Chapter 51: 10- Where I Come From People Have Died Over Less

Trouble found them long before Kyessy did.

They emerged out into the larger hallways and big broken sections of underground, to where Prissy’s horrible ex-husband was now trapped. He had crashed through even more layers of subterranean cavern, and they were staring at his huge, filthy belly button.

“That’s so gross,” she muttered. “Why did you have to–“

Todd roared again, the sound muffled by at least one floor of stone above them. Corbin realized his arms were also trapped up there, but from the sounds of the pounding, and the dust raining down from the ceiling, maybe not for long.

“Let’s git movin’,” she said, and lit a torch with her burning dagger. The next stop was the stairwell. This meant getting close to Todd’s exposed gigantic midriff, but there was no other way.

As they got there, it became clear that Todd’s descent had collapsed this stairwell. Several dead draklings were littered here and there, and Corbin thanked them silently for boosting his level. They were probably respawning somewhere anyhow.

Maybe.

“Okayyyy,” Prissy said through gritted teeth, and threw him acres of shade. He didn’t bother rising to this bait.

“There are other stairwells. This place is enormous.”

She nodded and again led them past Todd’s huge form. God, what was stuck inside that belly button? It looked like the worst lint imaginable, or some parasitic land octopus… thing. It couldn’t be waving around like that on its own. He hoped.

The other stairwell went down a whole flight, and then plummeted a good thirty feet to some torches below. There he could make out Todd’s feet, and several teams of groblins with a couple of different machines, arrayed in wide circles around those feet. They were attempting to dart in and deal damage to the behemoth, while Todd was intermittently kicking out every which way. Smashed machine parts and dead groblins lay everywhere. In between where Todd was standing (kicking) and his belly, the behemoth had knocked significant portions of the dungeon apart, so the different floors were exposed like the mouths of hockey players just after a big brawl.

“There’s our spot,” he said, and nodded toward a hole created by Todd. It was very close to his body, but allowed them access to the next floor down.

“That?” she shrieked.

If they missed the mark to the left, they’d probably end up falling the rest of the way, right into the groblin perimeter, or straight into the line of fire of Todd’s crushing feet. If they missed the mark to the right, they might end up falling two levels, but that passage was blocked up by a groblin war machine currently on fire. The whole thing was like sticking your mom’s kitchen knife collection onto a bunch of spinners and attaching those spinners to a disk about ten feet around.

Raven Corbin, of course, would’ve handled this with ease, a refrain that would get old in a hurry if they kept going into fall damage situations.

“Unless you’ve got a way to get him out of here… I guess killing him might work, but we’d be at it all day, and there’s a good chance the roof will cave in on us when he starts really pounding.”

Apparently his Charm (plus Sway) was up to the task because the game informed him that he’d succeeded another check, and that the Luck (Serendipity) check also succeeded. Hopefully that meant she wasn’t going to stay pissed off at him or have one of those serious talks after they survived this.

She picked him up, drew in a deep breath, took several steps back, and ran forward. Just before she leapt out into the air, the last stone closest to the hole fell away, and she swore. Her aim was off, first of all. She had banked to the right, meaning they were going to fall twenty feet–

Nope, she shoved him away and to the left, and in that split second it became clear he was going to make the intended landing zone. She, however, was going to have to get past a groblin war machine, or at least use what little space she had to leap off in some other direction.

He hit the ground and suffered four damage, heard a stone break off and go careening down into space, and rolled to a stop.

When he sprang up, he was in the midst of a drakling barracks. A dozen of the little peckerheads were everywhere, in the midst

“Prissy, I hope you’re okay, and if you are, stay right there for a few minutes, okay?”

He reactivated the Evoker’s Fiery Blade, Spectral Blade and Evasive Maneuvers. With the time he still had before she got out of range, started biting.

 

 

***

 

Outside the barracks, he found a sleepy section of the underground city manned by zero draklings, and containing prison cells. These were all empty, save two. The first contained the fae gentleman Prissy had already talked to at some point, and the second held a massive orc clothed in a strange set of what looked like overalls, and fingerless gloves? The burnt orange of the overalls clashed with his grayish greenish skin. As for the fae, he was emaciated and only wearing a stained, torn pair of trousers. Corbin could tell right away why Prissy had fallen for his obvious lie about some scroll or another: he was perfect in that fae sort of way. This one had green-tinted hair and eyebrows done in some handsomely disheveled fashion, along with a series of tattoos shimmering like an oil slick in a parking lot.

“Iridescent,” he told himself.

The tattoos weren’t in any particular shape Corbin could make out, nor were they in a language he knew. They seemed like abstract not-Celtic-knots that were sometimes backlit with a clearly magical power.

Inspect told him the fae was called Dvillandrin, and a whole lot of extra honorifics Corbin didn’t bother reading, because he was only level eight. Seriously, ‘third rank Btheledrion of the Chrysthanthanine Order’ made zero sense and probably was like putting ‘esquire’ at the end of your name even though you didn’t deserve it and it meant nothing. And the third rank of whatever whatever was only one of the guy’s six different honorific titles. The second was ‘Viriphole of the Dellriax.’ Utter gibberish. This guy was an eighth level sorcerer of the Wild Flame, whatever that meant. The orc, meanwhile, was Brosh Nimblefingers, period. No other nonsensical bullhockey. Brosh was a level 9 Artificer, okay. Hopefully Brosh lived long enough to come in handy.

Both perked up the moment he came into view.

“That,” the fae said, “is the strangest canidian I have ever laid eyes on.”

“Pft, you guys keep saying Canadian,” he muttered.

