User:Arrow Quivershaft/Descending Into Darkness
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3P story universe |
Descending Into Darkness
I stared for a moment at the thing, thinking I must’ve hit my head. I took a step closer, then thought better of it. It was down, we should just move on. I looked to Alex and nodded slightly in thanks.
He grinned back to me. “Good job.”
“Th-thanks”, I told him, the uncertainty clear in my voice. I reloaded my crossbow, looking around gauge injuries, as I headed over in the direction of the other three. Alex stepped out of my way, wobbling slightly.
Blossom stood up shakily by the waters as I approached. “You okay, Dawn?” she asked.
"I'm fine... Might've pulled something... I'm fine." Dawn said, struggling back to her feet. I was glad to see that...didn’t want Dawn to be hurt. That said, Blossom seemed to be checking her for injuries...so I went over to Timmy to check on him. We should start moving before the poison wore off.
Blossom shook a bit as I moved for Tim, trying to dry off. The tentacle-thing receded back into the water, apparently having no interest in pursuit. Blossom and Dawn started over towards the rest of us as I reached Tim, who, for his part, was getting stiffly to his feet.
“You ok, Tim?” I asked as I reached him.
Tim nodded. "I got two solid hits in... You want the coup de grace, or shall I?"
"We weren't planning on killing it, remember?" I felt like an idiot saying that, but I said it anyways.
"What, you want to fight it again on the way out?" he asked me.
"They'll replace him if we kill this one..." I pointed out.
"But he won't be too happy to see us." Alex said as he hopped over to us, eyeing the beast warily.
"The creatures of the underworld have funny rules about death anyways." Dawn said.
I looked at Dawn. "Hmm?"
"I do not want to kill it.." Blossom said through chattering teeth
I looked to Blossom. "I don't know we have a reasonably alternative option." Play the reasonable center.
"I'm serious.” Dawn said. “Nothing down here is afraid to die, because the life-death relationship for bottomsiders is rather different here."
I glanced at Tim and evaluated in light of that statement. Tim just smiled, making it no easier for me to decide. After a moment, I spoke. "No killing. We'll have to fight another one on the way out for one, and two, if we spare him, we might get a free pass."
Blossom nodded to me in agreement. “Yes.”
"Pfffffft!" Tim said.
I looked at him evenly. "Slim chance versus no chance."
Tim turned away to head for the entrance, then suddenly winced and doubled over. “Oh, SHIT...”
My attention jolted back to him. I looked at him concernedly. "What's wrong?"
"Dude?" Alex said.
"Nothin, man, nothin...” Tim lied. “Look at that fucker bleed, though. Probably end up dyin' anyways."
"Look, Tim, if you're hurt, don't hide it." I sighed. "We need you. If you're badly injured, we can't continue."
"Fuck, guys, I just got stepped on. It's nothing." Tim scoffed.
"By that thing? That's not nothing." Alex pointed out.
"Look. Bury your pride.” I stressed. “If you are hurt, tell me NOW, or we might all die because you won't admit you're too injured to continue."
"Just ribs. I've had worse." he admitted.
"Are you sure?" I asked. Tim nodded confidently...which was less than reassuring.
"I would help but i lost my salves in the river..." Blossom admitted.
"Are we continuing, or not?" I asked. More to the others. I already knew Timmy’s answer.
Alex nodded. "Lets get this over with."
"Yes, we have come too far to turn back." Blossom agreed.
"Ok, then the door's open." I said, motioning to the now-undefended gateway.
Tim headed over for the downed doggy.
I looked at him as I started to change the magazine on my crossbow. "No killing, I said."
"Yeah, and those of us who've been down here before know it ain't really killing." Tim said.
Dawn kept her mouth shut for the moment. I looked away from Tim, not wanting to fight him anymore.
"We're leaving now." I started for the opened path.
"Hon, don't forget the packs." Dawn reminded me. Duh, idiot. I nodded to her and went to grab my pack. Blossom did the same with me.
"Take the kids into the entrance there.” Tim said. “I'll catch up in like 30 seconds."
Blossom looked at Tim. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to uh... Tie it up." Tim said, rather unconvincingly.
"Make sure to get your stuff, Tim. We need the food." I reminded him, then started for the entrance, trying to get Blossom and Alex to follow me.
Blossom walked over to Tim. Dammit. "I will help then..." she said, sarcastically. I stopped to watch this play out.
"You do that." Tim said, as he stopped and looked over the downed "pooch", not putting his blade away. Dawn came to my side and stood there, watching as well.
