one of its legs, it should be largely immobilized and easily dispatched. Each leg is about yea big.” Argrave demonstrated, creating a width about the size of a basketball. “I trust you can shoot that?”
