The stairs went down for a long time.
Nobody complained at first.
After several hundred steps, Fendor reconsidered.
“I would like to formally amend my opinion of teleportation.”
Kaylor continued downward.
“To?”
“Good.”
“That is the whole opinion?”
“Yes.”
The staircase spiraled through the mountain beneath Oslan until even the memory of daylight felt theoretical. The stone remained strangely intact. No roots broke through it. No water ran down the walls. Whatever civilization had carved this route had expected it to remain useful.
Eventually the stairs ended.
The corridor beyond was barely five feet wide.
Kaylor stopped at its entrance.
“No.”
Fendor looked past him.
“What?”
“Too narrow.”
Isamu stepped between them.
“For you.”
He disappeared into the passage.
Kaylor followed.
Fendor smiled.
“Apparently that settled it.”
The hallway forced them into a line. Even turning around required effort. Kaylor’s armored shoulders nearly brushed both walls. Hexen had to abandon any thought of traveling in one of his larger forms. Nethnarel folded her wings away and kept the Staff of Power close to her body.
Isamu, naturally, seemed delighted.
He slipped ahead.
“Stay close,” Kaylor called.
“I am.”
“No, you aren’t.”
Isamu vanished around a corner.
Fendor shook his head.
“He has a different definition of distance.”
The corridor branched.
Then branched again.
There were doors.
Some locked.
Some open.
One passage continued away from them while another turned north. The entire underground level had been built on a scale completely different from the vast chambers above. Oslan had gone from enormous fountains, mountain cities and impossible monsters to corridors barely wide enough for one person.
Fendor preferred the large monsters.
At least he could shoot those.
Isamu returned.
“Door.”
Fendor looked at him.
“That was worth scouting?”
“Several doors.”
“Better.”
They entered a small chamber where a stone column rose from floor to ceiling.
Writing covered it.
Not decoration.
Language.
Lines of unfamiliar symbols spiraled around the pillar in carefully carved bands.
Nethnarel approached immediately.
“This is Oslan.”
Kaylor looked at the markings.
“You can read it?”
“No.”
Fendor smiled.
“That seems to be a recurring problem with your search for lost knowledge.”
“I recognize the script.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“I know.”
The heroes had seen the language before, near the entrance and among the structures associated with Zidara. None of them had learned enough to translate it.
Isamu walked around the column.
One complete circuit.
Then another.
The inscriptions continued all the way around.
He took out a knife.
Kaylor saw it.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving a message.”
“For whom?”
Isamu carved carefully into the ancient stone.
ISAMU WAS HERE.
Fendor stared at the inscription.
Nethnarel slowly closed her eyes.
Hexen looked at fifteen thousand years of Oslan history and then at the monk.
“Why?”
“If they come back, they’ll know.”
“Who?”
“The Oslan.”
“They’ve been gone for thousands of years.”
“Then the message will last.”
Fendor nodded.
“I cannot fault the logic.”
Nethnarel looked offended on behalf of archaeology.
They moved on.
The passages grew stranger.
A low square hatch lay in one floor.
Fendor tapped it with the tip of his boot.
Something moved below.
A dry scratching sound.
Then another.
Skittering.
Everyone stopped.
Fendor looked at Isamu.
Isamu looked at the hatch.
“No.”
Kaylor frowned.
“You’re saying no?”
“I am learning.”
Fendor placed one hand on his shoulder.
“I have never been prouder.”
Isamu opened the hatch.
Fendor removed his hand.
“Briefly proud.”
Something leapt out.
It was vaguely humanoid only because it possessed two arms and two legs. The body was insectile, hard-shelled and roughly four feet tall, with jointed limbs and mandibles that clicked together as it forced itself through the opening.
Isamu stepped back.
The creature lunged.
Then stopped.
Isamu held out one hand.
“Friend?”
The insect tilted its head.
A voice answered inside his mind.
I don’t need friends.
Isamu nodded.
“All right.”
His whip cracked.
