Chapter 81: 5.5 – What Lies Beneath

The sound of stone grinding on stone vibrated through Robin’s bones and made his teeth itch. He had a split second to think. The stone wall was coming down behind them, slow enough that they could dash back through if they went right now, but fast enough not to give the party much time to react.

He flicked a glance toward Wulfram. The man was as impassive and calm as ever. He would follow the party’s lead.

Bastard probably had some kind of fancy teleportation ring or other get-out-of-jail-free card.

‘Back! Back!’ Jhess shouted.

‘No!’ Khavren roared. ‘Forward! Ignore the wall. It’s a pathetic trick.’

The party froze, torn by indecision.

‘Follow Khavren,’ Savra shouted.

The word of the seeress broke the stalemate and the party turned to follow the knight. Khavren, of course, hadn’t even bothered to turn back to see if they were following or not. Behind them, the stone wall lowered into position with a grinding finality. The way back was closed to them now, unless Wulfram punched through the wall or managed to lift it or something else equally impressive. Equally unlikely.

Robin chewed on his lower lip. Was this the path he would have chosen? His instincts said it was right not to run back under the falling stone wall, but that didn’t mean just charging ahead in the opposite direction was the right choice either.

If he were designing a dungeon and he wanted people distracted from something hidden nearby, he would almost certainly put a time-sensitive trap near it. Give them something else to think about.

Robin flicked his fingers through the gestures of his [Lesser Phantasm] spell, causing letters to appear before Jhess’s eyes.

Do you sense anything hidden around here?

The rogue shot him a curious glance but shook her head slightly. Though she did slow a bit and consider their surroundings more carefully.

Robin scanned the walls, looking for anything out of place, anything different, anything…

‘Khavren,’ he shouted, ‘above you! Look out!’

A patch of stone a slightly different colour than its surroundings suddenly flexed and tapered out to a sharp point like a stalactite. A wide, slitted eye opened and several tendrils writhed out of the mass of the thing to lash out at the unsuspecting knight.

Thanks to Robin’s warning, Khavren was able to evade the surprise attack, drawing his sword and lashing wildly at the questing tentacles. The tendrils writhed in the air and the thing clinging to the ceiling above let out a guttural hiss.

‘Filthy! Fucking! Shapeshifters!’ Khavren bellowed between swings of his sword.

At the moment, Robin could understand the frustration, but still. Bit rude.

‘Take it out before it grabs someone,’ Drev yelled. ‘If it entangles you, it’ll pull you up to use as a living shield!’

Robin cursed. Sounded like the thing was smart as well as nasty. And it definitely held the high ground. Khavren, Wulfram, and to a lesser extend Jhess would all find their attacks blunted by a lack of reach. Well, possibly not Wulfram, but he wasn’t going to be attacking anyway so the point was moot.

He flung a [Lesser Witchbolt] at the thing. The flaming playing card arced through the air and exploded with a small poof of blue flame. The thing screeched, more in anger than in pain, and sent some tendrils Robin’s way.

Drev intercepted them, casting a hemispherical shield of force over the party, like a massive, translucent blue umbrella. The thing on the ceiling wailed in fury and lashed out at the protective spell with several tentacles, causing blue sparks to fly from it in a cerulean rain.

Jhess dashed toward the wall, bounding off of it and up onto Drev’s protective shield, using it like a springboard to launch herself at the tentacular shapeshifter. Purple ichor spurted and two tendrils fell to the floor where they writhed about like snakes with their heads chopped off, not quite realising they were dead.

Robin wracked his brain, trying to drag a weak spot or something similar about this thing from his [Bardic Lore]. It was called—it was called a tentacite! It disliked loud sounds, was one of the more intelligent shapeshifting cavern-dwellers, and it liked to hunt alone or in small packs—

‘Look for more patches of discoloured stone,’ Robin shouted. ‘There might be more of them!’

‘More of them?’ Khavren’s voice went up half an octave. ‘Where?’

The knight slashed wildly and stumbled forward, nearly tripping as he overbalanced himself. There was a click from beneath his foot and the grinding sound of another stone wall descending.

‘Oh come on!’ Robin shouted.

The tentacite was between them and the slowly vanishing exit. Robin felt anxiety along his connection to Rerebos. The little dragon was hiding in the shadows somewhere near but Robin didn’t know exactly where. If they got separated, he could use a ritual to summon this familiar back to him, but they might be separated for a while in the dark before he could manage it. Not ideal.