Blossom stared at him. "Put away the sword..." she said, glaring at Tim. "We are not killing it."
You're right. 'We' are not.” Tim shot back. “Follow Nathan."
"Not until you do." Blossom said to him.
Alex sighed at my side.
"Fine. You can watch.” Tim said. “Do you know what this thing is?"
"I do, probably more than you." Blossom said. Oh lord, there was her ego again.
"Yeah, you know that it's three bent souls, then, living in slavery?” Tim said. “You're just fine with three decent beings that are going to be forced to watch themselves kill you as we come up?"
"Perhaps if we show him mercy he will let us go." Blossom bluffed, half-convincingly.
"Tell ya what... I'll walk away from this thing right now...” Tim said.” But, if it attacks you on the way up, I'm not going to risk my hide because you couldn't stomach a monster being put out of its misery."
"I cannot let you kill him it would be against Selene to do so." Blossom said.
Tim rolled his eyes visibly, and headed back for his pack. "Pfft, no it isn't."
"So, what now?" Alex asked me.
"We keep going until we get to the bottom. It's my first time down here." I said, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing.
"Lets hope we don't get our asses kicked next time..." Alex said.
"Agreed." I said solemnly, finishing the magazine-change on my crossbow.
"What I would give for some aspirin right now." Alex said, then started towards the gate with Dawn. I waited for Tim and Blossom.
"It is wrong to kill something that does not deserve to die, he was doing his job that is all." Blossom said to Tim as they approached.
"It's a mind-controlled slave, kid." Tim said, painfully hoisting his pack back onto his back.
"Then the one that does the controlling deserves it." Blossom said, as she got back to me. I turned and went with them.
"Yeah? And you gonna do that? Or is that guy just doing his job too?" Tim said incredulously. He was making a few good points.
"If I see him, then you can have permission to kill him." Blossom said, with another touch of sarcasm.
I jumped in here. "Look, just stop the fighting, ok? We can't afford to break here." Needed us all together on the same page.
Tim took the hint. He shrugged with a wince. "Whatever."
And so, we headed through the gate and into the maws of the underworld.
As we entered the castle through the empty gate, the corridor started to slope steeply downward, along with the river itself. We resumed the prior marching order, with Alex and Dawn taking up the rear now that they were ground-bound. I didn’t envy either of them having bird legs on a trek like this, but I was carrying too much gear to have a chance of carrying Dawn, and carrying Alex...wasn’t a good idea. Stormwing really is a pretty shitty forcemark, when you come right down to it. It was a bad thing for me to do, but I silently thanked my luck on not getting forcemarked on my first trip in realm.
The walls rapidly stopped being masonry castle-style walls, and became more cavelike. It was incredibly dark much of the time, but there was some sort of vaguely luminescent substance on the walls and ceiling in patches. I didn’t risk touching it, but I was silently thankful for it, because it meant that it didn’t feel like we were in a tomb with two flashlights for five people. I mean, ok, I still couldn’t see at all with just the light from the walls, but it was...comforting, at least. Alex and Blossom seemed to be seeing just fine from it though...I guess stormwings and foxes have good night vision. I kept my lightstick up, as did Tim as we kept moving.
If the top of the underworld was surreal with the design it had...this was even worse. It didn’t make any sense, any of it. The creatures we saw looked like things out of nightmares, the cave formations were completely insane, and the water flow was...bizarre. We followed the river around a few 90-degree turns as we went down further, and at least twice, the river started going uphill, requiring us to climb up after it. It was like all science and logic wanted nothing to do with this place...which, admittedly, made sense.
Alex grumbled a bit at the uphill walking, hopping along awkwardly. After a while, he said, "You know, Hades might just be Escher in disguise?"
"Why do you think that?" Blossom asked.
"MC Escher?” I said. “The comparison had crossed my mind, I admit."
"This design is right up his alley." Alex said.
I smiled a bit. "It is, isn't it?"
After that brief bit of brevity, we fell silent again, just pushing on. We weren’t killing ourselves on pace, but we were at a moderate hurry. It wasn’t really a sense of urgency propelling us...more a vague feeling of discomfort. Things here felt wrong, like my mind wasn’t supposed to comprehend or think about them too deeply, and it just felt...foreboding. I wanted to finish up what we came here to do and get back out. Everyone felt it, I think, and the pervasive gloom permeated the group and made us just focus our energies on moving forward.
