Chapter 94: Ready for anything

Mason and the others explored the tunnels one by one. They branched and branched—some with buried dead ends, others with more green pools or clusters of eggs, usually guarded by insectoids. But nothing like the huge cluster they’d buried, and Mason usually just hacked them down without much difficulty.

Mercifully, nothing else collapsed, and slowly but surely they cleared out room after room of the insects, smashing hundreds of eggs.

“If whatever is laying these eggs ever finds us, or possibly even smells us,” Carl said as he kicked, “it’s not likely to be happy. I’m up to my knees in dead worm baby.”

Mason frowned. “Don’t remind me.”

“At least if fail to kill momma worm and just get out of here, we’ve dealt with a lot of future worms.” Carl shrugged.

Mason glanced at his dimly lit face. “I don’t think we get out of here without killing momma worm. I don’t think it’s that kind of dungeon.”

“Oh.” Carl took a deep breath. “Then I’d guess we better keep going.”

Mason appreciated the man’s courage, and gave him a shoulder pat on the way by. But not much changed in their fortunes. They found more pools, more eggs, more insectoids. When they’d had their fill of all three they slumped to the ground and drank a little water, working on Rosa’s leftover beef.

“Any bacon?” Mason asked as he chewed, and Carl grinned.

“How long have we actually been down here? I’ve totally lost track.”

“A day?” Mason honestly wasn’t sure either. His newfound physique really didn’t help him know his body worth a damn. When they’d sat long enough Mason just wanted to sleep, he decided the fun was over.

“Good to continue?”

Carl groaned, but he stood.

Nothing much changed in their tunnel adventure. Mason kept taking them left whenever possible, and they went on smashing more eggs in little rooms. Then they found a room with already smashed eggs. Mason stopped and stared.

“Fuck.”

“Well.” Carl cleared his throat. “It could be…something else smashed all the eggs. And has approximately size 11 boots.”

Mason put a hand to his face and tried to think. They had no damn way of navigating down here, that was just reality. His Wayfinder ability didn’t work underground, or possibly in dungeons, showing him only the surface map of where he was.

There was too many paths, too many variables. For all they knew tunnels were collapsing and opening as they went. Or maybe they had to go down. Or up. Or…

“Get out the rations.”

Mason sighed, and activated Speak with Nature. Whatever the hell that purple worm was, it seemed vaguely intelligent. He touched the sand and offered another trade, hoping the same creature returned and not something…less friendly.

They hardly waited at all before the wall sprayed open, and the purple worm dropped out and rose with a curious quirk, black eyes staring.

[Can you take us to The Great devourer? The giant worm? The..] Mason shrugged and trailed off. “The boss dungeon,” he muttered.

His new purple friend made a warbling grunt, but it didn’t seem to actually say anything this time. Then the scent hit him after a delay, and he understood.

[Why?]

Oh dear, Mason thought. Time to guess. Were they friends or foes? Ah hell Blake was right he couldn’t lie to save himself anyway.

[We’re here to kill it.]

The purple worm warbled in little starts and stops, and Mason was pretty damn sure it was laughing. He wasn’t having the greatest day. His face still felt dirt-clogged. He was tired and horny and now a talking worm was mocking him. He focused on Apex Predator and clutched his nymph charm as he met the creature’s eyes.

The worm stared right back. Mason threw up his hands.

[What do you lose? Take us to the worm, get some food. You can eat us after, if there’s anything left.]

The worm made no further attempt to communicate. It turned and rammed its ring of circular spikes into the ground, spinning like a bloody buzz saw as it started digging down.

“Is he, uh, taking us somewhere? Or just leaving?” Carl called over the digging sounds.

“No idea.” Mason said, but was noticing the worm seemed to be burrowing in a kind of downward slope that men could at least crawl through. It went on several feet fairly slowly, then seemed to speed up and continue.

“You want me to go down…into that, with no idea?”

“Pretty much.” Mason was forced to crawl to get inside. “Or you can stay here,” he called back. “You’ll starve, but at least Silvie gave you that nice send off.”

“I’d like a home coming, too,” Carl grumbled as he crawled in after.

Mason crawled as best he could, feeling suddenly better about his situation. It was obvious his enemy was some terrifying beast that probably thought it couldn’t be killed—a living titanic who’d never heard of an iceberg.

It wasn’t a good sign of mental health, no doubt, but that sort of challenge always gave Mason a will to prove otherwise. He crawled on with a smile.

* * *

The worm tunnel ‘crawl’ soon turned into a ‘slide.’ It was almost fun, if you ignored the pain.

“Fu-u-u-u-ck!” Carl was stutter-yelling behind as Mason held up his arms and braced. The tunnel wasn’t smooth. Whatever exactly the worm was doing to dig left tiny little ridges of packed sand that scraped your body like a tiled roof.

The space was small and stuffy and oppressive, too angled to easily climb back up. All it would take, as they said, was for the worm to turn—then they’d be stuck at the bottom of some impossible hole. But Mason supposed that wouldn’t really change their circumstances.