The first blow struck the creature across its armored torso.
A second followed.
Then a third.
Isamu attempted to shock its body into stillness.
The thing resisted.
Another insect forced its way through the hatch.
Then the room filled with wings.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
A black cloud erupted from beneath the floor and spread through the tiny chamber. Beetles, wasp-like things and other crawling bodies swept over armor, hair and skin.
Kaylor raised one arm across his face.
Hexen cursed.
Fendor immediately regretted every decision that had placed him in a room only fifteen feet across.
“This is why I prefer dragons!”
The swarm filled nearly every inch of the chamber.
Needles of pain struck exposed skin.
Venom followed some of the bites.
Isamu barely reacted to it.
The poisons that would have dropped another man simply failed to matter.
Kaylor was less pleased.
One of the larger insect creatures tore at him through the cloud, claws scraping armor and finding openings through sheer persistence.
Another emerged.
Then another.
Fendor looked toward Nethnarel.
“Do something large.”
“We’re in a room the size of a closet.”
“Do something selectively large.”
Nethnarel could barely see.
The bugs moved like smoke.
Then she understood.
“They’re real.”
Fendor slapped one from his neck.
“I had reached that conclusion.”
“No. They’re physically here.”
“Yes!”
Nethnarel raised the Staff of Power.
Magic seized the swarm.
The cloud stopped descending.
Then it began rising.
Thousands of insects lifted toward the ceiling as though gravity had changed its mind. They fought the magic, wings beating wildly, but the entire mass continued upward until the majority of the swarm churned several feet above the heroes’ heads.
Nethnarel ducked.
“So should you.”
Fendor crouched immediately.
Kaylor lowered himself as far as dignity and plate armor permitted.
The others did the same.
A boiling ceiling of insects hovered above them.
Fendor looked up.
“That is disgusting.”
“You asked for selective.”
“I withdraw all criticism.”
One of the large insect creatures began casting.
Nethnarel felt the magic before she understood its purpose.
A second swarm began to form.
Not physically this time.
Magical vapor gathered in the corridor.
Shapes of insects appeared inside it.
Nethnarel reacted.
“No.”
Counterspell struck the forming magic.
The phantom cloud vanished before it could fully exist.
The insect caster hissed.
Nethnarel smiled.
“Use the real ones.”
Isamu attacked again.
He struck one creature and finally found the place where armor plates separated.
The blow locked its limbs.
Stunned.
He turned immediately.
The whip hit a second.
Another strike followed.
That creature froze too.
Two insect horrors stood helpless in the narrow room.
Fendor stepped forward.
“Thank you.”
The Vorpal Longsword flashed.
One creature lost its head.
Its body remained standing for an instant before collapsing beneath the hovering swarm.
Fendor looked down.
“There you are.”
Kaylor struck another.
The passage was so tight that they had to fight almost shoulder to shoulder, taking turns advancing and retreating because no one could maneuver around anyone else.
Hexen absorbed attacks behind his shield.
Isamu moved wherever there was space.
Nethnarel stayed back long enough to control the swarm overhead.
Then she ended it.
Fire erupted from her enchanted jewelry.
The attack struck into the suspended mass.
One burning section collapsed.
Then another.
The black cloud became sparks and charred fragments.
The surviving insects scattered.
The room cleared.
Kaylor finished the creature in front of him.
Then deliberately stepped between Isamu and the next one.
“I’ve got this.”
Isamu looked around the dragonborn’s shoulder.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Kaylor struck.
The creature fell.
Fendor finished another farther down the passage.
The final insect tried to retreat toward the hatch.
It did not make it.
Silence returned.
This time the heroes did not trust it.
Isamu raised one hand.
“Wait.”
Everyone stopped.
He listened.
The skittering below the trapdoor had changed.
No.
That was not right.
There was still skittering.
Something else existed beneath it.
A deeper sound.
Stone grinding.
Earth shifting.
Something moving through the walls.
“There’s more,” Isamu said.
