Pointing my staff downward I spoke a word and began channeling a white hot flame along the length of it. Playing it back and forth I started the rather foul task of incinerating the still moving pieces of our undead foes. The stench of burning bodies was incredibly foul, but unfortunately it wasn’t a new smell for me. I had had a lot of experience with it in the aftermath of the battle with the army of Gododdin. The cremation fires then had lasted for more than a week.
As I reached one of the bodies near the ballistae my flames took hold in an unexpected way, blazing up and filling the room with light. The floor was covered in a slick substance that burned, almost as if someone had poured out a barrel of oil. I released my spell but the fire continued to spread across the floor between both of the broken ballistae and then outward in lines, following channels carved into the floor. My eyes grew wide as I realized I had inadvertently set off a trap, just as they had known I would.
“Get down!” I screamed at Harold and Walter as I ran toward them. Confusion was written in their faces as I reached them and they still made no move to do anything. Without time to do anything else I created a shield around the three of us and grabbed them by the shoulders. “Down!” I repeated and thankfully they knelt as I pulled downward on them.
“What’s going on?” asked Walter, and then the world exploded. Somehow the bastards had gotten their hands on what I assumed must be quarry powder. The dark grey substance was produced by both the illuminator’s guild, which refused to share, as well as by some master stone masons, for use in quarrying rock. The damn stuff was too dangerous to use for much else, though I had heard some talk of incorporating it into siege weapons somehow.
The end result was similar to what would have happened if I had been stupid enough to use my explosive iron spheres, in a cave, under hundreds of tons of stone. The entrance collapsed and although we were rather far back from where the explosion occurred we were struck and nearly buried by a deluge of rock and debris. The noise and vibration were incredible and went on for more than a minute after the explosion itself was done.
When it finished we were cut off from the outside world. My shield had managed to keep us from being buried by the rock but we had several large boulders leaning across the top of it. I was forced to slowly change the size and shape of the shield to allow them to slide to one side. Once the heaviest of the rocks was off of it I was able to release my spell so we could climb out.
Standing amidst the rubble Walter and I surveyed the tons of stone blocking our way out. “That’s a lot of rock,” I observed.
“It will take forever to get past that, assuming the rest of the ceiling doesn’t come down if we try to dig out,” Walter added.
Harold spoke up, “I wouldn’t mind some light. It’s pitch black in here.”
Once again I had forgotten that not everyone could see in the dark. It was easier to do with Walter around, since he shared my sensory abilities. “Lyet,” I said softly, and a bright light began to emanate from the head of my staff. “Is that better?”
Sir Harold looked around, slowly taking in the scenery, rock, stone and more rock. He whistled, “I do hope you have another trick up your sleeve, your Excellency.”
As it so happened I did have options. One would be to create a teleportation circle that could take us to one of my circles in either Cameron or Lancaster and another would be to attempt simply walking through the stone itself. I wasn’t sure if I could manage that with two people, it had been difficult enough with Rose, but I could surely take them one at a time. “I can get us out,” I said confidently, “but first I would like to see what else there is down here.”
Walter groaned, “I had a feeling you might say that.”
We spent several minutes getting a better feel for the layout of the tunnels around us and making sure there were no more of the shiggreth nearby. It appeared that although the caverns branched in several places the offshoots rejoined the main tunnel deeper into the hills. In essence, although it was confusing there weren’t too many places to explore along the way.
After a few hundred yards we sensed more of the shiggreth though. Naturally it was Walter that spotted them first, “There are several hundred in the large cavern ahead,” he informed me.
By focusing more carefully I was able to see them as well. The large cavern they occupied was fairly level and had a smooth floor. Compared to the rest of the cave system it definitely gave the impression of having been altered to better accommodate human forms. I looked at my two companions, “I don’t really fancy trying to burn them all to ash.”
Their reactions were priceless. Walter’s eyes bulged as though they might try to escape his head, “But you considered it?” he asked incredulously.
Harold took an entirely different view. Now that he had survived the ballistae he was feeling decidedly more invulnerable. “Perhaps I could manage them…”
“Twenty or thirty perhaps, but more than that I doubt, remember Dorian,” I reminded him.
“So you do want to burn them?” Harold replied.
“Oh I’d like to certainly,” I answered, “but I worry that using too much fire down here would exhaust the limited supply of fresh air.” I had not forgotten using a flash fire to first burn and then suffocate Devon Tremont almost two years ago.
A loud sigh escaped Walter’s lips. “Look I hate to be the one to suggest anything to either of you suicidal maniacs but I might have a better idea,” he said suddenly.
I looked at him with interest. “I am open to any suggestions.”
“Why don’t we just walk through them? Our conversation earlier has gotten me thinking I can probably hide all three of us from their senses. We can just walk through them and scout the tunnels beyond. If we don’t find anything significant, or any means of escape we could simply leave them down here to rot,” he explained.
Walter was an easy man to overlook but his idea was the most reasonable thing I’d heard all day. I wondered if I had underestimated his intelligence. “I like the sound of that,” I replied.
Harold wasn’t so easily convinced. “You aren’t serious are you?” he asked.
Walter nodded and I spoke up, “It sounds worse than it is. There is another tunnel leading away on the far side of this cavern and it appears to be empty. They aren’t very tightly packed in there, so if Walter can do as he says we can just walk right past them and see what’s down there.”
Walter’s plan turned out to be more complicated than I had at first realized. We stood close together and joined hands while the older wizard cast his spell. In order to keep us from being visible to the shiggreth he made us invisible to both magic and visible sight, which had the unfortunate side effect of rendering us completely blind. There was no way we could navigate through a crowd like that.
“I don’t think I thought this through completely,” Walter amended. “Perhaps if we are just invisible to magic and you douse your light Mordecai.”
That turned out to be just as bad. Without my light the cavern was pitch black and we were just as blind as before. That’s when I had my epiphany. “I think I know why they don’t come out during the daytime very often,” I said.
“What?” asked Walter.
“The shiggreth,” I explained, “in the past they have almost always attacked or been encountered when it is dark. In fact, the only time that I know of them ever appearing during daylight hours was when they ambushed Dorian and Penny.”
Harold was more familiar with the shiggreth but he still didn’t understand. “I don’t see how that tells you anything specific.”
I held up my hand. “Let me finish,” I told him. “We know they don’t have an issue with daylight because they have come out during the day at least once. So why would they generally avoid moving about during the daytime?”