Wulfram stood stoically near to Robin. He had a great hammer in his hands, but he didn’t swing it. The protection of Drev’s shield was enough that he didn’t need to.

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For now.

‘Do you have another shield?’ Savra asked Drev.

‘I could manage another without dipping too deep into my reserves,’ the mage answered.

‘Khavren,’ Jhess called, ‘we need to go! Stop slashing at that thing!’

The knight had flung a javelin at the tentacite and missed, so had gone back to swiping at the tendrils the thing used to lash at him whenever he exposed himself. Most of the party was out of reach behind Drev’s shield.

If they were going to get out of here before that stone wall came down and sealed them into this tiny stretch of tunnel, perhaps permanently, they needed to move, and move fast.

Though Robin had the strangest feeling that that was precisely what the dungeon wanted them to do. He couldn’t say why or how he had this feeling, just that it was there.

The rest of the party was moving already. He only had moments if he was to find a reason not to follow. His eyes searched the nearby tunnel walls, and his ears strained to hear anything from that strange voice, but nothing.

‘Marq! Come on!’ Savra called to him. ‘This is the way!’

‘We haven’t killed the beast yet!’ Khavren protested.

‘There are more things to kill on the other side of the wall,’ the seeress snapped. ‘If you stay here the only thing you’ll have to kill is that one monster and the rest of us—if you even could.’

The knight almost responded but instead chose to break into a jog and follow the will of the party for once. Robin—Wulfram on his heels—brought up the rear.

The stone wall slowly lowered. The tentacite wailed at their retreat and flailed wildly after them. It couldn’t move very fast though, and Drev’s renewed shielding spell kept it safely at bay.

Robin made a mental note. The thing held the high ground well but it was slow. They should be able to take these things out from range, if they faced them again. And Robin was sure they would. Everything he had heard of living dungeons suggested they tended to work along a theme, and variations on a kind of creature tended to repeat.

‘Quickly!’ Savra urged. ‘Any slower and one of us will be crushed!’

Robin moved faster. As it stood, he was the last one in the formation and the most likely to bear the brunt of that unwelcome bit of prophecy.

Savra would be a lot more useful if she could foresee these little mishaps just a tad sooner than she did. Maybe she wasn’t powerful enough yet to see further, or maybe this was an elaborate game and she was telling them just what they needed to hear when they needed to hear it so the party would move in the direction she wanted.

A problem to ponder later!

Robin stumbled. A spike of terror hit him along his empathic bond with Rerebos! The little dragon was in danger!

Hiding in the shadows, he was unable to take full advantage of Drev’s shield. The tentacite had somehow spotted him—it was adapted to life in the dark beneath the surface after all. or maybe it just got lucky. Whatever the reason, Rerebos was busily darting and dodging the flailing tendrils.

Robin spared a quick glance. Khavren was distracted, not looking toward them. He should be able to pull out some of the same tricks Riv used on a regular basis without too much trouble. He reached for the mental place he stored his catalogue of illusions and conjured a ring of shifting shadow around the tentacite with [Visual Phantasm].

The monster shrieked its confusion. Tentacles lashed out, phasing easily through the shadow stuff. The tentacite would figure out the illusion quickly, possible even see though it, but Robin wasn’t trying to fool it for long. He didn’t need to.

Rerebos, taking full advantage of the distraction Robin provided, dove once more into the shadows and out of the tunnel, racing past the distracted party members. The tentacite wailed in fury at the lost meal. It wouldn’t even get the consolation appetiser that the little dragon represented.

‘Robin!’ Jhess screamed, ‘get a move on!’

The bard glanced toward her. The rest of the party was nearly all through to the other side of the descending wall of stone. Only Wulfram remained on this side. There were only a scant few handspans of space left between the leading edge of the trap and the floor!

Robin put on a burst of speed. He wasn’t going to make it! He gritted his teeth and channelled a huge portion of his spellcasting energies into [Assume Quality], shifting his legs beneath the illusory trousers he wore into those of a rabbitkin, complete with enhanced speed and dexterity.

It was just enough to gain the edge he needed.

He was the last one through, hitting the ground in a log roll and spinning under the falling slab of stone just before it scraped against the floor and came to a halt. Robin rose to his feet, staggering a little, off-balance from the rolling. Disorientated, he didn’t pay quite enough attention to the surroundings.

Robin felt something coil around him, wrist and waist. He had a moment of blinkered confusion and then he was yanked bodily up and into the air. A surprised scream burst from his lips.

The ground beneath him watched him go and didn’t even care.

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