Fendor sighed.
“More insects?”
Isamu shook his head.
“Bigger.”
That was worse.
They inspected the hatch.
Below it lay a dark earthen tunnel rather than another Oslan-built chamber. The passage looked unstable, walls roughly bored through dirt and broken stone.
Isamu dropped into it.
Kaylor followed soon afterward.
Fendor looked down.
“We could simply stop doing that.”
Hexen passed him.
“Doing what?”
“Following Isamu.”
Nethnarel stepped into the hatch.
Fendor looked toward the deserted corridor behind them.
Then climbed down.
“Terrible options.”
The tunnel narrowed.
The sound came again.
Closer now.
Not skittering.
Tunneling.
Kaylor stopped with Final Word ready.
The wall exploded.
Stone burst inward.
Something enormous tore through the corridor in front of him.
A head appeared first.
Centipede.
Millipede.
Neither word survived contact with the thing itself.
Its head was huge enough to fill the tunnel, armored in overlapping plates and surrounded by twitching growths that resembled tentacles only because language had no better option. Its body followed.
And followed.
And continued following.
The creature did not travel down the corridor.
It traveled through the mountain.
Its body ripped through one wall, crossed the passage, vanished into another, then emerged again farther along. Multiple sections of the same impossible animal occupied different parts of the underground maze simultaneously.
Isamu stared.
“Is that one creature?”
“Yes,” Kaylor said.
Another body segment broke through stone farther away.
Fendor arrived behind them.
“Of course it is.”
The thing moved with terrifying speed.
Isamu acted first.
Hunter’s Mark settled across the creature.
He attacked the nearest section.
The hardened outer shell turned one strike.
The next found a vulnerable seam.
Black fluid splashed the wall.
The entire monster convulsed, even the sections they could not see.
Fendor heard the shriek travel through the stone.
He drew the Oathbow.
The moment his hand closed around it, the enormous burrowing horror became his sworn enemy.
The bow recognized the declaration.
Fendor fired.
One arrow.
Then another.
Then another.
He accelerated.
The narrow passage disappeared from his mind.
There was only the exposed head and the point where every shaft needed to go.
Four arrows became eight.
The barrage crossed the corridor almost as one event.
One shaft burst inside the creature with arcane force.
Then another impact followed.
The head jerked violently.
The body slammed against surrounding stone.
Isamu looked at Fendor.
“Done?”
“No.”
The creature was still moving.
Fendor stared.
“That was rude.”
Kaylor stepped forward.
Holy Weapon ignited along Final Word.
Radiance filled the narrow passage.
He struck the body section crossing in front of him.
The first blow tore through armor.
The second opened the creature deeper.
Golden light vanished into a body that seemed to continue for hundreds of feet.
The thing retaliated.
Tentacle-like appendages lashed from the segment near Isamu. Mouths or hooked growths snapped at him.
One connected.
Isamu endured the tearing damage.
Poison followed.
It accomplished nothing.
“Try something else.”
The creature did.
Its head lunged toward Kaylor.
Missed.
Again.
Missed.
Fendor laughed.
Kaylor glanced at him.
“Don’t encourage it.”
Hexen reached one exposed body section and hammered it with elemental force, striking the enormous creature wherever the moving shell presented an opening.
Then the head twisted.
Toward Nethnarel.
It lunged.
Teeth closed.
Pain drove through her side.
She felt venom immediately.
Kaylor was close enough.
The paladin’s presence steadied her body against the poison, divine force reinforcing her resistance.
Nethnarel ripped herself free.
She looked at the monster.
“No.”
The Staff of Power rose.
Fendor saw it.
“What?”
“Hold it still.”
The words sounded ridiculous.
The creature occupied half the mountain.
Nethnarel cast anyway.
Hold Monster struck.
The great head froze.
A body section locked midway through a tunnel.
Hundreds of legs stopped.
The entire impossible creature became still.
Fendor stared.
“That worked.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Magic.”
