Undermind

Fergus would love this. The guy was obsessed with Dune. And here was an actual sand worm. Well, minus the sand. Well okay, it didn’t actually look much like a sand worm. But it was a giant worm.

That’s what one small part of Saskia’s mind was thinking. The other, louder part was screaming the word nope repeatedly and cowering in a corner.

Her gaze flicked back and forth between the big crapoodling nope oozing its way into the cavern, and the swarm of baby nopes wriggling toward them from the lake. Ruhildi gave her leg a squeeze, and even their prisoner, his face as pale a shade of green as she’d ever seen, huddled close.

They were well and truly noped.

Bog this, she thought, looking at Garrain. If I’m gonna die, it’s not gonna be with this guy roped to me. And I can’t just tie him up somewhere or he’s worm food.

In a flash, she cut the bindings at his wrists with the tip of his glaive, and slipped the rope from her waist. Then she held out the weapon to the elf. “Promise me you won’t use this glaive against us. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

He looked up at her with an unreadable expression, before answering, “You have my word, Trowbane won’t be searing demon flesh this day.”

Saskia raised her eyebrows. “Trowbane? Seriously?”

Her oracle interface showed her two things that gave her hope she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.

First, Garrain’s map marker had gone from orange to a dull muddy turquoise colour. The colour change suggested he’d turned from enemy to…not quite ally, exactly, but he was probably no longer in attack-on-sight mode.

Second, his aura was a yellowy green, which meant he was being truthful, though likely withholding something. Unsurprising, given how carefully he’d chosen his words. This day, he’d said. She couldn’t rule out the possibility that he’d turn on her tomorrow, in the unlikely event that they both lived that long. If he did come at her…she’d be getting dodgy, and he’d be getting deady. But that was tomorrow. Right now, she didn’t have time to babysit a defenceless prisoner.

Taking the proffered weapon, he tilted his head down in a little bow, though the gesture might mean something very different to an elf than it did to most humans. “I could better defend you with magic,” he suggested. “For that I’d need Ruinath.”

“Don’t push your luck,” said Saskia. Arming him was one thing, but she wasn’t yet ready to hand over nuclear launch codes to the guy who had tried to kill her on two separate occasions. “Lets get a move on!”

They broke into a run, charging directly at the larvae moving to block their path.

“Ruhildi, some overpowered necro spells would be great right about now!”

“There aren’t enough corpses nearby to be of much use, Sashki,” said Ruhildi, her brow knitted in concentration. “We’ll have to make more. Meantime, I’ve something else in mind…”

Courtesy of her oracle interface, an hourglass timer and a message scroll appeared over her friend’s head with the name of the spell she was casting: scatterblast. Saskia hadn’t seen her finish casting that one before, but it sounded ’splodey. It was just as well magic users in this world didn’t need to stand still while flinging spells. Distractions could still result in a fizzled spell, however; a fact she’d discovered to her advantage the first time she and the druid had fought each other.

First to slither out in front of her was a trio of the slimy creatures. The largest among them was as fat as a horse and as long as a bus. Tube-like mouths opened wide and lunged toward her.

She’d felt more than a little guilt over what had happened to the baby threshers, but these things? Ugh. They needed to die.

Saskia swung Mjölnir at one of the gaping maws, while twisting sideways to avoid the others. There came a satisfying splat as the hammer struck home, and a shower of ichor sprayed across her armour.

Coming up behind her, Garrain sank his blade halfway into the body of another, where its neck would be if it had a neck.

The last of the creatures whipped its head around, reaching for her leg. She spun about in an acrobatic kicky-stompy manoeuvre (which henceforth would be her official name for the move). Planting the foot down hard, she pinned the worm in place with clawed toes. A flick of the elf’s glaive ended its feeble attempt to wriggle away.

The three worms thrashed and squirmed like out-of-control fire hoses. Without waiting for the creatures to realise they were dead, Saskia pressed on, eyeing the large tangle of larvae rapidly approaching from the lake.