“Expressive too,” the orc grumbled. Brosh’s tusks came up almost to his eyes, and were curiously flat. His ears were also a fun shape, and went almost straight out away from his head, where they ended in a pointy way he didn’t see often.

“You see that with some breeds,” the fae replied. He came toward the bars. “Can you understand me? I bet you can! You’re jusht sho cute and fwuffy. Whoshafoosha–”

“Quit it with the stupid baby talk,” Corbin said, and watch with amusement as Dvillandrin (plus a whole lot of ego fluffery) the sorcerer leapt back in surprise.

You are reading story UnFamiliar at novel35.com

“It talks!” the fae exclaimed.

“It does?” Brosh asked.

“It is actually a he, and you’ll respect the pronouns, Mr. Viriphole of the Dellriax. Where I come from people have died over less.”

“What’s it saying? Can it get us outta here?” Brosh asked.

“I’m uncertain.” He turned to Corbin. “Can you free us from our current predicament?”

“I dunno. The draklings weren’t particularly tough, but I have this little drawback of not having opposable thumbs. Hopefully…” he almost said my master, “my companion will join us in a moment. You may have met her: felinian, sneaky, knives.”

Dvelledrin nodded. “Suspicious sort, that one.”

“I’ll go see if there’s a key ring among the corpses.”

“You’re looking for a large brass key with a bit of lapis lazuli in the handle. It cuts through the lock’s enchantments.”

“Copy that.”

“My toolbelt would have something,” Brosh grumbled again, having figured out what was going on. “I could prolly pick this lock with my toolbelt.”

Corbin nodded. “Toolbelt or key with semi-precious stones. Be right back.”

While he was forced to own several more draklings still alive in the prison area, they presented no significant difficulty to a level 12 badass doggo familiar. A few more xp and a couple of loot piles later, he had discovered a chest with the specific key sticking out of the lock. Getting the damn thing open without thumbs was another matter, as was extracting the key. He slobbered all over it in his fruitless quest to obtain it before giving up. Instead he was forced to latch onto the leather grab handle on its side, and drag it all the way back to the cells.

“Smart, for a canid,” Brosh said.

“Did he miss the part where I’m a sentient familiar?” Corbin asked. When the fae sorcerer just smirked, Corbin did his best doggy glower. It probably looked just as adorable as everything else he did. “I don’t have to break either of you out, you know that? If you’re going to be pricks about this. Or nerfs. I don’t know the lingo yet. Unless either of you can read and translate druidic.”

“I can read druidic,” Dvillandrin lied. Probably.

“Why’s that important?” Brosh asked. “I know some druids.”

“Okay then, if you want that key… what do you think of druids?”

The fae turned and translated. Brosh blinked in Corbin’s direction several times, opened his mouth, pointed a finger into the air, snapped his mouth closed again, and huffed in confusion.

“Am I to believe that this canid right here, the cute slobbering creature, is some sort of prodigy of its kind, and able to speak to you?”

“You live in a world of literal magic,” Corbin retorted. “Why’s that so difficult to believe?”

Brosh cocked his head in thought a bit longer, before shrugging. “Druids are… peculiar,” he said. “Most of ‘em don’t like to come near civilization, which includes literally every artificer there is, so all this is hearsay, understand? Druids run in Circles… ugh, that came out wrong. Accidental canid joke, am I right?” He gave the fae a companionable elbow, but Dvelderrin appeared annoyed at having to wait on account of a dog. “Druids have groups called Circles. Generally they keep to their Circles, and don’t mess around in the affairs of civilizations. Every once in a while one of the big city states will come try and take control over the area a Circle calls their home, and it generally doesn’t go well for them.” 

He told the story of a war against the druids, who would use the whole environment to take down a full army: vines would spring out and bind up supply lines, crevasses would open up and swallow men and supplies, that sort of thing. They’d taint the enemy’s water supplies or turn all the animals in the area into unstoppable forces. And then, when they started to bring out the fire, the druids could bring the rain. They’d bring the hail, the snow, and make it so you couldn’t cut down the trees.

Corbin had heard enough to see druids as geopolitical forces to be reckoned with. Chances were decent that they distrusted rangers like Kyessy for bringing encroaching civilization into their midst. Either that or she’d fallen in love with one of them. Unlikely, but possible. After all, if she could fall in love with a monster beekeeper, anything was possible.

After he dragged the chest closer, the fae sorcerer was able to deal with the key. Brosh opened the chest and found it full of their equipment. Soon enough his toolbelt was back on, all his crafting components and random items were back in his inventory, and they were ready to go.

“Were you the one who told Prissy about the scroll?”

The fae looked uneasy at this.

“It was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Not… exactly.” He darted a look toward Brosh. “You must understand, it wasn’t a lie. The scroll certainly does exist. The groblins have a way of getting to the wyrm’s hoard, so anything they don’t want messed with, they ask the draklings to deposit in there. Their mechanisms and devices pave the way somehow. I know not. All I do know is that Brosh here was unable to discern how the system works before we were overwhelmed and captured.”

“He askin’ about the wyrm’s hoard?” Brosh asked.

“We need to get to the next level below us,” Corbin said.

They headed out into the hall and surveyed the destruction Corbin had wrought. Three other doors led out of here, and the sorcerer with the stupid name and the even worse titles pointed to the far left one. They needed to grab Prissy before anything else, so he followed after, came to a stairwell, and froze.

The first of the groblins was staring up at them.

“Oh–”

“–nerf,” Brosh finished.

You can find story with these keywords: UnFamiliar, Read UnFamiliar, UnFamiliar novel, UnFamiliar book, UnFamiliar story, UnFamiliar full, UnFamiliar Latest Chapter