The caverns got quite large, and numerous offshoots started to become more common as we kept going. I’d long since lost track of how ‘deep’ we’d gone. I took notes on our path as we went, writing them down so that we knew how to get back. Hopefully. Dawn reminded me that the geography of the Underworld wasn’t constant, and that we should keep going ‘up’ as a general rule when we came back. Still, I took notes. We wouldn’t be down here too long, I hoped.
We encountered a number of goblin-like things and nonsense little underworld monsters at this point. I didn’t even recognize any of them. This was hardcore stuff, far beyond anything my training on creatures of the realms had covered. A few of them got curious, but between the weapons and Alex, we were able to convince them they had other business fairly easily.
After a while, Blossom turned to me and asked, “Think they speak our language?”
She thought we could get a guide. Great. "We just keep following the river, Blossom. Until it meets the other four."
"Everything speaks the same language down here." Dawn said. “And we don’t speak it.”
"Alright,” Blossom said with resignation. “Couldn't hurt to have a guide, or ask directions."
"Indeed..." Alex said softly.
"We know where we're going. Don't fraternize more than you have to." Dawn warned. I agreed with her. So did Tim, with a grunt.
For that matter, Tim was moving more slowly than before, that was for sure. After a while, when we took a break at a small alcove, I looked him over. After a quick check, I spoke with him.
"Are you sure you don't need care?"
"There's nothing you can do about it." Tim said.
"Hmm? Howso?" Alex asked.
"It's ribs, Sparkles,” Tim responded to Alex. “You can't do anything about ‘em."
Unfortunately, since it was his rib, it was true. I nodded to him. "Ok. Just...if you have issues, tell me." I gave him a few more painkillers from the medkit to take the edge off, but that was about all I could do, and there was no temple to Asclepius nearby. I made a mental note to rebalance the packs tonight. A bit more for Blossom, a lot more for me, and less for Tim, to avoid aggravating his injury.
We started back up again. We went another ways, probably another mile and cavern down, and suddenly the river opened up into a delta, which emptied into a absolutely massive underground lake. Not that I’d seen an underground lake before, but this still impressed me by its size. It was very misty here, and I couldn’t see across the lake. The riverbank and delta spread out into a broad, rocky beach (there was no sand), but there was no obvious way across the lake.
"Aw shit." Alex said, after we spent a few minutes looking for something and just coming up with water.
"Damn..." I agreed.
"Well, this is bad." Blossom opined.
"Did anyone remember to pack a boat?" Alex asked rhetorically. He knew as well as I did that we had nothing.
I looked along the lakeshore to see if there was a boat, but nothing was visible. There was a chance there might be something in the mist, but I sure as hell wasn’t going swimming after the earlier incident, and I don’t think anyone else wanted to either. I glanced to Tim and Dawn. Tim shrugged a bit at me but said nothing.
"Don't look at me,” Dawn said. “I ain't flying here."
“Gotcha,” I nodded. I was silently relieved.
I kept looking for a bit, Alex helping me. Tim and Blossom and Dawn were taking a break for the moment. The reflection off his feathers was mildly irritating, but I didn’t say anything. And then I saw it. At first I thought it was just points of light bouncing back from the mist, but they just kinda sat there. I squinted a bit. Yeah, there was something out there. A few floating points of light, gathered a bit of a way down the beach where we hadn’t gone to yet.
Alex looked in that direction, focusing. He saw them too. "Hmm..."
"Think we should check it out?" I asked him.
"Do we have anything better to do?" Alex responded.
"Point taken." I said. I roused the group and then started leading the way towards the lights.
Once we got closer, we realized they weren’t torches. They were just...points of light. Like someone had lit a bright candle, except there was no candle. The lights hovered there, wobbling a bit, with nothing seeming to sustain them, just...light, emitted from nothing.
I paused, looking at them. "Will-O-Wisps, maybe?" I asked, resisting the urge to reach out and touch one.
Dawn shrugged a bit. "Don't look at me. This is way further down than I've ever been."
Alex looked around in a quick scan of the area, as did I. We both thought it might be a trap...but no danger was apparent. Which meant there either was no trap, or it was a really good one. Bad situation to be in. Blossom shivered a bit, but nothing happened.
After a minute I relaxed, looking back to the lights. “Huh...” I looked away, turning back to the lake, looking futilely for a path across. Dammit, we had to be getting closer. But there was no obvious way forward.
"Well, that was a dissapointment." Alex said, echoing everyone’s sentiment.
I tried to be slightly more productive. "We can't swim...we didn't bring a raft...and if we turn around, they'll expect us next time." We didn’t have many good options here.
"Isn't there supposed to be this Charon dude around somewhere?" Alex asked.