Behind them, the head of the full-sized deepworm surged up to the lakeshore, moving far quicker than a creature that size had any right to move, even as its tail section still squeezed through the cavern entrance.

A loud pop rang out nearby, like the sound of a gunshot. Several of the worms in the approaching swarm skidded to a halt, twitching and covered in blood. A patter of tiny stones landed all around them. The scatterblast spell.

“Nice one, Ruhildi!” she called out to the dwarf. “Enough corpses for you yet?”

“Aye, working on it,” said Ruhildi, running behind them as fast as her short legs could carry her. “I need more time. ’Tis not a quick channelling.”

But time was in short supply, looking at the large cluster of larvae darting toward them. Ruhildi’s spell had barely made a dent in their numbers.

Saskia turned to face the incoming swarm. “You two keep going,” she ordered. “I’ll hold them off for a bit.”

“Sashki…”

“Go!” shouted Saskia.

With Mjölnir held high in what she hoped was a suitably menacing pose, Saskia let out an epic battle cry that bards would be singing about throughout the ages: “Raaaaargh!”

Yeah, maybe not her finest work. It was all she could come up with at such short notice, okay? Giving a little inner shrug, she closed the distance to the wormy vanguard.

At the last moment, she pivoted to the left, squishing the head of the closest larva with her hammer. If yelling at them hadn’t gotten their attention, this did. The other worms were climbing over each other in their eagerness to chow down on her tender, juicy troll flesh. “Yeah, you want a piece of me now, dontcha?” she taunted, waggling her hips. “Come get some!” Then she bravely turned and ran away.

Saying she was going to hold them off had been stretching the truth a little. Her improvised plan involved—to borrow a term from video games—kiting the larvae. In this instance, she was the carrot and the stick. She needed to enrage her pursuers enough to make them keep wanting to chase her, without letting them get close enough to take a bite out of her. Kiting was a dangerous tactic in games, and probably amounted to suicide in most real life battles, but she didn’t see any other viable options. Her goal was to divert the swarm away from the squishy dwarf, giving her time to raise her undead pets. Any damage Saskia herself could inflict along the way was just crimson frosting on the slaughtercake.

That was the theory, anyhow. It was probably going to backfire frocktacularly.

She led the worms on a merry chase along the lakeshore, running parallel to Ruhildi and Garrain, but far enough away that hopefully her pursuers wouldn’t be tempted to break off and go after them. The swarm was growing fast as more larvae slithered out of the water.

There was a gurgling, hoicking sound, and something stuck to her arm, yanking her backward. She stumbled and nearly fell. A pustulent tentacley thing was wrapped around her arm, while others probed at her back and legs. From the open mouth of one of the larvae nipping at her heels came a writhing proboscis, like a tree of tongues, with tendrils flailing out from the trunk that had latched onto her.

“Eugh!” yelled Saskia in shock and disgust. A powerful stench hit her nostrils. If she’d been human still, she probably would have thrown up.

The grotesque appendage was reeling her in. She bit into it with her teeth, and finally it tore loose. Then she felt a horrible burning sensation inside her mouth, and she spat and retched.

A maw like a vacuum cleaner dipped in acid clamped onto her leg. Some of the corrosive substance dripped into a gap between the thick steel plates and began to eat into her flesh.

Frantically, she swung Mjölnir at the creature’s head. The hammer hit at a bad angle, glancing off its rubbery hide…

…and smashed down onto her bare toes with a sickening crunch.

Well that can’t be good, she thought. The thought that followed, when the pain finally registered, contained at least three words her mother would disapprove of.

Her next swing nearly tore the larva’s head off. She limped away, glancing down at the red mush that had been her foot. This was no mere stubbed toe. Worse, worms were closing in from all sides. There was no escape.

I really bogged that up, thought Saskia. I hope I bought Ruhildi enough time to get away.

But the worms didn’t bite into her—well, most of them didn’t. They turned on each other. It was only then that she took note of the burnt flesh and oozing entrails, and realised that some of these larvae were already dead, even as they fed on the living. Ruhildi had finally raised some pets, and now she was making them devour their siblings.