But they didn’t hit the ground. The tunnel just…

ended

.

Then Mason was free falling into empty space, blinking and trying to see what the hell was happening. He looked down to see a large, circular pool, and a large splash where he imagined his guide had just dropped. Hopefully on purpose.

He fell in silence, cringing as Carl followed, screaming in bloody terror. Even Streak gave a howl. Mason supposed he had to sympathize. He could see, at least a little. Carl had just dropped into pure darkness.

“It’s water, get ready,” Mason tried not to shout too loud, but his voice still echoed along with Carl’s scream around the cavern below. Then he struck the pool and sunk down, keeping himself there until he saw Carl and Streak splash. He grabbed the older man and pulled him up to the surface.

“Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ.” Carl stuck his face up like he expected the water to be slime, treading water with his head up like a toddler learning to swim.

Streak paddled towards the edge, and Mason dragged Carl the same direction. He noticed their purple guide had already swum or crawled its way out, and seemed to be waiting a little ways from the water.

Mason took a moment to wash a little dirt and sand from his face and hands, then stood and looked around the huge cavern. He was practically overcome with relief at being out of the tiny, cramped tunnels above.

Two other passages led out—these both huge, and round, as big as a tunnel in a major city underground. Mason stared and tried not to believe it was a creature that made them. Because it may literally be a living titanic.

Carl flicked his light on, sweeping it in a circle before giving a low whistle. Though actually—at least to Mason’s eyes—the whole cavern had a dull luminescence, not so different than the nymph grove.

The water they’d landed in was surprisingly clean, and he was even tempted to drink it before thinking better. Where the water was coming from he had no idea, but soon spotted what looked like an actual pipe on both ends of the pool. He realized it was

tiled

, as well, not natural at all.

He also spotted, just a few paces from the water on the cave wall, was a damn door.

[Deal unfinished], warbled the worm, and Mason waved a hand at Carl.

“Feed our friend. I’m going to look around.”

As he got closer he saw the door was no simple thing. It had symbols he couldn’t read on the frame, a kind of padlock that looked like it belonged in a fancy hotel. He knocked, and it was something like steel or space-age plastic.

“I used to be pretty good with locks,” Carl said beside him, lacing his fingers and cracking his knuckles. “Let me give it the old college try.”

Mason raised a brow and stepped away, leaving a finger over the tiny slot that looked designed for a key card.

Carl glanced down and stopped.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Mason kept looking around the tunnel. “Maybe there’s a key somewhere. I’m thinking we wander around and hope not to get eaten.”

“Good plan,” Carl muttered. Then he waved at the worm. “Thanks buddy. This is much better. Hope you enjoy my rations.”

“I think it’s female,” Mason said absently, and the older man stared.

“Do you have some kind of…worm fetish I should know about? How and why on earth would you know that?”

“I’m a druid,” Mason said. “Also this worm is smart. Like smarter than a lot of people smart, I think.”

“Uh huh.” Carl bowed dramatically towards the purple worm. “Thank you,

Violet

. Your service has been exemplary.”

Mason rolled his eyes but grinned a little. “Let’s just go. I’m sticking to the ‘always left’ plan. But if things get…crazy, head back to the pool. I doubt worms can eat through that stone.”

Carl nodded, game-face back on, which Mason appreciated. They walked along the huge passage, and soon realized the purple worm was following.

“What do you think it wants?” Carl whispered.

“Possibly to see us get slaughtered by the giant worm. Possibly to eat us when we’re dead. Hard to say, really.”

“That’s very comforting,” Carl hissed.

Not much changed in the tunnel after a few minutes of walking. Until Mason smelled…something. Something rotten. But he blinked because he felt a slight breeze, and there was more than just rot on the wind. Was that the surface? How was that possible?

“Oh, disgusting.” Carl said a little while later as he covered his nose.

They soon saw something like a hill in the distance. And as far as Mason was concerned, anything new was good. He ran forward, soon finding something like garbage surrounding a huge mound of…more garbage.

“Yep, this is why it stinks. Great.” Carl was panting a bit behind him when they arrived, making faces with every breath.

He shone his light directly onto the hill, discovering a moment after Mason that it was made mostly of bones.

“Oh. That…can’t be good.”

Above the mound was a large hole going straight up.

No. It probably couldn’t. And if Mason had to guess, he would say that hole was somewhere near the giant castle that ‘wasn’t a problem’.

He turned his head as he heard something— a rattling sound somewhere near, that came closer and closer and was clearly something coming down the hole. Mason put an arm across Carl’s chest and backed them both away. Then several corpses fell onto the bone pile.

The bones started to rattle. The floor was vibrating slightly.

“Get ready,” Mason whispered, noticing Violet had mysteriously disappeared behind them.

“For what?” Carl pulled one of his daggers and looked back and forth.

“I have no idea.”