I nodded to him. "That'd be a theory, but I don't see him at this time."
"Maybe this is his lunch break." Alex joked.
"Or maybe he heard the fighting?" Blossom asked.
I shook my head. "Not from this far, I don't think. It’s gotta have been like 6 hours since that happened.”
Suddenly, a light, rhythmic splashing sound pierced our ears, coming from somewhere out in the mist. Like someone paddling a canoe, or rowing a boat. I looked out to see if I could see anything, but the mist shrouded it all. That said, the noise became steadily louder and closer...so we were going to find out what was making it pretty soon, whether we wanted to or not.
It took a minute, but soon a small boat did come into view. A middle-aged human was paddling patiently in the back, standing up. On the bow, there was a German Shepherd... a normal one, standing, looking out to the destination.
I was the party front, so I nodded and waved out to him. “Hello.” Blossom bowed politely in his direction.
The boat pulled up to the shore, partially on the rocky beach. The man waved hello to us without a word and stepped off the boat to stretch a little bit. The glowing lights moved down across the beach to hover immediately above the boat. The dog came over and sniffed at us all, being friendly before taking a quick break.
I looked to the man, quirking a brow. "You are Charon?"
"Nah. He retired centuries ago.” the man responded. “I'm Plustolius, most call me Pluto."
"My apologies." I said, but he waved it off.
"Don't worry about it. Your historians get all kinds of stuff a little mixed up." Pluto said.
Alex nodded, moving the conversation forward. "Well, good to see you."
Blossom nodded, then got down to business. "Could we get a ride with you across the lake?"
"One coin each for topsiders." Pluto said without missing a beat. Musta done this before.
"One question." I said, getting a bad feeling.
"Yes, son?" Pluto looked to me.
"We CAN come back the other way when we're done, right?" I asked to clarify.
"Ever known a ferry to operate one way?" Pluto said.
I flushed red a bit. "That would be another detail our historians messed up, then." I admitted. "Just making sure."
"Coin? What coin?" Blossom asked.
"Any coin." Pluto responded. "Don't ask me how that works, that's just the rule."
Alex turned and eyed me. "Well, you've got the bank."
Timmy took a coin out of his pocket. "Here ya go." Looked like a euro-penny. Cheapskate.
That said, Pluto took it anyways and let him on the boat. I dug out four coins, mostly single-euro to five euro-coins, for the other four of us. I offered them to Pluto and he accepted them, letting us all step onto the boat in turn.
"Will the boat hold everyone?" Blossom asked, as she boarded.
"Yes," Pluto nodded. He got back in and seated himself in the rear, taking up his paddle. He whistled twice, and the dog came running back and jumped onto the front of the boat, taking up the same position.
"Let's go then," Timmy said as I climbed in, the last to do so. Alex was near the center, hunkering down carefully with a firm grip on the bench. Dawn had perched on an edge, and Timmy was near the back. Blossom sat down in front with the dog, petting it gently, and the lights hovered near Alex.
Pluto pushed off with his paddle and started slowly paddling the boat. The boat was...remarkably stable, for what seemed to be a big square canoe. I looked around for a second oar or paddle to help, but none was obvious. I was grateful for the chance to rest, then. So was everyone else, I think. After a short while of silence, Pluto spoke, breaking up the rhythmic splashing.
"So what brings this group of topsiders down? I don't get many groups this way" he said
"Kid died too early," Timmy said kinda quietly.
"A friend needs our help." Blossom agreed.
That didn’t leave me much to say. I looked at Pluto and said, "What they said. He's stuck with the Fates." I hoped that made sense to the man.
"Ohhh, /him/. Right." Pluto nodded knowingly.
"You know about him? Anything you can tell us?" I browquirked, hoping we could gain some information here. I wasn’t alone, Blossom looked over as well.
Pluto shook his head. "Not really. Just that it's been a bit of a snarl."
"Howso?" I pressed.
"I don't know the background to it. I'm just the boatsman." Pluto said.
"Ah, ok." I said. So much for getting more information. "Thank you, I'm sorry to bother."
Pluto changed the subject. "We'll be there before too long... What're you going to do with these spirits? S’pose you might guide them in?"
"Which spirits?" I asked.
Pluto gestured to the floating lights hovering over the boat, near Alex. They seemed to be perfectly stable, mimicking every movement of the boat perfectly.
"We didn't know what those were, actually..." I said, a bit sheepishly. "We can guide them in, yes."
"Dangerous, mind you." Pluto said. Alex eyed the spirits a bit worriedly.
