Underkeeper

Keeping well out of sight, Jori followed the little group of spawnlings as they pulled their empty cart back away from the dragon’s larder. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision to leave all those tasty bodies behind, but she had a good feeling about this. They were bringing the dead food lizards from somewhere. Specifically, someplace where they were being killed by someone. That could be important—Bernt needed help.

Besides, she could always come back later.

As she went, she noticed increasing traffic in the tunnels, forcing her to find good hiding spots. A few times she had to track them by scent to find the spawnlings again, which wasn’t easy with so many of the creatures running around. Rounding a corner, she barely caught sight of the cart being pulled straight into a solid wall, followed by the last few lizard spawnlings. Instead of crashing, it all disappeared.

Bemused, Jori listened carefully for any other approaching traffic, then scampered up to the wall. It looked like a normal wall.

She poked at it experimentally, and her claw went right through. It wasn’t real.

How strange.

Finding the edge of the hidden entrance, she then brought her hand up and nipped at the back of her finger, which caught fire as her blood was exposed to the open air. It wasn’t as intense as earlier, when she’d feasted on all the food lizards, but it would work. She smeared a bit of it on the stone, where it sizzled, making a small, glassy mark. She wanted to be able to find this spot again later.

Slipping silently through the illusion, Jori found a shallow ramp leading downward. Unlike most of the tunnels, it was illuminated by softly glowing crystals they’d set into the ceiling. It wound down and down, eventually ending in another wall.

Jori listened for a moment to make sure no one was coming and then stepped through. She marked the tunnel entrance with her blood on this side as well, paused for the cut to close, and then turned in a slow circle, sniffing the air to find the scent of corpses. One direction seemed more promising than the other, and she hurried forward.

She’d only taken two steps before she heard several sharp ping sounds as steel bolts struck the wall right over her head. Then light flared, and Jori scrambled, darting up the wall to evade the next attack.

She looked around in a panic for the source, but saw nothing. The light was coming from her. Her heart hammered in her ears, but there was no other sound. It took several seconds before she realized what had happened. One of the bolts had grazed her wing, lighting it up as her blood caught fire in the open air. It was a trap.

Right. The traps were everywhere in the lower level, not just at the intersections. She should have remembered that. She was lucky she wasn’t as big as her human, or that could have been very bad.

How did the little spawnlings avoid them all with their cart? She shook her head. These lizard creatures were crazy!

At least the walls were rougher here, so it was much easier to find good handholds. Staying off the floor, Jori made her way down the tunnel, following the scent of death.

It wasn’t far. Just a few minutes later, she found the spawnlings loading their cart again in a large grotto filled with many, many dead food lizards on one side and a much smaller number of dead humans, elves and dwarves on the other. There might have been a gnome, too, but the body was too badly savaged to be sure. The sight of all of them awakened that thirsty feeling again, and her eyes heated up with excitement.

Success!

She shook her head, focusing her thoughts. This wasn’t why she was here. Besides, maybe she could stop by on her way back, when they were gone.

Leaving the busy spawnlings behind, she kept going and carefully peeked into each adjoining room and tunnel as she passed, checking for any recent signs of fighting. Unlike the parts of the lower floor they’d explored earlier, the rooms here were mostly occupied and in use. There were rooms for cooking, sleeping, working and storage, with kobolds constantly running between them all. It was all very complicated, she thought. Bernt just did everything in his one room—the same one she lived in.

It was slow going, but she didn’t have to go very far. Maybe five minutes later, she was looking down into a room, and seeing no one inside, when she caught a familiar scent. It smelled like that big dwarf with the club… Fury? She didn’t remember all the names. She hadn’t really been paying attention. Dwarves all had a pretty strong smell, as far as Jori was concerned, and the big bulky one from their group had an olfactory signature to match his size.

Risking a closer look, Jori climbed a little lower down on the wall to give herself a better angle.

There were two guards in armor standing in front of a door, holding spears. It was only the second specifically guarded room she’d seen in this place. And it smelled like giant dwarf.

***

Bernt woke, as usual, to the sensation of Jori tugging on his robes—demanding breakfast. He reached blindly over for the small jar of rat jerky he kept on his nightstand; it would get her to leave him alone for another five minutes. But his fingers brushed cold stone instead.

That wasn’t right.

“Wake up!” Jori’s rough voice hit him like a splash of cold water, and he jerked up into a sitting position. She could talk. He was inside the dungeon. He was trapped.

He was going to die.

