The Shrine of the Skull I – Black Beneath Stone

The clouds pressed low and heavy, a gray blanket of rippled lead. The air was thick and warm. A breeze moaned among the rocks and the withered trees, but brought no relief. They had ridden hard for two days in sweltering shadow without a murmur of thunder. The storm would not break.

Comillas wiped sweat from his eyes and gave the deep-etched runes another look. This niche in the side of a bald hill was rough and weathered, but the door set in it had a smooth polish that spoke either of enchantment, or masterful craftsmanship. The dwarf said the stone was common, so Comillas assumed the former.

“Well, mage,” Lofric rumbled, “Can you open it?”

Comillas turned to the party. Lofric must have been far more uncomfortable than he, his massive body swathed in mail and gambeson. Santiano wasn’t complaining, but dwarves never let such weakness show in front of lesser races.

“It would be a waste of resources. Banco should do it.”

The thief huffed indignantly.

“A waste of your time, but not mine? What happened to ‘we’re equals in this venture?’”

“I said ‘a waste of resources,’ Banco, not ‘a waste of time.’ I can’t afford to just start slinging spells. If I do, one might misfire later, when it counts. Is that true of your lockpick?”

“Fair enough.”

Comillas showed Banco the keyhole hidden in one of the runes far to the right, then he watched with the others as the thief set to work, deftly maneuvering his delicate instruments. At last, there was a click as something fell into place. Stone slid against stone, and the door eased open half an inch. Banco’s hand darted out to stop it opening further.

“Alright,” Comillas said, “The others said the builders put two trials near the entrance to protect the relic. Beyond those, the place is swarming with kobolds. They tunneled their way in a few decades ago, found the skull, and made it their god.”

“You’re sure it’s still there?” Banco asked. “They didn’t take it somewhere else?”

“No, my friend,” Santiano said. “The skull of the Blessed Clive cannot be touched. There is a guardian. They can only look.”

That was the first thing the dwarf had said for two days straight. His thick Ardoleño accent awoke a longing in Comillas for the great cities of the West. There were riches there, palatial splendor. It was long past time to escape this dusty eastern backwater.

“Can we handle this ‘guardian?’” Banco asked.

Lofric grunted and thumped the flat of his longsword on the edge of his shield.

“Fair enough.”

Hearing no more objections from the thief, Comillas continued.

“The point is, once we get past the first two trials, we don’t know what to expect. There could be more traps, but the kobolds may or may not have disabled them. Regardless, when we get in deep, they’ll be behind us and in front us. There’ll be no safe exit. Once we’re in, we’re in. No turning back. Understood?”

The men nodded, their hands drifting to their weapons. Santiano said nothing. He had a distant look in his eyes, and his thumb moved steadily from point to point along a string of prayer beads.

“Good. We’ll enter, we’ll fight, we’ll win, we’ll take it–and we’ll make it out. For the gold, and for glory.”

“For gold and glory,” Banco said.

“Gold and glory,” came the echo from the big man.

The dwarf whispered something in his own tongue. It might have been a prayer, or it might have been a line from an old war ballad. Regardless, Comillas knew it meant Santiano was ready. He turned to the door and eased it open, exposing the black throat of the underground shrine.

Cool air rushed out, as welcome as the promise of gold.

   *   *   *

The dwarf led them. His people had eyes made for the dark and were as tough as most things in the near-surface tunnels. Lofric followed at a distance, then Comillas in his spell-knit robes, and Banco last of all, carrying a lantern in one hand and a small crossbow in the other. The three men could hear Santiano’s wooden pole scraping along the cobbled floor of the dark passage ahead.

That pole had already warned them of two separate pressure plates. If someone had walked across the first by accident, they would’ve been spitted with a long, wicked spike. The second triggered a panel in the floor ahead to silently withdraw. Bones lay at the bottom of that pit.

Comillas tried to ease his nerves with a silent recitation of the keys to every spell he knew. It was a comforting routine, reminding him that he was as dangerous as any pit trap, if only for the moments his spell lasted. You couldn’t have everything.

The scraping of the pole over stone stopped.

“Please do not move,” Santiano said.

They did as he asked. His voice came from the darkness again.

“I would also be very grateful if you did not breathe.”

Comillas tensed. In the silence that followed, he heard the pole tapping first the floor, then along one wall, then the other, and finally on the ceiling above.

Banco swore. Santiano hissed at him, but now Lofric was growling too.

