Chương 30: Crow-Flavoured

For a young rascal who prefers to be anonymous in the alleys and on the rooftops of a city to be met with friendly recognition on every street is disconcerting. When a dour, bearded, tattooed and heavily-lined face suddenly transforms to one of smiles upon recognising me, I want to immediately find the nearest shadows and disappear with Stealth. Still, our success as performers makes our presence in the dwarven capital quite natural.

And it is natural too that such celebrated performers as Belle and I would have bodyguards and servants. Thus no difficult questions are asked of us and none of the king's soldiers pay us particular attention beyond that of nods of approval.

To find out more about the dragon's tooth challenge of Grimlar is a trivial matter, for the town is full of conversations about how impossible it has become for anyone to obtain a tooth since the trolls who guard the treasure have mysteriously disappeared, to be replaced by something terribly evil and almost certainly undead. The dwarves are cheerful about this development, for their champions had long ago entered the mountain of Glitterpeak, fought the trolls, and gained their reward.

If those caves had since become haunted and a deadly trap for adventurers, this was no fault of their god Dverg. Dverg had followed the rules of the game of the Twenty-Five kingdoms and the evil that was destroying adventurers in the dark of the mountain was not of his doing.

Of course, we have to brave the challenge, whatever form it takes and although anxiety is the predominant emotion in our discussions of the situation, those of us from Nekis comfort ourselves with the hope that our knowledge of the undead will serve us well in this situation. If it is a powerful undead being who now resides in the caves – a lich? A vampire? – they might even be worshipers of Scrithax, lord of the undead, and be willing to allow us a tooth.

We therefore set out as visitors interested in climbing the lower stages of the mountain, with a guide, two thick-haired ponies, and a new jacket for each of us: jackets made of sheepskin that pack our arms and torsos in wool. The restriction this brings to my being able to swing my arms is more than compensated for by the warmth that surrounds me like sunshine. While walking a dirt path through stone, shale and the occasional hardy gorse bush, Amaris comes alongside me.

'You're a mystery Crow. Care to explain your musical ability? Did you take a dip in bard? Are you a bard, not a rogue?' My abilities are not a subject I want to talk about with anyone, so although I meet his questioning eyes, I say nothing.

'Only a bard can play music like you do. And most of them not half as well. Yet if you are a bard, why do you not use your music to cast magic? And if you are a rogue with a dip in bard and necromancer, then how did someone so young get so many levels to waste in this fashion? My Appraise Foe skill indicates you are only Level One or Two. Threat level trivial.

'Too much about you is hidden Crow. I don't like that and, frankly, I don't like you. You have them all fooled with your impudence and rhymes. You're faking that too, right?'

'Crow once had a sheepskin coat; the fleece was rather grey. And everywhere that Crow did walk, Amaris would say: I hate you Crow, I hate your style; I hate your rhymes, I hate your smile. Crow once had a sheepskin coat; the fleece no longer white. And Crow knew when the quest was done, there would be a fight.'

'Sod you Crow.' And the assassin stops walking, allowing us all to progress past him until he is at the back of our line. Perhaps I should not have answered back so brazenly. It was my nature though, to laugh whenever someone tried to intimidate me. Quite probably, Amaris would attempt to kill me as a rival, whether he liked me (did he like anyone?) or not, once our alliance had achieved all it could.

By then, however, the gap between us in level (he was Level Six, to my Level Three) would matter less if I had maxed out my fighting skills. So well travelled is the path we walk upon that there is a wooden bothy for our first night's sleep and for the second a collection of tents, fireplaces and stacks of wood under oilskin, which has kept them dry despite the snow and rain. As we arrive, the camp seems to be underwater in a vast lake of shadow created by the mountain being between us and the setting sun.

That night, as we eat a stew I have cooked, Lisandra asks the guide, a young, female dwarf, about the dragon tooth.

'That's what all these tents are, see. They don't come back, do they?'