“I know that part.”
The paralysis would not last.
Everyone understood immediately.
Isamu attacked first.
Now the monster could not anticipate.
Could not twist away.
Could not hide vulnerable sections behind armored plates.
Every strike found something vital.
Hexen hit another section.
Fendor shifted position but the corridor prevented him from reaching a good angle.
Nethnarel held the spell.
Then summoned the Crown of Stars.
Bright motes appeared around her head.
One launched.
Radiant energy slammed into the paralyzed creature.
Another section shuddered.
Kaylor tried to reach the head.
People were in the way.
“This corridor is terrible.”
Fendor looked back.
“I said that twenty minutes ago.”
“Move.”
“I cannot.”
“Duck.”
“Why?”
Kaylor forced himself past enough of the others to find a line.
Final Word descended.
Holy Weapon flashed.
The blade struck frozen flesh.
The creature convulsed despite the paralysis.
Kaylor struck again.
The spell had given them exactly what they needed.
A moment.
One uninterrupted moment against something too large and too fast to fight fairly.
They used all of it.
The monster tried to move.
Failed.
Nethnarel clenched her jaw, maintaining the magic.
Fendor found another opening.
Isamu continued hammering the body beneath him.
Hexen crushed a section near the tunnel wall.
Kaylor raised Final Word one last time.
The sword came down.
The enormous head collapsed.
The movement throughout the walls stopped.
Silence followed in stages.
First the tentacles.
Then the legs.
Then the endless grinding sound of its body tunneling through the mountain.
Finally—
Nothing.
Kaylor stood over the head.
Fendor lowered the Oathbow.
Isamu listened.
“Dead.”
Fendor nodded.
“I prefer that sound.”
They cut into the body.
Not because anyone wanted to.
Because experience had taught them that monsters this unnatural occasionally contained useful things.
Most of it was exactly as unpleasant as expected.
Then Hexen found the poison sac.
It was buried behind layered organs and thick enough armor that the heroes nearly missed it. Within rested concentrated venom.
Enough to collect.
Enough to use.
They took two portions.
Fendor looked at the recovered poison.
“We have become disturbing people.”
Kaylor cleaned Final Word.
“Become?”
Fendor considered.
“Fair.”
They continued through the tunnels.
The route curved.
Then curved again.
Eventually the passage returned them to somewhere familiar.
The Oslan column.
Isamu’s fresh inscription still scarred the ancient stone beneath writing thousands of years older.
Fendor stared at it.
“We went in a circle.”
Isamu nodded.
“Yes.”
“We fought an insect nest and a mountain-sized centipede to go in a circle.”
“Yes.”
Fendor looked at the column.
“Your message may be the most permanent thing we accomplished.”
Nethnarel walked past him.
“Do not encourage him.”
There was still another route.
They followed it.
More narrow corridors.
More doors.
A small ruined room eventually opened around them. Broken tables or work surfaces had collapsed into shapeless piles. Old wood had survived only as brittle fragments. Nothing immediately attacked them.
That alone made the room suspicious.
Fendor searched.
“Wood.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“That’s what you found?”
“Very old wood.”
“Useful.”
“I am reporting accurately.”
Nethnarel inspected the surrounding walls.
There was little else.
Isamu moved toward the next passage.
Then stopped.
Everyone noticed.
He raised one hand.
A faint sound came from somewhere behind them.
Flutter.
Pause.
Flutter.
Fendor turned toward the corridor they had just used.
“Bats?”
The sound came again.
Too heavy.
Too slow.
Something winged was moving through the darkness.
Then another sound answered from a different passage.
More wings.
Nethnarel looked toward the corridor ahead.
Kaylor drew Final Word.
Hexen listened.
Isamu remained perfectly still.
The underground city had been quiet when they entered.
It was not quiet now.
The fluttering grew louder.
Not from one direction.
From two.
Fendor raised the Oathbow.
“Of course.”
Something rounded the corner behind them.
And the dark began to fly.