Downtown Druid

They began walking through the tunnels, Tek leading the way as they moved. Even with him guiding them around traps, Dantes still tested the ground with his metal rod, and stayed on his guard, as did Jacopo. Still, it began to seem as if his fear was unwarranted. Tek was very careful to take him around the traps, even moving him around those that wouldn’t have triggered for him, but would activate for Dantes due to his greater height and weight.

Eventually they reached a large long hall with high ceilings. Thousands upon thousands of small holes had been carved into the walls, barely the size of a fist. The depth of each hole varied in such a way that it created patterns and images that seemed to shift based on where one was standing. He could sense a few small creatures living within them, unaware of the tapestry they were a part of.

By Dantes estimation, they were very close to Clan Stonedust territory. Suddenly, he felt Jacopo begin scrambling within his coat and up to his collar. “Danger! We must move.”

Tek stopped in his tracks. “Something’s wrong.”

The moment he finished speaking, a massive dark shape dropped down from the ceiling.

Tek threw himself away from the shape and rolled as he brought up his spear.

The creature stood quickly on its eight legs and launched itself at Dantes.

Dantes dodged narrowly, catching a glimpse of the beast as it launched itself past him. It was the same color as the stone walls, with black spots all across its furry carapace. It was almost the size of Dantes, its fangs the length of daggers and its eight eyes reflecting what little light emanated from the glowing fungus on the hallway walls.

Before he could fully stand, the spider launched itself at him again, and he rolled out of the way, taking a glancing blow on his arms from one of its gangly legs. He drew the shiv from his boot, and ducked behind the cover of a fallen piece of stone before the monster could leap at him again.

Tek raised his spear and stabbed out at the spider with its stone tip. He managed a glancing blow on its legs causing it to spew green ichor, but before he could follow up the spider leapt again onto a wall and scuttled away into the thicker darkness toward the ceiling.

Dantes stayed put, The ceiling must’ve been very high for him to lose sight of the monster even with his ability to see in the dark. He searched the edges of his vision, while trying to see if he could hear the spiders movements, but creatures like it tended to walk far too softly to be heard. He was immediately reminded of the footfalls of the elves that had been hunting him. He tried extending his perceptions that had allowed him to sense rats and other creatures as well, but while he could sense many creatures, the spider itself was undetectable to him.

Tek was doing much the same, keeping his spear pointed upward in expectation of the spider jumping for him, and searching with all of his senses for any indication of where it might strike from.

Jacopo crawled out from Dantes' jacket and into a narrow crevice in the rock he was hidden behind. “I’m too small a meal for him. I may accidentally be crushed or skewered in your jacket though.”

Dantes nodded, he wouldn’t want to take that risk either in Jacopo’s place. He kept searching, each second feeling like an hour as he looked and listened. He could feel that the mold around him was content. It was dark and wet in this portion of the Pit, and it had been able to spread happily, only ever fearing competition from other molds that attempted to grow into it. Except… one patch, up and slightly behind where Tek was, was annoyed, bothered by something.

“Tek! Behind you!”

The Kobold ducked and spun just as the jumping spider hurled itself at him from that patch of mold. He managed a deep cut into the creature’s abdomen before it landed.

The monster stumbled, and Dantes took the chance to leap from his cover and drive his shiv deep into its thick carapace, breaking off the tip of it before backing away and drawing another from his sleeve.

The creature stumbled more, and fell, landing somehow upside down with its legs kicking the air.

Tek avoided the legs, and drove his spear one last time into the creature. It spasmed once, then its legs slowly curling inward, and it ceased moving.

Dantes… could feel its death somehow. He sensed the life within it leaving the corpse that remained. He wondered for a moment why he hadn’t been able to sense anything about it before its death. He hadn’t encountered a jumping spider before, perhaps that was the reason? He needed some affinity with a creature and its kind in order to sense or understand it? If he’d met more spiders in the past would he have been able to speak to it?