As he moved, Bernt’s left leg erupted in pins and needles. Groaning softly to himself, he rose to his feet and limped around in an uneven circle, trying to bring sensation back into it. He’d been lying awkwardly on the hard ground and his hip felt bruised.

“Jori,” he said, rubbing at his eyes, “how long did I sleep?” He didn’t have time to rest—he should be doing something to get himself out of this mess. The drive to act was quickly banishing his grogginess, but he didn’t actually have anything to do.

“I found the big, smelly dwarf!”

“You went out there?” Bernt looked down at her, startled. “What were you doing?”

The little imp cocked her head at him in exaggerated confusion. “I scouted.”

Bernt stared at her curiously. Since when could Jori understand sarcasm? Only then did the meaning of her earlier words really sink in.

“Wait, Furin? You found Furin?” He was suddenly excited. “Did you find the others? What about Therion? Where are they?” If he could find the prisoners, maybe he could break someone out. Maybe all of them! They hadn’t made it out last time, but if he could bring a larger group together… well, they might even find the prime party, to salvage this entire mess.

They’d been inside for days already, and there was no telling exactly where the prime adventurers were or what they were doing. Bernt had no idea how large the lower portion of the dungeon was, or if they’d discovered the hidden, upper part yet.

“I found a door,” Jori explained. “Two bad lizards, and smells like big Fury dwarf.”

“They’re called kobolds, Jori,” Bernt corrected. Why did she know what lizards were, but not kobolds? “And it sounds like a jail or something. Do you think you can show me?”

He didn’t know what kind of security it might have inside. It might be dangerous. But he had to act. He couldn’t just sit here. There had to be a solution. He didn’t even have a potion anymore. But at least if he tried this, he might find Syrah, or another healer, inside.

It would, at any rate, be less dangerous than just trying to fight his way through an army of patrols with Jori alone.

“Can you lead me there?”

***

Bernt stood facing a stretch of wall that looked exactly like every other tunnel they’d walked through so far. After nearly an hour of sneaking, backtracking and hiding from passersby, Jori had suddenly taken a right turn directly into this wall.

Confused, Bernt stuck his hand through the illusion.

It looked real in the light of his torch spell, without any fuzzy spots or shimmering. It was also extremely efficient—he couldn’t sense any magic until he touched the spell. Even then, it was only a faint buzz. Different kinds of magic normally had different feels, which was how a mage might tell, broadly, what an enchanted object was for. This… well, he only knew it was an illusion because his hand was in it.

He wanted to stay a bit longer and study it, but then he felt Jori’s hand grip his wrist and tug impatiently, pulling him down onto the secret path.

“Not far now,” Jori hissed, “but dangerous. There are many traps.”

Bernt started down the sloped tunnel, but only made it a few steps. A colossal boom echoed through and the world shivered. Dust and bits of gravel fell from the ceiling as cracks spidered all through the walls and ceiling.

Pulling out his wand, Bernt moved to the tunnel’s side. If the ceiling was going to come down, he figured it would fall in the middle first. A few seconds later, a distant inhuman roar echoed after the boom, brimming with rage.

What in the nine hells was this? Bernt looked around in confusion, as if hoping the walls themselves might hold the answer.

Then the stone all around vibrated with a buzzing noise that, over the course of a second or two, resolved into an urgent, high-pitched male voice, like that of a gnome.

“… to all parties, extract immediately! We have engaged an elder deep dragon. I repeat, an elder dragon. …an estimated threat rank of… survi… …to alert the king’s representative immediately… advise immediate containment proto… …ull military mobiliz… … a kingdom-tier threat. Deliver… …at all costs. Run!”

The voice fuzzed in and out as it spoke, but the message was clear enough for Bernt. His heart pounded, about to leap up into his throat. “Kingdom-tier threat” was exactly what it sounded like—something entirely off the normal chart. Something so dangerous that it could threaten a country on its own, like a lich, a wild god, or, in this case, an elder dragon.

Comparing an elder deep dragon to a juvenile—no, even a normal adult—was like comparing a fully grown tiger to a three-legged housecat, if that tiger also came with millennia of knowledge and experience, and the wisdom and magical talents of an archmage. It was a cataclysm on wings.

The prime party had found it and realized they’d gotten far more than they bargained for. If they were sending a message like this, it was because they thought they weren’t likely to be able to make this report themselves.

And, as far as Bernt knew, all of the lesser parties who’d entered the dungeon were imprisoned somewhere below.

Whether that voice’s owner knew it or not, that message was for him.