Not that they weren’t doing that already before we came along, thought Saskia.

As for how they fed…it seemed the creatures’ skin and organs were nowhere near as impervious to their corrosive digestive juices as their mouths and stomachs and proboscises. They killed by dissolving their victims. Zombie worms, it seemed, could go on fighting with half their bodies turned to goo, so they were holding their own, even while vastly outnumbered.

Saskia splattered a pair of unwanted passengers and backed away from the carnage, fumbling for her sash of arlithite. With her natural regeneration ability, her foot would eventually heal on its own, but not soon enough.

The magic dust didn’t disappoint. She’d wondered what would happen to her pulverised bones. Would they reform properly, or would she end up with toes sticking out at all angles? Turned out she needn’t have worried. The smashed bones seemed to dissolve, and within moments, started to regrow in the proper shape. Soon, she could run again, and so she did. As an added bonus, her newly-formed hand was beginning to resemble…well, a hand. Not much use for anything right now, on its little stubby arm, but give it time…

Time, though, was in very short supply. The deepworm was almost upon her, looming impossibly large as it surged around the lake, crushing any of its offspring that were too slow to slither out of its way.

She raced after Ruhildi and Garrain as they made it three quarters of the way around the lake toward the little cleft in the wall. More likely than not, if they actually made it there, that crevice would become their tomb. But she tried not to think about that. They needed a goal; even if it was ultimately futile. Otherwise they may as well just lie down and die right here and now.

Saskia had almost caught up with them when the ground came alight with an orange glow, swiftly turning red. She knew all too well what that light show meant. It was her oracle ability telegraphing an incoming attack, telling her to get the hell out of the way before the crap hit the troll.

“Incoming!” she shouted. “Get behind cover, now!”

Easier said than done though. She too needed to find cover, but where…?

There! She ducked behind a large boulder—the only spot close at hand that wasn’t lit up like a Christmas tree.

Not a moment too soon. Now the air was filled with gigantic flailing tendrils, dripping with mucus. They were far too big to have come from the larvae. And that left…oh no…

From the gaping maw of the colossal deepworm had erupted the writhing forest of its proboscis. A slimy tendril as thick as her head was reaching around the large rock behind which she’d taken shelter. She shrank away, shuddering.

With a dreadful slurping sound, the deepworm sucked the writhing mass back into its toothless maw, along with countless rocks and clumps of fungus that clung to it—and more than a few thrashing larvae.

Fearing the worst, her gaze went straight to where Ruhildi and Garrain had been running. Then a wide-eyed elf and a tired-looking dwarf peered out from behind a pillar of rock, and she let out a relieved sigh.

Reaching her friend and the druid, she crouched low to the ground and said, “Hop on, Ruhildi. Garrain, I can’t carry you at the same time. Just…try to keep up.”

Saskia took off with her dwarven cargo. Garrain followed close at her heels.

The path to the chamber exit, while not entirely clear of larvae, had at least thinned out. Many of the creatures were retreating to the relative safety of the lake, and most of those that remained were being driven back by Ruhildi’s growing army of undead pets.

But not all. A large worm slithered out from behind a rock, darting at Garrain’s heels. Without missing a beat, the druid swept his glaive into its head, cleaving it down the middle.

Ahead of them, a pile of dead larvae began to stir, and then slithered out in front of her. She had to fight the urge to back away from them as they reared up, forming into a grotesque honour guard.

“Dogramit, Ruhildi!” she complained. “Stop giving me a heart attack!”

“Sashki, you…you’re flattering me,” said Ruhildi, shifting her grip on Saskia’s shoulder. “You’re a fine friend, but I amn’t for chasing your heart, and sure as shite, I amn’t for attacking it.”

“What? No, I mean—ah forget it.” You weirdy dwarf, she added silently.

Her friend’s control over the undead had advanced by leaps and bounds following their excursion into the Dead Sanctum. Before then, raising one group of pets would have severed her link to the previous ones, returning them to a state of unwriggly death. Now, her command dead spell seemed to have no such limitations. The new ones simply joined her existing retinue. Saskia wondered if it had something to do with Ruhildi being granted guest access to the Sanctum, or if it was just a natural progression of her talents.