“It is rare for other races to have eyes better than a kobold’s in the dark.”

“Saw a glint off its eyes, in the corner. Just got lucky I suppose,” he lied.

“Your luck was mine too, thank you.”

Dantes frowned, and looked at the spider’s corpse. He knelt down, and carefully pried each of its fangs out before sawing them off with his shiv. He could see small globules of clear venom dripping from them. He carefully placed them in a thicker, leather pocket he had in his coat for anything sharp or dangerous, which the fangs were well qualified for. Once he was done he looked at the corpse again, and then at a nearby patch of mold in the corner. He grabbed one of the spiders legs, and began dragging it. It wasn’t as heavy as he expected. He placed the body carefully in the corner, and felt the gratitude of the mold for a fresh meal to decompose.

“One good turn deserves another,” he muttered quietly. Once he was done he felt Jacopo crawl back up through his pant leg and into his jacket. The sensation was an unpleasant one, and made him shiver.

Tek looked at him questioningly.

“Spiders. Can’t stand them.”

“Other races are often cowards,” he said, nodding sagely. “Why did you move it?”

“Don’t want to see it if I have to come back through here.”

The kobold scrunched his face up as he had an internal debate. “The dwarves' traps begin after this hall.”

Dantes raised an eyebrow. “Where after this hall?”

“In the exit archway.”

Dantes looked, seeing nothing, but he believed him. “We were getting pretty close to it. When were you planning on telling me?”

“I wasn’t.”

Dantes nodded slowly, understanding. “You felt obligated to help me through your traps, but not the dwarves.”

Tek didn’t answer.

“And when I triggered one of them and died, you would be able to take me back and feed your clan some fresh meat.”

“You understand our people well.”

Dantes squeezed his hand into a fist. He understood, but it still pissed him off. That said, he still needed to stay in the kobold’s good graces, and now that he’d seen Tek use his spear he was a bit less confident in his ability to take him out on his own. It didn’t make sense to do anything about it, at least not at that moment.

“Why warn me now?”

“Owe you. May have died in that fight without you.”

“True… so, will you guide me through the rest of the traps?”

He shook his head. “I will tell you of them, but we recently caught a young dwarf in a pitfall, Iron in the Mine’s nephew. Clan Stonedust has not been pleased with us because of that, since we refuse to pay their blood price.”

Dantes nodded, dwarves could be picky like that. He’d heard many stories of entire gangs or even clans being wiped out because of a refusal to give up on a blood price. The fact that they haven’t engaged in open warfare mean that the nephew likely wasn’t a favorite of Iron’s, and so he was just going through the motions.

“Okay, what can I expect?”

Tek described a series of falling axes, a hammer meant to hit tall-folk in the knees, a pit filled with Racha, the giant roaches that infested some areas of the Pit, and finally a sling that would fire a series of stones if triggered by a pressure plate near the lead up to the dwarves entrance. Once he was done, they parted ways.

Dantes continued down the tunnel, using his rod to detect traps, and moving cautiously even after Tek’s warnings. Whether or not he’d told him the truth didn’t matter. He didn’t trust him, nor did he assume that the dwarves wouldn’t have switched up their traps between their territories once a blood price had been called between them and the Kobolds. In the end, he found all the traps exactly as Tek had described, along with two that he hadn’t.

The entry to dwarven territory was unlike any other area in the Pit. It looked new. With smooth stone, carved floors, and simple braziers powered by fertilizer lighting the path. In spite of how difficult the stone within the pit was to work, they’d somehow managed to match the feel of a true dwarven stronghold. Even the awful smell was the same. Dantes had only ever been in one to smuggle dust, and help a friend in his efforts to seduce a dwarven noble, and he was impressed by how close this prison recreation was to the real thing.

He put away his rod, and began walking directly down the middle of the path. It felt odd not to be skulking about, but he wanted to be seen. For once he’d have to enter through a front door.