We examined the room, floor to ceiling, for anything else of interest but all we got was the strange words. I could see Venos was going to say something but remained quiet for the examination of the room, since there is no real loot that can be seen. Orkus was keeping watch for us, though his eyes glanced at some of the carvings on the walls, I couldn’t tell which since there are quite a few here. After awhile we regrouped and Venos finally seemed ready to give me a chewing out about all this.
“before you start yelling” I hold both of my hands up “the writing seems like it could be really useful for our case,”
There is a moment of silence before he sighs and speaks calmly. “Yes I noticed, but Ava you can’t let your guard down like that, we are already taking enough risks coming into here not knowing anything.”
I deflate a bit but nod to that, he is right, I let my curiosity get the better of me and it lead to an ambush, we won by the shear fact we are so experienced in working through dungeons. We did take a moment or two to take rubbings of the text to potentially look into for translation. After that and taking stock of any wounds, of which the only things that were hurt are my robes and my pride, we stack up at the door at the end of the room. This one was actually a pair of stone doors with a carving placed on it. It was of a blade and a scepter, the blade was facing down with a rose on the cross-guard and thorns on the hilt, it felt eerie to look at. The scepter on the other hand was far more comforting looking, with wings surrounding the orb and what looked like entwining snakes for the handle, it was facing upwards.
Venos pushed the door open slowly, his eyes far better for the dark then ours, he looked in and remained silent for a bit longer then what I would be comfortable with before turning to Orkus and I. “Two” he mouthed, before drawing his spear and holding it close to the head as Orkus and I prepare our own tools. He pushed through the door and stabbed quickly, a skeleton just on the other side of the door snapped slightly at the collar bone forcing it to stumble back. Orkus moves quick as a rouge throwing a dagger at the further one, though that doesn’t go very well in the end. Daggers at range aren’t good against these kinds of targets.
I quickly flick a hand, speaking softly and forcing the air at the end of my fingers to form into icicles. One launches into the closer one’s skull, though it doesn’t break though it does cause it to stutter slightly in its movements. The other one went clean into an eye socket and burst the skull with an icy scattershot out the back. Only as that one slowly fell down dead again did I notice the cold energy in the remaining eye socket, that could only mean 2 things, a necromancer, or spirits. Either are bad since it means the dungeon is far stronger then it was letting on. Venos quickly stabbed forward where the ice had stuck in, driving through the slowly melting ice into the already cracked skull.
The battle with the two skeletons is quick and efficient, when prepared it is no harder then a few solid hits, like buckling a belt in the morning. We move quickly but keep our eyes open and hands ready to fling magic or weapons at a moments notice. But as we move things remain quiet. It is very quiet, but I can feel the hairs along my body begin to rise in the tension, amplified by the small agitated flicks of Venos’s tale. The halls slowly grow from the well made but admittedly rough halls to a more clean and decorated. Along the walls I could see the feint beginning of leaves, trees, flowers, things of life among the home of the dead. It is beautiful in its own way even but also unsettling since it was unclear if these decoration was simply from when this place was built, or if the dungeon added it.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I couldn’t help but run my hands along the wall and feel the indentations of the carvings, it felt comforting despite the location as we moved. We moved along these tunnels for a few more minutes the quiet tension hitting a peak as we spot an open archway. The three of us quietly enter in, glancing around, the room is rather large, 30ft in every direction with small carvings throughout the room. The scene they showed was of a beautiful landscape giving way slowly but surly to the progress of people. Where we entered was the carving of a large tree, the roots marked on the ground and made steps feel uneasy. To the opposite a pair of double doors, they where almost average compared to the castle wall they are inlaid into.
We are all slightly distracted by the majesty of it for such a strange place, but not nearly enough to not notice the sound of something moving on the ceiling. All our eyes dart up to the source of the sound and we strain to see what it is that made the noise. After a few seconds we get an answer as a creature falls from the ceiling in a mass of stone and rubble. We stand at the ready for it to do something, anything. The stones begin to rumble and form together and we all move into a standard grouping, Venos at the front, spear and shield at the ready, and Orkus finally able to use his bow.
The stones shift and form together into a four legged…….thing. It stands on spike like limbs that clack as it adjusts where it is standing, the legs are segmented and grind together with every movement. It all attaches to a body made of several blocks of stone surrounding a smooth orb that seems to glow slightly. There is a standoff between the three of us and the creature as it finally settles into its form fully, before it reaches forward and stabs into the ground, approaching us with hesitant steps. If I didn’t know better I would say it looked uncomfortable in its form, but well, it is likely just examining our responses to how it acted.
We moved quietly circling it, waiting for it to make the first strike, all the while I was quietly weaving energy into a blast of ice for when we get the opportunity. We don’t have to wait much longer as it stands slowly on its back legs and stabs at Orkus with one of its front spear legs. Venos quickly interposes between the two taking the blow to his shield, which he is clearly ready to be a lot stronger then it is. Meanwhile Orkus and I quickly dash to either side of the creature, Orkus quickly firing off three arrows in quick succession while moving, two glancing off the creature but the last lodging into the most central stone. The creature turns to Orkus as the strike hits it but in doing so reveals the area to me, which I quickly take advantage of with an ice shard, aiming for the same spot Orkus already hit.
The creature shuddered for a second before stopping and a moment or two passes in silence as we wait for it to do something. Then, energy fades from it into the floor and the rocks crumble into a lifeless heap as if nothing was even animating it to begin with. The silence that follows was that of surprise and not a small amount of disappointment from the three of us. Frankly I think we were all expecting something a bit tougher physically then this, but it was almost as weak as the skeletons that were on the way here. The main difference here being it was made of stone and not bone so the general strength of it was higher by shear physical composition.
We looked at each other in the light of the torch we still had, and waited for something else to happen. To neither our surprise nor our joy nothing happened during those few moments, so we just all nodded at each other and moved to the door the guardian was defending. It is a heavy looking thing but it’s also nothing that a bit of pushing from the two guys couldn’t get past easily enough. And what was beyond, well it didn’t disappoint, it was breathtaking to say the least, and certainly not something I would expect a dungeon, let alone a graveyard dungeon to build.