Tim grunted. "Thought so...gotta tell which one is him."
I ignored Tim. "Please elaborate?" I asked to Pluto.
"Many things down here eat spirits rather than solids, but will attack physical beings in their way."
I nodded at that. It made sense. That said... "We can get them to their goal. We're going to the same place anyways."
Alex shuddered a bit but said nothing
"We are just here for our friend." Blossom stated.
Tim sighed "So he could be eaten..."
"Oh, gods no.” Pluto said. “These are just strays, really. The natural deaths don't run the gauntlet like these ones do." He paused for a moment. "These are waywards and some that failed adventurers have tried to bring out and such.
I blanked my face at that. I didn’t want to think too much about the implications.
"How long will it take to cross?" Blossom asked.
"Cross the land leading up to the Judging?" Pluto asked by way of clarification.
Blossom nodded. "Yes, and the lake."
"'Bout a day and a minute," Pluto said.
Alex grinned at that. "Good."
I nodded as well with some confidence. "Ok."
"How can you tell two spirits apart?" Tim asked curiously.
"I know what Nick looks like." Blossom said certainly. I didn’t know it was that easy, but I didn’t want to dissuade her yet, so I said nothing.
"We'll figure something out, right?" Alex said. He seemed a bit less certain than Blossom. I nodded in response and we all fell quiet again.
After a little while longer, the boat moved in on a shoreline much like the one we’d just left. It pulled up alongside, close enough that we could step right to dry land without getting wet. The dog got out, as did the spirits.
I turned to Pluto. "Ok, thank you. How will we call you on the way back?" I asked, wanting to know before I committed.
Pluto shook his head. "You don't. I go back and forth to all five points all day. Just wait on the bank."
"Ah, ok. Gotcha." I said with a nod, then stepped off, along with the rest of my group. Alex seemed to be glad to have more room around him again. I didn’t blame him, given the blades and the apparent hydrophobia that stormwings are supposed to have.
"The wonders of public transport." Alex commented, bowing slightly to Pluto. He nodded and then, after recalling the dog, pushed off again, continuing his lonely patrol.
After getting our bearings and looking around, we decided to rest here for the night, and then continue in the morning. The decayed spirits hovered around the camp, but they seemed to be following us as a group, so we didn’t have to do anything. After we were all rested, we carried on, heading out on a lightly travelled path that continued on, like it went right under the lake, the spirits following behind us. I had an idea about the escort job, maybe we could trade or ask for ‘payment’ for services rendered.
It was still too dark and cramped for any flying, and Alex was grumbling a bit at the pain it was causing him. I empathized, and kept him going. Over the course of the day, we had a few fights we had to go through. One or two soul-eater creatures...and a young hydra. We managed to beat the latter by shooting it with flaming crossbow bolts. That said, fighting in the total darkness of these caves sucks quite nastily. On the plus side, we didn’t lose any of our charges, so we were able to continue on, mostly without incident.
All of us were a bit more injured and sore at this point, and Alex had more blood on him. He was getting pissed off and venting it on the monsters, and I didn’t blame him. I distributed painkillers as I could, trying to keep a reserve. We were getting lucky we weren’t encountering much, or so Dawn said, but I didn’t mind.
As we continued, the cave split multiple times, the path unclear. But in this case, the spirits seemed to know the way and started down one path, waiting for us. We didn’t have any better ideas, so I took notes and we followed them further down. Above all, we just kept going...after another day, we finally rejoined the river, and we found a road next to it. Not a path or such, but an actual, well travelled road.
We made much better time along the road, and it led past a few villages that looked straight out of an acid-fuelled nightmare. We gave them a wide berth, wanting nothing to do with the villages or whatever inhabitants might live in such a twisted place. I kept a close eye on our food supplies. We had about another day before we had to turn back or risk running out of food.
But the concern was unnecessary. At last, the river and the road passed through a pair of massive stone pillars, which formed an impromptu gate into a finished, marble hall and antechamber that led up to a massive, ornate, closed stone door. As we approached the door, which was at LEAST 20 feet tall, the spirits just phased right through it. Seeing that, I suddenly wondered if this was where we were meant to go for the end of our trip.
Alex eyed me uncertainly, wondering what to do. I looked to Dawn, and she shrugged. Blossom was behind me, and Timmy was taking a quick break leaning against a wall. Looked like this was up to me. I gathered my breath, walked up to the door, and knocked on it, three times. Then I took a step back and waited to see what happened.
| Preceded by: Cerberus |
Three Pantheons | Succeeded by: In the Hall of the Dead |