'Did you ever go up to the cave?'

'Twice.' Each of her fingers has a symbol tattooed between hand and first knuckle and I study them as she holds them up.

'Left the adventurers at the cave entrance. Waited three nights as agreed. Came back to Kadunskil and never seen them again.'

'What do you think happened to those who went in the cave?' The guide shrugs and there is no trace of pity on her face. Whether those she guided lived or died did not seem to be a concern of hers.

'Would you take us to the dragon tooth cave?'

'If you like. But I'm not staying there if you go inside. And I'll only wait at this camp for one more night after.'

'Agreed.' That night I share a tent with Belle. One side of me is warm and happy, the other, however, is cold; my dreams are constantly interrupted by one of us turning about to bring their frozen side to press against the heat beneath the middle of the blanket. Morning, and a level up in Find Traps brings the skill to 4.

My current goal is to get to 10, not only for the benefits this brings when I search for danger, but also because then I will activate Trapsense, a passive and constant alertness towards the presence of traps. Cautious is the crow. The world is full of predators. A long, hard march over shale and rock made slippery by patches of ice, our strong breaths steaming the whole morning, brings us to a triangular cave entrance. Poor Lisandra is utterly spent and lies flat on her back while Gerard lights a fire.

There is a ring of stones on the ground with black interior and charred wood where our predecessors had made a fireplace. As the others unload the mules, I stand over our sorceress and offer my hand. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

'Best not lie on ground so chill; it will enter your body and make you ill.'

'You're right Crow,' Lisandra puts her large hand in mine and allows me to haul her into a sitting position.

'That's exactly what my mother would have said. Only without the rhyme and with a fair chance of a curse or even a slap.' After giving her hand a squeeze, I walk to stand in the entrance to the cave, so that the roof is nearly above my head. This opening seems entirely natural, a slash in the mountain where one massive block of stone leans against another, leaving a dark line between them. The cave is not wide, perhaps five metres, but it is tall, more than ten metres.

Beyond an area of grey, stone-covered floor, the interior soon becomes dark. There's something wrong here. What is it? Look carefully, Crow. Look at the ground, the walls, the roof. Look over your shoulder. Look at our guide watching you. At last, I have it. There are no birds near us nor have there been, or the traces of their droppings would be evident. Elsewhere on the mountain, there are lines of green where nesting birds have fertilised the otherwise barren stone-strewn ground. No birds, nor bats.

Natural as this cave seems, it is shunned by Nature. Our guide is watching me with a detached scrutiny that makes me think I am a fool. She does not think I will leave the cave once I have gone into the darkness. But go there I will. There is another dragon's tooth in here and I must have it. Armour on. Lanterns lit. We all gather at the opening into the mountain.

'You're adventurers. You're going in.' Our guide does not sound surprised.

'Well, I'm leaving then. Do you want me to take the mules? It wouldn't be fair to them to leave them here.'

'Yes, take them back to the camp,' says Lady Horsta. While at exactly the same time Amaris says, 'whoever heard of fairness for a mule? They stay.' I look over to Lisandra and she gestures as though to wave the mules away.

'Take them.' Amaris replaces his default scowl with a deeper one. Impassive as ever, our guide gathers the leads of the two mules and without wishing us well, begins her journey back down the slopes of the mountain. After some preparation – lanterns lit; buckles tightened; weapons drawn – we enter the cave, Crow first. Ten to twenty metres ahead of Lady Horsta suits me best.

Too far and the light from the lanterns fails to reach me and I cannot see at all, too near and the light along with the noise penalises my Stealth. Patience is my coat-of-arms if not quite my middle and last names. I check for danger: listening for monsters; spotting that which is hidden; and searching for traps and only when satisfied I am not leading my companions into an ambush do I drop back and beckon them another twenty metres deeper into the mountain. It is slow, this method.