The fact that Ruhildi was able to channel spells from the relative safety of Saskia’s shoulder also opened up some interesting tactical opportunities for future encounters. She’d have to think about that. Just not right now, while they were fleeing for their lives.

They’d almost made to far side of the chamber when the ground again began to glow, telegraphing an imminent tongue lashing. “Another incoming!” she called out.

Her eyes darted around, and a sickening feeling filled her stomach as she realised that the cleft in the wall they were aiming for was at least ten metres up. They weren’t going to make it in time.

Well they certainly weren’t going to make it if she didn’t act. She dropped onto three limbs, releasing Mjölnir as she bounded forward, and leapt with all her strength.

Trolls could jump. It was times like this that reminded her what this body of hers was really capable of. She was airborne for what seemed like an eternity before her claws drove into the crumbly rock wall. She scrambled up the remaining distance, whereupon Ruhildi hopped off her shoulder into the narrow hole. Hauling herself up, Saskia crawled inside a moment later.

Shuffling awkwardly in the confined space, she turned just as a mass of tendrils billowed out across the cavern. Caught up in one of those mucusy tendrils, lifted high into the air, was Garrain. His arms were trapped, and his glaive was tumbling to the ground.

Without thinking, Saskia sprang toward him.

“Sashki, no!” came Ruhildi’s voice behind her.

Sailing through the air, looking out over a seething mass of flesh and slime, and the yawning pit whence it had come, she thought, What the frocking frock am I doing? Idiot!

But it was too late to change her mind now. She landed feet-first atop the huge tentacle—a minor miracle, considering how much it was waving about—and began making her way up toward the tip, which was coiled tightly around the druid’s midsection, slowly burning through his leather armour. It felt a bit like climbing a gigantic wad of chewing gum covered in acid. Not that she’d ever done that before. The stuff seared her unprotected feet and hand, and her ebbing regeneration was barely keeping pace with the damage. But it was mainly thanks to its stickiness that she wasn’t being thrown off. Well that and her claws, which sank deep into the rubbery membrane.

As she drew closer to Garrain, he said, “How did you…what are you doing!?”

My thoughts exactly, thought Saskia. But what she said was: “What’s it look like I’m doing, donkhole? Saving your bacon.” She paused, before adding, “I could really go for some bacon right about now, but this will have to do.”

He just stared at her as she climbed the last few metres of flailing flesh, and began to tear into it with her teeth and claws. She wished she could say it tasted like bacon. Well, maybe it did a little: raw bacon marinated in rotten eggs, cat pee and stomach acid. The taste was so awful that when the surface of her tongue dissolved, it was almost a relief.

And then her ears were filled with that terrible slurping sound, and she was being yanked backward, toward…

Best not think about that.

Saskia tore through the last chunk of slimy meat, and Garrain dropped like a stone. She released her hold on the tentacle, and fell after him.

Until another flailing tendril snatched her out of the air.

They locked eyes for an instant. His were like those of an anime character: big and round, staring up at her with terror and awe and maybe just a hint of regret.

As if pulled by a weird bungee chord, she fell sideways, watching his rapidly receding form land heavily on the gravelly lakeshore.

Then she was in a long tunnel whose slimy walls were contracting around her. It smelled worse than a sewer.

Okay, now would be a great time to pull off that tentacular teleporting trick, she thought. Come on, eldritch me, what are you waiting for?

But she felt no pull except that of the very real appendage wrapped around her waist. And the only deep place she was going to see today was was the depths of the deepworm’s stomach. Must be out of teleporting juice, she realised. Ability still recharging or something. Well that’s it then. I’m done.

The full horror of her situation crept over her like a blanket of spiders. She fought to hold back the terror gibbering at the corners of her mind. Not yet gibberlings. Don’t come out just yet…

The walls closed in.

Saskia brought the little pouch of arlithite to her lips, poured its contents into her mouth, and swallowed. She bared her teeth.

Bon appétit!