Then the familiar hissing and clicking of a bajillion creepy cockroaches started up, coming closer at a terrifying speed. Not only was I about to be flattened by a brockerball, but cockroaches would be here to peel my remains off the cavern floor and eat me for lunch.
“Arden,” Vix called. “Look!”
I didn’t want to look, but I did. A wave of disgusting, chittering cockroaches stormed toward me as the brockerball leapt. Its massive body was about to crush me into a bloody pulp. The cockroaches got to me first though. They covered my body and the rocks that I was buried beneath like a blanket made of scratchy, twitching legs and bodies.
When the rock creature landed, the roaches absorbed the impact. It still didn’t feel good when the monster made contact with my chest, but it was a dull thud compared to what it would have been. Then the roaches pooled under the fiend and carried it into the dark.
“I didn’t know what that monster would find convincing,” Cindra said. Her hips swayed as she walked back into the light, “but I am quite used to talking those little roaches into doing what I say.”
“Bravo,” Vix said.
“Seriously,” I said, “thank you.”
“No, thank you,” Cindra said. “Thanks to you I think I can finally leave this cave.”
“About that,” I said. “We need to figure out a way to get back to the surface before that creature returns. I take it there’s no other entrance or exit?”
“None that I’ve found,” Cindra said.
“So what do we do?” I asked.
“Time is tight,” Vix said. “My first thought was to wait for it to rain, then the water fills the cave and we swim free.”
“No,” I said, “there has to be another way.”
“Why don’t—” Cindra said.
Vix cut her off. Her eyes darted wildly from side to side, as if her imagination worked quicker than she could voice her thoughts. “There were rail carts that we passed along the way. That means there are metal rails. If we pull them up from the ground and drag them over here, we could build a ramp, and with enough effort we could heave one of the carts hard enough that we’d fly right out of here.”
“That sounds dangerous,” I said.
“And impossible,” Cindra said. “Maybe you—”
“Oh! Oh!” Vix yelped. We can dig horizontally. We’re inside a hill. Eventually we’d come out the other side. It wouldn’t take more than a week if we all work together, and skip sleeping until we make it out of here. We’d still have to stave off that rock monster…”
“You’re a builder, sweetie,” Cindra said. “Can’t you just build a thing?”
“Oh,” Vix said. “I can do that. Would stairs work?”
“Yes, Vix. Stairs would work,” I said.
“Okay, I’ll have that done in a jiffy actually.”
+6
I felt guilty, sitting around while Vix carried large stones toward the entrance to make a set of stairs from, but every time I carried a rock to her she would frown and set it aside. She selected her building components carefully, making piles of them as if cataloguing their shapes and sizes. She tapped them with her hammer and a chisel to whittle away the sections she didn’t like, and then built them together like the pieces of a puzzle. Chunk by chunk, she piled those rocks until they led us straight up to the hole in the ground, two stories high, in a set of actual stairs that felt stable underfoot.
When we stepped outside again, I said, “That was remarkable, Vix.”
“Why thank you,” she said. “It’s always nice to be appreciated.”
The three of us climbed Vix’s stairs out of the imploded quarry cave. It took a long time to drag a series of large brown stones up the steps with us, but we did, and we dragged them all the way back to the entrance to Nola’s temple.
We were silenced by the exhaustion of hard work until we finally collapsed in the center of Nola’s sanctuary.
That took longer than expected, she thought at me.
You sent me toward a fault in the ground that collapsed and landed us two stories under with no way out, I said. I lay on the floor, staring at the roof of the temple. It was nothing like Laranj’s. Hers was full of paint and mosaic tile, all in hues of pink and purple. We’d get Nola a proper temple eventually, but first thing’s first: a front door.
But you have a spear, she said. Did you try pole vaulting your way out?
I did not, I thought. Though we certainly did consider a lot of options. Anyway, my spear is broken now, so I doubt that would have worked.
Maybe Vix can make you a new one, Nola thought. Now there was a good idea.
I sat up from the floor, expecting Vix and Cindra to be similarly exhausted. Instead, they had both made their way to the altar. They knelt before it, staring up at Nola’s serene face.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Kneeling,” Vix said. “She’s a goddess, I want to show my respect.”
I like her!, Nola thought aloud.
“And I’m just doing what she’s doing,” Cindra said. “I don’t know a thing about your customs.”
Tell them who I am!, Nola insisted. I’m the deity that puts the word you were about to lose back on the tip of your tongue before you could forget it. Tell them!
“This is Nola,” I said. “She’s in the process of evolving while Duul’s war gets closer and stronger.”
Hmmph.
“She’s beautiful,” Vix said, “and her breasts are perfect.”
I nearly choked.
“What?” Vix said. “I can appreciate another woman’s breasts.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “It’s just that I hadn’t taken the time to notice whether her… um, that is whether she…”
“Liar,” Vix said. “Is that a human thing, denying when you’re attracted to someone?”
“It must be,” I said. “Meanwhile, you said you were from Denvillia, right? How come you’re way out here in the human lands then?”
“That’s my problem. If I say I’m starting over,” Vix said, “but then I dredge up all of the nonsense I’m trying to get away from, that would destroy the purpose.”
Defeat the purpose, Nola corrected.
I’m not correcting her, I thought. I got the point. She doesn’t want me to pry. I’m still curious though.
“Arden, sweetheart,” Cindra said, walking over to me. I still lay on the floor, and by the time she got close I was staring right up at her buxom, green body. She smiled at me. “I’ve been cooped up in that cave for a long, long time. There’s something I’ve been longing for, but I’m afraid it may be a bit impolite to come right out and ask for it.”
I was getting nervous. “Really?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I so very, very badly want it. Food. Do you by any chance have some? I don’t find that I need to eat, but I would really enjoy it.”
A wave of relief washed over me. Of course my first thought was sex – Cindra may be a magically conjured slime woman, but she had curves for days. I should know better than to think a woman would want sex from me though. I may be a head priest now, but I was sure I still carried myself like a lowly temple servant.
“I don’t,” I said, “but we could try to hunt something down.”
“Oh,” Cindra said, “are you a hunter?”
I sat up. “I’m becoming a lot of things I never thought I‘d be,” I said. “Vix, is there any way you could make me a spearhead for this wooden pole? My old knife broke off in the quarry.”
“Sure,” she said. I heard her start chipping away at a stone. “If you want a good weapon though, you’ll want metal. Stone chips too easily and won’t stand up against enemies with armor. You could buy a solid spear in any nearby city.”