“What is it?” the fighter asked.

“The walls and floors are hollow!” the dwarf hissed.

Comillas took a step forward examining the walls. This section of tunnel looked no different than the others.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

The dwarf, half-lit by the thief’s lantern, dropped his pole and pulled out a heavy-bladed ax.

“Yes! I can hear them moving!”

Banco edged closer to Comillas, his crossbow raised. “What did he say?”

That was when the ceiling gave way.

Ten yards back, an enormous length of stone simply crumbled, the heavy pieces slamming down onto the floor below. Cracks radiated towards them. Yips and howls echoed in the darkness. Kobolds flooded in.

Lofric raced past Comillas and Banco, his shadow dancing weirdly in a cloud of dust as he dashed his keen-edged blade against the skull of the first enemy.

Comillas heard more crumbling stone and turned to find Santiano running in the opposite direction, towards a second wave of kobolds. The mage drew his dagger and cursed. He couldn’t use spells now, not this far from the end.

The wall behind him shuddered and split. Banco pointed his crossbow toward Comillas’s face. He felt the wind on his cheek from the passing quarrel that struck a shrieking monster behind him. He whirled and plunged his dagger into its companion.

Things don’t die when you stab them. They just start dying. The bloodied kobold whipped its snout at Comillas’s knife arm and clamped down with a dozen needle-sharp teeth. Pain blossomed. The slimy wetness of its mouth and wriggling strength of its tongue were as frightening as the bite itself. Comillas punched the beast in the ear until it let go to snap at his other arm. Dagger-hand free, Comillas stabbed it again. Then punched it again, then stabbed.

As the kobold twitched in its death throes, the mage had time to wonder why he was only fighting one of the monsters. Another bolt flew past him.

“You alright?” Banco loaded the weapon for another round. The lantern shook wildly as he worked.

Comillas looked at the gap in the wall. It was narrow. The thief was shooting anything that appeared there, and the hole was now clogged with bodies. “I’m alive.”

Near Lofric, a wall caved in. The floor shook and pitched wildly. Banco leapt to safety and edged towards Santiano, eyes darting wildly in search of threats.

Comillas was not so lucky. The first buckle of crumbling stone had tossed him off his feet. As he got his feet under him, the floor gave way again.

He fell into a kobold tunnel below.

He tumbled and rolled down a steep slope. Then he was plunging down an even a steeper shaft, till he smacked into wet dirt. The world flashed white.

When he came to himself, Comillas was unsure if an hour had passed or a heartbeat. Battered and bleeding, he rose to hands and knees. He was shaking. He tried reciting spell keys, but none came to mind. He thought he might vomit.

The was the sound of fighting, but distant. The light of Banco’s lamp was gone entirely.

Another moment passed. His stomach was calm. The room was not spinning, just dark. The blow to his head was not severe. Where was his dagger?

Terror seized him. He’d heard stories of wounds so deep and sudden you never felt them. He straightened and ran his hands along his aching, bleeding body. Had he fallen on the weapon? No. No, there was nothing sticking out of him, no gushing blood.

Of course not. He would know. Surely, he would have noticed something.

Comillas went back down on his hands and knees and felt about the floor. He came across something cool and sharp. A deep sigh escaped him. Not only had he avoided falling on his dagger, he’d avoided losing it.

Now he straightened and listened to the distant sounds of battle. He could hear Lofric or Santiano bellow from time to time, but the gap between them was growing longer. Was that a good sign? Had the others beaten the kobolds back? There was no screaming. He knew how long it took for a kobold to kill a man. There were always screams.

Somewhere in the black, feet padded on damp earth. Comillas reached for the keys, and this time they came. One good bolt of fire could kill anything living this shallow.

The footsteps stopped. It probably wasn’t in range yet, but he could hear the creature sniffing. It yipped uncertainly.

Another yip answered.

Comillas waited and listened. Two pairs of feet, one in this tunnel, one in another off to the side somewhere, but both approaching.

Maybe not fire. A pure arcane attack could be split between multiple targets. Even better, where fire might turn a shield, these would go straight through.

The distant sounds of battle died at last. Comillas thought of his companions. He had told them there was no safe exit. No turning back, he had said. It was still a long way from the end.

For gold and glory.

The mage took a deep, shuddering breath, letting all thought of spells fade from his mind. He tightened his grip on the dagger and settled into a fighting stance.

In the black tunnels beneath the earth, the kobolds approached.

To Be Continued…