But I am well aware that people just as cautious and as powerful as our group would have travelled this dark tunnel, never to return. For each new cycle of checking, I remind myself of this and imagine a hidden enemy lurks nearby. Two hours pass in this fashion before I have something to report: the natural cave comes to an end in a very well-crafted stone corridor, whose dimensions are surprisingly large considering it was made by dwarves. The roof is almost double my height.

To our left, the corridor extends about twenty metres then turns a corner; the same to our right, only there is an additional tunnel branching off about halfway along. Once we are all in this dwarf-made corridor we rest and Lisandra shares out strips of jerky, whose salty taste I wash away with plenty of water. Rested, my scouting duty resumes and it does not take me long to realise that we are in a classic maze, with very many corridors that are dead ends and the occasional small chamber.

There is also obvious evidence for the path taken by those who used this underground construction as their home: the most well-travelled corridors have walls with scratches and floors which are scuffed, sometimes almost to a reflective sheen. The most well-trodden route is obvious and is presumably the way to go. Disappointment makes me laugh at myself. Really, I should be glad the path through the maze is easy to discover. Yet I wanted to rise to the challenge with my own wits.

Finding my way through the complex alleys of Crumblin was never a challenge to me and I would often loose a chase by taking several abrupt turns, without ever losing my sense of direction. I would have liked to have solved the maze without such obvious clues. Deeper we go into this maze and while I am not afraid to be out on my own, I do enjoy those moments when I rejoin my companions and relax in their company, as we take a break.

Their talk is mostly speculation as to what happened to the trolls and to the other champions searching for the dragon tooth. Why did they not come back out?

'Some monster with fire was here,' offers Amaris, 'like a red dragon, only much smaller.' Belle lifts her head, dark hair swaying aside from her oh-so-lovely face.

'What makes you say that?'

'Trolls regenerate unless burned.' Not long after we resume, my imagination recreates a battle as I notice deep marks in the stone and a different colouration to the floor of the corridor we are travelling down. This is a sword or axe cut? And it is surely the iron in blood that has subtly stained the corridor floor.

Soon after passing the place where a fight occurred, the air in the dark corridor turns fetid: the smell is not terribly unpleasant, no more than Master Cathaldus's room in the morning before I move the drapes and let some fresh air in. More cautious than ever, I reach a crossroads that also has witnessed a major battle, with Fireball or similar spells used, because large swathes of stone have been scorched and when I run my finger along the wall the tip becomes covered in soot. In hell there are places like this.

Underground mazes. Walls that have echoed the sounds of explosions and screams, of metal clashing on metal. If we turn around now, could we leave? I am not afraid, only curious. Have we already crossed the boundary that had trapped every group of champions to have come here? Although everyone gathers and speaks in whispers, no one wants to take out refreshments and take a long break. Not here. Instead, they grip their weapons firmly and look around with lanterns raised.

I continue deeper into the mountain and the smell of the place is distinctly more unpleasant, an odour of decay emanating from the blackness ahead. The corridor ends with an opening into a large chamber. Having gone back to alert the others and have them come close enough that their lanterns shine some light into the room, I walk with Stealth to the end of the corridor and step inside the chamber, moving to my right and positioning myself with my back to the wall, waiting for my low-light vision to adjust.

You are interesting, says a voice in my mind. It is a cold and terrible voice and every word it utters is accompanied by a feeling of dread. Flowing around the syllables are half-caught nightmares of blood and death. You taste of something other than a human… what is it? I know it… though I have not possessed it for hundreds of years now. A bird. Yes. You are crow-flavoured. How interesting. Can you explain that? Pleased to meet you; hello. Perhaps because my name is Crow? Should I run? I should run.

As soon as I move, though, I am brought to a standstill as my own body betrays me. You have been targeted by a Possession attack. You have failed your will check. You have been Possessed. Possession. The affected creature's body is taken over by the attacker. The attacker must relinquish its former body. The affected creature cannot regain control of its body until the attacker leaves it for that of another or is expelled.